What is a Killer Imam Doing in Public Libraries in Canada?
In public libraries across Canada (and elsewhere), the books of Imam al-Ghazali are available, along with others that incite hatred, violence and terror, by authors such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Imam Nawawi. There is not a single Arabic language book in a library that I have visited in Ottawa that attacks or criticizes terrorism and violence and hatred.
 A copy of One Hundred Questions in Islam by Dr. Muhammad al-Ghazali, found in the Ottawa Public Library. The image at right shows the inside cover of the book, with the Ottawa Public Library Stamp. |
The Significance
The Ottawa Public Library apparently prefers Arabic-language books of this extremist nature and rejects those that advocate resistance to extremism or advocates in favour of a modernist Islam.
As an experiment, I donated two books to the Ottawa Public Library. One book was titled The Demise of the State of Brotherhood, released in Egypt in January 2013. At that time, the Muslim Brotherhood was the ruling party (FJP) in Egypt. This book addresses the seriousness of the political and religious project of the Muslim Brotherhood and how it worked to establish a religious and theocratic authoritarian state. This government in Egypt was, for the Muslim Brotherhood, a part of the larger effort to restore the Islamic caliphate project around the world.
The second book was entitled, The Sins of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. It was released in 2010 and documented a dialogue conducted by the author with the former Muslim Brotherhood General Guide Mohammed Mahdi Akef (2006). It was in this dialogue that General Guide Akef made his famous statement “I don’t give a damn about Egypt and these people in Egypt.” Akef made it clear that his views on the Muslim Brotherhood and its project of recreating a caliphate took precedence over the needs and views of the people of Egypt. The book was threatened with legal action.
Several months after donating the two books to the Ottawa Public Library, there was no response. After inquiring further, they then told me that the books were not acceptable as they did not meet their “selection criteria.” The exact statement from library employee was:
“I have contacted my colleagues at the acquisitions department about the books you donated to the library in the past. They no longer have them, which means that when they received them they didn’t pass our selection criteria.”
How is it possible that books that advocate violence and extremism meet the selection criteria of the Ottawa Public Library, but those that speak out against violence and extremism do not? Those who donated the other books appear to have been Islamists: they donated books that advocate the terrorist discourse. Yet the library selection committee approves of them.
