In the wake of the courageous takedown of a would-be (likely) jihadist on a Paris-bound train by three Americans, the New York Times published a piece on the Spanish mosque to which Ayoub El Khazzani belonged.

I think the following excerpt speaks for itself:

But while the authorities point to the mosque as a crucial part of Mr. Khazzani’s transformation from onetime petty hashish dealer to someone suspected of being a radical, Mr. Mohamed Ahmed said the preaching here was not to blame.

“Women are also allowed to pray here,” he said, “which certainly wouldn’t happen if this was a radical place.”

Methinks that Mr. Mohamed Ahmed is lacking in self-awareness.

Ahmed’s defense of Khazzani is perhaps even better:

Mr. Mohamed Ahmed, the vice president of the Taqwa mosque association, acknowledged that the mosque had undergone a management change in 2013 “to make it more transparent and liberal.” But he rejected the idea that it ever spread extremism.

Rather than radicalism, he argued, “the problem is that there isn’t unity in the Muslim community” of Algeciras. Asked about Mr. Khazzani, he said that “he wasn’t here long enough to claim you really know a person.”

And he added: “Nobody should judge the radicalism of a man by his beard.”

Am I the only one who gets the sense that Mr. Ahmed is laughing at us?

Featured Image Source: The Clarion Project.