Joe Kaufman is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the Chairman of the Joe Kaufman Security Initiative. He was the 2014, 2016 and 2018 Republican Nominee for U.S. House of Representatives (Florida-CD23).

Given all the community food drives the Islamic Center of Greater Miami (ICGM) has conducted, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the testing and vaccinations it has co-sponsored, one could be fooled into thinking that the center is a civic minded institution. It is easy to understand why the NFL’s Miami Dolphins would want to be a part of such “charitable” endeavors. However, there is a dark side to ICGM – a side linked to terror and bigotry – which overshadows its “charitable” activities, and this makes it incumbent upon the Dolphins or any other group which has chosen to associate with ICGM to sever ties with the Islamic center.

‘Miami Dolphins partner with local mosque to distribute food in honor of Ramadan’ – This was the headline for South Florida’s Local 10 news, on the morning of April 28th. A link to the piece is found on the ICGM Facebook page. Another post on the page advertises a ‘DRIVE-THRU IFTAR DINNER,’ over the logos for the Miami Dolphins and ICGM’s corporate name, Muslim Communities Association of South Florida (MCA). Additionally, there have been photo ops at ICGM and Hard Rock Stadium with Dolphins players and executives. Who wouldn’t want such positive press, team interaction and validity, especially if there was something sinister to hide?

ICGM is a member of the South Florida Muslim Federation (SoFlo Muslims), an umbrella group for South Florida’s many radical Muslim organizations. ICGM’s imam, Abdul Hamid Samra, sits on the Federation’s Council of Imams, which uses ICGM to hold council meetings. Also sitting on the council is Izhar Khan, the imam of Masjid Jamaat Al-Mu’mineen (MJAM), which is as well a member of the Federation. The two imams and mosques are close with one another. In December 2017, Khan was honored by ICGM at its ‘A Light for Humanity’ celebration, where Khan sat facing the congregation along with Samra and fellow ICGM imam, Roshan Ali.

In May 2011, Izhar Khan was arrested and charged with material support for terrorists. As stated in the indictment against him, “Izhar is a Pakistani Taliban sympathizer who worked with [his father] and others to collect and deliver money for the Pakistani Taliban.” Reportedly, the money was to be used to murder US troops. Khan’s mosque, MJAM, promotes the same type of extremist ideology as the Taliban. MJAM’s website contains materials endorsing Female Genital Mutilation, partaking in violent jihad, punishing gays with death, stoning women accused by their husbands of adultery, and referring to Jews and Christians as “the enemies of Islam.”

Besides his involvement with ICGM, Roshan Ali is the Islamic Studies teacher at Nur-ul Islam Academy (NUIA). The former Vice President of NUIA, Raed Awad, was Florida’s representative for the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), a now-defunct Hamas financier. NUIA’s website homepage previously featured a link to islamway.com, which, according to the US Justice Department, “included a section urging Muslims to contribute money to Hamas.” And like at ICGM, Ali gives sermons at Darul Uloom, a mosque that has been a haven for high-profile terrorists, including “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla and deceased al-Qaeda commander Adnan el-Shukrijumah.

Another notable figure at ICGM is its board member Siddiq Khan. In March 2019, when Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu visited ICGM, Khan was given the honor of presenting him with a ‘plaque of appreciation.’ Just one month before, Khan posted on Facebook a video from the anti-Semitic network, TruNews. On it, host Rick Wiles labeled Jews “the Zionist beast”; challenged Senator Chuck Schumer to take a Jewish DNA test; and made a wild claim that the Iranian Revolution occurred due to a TV interview, where the Shah of Iran spewed conspiracies about the ‘Jewish Lobby.’ In December 2019, Khan threatened, “India will be wiped out…”

One further ICGM board member is Azhar Dalal. In August 2013, Dalal changed his Facebook ‘profile picture’ to a graphic of the yellow and black Muslim Brotherhood Rabia hand sign. This past August, Dalal used his Facebook page to call for the freedom of convicted cop-killer Jamil al-Amin, a.k.a. H. Rap Brown. Dalal has used social media to promote fundraisers for Islamic Relief (IR), an Islamist group that has been banned by a number of nations. Israel has identified IR as a Hamas front and financier, and reports show that the group has sent millions of dollars to and received tens of thousands of dollars from entities related to al-Qaeda.

ICGM, itself, has promoted events organized by various groups related to overseas terror. They include “unindicted co-conspirators” from the Holy Land Foundation federal trials, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and the American arm of South Asian Islamist group Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). In October 2018, Emgage, a politically-engaged Islamist group, set up a propaganda table outside the entrance of ICGM. Representing Emgage at the booth was Syed Ammar Ahmed, an individual who once joked about threatening to blow up a school.

Jason Jenkins, Dolphins Senior Vice President of Communications and Community Affairs, is featured in an ICGM video, taken last month, with his arm around ICGM board member Zahoor Moughal. In a group photo, taken inside ICGM in 2019, Jenkins is standing between Siddiq Khan and ICGM Board Chairman Khalid Mirza, with Dolphins Defensive Tackle Christian Wilkins behind them and then-Dolphins Safety Steven Parker seated up front. Jenkins and the players were cynically exploited as props to legitimize and help hide the mosque’s disturbing affiliations and shameful activities.

The Miami Dolphins relationship with ICGM, an entity with a dangerous Islamist agenda and documented hate and terror associations, warrants much closer scrutiny. The Dolphins and by extension the National Football League (NFL) must be called to account. It is time for both entities to end their relationship with a mosque that promotes violence and bigotry under the façade of community service.

Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.