California Church to Become Site of Islamist Convention

The Muslim Public Affairs Council’s choice of location for its 12th Annual Conventionon December 15 is telling: The All Saints Episcopal Church of Pasadena, California. The group, founded by Muslim Brotherhood followers, says this is the “next step in its mission by crossing the interfaith line.” Yet again, the Islamists are taking advantage of naïve Christians with a desire to show off their tolerance. 

The All Saints Episcopal Church of Pasadena started an Interfaith Study Groupin 2007 with the Pasadena Jewish Temple and the Islamic Center of Southern California (ICSC), from which MPAC originated. The organization was founded as a branch of ICSC in 1986 and then became independent in 1988, though the two remain intertwined. The ICSC is proud of its interfaith successes. For example, the First United Methodist Church of Santa Monica is allowing the ICSC to hold Friday prayers there every week.

The story of MPAC begins with Hassan and Maher Hathout, the former of whom died in 2009. The brothers became active with the Muslim Brotherhood at an early age, with Hassan Hathout saying that its founder, Hassan al-Banna, is “the person who most influenced my life” and that “centuries might roll over before a similar personality is produced.” Maher Hathout was arrested in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood was banned, and released in 1968. Three years later, they moved to Buffalo, New York and went to California to establish the ICSC in 1978. 

Hassan Hathout says they sought to begin the “Islamic Movement” in the U.S., a term the Brotherhood uses to describe its ideology. In 1997, hepredicted its success because “America needs Islam. If you look objectively you will see that this current civilization harbors in its body the seeds of its own destruction.” The language is very similar to that of a1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood strategy document where it defines its “work in America as a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.” Another U.S. Muslim Brotherhood document from 1989 from its Financial Committee refers to a person with the last name of Hathout as someone “in the field.” Read more: