Virtually all Islamic invitees to the upcoming Muslim World League Interfaith Conference from the U.S. and Europe are associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood and one U.S. invitee has a right-wing extremist background. According to the conference list, the following individuals from the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood have been invited:
- Muzammil Siddiqui, former President Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)
- Ingrid Mattson, ISNA
- Nihad Awad, Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR)
- Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR
- Ahmed Youns (presumably Ahmed Younis), formerly Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)
- Jamal Badawi, ISNA and the Muslim American Society
Also invited is John Esposito, a U.S. academic known to be a supporter of the Brotherhood and Dr. William Baker who has been feature at a number of U.S. Brotherhood events over the years. In 2002, the Orange County Weekly detailed the neo-Nazi ties of Dr. Baker which included:
- In 1984, Baker was national chairman of Costa Mesa-based Holocaust denier Willis Carto’s Populist Party.”
- Baker delivered a 1983 speech to the racist Christian Patriot Defense League in Licking, Missouri, in which he made several references to Carto’s neo-Nazi newspaper, Spotlight. A 23-page transcript of that rambling speech reveals a number of anti-Semitic remarks.”
- During the same period, Baker wrote and published Theft of a Nation, a 1982 book whose salient feature is its unrelenting pro-Arab, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish politics.”
There were several other U.S. invitees most of whom also have links to the Brotherhood. The Reverend Jessie Jackson has also been invited.
The European and Middle Eastern invitees follow the same pattern, In Germany, for example, the two Muslim invitees are Ayyub Axel Kohler and Nadeem Elyas, both associated with the Brotherhood and in the U.K., the former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood dominated Muslim Council of Britain as well as pro-Brotherhood academic Karen Armstrong are invited. Mustafa Ceric, the Grand Mufti Of Bosnia and a European Brotherhood leader, is also on the list of invitees.
Middle Eastern invitees include the head of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), another Saudi Islamist organization tied to the Brotherhood and Isham Al Basheer whose Brotherhood associations have been explored in previous posts. Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi is not on the list although it had been reported earlier that he was asked to attend. However, the list does include Muhammad Salim Al-Awwa, one of Qaradawi’s deputies at the International Union of Muslim Scholars.
Earlier posts have described the background of the conference which has received attention because of the participation of Jewish rabbis including David Rosen, an Israeli rabbi whose description on the list omits any connection to Israel. An earlier list also included rabbis from the group known as Neturei Karta, which are generally characterized as “anti-Zionist” Jews opposed to the creation and existence of the state of Israel. Earlier posts have discussed the participation of Neturei Karta in Muslim Brotherhood propaganda events. The group does not appear on the current list of invitees to the Muslim World League (MWL) event.
A report from an Arabic English language newspaper says that according to MWL officials, the conference will not be taking up substantive issues:
Abdullah Al-Turki, secretary-general of the Muslim World League (MWL), the main organizer, said the conference would not discuss controversial religious and political issues. “It will focus on common human values,” he said.Al-Turki said King Abdullah had called for the conference in order to solve the problems facing humanity, such as the destruction of the family system, the disappearance of moral values and conflicts between nations.
The Muslim World League was established in 1962 as a means for the propagation of Saudi “Wahabbi” Islam. Muslim Brothers played an important role in its founding and, to date, the League has been strongly associated with the Brotherhood. As an earlier post on the upcoming Madrid conference has discussed, there is good reason to believe that this conference is likely a public relations exercise on the part of the MWL. Far more convincing of sincere intent would have been the choice of Saudi Arabia itself as a venue to host the Jewish participants.