In the second part of his interview with OnIslam, the Internet portal associated with Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi, Feisal Rauf advisor Dr. Jasser Auda reveals that he had a role the committee that proposed an Imam training course at Leiden University in the Netherlands. According to the interview:
I had the honor to participate in the Leiden University Committee that had proposed the Imams program in Leiden University. They had a program that is supposed to be a requirement before an Imam becomes an Imam in Holland,
According to Dutch media, the Imam course was a joint initiative of Milli Görüs, the Turkish Islamist organization with close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe, and the RMMN, an umbrella group of islamic organisations, headed by Yahia Bouyafa, a Muslim Brotherhood leader in the Netherlands.
In December 2008, the International Institute of Islamic Thought reported that Dr. Auda accompanied Dr. Rauf on a visit to 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. An online biography reveals that Dr. Auda has ties to a number of Global Muslim Brotherhood organizations including being:
-A founding member of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), headed by 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 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.
An earlier post discussed Dr. Auda’s comments in the first part of the OnIslam interview in which he alleges that racists and bigots, some with “Zionist agendas” are the main challenge facing American Muslims.