The International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) has reported that an international seminar held in Tunisia during November 2012 included Dr. Salah Sultan, a notorious anti-Semite and formerly part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. According to the IUMS report, the seminar was titled “Women in Islamic Sharia Law”:
The opening session of the international seminar held in Tunisia along the 10th and 11th of November 2012 under the title « Women in Islamic Sharia Law » saw attendance from Dr. Siham Badi, Tunisian Minister for Women Affairs and Family, and Dr. Nour Al-Din Al-Khadimi, Minister of Religious Affairs. The sessions covered several lectures on topics related to women in the Islamic law system like inheritance, guardianship and equality with men in legislative law in light of the recently drafted Tunisian constitution and international agreements. The lectures were given by a select of scholars and intellects from Tunisia and other countries coming from different backgrounds and specializations. Among the speakers was Dr. Salah Al-Din Sultan, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs in Egypt, and member of the IUMS board of trustees. Dr. Salah discussed different sides related to inheritance and clarified many parts that were vague in people’s minds over women rights in inheritance. Dr. Jamila El-Mossalli, Moroccan member of parliament, tackled international agreements and their relation to setting women’s rights in the new constitution. She went through the details of the Sedao treaty as an example of the effect for women and family while other speakers covered other important and sensitive issues extensively. Among the attendees were some members of the constituent assembly, on top of them Al-Habib Khedr, General Commissioner for the constitution and Farida Labidi who both gave two brief contributions on women and their rights in the new Tunisian constitution. The seminars witnessed an overall positive response from the attendees as questions were posed and the answers provided. A discussion was held following each lecture where huge numbers among the attendance participated. Three workshops were held at the conclusion of the seminar that discussed equality, inheritance, guardianship, women in office, local legislation and international agreements. A concluding statement was declared at the end of the seminar proposing a number of recommendations that were presented to the National Constituent Assembly through its Deputy Speaker Mehrezia Labidi who gave the honor of attending the concluding session of the seminar. The seminar notably received wide media coverage through audio, visual and print media in Tunisia and abroad. The morning schedule of the second day was also broadcasted live on Aljazeera Mubasher satellite channel. “
In October 2012, a post reported that Dr. Sultan had been appointed as Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (SCIF) attached to the Egyptian Ministry of Waqf.
Dr. Salah Sultan (aka Solah Sultan, Sallah Sultan) had left the U.S. following negative press reports in the U.S. media about his extremist statements which led the authorities there to suspend his application for American citizenship and, as discussed in a previous post, relocated to Bahrain in 2007 where he was appointed as adviser to the head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs in that country. Dr Sultan’s online CV, now removed from the Internet, indicates that he is or was a member of several important U.S. and European Muslim Brotherhood organizations including the European Council for Fatwa and Research, the Fiqh Council of North America, and the Islamic American University, closely associated with the Muslim American Society (MAS).This resume also expressed Dr. Soltan’s vision “To live happily. To die as a martyr.” Another previous post discussed some of Dr. Sultan statements including an appearance on Saudi TV where Dr. Sultan asserted that the US planned the 9/11 attacks as a pretext for terrorizing the world and praising Osama bin Laden confidante Abd Al-Majid Al-Zindani. Another post discussed a seminar featuring Dr. Sultan sponsored by the European Assembly for Imams and Spiritual Guides, closely associated with the Federation of Islamic Organizations In Europe (FIOE). Dr. Sultan is also known to be a a prominent member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) headed by Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi.
In November a post reported that Dr. Sultan had given two sermons on Al-Aqsa TV in which he said he has met people all over the world who “thirst for the blood of the Jews” and that Jews have entered Egypt in order to commit crimes including deliberately infecting Egyptian girls with AIDS. In a March TV interview he cited the notorious anti-Semitic forgery the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as well as predicting the end of Israel and the United States. In another recent TV interview Dr. Sultan called for young people to practice sports in order to prepare themselves for Jihad to liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Another recent post discussed demands by Sultan for violent actions against Israeli by Egyptians, this time issuing a fatwa (religious ruling) calling for the killing of the Israeli ambassador on Alzajeera TV. A post from August 2011 reported that Sultan had said it is permissible for any Egyptian to kill a Zionist met on Egyptian territory. In April 2010, Dr. Sultan accused Jews of using Christian blood for Matzoh (substitute for bread used during the Jewish holiday of Passover) in an example of what is called “blood libel”, the accusations that Jews use human blood in religious rituals. (Historically these are accusations that the blood of Christian children is especially coveted and date back to the 1st Century . In 2008 he made other virulently anti-Semitic and anti-American comments on Egyptian TV.
The IUMS was launched on July 11, 2004 in conjunction with a visit by Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi to London for a meeting of the European Council for Fatwa and Research. Many prominent individuals tied to the Global Muslim Brotherhood and/or Hamas are or have been associated with the IUMS including:
- Rachid Ghannouchi (leader of the Tunisian Muslim Brotherhood)
- Ismail Haniyeh (Hamas Prime Minister in Gaza)
- Safwat Hegazi (close to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood )
- Isam al-Bashir (Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood leader)
- Jamal Badawi (U.S. Muslim Brotherhood leader)
- Mohammad Sawalha (U.K. Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas)
- Basheer Nafi (Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader, formerly associated with the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)
- Isaq Farhan (Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood)
- Dr. Salah Sultan (discussed above)