Shaker Elsayed

Shaker Elsayed (born 1951) is an Egyptian–American imam who was posted at the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia from 2005 to 2017, when he resigned because of backlash stemming from his comments about female genital mutilation. He was born in Cairo, Egypt.

Educational background and scholarship

Elsayed has an undergraduate degree in economics and independent Islamic studies from Cairo, and has done graduate work in educational administration and psychology at the University of Houston in Texas. He has translated the Quran into English. While still at MAS, in 2004 Elsayed was also on the mosque's executive committee.

Elsayed described the 2002 hunt by federal agents for evidence against Sami Al-Arian as "a war on Muslim institutions." Al-Arian ultimately made a plea agreement, pleading guilty to conspiracy to help a "specially designated terrorist" organization, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

When three defendants who were part of the Virginia jihad network were convicted in March 2004 of conspiring to help wage violent jihad in Kashmir and possibly against American troops in Afghanistan, Elsayed said "It is evident that Muslims should not expect justice. Muslims are besieged after 9/11, for no fault of their own."

In April 2005 Ali Al-Timimi went on trial for treason for verbally encouraging people to train for jihad and to attack the US. Elsayed said: "He is not accused of anything except talking. It's all about him saying something. If this isn't a First Amendment issue, I don't know what is." After Al-Timini's conviction, Elsayed said that "Ali never opened a weapon or fired a shot, and he is going to get life imprisonment for talking. What kind of country are we turning the United States into today?"

Religious and political views In 1990, he was the principal of the Al-Ghazly Islamic School in Jersey City. The children of El Sayyid Nosair, who was convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the killing of Meir Kahane, attended the school until 1989. Elsayed said about Kahane's killing: "It was not a violation [of Islamic law], in the sense that Kahane adopted a position against all Arabs and Muslims. He put himself in that category."

Elsayed told worshippers, "Islam forbids you to give allegiance to those who kick you off your homeland, and to those who support those who kick you off your homeland,"and explained afterwards the statements are in opposition to US foreign policy, not against American people. "Shaker Elsayed is more like a political figure than a religious figure", said M.A. Muqtedar Khan of Adrian College in Michigan, who worshiped at the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque for several years. "Dar al-Hijrah is a very Arab-centric mosque, very much centered on Arab politics." and said that Abu Ali and other young Muslims were being unfairly accused by the Justice Department. He resigned as imam on June 9 over the incident.