President Obama's envoy to Muslim nations participated in a conference in Mauritania last week tied to radical Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report (GMBDR) reported Monday.
Rashad Hussain, the president's envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), attended the meeting which focused on ""challenges faced by religious minorities in Muslim-majority communities," GMBDR reported, citing an Islamic Society of North America article. The gathering was hosted by Abdallah bin Bayyah, vice chair of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, and included ISNA President Mohamed Magid and Community Outreach Director Mohamed Elsanousi.
Bin Bayyah is "a well known global Muslim Brotherhood figure" the GMBDR report said, serving on the European Council for Fatwa and Research, which the NEFA Foundation said was led by Qaradawi. Qaradawi is an influential Brotherhood spiritual leader. He is so revered that the Brotherhood brought him back to Cairo to deliver the first Friday sermon after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's ouster last year.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has tracked a number of Qaradawi's statements sanctioning violence over the years. The self-proclaimed "Mufti of martyrdom operations," endorsed attacks on American forces in Iraq and has repeatedly expressed his dream of killing Jews.
Annual meetings of the European Council for Fatwa and Research have included anti-Semitic speeches, GMBDR said. That includes references to the anti-Semitic forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," which one speaker said exposed a Jewish conspiracy "to undermine Muslim moral values through sexual permissiveness."