Ahmad Abu Laban

Ahmad Abu Laban ( * 1946 in Jaffa, Palestine, † February 1, 2007 Copenhagen, Denmark ) was a leading Danish imam who was known internationally by his controversial role in the controversy over the Muhammad cartoons.

Life

Abu Laban's family fled in 1948 after fighting during the founding of the state of Israel from Palestine to Egypt, where he grew up. In 1969, he was a mechanical engineer and worked in Egypt, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates ( UAE) and Nigeria, where he studied Islamic theology in a number of Muslim scholars, without completing a formal theological training. In 1982 he was expelled from the UAE.

In 1984 he came to Denmark and became an imam. First and foremost, he preached at the Tauba mosque in Copenhagen and was the spiritual leader of the organization Islamisk Trossamfund ( Islamic community ). As such, he often appeared in the media, where it became the most famous and longest serving Imam in Denmark. During the cartoon crisis, he missed no opportunity to condemn the boycott of Danish goods to Western media. In an Arab TV channel he was but to see how he with joy on the face of the boycott confirmed. In 2006, he was even the most cited clerics in Denmark at all. He was (as the cartoon controversy in Denmark called ) long before the " cartoon crisis " one of the leading Muslim Debatteure in Denmark, but only with the crisis in 2006, he was on everyone's lips. Although he met with many Danish politicians, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen had never received it.

Although Abu Laban called for greater integration of Muslims into Danish society, but he got himself, who lived for 23 years in Denmark, the Danish language never, but preached in Arabic and English. He had a residence permit as a refugee in Denmark and a Palestinian identity card.

Abu Laban married in 1974 his cousin Inam. Together they had seven children. In January 2007 Islamisk Trossamfund announced that their leader was suffering from cancer. He died a few days later from lung cancer.

Controversies

• Abu Laban was an Islamist, Osama bin Laden is said to have referred to as "freedom fighters" and in response to the 11 September 2001 ' only dry tears " for the victims had. Also, close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood him were rumored. As early as 1990 he is said to have the blind Sheikh Umar Abd ar -Rahman as a guest.
• According to Danmarks Radio he was in the UAE and Egypt because of his " Islamic views " an undesirable person.
• Abu Laban was the representative of the Islamisk Trossamfund in the Muslim delegation which toured in late 2005 and early 2006, the Middle East, before the crisis reached its climax. This delegation was criticized because it showed cartoons that were not printed in the Jyllands-Posten and along with Ahmed Akkari spread a dossier with the sentiment in the Islamic countries should be fueled. To this day, Abu Laban is therefore accused of having provoked the international crisis only.
• On 1 February 2006 Abu Laban was accused by Danmarks Radio to talk " with a forked tongue ", ie conflicting opinions on Al- Jazeera and the Danish press deliver regarding the Muhammad cartoons. While he insisted in the Danish press, to use his influence against a boycott of Danish goods in Muslim countries claim that he expressed in Al- Jazeera understanding:

"We are against economic boycott and complain sincere, that it has come so far with this thing. "

"If the Muslim countries decide to boycott and if Muslims feel that it is their duty to defend the prophet, then that is a cause for celebration. "

• In a Friday sermon Abu Laban is the Danish Muslim politician Naser Khader as " mediocre " and the opponents have referred to as " rats in their holes " in the cartoon controversy. Khader unsuccessfully demanded that the withdrawal of the status as a recognized faith community for Islamisk Trossamfund.
• According to Jyllands-Posten on 11 May 2006 intended Abu Laban, " with his family as soon as possible to leave Denmark in the direction of Gaza," because he felt wronged in Denmark.
• In the obituary of Jyllands Posten on 1 February 2007 is conciliatory emphasized in the last paragraph that Abu Laban has always advocated that Muslims in Denmark integrate better educate and engage socially to.

Some commentators see Abu Laban as an imam who has contributed significantly Hasspredigertum and theological incompetence to an escalation in the cartoon controversy. Other journalists told the other hand, the influence of the Danish Imams in Islamic countries is overestimated. The oppressed by Islamists regime used the alleged " insult to the Prophet," only to draw attention to Denmark and to profile itself as a defender of the faith.