Taxpayer-funded school choice programs are quietly being exploited to finance Islamic indoctrination networks tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, with little public awareness and virtually no oversight.

What was sold to Americans as a way to rescue children from failing public schools has instead become a pipeline for public money into private religious institutions that openly seek to “shape and mold” the next generation to “live, breathe Islam.”

One beneficiary of North Carolina’s generous school choice voucher program is Al-Huda Academy, an Islamic school with campuses in Durham and North Raleigh, founded in 2009 by the Raleigh-Durham Chapter of the Muslim American Society, in collaboration with Jamaat Ibad Ar-Rahman, Durham.” That origin places the school squarely within one of the most prominent Muslim Brotherhood-linked networks operating in the United States.

North Carolina is now the 11th most Muslim-populated state in the country, with more than 130,000 adherents, and taxpayer dollars are already being routed into institutions built to advance Islam in America.

This raises a critical question: What is the nature of the Muslim American Society, and why are its ties to the school choice program so concerning?

The Muslim American Society and the Muslim Brotherhood

Founded in 1993, the Muslim American Society (MAS) is one of the main Muslim Brotherhood-founded organizations still in operation in America. Despite this, they receive little scrutiny for their activities and allegiances. Over the years, there have been attempts to expose MAS’s radical leadership and ideology, but there has been little political will to conduct a thorough investigation of the group.

The Muslim American Society presents itself as a grassroots entity dedicated to community building, youth empowerment, and civic engagement. However, beneath this facade lies a web of evidence suggesting MAS functions as an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), an Islamic organization with a global agenda of establishing Islamic governance.

MAS’s origins are inextricably linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, who “viewed Islam as a complete, all-embracing system governing all aspects of life – both private and public.” In the U.S., MB activities began in the 1960s, with immigrant activists establishing multiple networks, such as the Muslim Students Association (MSA).

By the 1980s, a structured U.S. MB emerged, with Ahmed Elkadi serving as its president from 1984 to 1994. Elkadi, an Egyptian-born surgeon, was a founding incorporator of MAS in 1993, alongside figures like Mohammed Mahdi Akef, who later became the MB’s supreme guide in Egypt from 2004 to 2010.

RAIR Foundation USA has written about the deep influence of Ahmed Elkadi’s daughter, Magda Elkadi Saleh, in Florida’s Islamic schools.

A pivotal document is the 1991 MB “Explanatory Memorandum,” uncovered during the 2007 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial – the largest terrorism-financing case in U.S. history. This internal strategy outlined a “civilizational jihad” to “destroy” Western civilization from within by infiltrating institutions. MAS is cited as part of this network, alongside groups like the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

A 2004 Chicago Tribune investigation, based on interviews with Elkadi, revealed MAS was created as the overt arm of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.

MAS Denies Affiliation to Muslim Brotherhood

MAS denies any current affiliation, stating it is an independent American organization with “no affiliation” with the Muslim Brotherhood or with any other international organization. They claim that MAS is an “independent American organization that aims to move people and nurture lifelong God-centered agents of change, striving for a virtuous and just American society.”

Further, they say that MAS “was established by Muslim Americans who envisioned a platform for organizing and positively contributing to American society.”

There are two problems with this argument:

First, MAS’s directors and leaders provide damning evidence of ongoing militancy:

Here is a non-exhaustive list:

Al Huda Academy: Expanding with Taxpayer Funds

This following image of the logos of both the Al-Huda Academy in Durham and the Raleigh-Durham Chapter of the Muslim American Society reveals how they are deeply entrenched:

In a video uncovered by RAIR Foundation USA promoting the school in January 2024, then-principal Zainab Qaabidh (now the Founder/Executive Director of the Amir Institute, which is also expanding) explains that in addition to math, science and social studies, students learn “Arabic, Qur’an, and Islamic studies.” “Because of what is happening in the public schools,” Qaabidh explains, “a lot of Muslim families wanted to enroll their kids in Muslim schools so that they live, breathe Islam.”

Al-Huda Academy Board chairman and co-founder, Muslim American Society Raleigh Chapter Representative and professor at North Carolina State University (NCSU) Mohamed Youssef echoes Qaabidh’s sentiment in the video, explaining that the school initially started with only 20 students.

Zainab Qaabidh explains that taxpayers foot the bill in North Carolina for children to attend private schools:

“So the beautiful thing about North Carolina is that the state offers scholarships, opportunity scholarships, for students to attend private schools. So if a student is enrolled in a public school or not of age yet to start school, the parents can qualify up to $6,500 to offset private school tuition.”

Out of the 185 students (at the time) who attend Al-Huda Academy, “almost 67% of our students that receive the opportunity scholarship,” Qaabidh explains. This taxpayer-funded scholarship covers 95% of the tuition. Later, she expresses the importance of Islamic schools:

“We have to continue to help parents with parenting and understanding the importance of Islamic education because these are the future, you know, and we have to definitely shape and mold our future generation so that they live, breathe Islam.”

“Our vision is to open multiple campuses under the same name, Al-Huda Academy,” co-founder Mohamed Youssef states in the video. It is likely that all schools will adjust their tuition to max the taxpayer-funded benefit in North Carolina.

Youssef is seeing the vision come to light, as construction is actively taking place on the Durham branch of the Al-Huda Academy:

The Muslim American Society Raleigh-Durham Chapter also posted the same image with the text: “ALHamdo Lellah, the new campus construction resumed with expanding the concrete at the ground level…”

The MAS’s stamp can be found at Al-Huda Academy, whose “Interim Principal” is Hamdy Radwan, retired Professor Emeritus of Physical Therapy at Winston-Salem State University (WSSU), part of the University of North Carolina system. Born and raised in Egypt, Radwan served as president of the Raleigh chapter of the Muslim American Society in the mid-2000s. Notably, Radwan has also referred to Hamas, a State Department-designated terrorist organization, as “freedom fighters”.

Radwan served in leadership positions at the Islamic Relief USA (IRUSA) through November 2, 2023. IRUSA has also been connected to Hamas through their leadership.

RAIR Foundation USA has been examining the terror ties of the schools that operate in historically conservative strongholds in Florida, Texas and Oklahoma. It appears that North Carolina has not escaped creeping Sharia.

Watch the video here:

In the end, the story of Al-Huda Academy is far more than one school’s growth – it’s a stark illustration of how taxpayer dollars, intended to empower parents and rescue children from failing systems, are quietly subsidizing institutions deeply rooted in networks with documented historical ties to ideologies that challenge America’s foundational values.

As construction cranes rise over new campuses and scholarships flow unchecked, the question is no longer whether scrutiny is warranted, but how long policymakers will continue to look the other way while an unexamined vision of Islam shapes the next generation – at public expense. The time for passive acceptance has passed; rigorous investigation and accountability must begin now, before the quiet expansion becomes irreversible.

NOTE: Since the video from two years ago, the scholarship max in North Carolina is now well over $7,000. per year. The Al-Huda Academy has revised their tuition fees accordingly.