Pakistani media is reporting that Syed Munawar Hasan, the leader of the Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami, has sold a seminar in Lahor that people like Osama Bin Laden “stay alive in the hearts of people.” According to an Express Tribune report:
Syed Munawar Hasan
January 28, 2014 ISLAMABAD: People like the late al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden do not die but stay alive in the hearts of people, stated Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Ameer Syed Munawar Hasan while addressing a seminar in Islamabad, Express News reported on Tuesday.
Hasan added that death of the al Qaeda leader was considered a big victory for 60% of the countries around the world, but the US is afraid that bin Laden will come back alive after the withdrawal of Nato troops from Afghanistan.
Commenting on the pull-out of foreign troops, the JI chief remarked that Afghanistan has become the ‘graveyard of science and technology’ for the West. The US had planned to withdraw several thousand troops from war-torn Afghanistan last year and Nato has set 2014 as a deadline for a complete withdrawal.
The US had a 150,000-strong Nato operation in the country and it also plans to withdraw all its combat troops by the end of this year. In May, 2011, bin Laden was shot dead deep inside Pakistan in a night-time helicopter raid by US covert forces, ending a decade-long manhunt for the mastermind of the September 11 attacks. World leaders had welcomed the news of bin Laden’s killing.
The GMBDW reported in September 2013 that Hassan had alleged that it is the policy of the US and the West to “crush the Islamic movements.” Our predecessor publication also discussed various other anti-American, anti-Indian, anti-Israeli, and anti-Semitic comments made by JEI leaders. In June 2011, JEI leader Syed Hassan called for the end of operations against the Taliban and called Osama Bin Laden “a man of character.”
The Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) was founded in 1941 and is Pakistan’s oldest religious party. The party had its origins in the thought of Maulana Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi (1903-79), the most important Islamist intellectual in the history of Southeast Asia. Maududi was also a major influence on the global Muslim Brotherhood with whom the JEI has long enjoyed close relations. A predecessor publicationdiscussed a 3-day Islamic conference held in late October 2008 in Lahore that brought together leaders of the JEI with leaders in the global Muslim Brotherhood. Acknowledging what has always been a close relationship, Pakistani media reported in June 2011 that the JEI and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood had announced that they would “join hands to solve issues faced by Muslims all over the world and to promote the true image of Islam.”
In the United States, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is generally considered to represent the JEI. ICNA has a particularly close relationship with the Muslim American Society (MAS), a part of the U.S. Brotherhood, and the two organizations have been holding joint conferences in recent years. In addition, many past and present leaders of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), also part of the U.S. Brotherhood, have backgrounds that are strongly associated with JEI. One notable example is India-born Muzammil Siddiqi, a past ISNA president and leader of the Fiqh Council of North America. Our predecessor publication discussed a 2008 invitation by ISNA to another JEI leader.
In the U.K, the umbrella group known as the Muslim Council of Britain has had many leaders and groups close to the JEI.
