The DNC's Muslim Brotherhood and Nation of Islam-connected imam

At the start of the DNC's second night on Aug. 20, Imam Talib M. Shareef of Masjid Muhammad in Washington, D.C, alongside Rabbi Sharon Brous, jointly blessed Chicago's United Center. "Bless our leaders with wisdom to do the right thing consistent with God's ways," Shareef asked Allah, "to stand firm against inhumane acts, and to treat all humans as the sacred creation of the Almighty."

Such compassionate words would and should be welcome at any gathering, especially one immersed in the adversarial brutishness of politics. Still, it is wise to be mindful of who is speaking, not just what is said. In truth, Imam Shareef is someone who may not actually believe in the humane ideals to which his soothing speech appealed.

What the DNC may not know is that Imam Shareef —who helped the U.S. Army choose its first Muslim chaplain in 1993, opened a session of Congress in 2013 and spoke at the White House in 2022 —is associated with a major Brotherhood front group, the Islamic Circle of North America, which displays his bio on its website.

ICNA is listed among the 29 Brotherhood organizations mentioned in the Brotherhood’s chilling 1991 "Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America." Discovered in 2004 by an FBI search warrant, the manifesto details how the Brotherhood, via "a kind of grand jihad," will go about "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."

In other words, the Brotherhood will speak sweetly of peace and diversity to non-Muslims in public while fomenting intolerance and jihad in private —exactly what Shareef has done for decades.

In this vein, perhaps the Brotherhood's most powerful U.S. off-shoot is the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a friendly-sounding "civil rights" group exposed in federal court as a Hamas money-laundering operation. Its leader, Nihad Awad, has both openly praised Hamas and said that the Oct. 7 massacre made him "happy."

Like CAIR, ICNA —founded in 1968 as the Pakistani political party Jamaat-e-Islami (JI)'s American branch —has deep connections to terrorism. JI's “military” wing, Hizb-ul-Mujahidin, is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization that owned the compound where Osama bin Laden was finally found and killed.

Further, according to Sam Westrop of the Middle East Forum: “In 1971, JI terrorists helped Pakistani forces murder hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis fighting for freedom from Pakistani rule. In the decades since JI has been complicit in violence across the subcontinent. As a result, the U.S. government has designated the head of JI's paramilitary wing in Pakistan and Kashmir, Syed Salahuddin, as a ‘global terrorist.'”

In the past, ICNA's website has hosted content promoting Al-Qaeda, Hamas (itself a Brotherhood creation), Hezbollah and the Taliban. Today, it works so closely with another Brotherhood front group, the Muslim American Society, that they co-organize conferences under a hyphenated moniker.

An example of a mosque the MAS runs is the Islamic Society of Boston. Along with its "mega-mosque" branch, it has produced 14 (known) associates, former members and students who are at large, dead, in prison or have been deported for involvement in terrorism —the Boston Marathon bombers included.

Shareef, for his part, addressed the 2019 ICNA-MAS conference and spoke at a 2017 event entitled "Tackling Islamophobia at Home" with senior CAIR executive Corey Saylor. Four years later, Shareef appeared at a rally on behalf of the genocidally persecuted Uyghurs of China —a rally which, unsettlingly, was organized by CAIR.

In 2016, Shareef —now well respected for his interfaith activism —joined the Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council, an initiative of the American Jewish Committee and the Islamic Society of North America.

Unfortunately for American Jews, ISNA too is a Brotherhood front group, named first on the "Explanatory Memorandum"'s list of organizations. It works closely with CAIR.

ISNA has enjoyed warm relations with both the Obama and Biden administrations and, in 2024, a long-time ISNA operative, Mohamed Elsanousi, was appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

In light of these connections alone, Imam Shareef giving an invocation beside a rabbi —even one affiliated with the anti-Israel organization J Street —would seem strange. It is stranger still given his remarks denying pro-Hamas student protests' obvious antisemitism.

"I don't see the protest to be or to be driven by antisemitism, although it does exist and has to be addressed accordingly," he told The Washington Informer. "The students are responding to a natural, troubling and deep calling from their souls for an end to the mounting death toll of innocent human lives, the devastation to the Palestinian property and land, and the catastrophe humanitarian crisis [sic]."

Shareef's mosque also has a troubling background. Its English title, "the Nation's Mosque," correctly brings to mind the infamous Nation of Islam, given that the mosque was founded in 1937 by Elijah Muhammad —the NOI's racist, antisemitic leader of 41 years.

Shareef was a student of Elijah Muhammad's son, Warith Deen Muhammad, who also had connections to ISNA and the MAS. CAIR honored him in 2005 for his "outstanding leadership." Though Muhammad repudiated current NOI head Louis Farrakhan —an infamously hateful and racist antisemite —in the 1970s and formed a breakaway sect of the NOI, he later reconciled with Farrakhan.

Though Shareef told The Times of Israel "that he was not affiliated with the organization headed by Farrakhan," the NOI's own newspaper, The Final Call, records that Shareef praised Farrakhan's "love" for Islam and his late teacher.

The Call also documents that, upon the death in 2022 of NOI spokeswoman Ava Muhammad, Shareef celebrated the woman who screamed that Jews were "blood-sucking parasite[s] … keeping us from the hereafter!" Shareef called her an "inspiration."

Masjid Muhammad also collaborates with Islamic Relief, which Sam Westrop's exhaustive research designates as the Brotherhood's "leading charitable institution." Much of its revenue comes from unsuspecting taxpayers and often ends up in Hamas bank accounts. Masjid Muhammad was among Islamic Relief's grant recipients in 2023 and even posted on Facebook about its "partnership" with Islamic Relief on Sept. 11, 2021 —the 20th anniversary of Brotherhood off-shoot Al-Qaeda’s signature massacre.

Much of America is wondering just how "progressive" Kamala Harris's Democratic Party is. These revelations come on the heels of scandals concerning Harris and vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz's personal connections to Islamic hatemongers and possible Iranian operatives.

The Biden administration and the Democratic National Committee must clarify why they chose to give this imam —linked to organizations steeped in hatred and violence —such a platform. They must explain and they must apologize.