US media is reporting on an interfaith event held recently on the US-Mexican border and hosted by groups and individuals tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood. According to the report:
October 28, 2019 Imam Omar Suleiman led a binational prayer Sunday (Oct. 27) at Friendship Park, a historic meeting place on the U.S.-Mexico border that overlooks the Pacific Ocean between San Diego and Tijuana. Participants believe it was the first time a formal Muslim prayer was shared across the U.S.-Mexico border wall. “There is no barrier between us and the heavens today,” said Suleiman, founder of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research in Irving, Texas, who stood on the U.S. side of the wall. Suleiman delivered a message of solidarity with migrants and deportees at “Pray Beyond Borders,” a binational day of prayer that invited Muslim, Christian and Jewish faith leaders. The event was held to commemorate the six-month anniversary of Border Mosque, a group of Muslims that meets for prayer at the border on the last Sunday of the month. Those prayers coincide with Border Church, or La Iglesia Fronteriza, a Sunday service held for the last decade at the border and led by the Rev. John Fanestil, a United Methodist minister. Since April, the Border Mosque group has joined Fanestil in prayer once a month.
Read the rest here.
Omar Suleiman is an Islamic scholar who has spoken at multiple joint conferences of the Muslim American Society (MAS) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), both part of the US Muslim Brotherhood. According to a photo posted on a related website, other hosts of the event included a number of individuals tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood, including:
- Zaid Shakir (co-founded a college with Hatem Bazian, identified below)
- Taha Hassane (MAS)
- Council on American-Islamic Relations California (CAIR)
In addition, the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research lists several US Brotherhood figures as members of its team:
- Hatem Bazian (President of the American Muslims for Palestine, part of the US Hamas support infrastructure)
- Ihsan Bagby (Muslim Alliance of North America, Fiqh Council of North America, Islamic Society of North America (ISNA, CAIR)
- Dalia Mogahed (family ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, protégé of John Esposito, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding)
- Abrar Omeish (daughter of Esam Omeish, a former leader of MAS)
- Lobna Mulla (MAS)
The CAIR San Diego branch is also involved with the Border Mosque; providing photos for another article on the event, co-hosting its Facebook event series, and publishing a video on the events.
The GMBDW has previously reported on US Brotherhood efforts to court Hispanics. In November 2013 we reported on ICNA’s bilingual “awareness campaign” in the United States and Mexico and in April 2011t hat ISNA had announced the expansion of its mosque/synagogue “twinning program” to Latin America.