The imam of a radical mosque reportedly attended by New Orleans terrorist Shamsud-Din Jabbar has been invited to provide the “opening prayer” at an upcoming meeting in Houston by the county’s general governing body, according to an announcement published just a day after the massacre.
Furqan Sayed is an imam at the Islamic Society of Greater Houston (ISGH). On top of his job at a sharia finance institution, he also manages one of the ISGH mosques, Masjid Abubakr. He is invited, on January 9, to attend and address the Commissioners Court of Harris County, which includes the city of Houston, where the New Orleans terrorist lived.
Sayed’s mosque has a long history of extremism. In August, the imam hosted Nida Abubaker, a shrill Texas-based activist 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 mosque’s event with Abu Baker was organized through the Muslim American Society (MAS), 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 hosted an event in which children sang about torturing and beheading Jews.
The Houston mosque also runs 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, Masjid Abubakr, along with several other 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 networks in Houston.
Another ISGH imam, Eiad Soudan, claimed in 2023, reports MEMRI, that Jews seek to exploit and “take control of the economy.”
Eiad Soudan, Imam of Houston Mosque Where New Orleans Attacker Worshiped: Jews Seek to Control the Economy Wherever They Go, That’s Why Hitler Killed Them; Europeans Support Israel Because They Don’t Want Jews Back in Their Countries (Archival) pic.twitter.com/AFXc7cIC82
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) January 2, 2025
Following the New Orleans killings, 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).
The full details of the New Orleans terrorist’s radicalization are yet to be determined. It is still not yet clear that Jabbar was indeed part of the ISGH, despite media reporting. Nonetheless, the ISGH network is a key Islamist platform in Houston, with or without a New Orleans killer in its congregation. It is both wrong and tone-deaf of Harris County to provide an ISGH official with a platform; and a betrayal of Houston Muslims opposed to such radicalism.
