Local and Islamic media are reporting on the death of Dr. Hassan Hathout, a leader at the Islamic Center of Southern California (ICSC) and the brother of Mather Hathout, a leader of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), also associated with the ICSC. According to a report posted on a local news portal:
Dr. Hassan Hathout, 84, a scientist and ethicist, died Saturday, April 25 in Pasadena after prolonged sickness. A pioneer in American Muslim movement, Dr. Hathout was a co-founder of the International Organization of Medical Sciences and the Interfaith Council of Southern California. Dr. Hathout was a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) committee on ethics of human reproduction. He was a keynote speaker at the first Christian-Muslim celebration at the White House in 1999. According to his colleagues, he worked closely with the Vatican…..Of Egyptian origin, Dr. Hathout was a physician by profession and came to U.S. in 1989. …Dr. Hathout received many awards from interfaith and humanitarian communities, including the Jewish Christian Muslim Olive Branch award and the Initiatives of Change Life Changer award. According to Muslim leaders, Dr. Hathout played an important role in serving Muslim issues in the U.S. and around the world. Dr. Hathout studied at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and received Ph.D. in the field of reproductive genetics. He has written on medicine, ethics and religion….The scholar is survived by his wife of more than fifty-six years, Salonas, a retired pathologist, his daughter, Eba, and his grandchildren Sarrah and Hassaan Shahawy.
Islam Online adds further biographical information:
A physician by profession, Dr. Hathout, of Egyptian origin, came to the United States in 1989 with the goal of making da`wa to the American people. He was a co-founder of the International Organization of Medical Sciences, designed with the goal of dissemination of God-guided medical ethics. Additionally, he was the co-founder of the Interfaith Council of Southern California Dr. Hathout was the keynote speaker at the first Christian-Muslim celebration at the White House in 1999. He was also an active member of the World Health Organization (WHO) committee on ethics of human reproduction, and a close affiliate to the Vatican.
Omitted from the obituaries is Dr. Hathout’s early history in Egypt which strongly suggests he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and a disciple of Brotherhood founder Hassan El Banna who he once referred to as “my teacher.” Dr. Hathout is known to have volunteered to serve in Palestine in 1948, possible with Muslim Brotherhood units fighting at that time. Dr. Hathout once wrote that he and his brother Mather were imprisoned in Egypt, probably in 1965, alluding to his activities as part of the Muslim Brotherhood. Sometime following their release from imprisonment in Egypt, perhaps in 1968, Dr. Hathout’s daughter writes that Dr. Hathout emigrated to Europe by “political necessity.” Following medical training in Scotland, Dr. Hathout relocated to Kuwait where online biographies state that he co-founded the Kuwait Medical School and served as a Professor of OBGYN at that school from 1973 to 1988. As noted above, In 1989, Dr. Hathout immigrated to the U.S with his physician wife where be began serving the Islamic Center of Southern California (ICSC). In addition to his ICSC position, Dr. Hathout was on the advisory board of the now-defunct American Muslim Council, given an award for service to the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, a Board Member of the magazine “The Minaret” and was listed as a speaker for the Muslim World League of Canada, all four organizations associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood. Dr. Hathout attended Islamic medical meetings also attended by global Muslim Brotherhood leaders Youssef Qaradawi and Taher Al-Alwani as well as by Dr. Ahmad AI-Qadi, the recently deceased former leader of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.
Supporting his role as an important figure in the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, media reports cite numerous accolades from U.S. and global Brotherhood leaders including Muzammil Siddiqi (Chairman of the Fiqh Council of North America), Nihad Awad, (executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations), Shaker El-Sayed (Muslim American Society), and Kemal El-Helbawy (former Muslim Brotherhood spokesman for Europe).