The Islamic Center of Federal Way (ICFW), a mosque in Washington State, found itself in the news late last year when security cameras captured a man throwing rocks through its front window. The attack generated substantial coverage, with KHQ, a television station located in Spokane, a city almost 300 miles away from Federal Way, broadcasting footage of the attack. The incident prompted an FBI investigation into what mosque member Mohsin Ikram described as a “hate crime.” The attack is the latest in a series of incidents involving the ICFW, a mosque with a history of funding Islamist organizations.
Previous Controversies
This is not the first time the ICFW has been in the news. In 2017, protesters, some wearing “Make America Great Again” hats, reportedly blocked traffic, trespassed on mosque property, and shouted anti-Muslim slurs. According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), one protester physically assaulted an interfaith activist who came to the defense of the mosque. Predictably, media coverage of the incident ignored the content of the protesters’ complaints, focusing exclusively on what local police called “incidental contact” between individuals, with no arrests or charges filed.
CAIR has frequently highlighted incidents at the ICFW as part of its broader “Islamophobia” narrative in the Puget Sound region. Its December 2024 report on anti-Muslim discrimination in Washington referenced the ICFW as an example of targeted harassment, though this rock-throwing incident appears to be the only one in the report backed by independent news coverage.
CAIR previously publicized a 2023 burglary at the ICFW, during which two men stole hundreds of dollars from the mosque. The organization appeared on TV station KCPQ to call for public assistance in identifying the dark-skinned suspects, who, judging from the video, knew exactly where the mosque kept its money. These incidents, CAIR argues, illustrate the ongoing discrimination faced by the Muslim community in the region.
Internal Conflict at Mosque
While external harassment has drawn public attention to the mosque, internal issues at the ICFW have apparently sparked discontent among its members. An online petition filed by members in 2016 accused the mosque’s leadership, namely its Board of Trustees, of mismanagement and authoritarian practices. The petition alleges that a small group of families has monopolized decision-making, treating the mosque as a “privately owned family business.” Community members have voiced concerns over a lack of transparency regarding how funds are spent, arbitrary dismissals of the Board of Directors, and the firing of the imam without consultation. “There is no transparency with how and where the funds are being spent,” the petition stated. Efforts by Focus on Western Islamism (FWI) to contact officials at the mosque were unsuccessful.
Support for Islamist Charities
The issue of financial transparency remains a concern in light of some of the organizations the ICFW has supported financially in the years since the 2016 petition.
Public records reveal that the mosque donated $17,500 in 2021 to Africa Relief and Community Development, headed by Yousef Abdallah, a former director at Baitulmaal, a Texas-based aid charity that has distributed funds in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Abdallah’s recent activities include supervising the shipment of medical supplies to Gaza as part of Baitulmaal’s relief efforts, as seen in social media posts from November 2023.
In 2018, the Middle East Forum (MEF) reported that Baitulmaal’s then-director, Hasan Hajmohammad, received a police citation at a protest against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, after he “‘grabbed’ a counter-protestor ‘by the neck and began to hit him in the face with his fist.’” The report adds that, “In 2006, while visiting Jordan and the Palestinian territories, Israeli authorities arrested Hajmohammad over claims he was funding a Hamas front organization in the Palestinian town of Jenin.”
The ICFW also gave $13,000 in 2022 to the Islamic Center of Tacoma, led by Dr. Abdul Hakim Mohamed, a former director of the Islamic Medical Association of North America (IMANA). A 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document identified IMANA as an ally that could help teach Muslims “that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands … so that … God’s religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions.”
Mohamed is also the CEO of the North American Islamic Foundation (NAIF), headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware. This organization filed a motion in court to postpone the execution of Abdullah Tanzil Hameen (a.k.a. Cornelius Ferguson), who was sentenced to death for the 1991 murder of 22-year-old Troy Hodges in Delaware. NAIF’s director, Ismaa’eel H. Hackett, wrote that Hameen, who was on parole for a murder committed in 1980, should not be executed because “G-d states that a Muslim cannot be put to death for killing a disbeliever [non-Muslim]. Based on those premises, we have to say that Abdullah Hameen should not be put to death.” In other words, NAIF was arguing that Muslims should enjoy special protection when charged with crimes against non-Muslims. It was to no avail. Hameen was executed in 2001.
One can only hope that the folks who have robbed and vandalized the Islamic Center of Federal Way are apprehended, prosecuted and punished to the full extent of the law. It is also reasonable to ask public officials and journalists to put as much effort into monitoring the mosque’s support for Islamist organizations as they do attacks on its building, which are clearly worthy of investigation, prosecution, and if convicted, punishment.