Late last month, the Muslim American Society (MAS) co-hosted its yearly Islamic conference alongside the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). The event, which ran from December 26 to 28 in Chicago, included a Middle Eastern-style bazaar, nonprofit charity organizations, and a number of keynote speakers. The chosen theme of the event was “Faith Under Fire,” and centered on the Israel-Hamas war. Several of the event’s keynote speakers have lengthy track records of hatred, antisemitism, and extremism. Among the speakers was a representative of Erdogan’s regime in Turkey.
This agenda should come as no surprise. MAS, a nonprofit founded in 1993, describes itself as a grassroots Islamic movement that promotes Islamic thought and practices in the United States. In January 2012, Abdurrahman Alamoudi, a convicted terrorist told FBI investigators that, “Everyone knows MAS is the Muslim Brotherhood” and four years before that, a federal prosecutor reported that “that “MAS was founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” ICNA, which was founded by activists associated with Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), has been described by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, as having “glorified jihad and martyrdom and advocated JI’s Islamist ideology as a panacea to problems afflicting the global Muslim community.”
MAS has yet to publish footage or audio of the speeches given at the event.
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The December conference was co-sponsored by a number of Islamic organizations, including Islamic Relief USA, a charity known to have ties to extremist groups. Islamic Relief has been found by several European countries to be affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The group’s U.K. headquarters has been accused by the State Department of antisemitism and extremism. Israel alleges that Islamic Relief branches helped funnel money to Hamas.
Several speakers at the conference have histories of maligning Israel, the United States, and the Jewish people. Keynote speaker Yasir Qadhi, an imam who previously described the Holocaust as false propaganda. Qadhi was quoted as saying, “Hitler never intended to mass-destroy the Jews.” Qadhi has called this statement a “one-time mistake,” although he later made further statements comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and defending the views of a fellow Holocaust denier. Qadhi’s presence at the event shows a willingness by MAS and ICNA to platform divisive figures who peddle in antisemitic hate.
Another speaker, Mohammed Habehh, a Rutgers University graduate and member of American Muslims for Palestine, has a lengthy track record of virulently antisemitic social media posts and support for terrorism. In 2014, he tweeted, “If you want to be a f*g go join Judaism they have a bunch of f*gs over there you’d feel at home.” One year later, Habehh tweeted that “Hamas should make me their official P.R. guy.”
Dalia Mogahed, Director of Research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), routinely speaks at MAS events. Mogahed previously served as an advisor to President Obama in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. At the December conference, she was tapped to deliver a speech despite past accusations of extremism. In 2009, Mogahed conducted a phone interview with a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical Islamist group designated as a terror organization by the United Kingdom and banned in Germany and several Central Asian nations for extremism. In the interview, Mogahed defended Sharia law, claiming most women in the Arab world associate it with justice for women. Since October 7, Mogahed has denied Hamas atrocities and accused Israel of “genocide.”
Professor Hatem Bazian of University of California, Berkeley, also spoke at the event. Bazian has faced numerous controversies for his overt antisemitic statements and social media posts, as well as legal challenges faced by his organization, American Muslims for Palestine. Bazian’s lifetime journey of harassing and intimidating Jewish students started with his co-founding of Students for Justice in Palestine in the 1990s. Later, in 2006, he co-founded American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). Bazian has openly called for violent Intifada on college campuses and posted memes accusing Jews of raping and stealing the organs of Palestinians. Currently, Bazian and AMP, face ongoing civil litigation due to alleged connections with the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), which was found by U.S. federal court to have provided material support for Hamas.
Notably, a representative of the Turkish government spoke at the conference. Tugba Isik Ercan is a Turkish politician serving as a member of the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye for the city of Istanbul. Her presence at the conference suggests possible Turkish influence over the MAS organization and its events. Since October 7, Turkey has taken a leading role in exporting extremist narratives and engaging in influence operations in the West. Turkey’s state media organizations have targeted American and Western audiences with content sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood and hostile to Israel and the West.
The conference took place a month ago, and aside from a bland, seven-minute “highlight” video in which unnamed speakers bragged about how quickly people could register for the conference, MAS has yet to publish footage or audio of the speeches given at the event, nor has MAS responded to an inquiry from Focus on Western Islamism as to when it will provide such footage.
If and when MAS does post video of the event, the footage will likely confirm a disturbing trend within some Muslim American communities post-October 7: foreign influence and extremist narratives have captured growing segments of the American Muslim community. If the footage confirms that MAS and ICNA knowingly provided a platform for antisemitic incitement, terror apologetics, or foreign-state influence operations, public officials should respond resolutely and review any government partnerships or funding streams connected to affiliated nonprofits, and make clear that civic inclusion does not require tolerating the normalization of extremist ideology.