Baltimore Convention Brings Together US Muslim Brotherhood Leaders & Government Officials

From 28–30 May 2022 in Bal­ti­more, Mary­land, this year’s edi­tion of the annu­al con­ven­tion of the Islam­ic Cir­cle of North Amer­i­ca (ICNA) and the Mus­lim Amer­i­can Soci­ety (MAS) brought togeth­er a large num­ber of Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB) lead­ers, a mem­ber of the US Con­gress, and high-rank­ing US gov­ern­ment offi­cials. Accord­ing to a post on the ICNA Face­book page:

Dur­ing the Memo­r­i­al Day week­end of 2022, the Islam­ic Cir­cle of North Amer­i­ca (ICNA) host­ed its 47th annu­al ICNA-MAS con­ven­tion in Bal­ti­more, MD. The con­ven­tion fea­tured over 170 speak­ers and 200 ses­sions on wide-rang­ing top­ics focused on the theme of “Build­ing a Just Society”.

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The event, his­tor­i­cal­ly one of the largest annu­al Islam­ic con­ven­tions in North Amer­i­ca, was held in per­son for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Accord­ing to the ICNA, this year’s ses­sions cov­ered edu­ca­tion, par­ent­ing, social jus­tice, Islam­ic finance, and char­ac­ter devel­op­ment. The ICNA also said that it pro­vid­ed a plat­form to dis­cuss “social prob­lems such as LGBTQ” and sought to fur­ther the devel­op­ment of the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty “with­out com­pro­mis­ing its moral and reli­gious val­ues.” Accord­ing to the ICNA, the gath­er­ing drew more than 22,000 attendants.

The MAS was iden­ti­fied in a report authored by the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) edi­tor as a part of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in the US and close­ly tied to the Egypt­ian orga­ni­za­tion. ICNA is also part of the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and close­ly tied to the Jamaat-e-Isla­mi orga­ni­za­tion of South­east Asia, itself allied with the Glob­al Mus­lim Brotherhood.

The con­fer­ence keynote was deliv­ered by Omar Suleiman, a promi­nent imam and a reg­u­lar speak­er at GMB events in the US. The con­ven­tion also fea­tured sev­er­al high-rank­ing US gov­ern­ment offi­cials and GMB lead­ers. These includ­ed Ilhan Omar,  the US Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Minnesota’s 5th con­gres­sion­al dis­trict, and Kei­th Elli­son, the Attor­ney Gen­er­al of Min­neso­ta who has a long his­to­ry of coop­er­a­tion with USMB groups. Promi­nent US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­ers includ­ed Nihad Awad, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR), and Ous­sama Jamal, Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the USCMO and long-time leader of New Jersey’s Bridge­wa­ter mosque. The Mosque is tied to the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, whose mem­bers raised funds for Hamas-linked char­i­ties. Oth­er notable US offi­cials and USMB/GMB lead­ers included:

• Noha Gaber, Chief Strat­e­gy Offi­cer at the US Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Administration

• Saeed Mody, Deputy Asso­ciate Attor­ney Gen­er­al at the US Depart­ment of Justice

• Mohsin Ansari, Pres­i­dent of the ICNA and Chair­man of the US Coun­cil of Mus­lim Orga­ni­za­tions (USCMO)

• Naeem Baig, for­mer Pres­i­dent of the ICNA

• Zahra Bil­loo, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of CAIR-San Francisco

• Hatem Baz­ian, Board Chair of Amer­i­can Mus­lims for Pales­tine (AMP), a Pales­tin­ian advo­ca­cy group with strong ties to the GMB in the US and to the Hamas sup­port infra­struc­ture in the US.

• Taher Herza­l­lah, AMP Asso­ciate Direc­tor of Out­reach and for­mer AMP Cam­pus Coor­di­na­tor

• Suhaib Webb, a for­mer imam of the Islam­ic Soci­ety of Boston,  his­tor­i­cal­ly tied to the GMB.

• Sir­aj Wah­haj has held var­i­ous posi­tions in the Islam­ic Soci­ety of North Amer­i­ca, the Amer­i­can Mus­lim Coun­cil, the North Amer­i­can Islam­ic Trust, and CAIR, all part of the USMB.

• Ham­mad Lod­hi, Pres­i­dent of the UK Islam­ic Mis­sion, a British mosque umbrel­la affil­i­at­ed with Jamaat-e-Isla­mi, a South­east Asian Islamist move­ment close to the GMB.

In Octo­ber 2020, the GIOR report­ed that a vir­tu­al “lead­er­ship con­fer­ence” spon­sored by the USCMO had brought togeth­er many GMB lead­ers from around the globe, includ­ing sev­er­al of the indi­vid­u­als men­tioned above.