The Brotherhood in Your Backyard: North American Islamic Trust
Renewed congressional scrutiny of the Muslim Brotherhood brings attention to the 29 organizations from the 1991 Memorandum, their offshoots, and their documented advancement of Brotherhood objectives
Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series examining the 29 organizations listed in the infamous 1991 Muslim Brotherhood “Explanatory Memorandum” outlining a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” to destroy Western civilization from within. With renewed scrutiny of Brotherhood networks in America, this investigation traces the documented connections between these groups and their role in advancing Brotherhood strategic objectives on U.S. soil.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s own internal strategy document, seized by the FBI and entered as evidence in federal court, places the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) at number 8 on a list headed: “A list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends [Imagine if they all march according to one plan!!!]”
The 1991 Explanatory Memorandum — authored by Brotherhood operative Mohamed Akram on May 22, 1991 — is explicit about its goals. It instructs members that “their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
That trust — incorporated in Indiana in 1973 — reportedly holds title to over 400 mosques and Islamic institutions across the United States and Canada, according to NAIT’s own 50th-anniversary announcement. Federal prosecutors named it an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism-financing case in American history. Its chairman publicly shared a Hitler quote. And as a religious institution, it files no public IRS Form 990 — shielding the finances of a real-estate portfolio worth, by NAIT’s own statements, hundreds of millions of dollars.
Below is what investigators, federal courts, and public records reveal about the organization, its properties, and the men who run it.
Origins: The Brotherhood’s Financial Arm
NAIT was established in 1973 as the financial arm of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), itself founded a decade earlier by alleged Brotherhood members including Jamal Barzinji and Hisham Altalib, who also were both founders of NAIT.
According to incorporation documents reviewed by researcher Steven Merley for the Hudson Institute, NAIT’s founding board included Jamal Barzinji, Ahmad Sakr, and Hisham Altalib, figures identified by federal investigators as core Brotherhood operatives.
NAIT’s own website acknowledges a “foundational supporting relationship” with MSA and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), two other organizations that appear alongside NAIT on the Brotherhood’s 1991 organizational list.
The ISNA/NAIT headquarters complex in Plainfield, Indiana, was built with $21 million from Muslim Brotherhood leader Yussef Qaradawi — who later issued a fatwa calling for the killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq — Youssef Nada, and the emir of Qatar.
Former FBI agent Robert Stauffer’s 1980s investigation found millions wired to ISNA through NAIT from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Egypt, Malaysia, and Libya, according to Global Muslim Brotherhood Watch.
The Waqf: How NAIT Takes Title
NAIT operates as a waqf — an Islamic endowment structure. On its website, NAIT describes the arrangement as one in which, once a property is deeded to the trust, “the donor cannot alter his/her intent at a later time.”
Whether that self-description carries legal force in U.S. property courts has not been adjudicated, but the practical result is consistent: communities that transfer a deed to NAIT rarely recover it. NAIT holds titles “in more than forty states,” per its own website, and in its 2023 anniversary announcement described itself as trustee for “400+ waqf institutions in USA and Canada.”
Despite controlling an independent portfolio estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars. According to a 2007 watchdog report, NAIT claimed income below $25,000, which the report said meant it was not required to file an annual IRS return. Under federal law, churches and certain religious organizations are exempt from the 990 requirement, and NAIT invokes that status. The result: its finances are not publicly available. NAIT has nonetheless advanced millions of dollars in interest-free loans to affiliated Islamic centers.
In practice, NAIT’s waqf program focuses primarily on holding title to mosques, Islamic centers, and schools as trustee for local communities, helping safeguard these properties for long-term religious use while allowing each center to remain independently managed. Beyond property stewardship, NAIT also supports community services through initiatives such as cooperative investment funds for Islamic centers, development of Sharia-compliant financial vehicles, and publication of Islamic educational materials.
Holy Land Foundation: The Co-Conspirator Designation
In 2007, federal prosecutors named NAIT an unindicted co-conspirator in United States v. Holy Land Foundation — a case in which all five defendants were convicted of funneling $12.4 million to Hamas. Court documents detail money moving through NAIT financial accounts to Hamas leadership.
NAIT appealed the designation. U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis ruled in 2010 that the Justice Department had violated NAIT’s Fifth Amendment rights by failing to seal the co-conspirator list — but he simultaneously found there was “ample evidence to establish the association between NAIT and Hamas” and declined to remove NAIT from the list. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that dual finding. NAIT’s website disputes the designation, characterizing it as “Islamophobia” and noting NAIT was never formally charged with a crime. NAIT did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
Properties of Concern
A pattern documented in court filings, congressional testimony, and investigative reporting links NAIT-controlled properties to some of the most significant domestic terrorism incidents of the past two decades.
Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center (Falls Church, Virginia): This NAIT-owned mosque employed Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who later became the head of Al-Qaeda operations in the Arabian Peninsula before being killed in a 2011 U.S. drone strike. Two of the 9/11 hijackers attended the mosque, as did Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan.
Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga (Tennessee): NAIT purchased this property in 1997, with NAIT agent Arif Shafi as registered agent and incorporator. In 2015, Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez — a worshipper at the mosque — killed five U.S. service members in an attack. Fundraising materials from the mosque had invoked the name of Qaradawi, who called on Muslims to kill American soldiers in Iraq.
Islamic Society of Boston: This NAIT-controlled mosque counted both Boston Marathon bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev among its worshippers, along with at least a dozen other individuals allegedly involved in terrorism, according to a 2015 New York Post investigation.
Bridgeview Mosque (Illinois): A 2004 Chicago Tribune investigation documented how NAIT took title after new leadership secured over $1.2 million from Kuwait ($369,000), Saudi Arabia ($152,000), and the UAE ($135,000), then drove out the mosque’s moderate founding community.
Flyers distributed by the original members warned: “The essence of NAIT is the [Muslim] Brotherhood.” The transfer was contested in Cook County court, with physical confrontations between factions, before a judge ruled for the hardline faction. The current imam, Jamal Said, was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case.
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma: NAIT owns the parcel at the center of a 2026 rezoning dispute over a planned 42,000-square-foot complex. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond opened a state investigation citing the property’s ties to a trust with alleged Brotherhood connections.
Renaissance Academy, Leander, Texas: A school that raised $3.3 million for a 19-acre campus announced plans to transfer the property to NAIT once loans are cleared. The transfer comes after Texas Governor Greg Abbott designated the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as foreign terrorist organizations in 2025.
USDA Farm Subsidies — Missouri: Fox News reported that NAIT received more than $10,000 across 34 federally funded USDA programs since 1998 for two undeveloped, tree-covered land plots in Boone County, Missouri, valued at roughly $59,000.
Every payment was directed to the mailing address of the Islamic Center of Central Missouri Mosque. Subsidies halted during the 2008 Holy Land Foundation trial and resumed in 2011. Transparency advocate Adam Andrzejewski of OpenTheBooks.com told Fox the payments were “probably legal” but exemplified how farm-subsidy programs have expanded far beyond their original agricultural purpose.
The Board: Who Runs NAIT
Gaddoor Saidi — Chairman: Saidi himself appears on the government’s Holy Land Foundation co-conspirator list. A 2020 investigation by journalist Joe Kaufman documented that, in February 2018, Saidi posted an image of Adolf Hitler on social media with a quote attributed to Hitler under the heading “Words of Great Men.” The image was sourced from Makmalin, an Egyptian satellite channel based in Turkey that promotes Muslim Brotherhood content.
Kaufman’s investigation said Saidi frequently reposted content from Shehab News Agency—described in the report as Hamas-affiliated—and has publicly praised Muslim Brotherhood figures, including Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has been barred from entering the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.
Muzammil Siddiqi — Board Member: A former president of ISNA and current member of the Fiqh Council of North America, Siddiqi has an extensive documented history of extremist statements. According to his Investigative Project on Terrorism profile, he told audiences that “when people really carry on Jihad, they carry on the Islam in its peak” and warned that “no people have ever neglected Jihad except they became humiliated.” In a 2001 online exchange, he said that once more people accept Islam, “this will lead to the implementation of Sharia in all areas.”
In 1992, his mosque — the Islamic Society of Orange County — hosted Omar Abdel Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh” later convicted of conspiring to bomb New York landmarks; Siddiqi personally translated Rahman’s pro-jihad lecture in real time. Siddiqi spoke at an October 2000 Washington, D.C. rally where he declared, “Jerusalem belongs to Islam.”
Siddiqi's association with figures later implicated in terrorism was not limited to Abdel Rahman. According to The New Yorker, it was Siddiqi who personally officiated the conversion ceremony of Adam Gadahn in November 1995 at ISOC — sitting with Gadahn in his office and helping him recite the shahada when Gadahn struggled with the Arabic — before introducing the new convert to the mosque's Friday congregation. Gadahn went on to become Al-Qaeda's English-language propaganda chief, was indicted for treason in 2006, and was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in 2015.
Bassam Osman — Board Member Since 1980: Osman previously served as director of the Quranic Literacy Institute, an organization later implicated in terrorist-financing litigation. Congressional testimony and a Hudson Institute report identify him as having connections to terrorism-financing networks. The Illinois State Police revoked his chaplain appointment in 2010 after his extremist associations were exposed. NAIT did not respond to requests for comment on Osman.
Current Context
The Trump administration had already designated three foreign chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations, with talks of more to come. Florida and Texas have already enacted state-level designations. NAIT continues to operate freely, holding titles to hundreds of properties, shielded from the financial transparency requirements that apply to most American nonprofits.