- Founded in 1992 for the purpose of promoting “Islam as a total way of life”
- Has stated that American foreign policy is to blame for the 9/11 attacks
Founded in 1992, the Muslim American Society (MAS) describes itself as "a charitable, religious, social, cultural and educational, not-for-profit … Islamic organization.” MAS's mission is to promote "Islam as a total way of life"; to “encourage the participation of Muslims in building a virtuous and moral society”; to “offer a viable Islamic alternative to many of our society’s prevailing problems”; to “promote family values in accordance with Islamic teaching”; to “promote the human values that Islam emphasizes: brotherhood, equality, justice, mercy, compassion, and peace”; and to “foster unity among Muslims and Muslim organizations and encourage cooperation and coordination amongst them.” MAS identifies the Muslim Students Association and the Islamic Society of North America as Muslim organizations that are rooted in the same “Islamic revival movement” as MAS.
In May 2005, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross reported in The Weekly Standard that MAS is a U.S. front group for the Muslim Brotherhood -- a claim supported by a September 19, 2004 Chicago Tribune story -- and, as such, wishes to see the United States governed by sharia, or Islamic law. "The message that all countries should be ruled by Islamic law," writes Gartenstein-Ross, "is echoed throughout MAS's membership curriculum. For example, MAS requires all its adjunct members to read Fathi Yakun's book To Be a Muslim. In that volume, Yakun spells out his expansive agenda: 'Until the nations of the world have functionally Islamic governments, every individual who is careless or lazy in working for Islam is sinful.'" MAS's ties to the Muslim Brotherhood were confirmed on August 14, 2007, as The Investigative Project on Terrorism reported:
"As the terror-support trial of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) continued today, FBI agent Lara Burns testified that a phonebook found at the home of Ismail Elbarrasse -- un-indicted co-conspirator and former assistant to HAMAS leader Musa Abu Marzook -- listed the names and numbers of the Muslim Brotherhood leadership in the United States. On the first page of the phonebook under the title ‘Members of the Board of Directors’ were fifteen names. Among those names are Ahmad Elkadi, Jamal Badawi, and Omar Soubani: the founding incorporators of the Muslim American Society (MAS)."
The Investigative Project continued:
"This evidence confirms ... Matthew Levitt’s expert testimony that MAS is the representative of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States, and is substantiated by a [2004] Chicago Tribune article that outlined the history of MAS.
"Ahmad Elkadi, who told the Chicago Tribune that he was the leader of the Brotherhood in the U.S. from 1984-1994, worked with Mohammed Mahdi Akef, head of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood since 2003, to advocate for the founding of MAS. According to the Tribune report, Akef and Elkadi pushed for more openness for the Muslim Brotherhood through MAS. Akef himself ‘says he helped found MAS by lobbying for the change during trips to the U.S.’ “In fact, MAS does not deny its Muslim Brotherhood foundations. In 2004, then-Secretary General of MAS Shaker Elsayed stated to the Tribune that ‘Ikhwan [Brotherhood] members founded MAS…’ Elsayed even went so far as to admit that about 45 percent of MAS’s active members belong to the Brotherhood. Federal officials have confirmed this, noting continued ties between MAS and the Muslim Brotherhood."
MAS is described by Stephen Schwartz, author of The Two Faces of Islam, as "a major component" of the "Wahhabi Lobby" that channels money from and advances the policies of Muslim-fundamentalist Saudi Arabia.
MAS publishes The American Muslim magazine. In a July 2003 article titled "Reaching the Roots of Terrorism," author Omer bin Abdullah blames America's "forceful" foreign policy for having provoked the 9/11 attacks. "Terrorism enables the weak to confront the strong,” he writes, “and thus has an enduring appeal to those who are dissatisfied with the status quo. … Its causes usually can be traced to political oppression, cultural domination, economic exploitation, ethnic discrimination, and religious persecution. … The U.S. has placed itself in a corner: It insists that other governments stop, prevent, and even help it to fight terrorism, and yet arms such practitioners of state terrorism as Tel Aviv. Today, terrorism refers to those whom the U.S. dislikes, especially Muslims.”
In 2002 Randall Royer was the Communications Director of MAS. The following year, federal agents arrested Royer and charged him with conspiring with a Pakistani Wahhabist group -- Lashkar-I-Taibi, or "Army of the Righteous" -- to commit terrorism in Kashmir, Chechnya and elsewhere.
Closely linked to MAS is the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, whose Executive Director is Mahdi Bray, a former Students for a Democratic Society activist now affiliated with International ANSWER, an anti-war front group for the Communist World Workers Party. "Our mission," Bray has written, "is to build an integrated empowerment process for the American Muslim community." Toward this end, Bray and MAS have been involved in a voter-registration drive and an effort to train 1,000 "activists" in the "skills necessary for effective activism."
MAS also has close ties to Islamic American University, an unaccredited university in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, which teaches Islamic law and other subjects. (One IAU faculty member is Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, who until at least June 2003 was also the Chairman -- in abstentia -- of the university's Board of Trustees. )
In addition, MAS operates programs for educating the young, providing fellowship for Muslim youth, creating its own network of Islamic schools, and sustaining a nationwide Council of Imams.
MAS was a signatory to a February 20, 2002 document, composed by the radical group Refuse & Resist, condemning military tribunals and the detention of immigrants apprehended in connection with post-9/11 terrorism investigations.
MAS strongly opposes the Patriot Act, which it says “strips away the fundamental checks and balances that safeguard many of our basic civil liberties,” and has “drastically infringed upon every American's rights by giving the government expanded powers to invade privacy, imprison and deport people without due process, and punish political dissent.”
As of early June 2007, the Minnesota chapter of MAS featured the following anti-Semitic, pro-jihad quotes on its website, www.masmn.org:
- “The Holy Prophet (and through him the Muslims) has been reassured that he should not mind the enmity, the evil designs and the machinations of the Jews ...”
- “In view of the degenerate moral condition of the Jews and the Christians, the Believers have been warned not to make them their friends and confidants.”
- “If you gain victory over the men of Jews, kill them.”
- “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say, ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.'”
- “May Allah destroy the Jews, because they used the graves of their prophets as places of worship.”
- “A Muslim must always worship Allah and wage jihad until death in order to reach his ultimate goal … Regularly make the intention to go on jihad with the ambition to die as a martyr.”
In September 2007, MAS President Esam S. Omeish, who was also a member of Virginia's Commission of Immigration, resigned in disgrace from his MAS post after it was revealed that he had been videotaped at a December 22, 2000 rally in Washington, DC, telling a Muslim audience: "... we are here today ... to tell our brothers and sisters in Palestine that you have learned the way; that you have known that the jihad way is the way to liberate your land. And we, by standing here today ... we are telling them that 'we are with you, we are supporting you, and we will do everything that we can ... to help your cause.'" (Click here for this December 2000 video.) Another damning video showed Omeish, at an August 12, 2006 rally in Washington, denouncing an invasion of Lebanon by the "Israeli war machine"; accusing Israel of genocide and massacres against Palestinians; and claiming that the "Israeli agenda" controls the U.S. Congress.
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