Walz admin­is­tra­tion award­ed $2 mil­lion to Mus­lim group fundrais­ing for al Qae­da-linked char­i­ty

EXCLUSIVE — Under Gov. Tim Walz (D‑MN), the state of Min­neso­ta award­ed over $2 mil­lion to an Islam­ic group that fundrais­es for a char­i­ty linked to an al Qae­da affil­i­ate, accord­ing to fund­ing records reviewed by the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er.
The Islam­ic Asso­ci­a­tion of North Amer­i­ca, the recip­i­ent of the state grants from 2019 to 2024, is fundrais­ing after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel last year for Rah­ma World­wide, a Michi­gan-based char­i­ty that says it is ship­ping human­i­tar­i­an aid to Gaza, accord­ing to fly­ers. In a since-delet­ed Face­book post in Octo­ber 2023, Rah­ma World­wide Pres­i­dent Sha­di Zaza revealed his char­i­ty was col­lab­o­rat­ing on an aid ini­tia­tive with the Islam­ic Her­itage Revival Soci­ety of Kuwait, a ter­ror­ist group sanc­tioned by the U.S. gov­ern­ment for fund­ing al Qae­da.
News of the Walz administration’s grants to the IANA comes as the Demo­c­ra­t­ic vice pres­i­den­tial can­di­date faces back­lash after a series of Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er reports revealed his ties to Mus­lim cler­ic Asad Zaman. As Minnesota’s gov­er­nor, Walz has repeat­ed­ly host­ed Zaman, who shared a pro-Adolf Hitler movie on social media and defend­ed the Oct. 7 attack. More­over, accord­ing to unearthed footage, Walz referred to Zaman as a “mas­ter teacher” at a 2018 event held by the Zaman-led Mus­lim Amer­i­can Soci­ety of Min­neso­ta, w …