On 28 May 2022, Nihad Awad, the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), participated in a meeting of Global Muslim Brotherhood (GMB) leaders in the Qatari capital of Doha. According to a Facebook post by the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS):
His Eminence Sheikh Dr. Ali Al Qura Daghi, Secretary-General of the [IUMS], held a dinner banquet in honor of a number of leaders of Islamic institutions, scientists, researchers, academics and media persons who participated in the 14th Doha Conference for Interfaith Dialogue. [Translated from Arabic original using Google.]
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According to the post, discussion topics included Palestine, Islamophobia, and Muslim minority societies. In addition to several IUMS officials, the gathering featured GMB leaders from across the globe, including:
- Nihad Awad, Executive Director of American Islamic Relations Council (CAIR)
- Abu Jarra Sultani, an IUMS member and head of the Algerian GMB party Movement of Society for Peace.
- Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, an IUMS member and the former Grand Mufti of Australia. Mohammed is known for his misogynist views and in 2015, was criticized for not condemning the Paris terrorist attacks.
- Abdel-Hamid Al-Hamdi, Chairman of the Danish Islamic Council, a member of the Council of European Muslims. Al-Hamdi also serves as Chairman of the Hamad bin Khalifa Centre in Copenhagen, funded by the Emir of Qatar.
Founded in 2004, the IUMS is an international body of Muslim theologians whose leadership is closely tied to the GMB and, until recently, was led by GMB spiritual guide Youssef Qaradawi. Several prominent European Muslim faith leaders tied to the GMB were IUMS members and/or have served as IUMS Trustees, including former Oxford University Islamic Studies professor Tariq Ramadan and Ahmed Jaballah, a senior leader in the French and Global Muslim Brotherhood.
CAIR describes itself as “a grassroots civil rights and advocacy group and as “America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group.” It was founded in 1994 by three officers of the Islamic Association of Palestine, part of the US Hamas infrastructure at that time. Documents discovered during the terrorism trial of the Holy Land Foundation confirmed that the founders and current leaders of CAIR were part of the Palestine Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood and that CAIR itself is part of the US Muslim Brotherhood. Recently, CAIR has been generally portrayed in the media as a Muslim civil rights group.
In October 2021, the Global Influence Operations Report (GIOR) reported that the IUMS had welcomed a Taliban leadership delegation from the then newly established Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan to their headquarters in Doha, where they vowed future collaboration. In April 2022, the GIOR reported that the Secretary-General of the IUMS Jerusalem Committee claimed in a Turkish TV interview that Jews had instigated the war in Ukraine to establish a Jewish state in Ukraine, replacing Israel.