By Alyssa Guzman,Editor
Copyright dailymail
A Northwestern journalism professor has been accused of helping to funnel money to Hamas through his organization.
Associate Professor, Ibrahim N. Abusharif, 47, reportedly cofounded the Quranic Literacy Institute (QLI) which allegedly funneled money to terrorist organization Hamas, The Washington Free Beacon reported.
Abusharif, a Chicago native, has taught at the school’s Doha campus for 17 years after a small stint at the main Illinois campus and at Lewis University.
But prior to that, he co-founded and worked for the QLI as a translator and treasurer from 1990 to 1998, according to court documents.
The organization billed itself as a company that translated and published ‘sacred Islamic texts’ – but it was accused of being a ‘money-laundering clearinghouse’ for Hamas during court testimony in 2004.
The group was sued by the family of a 17-year-old who died in a 1996 terrorism attack in Israel.
The QLI was accused of providing cover for Muhammad Salah, who was allegedly financing Hamas, the court documents said.
Salah had been given nearly $1million from several pro-Palestine groups to ‘fund a new generation of Hamas terrorists,’ Matthew Levitt, a former FBI counter-terrorism analyst, testified in 2004, according to The Chicago Tribune.
QLI had listed Salah as a paid employee with the job title of computer analyst – despite him not doing any real work for the organization.
The organization also owned a rental property, which it reportedly purchased using $1million from a Saudi terror financier in 1991, and allowed Salah to live in while being falsely employed by them, according to The Beacon.
QLI had been found liable for the attack, alongside other organizations, in 2004 and was ordered to pay $156million in damages, court documents show. The ruling was affirmed in 2008, the same year Abusharif started teaching at Northwestern.
Salah pleaded guilty to funneling funds to the terrorist organization in 1995 in Israel, where he spent two years in prison before returning to the United States, where he is a native of Chicago. He served additional time in jail in the US for lying about his connection to the Hamas.
Abusharif, whose parents are Palestinian immigrants, was not individually charged in the lawsuits, was said to have had knowledge of where QLI’s money was coming from and going to, court documents said.
‘Mr. Abusharif would seem to have first-hand knowledge of why QLI and the Quran Project were started, and what went on at the business,’ court documents said.
The documents also stated that the journalism professor would have had ‘personal knowledge about he and the other volunteers were doing for QLI, as well as, about how QLI’s activities were financed.
‘It is certainly no great leap to infer that Mr. Abusharif, who served as Treasurer of QLI, has first-hand knowledge of how and why QLI was funded.’
In 2022, Abusharif rebuked the claims QLI had any ties to Hamas to the Chicago Tribune.
‘The whole forfeiture is unjust and QLI is challenging it,’ he said. The organization had to give up $1million in 1998 for the teen’s death and ties to Hamas.
He went on to work for another Islamic book publisher, Starlatch, and said it had no ties to QLI or Hamas.
He joined Northwestern as a senior lecturer in January 2008, a position he held until Fall of that year, when he moved to the Qatar campus to teach journalism, according to his LinkedIn.
Abusharif, who received a master’s degree from Northwestern, teaches narrative journalism, religious studies, and the decolonization of storytelling at the Qatar campus.
‘He also researches the origins, promulgation, and effects of key journalistic framing terminologies used in prominent Western news sources in their coverage and reportage of the Middle East and Muslim minorities in the West,’ his school biography said.
Daily Mail has reached out to Abusharif and Northwestern for comment.
