Why Does This Not Surprise Me?

It seems that Rep. Keith Ellison (D, Minnesota) went on Hajj last month. The Hajj, which is required of all Muslims to do at least once in their lifetime. A Muslim is suppose to save their money and pay for the expenses themselves. Poorer Muslims sometimes get richer Muslims to sponsor them.

Now I don't know what Rep. Ellison's finances are, but I don't believe he would qualify as being a poor Muslim.

Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison's groundbreaking pilgrimage to Mecca last month was paid for by an American Muslim organization that has ties to Islamic radicals and is "the Muslim equivalent of the neo-Nazi party," his critics say.

Ellison, a Democrat, became the first U.S. congressman ever to make the hajj pilgrimage when he visited Islam's holy city in December. The trip was funded by the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, a non-profit interfaith group that is one of 55 branches of the MAS nationwide. The pilgrimage was hailed by Muslim activists in the U.S.

"A U.S. congressman going on hajj sends a very positive message to the Muslim world about America and the religious diversity in America," said Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group.

But Ellison, the only Muslim in Congress, is coming under fire for his ties to MAS, which one terrorism expert called "the Muslim equivalent of the neo-Nazi party."

"It is the de facto arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S.," said Steven Emerson, director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism. "The agenda of the MAS is to ... impose Islamic law in the U.S., to undermine U.S. counterterrorism policy."

The MAS was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, an international Islamist movement created in Egypt in 1928. Radical members of the Brotherhood founded the terror group Hamas and were among the first members of Al Qaeda.

The Muslim American Society's former secretary general has acknowledged that the group was founded by the Brotherhood, and in 2004 he estimated that about half of MAS members were in the Muslim Brotherhood.

"Ikhwan [Brotherhood] members founded MAS, but MAS went way beyond that point of conception," Shaker Elsayed told the Chicago Tribune, explaining that the group had expanded to include a wider viewpoint.

The Department of Justice has never taken action against MAS and declined to comment on whether it was investigating the group's ties.

"As a general rule, the Justice Department does not comment on whether or not a particular group or individual is under investigation or has been under investigation," said Dean Boyd, a spokesman for DOJ.

Ellison gave the keynote address at MAS-Minnesota's conventions in 2007 and 2008, and one of the organization's directors took time off his job to campaign for Ellison during his run for the House in 2006. Ellison was also the first guest on an MAS radio show launched last month.

MAS has stirred up controversy in Minnesota for its activities in the state, including a fatwa, or religious edict, it issued barring Muslim taxi drivers from carrying passengers with alcohol. MAS said in its 2006 decree that Islamic jurisprudence prohibited carrying those passengers "because it involves cooperating in sin according to Islam."

The MAS magazine, "The American Muslim," has printed articles defending "martyrdom operations" to wrest control of Gaza and the West Bank from Israel.

The Minnesota chapter at one time featured writings from Islamic clerics praising Hamas and urging Muslims to "wage Jihad until death." The postings, which were active as late as June 2007 -- one month after Ellison first addressed the group's convention -- have since been removed.

Though the MAS Web site has been washed of the religious texts that critics found offensive, Emerson says the group's ties to the Muslim Brotherhood remain intact.

"Their founding ideologues are all members of the Muslim Brotherhood," Emerson said. "I don't think you can get more radical in the United States without crossing the line to incitement."

Those accusations have some Muslim activists fuming.

Full Story

The average cost for a Hajj is $3,600 but that is just for the minimum. It can run quite high. And I am sure that the MSA didn't spring for the cheap Hajj, but went for the full deluxe Hajj for Rep. Ellison. Under Senate Rules and US Law, no member of the Congress can accept a gift costing more than $50.00. Donations to political funds are not included and come under separate laws.

Yet Rep. Ellison has taken a very expensive gift from a known terror group. And the Congress has said nothing and done nothing.

Why Does This Not Surprise Me?