Sheikh? Religious leader?

In 1980, Kashmiri Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani began preaching at a Muslim mosque in Brooklyn seeking recruits for the Afghan Jihad. He primarily targeted black American converts from the inner city and those with criminal backgrounds, a segment of the population that the cleric apparently saw as prime for melding militant Islam with a deep-seated resentment and disillusionment with Western society. The resulting organization, al Fuqra ("the impoverished"), was formed with a goal of to purifying Islam through violence.

Gilani is most commonly recognized as the man Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was to meet when he was abducted last Jan. 23 and murdered. However, Gilani has had a long history of involvement with terrorism, including participation alongside bin Laden in the 1993 "terrorist roundtable" in Sudan. A Kashmiri by birth, he has worked closely with Pakistan's Interservice Intelligence Agency (ISI) to train terrorists for actions in Kashmir, as well as Chechnya and Bosnia.^[1]

We repeat part of the extract from Mr. Weber's article here in order to ask this:

What kind of a religion it is that has a religious leader, i.e., someone preaching at a mosque who is ALSO involved in:

• recruiting black American criminals for the Afghan Jihad;
• creating, apparently, an organization seeking to purify Islam through violence;
• participating with OBL in a "terrorist roundtable" in the Sudan;
• working with the Pakistani intelligence service;
• training terrorists for operations in Aghanistan;
• training terrorists for operations in Chechnya; and
• training terrorists for operations in Bosnia?

You get kind of a clue as to the differene between the two cultures. Pat Robertson suggested that Chavez Venezuela might could be assassinated to the greater and everlasting good of the Hemisphere and was immediately pounced upon for his "indiscretion" in simply advocating this.

The sheikh, however, ran around with the high priest of terror, well, one of them anyway, and acted like a military and terrorist recruiter and no countervailing force, no adverse opinion manifested itself to suggest that he should disassociate himself from preaching in view of his obvious predisposition for work as an operator.

More to the point, isn't clear that the man was perfect for the job of Muslim "religious" leader and terror operative?

Until Muslims rise up to rid themselves of these kinds of miscreants, the argument that there is a community of moderates is not worth a plugged infidel.

Someone please convince the Colonel that it is not the implicit opinion of the ummah that this kind of character is completely acceptable.

Until advised and persuaded otherwise, we think the acceptance of these kinds of characters by Muslims is of a piece with the jubliation of Muslims in the streets around the world on 9/11/01.

What the heck is a sheikh anyway? How does one get to be one? How many years of study does it take? What must one study? Mines and booby traps? Clandestine communications? The Koran? Marksmanship? Platoon in the offense? The sunna? POL maintenance? What?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Notes
^[1] "Examine Gunman's Possible Ties to al Furqa."By Christian M. Weber, SFTT, 10/30/05 (emphasis added).