Siraj Wahhaj

Early life

Wahhaj was born as Jeffrey Kearse and raised in Brooklyn. His mother was a nurse and his father a hospital dietitian. His brother is writer and editor Gregory S. Kearse of Silver Spring, Maryland. He went to church religiously and went on to become a Sunday school teacher as a teenager in a Baptist church. Wahhaj later went to the New York University on a partial scholarship. He also played basketball where he met a teammate who interested him in the Nation of Islam, an African-American movement. He subsequently converted to Islam.

In 1969 he ended his schooling and joined the Nation of Islam, changing his name to Jeffrey12x. During this time he was vocal in his belief that “white people are devils." He said of this, “I preached it. I taught it.” Wahhaj says of his interest in the Nation: "It wasn't the theology that attracted me to the Nation of Islam at all... It was the kind of do-for-self black pride."

When Elijah Muhammed died in 1975, "His teachings began to unravel in my mind", and he became a Sunni Muslim with the encouragement of Muhammad's son Warith Deen Mohammed. Mohammed took over and reorganized the Nation of Islam, urging members to come to orthodox Islam. Kearse then changed his name again to Siraj Wahhaj, which means "bright light" in Arabic. He was chosen to study Islam at the Umm al-Qura university of Mecca for a period of four months in 1978. He also briefly taught a course in Islamic studies at Howard University, where Johari Abdul-Malik is the chaplain.

Public life

Siraj Wahhaj leads the daily prayers and performs the Friday sermon at Masjid at-Taqwa. He also conducts full days of teaching in Islamic studies, Arabic and marital counselling.

Anti-drug movement

In 1988 he led his community in an anti-drug patrol in which they staked out drug houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant in the cold of winter for 40 days and nights, forcing the closure of 15 drug houses. This effort received high praise from the New York City Police Department and the media.

In 1991, he became the first Muslim to offer an invocation (opening prayer) at the United States House of Representatives.

Views on governance and the punishment of certain crimes

Wahhaj has made statements in support of Islamic laws over liberal democracy. He also supports capital punishments such as stoning for adultery and cutting off of hands for thievery. He has said: "Islam is better than democracy. Allah will cause his deen [Islam as a complete way of life], Islam to prevail over every kind of system, and you know what? It will happen."

He has also said: "If Allah says 100 strikes, 100 strikes it is. If Allah says cut off their hand, you cut off their hand. If Allah says stone them to death, through the Prophet Muhammad, then you stone them to death, because it’s the obedience of Allah and his messenger—nothing personal."

1993 World Trade Center bombing

Wahhaj was one of 170 people identified by US Attorney Mary Jo White in 1995 as "unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators" in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, but was never charged, and denies any involvement with the bombing.

Wahhaj was a defence witness at the trial of the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel-Rahman, the former leader of the Egyptian terrorist organization, Gama'a al-Islamiyya.

In November 1999, Wahhaj was one of many Muslim leaders who met with New York mayor Michael Bloomberg at City Hall. Wahhaj said that he hoped all Americans would eventually become Muslim and also referred to the FBI and CIA as the "real terrorists".