By Walid Shoebat and Ben Barrack
**SHOEBAT EXCLUSIVE**
Twenty-five years ago, Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradwai traveled to America and unpacked his plan for a Muslim takeover that would begin one year later and take 30 years to complete. It included a key component and tactic known as Muruna. Like the Ebola virus, it is extremely effective at carrying out its deadly mission.
Since discovering a shocking photo earlier this year that showed al-Qaradawi at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, VA with then mosque chairman Bassam Estwani, a third figure in the photo has been overlooked – until now. Shoebat.com has determined that the man sitting between al-Qaradawi and Estwani is Shaker Elsayed, the current Imam at Dar al-Hijrah (2005 – present) and former Secretary General of the Muslim American Society (MAS), a Muslim Brotherhood front group (2000-2005).
Yusuf al-Qaradawi (L), Shaker Elsayed (C), and Bassam Estwani (R)
Dar al-Hijrah was opened in 1991 and MAS was founded in 1992, seven years before al-Qaradawi was banned from the U.S. in 1999. Elsayed did not become an Imam at Dar al-Hijrah until 2005. Yet, somehow he was able to have a seat at the table with al-Qaradawi inside Dar al-Hijrah years before becoming a leader with MAS.
Elsayed’s history with Estwani, who has been a mover and shaker with U.S. politicians – to include Bill and Hillary Clinton as early as 1995 – dates back to about the same time frame. Here is a more recent photo of Estwani and Elsayed in Honolulu, Hawaii:
Elsayed (circled) with Estwani (far right) in Honolulu.
As Shoebat.com reported, al-Qaradawi is the primary scholar of an insidious Sunni Islamic tactic known as Muruna. Westerners have rightly begun to understand Taqiyya – lying to protect the faith of Islam – but this is a Shiite term and practice. Muruna is a much more immediate threat to the U.S. In fact, any Muslim Brotherhood infiltrator of the U.S. Government is very likely employing it right now.
Though the photo of the three men inside Dar al-Hijrah is undated, it was likely taken circa 1997, nearly a decade after al-Qaradawi introduced Muruna to stealth Muslim Brotherhood operatives in the U.S. Thanks to Steve Emerson’s 1994 PBS documentary Jihad in America, we have a screen shot of what al-Qaradawi looked like the year he brought perhaps the most deceptive Muslim tactic yet to America’s shores and inside our walls:
Yusuf al-Qaradawi at Dar al-Hijrah (L) and Kansas City several years earlier (R).
Of course, what can be concluded is that al-Qaradawi’s plan was in full swing as he spoke at Dar al-Hijrah. Muruna had most certainly been introduced to Elsayed and Estwani. In the case of al-Qaradawi and Elsayed’s MAS, Muslim youths were targeted specifically.
It was al-Qaradawi who introduced Muruna to the American Muslim community in December of 1989 at the annual conference of the Association of Muslim Youth Forums. The Muslim Brotherhood leader introduced this tactic along with a 30-year plan (1990-2020) of conquest for Muslims in the U.S. It would include a tactic that would permit Islamic prohibitions:
Muruna was designed to catapult and advance Sharia by using Western means. If one thinks that Sharia, with its harsh code, is problematic enough, how about the elimination of the kinder, gentler laws? Muruna is literally accomplished by permitting behavior normally so eschewed by Sharia that Westerners logically assume a more moderate version of Islam when such prohibitions are suddenly permitted. Westerners’ eyes are, in fact, deceiving them. Muruna is about going to great lengths to gain interests through a much deeper level of deception while simultaneously lowering the guard and gaining the support of the infidels.
An archived page of the MAS website from 2003 – smack dab in the middle of Elsayed’s tenure there – states the following:
The call and the spirit of the movement reached the shores of North America with arrival of the Muslim student and immigrants in the late 50’s and early 60’s. These early pioneers and Islamic Movement followers established in 1963. Muslim Student Association (MSA) of U.S and Canada as the rallying point in their endeavor to serve Islam and Muslims in the North America scene. Other services and outreach organization soon followed, such as North America Islamic Trust (NAIT), Islamic Medical Association (IMA), Muslim Arab Youth Association (MAYA) and Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA), to name a few.
MAS was founded just two years after the commencement of al-Qaradawi’s 30-year plan and set out to follow al-Qaradawi’s prescription to the letter. A few years later, the man who would become MAS Secretary General was taking notes as al-Qaradawi spoke inside a mosque that would be visited by three 9/11 hijackers and Fort Hood jihadist Nidal Malik Hasan, who was inspired by Anwar al-Awlaki, a man who served as the Imam of the mosque at the time of the 9/11 attacks; an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing named Mohammed al-Hanooti became the mosque’s Imam in 1995. Ten years later, Elsayed would be a successor to Hanooti as Imam of Dar al-Hijrah, a position he holds today.
In March of 2000, Estwani wrote a letter to President Clinton, which he handed to Clinton personally (this is backed up by Clinton’s handwritten notes appearing on the letter). It included the following:
I was also honored in being given the opportunity to invite you personally to visit our Islamic center and mosque in Falls Church, Virginia (Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center), which is considered one of the most active and largest Islamic centers in the United States. I have been repeatedly honored by your invitations and warm receptions at the white house, especially at the Breakfast Prayers since September 1995. You and the first lady have graciously hosted the Muslim community on several occasions and we are eternally grateful for your and her gracious hospitality and reception. We wish her and you the best always.
It is more than a little conceivable that the chairman of Dar al-Hijrah would not only curry favor from the Office of the White House but also seek protection of his mosque from a government that never likes to eat crow or hold its superiors accountable. With each photo taken of Estwani with prominent politicians – and there is a treasure trove that includes Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Speaker Dennis Hastert, Senator Warner, Rep. Jim Moran, Rep. Thomas Davis, Rep. Cynthia McKinney, Hillary Clinton and others – the more cover he’d get. Not exposing Dar al-Hijrah to complete sunlight had the effect of protecting the office of the President of the United States. As Shoebat.com reported, Clinton’s successor George W. Bush had additional reasons to protect Clinton.
Dar al-Hijrah’s Estwani (R) meets with President Clinton (L) in the White House.
How the case of Anwar al-Awlaki was handled is very instructive. Thanks to documents obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Judicial Watch, it was revealed just how interested the FBI was in al-Awlaki in the days, weeks, and months after 9/11. In particular, they were interested in his associations with those three hijackers. What has not been demonstrated is the FBI’s interest in al-Awlaki’s superiors and colleagues at the mosque.
Any honest pursuit of al-Awlaki would have led to overturning a rock that revealed al-Hanooti, Estwani, Elsayed, their connections to al-Qaradawi and ultimately to a much larger Muslim Brotherhood agenda that included a 30-year plan. Instead, as the documents indicate, there was significant tension between the 9/11 Commission investigators and the National Commission on Terrorism (NCT) over access to al-Awlaki. While NCT had maintained contact with al-Awlaki, who said he was willing to talk to authorities, the 9/11 Commission failed to locate him and certainly seemed to get resistance from NCT.
Conventional wisdom has been that al-Awlaki became an informant. In 2002, he was permitted to escape to Yemen despite an outstanding warrant for his arrest. Could it be that his release was more about protecting the careers, reputations, and legacies of politicians duped by Muruna, a tactic that continues to be both used by the enemy and ignored by our leaders? As further evidence of this, consider the Fort Hood jihad attack that saw 14 dead and 32 wounded . There was an al-Awlaki connection in the form of several emails between he and the shooter, who also attended Dar al-Hijrah. The attack would ultimately be labeled ‘workplace violence’ and the victims were not afforded the honors and benefits they deserved. Nearly two years prior to Hasan being found guilty and convicted, al-Awlaki was killed in a drone strike in Yemen; dead men tell no tales.
The man credited with hiring al-Awlaki at Dar al-Hijrah is Esam Omeish, who served as the head of MAS after Elsayed became Imam there in 2005, as Shoebat.com reported.
During the time that al-Awlaki was the Imam at Dar al-Hijrah, he was also a Chaplain who sat on the Muslim Students Association (MSA) Board with Esam’s brother Mohamed Omeish at George Washington University (GWU).
Elsayed’s MAS
In addition to Elsayed being one of Al-Awlaki’s successors as Imam at Dar al-Hijrah, there’s evidence that al-Awlaki was a colleague of Elsayed at MAS, courtesy of another FBI document obtained by Judicial Watch. The document refers to both Awlaki and an Imam named Suhaib Webb as possibly being “associated” with MAS; both men attended a fundraiser as colleagues just two days prior to the 9/11 attacks.
It was Shoebat.com that reported on Webb’s attendance at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum (US-IWF) in 2009 as a representative of MAS. Then Commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) David Petraeus was one of the forum’s speakers. Webb, who’d been the Imam of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City (ISGOC) attended by Alton Nolen who beheaded a woman last month, would later become the Imam of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center attended by the Boston Marathon bombers.
Screenshot from attendee list at 2009 US-IWF.
Webb also has a connection to Dar al-Hijrah through its current outreach director Johari Abdul-Malik and unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing Siraj Wahhaj. Wahhaj is the Imam at the Brooklyn mosque attended multiple times by Sheikh Omar Abdelrahman (the “Blind Sheikh”) convicted as the mastermind in that attack. Webb wrote glowingly of Wahhaj after visiting the mosque in 2008, as Shoebat.com reported.
Here is Elsayed calling for armed jihad in America:
Muruna in Practice
A perfect example of Muruna would include a Muslim woman marrying a Jewish man if it afforded her stealth and cover while gaining access to power centers. Consider Huma Abedin, the very close adviser to Hillary Clinton who served as then Secretary of State Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff. In 2010, she married a Jewish man who also happened to be a U.S. Congressman – Anthony Weiner. Ironically, Bill Clinton presided over the ceremony. Circa 1996, Abedin became an assistant editor with the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), an institution with the goal of converting all Muslim minority lands into Muslim majority lands.
To bring this all back to al-Qaradawi, consider that Abedin’s mother Saleha Mahmood (Abedin) is also one of 63 leaders of the Muslim Sisterhood as Shoebat.com first revealed. Serving as an associate editor with Huma was her brother Hassan Abedin. The IMMA was founded by a Saudi named Abdullah Omar Naseeef, who also served on the Institute’s Board for several years.
As Shoebat.com also revealed, Hassan Abedin and Naseef also served with none other than Yusuf al-Qaradawi on the Board of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS) from 2004-2008.
To illustrate just how effective Muruna can be, KFI 640 talk show host Bill Carroll interviewed Walid in June of 2011, shortly after we discovered Abedin’s familial connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. This interview took place prior to our discovery of Muruna and one of the chief reasons that Carroll dismissed our findings had to do with Abedin’s marriage to Weiner:
A few years prior to al-Awlaki joining the MSA at GWU, Abedin served on the same board as Head of Social Committee, as Shoebat.com revealed:
Huma Abedin served on Board of Muslim Student Association (MSA) at George Washington University (GWU)
It is important to point out that all of the aforementioned activity chronicled in this post has taken place within the 30-year window prescribed by al-Qaradawi in 1989.