Secrets of Qatari funding for political Islam in France:Mosques, Institutions and Figures
Qatar offers funding for political Islam in France through the humanitarian development organization, Qatar Charity, as well as some Qatari sponsors.
The charity was founded by Abdullah Mohamed al-Dabagh in 1991. Al-Dabagh was its first head before he left his post due to pressure by the US administration.
The pressure was put on Doha against the background of suspicions that the charity had offered funding to al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden, according to Mohamed Louizi, a Muslim Brotherhood insider.
Qatar Charity is now headed by Ahmed al-Hamadi, a member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars. The charity has invested up to 130 million Euros in Europe since 2010.
1 - Mosques
As-Salam Mosque in Nantes, which is affiliated to the Western France Islamic Society, is the regional branch of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France. Qatar Charity offers the mosque unspecified, but most likely huge, amounts of money in financing.
In 2009, Nantes municipality contributed part of the budget of the Abdullah al-Darwish Cultural Center which teaches Islamic law. The contribution amounted to 200,000 Euros.
Several conferences were organized at the mosque. Speaking in the conferences was a host of Muslim Brotherhood figures and leaders, including Tareq Ramadan and Hassan Iquioussen.
Ar-Rahma Mosque, which is located on Racin Avenue in Strasbourg, is run by the Social Reform Society in Hautepierre, an affiliate of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France.
Inaugurated on May 19, 2017, the three-floor mosque covers an area of 2,500 square meters. The main hall on the ground floor has room for 800 people, while the remaining two halls in the second and third floors have room for 400 people each. The mosque, mostly frequented by Muslims of Moroccan origin, cost 3 million Euros to build. This money came from Qatar. Turkey contributed some funds for the construction of the mosque.
Salah Arbal, who founded the Union of Islamic Organizations in Alsace in 1989, had travelled to Turkey to support Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the presidential elections.
The mosque is near the headquarters of the Turkish Cultural and Islamic Affairs Office, one of the soft power tools of the ruling Justice and Development Party in Turkey. The office and the union aspire to function as role models for Muslims in the Alsace.
Dassou Mosque in Argenteuil of the Val-d'Oise department is considerably new. It is affiliated to as-Salam Society. The mosque is run by a group of Moroccans from the Federation of French Muslims. On May 22, 2015, as-Salam Society received 2 million Euros in donations from al-Attia Fahd Abdullah, who belongs to a rich Qatari family. The donations brought the amount of money the C.S.C.A Union Chamber of Insurance Brokers had for the mosque up to 3.5 million Euros. This amount of money will be used in expanding the mosque.
Brotherhood ties
Bashir bin Hassan, a member of the Tunisian Ennahda Party, has been delivering sermons at the as-Salam mosque since October 2016. Hassan's sermons have been attracting an increasing number of people to the mosque. Most of those coming to the mosque have Salafist leanings.
Some fundamental imams have also been frequenting the same mosque, including Mauritanian national Tayyip Mohamed Mahmud who is the current imam of a mosque in Sartrouville in the Yvelines department. Mahmud visits the mosque every now and then. Imam Ali Yashar, known as Ali al-Iraqi, is also another of these fundamental imams visiting the mosque. Yashar was the imam of Dassou mosque between late 2001 and 2004, before he was put under house arrest for inciting jihad in Iraq. These fundamental imams also included Mohamed bin Marzouq, widely known as Abu Omar.
Yutz Mosque in Moselle is located on AVCCM. It is run by al-Hayat Cultural Society for the Islamic Community, which is headed by Ali Kharbouni. The imam of this mosque is called Belqas Belhayes. He is a Salafist activist well-known to French security authorities.
The society pays 2,960 Euros in rent for the building every month. It even wants to buy it. This was why it launched a fundraising campaign that succeeded in raising 120,000 Euros. Nonetheless, the society wants to raise 750,000 Euros to be able to buy the building.
Kharbouni contacted some Qatari diplomats in 2016 and travelled to Qatar to get the necessary funding for the purchase of the building.
His demand for money was warmly welcomed in Qatar where Qatar Charity secured the funding.
The charity now focuses its activities on Syria where there is need for humanitarian and military assistance. Mosque officials were notified that Syria is now a priority for the charity.
Galliac Mosque, which has room for 260 people, has an imam who receives a fixed salary, something I failed in verifying. However, there are rumors that Qatar pays the salary of the imam.
Saint-Denis mosque in Saint-Denis is called al-Tawhid Cultural Center. It is affiliated to the Union of Islamic Organizations in France. On April 26, 2013, the French daily Libération ran an article in which it referred to visits to the mosque by people with affiliations to the Muslim Brotherhood. These people included Rached Ghannouchi, the founder of Ennahda Party in Tunisia, Tareq Ramadan's brother, Hani, who is even more radical than his brother. The mosque always raises funds from Gulf countries. According to several members, most of the funds come from Qatar.
The Grand Mosque in Reims is run by its board and Reims Center. It is the jewel of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France. It covers an area of 3,700 square meters. Kuwait paid 3 million Euros for the construction of the mosque and Qatar paid 2 million Euros.
The Muslim Brotherhood makes its presence in the mosque strongly felt. Zeid Dolteli, a leading member of Ennahda Movement visited the mosque in February 2016. A number of important figures paid visits to the mosque as I wrote my book "Radical Mosques".
Texts written by Sayyed Qotb are usually distributed to people visiting the mosque. At the library of the mosque, the books of the current theoreticians of the Muslim Brotherhood, such as Youssef al-Qaradawi, Abu Bakr a-Jazaari and Mohamed al-Ghazali are sold.
The mosque of Villeneuve d'Ascq is the headquarters of the Islamic Center of the city. The center is an affiliated to the Union of Islamic Organizations. A number of officials from Qatar Charity visited the mosque in May 2015, including its board chairman, Sheikh Hamad bin Nasser al-Thani, Youssef al-Kawari, a Qatari national with affiliations to the Muslim Brotherhood, and Ayub Abul Yaqin, the director of Qatar Charity in the UK.
Donations are clear in this mosque, given the fact that it is located in close proximity to the southern Lille Mosque and the al-Quds Institute.
The al-Nour Mosque is located in Mulhouse. It is affiliated to the Alsace and Moselle territory. It is still under construction. After the completion of this construction, the mosque will be the largest Muslim Brotherhood Islamic house of worship in the whole of France. It will be headed by Mahfouz Zawy.
Sheikh Qaradawi featured in a video that was part of the fundraising campaign for the construction of the mosque. Qatar Charity donated 1 million Euros, out of a total of 3.6 million Euros required for its construction. Sheikh Ahmed al-Hamadi also visited the site of the mosque in 2016. A host of Muslim Brotherhood prominent leaders also delivered speeches at the Parc Expo de Mulhouse. They included Safwat Hegazi in 2010 and Omar Abdel Kafi in 2015.
2 - Institutions
1 – National Association for Private Islamic Learning
This association is headed by Mahmud Mamish, the deputy head of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France. The association contains five Islamic schools, some of which function in the light of contracts with the French government.
Mamish appears in one of the videos to say that Prophet Muhammad worked in secret.
"This is why we have to work in secret until we complete our project," Mamish said. "We have to be patient and as an Islamic community in France we have to wait until we become strong. We have to work calmly and make extra effort."
Amana School in Montpellier
The group of schools affiliated to Amana Association boasts that it succeeded in convincing French donors to donate 31,000 Euros to it. The group plans to open eight new primary classes in the 2018 academic year. The group also succeeded in getting a large building on Maurice Street. The building has enough room for 150 pupils.
Mahfouz Ali, a former advisor to the campaign of French President Emmanuel Macron, played a big role in financing the project. Ali succeeded in using his contacts in bringing Amana to the spotlight when he took over the position of society treasurer in 2015. He may use successes achieved in this regard in making political gains within the Islamic community in Montpellier.
In 2017, Amana's bank account was closed against the background of the huge funding it received from the state of Qatar, according to the anti-money laundering section of the French Interior Ministry.
The project is made of a school that teaches in Arabic, French and English. The educational process itself has Islamic dimensions to it. The school, according to a video on Youtube, teaches the holy Quran and Islamic morals.
Ibn Rushd School
Qatar Charity bought a new building in 2012 for 1 million Euros. The following schools also got funding from Qatar:
- Al-Kendy School in Leon in 2007
- College Lycee School in Vitre commune which was founded in 2008
- Ibn Khaldun School in Marseille which was founded in 2009
2 - Collective against Islamophobia in France
Sami Deba and Marwan Mohamed, who were in their thirties, founded the Collective against Islamophobia in 2003. The new entity aimed to counter attacks against the Islamic religion. It also aimed to work against discrimination and attacks against women wearing the Islamic headgear at the workplace and in society in general.
In 2013, Marwan Mohamed unveiled the real goal behind the construction of a mosque in Orly.
"Nobody has the right to say that France cannot be an Islamic country after 30 or 40 years from now," Mohamed said. "Nobody in the world can prevent this from happening. Nobody can deprive us of achieving our goal of founding an Islamic community. Nobody has the right to tell us what the French identity should be about".
The fact is that this society collaborates with the Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood. A number of Salafist figures, such as Rachid al-Hozaifa, Nader Abdo and others were invited for talks with the founders of the society. The society also invites a large number of Muslim Brotherhood figures on different occasions. These figures include Tareq Ramadan and Hassan Iquioussen. It invited Harira Betlga, who strongly backs Hamas, in 2015.
The Collective against Islamophobia in France, according to Sami Deba in the famous documentary "Silent Jihad", receives funding from Qatar. Deba refused to meet a journalist who pretended to be a Jordanian businessman. He said then that he meets Muslim Brotherhood figures only. "If you are not a Muslim Brother, I will not meet you," Deba told the journalist.
3 - European Institute for Humanities
In 1992, Youssef al-Qaradawi inaugurated the Islamic Sciences School, an affiliate of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France, in Nievre. Qaradawi was a member of the academic council of the school.
Quoting the French intelligence, French journalist Antoine Pepin mentions in his book "Resistance", which was released in 2016, that Muslim Brotherhood member Ahmed al-Hamadi gave half a million Euros to the institute in 2007 as an official of Qatar Charity. This funding might not be available now because most of the resources of the charity have been channeled to Syria.
4 – Islamic Relief
Rachid Lahlou founded the Islamic branch of Islamic Relief Organization in 1992. Lahlou did this at the request of Hani al-Banna who cofounded the branch with him. This cofounder was a strong fan of Hassan al-Banna and Sayyed Qotb.
In 2001, Islamic Relief received $50,000 in donations from Osama bin Laden. It received another $60,000 from entities affiliated to al-Qaeda. Qatar Charity allocated a grant of $276,000 to the organization in 2013. This information was published by the site of the Muslim Brotherhood, Ikwaninfo. Nonetheless, it is not clear whether the French branch of Islamic Relief had received any of this money.
5 – International and Strategic Relations Institute
When the head of the International and Strategic Relations Institute, Pascal Boniface, was asked by journalists about funding to his organization from Qatar, he vehemently denied the presence of this funding. He even refused to publish information about the financial dealings of the institute.
Anyway, Boniface is always keen to attend the Democracy Forum, an annual event organized in Doha since 2004. He was also one of the most outstanding defenders of Qatar against the background of the publication in 2013 of the book "Qatar: the Small Villain" by French writers Nicolas Beau and Jacques-Marie Bourget.
6 - AJ+ Channel
The new channel, which is broadcast by al-Jazeera, tackles social issues in a very biased manner. It describes others in a racist way. The channel also denounces the interrogation of veiled women and praises Tarq Ramadan all the time. It refers to Ramadan as "Mr" or as a "Swiss thinker". The channel always interviews people who back Hamas.
7 – Arab World Institute
Qatar contributes part of the budget of the institute. We found Qaradawi's books at the library of the institute. The spokeswoman of the Republicans Party, who works for the institute, threatened to sue me if I reveal her links with the institute. The same woman is a staunch advocate of Hamas. Tareq Ramadan was invited several times to speak at the institute.
3 – Figures
Bouklet brothers
The three brothers, al-Hassan, Shueib and al-Tibi Bouklet are Islamist activists. Hassan lives in Bordeaux. Al-Tibi lives in Montpellier.
In late 2017, Shueib travelled to Doha for four days to bring money to France with assistance from another man. Shueib was used to such journeys. Nonetheless, the source of the money was not known to anybody. Al-Tibi Bouklet is the current head of as-Salam Society in Montpellier. Al-Hassan is one of the most outstanding Salafist figures in Bordeaux.
Nabil al-Nasseri
He is the head of the Islamic community in France. In their book, "Our Very Dear Emirs", French writers Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot say that the funding that used to be offered to al-Nasseri by Qatar had already dried up.
We were told at the Qatari embassy that researcher Nabil al-Nasseri, who has close links with the Muslim Brotherhood, is one of the victims of the new policies of the embassy in Paris. The man's name is no longer mentioned in the embassy. He was not invited to attend the Democracy Forum in Doha this year. His observatory does not receive any Qatari funding any more. The embassy wants to stay away from everything that has links with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Nevertheless, the former ambassador of Qatar used to have hopes to control the Union of Islamic Organizations in France.
A businessman with close links to Mohamed al-Kawari referred to the presence of the largest Moroccan community in France. Controlling this community, he said, eases control over all Muslims in Europe. It is worth noting that the current ambassador of Qatar in Paris, Meshaal al-Thani likes to stay away from Islamic societies in general.
Al-Nasseri is a strong supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood. He denounced the decision to prevent Youssef al-Qaradawi and other Brotherhood affiliates from entering France in 2012.
He wrote a book, titled "Qatar".
