MONITORING AND COMBATING ISLAMOPHOBIA

A Project of the Council on American-Islamic Relations

ISLAMOPHOBIC INDIVIDUALS: Kamal Saleem

Kamal Saleem

Kamal Saleem is a board membeer of Former Muslims United.

On February 19, 2008, the Village Voice reported, “Kamal Saleem, whose real name is Khodor Shami, worked for Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network for sixteen years, and was hired by Focus on the Family in 2003. In 2006, he launched Koome Ministries, whose mission is to “expose the true agenda of [Muslims] who would deceive our nation and the free nations of the world… America must wake-up and set a continued Christian agenda of Liberty and Truth as a standard to follow throughout the free world.”

His bizarre claim that “in my family was the Grand Wazir of Islam” prompted Calvin College history professor Douglas Howard to investigate Saleem’s background. [NOTE: The title “Grand Wazir of Islam” has never existed.] “I concluded this person is a fraud,” explained Howard after his investigation into Saleem’s claims. Howard says Saleem “preys on people’s lack of information and their worries and their fears and their wanting to find a way to justify their own attitudes toward Islam and Middle East policy.”

Saleem’s claims to being a former terrorist have similarly been debunked. As one example, in 2012 Tim Murphy reported in Mother Jones, “Saleem claims that local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have ‘reached out’ to him to learn about ‘the Islamist mindset and tactics'”. But Kathleen Wright, an FBI spokeswoman, says she has “no information that Kamal Saleem has spoken at an FBI-sponsored event.”

In October 2012, Right Wing Watch posted a video of Saleem and noted that in that video, “Saleem alleged that Obama’s top speech writer and Sasha and Malia’s babysitter are both Islamic fundamentalists that are wielding secret power. ‘The right-hand of our President today, his name is Hasan Rashad, and he is sworn to destroy the United States of America,’ Saleem said (possibly referring to the White House’s representative to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Rashad Hussain), ‘our President’s babysitter wears abaya and keffiyeh just like those ninjas, you don’t see her face everything is covered, that’s the babysitter of his children.'”

Similarly, in January 2013, Right Wing Watch posted video of Salaam bizarrely claiming that a UN Resolution “will subjugate American people to be arrested and put to jail and their churches and synagogues shut down.” Salaam claims this resolution will affect America “as early as January.”

Ann Coulter

Ann Coulter, a conservative media personality, has gained notoriety for her unabashed Islamophobia. Her influence extends to the social media platforms, where she boasts over 2 million followers on X (formerly known as Twitter). 

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Clare Lopez

Clare Lopez is an anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist. The Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University asserts that Lopez “promotes falsified claims about Muslims in America, particularly the notion of a Muslim Brotherhood infiltration under President Obama.” 

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Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes is the founder and president of Middle East Forum, an anti-Muslim think tank. Pipes is a longtime advocate of racial and ethnic profiling of the Muslim community.  

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David Yerushalmi

David Yerushalmi is an attorney who the Southern Poverty Law Center has described as a “key figure in the U.S. anti-Muslim hate movement” and an “anti-Muslim ideologue.” Georgetown University’s Bridge Initiative described Yerushalmi as “an advocate for the criminalization of adherence to sharia and Islam.” 

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Frank Gaffney

Frank Gaffney is the founder of the anti-Muslim think tank Center for Security Policy Studies (CSP), which seeks to advance anti-Muslim sentiment in both policy and society and alleges that Islam is an existential threat to America.  

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John Bennett

John Bennett is an anti-Muslim public official that has previously served as chair of the Oklahoma Republican Party and as a member of Oklahoma House of Representatives.  

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Jonathan Matusitz

Jonathan Matusitz is a tenured professor at the University of Central Florida who has leveraged his academic credentials to espouse anti-Muslim propaganda and has ties with ACT for America, an anti-Muslim hate group.  

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