Major U.S. MB Leader Jamal Barzinji Passes Away

Jamal Barzinji, a major U.S. Muslim Brotherhood leader has died.

Barzinji was one of the co-founders of the Muslim Brotherhood Think Tank known as the International Institute of Islamic Thought, located in Fairfax, Virginia. Barzinji was also a founding member of the Muslim Student’s Association (MSA), the founding general manager of the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), a member of the Majlis Ashura of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and director of the SAFA Group, a network of charities and companies headquartered in Northern Virginia, and raided by federal authorities over funding to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.  Barzinji was also a founding member of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists of North America (AMSS) and Association of Muslim Scientists and Engineers (AMSE), both early Muslim Brotherhood organizations established out of the MSA.

At the international level Barzinji was also a founding member of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, the Saudi-based organization, known for its ties to Al Qaeda funding, and the International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations (IIFSO), a global federation of Muslim Brotherhood-controlled student organizations around the globe.

Barzinji’s funeral was held on Sunday at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center, itself a Muslim Brotherhood organization tied to the SAFA Group. Many notable Muslim Brotherhood leaders have commented on the occasion of Barzinji’s passing, including Jasser Auda, a IIIT official with close ties to MB chief jurist Yusuf Al Qaradawi, and head of the Council on American Islamic Relations Nihad Awad. The Islamic Circle of North America, the front for Pakistan-based Jamat-e-Islami, which merged with the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1990s, published a press release which, “expresses its deep sorrow at the passing away of Dr. Jamal Barzinji, a pioneer in establishing Muslim American institutions.” ISNA Vice President Altaf Hussain said,  “Personal legacy is not what drove him, rather it was the development of self-sufficient, thriving institutions (MSA National, ISNA Headquarters just to name a few) which could at once serve the Muslim community and society at large.”

In June of this year, Barzinji delivered the eulogy for another major MB figure who had passed away, Mohammed Al-Hanooti, in which he noted their long history of over 65 years working together. And as we noted at the time of Hanooti’s passing,

As we get further away from the generation that produced the Muslim Brotherhood documents submitted in the Holy Land Foundation Trial, it will require increased effort to identify and track younger U.S. Brotherhood members. These younger Brothers will have risen to prominence with newly established organizations during a period where they were accustom to the risk of surveillance of their radical activities that the earlier generation had not experienced. As a result open source researchers into the Muslim Brotherhood’s U.S. networks will need to redouble their own efforts.