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Benjamin Baird, director of the Middle East Forum’s Islamism in Politics (IIP) project, spoke to a February 6th Middle East Forum Webinar (video) in an interview with Sam Westrop, director of the Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch project, about the Islamist political agenda advanced by elected Islamist candidates at the state and federal level in the U.S. The following is a summary of Baird’s comments:
Islam is a religion comprising many sects and ideas, but Islamism refers to “people who want to use politics to impose a theocratic system.” IIP exposes and counters Islamist organizations in America that are funding Islamist candidates and conducting “political grooming campaigns.” The midterm elections in 2022, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), saw the election or re-election of eighty-nine Muslim Americans to local, state, and national office.
Many of these candidates are Islamists affiliated with Muslim Brotherhood organizations. Ohio State Rep. Munira Abdullahi worked for the Muslim American Society, the “overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” Iowa State Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad is the Executive Director of the American Muslim Alliance, an “extreme and anti-Semitic” organization. State Rep. Mauree Turner of Oklahoma was a CAIR board member, and Ruwa Romman, active in founding CAIR-Georgia, was responsible for Muslim “Get Out the Vote” efforts that helped Democrats retain control of the U.S. Senate. The number of state legislators elected or re-elected in 2022 approaches forty.
Congressional candidates at the federal level include Muad Hrezi, a Libyan American candidate funded by members of the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood and other individual Islamist donors. Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) did well in the general election, as did Attorney General Keith Ellison, a candidate for statewide office in Minnesota. With Ilhan Omar’s removal from a committee assignment, however, there is “pushback” against the anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-Semitic rhetoric that she was able to “get away with” in the past. Members of Congress are at least attempting to hold their colleagues accountable for their behavior.
Prior to 2021, Islamists aligned more with leftist causes. However, since then there has been a shift from “intersectional causes” to those which are openly Islamist, albeit not theocratic. CAIR’s legislative priorities include: ending arms trades to Israel; introducing legislation to “demonize India for attacking Muslims"; appointing a U.S. “Islamophobia czar” to punish any criticism of Islam; pursuing an “open border policy” by permitting all Afghan immigrants in the U.S. to be granted permanent status under the Afghan Adjustment Act; and further weakening the already “watered down” Countering Violent Extremism program of the Biden administration.
Baird pointed to a trend of Islamist candidates who receive massive funding from out-of-state Islamist organizations. Seventy percent of the monies funding Muad Hrezi’s campaign came from donors outside his district, a consequence of fundraising by Islamist organizations. Rana Abdelhamid, a New York candidate who dropped out of a congressional run after redistricting, raised only 25 percent of the money for her campaign from within New York City. Sam Rasoul, who ran in 2021’s Virginia race for Lieutenant Governor, was questioned by a debate host over the extent to which his campaign was bankrolled by out-of-state Muslim advocacy organizations. The mainstream media accused the host of being an “Islamophobe” for merely raising the fact that “Islamist organizations are funding fellow Islamists.”
Many Muslim advocacy groups designated as 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations “take advantage of loopholes” in the IRS’s limitations on political advocacy. Two Islamist organizations — CAIR and Emgage — have been successful in increasing the number of registered Muslim voters in their “Get Out the Vote” efforts. However, while Emgage and CAIR’s tax-exempt branches place millions of phone calls urging Muslims to register and vote, they operate “parallel” 501(c)(4) lobby organizations that call many of the same Muslims households and tell them exactly who to vote for in upcoming elections.
By attacking Israel and reasserting itself as an anti-Israel organization in 2021, Emgage appears to be back in CAIR’s good graces, and the pair are collaborating on local projects.
In 2020 and 2021, many Islamist groups criticized Emgage for not being “anti-Israel enough” and labeled it more “mainstream” because it also endorsed non-Islamist candidates. Among these groups is CAIR, which was close to the White House during the Obama years, but which the Biden Administration “has at least recognized...is a radical organization and not worthy of that sort of partnership.” CAIR’s schism with Emgage, however, was “only temporary.” By attacking the Jewish state and “reassert[ing]” itself as an anti-Israel organization in 2021, Emgage appears to be back in CAIR’s good graces, and the pair are collaborating on local projects. Meanwhile, by partnering with Emgage, the Biden administration has chosen an “equally dangerous” organization, albeit one cloaked in a “less extreme” veneer.
At least one mosque associated with Diyanet, a nonprofit religious organization which is affiliated with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party, instructed voters to support a Turkish-American candidate – a move that could be illegal under IRS laws. The Libyan American Alliance (LAA), a 501(c)(3) organization that supported Muad Hrezi in Connecticut, shared a Facebook post directing people to support Hrezi’s campaign and vote for him. LAA took the post down after an IIP article exposed the potentially illegal act. The IRS needs to be “reformed” to scrutinize how tax-exempt organizations tied to foreign governments influence elections in ways that violate the nonprofit system.
According to Baird, Islamists are setting the agenda, and even secular and moderate Muslims who are politically active seek the support of Islamist organizations. Regardless of the number of moderate Muslims who do not believe Islamists speak for them, not enough of these voters speak out. Reformists such as Zuhdi Jasser hold conferences to publicize the “Red-Green alliance” exploited by many Islamists to advance their agenda. However, unlike many Islamists who are “close to the mosque,” reformists do not have the “ecclesiastical backing” of imams that would legitimize the U.S. reform movement. There are some indications of “internal divisions” between Islamist groups and moderate Muslims, but it is too early to know if they will result in a reshuffling of political allegiances.
Islamists are setting the agenda, and even secular and moderate Muslims who are politically active seek the support of Islamist organizations.
Candidates who curry favor with Islamist organizations and refuse to condemn them are either in denial — insisting these organizations have “reformed themselves” — or withhold criticism to escape being labeled “Islamophobes.” Many voters who know little about Islamism assume most Islamist organizations are benign. A “low information voter,” as it pertains to Islamism, will have difficulty deciding whether a Muslim candidate is an Islamist or is merely aligned with left-wing causes. Voters should take the time to learn who funds and endorses the candidates, the candidates’ backgrounds, the groups they associate with, and what they have said.
While the radical causes pursued by Islamist advocacy groups stand little chance of passing in Congress, they can attain power at the local level. Hamtramck, a Muslim-majority Michigan city surrounded by Detroit and described by media as a “proving ground for multiculturalism,” illustrates the consequences of Islamists’ gaining political power. Voters chose an all-Muslim city council, making it the only Muslim-dominated local government in America. Legislation in Hamtramck permits mosques to issue the call to prayer over loudspeakers and allows “animal sacrifice in people’s backyards.”
Focus on Western Islamism (FWI), a Middle East Forum project, exposed Hamtramck’s history of election fraud. Members of the LGBT community claim they have had problems in the city, but the mayor, Amer Ghalib, enforces a “majoritarian” approach. Ghalib has insists the city’s Muslim majority needs to be “respected” and essentially proclaims that this is “how things are going to be done.” Hamtramck serves as a cautionary tale of what can happen when Islamism assumes political control.
