Muhammad al-Asi

Muhammad al-Asi, a Muslim activist based in Washington DC, has made numerous anti-Semitic speeches around the country for several years.

Al-Asi is most often invited to speak to Muslim student groups in California and has made some of his more radical speeches at anti-Israel events organized by the Muslim Student Union at the University of California – Irvine. These events often feature a handful of radical anti-Semitic speakers, including Imam Amir Abdul Malik Ali and Imam Abdul Alim Musa.

In the early 1980s Al-Asi served as the imam of the in Islamic Center in Washington DC, and although he was barred from holding a position in the center, he still presents himself as the legitimate elected leader of the mosque. He has led protest services on the sidewalk in front of the center every Friday afternoon since he was fired in 1983.Al-Asi, who publicly swore allegiance to the Iranian Supreme Leader in 1994, is a research fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT), a pro-Iranian, pro-Hezbollah Islamist think tank that distributes anti-Semitic propaganda in its magazine, Crescent International.

Al-Asi is also affiliated with the UK-based pro-Iranian Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC). He coauthored the IHRC’s “Charter for Muslim Unity” (or, Charter 3:103), which was presented as a manifesto against sectarian violence and extremism. The charter was in fact designed to attract Sunni support for the Iranian theocratic Shiah regime. In London IHRC organizes the annual commemoration of Jerusalem Day, which was established as part of the Muslim calendar by the Iranian regime and serves to call for the destruction of Israel.

Among al-Asi’s associates is Ahmed Huber, a Swiss Nazi sympathizer who was implicated in laundering money for Al Qaeda, and Yaqub Zaki, a Holocaust denier associated with the Muslim Institute in London. Al-Asi has also joined with the leader of the anti-Semitic New Black Panther Party, Malik Zulu Shabazz, for several events in the Washington DC area.

Al-Asi’s speeches and articles portray Israel and Zionism as the final stage in a long process of corruption of the Jewish people. Al-Asi’s articles in Crescent International often refer to Jews, Zionists and Israel in the collective name Yahud, which is Arabic for “Jews.” Al-Asi also justifies violence, writing in one of his articles: “The Israeli Zionist are [sic] the true and legitimate object of liquidation.” He has also expressed his support for the Iranian religious edict calling for the death of British author Salman Rushdie.