Thursday, November 01, 2007

Who is Huma Abedin?

Hard to believe, hope this is not true (ht lgf):
This is Hillary Clinton’s top aide. Goes with her everywhere. And, according to Vogue magazine, "fluent in Arabic, and a practicing Muslim born in Kalamazoo, MI, to a Pakistani mother and Indian father. Moved to Saudi Arabia when she was two…Her father is an Islamic scholar…." This story is a real eye-opener.

Am I the only person who thinks it is strange that Mrs. Clinton has a top aide who is a Muslim raised in Saudi Arabia? What is going on here?

Paul Sperry’s book, Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington has become more and more relevant, hasn’t it?
More from Spencer Morgan's April, 2007 profile in The New York Observer:
The back story, as it were, begins 32 years ago in Kalamazoo, Mich., where Ms. Abedin, who declined to participate in this article, lived until the age of 2. Her family then relocated to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she lived until returning to the States for college. She attended George Washington University. Her father, who died when she was 17, was an Islamic and Middle Eastern scholar of Indian decent. He founded his own institute devoted to Western-Eastern and interfaith understanding and reconciliation and published a journal focusing on Muslim minorities living in the diaspora. Her mother, a renowned professor in Saudi Arabia, is Pakistani.

Ms. Abedin recently bought an apartment in the vicinity of 12th and U streets in Washington, D.C. When she comes to New York, she stays with her sister, who has an apartment in Manhattan—not, as one popular rumor has it, in Chappaqua with the Clintons. She has no children and has never been married. She’s single.

Ms. Abedin began working for Mrs. Clinton as an intern for the then First Lady in 1996. She was hired as a staff assistant to the First Lady’s chief of staff, Maggie Williams. For several years, she was the backup to Mrs. Clinton’s permanent personal aide, Allison Stein, and she officially took over as Mrs. Clinton’s aide and advisor around the time of the 2000 Senate race.

Her Presidential campaign title is “traveling chief of staff."
Google informs us that Abedin's mother is Saleha Mahmood Abedin, Vice-Dean of Institutional Advancement, Dar Al-Hekma College, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Here's the official description from the Dar Al-Hekma website:
Dar Al-Hekma College is a unique, four-year college, built upon a strong and stable foundation of Islamic faith, Islamic wisdom, academic excellence and intellectual curiosity. It was founded when prominent members of the Jeddah community recognized an urgent need for sophisticated higher education for young Saudi women, with high quality academic programs enriched by Islamic values and morals. The Founders engaged the Texas International Education Consortium to work with local and international experts to plan the college and design its curricula. In September, 1999, Dar Al-Hekma College opened its doors to its first freshmen class.
Curiously, Wikipedia has posted an announcement that it is considering deleting its entry for Huma Abedin...