Zuhdi Jasser Biography
Zuhdi Jasser, also known as M. Zuhdi Jasser, and Mohamed Zuhdi Jasser is an American medical doctor specializing in internal medicine and nuclear cardiology in Phoenix, Arizona. He is the son of Syrians who immigrated to the United States in the 1960s, owing to repression in their homeland. His grandfather, Zuhdi Jasser, who owned a vegetable oil company in Syria was a devout Muslim with an admiration of the West.
He is also a contributor to national and international media, where he has advocated the separation of mosque and state and spoken against the ideology of “political Islam” or Islamism. He has been a frequent guest on Fox News Channel, CNN, CBS, and MSNBC.
Zuhdi Jasser Age
He was born on 17 November 1967 in Ohio, United States. He is currently 51 years old.
Zuhdi Jasser Net Worth
He has also contributed articles to nationally read newspapers like the Arizona Republic, The Dallas Morning News, The New York Post, The Wall St. Journal and The Washington Times. He testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security hearings on The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and the Community’s Response” on March 10, 2011. and before the United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution on June 24, 2011, on HR 963 the “See Something, Say Something Act”.
On June 20, 2012, Jasser appeared again before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security to discuss the Muslim Community’s response to the committee’s hearings on radicalization in the American Muslim community. On February 27, 2013, Jasser testified on the issue of “Anti-Semitism: A Growing Threat to All Faiths” before the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations.
In March 2012, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Appointed Jasser to serve a 2-year term on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. On June 25, 2013, in his role as USCIRF Commissioner, Jasser appeared before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Joint Subcommittee Hearing on “Religious Minorities in Syria: Caught in the Middle”. On July 23, 2013, Jasser was elected Vice-Chair of USCIRF. He has an estimated net worth of $8 Million.
Zuhdi Jasser Views on Islam
Jasser is the founder and President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and has been a staunch critic of American Muslims and their institutions. He and members of his family comprise the board of his organization and receive funding from the extremist group, The Clarion Fund. That organization has produced several anti-Islam films that warn of Muslim conspiracies and implicates American Muslims as attempting to reestablish a global caliphate.
Jasser has also made the ridiculous and unsubstantiated claim that 80% of American Muslim mosques and student groups are run by extremists. After being challenged to substantiate his claims, Jasser has not been able to point to any facts or statistics other than a statement made by Hisham Kabbani, a fringe leader, who made the original claim with no supporting evidence of his own, during a lecture at the State Department in 1999.
Jasser started to criticize American Muslim organizations, including the American-Islamic Relations Council (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America, the North American Imams Federation, the Muslim Students ‘ Association, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Muslim American Society, the Islamic Circle of North America, and the Isla Study Center.
Jasser said he and his family helped construct a number of tiny mosques in separate towns using local funds and sometimes meeting, but always overcoming local opposition. In 2010, Jasser heavily opposed the construction of the Park51 project, a 13-story Islamic community center and a two-block mosque from the World Trade Center site, also known as Ground Zero.
Zuhdi Jasser Documentaries
Jasser has been involved in four documentaries. He appeared in the PBS film Islam v Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center, which PBS suppressed following pressure from Muslim organizations. He was the main narrator in the film Clarion Fund, The Third Jihad, which opens with Jasser, saying, “This is not a film about Islam. It’s about the threat of radical Islam.
Promotional materials from the Third Jihad state that “radical Islamists driven by religiously motivated rejection of cultures and religion of Western values are engaged in a multifaceted approach to overcome the Western world. “The movie stirred controversy, with the New Republic claiming that the film’s producer was linked to the Israeli settlement movement. Although Jasser said he did not agree with everything in the film, he supported the message as a whole.
The assertion also appeared in the 2010 film Newt Gingrich, America At Risk: The War With No Name, manufacturing by Citizens United. The film’s advertising material states that “we have long overdue a severe global strategy in the fight against terrorism and the ideology behind it. We must have the courage to say the truth and act on that reality.”
Jasser also appeared in the Fox News documentary Fox Reporting: A Question of Honor, which examines the killing of Noor Al-Maleki in Peoria, Arizona, by her father, Falah Al-Maleki, and his subsequent trial.
Zuhdi Jasser Wife
He married Gada Jasser. The family is blessed with three children.
Zuhdi Jasser Reception
According to the Washington Post, “Zuhdi Jasser doesn’t match the profile of the typical Muslim American in some ways. He’s an active Republican who has supported the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, is an advocate of Israel and says his faith harbors ‘ insidious supremacism.
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is an advocate of Israel and says that its faith harbors ‘ insidious supremacism.’ According to the progressive Mother Jones magazine, “Jasser has recently become a right-wing man when it comes to offering cover for policies or positions that many Muslim Americans claim to be discriminatory. When the so-called Ground Zero mosque was controversial, Jasser
He endorsed national bans on Sharia legislation in American courts and helped reinforce conservative warnings that American Muslims are seeking to replace the Constitution with a severe interpretation of Islamic law. Meanwhile, many American Muslim organizations regard Jasser as a credible apologist for Republicans and anti-Muslim figures — one with little popular assistance in the Muslim American society.
Jasser has often been at odds with a number of Muslim advocacy organizations, such as the American-Islamic Relations Council, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Islamic Circle of North America, claiming to be Islamist, focusing on “victimology” and not properly condemning terrorist groups ‘ objectives.
In turn, these organizations protested his appointment to the U.S. in March 2012. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The Arizona Republic’s editorial board replied to these protests by describing them as “ad hominem assaults made up of whole cloth, falsely accusing him and the Muslim members of his American Islamic Forum for Democracy of being non-Muslims.
Zuhdi Jasser Patient Portal
To know more about Jasser’s website click here.
Zuhdi Jasser Book
- A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith (2012)
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