 | This article may be unbalanced towards certain viewpoints.(October 2019) |
The Quranic Literacy Institute was established as a non-profit organization based outside of Chicago, Illinois. [1]
| This article may be unbalanced towards certain viewpoints.(October 2019) |
The Quranic Literacy Institute was established as a non-profit organization based outside of Chicago, Illinois. [1]
The Quranic Literacy Institute was established to translate sacred Islamic texts from Arabic to English and to publish the translated versions. Their “Quran Project” was intended to create “an entirely new translation of the Quran based on a careful and scholarly review and analysis of every single word of its more than 6200 verses.” [2]
The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe to be a revelation from God (Allah). It is widely regarded as the finest work in classical Arabic literature. Slightly shorter than the New Testament, it is organized in 114 chapters — not according to when they were revealed, but according to length of surahs under the guidance of divine revelation. Surah are subdivided into verses.
The organization was founded by Ahmad Zaki Hammad [3] who is a scholar of Islam that has advanced degrees from Al-Azhar University in Cairo and the University of Chicago. He also served as the president of the Islamic Society of North America and was on the board of the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT).[ citation needed ] QLI had close relations with NAIT, both because of Hammad, but also through Bassam Osman. Bassam Osman was a former board member of QLI and served as the chairman of NAIT.[ citation needed ]
Al-Azhar University is a university in Cairo, Egypt. Associated with Al-Azhar Mosque in Islamic Cairo, it is Egypt's oldest degree-granting university and is renowned as "Islam’s most prestigious university". In addition to higher education, Al-Azhar oversees a national network of schools with approximately two million students. As of 1996, over 4000 teaching institutes in Egypt were affiliated with the University.
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1890, the school is located on a 217-acre campus in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, near Lake Michigan. The University of Chicago holds top-ten positions in various national and international rankings.
The North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) is based in Plainfield, Indiana, owns Islamic properties and promotes waqf in North America. Many Muslim institutions founded by immigrants who arrived in the USA during the 1960s have roots in the Muslim Students Association where they were college activists. In the 1970s and thereafter, NAIT helped provide college students with a place to provide worship services. NAIT does not provide any financial or other monetary support to the Muslim Student Association. NAIT serves as the trustee of about 200 Islamic centers, mosques and schools. The properties of those mosques are estimated to be worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Quranic Literacy Institute was allegedly part of a large web of organizations and individuals that were funding terrorist groups. In October 2001 in the wake of 9/11, the U.S. Department of Treasury froze the assets of 38 individuals believed to be involved in terrorist financing. One of the individuals, Yassin Kadi, was a prominent Saudi businessman who was linked to Osama bin Laden and was a terrorism financier through his business ventures and charitable projects. In 1991, Kadi loaned $820,000 to the Quranic Literacy Institute allegedly due to his friendship with the group’s president. [4] While he said that the money was intended to allow them to make a land investment in order to yield profits and support their work, the income was actually given to Mohammad Salah, a high level Hamas military operative who was employed as a computer analyst by the Quranic Literacy Institute. [4] [5] When Mohammad Salah pleaded guilty to helping Hamas in an Israeli military court in 1995, the U.S. Treasury Department added him as a list of specially designated terrorists. In 1998 when he returned to the Chicago suburbs, the U.S. filed a forfeiture complaint to confiscate $1.4 million in assets that belonged to him and the Quranic Literacy Institute. The $820,000 loaned to the Institute by Kadi was included in the confiscated funds. [4]
The September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. The attacks killed 2,977 people, injured over 6,000 others, and caused at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage. Additional people have died of 9/11-related cancer and respiratory diseases in the months and years following the attacks.
The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is an executive department and the treasury of the United States federal government. Established by an Act of Congress in 1789 to manage government revenue, the Treasury prints all paper currency and mints all coins in circulation through the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the United States Mint, respectively; collects all federal taxes through the Internal Revenue Service; manages U.S. government debt instruments; licenses and supervises banks and thrift institutions; and advises the legislative and executive branches on matters of fiscal policy.
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden al-Hadhrami al-Kindi, also rendered Usama bin Ladin, was a Saudi Arabian-born Stateless Muslim jihadist who founded the pan-Islamic militant organization al-Qaeda, through which he planned and coordinated terror attacks around the world. He was a Saudi Arabian citizen until 1994, a member of the wealthy bin Laden family, and an ethnic Yemeni Kindite and Hadhramite.
The organization was also used to transfer funds by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook, who was working to resurrect the military wing of Hamas. The organization served as a transfer point of funds between Hamas political committee leaders to those tasked with revitalizing the Hamas military wing. This occurred after the mass deportation of Hamas and other terrorists from Gaza and the West Bank to southern Lebanon in 1992. [1]
Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook is a Palestinian senior member of Hamas.
The Gaza Strip, or simply Gaza, is a self-governing Palestinian territory on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, that borders Egypt on the southwest for 11 kilometers (6.8 mi) and Israel on the east and north along a 51 km (32 mi) border. Gaza and the West Bank are claimed by the State of Palestine.
The West Bank is a landlocked territory near the Mediterranean coast of Western Asia, bordered by Jordan to the east and by the Green Line separating it and Israel on the south, west and north. The West Bank also contains a significant section of the western Dead Sea shore. The West Bank was the name given to the territory that was captured by Jordan in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and subsequently annexed in 1950 until 1967 when it was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War.
In 2004, the Quranic Literacy Institute was ruled liable, along with the Holy Land Foundation, and Islamic Association of Palestine, in a $156 million lawsuit for aiding and abetting Hamas in the death of 17-year-old U.S. citizen, David Boim. [6] The decision was later reversed on the grounds that it could not be proven that the funds given by these organizations to Hamas were intended for use in the death of David Boim and nothing else. [7] Further trials occurred against the Holy Land Foundation; its 2008 trial was the largest terrorism financing prosecution in American history.[ citation needed ]
The Holy Land Foundation(HLF) was the largest Islamic charity in the United States. Headquartered in Richardson, Texas, and run by Palestinian-Americans, it was originally known as Occupied Land Fund. The organization claimed its mission was to "find and implement practical solutions for human suffering through humanitarian programs that impact the lives of the disadvantaged, disinherited, and displaced peoples suffering from man-made and natural disasters."
Islamic Association of Palestine was an organization accused of raising money in the United States for Hamas established in 1981 and defunct since 2004. It described itself as "a not-for-profit, public-awareness, educational, political, social, and civic, national grassroots organization dedicated to advancing a just, comprehensive, and eternal solution to the cause of Palestine and suffrages of the Palestinians." For a time it also used the name American Muslim Society (AMS) and operated as the American Middle Eastern League for Palestine (AMEL).
The Muslim American Society (MAS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1993 and headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia. MAS describes itself as an Islamic revival and reform movement.
Islamic terrorism, Islamist terrorism or radical Islamic terrorism are terrorist acts against civilians committed by violent Islamists who claim a religious motivation.
The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), based in Plainfield, Indiana, USA, is a Muslim umbrella group. It has been described in the media as the largest Muslim organization in North America. ISNA holds an annual national convention which is generally regarded as the largest annual gathering of American Muslims.
Interpal is the working name for Palestinian Relief and Development Fund a British charity founded in 1994 that describes itself as a non-political charity to alleviate problems faced by Palestinians, and focused solely on the provision of relief and development aid to the poor and needy Palestinians the world over, but primarily in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Jordan.
Rafiq Jaber, whose name is also transliterated as Rafeeq Jaber, is an Arab Muslim activist. He immigrated to the United States in 1974.
The al-Aqsa Foundation is an international charity established in 1997. The head office of the foundation was located in Germany until it was closed by the German authorities in July 2002. The organisation is known to have local branch offices in the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Pakistan, South Africa, Yemen and elsewhere. The al-Aqsa Foundation has also been designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations.
Matthew Levitt is a writer on Islamist terrorism. Levitt is a senior fellow and director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and professorial lecturer in International Relations and Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). From 2005 to early 2007 he was a deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In that capacity, he served both as a senior official within the department's terrorism and financial intelligence branch and as deputy chief of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis. From 2001 to 2005, Levitt served the Institute as founding director of its Terrorism Research Program, which was established in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Previously, he provided tactical and strategic analytical support for counter-terrorism operations at the FBI, focusing on fundraising and logistical support networks for Middle Eastern terrorist groups. During his FBI service, Levitt participated as a team member in a number of crisis situations, including the terrorist threat surrounding the turn of the millennium and the September 11 attacks.
Yassin Abdullah Kadi is a Saudi Arabian businessman who has been described by friends and associates as a philanthropist. A multi-millionaire from Jeddah, Kadi trained as an architect in Chicago, Illinois. He is the son-in-law of Sheikh Ahmed Salah Jamjoom, a former Saudi Arabian government minister with close ties to the Saudi royal family.
InfoCom Corporation was a Web hosting service company founded by five brothers in 1992. It was initially based in Dallas, Texas, and before its dissolution it was based in Richardson, Texas.
The Union of Good (UG), also known as the Charity Coalition, is an umbrella organization consisting of over 50 Islamic charities and funds which funnel money to organizations belonging to Hamas, which currently rules the territory of the Gaza Strip. Hamas, which characterizes itself as an "Islamic resistance movement against Israeli occupation" is also on the US State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
The Mujama al-Islamiya is an Islamic charity which was established in 1973 in Gaza by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who had been involved with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Mujama started to offer clinics, blood banks, day care, medical treatment, meals and youth clubs. Mujama plays an important role for providing social care to the people, particularly those living in refugee camps. It also extended financial aid and scholarships to young people who wanted to study in Saudi Arabia and the West.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) is a non-profit research group founded by Steven Emerson in 1995, shortly after the release of his documentary film, Terrorists Among Us: Jihad in America, which first aired in the United States in 1994 on PBS. The documentary was faulted for misrepresentation, and Robert Friedman accused Emerson of "creating mass hysteria against American Arabs."
The Arab country of Qatar, bordered by Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, has been accused of allowing terror financiers to operate within its borders. The country has been called "the Club Med for Terrorists" by Ron Prosor, an Israeli diplomat and "most two-faced nation in the world, backing the U.S.-led coalition against the militants of the Islamic State while providing a permissive environment", in the words of one top American official, "for terrorist financiers to operate with impunity". Accusations come from a wide variety of sources including intelligence reports, government officials, and journalists.
Saleh al-Arouri, also transliterated as Salah al-Arouri or Salih al-Aruri, is a prominent leader of Hamas and founding commander of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military. He is regarded as, "the military commander of the West Bank." And as being, "a capable, charismatic, suspicious, and shrewd operator, with excellent connections."
Al-Aqsa Islamic Bank was established by Hamas in the Palestinian territories in 1997 to serve as the organization's financial arm. The bank laundered and transferred money on behalf of U.S.-terrorist designated Hamas until its assets were frozen by the U.S. authorities in 2001. The bank's licence was revoked in 2010.
Soliman S. Biheiri is an Egyptian citizen who moved to the United States in 1985. He established there Bait ul-Mal Incorporated (BMI), an Islamic investment firm that mostly fundraised on behalf of the U.S. terrorist designated Hamas. In 2005, Biheiri was sentenced to 13 months and one day in prison for terrorism and fraud.