Mystery: Obama’s favorite imam gets to pray with Trump

By Leo Hohmann

Imam Mohamed Magid at National Prayer Service held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 21, 2017
Imam Mohamed Magid at National Prayer Service held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 21, 2017

It remains a mystery how an imam with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Barack Obama got invited to offer a prayer at the National Prayer Service Saturday after the inauguration of Donald Trump.

President Trump and his wife Melania were in the audience as Imam Mohamed Magid began praying in Arabic from the pulpit of the National Cathedral. He then cited a message from the Quran and translated it to English before walking over and shaking Trump’s hand.

Magid, born and raised in Sudan, is leader of a Shariah-observant mosque in Sterling, Virginia, and is a former president of the Islamic Society of North America. ISNA was created by the Muslim Brotherhood and works in concert with the seditious international organization founded in Egypt in 1928.

The surprise appearance by Magid at Saturday’s prayer breakfast led to an immediate rebuke by Faith Leaders for America, a group of 78 Christian and Jewish leaders who reject any interfaith dialogue with Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated groups. They issued a statement calling on President Trump to declare the Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

Watch clip of Imam Mohamed Magid offering prayer at National Cathedral as President Trump looks on.

[jwplayer Gi8NpusM]

Magid is a former two-term president of ISNA, which has been linked to the Muslim Brotherhood through documents presented by the FBI during the Holy Land Foundation terrorist-funding trial of 2007-08.

Magid was also invited to the Obama White House repeatedly beginning in the spring of 2010 to offer his advice on counter-terrorism measures. Obama made him a member of his “countering violent extremism” or CVE working group, which sought to take the heat off of “Islamic terrorism,” shifting the focus to “extremism in all its forms,” including “right wing” terrorists.

Allowing Muslim Brotherhood operatives to call the shots on how to combat terrorism has been likened to “the fox guarding the hen house” by law enforcement experts such as Phil Haney, who served as an immigration officer in the Homeland Security Department under presidents Bush and Obama, and John Guandolo, a former FBI counter-terrorism specialist.

Jerry Johnson, president of National Religious Broadcasters.
Jerry Johnson, president of National Religious Broadcasters.

Jerry Johnson, president of the National Religious Broadcasters and a member of the new Faith Leaders for America group, said he was not surprised that someone with Magid’s background was included in the National Prayer Service at the National Cathedral.

“It did not surprise me, because the wrong kind of Muslims and Muslim leaders have been gaining inroads into Christian circles, government circles, education and media circles for years,” Johnson told WND Monday. “And by the wrong kind I mean they’re sympathetic with Shariah, sympathetic with jihad and they’re not benign, not leaders who affirm the U.S. Constitution or the Bill of Rights. So I’m not surprised that someone got into the prayer service who was a sort of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

In his inaugural address, Trump pledged to “eradicate radical Islamic terrorism from the face of the Earth.”

But one day later at the National Prayer Service “a prayer was offered by one of its most dangerous practitioners: Imam Mohamed Magid, a top leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States,” the Faith Leaders for America stated.

Learn more about the seditious international organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood in the undercover investigative expose “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that’s Conspiring to Islamize America.”

Johnson said it was established during the HLF trial that ISNA was a Brotherhood front group and was an unindicted co-conspirator involved in raising money for Hamas — a designated terrorist organization. “He was president of that group [ISNA] for two years, twice elected president, so that’s key.”

Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, also issued a statement rebuking the choice of Magid for the National Prayer Service.

“Magid is a top Muslim Brotherhood leader in the United States and a particularly effective practitioner of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘civilization jihad’ – whose aim is the same as that of all other Sharia-supremacists around the world: destroying Western civilization and forcing its submission to Sharia. The Brothers’ mission self-declared mission is to do it from within this country, by our own hands.”

Magid was also a member of the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America or AMJA, which is responsible for issuing fatwas for the North American Muslim community.

“The AMJA journal published an article saying it’s not permissible to cooperate with the FBI on terrorism investigations,” Johnson said. “And it’s OK to use zakat [alms] for jihad activities. He’s been a leader of these groups or on their boards, funding Hamas, so he’s not the right kind of guy really to do a prayer at the National Cathedral.”

Magid is imam at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society or ADAMS mosque, which the Faith Leaders for America say is one of the most Shariah-adherent mosques in the country.

“So when you talk about freedom of speech, religion, press, that’s not what they’re about there,” Johnson said. “Certainly for the rules of the marriage relationship, marriage and divorce, they don’t respect our laws.”

Johnson said his group of faith leaders is just getting started and will attempt to educate pastors and other spiritual leaders on Shariah and which group to avoid in outreach.

The group’s website includes the following mission statement:

“We oppose those who seek to restrict our freedoms on the grounds that we cannot offend their faith. Specifically, Faith Leaders for America is an effort to assist the clergy of America in promoting real tolerance and freedom of religion in the face of the intolerant and repressive agenda of Islamic supremacists. This is made the more urgent because of inroads that Muslim Brotherhood front groups, mosques and other Islamist organizations are making in into our nation’s religious life, communities and national fabric.

“We reject intolerance promoted in the guise of tolerance.

“We will work together to challenge Islamic supremacists who demand our submission to their totalitarian Sharia doctrine. They profess to be bridge-building, but theirs are one-way bridges, used for proselytizing and recruitment (dawa), not promoting true, mutual, ecumenical respect and coexistence.

“We will also seek to counter the enabling of such activities by non-Muslim clerics who legitimate the Islamists and provide political cover to their subversion.

“To these ends, we will provide information and facilitate training to our fellow clergy members and their congregations. In the near term, the object will be to raise their awareness of and assist in their opposition to this clearly fraudulent ‘interfaith dialogue’ – and the larger, stealthy Brotherhood ‘civilization jihad’ agenda it serves.”

Who invited Magid to pray?

Johnson said he believes the National Cathedral staff put the service together.

“I’m sure the administration invited some select evangelicals to the service but I was told the staff put together the ecumenical lineup, which included a Hindu and I think a Sikh and some others,” he said. “This was sort of an old lineup the cathedral staff put together. So I would not jump to the conclusion that the White House invited this man to speak. Obviously it’s a lesson, to take great care, as to who is invited.”

“If you are going to have an ecumenical service then it seems like you wouldn’t have someone pray who believes you don’t even have a right to your own view,” Johnson continued. “But I’m confident that this White House is going to do the right thing, when it comes to the Muslim Brotherhood. I believe they’re going to label them a terrorist organization, and get serious about jihad as you heard in the inaugural speech by President Trump.”

Dr. Mark Christian grew up in a prominent Muslim family in Egypt and converted to Christianity as an adult.
Dr. Mark Christian grew up in a prominent Muslim family in Egypt and converted to Christianity as an adult.

Dr. Mark Christian, a former imam who grew up in a Muslim Brotherhood family in Cairo, Egypt, before converting to Christianity as a young adult, said Magid is a hardcore Brotherhood operative.

“You could see Trump was not happy, and Pence as well,” said Christian, who changed his name from Muhammad Abdullah and defected to America, where he founded the Global Faith Institute.

“Here is the problem. Dr. Magid’s mosque has been recognized by the FBI as one of the role models on how to reach out with peace and to counteract terrorism in America,” Christian said. “Obviously it’s very clear those kinds of reports are coming from an FBI that was under the control of president Obama for years.”

The Brotherhood will not fade away

Christian, an expert on the Muslim Brotherhood and its strategies, said the group will not fade into the shadows quietly. They will continue to reach out and try to gain a foothold in the new White House.

“There are things I’m worried about, the infrastructure built by Obama and even the presidents before him, Bush and Clinton, had built the Muslim Brotherhood into the power structure of Washington for years,” Dr. Christian said.

“And I am very optimistic of the clear understanding of the key players in the new administration in recognizing this problem, and they are fully aware there have been players entrenched for years into the government power structure,” he added

But a part of him is still worried.

“I’m 75 percent optimistic and 25 percent I’m worried,” he said.

Learn more about the seditious international organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood in the undercover investigative expose “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that’s Conspiring to Islamize America.”

Dossier of Magid’s jihadist ties

The following information on Magid was assembled by the David Horowitz Freedom Center: and the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

[Magid was] born in northern Sudan in 1965, Mohamed Magid studied Islam under African Sunni scholars, one of whom was his own father, the Grand Mufti of Sudan. In 1987 Magid immigrated to the United States, where he took college courses in psychology and family counseling, and he taught classes on the Koran at Howard University in Washington, DC. In 1997 Magid became imam of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS), a mosque located in Sterling, Virginia. Soon thereafter, he became affiliated with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), first as its East Zone representative, then as vice president, and finally as president (a post to which he was elected in September 2010).

The Investigative Project on Terrorism finds that:

ISNA has a troubling history, however, and its leadership ranks beyond Mattson include people who date back to the group’s foundation by Muslim Brotherhood members. The organization grew out of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), which also was founded by Brotherhood members. The Brotherhood is an 80-year-old Egyptian movement that seeks to spread Shariah, or Islamic law, far and wide. Federal prosecutors included ISNA on a list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Hamas-financing prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF). ISNA is listed among “individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood.” The trial ended with guilty verdicts on 108 counts in November 2008. Its conferences have featured rhetoric in support of terrorist groups and other radicalism. This continued at the 2009 convention, where panelists expressed extreme anti-Semitism and support for the terrorist group Hizballah.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism also found that:

Another group, the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA), which counts Magid as a member, published an article in 2008 written by Hatem al-Haj, a member of its fatwa committee, giving religious justification for not cooperating with authorities. Al-Haj wrote it was “impermissible” for Muslims to work with the FBI because of the “harm they inflict on Muslims…The AMJA issued a fatwa in August 2011 stating that zakat could be used to “support legitimate Jihad activities.”

As counter-terrorism expert Patrick Poole reported in PJMedia, Magid had tremendous access to and influence during the Brotherhood-friendly Obama presidency.

Mohamed Magid is the Obama administration’s go-to guy for Muslim outreach and advise on international affairs and counterterrorism. He is a regular visitor to the White House (even when the administration wants to conceal it), attends important administration speeches on the U.S. Middle East policy at the State Department, he counsels the Department of Justice to criminalize defamation of Islam, he entertains the deputy national security adviser at his D.C.-area mosque, and he serves on the Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Violent Extremism Working Group. He also advises the FBI and many other federal agencies.

Former Department of Homeland Security counter-terrorism official Philip Haney told the Senate Judiciary Committee last July that Magid was one of the Muslim Brotherhood-tied individuals that had a key advisory role in the Obama DHS:

…In the Spring of 2010, at least six individuals with known affiliations to MB front groups, including Omar Alomari (MAS and several other MB-linked organizations), Mohamed Magid (ISNA), Mohamed Elibiary (HLF leaders), Dahlia Mogahed (CAIR, ISNA, MAS & MPAC), Nadia Roumani (American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute AMCLI), and Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Arif Alikhan (MPAC & the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California ISCSC), were appointed to the Countering Violent Extremism Working Group, which was convened under the authority of the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC).”

Leo Hohmann

Leo Hohmann has been a reporter and news editor at WND as well as several suburban newspapers in the Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina, areas. He also served as managing editor of Triangle Business Journal in Raleigh, North Carolina. His latest book is "Stealth Invasion: Muslim Conquest Through Immigration And Resettlement Jihad." Read more of Leo Hohmann's articles here.


Leave a Comment