Excerpt:
A video on the website of the California-based Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America shows one of its leaders preaching that Hamas is not a terrorist group. The cleric, Dr. Waleed Basyouni, is also the Vice President of the Houston-based Al-Maghrib Institute, which claims to have educated over 80,000 students around the world.
The speech is ironically titled "Reclaiming Islam From the Extremists." Although Basyouni preaches against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, he explicitly states that Hamas is not among the extremists that he is speaking out against. He says at about 88:20 minutes in:
"As for Hamas, they are not included in the group that I am talking about today ... Hamas, it is a political issue putting it or listing it as a terrorist group. What defines a terrorist group is not the State Department for us. What defines a terrorist group is not the NATO. What defines terrorists for Muslim scholars like me or students of knowledge like myself will be the Quran and Sunnah."