Dr. Jasser Auda is a Qatari professor best known as a a key advisor to Imamn Feisal Rauf, in turn known for his attempts to build an Islamic center two blocks away from the site of the 911 attacks. In December 2008, Dr. Auda accompanied Dr. Rauf on a visit to the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) in order to explain the Shari’ah Index Project, part of Rauf’s Cordoba Initiative organization. Dr. Auda was member of the Advisory Council of Scholars for the Project.
According to his bio, Dr. Auda has a number of ties to a number of Global Muslim Brotherhood organizations including being:
- A founding member of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), headed by Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi and whose board of directors is comprised of many leaders of the Global Brotherhood.
- A member of the Academic Council of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a part of the US Muslim Brotherhood founded in 1980 by U.S. Muslim Brotherhood leaders who wished to promote the Islamization of Knowledge as conceived by and who were also early leaders of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).
- A member of the Executive Board of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists UK, founded in the US in 1972 as an outgrowth of the Muslim Student Association by important members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and part of the Islamization of KNowledge Project. AMSS has close relations with IIIT.
Dr. Auda is currently the Deputy Director of the Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics, headed by Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Tariq Ramadan.
In an interview with an Islamic news portal, Dr. Auda was asked about the main challenges facing American Muslims, Dr. Auda replies replies alleging that racists and bigots, some with “Zionist agendas” are the main challenge facing American Muslims:
I think the challenges are mostly political. Of course there are cultural challenges where they have to kind of develop the initiatives that they took, in mosques being more family-friendly and women-friendly, and I think this is very important to develop. But I think the major challenge is political because there are so many people who have a political agenda against minorities in general, on racial basis or partisan basis or something. And these people are very powerful in the media, some of them have some Zionist agendas, some of them are pro-Israel and they think that the American Muslims are going to be a problem for their political views, and political agendas. So this is the main challenge in America for Muslims from my perspective.