Civilization Jihad Unfolding in Florida

by Renee Nal

Florida has a Muslim Brotherhood legacy problem, and it has a name: Magda Elkadi Saleh. A longtime Islamic school founder and senior administrator in the Tampa area, Saleh has spent decades building and leading institutions that shape Muslim education and community infrastructure in Florida. She sits at the center of Tampa’s Islamic school network, publicly celebrated as a civic figure while operating inside the same national institutional architecture federal prosecutors have tied to Muslim Brotherhood infrastructure for decades.

Most Americans have never heard her name, and that is precisely how these networks survive. When the public doesn’t recognize the operator, the machine expands quietly: schools, youth pipelines, nonprofits, and permanent institutional power. This report traces Saleh’s lineage from the Brotherhood’s earliest Egyptian leadership to the system that embedded itself in America and now operates openly in Florida.

As reported at RAIR Foundation USA, Magda’s father Ahmed Elkadi was the General Mas’ul, or national leader, of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood during the 1980s. He served as a pivotal figure in establishing the movement’s foundational infrastructure on American soil. Magda Elkadi Saleh’s maternal and paternal grandfathers were both early Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt.

But newly uncovered documentation reveals that Magda Elkadi Saleh’s family ties go all the way back to the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Her maternal grandfather, influential Islamic economist Mahmoud Abu-Saud, worked closely with the Muslim Brotherhood’s founder and helped expand the movement in its earliest years -- tying Saleh’s family directly to the Brotherhood’s Egyptian origin and long-term institutional strategy.

According to a 2004 article at the Washington Post, during a fleeting spark of journalism, the authors revealed that Mahmoud Abu-Saud “helped Banna expand the Brotherhood.” Hassan al-Banna “preached that governments should be ruled by Islamic law, or sharia.” “Members swore obedience to Banna,” the article explained, with followers “pledging iron discipline and secrecy.”

Mahmoud Abu-Saud’s comrade Hassan al-Banna famously coined the phrase “Sina’at al-Mawt“, or “industry of death”, which exalted dying to further the cause of Islam. The late Moroccan Imam Abd al-Salam Yassin explained:

“The trained believer in the industry of death knows why he is dying in order to better his intentions; he knows when he is going to die so that his death will help with the problems of his nation; he knows how he will die so that his death becomes earning and rescue for us and a loss to the enemy; he knows who he is going to die with so that his Jihad integrates with the Jihad of Allah’s Army (Jundallah) and his death will cause the pushing of the Jihad cart forward.”

As his confidant, Magda’s grandfather Mahmoud Abu-Saud took Hassan al-Banna’s violent ideology to heart -- and eventually brought it to America.

The Beginning of a Muslim Brotherhood Legacy

The 1963 marriage of Ahmed Elkadi and Iman Abu-Saud served as a pivotal consolidation of two families deeply embedded in the foundational history of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Abu-Saud’s daughter Iman’s marriage to Ahmed Elkadi was facilitated by these shared ideological ties.

After a chance encounter in Cairo, Abu-Saud invited Elkadi to his home based on the established reputation of the Elkadi family. Interestingly, the late Youssef Nada, an exiled senior member of the Egyptian Brotherhood, “claims to have arranged the marriage”.

As reported in a pivotal 2004 investigative report at the Chicago Tribune, this connection was viewed with such gravity by the state that the couple was interrogated by Egyptian intelligence shortly after their wedding, with officials pointedly questioning Elkadi’s decision to marry into the Abu-Saud lineage. “They asked my husband, ‘Couldn’t you find anybody else to marry except Mahmoud Abu-Saud’s daughter?,’” Iman Elkadi was quoted as saying.

As a central figure in the Brotherhood’s early organizational structure, Mahmoud Abu-Saud spent significant periods imprisoned for his activism. “My grandfather would tell me that if my dad didn’t come home for dinner, he would send someone to check the jails,” Magda’s mother Iman Elkadi recalled.

The Architect of the American Brotherhood

The union marked the beginning of what would become the Muslim Brotherhood in America. In the history of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West, Magda’s father Ahmed Elkadi is regarded as one of the most consequential leaders of the 20th century. He served as the President (Mas’ul) of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood from 1984 to 1994.

While the Muslim Students Association (MSA) was established in 1963, it was Ahmed Elkadi who transformed that network into a permanent, sophisticated political and social infrastructure. Upon his arrival to America in 1967, Elkadi became the movement’s primary architect in North America. He was the chief strategist behind the transition of the student-based MSA into the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a professionalized umbrella organization designed to exert influence over the broader Muslim community.

ISNA was named in the infamous 1991 Explanatory Memorandum as a “friend” of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Memorandum was discovered by the FBI during a 2004 raid on a residence in Virginia and later became a key piece of evidence in the 2007–2008 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial.

Then came the Muslim American Society (MAS). While ISNA was meant to be the “big tent” for all Muslims, MAS was established to be the specific vehicle for the Muslim Brotherhood’s dedicated members. Elkadi and other leaders initially kept the Brotherhood’s link to MAS hidden to avoid public and government scrutiny. The Tribune report notes that for years, MAS leaders denied being the American arm of the Brotherhood, even though the organization was founded by the movement’s top officials to carry out its specific mission.

The Lugano Meeting

In 1977, Mahmoud Abu-Saud, who sought to create financial systems that operated under Sharia, initiated a meeting of influential Muslim Brotherhood figures in the picturesque Swiss town of Lugano. As an economist, Abu-Saud sought the use of waqf and interest-free finance to build an independent, permanent Islamic infrastructure in the West.

Abu-Saud’s son-in-law Ahmed Elkadi accompanied him. The host of the meeting, the aforementioned Youssef Nada, was founder of Al Taqwa Bank and alleged terrorist financier.

The meeting led to the establishment of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). The IIIT is the intellectual hub for the concept of the “Islamization of Knowledge”, which posits that science in the West is sullied without the influence of Islam. One of the main promoters of the concept, Ismail Raji al-Faruqi, was an attendee at the Lugano meeting. al-Faruqi was the “founding President of the International Institute of Islamic Thought in Reston, Virginia, and the first President of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists [AMSS] in 1972.”

It should be mentioned that the late Abdulhamid AbuSulayman “one of the most important figures in the history of the global Muslim Brotherhood” was a co-founder of AMSS, which still exists and has been renamed to the North American Association of Islamic and Muslim Studies (NAAIMS). The AMSS published the American Journal of Islamic Studies (AJIS), which was Abu Sulayman’s “brainchild” and has since been renamed to the American Journal of Islam and Society (AJIS).

According to the NAAIMS history page:

“It was at its inception designed to meet the need of providing an intellectual forum for Muslims in North America, many of whom were involved in the founding of the Muslim Student Association (MSA in 1963) at universities in the United States and Canada to promote the study of Islam on campuses.

"Faruqi was a long-time professor at Temple University, where he 'founded and chaired the Islamic Studies program.' Unsurprisingly, he was deeply active in the MSA. As a side note, he and his wife were murdered by Joseph Louis Young aka Yusuf Ali, who stated at the trial that 'voices instructed him to commit these murders because the victims were having homosexual relations with Malaysian students.' The jury found that the murders were committed during a burglary.

"Another notable attendee to the Lugano meeting was the late Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Youssef al-Qaradawi, who was very close to Hamas. He was the founder of the militant International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS). Last year, for example, the IUMS issued a fatwa declaring that 'armed jihad' against Israel is an obligation 'for all capable Muslims and Muslim-majority governments.'”

As reported at RAIR, Qaradawi was “banned from the US after issuing a fatwa that called for the killing of US soldiers…He also famously endorsed suicide bombings and was widely regarded as the Muslim Brotherhood’s top global ideologue.”

"The Project"

It was in Youssef Nada’s home, shortly after 9/11, that a document was found by Swiss investigators: Towards a Global Strategy for Islamic Policy often referred to as “The Project“.

The document, widely regarded to be the formalized output of the 1977 Lugano meeting, serves as a 12-point master plan for the “westward expansion” of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Project Download

The Muslim Brotherhood document details a strategy of “institutional action” designed to “penetrate” social services and “control” local centers of power, explicitly rejecting assimilation in favor of a “parallel” existence governed by an “Islamic Constitution” and “Islamic laws.”

This subversive framework seeks to “influence centers of power” by using “economic institutions adequate to support the cause” and “collecting sufficient funds for the perpetuation of jihad,” while simultaneously “nourishing a sentiment of rancor” against the “Jews, enemies of Muslims” to ultimately facilitate the “establishment of an Islamic power [government] on the earth.”

The authors of the “The Project” exhibit venomous hatred for Jews and Christians:

"To conduct studies on the Jews, enemies of Muslims, and on the oppression inflicted by these enemies on our brothers in occupied Palestine, in addition to preaching and publications.

"To fight against the sentiment of capitulation among the Ummah (Muslims), to refuse defeatist solutions, and to show that conciliation with the Jews will undermine our Movement and its history.

"To conduct comparative studies on the Crusades and Israel, and [the victory that will be that of Islam].

"To create jihadi cells in Palestine, and support them in order that they cover all of occupied Palestine.

"To create a link between the moujahadin in Palestine and those throughout the Islamic world.

"To nourish a sentiment of rancor with respect to the Jews and refuse all coexistence."

The Project outlines a gradualist strategy for “Islamizing” society from the bottom up, with a focus on infiltration, institutional building, and long-term cultural shifts. Along with the infamous “Explanatory Memorandum,” “The Project” serves as a “Rosetta Stone” proving the Muslim Brotherhood’s secret agenda to subvert Western democracies from within (aka “Civilization Jihad”).

Mahmoud Abu-Saud Comes to America

In the late 1970s -- 1980s, Abu-Saud settled in Panama City, Florida, joining his daughter Iman and son-in-law Ahmed Elkadi.

In the years that followed and to this day, the Muslim Brotherhood family threw themselves into implementing “Civilization Jihad”, frenetically building and expanding a dizzying array of Islamic institutions in Florida and throughout America.

Some of these organizations endure to this day:

NAIT: Abu-Saud authored key texts for American Trust Publications (ATP), which is the publishing subsidiary of NAIT. The North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) is used to build and entrench Sharia-compliant institutional infrastructure through long-term asset consolidation. It is designed to serve as the permanent custodian for Islamic community assets. Operating as a waqf structure, NAIT holds title to hundreds of properties across the United States, effectively transferring them into a Sharia-governed “trust for Allah” to ensure they remain dedicated to Islamic institutional purposes and are insulated from being sold, dissolved, or redirected. While NAIT was an unindicted co-conspirator cited during the notorious Holy Land Foundation trial, it still exists today as a tool for “Civilization Jihad.”

American Muslim Council (AMC): The AMC was “launched in 1990 to urge Muslims to get involved in politics and other civic activities”. Abu-Saud and Abdurahman Alamoudi were the founders. The organization collapsed after Alamoudi pleaded guilty in 2004 to terrorism-related conspiracy charges. AMC defended the Holy Land Foundation (shut down for channeling money to Hamas) as having a “strong global vision” and called its closure unjust, urged donations to the Global Relief Foundation (later designated for supporting al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden), helped defend Sami Al-Arian (convicted for backing Palestinian Islamic Jihad), and attacked post-9/11 laws like the Patriot Act while accusing the FBI of targeting Muslims.

Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS): As discussed previously, the AMSS was connected to multiple Brotherhood figures, and closely collaborated with the IIIT. Mahmoud Abu-Saud was deeply involved with AMSS for several decades as a prominent contributor to its seminars and conferences. Upon the occasion of his death in 1993, the AMSS published an obituary in its publication “American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences”. It outlined some of Abu-Saud’s activities:

“For several decades, he has been a prominent figure in the seminars and conferences of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS), the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the American Muslim Council (AMC), and other Islamic and interfaith organizations. His passionate commitment to the reconstruction of Islamic thought, as well as his tireless involvement in writing, lecturing, and touring from country to country and from city to city, were a great inspiration to our young scholars.”

Abu-Saud additionally used the time to write books relating to the role of Muslim families in America. One pamphlet titled Sex Roles in Muslim Families of the U.S.A. emphasizes how “Islamic communit[ies]” must be created in order to escape “assimilation.”

“Both adults and children are influenced by American values and traditions, and by American behavior and manners," Abu-Saud warned. “There is no escape from this ‘assimilation’ except by strengthening the family bonds and by steadfast observation of Islamic teachings,” he continued. Further, he instructed: “The husband must lead here by strict adherence to Islamic ways of life and by requiring the same from his wife” (Excerpt from Sex Roles in Muslim Families of the U.S.A.).

This is a revealing piece, as it emphasizes the Muslim Brotherhood demand to avoid assimilation and create a parallel society.

Magda Elkadi Saleh’s Legacy

Magda Elkadi Saleh’s influence reaches even beyond schools. She serves as President of “Tampa’s first Muslim-led resettlement agency” Radiant Hands, a “partner” of Islamic Relief USA, and works closely with the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR-Florida.

Saleh has served as the Vice President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which spun out of the Brotherhood’s Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) as the “nucleus for the Islamic Movement in North America.”

Like her parents and her grandparents, Magda Elkadi Saleh has dedicated her life to forming parallel spaces for Muslims. Her mother Iman Elkadi -- Mahmoud Abu-Saud’s daughter and Ahmed Elkadi’s wife -- expressed in a Facebook post how proud she is Magda’s efforts. The post was in response to a CAIR Florida post in May 2025 lionizing Magda for -- among other things -- her efforts in “lead[ing] and expand[ing]” Islamic schools in Tampa.

“Long before today’s classrooms, Magda Saleh was laying the groundwork,” the Facebook post explains. “As a pioneer in Islamic education, she helped lead Tampa’s Islamic schools with vision, compassion, and a commitment to excellence, the post continued. Further, CAIR-Florida gushes, “Generations of Muslim students in Florida carry her legacy forward -- in knowledge, in faith, and in service.”

“So proud of you. Masha Allah,” responded Magda’s mother Iman.

But the real story isn’t the praise, it’s the expansion. The institutions Magda Elkadi Saleh built are now scaling with public money.

From Schools to Systems: How Public Funding Sustains the Next Phase

Magda Elkadi Saleh has spent decades building the infrastructure that anchors Tampa’s Islamic ecosystem. The schools she founded and led function as pipeline institutions: shaping identity early, separating community life from the mainstream, and producing the next generation of professionals who later expand the same system into healthcare and beyond.

Crucially, these schools now participate in Florida’s school-choice voucher programs, meaning public education dollars are being routed into institutions serving as the first stage of a parallel Islamic infrastructure. Education is the foundational mechanism through which demographic consolidation, professional alignment, and long-term institutional durability are achieved.

That structure became visible in late 2025, when the Islamic Tampa Area Muslim Professional Association (iTAMPA) formally launched its healthcare initiative inside Universal Academy of Florida, an Islamic school founded and led by Magda Elkadi Saleh and embedded within this voucher-funded ecosystem. During the event, speakers openly described their goal of building internal referral systems so Muslim patients could increasingly rely on Muslim providers, reducing dependence on non-Muslim doctors and external civic institutions.

One of the most revealing pieces of documentation in this network comes directly from Mahmoud Abu-Saud himself. In a text titled The Muslim Doctor, Abu-Saud framed physicians as Islamic agents with responsibility to the Muslim community, explicitly calling on Muslim doctors to guide patients, perform da’wah, and prioritize Islamic rulings above the legal and cultural framework of the host society. This doctrine is central to understanding why Muslim Brotherhood networks repeatedly treat healthcare as a high-trust entry point for long-term institutional consolidation.

The venue was not incidental. A healthcare initiative articulating separationist goals was unveiled inside a taxpayer-funded Islamic school that anchors the education-to-profession pipeline now expanding into medicine. This is precisely the phased institutional progression described in Muslim Brotherhood doctrine: schools first, professions next, parallel systems thereafter.

When Tampa is promoted by Islamic influencers as “the second-best Islamic city in America after Dallas,” it is not a cultural compliment. It is a declaration of institutional maturity: a city where publicly funded schools, mosques, professional associations, and markets increasingly support a self-sustaining parallel society in plain sight.

Magda Elkadi Saleh possesses extensive Muslim Brotherhood ties, rivaling even those of Hamed Ghazali, the Texas-based curriculum designer explicitly identified in the aforementioned Explanatory Memorandum as a key architect of the group’s plan to “sabotage” Western civilization.

Florida officials have publicly labeled the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as terrorist-linked entities, yet one of the most consequential Brotherhood-connected institutional operators in the state continues to expand with public legitimacy and public dollars. If Florida is serious, Magda Elkadi Saleh’s network must be investigated and shut down.