The GMBDW was the first publication to report the Islamist ties of Saleha Abedin, the mother of Huma Abedin who is a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton and which have since become part of the political firestorm that began in 2012 when a group of House representatives sent letters to five federal agencies demanding investigations into alleged infiltration of the US government by the Muslim Brotherhood. Many of these ties center on the Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMM) edited by Saleha Abedin and which has featured Brotherhood supporter and Saudi-funded Georgetown professor John Esposito on its advisory board (see more on Esposito below). The IMM itself was founded by Syed Z. Abedin, Huma’s father, and has been described as having had “the quiet but active support” of Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef, then General Secretary of the Saudi Muslim World League (MWL), established in 1962 as a means for the propagation of Saudi “Wahabbi” Islam. Muslim Brothers played an important role in its founding and, to date, the League has been strongly associated with the Brotherhood.
Saleha Abedin has additional ties to Saudi Islamists and the Global Muslim Brotherhood including:
- Serving as an adviser to the college President and founding member of the Dar El-Hekma women’s college in Saudi Arabia. A pre-911 archived list of the college’s “Establisher’s and Trustees” included prominent Saudi Islamic bankers, a member of the Bin Laden family, and Yaseen Abdullah Kadi (aka Yassin Abdullah Kadi) who on October 12, 2001 was added to the list of designated terrorists by the U.S.Treasury. In February 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke to students at Dar El-Hekma.
- Serving as a board member of the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief (IICDR), an umbrella group for 86 Islamic organizations, many of which are associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas fundraising, or support for Al Qaeda. The IICDR was banned by Israel in July 2008 as one of a group of organizations belonging to the Union of Good, a coalition of charities headed by Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi that help to raise funds for Hamas.
- Serving as a representative of the Muslim World League (MWL).
(There have also been Arabic-language reports that Saleha Abedin was included on a list of members of a “Muslim Sisterhood” but the reliability of this information is unknown at the current time). The Center for Security Policy has published an analysis of Saleha Abedin’s views on women as presented in her book “Women In Islam.”