News reports on the Swiss ban on new minaret construction are frequently quoting the the imam of the Grand Mosque of Geneva, an individual with ties to the globalMuslim Brotherhood. For example, the New York Times reports on the minaret controversy as follows:
Muslim leaders have tried to keep out of the spotlight and to avoid internationalizing the issue, shunning interviews with most news outlets from Muslim countries, according to Youssef Ibram, an imam at Geneva’s main mosque and Islamic Cultural Foundation. Still, the campaign was accompanied by sporadic shows of hostility. Last week, vandals threw stones and a pot of paint at Geneva’s main mosque. In an interview before the referendum, Mr. Ibram said that whatever the outcome of the vote, Muslims would lose out from a campaign that had played on fears of Islam and exposed deep-seated opposition to their community among many Swiss.
A previous post discussed the hiring of Mr. Ibram following the sacking of four mosque executives who claimed they were fired for being too moderate. However according to a State Department report in April 2004, Swiss Muslims in Geneva complained that “foreign imams invited to the Grand Mosque of Geneva for a prayer were giving radical speeches, sometimes filled with invectives against the Jewish population and western countries.” Mr. Ibram is a member of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, a theological body headed by Youssef Qaradawi, the leader of the global Muslim brotherhood network. Mr. Ibrahim, who studied Islamic law in Saudi Arabia, resigned from his former position as imam of the Islamic Center in Zurich in 2004 as a result of controversy arising from his position regarding the stoning of adulterers. Mr. Ibram was reported to have said at that time “Regarding stoning, I cannot be against it since it is included in the Islamic law.”