Sheikh Taj Din “Catmeathead” Hilaly is back in the news. But this time it is because of unpaid wages, not uncovered meat.
A year after splitting from the nation’s leading Muslim group, declaring he would no longer accept money to be its spiritual adviser, Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali has done an extraordinary about-face by insisting on back pay and demanding to be put back on the payroll.
The once powerful religious leader is also threatening to sue the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils — the body that appointed him mufti — for more than $40,000 in unpaid wages that he says he is owed.
The fallen mufti — famous for a string of injudicious remarks, most notably comparing scantily dressed women to uncovered meat — has sent a letter to AFIC, his former employer, demanding back-payment on his clerical allowance owed from June last year when the body suspended his annual stipend.
It is a change of tune for Sheik Hilali, who last year declared: “I have taken the decision to take my stipend from God and will not accept a salary from any organisation.”
And after the uncovered meat scandal, he added: “Whoever wants to terminate my wages, let them terminate it.“
I found this story, and the hilarious picture, from the Australian Islamist Monitor, who have also drawn my attention to some alleged statements from the Sheikh’s spokesperson Keysar Trad, considered by many to be a “moderate”.
“Our ideology is the best salvation for the people of Australia, and the people of the world in general. Yes, we are a threat to the culture of drunkenness, paedophilia, and mostly we are a big threat to the culture of ELITISM…In a way, they feel safe because of the quantity of water which surrounds this country, so they feel fortified behind this great body, it gives them a feeling of security. But the reality is, the land belongs to God, not to them, and if those foreigners, whom they fear as migrants are not permitted to enter as migrants, they will come as settlers, in numbers so large that they will not be able to process them, hold them, or stop them. What will they do then?”
– Keysar Trad, first published in the 16th issue of Nida’ul Islam magazine (http://www.islam.org.au), December – January 1996-97 (no longer online), according to this site.
Trad just recently won a defamation case against Sydney radio station 2GB, whose broadcaster Jason Morrison painted Trad as a person who incites others to have racist attitudes and as someone who incites others to commit acts of violence.
I’m guessing the court did not have the aforementioned statements of Trad admitted as evidence.
Update: Come to think of it, assuming there was proof on the Nida’ul Islam magazine site of these statements having been made by Trad, I wonder if the site was taken offline to protect him.
