Tim Walz Repeatedly Hosted Muslim Cleric With Pro-Hamas History, Gave Grants To His Group

While serving as governor of Minnesota, presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz hosted an Islamic imam multiple times who has a history of pro-Hamas social media posts and gave $100,000 worth of grants to a Muslim organization he leads, the Washington Examiner first reported.

Walz hosted Imam Asad Zaman of the Muslim American Society (MAS) of Minnesota on at least five occasions during his tenure as governor, according to the Examiner. Zaman, on his Facebook account, shared a Hamas press release in 2016, a link to a blog post attacking Jews in 2014, praised the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on multiple occasions in 2023 and even posted a link to a documentary praising Adolf Hitler in 2015.

“It is astounding that with all the available public reporting and information about the iniquities of Imam Asad Zaman and MAS Minnesota that Gov. Walz has repeatedly given public platforms and taxpayer money to this extremist,” Sam Westrop, a terrorism researcher and analyst at the Middle East Forum think tank, told the Examiner. “Across the country, Islamists hungry for government support will surely welcome Walz as vice president.”

Zaman serves as the executive director of MAS Minnesota, an organization federal prosecutors at one point said was “founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States,” according to court records. The United Arab Emirates designated MAS as a terrorist organization in 2014, the Examiner reported.

Walz’s administration, however, showered the group with over $100,000 in grant funding, according to state records and press releases.

Zaman’s connections with Walz span from January 2019 when he gave an invocation before Walz’s state address to May 2023 when Walz met with him and other Islamic stakeholders to discuss mosque security, the Examiner reported. Zaman’s pro-Hamas social media presence existed well before Walz began hosting him as the Minnesota imam, an immigrant from Bangladesh, reposted a Hamas press release in 2016 mourning the death of Motiur Rahman Nizami, a Bangladeshi leader who was convicted of rape, murder and leading an armed group that committed extrajudicial killings of civilians and employed torture during the country’s independence war, according to the New York Times.

A year earlier, in 2015, Zaman posted a link to a video called “The Greatest Story Never Told,” which portrays Hitler as a misunderstood hero who has been unfairly maligned by historians, per a peer-reviewed research paper. The film is popular among antisemites and conspiracy theorists, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

Hours after terrorists poured into Israel in October of last year and carried out attacks in the country, Zaman posted on Facebook that he “stands in solidarity with Palestinians against Israeli attacks,” the Examiner reported. Hamas killed roughly 1,200 people in its attacks, in addition to kidnapping children and raping women.

Zaman also shared a picture of a Palestinian flag in response to a post declaring that “Palestine has the right to defend itself,” and criticized multiple Democratic politicians for expressing sympathy for Israel, according to the Examiner.

Walz has also met with scholar Hatem Bazian, who has condoned anti-Israeli terrorism and is the founder of Students for Justice in Palestine, the organization behind many of the violent protests that washed over university campuses earlier this year, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

The Harris campaign, Walz’s office and MAS Minnesota did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.