Abdurrahman Alamoudi: Moderate Muslim

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Muslim Brotherhood operatives have pursued their goals in Europe and the U.S. by ingratiating themselves as “moderates” into the centers of power, and exerting quiet influence on events from there. An illustrative example of how this would be done is the meteoric rise and fall of the Muslim Brotherhood operative who was for a time the most well-connected and influential Muslim in the United States: Abdurrahman Alamoudi.

Alamoudi was born in Eritrea and immigrated to the United States from Yemen in 1979. In 1990 he founded the American Muslim Council, which soon became a key player in Washington politics. Alamoudi also founded the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council (AMAFVAC), which was for a considerable period one of only two Muslim groups authorized to approve Muslim chaplains for the U.S. military.

Although he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Alamoudi was universally respected as a moderate Muslim, and was promoted by figures in both parties, including conservative activist Grover Norquist. During the presidency of Bill Clinton, Alamoudi served as a State Department “goodwill ambassador” to Muslim lands. His influence did not wane when the Republicans came to power: Alamoudi attended a June 2001 White House briefing on George W. Bush’s faith-based initiative program, and was present with Bush at the National Cathedral in Washington for a prayer service shortly after 9/11.

Even though it was universally taken for granted that Alamoudi was a “moderate,” he never bothered to conceal his true allegiances. In 1994 he declared his support for the jihad terror group Hamas. He claimed that “Hamas is not a terrorist group,” and that it did “good work.” In 1996, Alamoudi defended Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzouk, who was ultimately deported because of his work with Hamas, and currently leads a branch of the terror group. “I really consider him to be from among the best people in the Islamic movement,” said Alamoudi of Marzouk. “Hamas … and I work together with him.” 

At a rally in October 2000, Alamoudi encouraged those in the crowd to show their support for Hamas and Hizballah. As the crowd cheered, Alamoudi shouted: “I have been labeled by the media in New York to be a supporter of Hamas, anybody supports Hamas here?” As the crowd cheered “Yes,” Alamoudi asked the same question again, and then added: “Hear that, Bill Clinton, we are all supporters of Hamas, Allahu akbar. I wish they added that I am also a supporter of Hizballah. Anybody supports Hizballah here?” The crowd again roared its approval.

But even that did not raise any concern among those in Washington who were confident that he was a sterling and reliable “moderate.” And so in January 2001, the year he was invited to the George W. Bush White House, Alamoudi traveled to Beirut to attend a conference with leaders of al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hizballah, and Islamic Jihad.

Then in September 2003, Alamoudi was finally and definitively unmasked. He was arrested in London’s Heathrow Airport while carrying $340,000 in cash – money that, as it turned out, he had received from Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi in order tofinance an al-Qaeda plot to murder the Saudi crown prince, the future King Abdullah. American officials arrested him on his return to the U.S. the following month. Indicted on numerous charges, Alamoudi was found to have funneled over a million dollars to al-Qaeda; he pled guilty to being a senior al-Qaeda financier, and was sentenced in October 2004 to twenty-three years in prison.

Even the spectacular fall of Alamoudi, however, did not raise any general concern about the goals of Muslim Brotherhood operatives in Washington. On the contrary: in the summer of 2011, the Obama Administration reduced Alamoudi’s sentence by six years, without making public its reasons for doing so.

It helps to have friends in high places, and Alamoudi and other Muslim Brotherhood had skillfully cultivated such friends for years. For even as Alamoudi languishes in prison, the evil he did lives on after him. In December 2025, the Muslim American Society (MAS) held its annual conference in tandem with the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), harping on the Israel-Hamas war and Israel’s supposed genocide in Gaza. Back in January 2012, Alamoudi, a convicted terrorist told the FBI: “Everyone knows MAS is the Muslim Brotherhood.” Yet it continues to operate without hindrance in the United States. Abdurrahman Alamoudi and his colleagues knew in the early years after 9/11 and know all the more today how to make friends, and keep them.