Neo-Nazism, Islamism: Who is Imam Asad Zaman, hosted by Tim Walz?

Tim Walz, Kamala Harris's new running mate in her presidential campaign, has hosted an extremist Islamist Imam on several occasions, the Washington Examiner first reported over the weekend.

Walz hosted Zaman three times in 2019, once in 2020, and again in 2023, among others, the Washington Examiner reported.

The Washington Free Beacon found last week that Walz appeared alongside an antisemitic scholar at a conference called "Challenging Islamophobia," hosted by CAIR in 2019. The scholar Hatem Bazian has defended anti-Israel terrorist activities, the report noted.

Imam Asad Zaman pledged his support to Palestinians after October 7 and has previously promoted a Neo-Nazi propaganda film expressing support for Hitler, the Washington Examiner revealed.

The Washington Examiner claimed Friday that Walz has also donated $100,000 to the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, a non-profit headed by Asad Zaman. According to court records, the Muslim American Society was once described as “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.” 

On Monday, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign told The Post that Walz did not make this donation.

According to Fox News, MAS was designated a terrorist group by the United Arab Emirates in 2014 and faced criticism for a 2019 video of children at a Philadelphia chapter event calling for Jews to be killed.

Sam Westrop, director of Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch, told the New York Post that “Asad Zaman is one of America’s most prominent Islamist voices and has a long history of extreme rhetoric and ideas.” 

The Anti-Defamation League corroborated this, telling the Washington Examiner that “Imam Zaman has a troubling history of playing into classic anti-Jewish themes and justifying violence against Israel." 

Westrop also said that Zaman has shared "Neo-Nazi conspiracy theories and Hamas press releases."

"His organization justified the October 7 attacks against Israeli civilians, releasing a sickening statement the very same day offering ‘unwavering support’ for the Palestinian ‘struggle,”’ Westrop told the Post.

“MAS reaffirms its unwavering support for the Palestinian people in their struggle against the Israeli occupation,” Zaman wrote in a Facebook post after details of the massacre came to light. “Israel’s recent unprovoked attacks on Palestinian areas have claimed numerous lives … We call on the US government … to exert maximum pressure on Israel to respect Palestinian lives.”

Hamas support

According to the Post, Zaman asked Democratic California Congresswoman Katie Porter to “reaffirm the right of Palestinians to defend themselves” after she condemned the attack.

When Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chairman Ken Martin posted on October 7 that he was “beyond heartbroken” to learn Israelis he knew were “brutally killed or kidnapped,” Zaman replied that Martin’s group “cannot be joined at the hip to apartheid Israel and still hope to court the Muslim vote," according to the Washington Examiner.

In November 2015, Zaman posted a link to a 2013 neo-Nazi film called “The Greatest Story Never Told," which is popular among antisemites and QAnon conspiracy theorists, according to the Middle East Forum. The Jerusalem Post researched the film, which has a running time of 6.5 hours and presents Hitler in a revisionist, positive light.

Westrop first warned of Zaman's extremism in 2019 and told the New York Post that he didn't understand why "Walz and his staff have failed to conduct the most cursory of checks on the company they keep.”

“Under Gov. Walz, hundreds of thousands of Minnesotan taxpayers’ dollars have subsidized this hate and radicalism. Which extremists will he end up funding as vice-president?”

In 2016, Zaman posted a Hamas press release about Motiur Rahman Nizami, a Bangladeshi Islamic leader convicted of genocide, rape and torture.

The Muslim American Society was once described by federal prosecutors as being “founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States,” court records show.