Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah
Some days ago, I posted an e-mail documenting the deceptive practices of a
pioneer figure within the Naqshbandi cyber universe. Below is a lenghty post
displaying the results of msa-net's investigation two years ago to track down
the origin of accounts the Naqshbandis claimed were the administrators of
their "msa-ec net". InshaAllah, we intend to reveal very shortly, how these
deceptive Naqshbandi practices did not cease two years ago, but on the
contrary, have since been taken to an entirely new plateau where they thrive
today non-stop .
wa salam
Abu Umar

-----------------
>From nadeem@YORKU.CA Sun Aug 25 00:32:31 1996
Date:	Sun, 25 Aug 1996 01:06:22 -0400
From:	Nadeem Siddiqi 
To:	msa-net@msa-natl.org
Subject:	msa-net: Asfa/msa-ec list

Hdate: Sunday 10 Raby' al-THaany 1417 A.H.
Number: msa-net/25Aug96/23623		
Bismillah Walhamdulillah Was Salaatu Was Salaam 'ala Rasulillah
Assalamu'alaikum
Br Abdul Rehman Dankg has managed to put me on the spot, with little choice.
In this email, I will outline what "proof" I have on the workings behind the
msa-ec list , a mailing list sponsored by ASFA, As
Sunnah Foundation of America , and also try to explain why
I had not posted this publicly, or even passed the information around,
although I have known the things stated below since February 1996. If you are
going to read this, please read to the end, so there may be no
misunderstanding of why I did or did not do certain things.
Firstly, to the best of my knowledge, the statements made by Abdul Rehman
Dankg are essentially correct, that is, 1 or 2 people [other than those listed
as official msa-ec administrators] are actually running the list and the 5 who
are listed as admins do not run the list and cannot even be identified
independently, online, as real people.  
The msa-ec charter states:
Who are the MSA-EC's Administrators?
> ====================================
> 
Nojan Mirahmadi, islamnet@world.std.com
Muhammad Ghamidi, mghamidi@grfn.org
Mohamed al-Houwait, alhouwai@grfn.org
Abdul Melik Leon, fleon@ix.netcom.com
Fahd al-Yaghmour, fahd_al-yaghmour@bbs.gaianet.net 

Question: None of the above addresses allow us to verify the admins online.
bbs.gaianet.net is a BBS which one can directly access by telnet, and then
create an account instantly [online]. There is absolutely no checking of
information provided. You can create as many bogus accounts as you wish.
grfn.org is the Grand Rapids FreeNet. You can telnet to it directly and create
an account online. There is no checking of user information provided.
Recently, they have started requiring users to send in "registration forms",
but earlier on, you could create the accounts instantly.

[ I was able to instantly create bogus accounts on both the systems 
mentioned above earlier during the year, and I believe the accounts are 
still active (should anyone want to verify my claim) although I have not 
logged into those accounts for so many months now. Gaianet is pretty well
known on the net as a site for bogus [but free] emails and identities ]
Netcom and STD are commercial internet service providers, and anyone can get
an account under any name. The "real" users name is kept in their confidential
records, but the online info can be as bogus as desired.

This is not to say that persons with these names do not exist, but the
question arises why is it that none of the administrators have an address
that can be independently verified online ? Furthermore, why are 3 of the
admins using free email addresses, from very "dubious" sites ?
Finally, I wondered why the msa-ec list had "msa" in its name, although
it was not sponsored/run by the MSA of US and Canada, or any other known MSA.
It was questions like these that piqued my curiosity, and hence I checked into
the workings of the list. The islamnet@world.std.com is listed as the official
owner of the msa-ec list, and so any real "maintaining" of the msa-ec list
(since it runs on majordomo software) must be done thru this account. 
I "finger"ed the addresses at various times and got some very interesting
results :
[please note, all the results below can be verified from the last logs of the
respective systems. what is presented below is not a complete record, just a
sample of what was fingered at various times....the explanation comes after
the login information]

islamnet . MSA-EC Administration   Login Wed 7-Feb-96 7:46PM from halon.sybase
islamnet . MSA-EC Administration   Login Tue 13-Feb-96 2:18AM from
pm2_bu_24.terminus
islamnet . MSA-EC Administration   Login Thu 22-Feb-96 8:49PM from
halon.sybase
islamnet . MSA-EC Administration   Login Wed 28-Feb-96 2:43PM from
halon.sybase
islamnet . MSA-EC Administration   Login Mon 4-Mar-96 3:05AM from pm-
lo-9.terminus
islamnet . MSA-EC Administration   Login Wed 21-Aug-96 9:39PM from
pm2_bu_17.terminus
islamnet . MSA-EC Administration   Login Fri 23-Aug-96 2:28AM from
pm2_bu_25.terminus
islamnet . MSA-EC Administration   Login Fri 23-Aug-96 10:58PM from
pm2_bu_23.terminus

asfa	 . as-Sunnah Foundation of Login Mon 4-Mar-96 12:48PM from halon.sybase
asfa	 . as-Sunnah Foundation of Login Wed 6-Mar-96 7:12PM from halon.sybase
asfa	 . as-Sunnah Foundation of Login Fri 8-Mar-96 8:32PM from halon.sybase
asfa	 . as-Sunnah Foundation of Login Fri 16-Aug-96 1:02PM from halon.sybase
asfa	 . as-Sunnah Foundation of Login Mon 19-Aug-96 7:45PM from halon.sybase


mghamidi Muhammad Ghamidi      pts/39        halon.sybase.com   
mghamidi Muhammad Ghamidi      pts/33        halon.sybase.com   
mghamidi Muhammad Ghamidi      pts/5         halon.sybase.com   
mghamidi Muhammad Ghamidi      pts/39        halon.sybase.com   


alhouwai Mohamed al-Houwait    pts/34        halon.sybase.com   
alhouwai Mohamed al-Houwait    pts/6         halon.sybase.com   
alhouwai Mohamed al-Houwait    pts/40        halon.sybase.com   
alhouwai Mohamed al-Houwait                 < .  .  .  . >

Anyone wishing to verify the information can do so by simply issuing the
"finger islamnet@world.std.com" command, for example. Those users who have
shell access on the above systems can also try doing "last islamnet",
for example from the world.std.com machine, to get a complete record of the
recent logs. Older logs are kept by the system administrators.
Now, the information above can at best only establish circumstancial pointers
to certain people. If however, the records are also checked at the other end,
and login times and activities are matched, especially when only one user is
logged into the system, or when the dynamic internet address used is unique,
then this would make the link solid. 
In the case of logins from terminus.com, I have been able to confirm that Br
Richard Ali Jensen  was the one logging into the
islamnet account from terminus.com. This confirmation [for eg, via path
headers of emails sent by Br Jensen while logged into his own and then
islamnet accounts] has been "reconfirmed" repeatedly by the logins and records
over the past 7 months.  It is definitely not coincidental. In fact, over the
past little while, he has been the sole person accessing the islamnet account
[and hence running the msa-ec list].
In the case of logins from sybase.com, I have not been able to confirm that Br
Mateen Siddiqui  was the one logging in. Sybase is a
closed system, and perhaps other users on that system have access to the last
logs and can confirm/deny these things. It is only circumstantial evidence,
albeit over a period of 7 months, that points to Mateen Siddiqui, since Mateen
is the only well known internet.active Muslim from a sybase.com domain, one of
the official internet spokespersons of the Haqqani Foundation as well as the
webmaster of the Haqqani Foundation homepage.
Whoever this person is from sybase.com, s/he has exclusive access to at
least 3 of the accounts in question : asfa@world.std.com, mghamidi@grfn.org 
and alhouwai@grfn.org. [the asfa account comes into the picture because 
sometimes the logins to the islamnet account occur from the pseudo terminal 
occupied by asfa, i.e. the person logged into asfa@world then logs into the
islamnet@world account from the asfa account. Like I said, I have only shown
part of the info. Posting everything would have been too much]
Overall, it can be said conclusively, that none of the 5 listed administrators
of the msa-ec list actually run the list. It cannot also be independently
verified, online, that the 5 people listed actually exist. [What I mean by
independent online verification is an email address from a bonafide
institution, for eg: user@univ.edu or user@microsoft.com or user@doe.gov etc
Accounts on such systems tend to be issued after verification of the
individual and usually issued in the individuals name.  Although not
impossible, it is generally difficult to obtain bogus accounts on such
systems, and where such accounts do exist, one or two emails to the sysadmin
usually results in closure of these bogus accounts] For example, this is the
case with the MSA-Net Shura Committee, whereby each and every member has a
university issued email address, and they have all been known on the internet
for some time, and did not appear suddenly. Further verification of these
individuals can also be easily found or provided.
The real administrators of the msa-ec list are Richard Jensen and someone from
sybase.com. This raises serious questions of why bogus email addresses are
being presented to the whole world as "administrators" of the list, and for
what reason the real administrators wish to to conceal their identity here,
but not on other forums [for eg msa-net, msa-ec list and soc.religion.islam];
security is obviously not the concern.  These are questions that ASFA needs to
address, especially since the person from sybase.com who is looking after the
asfa account is also one of the two people behind the msa-ec list.
It should be made clear that those who subscribe to the msa-ec list can in no
way be held accountable for the above actions. It is solely the sponsors and
administrators of the list who have control and say over such things, and
hence can be held accountable.
Now, we come to the second question of why I did not make this information
public, although I have known it since February.
The information I had at the beginning was purely circumstancial, and not
something that could be posted and backed up publicly. For [hopefully] obvious
reasons, I was quite angry back in January/February when the msa-net was
forced down. When the msa-ec list sprung up, people started sending me email
asking what the connection was between msa-ec list and msa-net. For the first
5 people who sent me email, and Abdul Rehman Dankg was amongst them, I sent
them a version of the above email. However, realising that this was not the
best thing to do, I stopped sending out the information above to people, but
only mentioned that there was no connection between the msa-ec list and the
msa-net. I was quite surprised to be honest, when that post of mine did not
"leak" out, especially since 1 or 2 people who did have the info were treated
rather badly on msa-net and the msa-ec list, before and after the msa-net
crash.
Several times after that, as information increased, I thought of posting to
the net, but alhamdulillah, someone or other always opposed the idea for
different reasons [its my habit to ask some brothers for advice etc when I
post controversial stuff, just to ensure I haven't gone bonkers and started
imagining things in hysteria....shura is indeed rahmah from Allah].
Furthermore, there was always the question in my mind of whether I would be
posting all this in anger or in honestly trying to figure things out. And
since I couldn't quite resolve the question in my mind, I never posted this.
And of course, the summer was rolling along so nicely, and people seemed to
have forgotten the issue on msa-net, and there was hope that some real nice
discussions could develop, so there was no need to make people angry and
agitated.
For these reasons, I did not post this information before. I would like to ask
that you please NOT ask me to post more material, and also please leave me out
of any more fights/discussions, if they develop.  All that has happened over
the past year or so has taken a very serious toll on the old heart, and really
shaken my trust or belief in people, generally. Please don't misunderstand
this. I am not pointing fingers or making statements about specific people or
events. These are pretty much general statements based on events both on and
off the net. Right now, all I want to do is withdraw into my little shell, and
do lots of [re]thinking.
Wallahu'alam
May Allah forgive all our sins and guide us to Al Sirat Al Mustaqeem [the
straight path]. May Allah show us the truth as truth and help us to accept,
identify and follow it and show us the falsehood as falsehood and help us to
reject and keep away from it.
Wajazakumullahu khairan
Wassalam
Nadeem


nadeem@YorkU.CA

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