Al-Maghrib Institute

Activities

The Al-Maghrib Institute claims to be the largest group of students studying Islam in the Western world, through both on-site and online courses. ¹ It provides 50 different class offerings in 40 cities around the world and claims to have reached 120,000 students. Most of its classes take place over one or two weekends, but the Institute also offers associate and bachelor’s degrees. ²

Comments on Terrorism

Waleed Basyouni, the president of Al-Maghrib Institute, has made numerous appearances on mainstream and Islamic news, from CNN to the Islam Channel. In 2014, he preached against the terrorism of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. He also criticized Hamas’s use of suicide bombing but argued that Hamas itself was not a terrorist group. ³

In 2016, Basyouni appeared at a forum at Vanderbilt University with a former FBI community outreach agent, hosted by the Muslim Students Association and American Muslim Advisory Council, to discuss extremism. He said that then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s proposed ban on immigrants from majority-Muslim countries helped ISIS achieve its goals by undermining cooperation between different religions. ⁴

The day after the attacks against French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015, Suleiman Hani posted at length about the difference between hate speech and freedom of speech, and decried the use of “hate speech” laws to limit statements about the Holocaust while claiming that “blasphemous” videos and pictures incited violence. ⁵ Hani joined over 100 Muslim scholars in an open letter encouraging North American societies to respect Muslim beliefs opposed to homosexuality, and not associate those beliefs with bigotry or hatred. ⁶ At the beginning of the 2023 Hamas-Israel conflict, Hani said of pro-Palestinian protests and relief efforts: “We are not here to celebrate. We are here because something tragic has happened.” ⁷

Controversy

Former Students Alleged Involvement with Terrorism

On Christmas Day 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to bomb an airliner bound for Detroit. Once he was arrested, investigations revealed that he attended multiple Al-Maghrib classes, including a 2008 intensive 16-day “Knowledge Fest” in Houston and classes in London on the life of the Prophet Muhammad and the first chapter of the Qur’an. ^{8 9}

Daniel Maldonado, now known as Daniel Aljughaifi, is a native of New Hampshire who traveled to Somalia in 2006 to train with terrorist organization al-Shabaab. He was convicted in 2007 and sentenced to ten years in prison. ¹⁰ In 2012, his co-conspirator Tarek Mehanna was sentenced to 17-and-a-half years in prison for providing material support to terrorist organizations. ¹¹ Aljughaifi and Maldonado had both taken Al-Maghrib Institute courses.¹²

Leadership

Waleed Basyouni is president of Al-Maghrib Institute and head of its Theology and Ethics Department. He holds a master’s in Islamic theology, world religions, and modern religious sects from the Saudi Al-Imam Muhammad University as well as a Ph.D. in theology. He has made numerous appearances on mainstream and Islamic television. ¹³ He is a member of the fatwa committee of the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America, which has supported anti-American and pro-Hamas positions. ^{14 15 16}

Suleiman Hani is the director of academic affairs for Al-Maghrib. He later earned a master’s degree from the University of Jordan’s College of Shari’ah, and a master’s degree from Harvard University. ¹⁷

Yasir Qadhi was the dean of academic affairs until 2019, when he departed Al-Maghrib Institute to become the dean of the Islamic Seminary of America. ¹⁸ During the height of ISIS terrorism and violence from 2014 through 2016, he led a group of Muslim scholars condemning Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS. He also attributed the lack of radical Islamist movements in America to a better integrated, more welcoming society, saying that by contrast, European Muslims suffered from discrimination. ¹⁹

Qadhi made headlines in 2001 for a speech calling the Holocaust “false propaganda.” Qadhi also spent time on a terror watch list in 2006, although his name has since been removed. ¹⁰

Muhammad Alshareef founded the Al-Maghrib Institute in 2002 and began teaching classes in College Park, Maryland. ²⁰ In 2018, Alshareef was one of several Muslim preachers banned from entering Denmark. ²¹ He died in Dubai, United Arab Emirates in July 2022. ²²

Financials

In 2022, al-Maghrib Institute had $3,216,305 in revenue and $2,286,225 in expenses. The Institute held $4,882,930 in assets that year. ²³