The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity based in Herndon, Virginia, held a summer internship for selected students that included instruction from U.S. professors. The Clarion Project has previously reported on how the Brotherhood front has gotten inside American academia.
A 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo identifies IIIT as one of its fronts. The memo tells the clandestine Brotherhood network to think of their “work in America as a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within…"
These linkages remain. On September 24, 2012, two IIIT leaders, Abubaker Al-Shingheti and Jamal Barzinji met with then-President of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi, in New York. He was the Muslim Brotherhood’s official candidate. The IIIT website has a photo of them together with the caption, "[Morsi] welcomed the participation of IIIT in the rerform [sic] of higher education in Egypt.”
In 1988, an FBI informant inside the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network warned that IIIT is a front and it is following a six-staged plan to “institute the Islamic Revolution in the United States.” The first stage was to “peacefully get inside the United States government and also American universities.”
Keep that in mind as you read the rest of this article. We also encourage you to read our earlier expose.
This summer, IIIT held a summer students program from May 27 to July 3. According to a written account by one participant, 17 students were chosen for it.
They learned about the Quran and Sunna from Professor Mahmoud Ayoub of Connecticut’s Hartford Seminary. IIIT donated over $1 million to endow a Chair in Islamic Chaplaincy at the school. As our earlier expose documented, the Seminary’s President has spoken at an IIIT fundraiser.
Contemporary Islamic Thought was taught by Dr. Ermin Sinanovic of the U.S. Naval Academy. He also lectured at IIIT headquarters last year.
Islamic jurisprudence, or fiqh, was taught by Dr. Jasser Auda of the Qatar Foundation. The Foundation is strongly tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and its spiritual leader, Yousef al-Qaradawi.
Muslim World Affairs was taught by Dr. Muqtedar Khan of the University of Delaware. He previously spoke at IIIT headquarters about the Islamist political victories due to the Arab Spring.
The written account states that they were also instructed by Professor AbdulAziz Sachedina. He is the IIIT Chair in Islamic Studies at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He is also listed as a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia.
Islamic History and Civilization was taught by Dr. Imad ad-Dean Ahmed, a Muslim chaplain at American University in Washington, D.C. He also leads the Minaret of Freedom Institute.
Students attended an IIIT-sponsored conference towards the end of the program. According to the written account, one of the featured scholars was Professor Ali Mazrui of Binghamton University in New York. In 2002, Mazrui said:
“There is also suspicion that some members of the Bush administration in collusion with Israel are more than ready to plunge the Middle East into turmoil in the hope that the final outcome would be to the territorial advantage of Israel and the strategic advantage of the United States. All this is part of the emerging external sadism of the United States, a readiness to hurt others abroad.”
The study of “Islamic Reform Movements” was led by IIIT co-founder and Finance Director Hisham Al-Talib. He used to work for the Al-Taqwa Bank run by senior Muslim Brotherhood member Youssef Nada.
Al-Talib was reportedly identified by the FBI as an Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood member. As mentioned above, Al-Talib met with the Muslim Brotherhood-linked President of Egypt in September 2012.
Yaqub Mirza of the Sterling Management Group gave the students instruction on Islamic Finance (also known as sharia-compliant finance) and faith-based entrepreneurship. He is one of the founders of IIIT. A 1988 FBI document states that Mirza and Jamal Barzinji have been “previously characterized as … members and leaders of the IKHWAN [Muslim Brotherhood].”
Jamal Barzinji also taught the students, according to the written account. In 2003, his home was raided as part of a terrorism-financing investigation. U.S. Customs Service Special Agent David Kane said in a sworn affidavit that Barzinji “is not only closely associated with PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad]…but also with Hamas.”
The involvement of U.S. professors in an Islamist education program sponsored by a Muslim Brotherhood front organization is telling but sadly predictable: The FBI was told about this plan all the way back in 1988, according to publicly available documents. And that plan is still being followed today.