Shamsud-Din Jabbar, Yasir Qahdi, and Naive Evangelicals

The suspect in the New Orleans New Years Massacre was likely radicalized in a mosque with deep ties to Yasir Qahdi.

Shamsud-Din Jabbar (42) drove an F-150 pickup through a crowd of New Years celebrators on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, in the early hours on Wednesday morning. On the back of his pickup was a flag, which bystanders report was one representing the Islamic State (ISIS) before it was quickly covered up by law enforcement. Exiting the vehicle - reportedly in body armor - Shamsud-Din Jabbar then fired upon the crowd before engaging in gunfire with the police. He died on the scene.

When his name was first reported, it was assumed that the suspected terrorist was from the Middle East. But video quickly emerged showing him speaking a native American accent and appearing quite westernized.

Although it was first reported that the suspect came across the Mexican border a few days before, that appears to have only been his pickup. Reports now indicated that he rented it from Turo, a peer-to-peer car rental service. Meanwhile the U.S. Defense Department has confirmed that Jabbar is indeed an American citizen and served in the United States Armed Services.

Improvised Explosive Devices, according to Law Enforcement, were found on the scene. Despite this having the appearance of Islamic Terrorism, it is also - by definition - domestic terrorism.

Reports on Shamsud-Din Jabbar’s background are mixed. Some local outlets are reporting from third parties that he converted to Islam, although some indicate that he was raised Muslim.

Regardless, he was born a U.S. Citizen in Harris, Texas, where Houston is located.

According to Newsweek, Jabbar’s mosque was located in Houston, as would make sense. As a storm of journalists around the world have begun to seek comment from the Masjid Bilal, they have begun asking referring reporters to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).

CAIR is a Muslim Rights advocacy group headquartered in Washington D.C., but has offices spread throughout the United States. Back at Pulpit & Pen, I repeatedly warned that CAIR was an extremist organization, despite their partnership with Matt Chandler’s Village Church and other evangelicals. We also complained when JD Greear did an Interfaith Dialogue with Omar Suleiman, a regular CAIR keynote speaker who has called for the destruction of Israel. The Biden Administration had to finally cut ties with CAIR in 2023, after their director applauded the October 7 Hamas attacks against Israel (Biden spokespeople then called Cair “unadulterated evil” and “abrorrant”).

The Masjid Bilal is the previously mentioned mosque that the press is reporting that Jabbar belonged to.

A major emphasis of the Masjid Bilal, at least according to its website, is a Muslim practice called Dawah.

A previous arrest photo of Jabbar has been circulating, and the Masjid Bilal advertises its extensive work in the Texas Department of Corrections and their giving of free Korans and their work to convert inmates, but as stated above, it appears (for now) that Jabbar was already Muslim at the time of his previous arrest.

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Dawah (or sometimes Da’wah) is the Muslim work to convert non-Muslims. In recent years, Interfaith Dialogues have been an essential part in this effort. When reviewing websites of mosques associated with Jabbar and the founders of his mosque for this brief article, almost all contain humble brags of how many infidels had been converted to Islam through their recent efforts, much like one might find in a “soul-winning” evangelical church.

The use of Interfaith Dialogues for Dawah has gotten the attention of American intelligence and security specialists, warning that it is often used to radicalize Muslisms (as I warned you about in 2018).

Interestingly, the founder of the Masjid Balal and its satellite affiliations in the Houston area is Yasir Qadhi’s father.

Interestingly, by the time between I first sat down to type out this article and this very moment - a time period of about twenty minutes - all the videos on Facebook and Youtube highlighting Yasir Qadhi’s father as the founder of the Masjid Balal have been pulled down from the Internet.

Except for one, that is…this one.

Yasir Qadhi, who many evangelicals first heard about after his Interfaith Dialogue with James White (who insisted that he was not being used by Qadhi to practice Dawah) has specialized in the practice of Dawah.

That Interfaith Dialogue was discussed in Q&A panel at the Judge Not Conference at the time it happened. The speakers there, myself included, did not condemn White for the Interfaith Dialogue as harshly as some, but we did vocally disagree with his judgment. You can start listening at about the 6.5 minute mark.

Yasir Qadhi was reportedly not an Islamic extremist, or at least that’s what evangelicals were repeatedly told in defense of the Interfaith Dialogue with White. And Qadhi has certainly been on the record denouncing acts of violence to various audiences in the United States.

Unfortunately, Qadhi has also been an outspoken opponent of Israel and has recently been castigating American universities for not allowing Palestinian protestors and pro-Hamas agitators from rioting on campus.

As you can see below, Qadhi is heavily promoting the protests on university campuses that are chanting “From the River to the Sea!” and calling for the destruction of Israel.

Qadhi said, “This is a change in the mindset and mentality…The students said they don’t want to do research for a genocidal regime or do research for an enabler of murder, pillaging and killing.”

By “murder, pillaging, and killing,” Qadhi was referring to Israel, not Hamas.

A FIRM CAUTION

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias describes the phenomenon where people with low competence in a particular area overestimate their competence and believe they have a high level of knowledge even when they don't.

This is similar to Ultracrepidarianism, the act of giving advice or opinions on topics outside of one's knowledge

Usually Ultracrepidarianism is just obnoxious, like when pastors suddenly think themselves political experts every four years, as though their training in parsing Greek verbs qualifies them to provide a detailed election analysis. But sometimes, Ultracrepidarianism can be deadly…like when evangelicals without a thorough understanding of Islam think that they can understand the unique national security threat that Islam represents.

Evangelicals - and indeed all Americans - need to understand that even in the “least extreme” mosques, radicals like Shamsud-Din Jabbar walk among them. They do not seem deterred, in the slightest, by press releases from CAIR in the wake of terrorist attacks that they don’t condone violence. They are, nonetheless, participating in it in what they view as their Islamic duty.

Muslims, like all believers, need evangelized. But until evangelicals stop inverting the Great Commission which tells us to go to them, and instead want them to come to us via our broken immigration system, we’re putting our communities at risk of tragedies like what we saw on Wednesday.

And for the record, no one - least of all, Christians - should condone violence of any kind conducted by private citizens, whether in retributive justice or preemptive concern, against anyone because of their faith (including Muslims). I feel like that needs said.

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