Texas State Government Gives $13 Million to Islamist Mosques and Community Groups

The Texas state government has handed over $13 million of federal and state monies to mosques and community groups aligned with Islamist movements such as Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami, as well as hostile foreign regimes.

In sermons reviewed by the Middle East Forum and published in this report, officials and imams of beneficiary mosques expressed rhetoric that was openly pro-terror and anti-semitic.

In two instances, beneficiary mosques appear to be directly partnered with the Iranian regime.

Twelve of the eighteen Islamic organizations that received monies from the the state of Texas were found, in an investigation carried out by the Middle East Forum, to be under varying levels of Islamist influence.

These twelve organizations with extremist links received almost 99.4 percent of the funds provided by the Texas state government to Islamic organizations.

While a few thousand dollars in the state government’s data consists of the return of escheated funds, the vast majority of the millions spent appear to be the result of direct state grants, subsidy programs, and federal sub-awards managed by the Texas state government.

Between 2021 and 2023, Texas handed over $485,000 to the Islamic Education Center. The only organization with that name in Texas is Islamic Education Center of Houston (IEC Houston), a leading outpost of the Iranian regime, which uses “Islamic Education Center” as its DBA.

Writing in the Dispatch, Moshe Kwiat and Jason Brodsky indicate the IEC is directly managed from Tehran. A biography of the former IEC imam, published on a regime-aligned mosque in the United Kingdom, states that he “was directly appointed by the office of the Supreme Leader as Imam-e-Juma and Resident Aalim of IEC.”

Certainly, the mosque’s behavior indicates close and consistent coordination with the Iranian regime. In 2022, the mosque organized the filming and performance of a song by children at the mosque, pledging allegiance to Ayatollah Khamenei. The song’s lyrics, first documented by MEMRI, state that “[Khamenei] is calling on his children, his soldiers... In spite of my age, I will be your army’s commander...May my father and mother be sacrificed for you, I will sacrifice everything for you...I make an oath to be your martyr, Ali.”

Video of the performance, pledging allegiance to the Iranian Supreme Leader, produced by IEC Houston

Previously, in 2019, IEC Houston celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, at which children sang: “Khamenei is our leader, we are his soldiers.”

In 2020, the IEC organized an event memorializing Ayatollah Khomeini, in coordination with the AhlulBayt Islamic Mission, a British proxy for the Iranian regime.

In 2023, members of Congress called on the Biden administration to investigate four mosques accused of links to the Iranian regime, which included IEC Houston. Lawmakers pointed out that the Houston mosque is on land that belongs to the Alavi Foundation, which the U.S. government alleges is a front for the Iranian government.

Muslim Congress, a Texas Shi’ite Islamist organization and leading Iranian regime voice in the United States, was established at IEC Houston. The Muslim Congress openly promotes the writings and ideas of Ayatollah Khamenei and other senior regime clerics. Across America, this IEC offshoot organizes the rallies for the regime’s annual “Al-Quds Day,” an infamous annual global event, coordinated from Tehran, designed to celebrate the designated terrorist organization Hezbollah and plan the eradication of Israel.

The Islamic Ahlul Bayt Association (IABA) in Austin, is a Shi’ite mosque whose leaders maintain close ideological ties to the Iranian regime.

In late 2023, the Texas Governor’s Office arranged for $101,000 of funding for the mosque.

Jafar Muhibullah, IABA’s resident scholar, studied at the regime’s seminary in Qom and received a doctorate from the University of Tehran.

In January, IABA appears to have hosted Muzammil Zaidi, a pro-regime cleric who, in 2024, pleaded guilty to transferring tens of thousands of dollars to Ayatollah Khamenei. According to the Department of Justice, Zaidi and his accomplice “collected payments” of khums, a religious tax, “as well as donations purportedly to help victims of the ongoing civil war in Yemen, from individuals in the United States,” before enlisting “friends, family members, and other associates to carry the cash out of the United States.”

IABA’s YouTube channel features a presentation “the causes that matter to us most,” which include “Palestine protest[s],” “Al Quds Day,” and the imprisonment of “Sheikh Zakzaky.”

Established by Iran’s regime, Al Quds Day is a global event promoting the destruction of Israel and celebrating Hezbollah. Sheikh Zakzaky, meanwhile, is the Iranian regime’s leading cleric in Nigeria. Zakzaky describes Jews as “the lowest creatures on earth” who “only understand the language of killing.”

Jafar Muhibullah, IABA’s resident scholar, offers praise for Ayatollah Khamene’i and the Iranian regime

In a video for an Iranian regime media outlet named Islamic Pulse, which is based in the city of Qom, IABA’s imam, Jafar Muhibullah, praised the work of Zakzaky and his efforts to establish Shi’ite Islamist ideas in Nigeria, praising the “victory of the Islamic revolution in 1979” in Iran, which sought to “establish justice” and “remove oppression.”

Muhibullah is openly aligned with Iran’s Supreme Leader. In a sermon delivered by Muhibullah in the Iranian city of Qom, he praises and discusses a letter written to the youth of the West by “our leader” Ayatollah Khamene’i.

Since 2023, the Texas state government has handed over $86,000 to the Clear Lake Islamic Center (CLIC), a Salafi-run mosque south-east of Houston. Two of the grants, totaling over $81,000, were handled by the office of the Texas governor, and appear to be federal government awards; although corresponding awards do not appear in federal government spending datasets.

CLIC is a radical institution. Following the October 7 attacks, CLIC’s imam, Waleed Basyouni, called for “victory over the disbelieving people.” A year later, he publicly mourned the death of Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the designated terrorist organization Hamas.

A second imam at CLIC, Ammar AlShukry, on the day of October 7, also appeared to welcome the attacks, urging Allah to “grant” the people of Gaza “freedom from the occupying apartheid state.”

Basyouni and AlShukry are top officials at the AlMaghrib Institute, a leading Salafi organization. AlMaghrib’s late founder, Muhammad Alshareef, once wrote a paper titled “Why the Jews Were Cursed,” in which he claims Jews control the media and murder prophets. Other leading AlMaghrib clerics have included Abdullah Hakim Quick, who calls for the killing of homosexuals, urges God to “purify” Al-Aqsa from the “filth of the Yahud [Jews],” and “clean Afghanistan and Iraq” from the “filth of the Kafiroun [unbelievers].”

In 2021, CLIC sponsored an event, in collaboration with Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami, to mourn the passing of the prominent Kashmiri jihadist Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

Geelani was previously described as the “head of jihad” for Jamaat-e-Islami’s branch in Kashmir. Since 2000, Geelani was also involved with Hizbul Mujahedeen, a terrorist organization designated by the U.S. government. In its obituary for Geelani, Al Jazeera described Geelani as the terrorist group’s “spiritual leader.”

In 2024, CLIC ran an event at its mosque, in collaboration with Human Appeal, that featured the pro-Hamas activist Sami Hamdi. CLIC’s partner, Human Appeal, is an international Islamist charitable franchise repeatedly accused of involvement with terrorist organizations and their proxies.

Texas provided $130,000 to the Islamic Center of Round Rock in 2023.

In a 2021 sermon at Round Rock, the speaker offers long explanations of why Jews have no claim to the land of Israel and insists the land will be “purified” from the “filth” of the “Zionist” presence.

Zionists, he claims, are “torturing and killing the children.” Because “Zionist influence” is everywhere, including within America’s “political system,” he argues that when “we, the Muslims in the 21^st century, get rid of the Zionist regime in that area, we will bring freedom to the entire world.”

Another talk, given just weeks after the October 7 massacre, argues that the Jews kill prophets because “this is their attributes.” Christians, the speaker claims, support Israel because they fear “how powerful the Islamic state could become if there’s no force that will stop them.”

The speaker encourages the mosque’s congregants to support American Muslims for Palestine, which members of Congress allege has “ties to Hamas.”

The mosque’s Saudi-trained imam offers similar rhetoric about “genocide” on his Instagram account.

The state of Texas gave over $99,000 to the Islamic Center of Brushy Creek, based in Cedar Park, a suburb north-west of Austin.

The Islamic Center of Brushy Creek’s imam, Jawad Rasul, studied at the extremist Salafi AlMaghrib Institute. He previously worked at Al-Furqaan Foundation, a prominent Salafi group that receives support from the Qatari regime. An undercover FWI investigation in 2022 found that books sold by Al-Furqaan Foundation advocated jihad and peddled 9/11 conspiracy theories.

While serving as imam, on his social media, Rasul has shared specious claims that no civilians were targeted in the Hamas pogroms of October 7, posted a video about the “true face of Judaism,” and shared conspiracy theories that Israel created ISIS.

In January 2024, after the White House disavowed Nihad Awad, head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) over his apparent praise of the October 7 attacks, the Islamic Center of Brushy Creek signed a letter in support of CAIR.

Texas gave $150,000 to the Islamic Center of Greater Austin.

The mosque’s imam, Dawood Yasin, is a former recruit of Tablighi Jamaat, a global Deobandi missionary movement linked by security services to dozens of terrorism and radicalization cases.

The mosque has organized multiple events on the “genocide” and “massacres” in Gaza. On October 18, Dawood Yasin hosted the pro-Hamas activist Sami Hamdi, who offered a histrionic speech filled with tears, conspiracy theories about “Zionist” power over the American political system, and wildly inflated casualty numbers in Gaza.

Sami Hamdi is a prominent supporter of Hamas. Canadian and Australian universities have previously cancelled events with him, after he celebrated the October 7 attacks, tearfully telling an audience, reports Canada’s National Post, to “celebrate the victory” of the Hamas massacre: “Allah has shown the world that no normalization can erase the Palestinian cause. When everybody thought it was finished, it is roaring. How many of you felt it in your hearts when you got the news that it happened? How many of you felt the euphoria? Allahu Akbar!”

The Texas Governor’s office oversaw the transfer of $91,862 to the Katy branch of the Muslim American Society (MAS). The Katy branch is also known as Masjid Ar-Rahman.

MAS Katy is a branch of the nationwide Muslim American Society organization, which federal prosecutors have described as “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.”

In 2019, Members of Congress called for an investigation into MAS after one of its branches in Philadelphia hosted an event in which children sang about torturing and beheading Jews.

Main Alqudah, a founder of the MAS Katy Center, declares in rulings published by the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America, that women may not engage in public speaking, and insists that girls must be taught to wear the hijab from the age of seven.

Alqudah has admitted that, while in Jordan, he “advocated for the imposition of Islamic law instead of secular law.” Alqudah also disclosed involvement with the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan. Today, MAS Katy frequently invites prominent supporters and advocates of the Muslim Brotherhood to its events..

In one of several published “Beautiful Recitations” on MAS Katy’s social media page, imam Ahmad Elhadad states: “O Believers! Take neither Jews nor Christians as guardians[,] they are guardians of each other. Whoever does so will be counted as one of them. Surely Allah does not guide the wrongdoing people … with sickness in their hearts.”

During the coronavirus pandemic, MAS Katy Center sought only to prevent women and children from attending services.

The Texas Workforce Commission provided over $306,000 of funding in 2023, through its “Coronavirus Relief Fund,” to the Foundation to Advance Islamic Teaching in Houston (FAITH), which operates several schools in the Houston area.

FAITH was founded by Hamdy Radwan, a prominent Muslim Brotherhood activist. Radwan has explicitly stated that the terrorist organization Hamas is “not” a “terrorist organization,” but “freedom fighters.”

Radwan long served as a leading official in the Muslim American Society, which federal prosecutors have described as “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.” In 2019, Members of Congress called for an investigation into its Philadelphia branch after it hosted an event in which children sang about torturing and beheading Jews.

Until recently, Radwan served on the board of Islamic Relief USA, the leading charitable institution of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose funding of Hamas proxies in Gaza and other Islamists have led to bans and the blacklisting of the organization in multiple Arab and European countries. At its U.S. branch, Islamic Relief staff have included Khaled Lamada, who, in 2017, circulated text on social media praising the “jihad” of the “Mujahidin” for “causing the Jews many defeats,” and republished claims on Facebook that praised Hamas for inflicting a “huge defeat” against the “Zionist entity.” Another staff member, Yousef Abdullah, has praised the killing of Jews, among other anti-Semitic remarks.

At Radwan’s FAITH schools in Houston, students are taught Islamist ideas such as “tarbiyah,” a concept largely conceived of and implemented by the Muslim Brotherhood, in which Islamic ideas are applied to every aspect of a student’s education and personal life, in an effort to rebuild society.

Since 2018, the state of Texas has given over $66,000 to the Islamic Society of Greater Houston. And between 2024 and 2025, Texas also provided $191,850 to one of the ISGH’s subsidiaries, the Islamic Education Institute of Texas.

The ISGH network does not comprise just the Education Institute, but dozens of schools and mosques under its control across Houston. The ISGH network has a long history of extremism, frequently holding events with proxy organizations for the violent South Asian Islamist movement Jamaat-e-Islami, such as the Muslim Ummah of North America (MUNA), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), as well as Helping Hand for Relief and Development (HHRD).

In 2018, the Middle East Forum uncovered that HHRD partnered with designated terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan. This and other evidence of ICNA and HHRD’s extremism and terror ties led to inquiries by Congress, as well as an official investigation launched by the Inspector General for the United States Agency for International Development in 2021.

In partnership with HHRD and ICNA, in 2017, several ISGH mosques hosted Yusuf Islahi, a member of the Central Advisory Council of the Indian branch of Jamaat-e-Islami. Islahi reportedly claimed that Jews were behind the 9/11 attacks, as part of a conspiracy to defame Islam.

A detailed piece in the Daily Mail notes a long history of extremism at the ISGH. Mail journalist James Reinl notes one former ISGH official was Algerian imam Zoubir Bouchikhi, who was later “arrested and then deported in 2011, reportedly for immigration violations.” In a 2020 sermon, Bouchikh called non-Muslims: “The worst of Allah’s creations, even lower than animals are those who disbelieve and refuse to [believe].”

In 2021, a Middle East Forum investigation found ISGH involvement with Pakistani Islamist and Kashmiri jihadist network in Houston. One ISGH subsidiary, the state-funded Islamic Education Institute of Texas, is registered at an address in West Houston used by an elaborate coalition of Pakistani foreign agents and Kashmiri jihadist operatives central to this network.

Another ISGH imam, Eiad Soudan, claimed in 2023, reports MEMRI, that Jews seek to exploit and “take control of the economy.”

And following the New Orleans terror attack in January, in which 14 people were murdered, the ISGH advised its congregants not to talk to the FBI, and instead refer law enforcement to the notorious Islamist organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

In 2024, the ISGH hosted, in collaboration with the radical Muslim American Society (profiled above) the activist Nida Abubaker, a Texas-based Islamist who backs Palestinian “resistance” and Palestinian “fighters.” Abubaker is the daughter (and advocate for) convicted terrorist Shukri AbuBaker; as well as a supporter of Al Qaeda terrorist Aafia Siddiqui.

The government of Texas gave over $476,000 to the Muslim Community Center for Human Services, which runs the Al-Shifa Clinic in Dallas-Fort Worth.

The Muslim Community Center for Human Services (MCCHS), established in 1995, does not obviously share the outright Islamism of the previously profiled organizations in this report. However, Islamists have sat at the organization’s fringes for many decades.

MCCHS’s early advisory board included Azhar Azeez, a key Islamist activist in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Azeez is today the CEO of Muslim Aid, a terror-aligned charity, established by the violent South Asian Islamist movement Jamaat-e-Islami, headquartered in the United Kingdom.

Another former advisor to the MCCHS, Yusuf Kavakçı, is a prominent Turkish Islamist long involved with Hamas networks in North Texas. After he returned home to Turkey, Kavakçı has come a leading voice for the Turkish regime and an open defender of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

In the early 2000s, the founder of MCCHS, Basheer Ahmed, was a contributor to the Association of Muslim Social Scientists and the International Institute of Islamic Thought, key Hamas-linked thinktank institutions of the global Muslim Brotherhood, and leading components of a terror finance network investigated by the federal government in the 2000s.

In more recent years, MCCHS continues to invite Islamist imams to its events, including Azhar Subedar, a DFM imam who trained in the United Kingdom with Tablighi Jamaat, a global Deobandi missionary movement linked by security services to dozens of terrorism and radicalization cases; and AbdelRahman Murphy, who once stated, “There is no such thing as an innocent Israeli” and seemingly praised Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas.

The bulk of the monies to Islamic organizations from the state of Texas were handed to the Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation (TMWF). Between 2015 and 2025, this totaled over $11 million.

As with the Muslim Community Center of Human Services, the Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation has a habit of inviting Islamists and other radicals into its midst.

In 2011, TMWF promoted, an event organized by the Hamas-aligned Students for Justice in Palestine activist network and the anti-Semitic and pro-terror activist Samir Abed-Rabbo, an event on “Uncovering the Zionist Myth.”

In 2017, TMWF hosted Omar Suleiman, a leading radical imam. Suleiman is a leading supporter of convicted Al-Qaeda terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, as well as terror-tied Islamist preacher Zakir Naik and former convicted terrorist Ali Al-Tamimi. Suleiman has called for a third Intifada.

TMWF is also a partner of the Muslim American Society, the leading offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States. MAS’s Dallas branch has repeatedly expressed support for convicted operatives of the designated terrorist group Hamas.