Promoting Islam at Lackland Air Force Base
CreepingSharia
On August 7, 2011, in a chapel converted to a mosque on Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio, Texas, the U.S. government officially became a sponsor of the Mahdi.
No, not Barack Husein Obama, but a much more serious and overt candidate: Adnan Oktar, a.k.a. “Harun Yahya,” the Turkish Creationist whose followers consider him the “rightly-guided one” of Islamic tradition, expected to come before the end of time to make the entire world Muslim.
Mahdism was my original area of academic
specialization within Islamic history (about which I wrote my doctoral
dissertation, first book and numerous articles, and which I track via
this website); I interviewed Oktar in Istanbul a few years ago; and,
finally, I spent time in the military, both enlisted and commissioned,
the latter training to be a chaplain. So I have some familiarity with
all aspects of this troubling story, which came to my attention early on
14 August 2011 via photos posted to my Facebook page by contacts within
Oktar’s organization. I contacted the Public Affairs Officer (PAO) at
Lackland and, in summary, was told the following: that such “religious
education” classes are provided every weekend from “other” faith
perspectives (Latter Day Saints, Buddhists, Pentecostals) besides the
main ones (Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Eastern
Orthodox); that these are entirely voluntary; that the “program chaplain
…was aware of and approved of the speaker.”
The speaker in question was from Oktar’s organization
, an Islamic Creationist one, which is very inimical to Darwinian
evolution as well as a strong proponent of Islamic Mahdist da`wah
(“propaganda” or “evangelism”). From Istanbul Oktar presides over a
publishing and Internet franchise dealing in a double-sided coin of
Islamic anti-Darwinism and belief in the imminent arrival, if not
presence already, of the Islamic deliverer—most likely in the guise of
Oktar himself. The Harun Yahya movement resembles that of fellow Turk
Fethullah Gülen, insofar as both spring from a neo-Ottoman Sufism with Mahdist overtones. But the latter, with his global chain of Islamic charter schools, is taken more seriously and viewed by many in the U.S. as an ideological threat.
The fact that Gülen lives in exile in the U.S. has so far provided him
a higher profile here. But Oktar and his people, while heretofore
playing Avis to Gülen’s Hertz, are definitely trying harder—and
succeeding even where Gülen’s people have so far feared to tread: onto the U.S. Air Force’s only basic training installation.

According to both my sources–Oktar’s
organization and the Public Affairs Office (PAO) at Lackland—on the
first Sunday in August a representative of Harun Yahya was allowed,
following an invitation from the Muslim chaplain at Lackland, Captain Sharior Rahman,
to present two classes: a morning one on “The Collapse of Darwinism and
the Fact of Creation” and an evening one covering “Miracles in the
Qur’an.” It would appear that the morning class was attended solely by
basic trainees, as the photo above shows (note the screen, which says
“The Collapse of Evolution and the Fact of Creation”).
The Turkish Muslim group further claims
about the evening class (of which I have no pictures) that “attendants
were high rank officials [sic]: sergeants, master sergeants and
captains. The talks were very well received and appreciated and the
attendants were gifted the Quran [sic] (emphasis added). The captain
presented a special medal as the token of appreciation to Mr Adnan Oktar
(Harun Yahya).” “The captain” would be, presumably, Chaplain
Rahman—which brings up its own troubling issues, as I shall examine
below.
Another
picture shows a dozen female trainees, sitting separately from the
males—whether out of military, or Islamic, mandate is unclear:

…
The Lackland basic training command
seems to have deferred to the Muslim Chaplain, Rahman, on this issue—and
the PAO told me as much. I have no desire to cast aspersions on
Chaplain Rahman, for I have never met him and know little about him. But
if a non-mainstream group like Oktar’s can gain entrée so
easily to a major US military installation simply on the Muslim
chaplain’s advice, what’s to prevent another Muslim military chaplain in
this, or another, branch of service from signing off on Hizb
al-Tahrir’s preaching their plans for peacefully resurrecting the
caliphate or Tablighi Jama’at from inculcating trainees with ideal
Islamic piety and the need for shari`ah? Both HT and TJ are
non-jihadist and operate (at least in this country) via Islamic da`wah
(“missionary work”), not terrorism. But should the U.S. military really
have such a coarse vetting net—based on this episode—that it could very
readily allow these, or similar, groups to slip through and disseminate
their ideas to some of the most impressionable members of our military?
…
I first learned Arabic in the mid-1980s
at the Defense Language Institute, and I have been studying Middle
Eastern and African Islamic history for two decades. I have no problems
with Muslims attempting to spread their faith peacefully in this
country, nor even with our military service members learning about Islam
as an important adjunct to the global struggle in which we are engaged.
What I do have a problem with—as an American, a veteran, a Christian
and an Islamic expert—is Islamic groups being given access to young,
impressionable basic trainees under the spurious guise of the First
Amendment.
As
it is, Lackland Air Force base is in the business of promoting Islam in
general, and the Mahdi in particular, over the faith of the vast
majority of military personnel (73% of Air Force enlisted are Christian;
0.2% are Muslim). And that should be unacceptable to all Americans.
Read it all via Family Security Matters then Contact Your Elected Officials.