By John Dobberstein, Editor
With its vibrant Rose District, booming housing developments and quality schools, Broken Arrow lands high on the list of desirable of places to live. The movie industry discovered the city last year, and a major amphitheater is under construction that will bring quality entertainment.
But on Monday, the city of 123,000 will faces a difficult debate as the Broken Arrow City Council considers a request by the Islamic Society of Tulsa to build a mosque and retail center on the city’s southwest side.
The 15-acre site sits along Olive Avenue, just south of the Creek Turnpike, and IST is request a rezoning of ag-zoned property and a conditional use permit for a placer of assembly — both of which were recently recommended for approval by the Planning Commission. A public hearing before the City Council for IST’s requests is slated for 6 p.m. Monday in the Administrative Services Building at Northeastern State University-BA’s campus.
Since the Sentinel broke the story about the development in December, there have been thousands of comments both for and against the project on social media, on websites and during a marathon 4-hour Planning Commission meeting where its members recommended approval of the requests.
The Muslim population in Oklahoma in general, including the Tulsa metro area has been growing in the last 2 decades. Many Muslims living in Broken Arrow rejoiced when news about the mosque proposal surfaced, but they are also dealing with tensions.
Last March, as the war in Gaza continued to drone on, a Broken Arrow family displayed the words “Free Palestine” on their garage door to support families targeted by “Israel’s genocide,” according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Oklahoma (CAIR-OK). Two months later, the family received a letter inside of an envelope addressed to “Gaza Strip — Resident”
The letter, displaying graphic images of a dead infant, read:
“Two sides to every story!! Hamas/Palestinians killed babies in their crib and rejoiced. There is a reason no other Muslim country will take refugees from Palestine. Islam is supposed to be a religion of PEACE. A picture is worth a thousand words. Are you a Terrorist??? Maybe DHS should be aware of you.”
The family, which had a small child, chose to remain anonymous and only reported the incident to CAIR-OK.
“Although this cowardly act was intended to scare us, we will continue to stand for justice and what is right. We are strong and proud of our religion, and we will not be intimidated,” the family said to CAIR-OK.
Mohammad Ibrahim has called Broken Arrow home for the past 5 years, saying he chose the city for its quiet streets, safe parks, “and the simple joy of taking my daughter to see the Christmas lights at Rhema Bible Church during the holidays,” he said in an essay about the project.
“I used to comfort my family by telling them that the hostility we sometimes saw online wasn’t our reality. I told them those voices were far away, hidden behind screens. I truly believed that here, in our neighborhoods and local shops, we had each other’s backs. I felt grateful to live in a place where we were free to be ourselves, as long as we were kind to one another.”
On Fridays he drives 25 minutes to the IST mosque in Tulsa, which is a long trip with a toddler, and they stop for a smoothie for the child at a local coffee shop. “My daughter insists on asking the employees for stickers and hands out high-fives to every person she sees,” he wrote. “The people I see there are the people I have always considered my community.”
‘Hate, Insults, Threats’
Ibrahim and his wife attended the Dec. 18 Planning Commission meeting, “excited to witness a milestone for our civic life. Instead, I walked into a traumatic experience that I am still struggling to process,” Ibrahim wrote.
“Sitting there with my family, I listened to speeches filled with hate, insults, and even threats of violence coming from the very people I live and interact with every day. These weren’t anonymous strangers on the internet. These were people I say “hello” to on the street, people I volunteer with and for, and people whose businesses I support.
“I felt physically ill. How can I look at my neighbors the same way today? How can I walk into those same stores knowing that behind a neighborly smile might be the person who stood at that podium and attacked my faith and my family’s right to exist?”
Ibrahim said he watched his social media feeds change from community news he liked to read to, “local voices posting pictures of firearms with captions like ‘problem solved.’ It feels like a direct threat to our safety. I find myself wondering if we are truly safe when we step outside our door.”
The Tulsa County Democratic Party Chairwoman Sarah Gray put out a call to for volunteers Saturday to help support Muslims in Broken Arrow through door knocking, making phone calls or dropping off literature to counter “horrific religious discrimination.”
An estimated 10,000 Muslims live in the greater Tulsa area, and about 1,000 Muslims from Broken Arrow attend the two Friday services held at the Tulsa mosque, said Aslam Syed, an elected member of IST. The mosque saw a recent influx of new attendees after the U.S. opened up access to Afghani refugees, which brought about 200 families to Tulsa, he said.
The Tulsa mosque has received credit for providing a pantry and free medical clinic. Syid himself is an engineer, raised in India, who has lived in the U.S. for 25 years. He hadn’t become involved in mosque administration until recently.
When city officials asked him in December about the negativity among the public about the proposal, he struck a conciliatory tone and said he didn’t feel all of those opposed were attacking him personally.
“I am adopting this country for myself and I feel proud, and I feel like I earned my citizenship here, unlike the entitlement of birthright,” Syid said. “I respect everybody’s opinion, they have the right because this is a majority Christian country and I can see the fear.”
The idea that all Muslims are lying in wait to take over the city was hurtful, he said.
“I have a lot of technically skilled friends and families around me that I hang out with and none of us think like that. Yes, there are bad apples in every religion,” he said. “We’re not here to hurt Broken Arrow. We want to be serving Broken Arrow. We want to be part of the fabric of Broken Arrow.”
Adam Soltani, an ex-officio board member at CAIR-Oklahoma and chief programs officer for the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits, said in an op-ed in the Oklahoman in 2023 that Islam no longer a “footnote” in the history book about Oklahoma, “and it has become a pillar of what it means to be part of our state and a true reflection of the Oklahoma Standard.
“Muslims are active in almost every industry in our state, including politics, the media and sports. The frequency by which I meet new people who already have Muslim friends, colleagues or neighbors is increasing regularly, and despite our small numbers, people are taking notice,” wrote Soltani, who served as CAIR-OK’s executive director from 2012 to March 2025.
He noted Gov. Kevin Stitt and Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt have recognized the contributions of Muslims. “Long gone are the days in which the only elected officials we heard speak about Islam and Muslims did so through the filter of hatred and bigotry.
“Despite all the progress, the shadow of Islamophobia still looms large over our state. Hate may not be burning as vigorously as it was immediately after the tragedy of 9/11, but it still exists,” Soltani wrote.
Scrutiny over NAIT Ownership
While Muslims who’ve commented publicly on the project — and many others who have not — profess to be moderates exercising their rights to religious expression, the mosque proposal has generated concern and criticism from numerous residents and state lawmakers.
Some base their criticism on a lack of compatibility between Shari’ah law and Western culture, particularly when it comes to the rights of women. Others express worries the mosque could become a host to radical Islamists or become the hub of a movement to take over local government and the city.
With the public hearing less than a week away, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced his office would investigate the project over concerns about how it’s being financed and potential links between the organizers and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Both IST and CAIR-OK denied the mosque project has any ties to outside funders and CAIR characterized the announcement as a “witch hunt.” Still there are questions about the national organization that holds the deed to the property, the Oak Brook, Ill.-based North American Islamic Trust.
IST acquired the property for the Broken Arrow mosque proposal in 2014 for $625,000, but just a few months later deeded the property over to NAIT.
NAIT was established in 1973 and later became known as an affiliate of the Islamic Society of North America. According to the incorporation documents, the purpose of NAIT was to “serve the best interests of Islam and the Muslim Student’s Association of the United States and Canada” by establishing a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation to hold investment property.
An Islamic scholar wrote that NAIT, with its ability to raise funds, especially from overseas, became instrumental in establishing masajid, student houses, Islamic centers, full-time schools and literature publishing under American Trust Publications.
Who is NAIT?
NAIT is classified as a waqf — the historical Islamic equivalent of an American trust or endowment — to serve Muslims in the U.S. and their institutions. NAIT, “facilitates the realization of American Muslims’ desire for a virtuous and happy life in a Shari’ah-compliant way.”
However, NAIT was one of more than 200 people and organizations named as “unindicted co-conspirators and/or joint venturers” in a 2007 federal prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF).
The lawsuit alleged that HLF provided support to Islamist terrorist organization Hamas. CAIR and ISNA were also named as unindicted co-conspirators.
NAIT, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), filed a lawsuit to unseal documents around the claims and clear its name.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit acknowledged that a failure to seal the co-conspirator list was a violation of NAIT’s legal rights. But the U.S. government also found that there was “ample evidence to establish the association” of NAIT, CAIR, and ISNA with Hamas and declined to remove it from the co-conspirator list.
Former FBI special agent Robert Stauffer headed an investigation in the 1980s of Muslim Brotherhood finances and, according to published reports, discovered the Islamic Society of North America had received “millions and millions of dollars” through NAIT, which he accused of serving as a financial holding company for Muslim Brotherhood-related groups.
The money, he said, was wired into the U.S. from Islamic countries, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Egypt, Malaysia and Libya.
The ISNA research report also described examples of how NAIT played a role in the ideological takeover of two U.S. mosques, driving out moderate leaders and replacing them with those close to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.
A Jewish Onliner investigation said NAIT holds titles to at least 400 mosques and Islamic institutions across America, which is a significant proportion of all Islamic facilities nationwide.
Another independent assessment of NAIT’s holdings from the early 2000s, showed the organization had already controlled approximately 332 properties—representing 27% of America’s roughly 1,200 mosques at the time.
In a 2023 announcement marking its 50th anniversary, NAIT stated it now serves as trustee for “400+ waqf institutions in USA and Canada.”
Despite claiming income under $25,000 annually to avoid filing IRS returns, documents show NAIT has “advanced millions of dollars in interest-free loans” to Islamic centers and holds properties worth hundreds of millions across the United States.
Because NAIT controls the purse strings of these many properties, it can exercise ultimate authority over what they teach and what activities they conduct. Specifically, the Trust seeks to ensure that the institutions under its financial influence promote the principles of Shari’ah Law and Wahhabism.
A recently declassified FBI memo from December 1987 stated that NAIT’s “support of Jihad (a holy war) in the U.S. has been evidenced by the financial and organizational support provided through NAIT from Middle East countries to Muslims residing in the U.S. and Canada.” That support, added the memo, “includes planning, organizing and funding anti-U.S. and anti-Israel demonstrations, pro-PLO demonstrations, and the distribution of political propaganda against U.S. policies in the Middle East and in support of the Islamic Revolution as advocated by the (Government of Iran).”
Another FBI memo from the late 1980s indicated that “within the organizational structure of NAIT, there have been numerous groups and individuals identified as being a part of a covert network of revolutionaries who have clearly indicated their support for the Islamic Revolution as advocated by the Ayatollah Khomeini and his government as well as other fanatical Islamic Shiite fundamentalist leaders in the Middle East.
“This faction of Muslims have declared war on the United States, Israel and any other country they deem as an enemy of Islam,” the memo stated, “… the underlying common goal being to further the holy war (Islamic Jihad).”
A third FBI memo from 1988 identified NAIT as one of many “Ikhwan organizations” — i.e., Muslim Brotherhood fronts — that “are involved in organizing political support” for a long-term plan seeking “to institute the Islamic Revolution in the United States” and “establish political control of all non-Islamic governments in the world.”
NAIT was also named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document—titled “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America”—as one of the Brotherhood’s 29 likeminded allies dedicated to waging a “grand Jihad” aimed at “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.” To view a complete list of the organizations named in that document, click here.
In 2002, NAIT’s offices were raided as part of “Operation Green Quest” (OGQ), a federal initiative to seize the assets of U.S.-based terrorist organizations and terrorism funders posing as legitimate businesses or charities. NAIT also served as an adviser group to the Amana Mutual Funds Trust, whose founder, Yacqub Mirza, was likewise targeted in the OGQ raids. In 2003, NAIT received a $325,000 investment from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Playing the long game?
According to a 2007 report published by the Global Muslim Brotherhood Watch, a consistent pattern emerges: NAIT assumes mosque deeds, invests Saudi or Brotherhood money, drives out moderate leaders, and installs fundamentalist clergy who enforce conservative practices and Wahhabi interpretations.
During a statement in a 2011 Congressional hearing on Islamic radicalization, M. Zuhki Jasser — the son of Syrian immigrants who fled Ba’athist oppression in 1966 — testified the Saudi government has spent “tens of billions of dollars throughout the Islamic world” to promote Wahhabism, often referred to as “petro-Islam.”
“The Saudis themselves have acknowledged donations to many mosques in the United States. There have documented donations to major mosques in Boston, Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Denver Washington D.C., Northern Virginia, San Diego and New York City, to name a few,” he testified. “While NAIT claims to not administer these institutions, it admits supporting and advise them regarding their operation in conformity with the Shari’ah. NAIT’s initial funding was provided by significant donations from petro dollars.”
In 2015, campaign literature circulated in Oak Brook, a suburb of Chicago where NAIT has headquarters, was distributed repeated allegations about NAIT having ties with Islamic extremist groups, inferring a threat to public safety and questioning NAIT’s status to receive property tax relief.
Oak Brook Police Chief James Kruger contacted the FBI’s Counter Terrorism Unit in the Chicago office and was, “reassured that NAIT is a legitimate organization and that there is no threat to the community.
“They further advised that there is no investigative link between NAIT and the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. The FBI further related that the open-source information on the web was not credible and that the civil rights of NAIT should be protected as would any other legal entity in our community.”
Kruger noted the NAIT’s constitutional rights had been violated when the co-conspirator list was publicly revealed, but in his Facebook message to residents he did not reveal the same judge declined to remove NAIT from the list.
‘Nationwide’ body of moques
In a lengthy 2023 article published in Islamic Horizons, NAIT Executive Director Maqsood Quadri celebrated its 50 years of “community service” as one of the continent’s “pioneering and oldest Islamic organizations.”
He said NAIT sought to revive the Prophet’s sunnah by helping to preserve and protect North America’s Islamic institutions through halal investing for families, mosques and institutions, halal certification and education, legal services for entrusted institutions, dispute resolution, stock donation liaisonship for institutions, Islamic literature publishing and several other on-campus programs.
The influx of immigrants in the 1960s and early 1970s led to the rapid increase in mosques and Islamic centers. “This revealed the need for an integrated nationwide body to develop, acquire, maintain and protect these centers” from being lost.
With the help of Islamic finance experts and scholars, NAIT developed halal investment vehicles and launched the Islamic Centers’ Cooperative Fund (ICCF), a mosque-focused halal investment tool that pools the community’s funds and invests in halal stocks, real estate, properties, leases and other opportunities.
NAIT board member Muzammil Siddiqi said, “centers that have extra money, instead of putting that in interest-bearing savings accounts, deposit that in the ICCF. In the last three decades, no center has lost a penny on their principal. Up to 12-15% of the money in ICCF has been extended in short-term interest-free loans to the entrusted institutions for critical projects.”
Through Allied Asset Advisors (AAA) which was established in 2000 as NAIT’s wholly owned, for-profit subsidiary, ICCF protects the principal through a yield equalization reserve (YER) that consists of a part of the funds’ net gains.
NAIT introduced the Dow Jones Islamic Index Fund – a mutual fund, which later became a halal mutual fund in 2000, the AAA-offered Iman Fund, which continues to serve the community. According to the article, the fund continuously monitors the companies for Shari’ah compliance and is supervised by a Shari’ah board.
“It is very rewarding when we get calls from coast to coast, from major cities to small towns, commending NAIT’s services,” Quadri said in the article. “It’s a privilege, I say. Preserving our assets for the coming generations is all that matters.”
Threats in Oklahoma
Although Broken Arrow and Tulsa in general haven’t been considered a hotbed of Islamic extremism, some incidents in Oklahoma have led to concern about the actual threat.
Last fall, Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub Al-Muhtadi, 33, a Gazan native who once lived in Tulsa, was arrested for his alleged involvement in the Hamas-led terrorist attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Al-Muhtadi’s presence in the U.S. was discovered by JTF 10-7, a special unit created to spearhead the Justice Department’s ongoing investigations into the perpetrators of the heinous October 7 attacks.
According to court documents, Al-Muhtadi is an operative for the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s (DFLP) military wing, the National Resistance Brigades (NRB, also known as the Martyr Umar al-Qasim Forces), a Gaza-based paramilitary group that participated in the Hamas-led 2023 attacks.
Prosecutors said that on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, Al-Muhtadi learned about the Hamas invasion, armed himself, gathered others, and crossed into Israel with the intention of assisting in Hamas’s terrorist attack. Al-Muhtadi allegedly provided false information in his U.S. visa application relating to his involvement with a paramilitary organization, connection to Hamas, participation in a terrorist attack, and military training.
Records show Al-Muhtadi entered the U.S. via Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and was later discovered by the FBI to be living in Tulsa. Several months later, he was located working at a restaurant in Lafayette, La., and later arrested.
In 2024, a 27-year-old Afghan man, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, was arrested in Oklahoma City by the FBI for plotting an Election Day attack targeting large crowds in the U.S., the Justice Department said.
Prosecutors said Tawhedi, 27, told investigators after his arrest that he planned his attack to coincide with Election Day, and he and a co-conspirator expected to die as martyrs. Tawhedi, who arrived in the U.S. in 2021, had taken steps to advance his attack plans by ordering AK-47 rifles, liquidating his family’s assets and buying one-way tickets for his wife and child to travel home to Afghanistan.
An FBI affidavit said a photograph from 2024 depicted Tawhedi reading to 2 young children, including his daughter, “a text that describes the rewards a martyr receives in the afterlife.”
Officials say Tawhedi also consumed Islamic State propaganda, contributed to a charity that functions as a front for the militant group and communicated with a person who the FBI determined from a prior investigation was involved in recruitment and indoctrination. He also viewed webcams for the White House and the Washington Monument.
Tawhedi was living in Oklahoma City with his wife and 1-year-old child and had entered the U.S. on a special immigrant visa in 2021.
So far, prosecutors have not alleged that either man had connections or received aid or support from any mosques in Texas or Oklahoma.
Concerns over infrastructure
To avoid the possibility of a lawsuit over religious freedom or other issues, Broken Arrow’s City Council will have to sidestep cultural or political objections and focus on the proposed land uses, which have also generated concerns.
The property is only 15 acres, which will somehow have to house the mosque, proposed retail center and nearly 700 parking spaces. All traffic, in the current proposal, would enter and exit off Olive Avenue, so ingress and egress would be another concern at busy times when the mosque hosts Ramadan and Friday afternoon services.
With city utilities about 1,900 feet away from the site, the property would also have to utilize a septic system as it serves hundreds of people on certain days.
Brown said phase one of the project would be a 38,000-square-foot prayer hall with some support functions, and phase two would finish out the second floor with classrooms and a women’s prayer area, and the final phase would include a gym.
The retail/office center would be 20,000 square feet and would front Olive Street, although Brown said the retail project would is likely a long way off. There currently are no plans to disturb the floodplain in the back of the property.
State Sen. Christi Gillespie, who served as the vice mayor of Broken Arrow until her recent election, told the Planning Commission last month that a service road had been discussed between Olive and Aspen Avenues along the turnpike, which Brown said he had not been advised about previously.
Gillespie said there were already two churches in the area that don’t pay taxes and the mosque proposal for a retail center wasn’t a good proposal from an economic development standpoint.
Brown, who grew up Baptist child in Texas, said a lot of fear he sees over mosques both here and in Texas that he has represented stems from events happening around the country and the world.
“I think what will end up happening is once the facility is built, they see those fears were largely unfounded and these people become good neighbors and community members,” he said. “It’s not a situation where you have a congregation of demons over there.”
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