Australian media is reporting that the organizer of an Islamic conference to be held in Melbourne has met in the past with Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi. According to the Sydney Morning Herald report:
March 25, 2015 The organiser of an Islamic conference to be held in Melbourne has met a sheikh who supported jihad in Syria and the use of suicide bombers against Israelis.
Waseem Razvi will hold the second Peace Conference on Sunday, two years after a similar event was criticised for supporting anti-Semitic and sexist views.
It can be revealed that Mr Razvi met Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, head of the International Union for Muslim Scholars, after the ‘great success’ of the previous conference.
Qaradawi has been widely condemned for issuing fatwas in support of suicide bombing in Israel in the 1990s, and the travel of Muslims to Syria to fight against the Assad regime.
Last year, Interpol issued an arrest warrant for Qaradawi, who is wanted by Egyptian authorities for incitement and assistance to commit murder, helping prisoners to escape, arson, vandalism and theft. According to Egyptian media, the charges relate to a prison escape during the 2011 uprising that ousted president Hosni Mubarak.
Qaradawi, 88, is also reported to have twice been offered the Egyptian leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, and has been banned from entering the US and UK.
Mr Razvi, the president and founder of the Islamic Research and Educational Academy (IREA), wrote on the group’s Facebook page in November 2013 that he visited Qaradawi in Qatar, where he has lived since fleeing his native Egypt.
He wrote that Qaradawi supported the weekly street dawah organised by the IREA, which involves members speaking to the public and handing out free copies of the Koran, pamphlets and CDs in a bid to convert them to Islam. The IREA regularly holds dawah in Melbourne’s CBD, including in Bourke Street mall and at Flinders Street station.
Read the rest here.
In February 2012, the GMBDW reported that a US Islamic investment firm with strong ties to the Global Muslim Brotherhood had entered into an agreement with an Australian “Islamic wealth manager” with its own ties to the Australian Brotherhood in a connection with a new Islamic equity fund to be launched in Australia. In May 2008, we reported that reported that six Australian-based Muslim clerics, all advisors to the former Prime Minter John Howard, were being paid by the government of Saudi Arabia although they had asserted their independence.
Youssef Qaradawi is the most important leader of the Global Muslim Brotherhood and is the de facto spiritual leader of the movement.
For more information on Qaradawi, go here.