January 08, 2009

Rep Keith Ellison's Trip Funded By MAS Of Minnesota "But Really Wasn't Funded By MAS Minnesota"

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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.

"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."

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.

Representatives for MAS-Minnesota did not return calls or e-mails requesting comment. But Mahdi Bray, the national director who campaigned for Ellison, denied his group had funded the congressman's pilgrimage, calling the story a "myth" and "urban legend" that needed to be laid to rest.[Taqiyya - lying for the sake of Islam?...ed]

But Ellison's office told FOXNews.com that MAS had indeed paid for the congressman's hajj.

"The trip, funded by the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, was fully reviewed and approved in advance by the House Ethics Committee," Ellison's office said in a statement to FOXNews.com.

The office, which did not say how much Ellison's trip cost, defended MAS as a highly regarded interfaith organization with many ties in Minnesota[...]

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.

Enemy from within...