Mamdani Meets With Alleged Muslim Brotherhood-Linked MAS Chapters in New York
New York's first Muslim mayor sat down with three chapters of the Muslim American Society — an organization federal prosecutors identified as "the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani held what the Muslim American Society called a “productive meeting” with the executive director of MAS Brooklyn alongside representatives of MAS-NY and the MAS Youth Center — an organization federal prosecutors described in a 2008 court filing as “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.”
The sit-down, announced on MAS’s social channels this month, comes as MAS leaders continue to fill senior posts in the new administration and as the group’s Brooklyn youth center faces ongoing scrutiny for hosting a fundraiser where vendors sold merchandise featuring imagery of Hamas, Hezbollah, and PFLP figures.
MAS was designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates in 2014 alongside the Muslim Brotherhood. That New York’s mayor would grant three MAS chapters an official audience — months after the fundraiser controversy and while City Council-approved MAS funding remains under active review — marks an extraordinary elevation of a network long flagged by U.S. and allied governments.
What MAS Is
The Muslim American Society was registered as an Illinois corporation on June 11, 1993. According to a 2004 Chicago Tribune investigation cited in subsequent research, Mohammed Mahdi Akef — who later became the Supreme Guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood — helped found MAS by lobbying for its creation during trips to the United States. The Tribune reported that Brotherhood members voted to operate under the “Muslim American Society” name and agreed not to publicly identify as “the Brotherhood” — a branding decision designed, according to documents cited by the paper, to be “more publicly active” while limiting explicit Brotherhood identification.
The Tribune further reported that internal MAS training materials instructed members on how to respond if asked about Brotherhood ties: leaders were told to say they were “an independent group called the Muslim American Society.” The same documents reportedly provided guidance on issuing generic condemnations of terrorism without condemning violent jihad against Israel.
The organization’s origins were later described under oath. In March 2012, Abdurahman Alamoudi — a convicted terrorism financier who had previously served as a U.S. government Muslim affairs advisor — testified in federal court in northern Virginia that MAS “was created as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in America, and continues to serve that function today.” Federal prosecutors made a similar assertion in a 2008 court filing tied to the Holy Land Foundation prosecution — the largest terrorism-financing case in U.S. history — describing MAS as “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.”
In November 2014, the United Arab Emirates designated MAS as a terrorist organization on a list of 83 groups that also included the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, and ISIS. MAS has publicly disputed the designation.
The Meeting
The recent post from the MAS Youth Center stated that the Brooklyn executive director, representing MAS-NY, MAS Brooklyn, and the MAS Youth Center, “met with Mayor Mamdani and his team in a productive meeting to advocate for the needs of the Muslim community.”
The MAS Youth Center is the same Bath Avenue facility that hosted the January 18 “Thrift4Sudan” fundraiser, where vendors sold key chains, stickers, and pins in support of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, according to the New York Post. The merchandise reportedly featured reverential images of Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar, and a masked figure resembling the late Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida, alongside items bearing terror-group logos and slogans calling for the destruction of Israel.
MAS Leadership Inside City Hall
MAS’s access to the Mayor did not begin with this meeting. MAS-NY announced in November 2025 that its executive director Sherif Ahmed and MAS Youth Center political director Hannah Towfeik had been appointed to Mamdani’s mayoral transition team, which the incoming administration tasked with recommending personnel and policy for City Hall.
MAS-NY leadership also includes Abdullah Akl, who is also an organizer with Within Our Lifetime, an anti-Israel group behind repeated New York City rallies where participants have chanted pro-Hamas slogans. According to Canary Mission, Akl has publicly voiced support for “resistance” following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.
Taxpayer Funding Continues
MAS’s Brooklyn and Staten Island operations received $85,000 in NYC Council discretionary funds this fiscal year — $70,000 from Councilwoman Kayla Santosuosso and $15,000 from Councilwoman Alexa Avilés — following the January fundraiser controversy.
The nonprofit had previously collected more than $265,000 in Council discretionary funds over three years. Council Speaker Julie Menin initially froze $80,000 pending investigation; the funds were later restored after MAS committed in writing to enhanced vendor screening, according to a Council spokesman.
International and Federal Actions
The UAE’s 2014 designation followed years of research by Emirati and Egyptian security services into the Brotherhood’s global network.
In 2026, the U.S. Treasury designated multiple Muslim Brotherhood chapters as Foreign Terrorist Organizations under Executive Order 14362, and the State Department designated the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood as an FTO in March. A Senate Judiciary hearing in May titled “Hidden in Plain Sight: Confronting the Muslim Brotherhood Network in America” and a July House Oversight hearing on “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Global Threat” examined U.S.-based Brotherhood-linked entities as national-security concerns. The U.S. government has not designated MAS itself.