A screenshot of a message issued by a Houston-area mosque has gone viral claiming that the mosque instructed its members to not give any information about Shamsud Din Jabbar to the media or to the FBI. The message was issued on New Year’s Day hours after Jabbar plowed his truck into the reveling crowds in New Orleans’ famous Bourbon Street.
The message did not ask its members to not cooperate with the investigation but it asked every member to stay vigilant. “If anyone is contacted by the media, it is very important that you do not respond. If approached by the FBI and a response is necessary, please refer to CAIR and ISGH,” it said. CAIR is the Council on American-Islamic Relations and ISGH is the Islamic Society of Greater Houston.
New York Post reported that it was not known whether Jabbar attended the mosque ever.
Jabbar’s brother revealed that though they were born Christians, Shamsud Din converted to Islam at an early age though it was not for religion but for radicalization.
A spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations told Newsweek that they were aware of the post the local mosque made but they did not talk to the mosque authorities about its authenticity.
The White House severed ties with CAIR last year after the group’s co-founder said he was “happy” to see the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 Israelis. CAIR was also ordered by a judge in November to open its books and reveal its sources of funding after a defamation suit it filed against an ex-worker backfired.
Shamsud Din Jabbar’s Houston community
Shamsud Din Jabbar lived in a shabby trailer in a Muslim-dominated area in Houston. He kept a bomb-making workbench at his trailer home where a Quran was left open on a page about “slaying” in the name of Allah. His home was filled with chemical residue and chemical bottles, while an inventory of items seized by the FBI included a long list of compounds used in bomb-making. His neighbor said Jabbar told him he would be shifting to New Orleans and the neighbor thought the truck used for the rampage was meant for the shift purpose.
