Virtual Conference Brings Together Global Muslim Brotherhood Leaders To “Revive” International Youth/Student Group

On 27 Feb­ru­ary 2021, the Inter­na­tion­al Islam­ic Fed­er­a­tion of Stu­dent Orga­ni­za­tions (IIFSO), essen­tial­ly the inter­na­tion­al youth/student orga­ni­za­tion of the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB), held a vir­tu­al “revival” con­fer­ence titled “Togeth­er For A Brighter Future” and that fea­tured speak­ing appear­ances by a large num­ber of Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­ers. Accord­ing to an IIFSO Face­book post:

The revival of IIFSO! Learn and be inspired by the lead­ing thinkers from around the world at the IIFSO Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence 2021. Reg­is­tra­tion open­ing soon.

Read the rest here.

The IIFSO describes itself as “a his­toric glob­al orga­ni­za­tion of Mus­lim stu­dent asso­ci­a­tions” but most of the con­fer­ence’s 28 slots were tak­en by speak­ers known to be tied to the GMB and/or to hold extrem­ist and anti-Semit­ic views, including:

• Dalia Moga­hed: Direc­tor of Research at the US Insti­tute for Social Pol­i­cy and Under­stand­ing, a group whose Board of Advi­sors and staff includes promi­nent fig­ures in the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. In 2009, Ms. Moga­hed was appoint­ed to Pres­i­dent Obama’s Advi­so­ry Coun­cil on Faith-Based and Neigh­bor­hood Part­ner­ships. Moga­hed has also been a pro­tégé of George­town Uni­ver­si­ty aca­d­e­m­ic Dr. John Espos­i­to, a long-time sup­port­er of the GMB.

• Wadah Khan­far: Pres­i­dent of the Al Sharq Forum and for­mer Direc­tor-Gen­er­al of the Al Jazeera Media Net­work. In Jan­u­ary 2009, our pre­de­ces­sor pub­li­ca­tion ana­lyzed Khanfar’s  Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and pos­si­ble Hamas back­ground. Khan­far was also the for­mer IIFSO Direc­tor of Human Resource Development.

• Anwar Ibrahim: For­mer Malaysian Deputy Prime Min­is­ter and co-founder of the Inter­na­tion­al Insti­tute of Islam­ic Thought (IIIT), a long-stand­ing insti­tu­tion in the US Broth­er­hood. Dur­ing the 1970s and 1980s, Ibrahim has also served as a trustee for the Sau­di World Assem­bly of Mus­lim Youth (WAMY), cre­at­ed to glob­al­ly prop­a­gate Sau­di ‘Wah­habi’ Islam.

• Ous­sama Jamal: Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the US MB umbrel­la Unit­ed States Coun­cil of Mus­lim Orga­ni­za­tions (USCMO) and long-time leader of New Jersey’s Bridge­wa­ter mosque, which is tied to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and whose mem­bers were known to have raised funds for Hamas-linked char­i­ties.

• Mohsin Ansari: Pres­i­dent of the Islam­ic Cir­cle of North Amer­i­ca (ICNA), an impor­tant part of the US MB.

• Anis Ahmad, first Vice-Pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Islam­ic Uni­ver­si­ty in Islam­abad, Pak­istan, and for­mer Pres­i­dent of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Mus­lim Social Sci­en­tists (AMSS), part of the US MB network.

• Ayman Ham­mous: Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Mus­lim Amer­i­can Soci­ety (MAS).

• Suhaib Webb: A for­mer imam of the MB-tied Islam­ic Soci­ety of Boston who has long been involved with the MAS.

• Heba Raouf Ezzat: Polit­i­cal Sci­ence Researcher and team mem­ber of the Doha Research Cen­ter for Islam­ic Leg­is­la­tion and Ethics(CILE), for­mer­ly head­ed by GMB leader Tariq Ramadan.

• Taqi Usmani: A for­mer Pak­istani Supreme Court Jus­tice who has called for “aggres­sive mil­i­tary jihad” to estab­lish glob­al Islam­ic supremacy.

• Lin­da Sar­sour: Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the US Mus­lim civ­il rights NGO MPow­er Change, which has coop­er­at­ed with impor­tant orga­ni­za­tions in the US MB. Sar­sour has become known for her harsh crit­i­cism of Israel, and in 2012, our pre­de­ces­sor pub­li­ca­tion was the first to report about Sarsour’s fam­i­ly ties to Hamas. In Sep­tem­ber 2019, The Wash­ing­ton Post report­ed that Lin­da Sar­sour had resigned as co-chair of the Women’s March move­ment fol­low­ing accu­sa­tions of anti-Semi­tism and finan­cial mismanagement.

• Omar Abdelka­fi: An Egypt­ian cler­ic close to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood who has made anti-Semit­ic state­ments and con­tro­ver­sial remarks about 9/11 and the 2015 Paris ter­ror attacks. He has also said that “Mus­lims should not shake hands with Chris­tians, or wish them well on Chris­t­ian hol­i­days, or walk on the same side­walk with them.”

• Tim­o­thy Win­ter, aka. Abdal-Hakim Murad: Pro­fes­sor of Islam­ic Stud­ies at the Aziz Foun­da­tion, a British schol­ar­ship orga­ni­za­tion whose lead­er­ship is tied to sev­er­al orga­ni­za­tions in the Euro­pean MB net­work, includ­ing the Euro­pean Net­work Against Racism and the Mus­lim Coun­cil of Britain.

Found­ed in 1969, the IIFSO received its ini­tial impe­tus from the estab­lish­ment of the Mus­lim Stu­dent Asso­ci­a­tion in the US, the fore­run­ner of what would grow to become the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. Many impor­tant lead­ers of the GMB have served as IIFSO offi­cers over the years. A memo pur­port­ing to be a 1998 brief­ing doc­u­ment pre­pared for South African Pres­i­dent Thabo Mbe­ki describes the IIFSO as work­ing close­ly with Hamas. For more about the IIFSO, see a report authored by the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) editor.