Jewish Onliner is an independent publication. If you find our work valuable, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. You can also subscribe to us on WhatsApp and Telegram. Follow us on Instagram, Discord, and X.
During a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing earlier this month focusing on the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence in the United States, experts described the Qatar-based International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) as “the Muslim Brotherhood’s transnational scholarly authority.” The State Department, for its part, has repeatedly written that the organization is “widely viewed in the press and academia as being affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.”
For the first time, a Jewish Onliner investigation has systematically mapped several key IUMS members active in North America — including prominent imams, institutional leaders and scholars who chair religious legal councils operating across both the United States and Canada.
The ramifications of IUMS’s active presence in the U.S. and Canada are significant. The body was founded and led by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader until his death in 2022. IUMS provides religious legitimacy for the Muslim Brotherhood’s political and ideological agenda, which includes issuing successive fatwas declaring armed jihad a religious obligation for Muslim-majority governments and Muslims worldwide.
The investigation comes as IUMS President Ali al-Qaradaghi, the successor of Qaradawi, has publicly credited the October 7 attack and ensuing Gaza war with delivering political gains for radical Muslim candidates in the United States like NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, calling the outcomes “among the blessings of the Al-Aqsa Flood.”
IUMS Members in the United States and Canada
Jewish Onliner has now identified individuals in the United States and Canada who have been named as IUMS members through their own statements, institutional biographies or IUMS-linked publications. Both countries appear on IUMS’s official membership map, though the organization does not publish a comprehensive roster.
Several of the identified members also operate within institutions named in a 1991 Muslim Brotherhood Memorandum that described the Brotherhood's work in America as a "Civilization-Jihadist Process." Its attachment listing "our organizations and the organizations of our friends" included groups these indiviuals are affilaited with such as the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Muslim Students Association (MSA), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) and the ISNA Fiqh Committee — the institutional predecessor to the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA).
Yasir Qadhi is based in Plano, Texas, where he serves as resident scholar at the East Plano Islamic Center, known for the EPIC city mega-mosque controversy. He is also dean of the Islamic Seminary of America and the chairman of the FCNA. Qadhi identified himself as an IUMS member in a June 2025 X post while describing the organization as a “the most respectable” international scholarly body.
Suhaib Webb is based in Washington, D.C., where he serves as resident scholar at Center DC. He previously served as resident scholar at the Islamic Center at New York University and as imam at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center. An ICNA Chicago biography identifies Webb as an IUMS member.
Zaid Barzinji is founder and president of the Nashville-based Maqasid Institute, whose leadership biography identifies him as an IUMS member.
Barzinji is the son of Jamal al-Din Barzinji, a relationship documented in a family memorial volume. Scholar Lorenzo Vidino identified Jamal al-Din Barzinji as one of the figures involved in building early Muslim Brotherhood-linked networks in North America. Jamal Barzinji helped establish MSA and IIIT and held leading roles ISNA and NAIT — all four of which appeared in the 1991 memorandum.
Ibrahim Kamel, an imam at the Islamic Center of Southern California, was identified in a joint 2021 Arabic petition which included the signatures of many Muslim scholars and groups, including many IUMS members. In his signature, Kamel identified himself as an IUMS member.
Jamal Badawi is a Halifax-based professor emeritus, FCNA member and ISNA co-founder whom IUMS-affiliated reporting named as an IUMS trustee in 2022. The 2020 “Palestine fatwa” — which declared peace and normalization deals with Israel religiously forbidden and cast jihad for Palestine's "liberation" as a binding obligation — also identified him as a member of IUMS’s Board of Trustees.
Federal prosecutors identified Badawi as an unindicted co-conspirator and/or joint venturer in the Holy Land Foundation case. Evidence introduced during the trial also included Muslim Brotherhood documents that researchers have cited as placing Badawi among figures associated with the movement’s North American leadership, as Jewish Onliner previously reported.
Mohamed Rida Beshir is a Muslim educator with longstanding Canadian ties. His biograpghy states he has long been active with organizations including the Muslim Association of Canada, ISNA and the MSA. An ‘About Author’ section of his described him as an IUMS member. The George Washington University Program on Extremism has separately catalogued the Muslim Association of Canada among Muslim Brotherhood-linked entities operating in the West.
Wael Shehab is based in Toronto, where current materials identify him as resident imam of Masjid Toronto. A 2015 appointment announcement identified Shehab as an IUMS member and former head of the Sharia and fatwa sections at OnIslam.net.
Jasser Auda immigrated to Canada in the early 1990s and became involved in leadership of the Muslim Students Association of the United States and Canada. He earned a doctorate from the University of Waterloo and has held academic positions in Canada and is founding chairman of the Canadian Fiqh Council. A 2025 report, however, lists Auda as residing in Malaysia.
His archived Maqasid Institute biography describes him as a “Founding and Board Member” of IUMS, while the same 2020 “Palestine fatwa” identified him as a member of IUMS’s Board of Trustees.
Auda also appeared alongside Yusuf al-Qaradawi at scholarly events in Qatar. A 2013 seminar organized by the Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies’ Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics listed Auda and Qaradawi among the participants. Qaradawi, was barred from entering the United States and United Kingdom amid controversy over his public endorsements of suicide bombings against Israelis.
IUMS Fatwas Called for Military Jihad
On August 30, 2020, the IUMS issued a collective “Palestine fatwa” declaring "peace, reconciliation, and normalization" agreements with Israel religiously forbidden and void, and affirming that "jihad and resistance for liberation" from the occupation is an obligation on which the jurists have reached consensus. The fatwa stated that:
“The jurists unanimously agree that jihad in all its forms, including fighting in self-defense or to repel injustice, becomes an individual obligation if the enemy invades and occupies a Muslim country," and it prohibited relinquishing "any part of the blessed land of Palestine."
On October 31, 2023, IUMS’s Ijtihad and Fatwa Committee issued a religious ruling declaring military intervention in the Gaza war a religious obligation for Muslim governments and armies.
A separate IUMS fatwa dated March 28, 2025 called for jihad against the “Zionist entity,” military intervention and the provision of weapons, military expertise, intelligence and money to fighters. It described participation as an individual obligation for all capable Muslims.
Jewish Onliner previously uncovered that Australian Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu Mohammed personally participated in the 2025 fatwa alongside IUMS President Ali al-Qaradaghi and other officials.
IUMS Chief Calls U.S. Electoral Gains a “Blessing”
The North American membership findings come amid recent remarks by IUMS President Ali al-Qaradaghi crediting the October 7 Hamas attack and ensuing Gaza war with the political rise of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed.
“Had it not been for the Al-Aqsa Flood, Mamdani and Abdulrahman El-Sayed would not have reached [where they did],” al-Qaradaghi said in Arabic. “These are among the blessings of the Al-Aqsa Flood.”
Al-Qaradaghi delivered the speech at an Istanbul event inaugurating the Turkish office of the Al-Quds International Institution, according to his official announcement.
The U.S. Treasury lists “Al Quds International Institution” as an alias of the Al-Quds International Foundation, which the United States designated in 2012 for being controlled by and acting on behalf of Hamas. In 2024, Treasury described its chairman, Hamid al-Ahmar, as a prominent international Hamas supporter and called the foundation a “sham charity”.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s “Transnational Scholarly Authority”
The Senate testimony submitted by National Jewish Advocacy Center Senior Litigation Counsel Arielle Klepach said IUMS maintains a close relationship with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which the U.S. Treasury designated in January 2026 for providing material support to Hamas.
The testimony also documented IUMS’s amplification of Council on American-Islamic Relations material and previous interactions between CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad and al-Qaradawi. It described those relationships as part of a wider pattern connecting American organizations with overseas Muslim Brotherhood institutions.
The George Washington University Program on Extremism has separately described IUMS as a major source of religious legitimacy for Muslim Brotherhood-aligned causes. Its research documented IUMS’s support for Hamas, calls for jihad during the Gaza war and close relationship with Qatar.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt jointly listed IUMS as a terrorist organization in 2017.
The United States separately designated the Egyptian and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood branches and Lebanon’s al-Jamaa al-Islamiyah in January 2026, as Jewish Onliner previously reported.