Organizers have announced an event launching the newest of the US Muslim Brotherhood fronts to be called the “Strategic Communications Center for Muslims.” The event itself is titled “Stand With the Prophet In Honor and Respect” and is described in this except from the announcement as follows:
While the US is where this hate machine is based, Islamophobia is causing problems all around the world. Today, six European countries: Denmark, Poland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, have put a ban on “halal”. Three countries, including France, have put a ban on hijab; and in Switzerland, Muslims cannot build a minaret.
Meanwhile in Burma and the Central African Republic, Muslim minorities are facing genocide everyday while being called terrorists and foreigners, accused of trying to impose Sharia law, etc. on others.
All these accusations were invented by Islamophobes in America.
As we celebrate the Prophet in our now annual, nationwide event: Stand with the Prophet, we recommit ourselves to rectify his image, peace be upon him. Sound Vision is focused on building the Strategic Communication Center that will Inshallah lead the effort against Islamophobia by keeping our neighbors as friends and young Muslims as strong Muslims and healthy citizens. We plan to present our progress and our next steps to your community at this event. Join Us!
Read the entire announcement here.
This event, and the sponsors and participants involved, represent a complex network of Islamist organizations. The major sponsor of the event is Sound Vision, a Chicago company headed by Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid, also a featured speaker at the event and whose listed accomplishments include chairing the Parliament of World Religions. The Parliament is an interfaith organizations whose board of advisors includes the Tibetan Dali Lama but whose sole Muslim members are Saleha M. Abedin (aka Saleha Mahmood) and Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef, both prominent Saudi Islamists whose own relationships intersect in a number of key areas:
The GMBDW was the first publication to report the Islamist ties of Saleha Abedin, the mother of Huma Abedin who is a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton and which have since become part of the political firestorm that began in 2012 when a group of House representatives sent letters to five federal agencies demanding investigations into alleged infiltration of the US government by the Muslim Brotherhood. Many of these ties center on the Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMM) edited by Saleha Abedin and which has featured Brotherhood supporter and Saudi-funded Georgetown professor John Esposito on its advisory board (see more on Esposito below). The IMM itself was founded by Syed Z. Abedin, Huma’s father, and has been described as having had “the quiet but active support” of Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef, then General Secretary of the Saudi Muslim World League (MWL), established in 1962 as a means for the propagation of Saudi “Wahabbi” Islam. Muslim Brothers played an important role in its founding and, to date, the League has been strongly associated with the Brotherhood.
Saleha Abedin has additional ties to Saudi Islamists and the Global Muslim Brotherhood including:
- Serving as an adviser to the college President and founding member of the Dar El-Hekma women’s college in Saudi Arabia. A pre-911 archived list of the college’s “Establisher’s and Trustees” included prominent Saudi Islamic bankers, a member of the Bin Laden family, and Yaseen Abdullah Kadi (aka Yassin Abdullah Kadi) who on October 12, 2001 was added to the list of designated terrorists by the U.S.Treasury. In February 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke to students at Dar El-Hekma.
- Serving as a board member of the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief (IICDR), an umbrella group for 86 Islamic organizations, many of which are associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas fundraising, or support for Al Qaeda. The IICDR was banned by Israel in July 2008 as one of a group of organizations belonging to the Union of Good, a coalition of charities headed by Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi that help to raise funds for Hamas.
- Serving as a representative of the Muslim World League (MWL).
(There have also been Arabic-language reports that Saleha Abedin was included on a list of members of a “Muslim Sisterhood” but the reliability of this information is unknown at the current time). The Center for Security Policy has published an analysis of Saleha Abedin’s views on women as presented in her book “Women In Islam.”
In addition, Huma Abedin’s brother Hasan Abedin is a long-time fellow of the Oxford Center of Islamic Studies, chaired by Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef. In addition to his role as the former Secretary-General of the Muslim World League (MWL), Dr. Naseef is an officer of the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief (IICDR), discussed above, and has also been associated with other UK Islamist organizations including the Islamic Foundation and the Markfield Institute for Advanced Studies. Until 2006, global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi also served as an Oxford Centre Trustee. The Oxford Centre has been listed as a UK affiliate of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a Saudi religious organization close to the global Muslim Brotherhood that is believed to have helped spread Islamic extremism around the world as well as sponsoring terrorism in places such as Bosnia, Israel, and India.
It should be no surprise then that Abdul Malik Mujahid heads an organization who Islamic members have such deep and interconnected Islamist ties. Despite his record of interfaith activities and public awards, Dr. Mujahid’s background reveals long-standing and extensive Islamist ties of his own beginning with his education at the Darul Uloom Shah Waliullah in Pakistan named after Shah Waliullah, an 18th century Islamic “reformer.” Shah Waliullah’s desire to revive the time of Muslim rule has been described as the same school of thought that created the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI), Pakistan’s oldest religious party and close to the Global Muslim Brotherhood. It is likely no coincidence then that Dr. Mujahid has served as a past President of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), a part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and considered to be closely tied to the JEI. His more recent involvement with the US Muslim Brotherhood includes serving as chair of the Burma Task Force, made up of numerous US Brotherhood organizations including ICNA. (It should also be noted that at one time, Dr. Mujahid and Soundvision were located at a home in Bridgeview, Illinois located less than a kilometer from the Mosque Foundation, with its own history of fundraising for Islamist charities, including Hamas, and mosque leaders were also leaders of US Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas support organizations.)
In addition to Abdul Malik Mujahid, two of the other event speakers also have deep ties to the Global Muslim Brotherhood:
Siraj Wahajj is an American Islamic convert tied to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He has held various positions in the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the American Muslim Council (now defunct), and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), all part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and he is a frequent speaker at US Brotherhood events. A post from 2008 reported that Wahajj was behind a planned New York subway ad campaign to explaining the meaning of Islam and sponsored by the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), discussed above.
Dr. John Esposito is a professor of International Affairs and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University. He is also the director of the Saudi-funded Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. Esposito, a former U.S. State Department advisor, has espoused views consistent with Brotherhood doctrine and during the 1990’s was known for his claims that Islamic fundamentalism was, in fact, democratic and posed no threat to the U.S. Dr. Esposito has at least a dozen past or present affiliations with global Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas organizations including having served on the advisory board of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in the UK headed by Azzam Tamimi, a leader in the U.K. Muslim Brotherhood and often described as a Hamas spokesman. Dr. Esposito has also served with global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi on the Steering Committee of the Circle of Tradition and Progress and enjoyed a close relationship with the United Association For Studies and Research (USAR), part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee and part of the Hamas support infrastructure. In 2005, Saudi prince Alaweed bin Talal, a financial supporter of the global Muslim Brotherhood, donated $20 million to the Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at Georgetown, headed by Dr. Esposito. As noted above, Dr. Esposito has served on the advisory board of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs.
Note: The GMBDW deplores any prejudice or hatred directed toward Muslims anywhere in the world, no matter how it is labeled, and takes no issue with genuine attempts to combat the same. As always, we consider the Global Muslim Brotherhood to be as much or even more a threat to Muslims as it is to non-Muslims as it represents the primary source of Islamism. For our views on the distinction between Islamism and Islam, go here, here, and here.