A “senior official” at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland (ICCI) in Clonskeagh, Dublin, has been asked in internal correspondence “to step down in favour of the public interest and to prevent further harm” as the crisis deepens at Ireland’s largest mosque.
In a message, which has been widely circulated among members of the Muslim community, Dr Eid Zaher, who is secretary to the centre’s imam, Sheikh Hussein Halawa, says the crisis at the centre is “due to the intransigence of a senior official in responding to requests of the board of the Al Maktoum Foundation – a foundation that for over 30 years has offered invaluable services to Islam and Muslims in Ireland”.
He also appeals to “wise and thoughtful members of the Muslim community in Ireland to kindly encourage this senior official to step down”.
Addressing the “senior official” directly, he says it is “vital to place the general interest of Muslims in Ireland above personal, short-term interests”. He continues, “I find it my duty to issue this heartfelt and brotherly appeal.”
The letter does not identify the senior official in question.
[ Dublin Islamic centre criticises ‘radicalised’ members as internal row deepensOpens in new window ]
The controversy centres on a dispute between the board of the Al Maktoum Foundation and a group of prominent officials in the centre and their supporters.
Concerns have been raised about the management of charitable donations, including funds raised for Gaza and the use of cash payments. The foundation has also raised concerns about alleged links between officials and the Muslim Brotherhood, an international Islamist organisation that the United Arab Emirates and other countries has banned as a terrorist organisation.
Dr Zaher expresses his “deep thanks and heartfelt appreciation to the Al Maktoum Foundation and its dedicated board members for their generous contributions and blessed efforts over the past years,” where the centre is concerned. He adds: “We remain hopeful that you will continue your support for the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland.”
The centre was closed abruptly following an alleged physical altercation at a meeting on April 19th to which the Garda was called. However, its national school, which is attended by more than 400 children, remains open.
Dr Ali Selim was the centre’s spokesman for more than 20 years until last September, when he stood down. He said this was not related to current events but he was not free to talk about the reasons as “we have a non-disclosure agreement, so we can’t talk about it”.
Two weeks ago he was appointed manager for media affairs at the centre by the Al Maktoum Foundation.
Regarding the possible relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood – which is banned as a terrorist organisation in countries such the UAE, where the Al Maktoum Foundation is based, as well as in Egypt and Saudi Arabia but not in Ireland – Dr Selim says he has “never been a member” and has “never attended any of their meetings”.
As to whether other staff at the centre could be members, he responds: “It is very hard to answer this question. None of them has ever expressed to me that he is a member of the group but, again, they never say.”
Allegations have previously been made that Sheikh Halawa, who is Egyptian, has links to the Muslim Brotherhood but he has denied any such relationship.
Halawa came to Ireland from Egypt in 1995 having studied theology at Al-Azhar University in Cairo and gained his doctorate in Islamic studies at the International Islamic University in Islamabad, Pakistan. His son Ibrahim was released from jail in Egypt in October 2017 after being held there, untried, for more than four years.
[ Ibrahim Halawa release: ‘Dad, Dad! I left prison! Dad, I’m free’Opens in new window ]
Sheikh Halawa is also general secretary of the European Council for Fatwa and Research in which role he provides theological guidance (fatwa) on issues facing Muslims in Europe. Its former president, Egyptian-born but Qatar-based Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who died in 2022 aged 96, was claimed to have been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He denied this.
A controversial theologian and scholar, al-Qaradawi was banned from the US in 1999, the UK and Ireland in 2008, and France in 2012.
The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, is a Sunni Muslim organisation set up with the aim of establishing the Koran as sole reference point for ordering life in the family, community and state. It was outlawed in Egypt until the so-called Arab Spring of 2011 and the removal of then prime minister Hosni Mubarak. It was outlawed again by the current Egyptian regime in September 2013.
In 2015 the Muslim Brotherhood was designated a terrorist organisation in Bahrain, Egypt, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia and, significantly where the Clonskeagh centre is concerned, the United Arab Emirates, where the Al Maktoum Foundation is based.
Dr Selim explained this week how complaints from Muslims in Ireland had been received by the board of the Al Maktoum Foundation in Dubai about alleged financial irregularities and management concerns at the centre.
Such allegations are not new and were addressed in an Irish Times article of March 2018, which reported that “the Islamic Cultural Centre in Dublin has been repeatedly criticised by its auditors for its treatment of charitable cash donations and money received under Islamic rules”.
It continued: “The auditors of the Al Maktoum Foundation, the company that runs the centre, have expressed concern over a period of years that the cash is not being properly recorded and is being held at the centre rather than banked. Deloitte has also raised concerns about payments made using the cash not being adequately recorded, and over the tracking of money loaned to staff and people in receipt of welfare payments.”
Following the more recent complaints, chairman of the Al Maktoum Foundation, Muhammad Dahi, and a director of the board of management, Dr Zahid Jamil, visited Ireland “three times so far. Last October, December [and] again, a couple of weeks ago,” Dr Selim said.
“He appointed an internal auditor – a graduate of the [UCD] Smurfit School – to look into all business and examine every issue. He had a meeting recently ... in the ICCI.”
Dr Jamil invited “parents of children who attended the [Koranic] school to explain to them the situation, what happened”.
This school is privately run by the centre and is completely separate from the national school, which is State funded.
Founded in 1999 and named the Nur-ul-Huda School, it is a religious school, intended to teach its roughly 2,000 Muslim pupils – at a fee of €250 each – about the tenets of Islam. It has a principal, a deputy principal and about 40 teachers.
As part of their investigation following complaints, last November the Al Maktoum board also asked the centre’s administration to seek data details from the Koranic school. The school said that, because of data protection legislation, they could not supply such details.
The centre’s administration pointed that this only applied if the data was being supplied to a third party and that as the school was part of the centre, the administration was entitled to it. The school was told that “basically you are a department in the institution so you do not own the database, the database is owned by the institution,” as Dr Selim recalls it.
“The school refused to give them the data – the request was made last November,” he says. “They refused three weeks ago – the school principal, deputy principal and a number of teachers submitted an immediate resignation last Friday and they came to work the following day and the ICCI did not allow them to work, which caused a higher level of tension.”
Dr Jamil called the meeting of parents of pupils attending the Koranic school for Saturday, April 19th. “A large number of people turned up,” and Dr Jamil decided on a second meeting to accommodate the numbers.
At that first meeting “he was interrupted, disturbed, he was intimidated and he was subject to harassment. The first meeting went almost to the end – more than two hours – despite this. He invited people to the second meeting; people came in. They verbally attacked him and attempted physically to attack him. We had to protect him. The gardaí were called. They surrounded him and escorted him outside the premises,” says Dr Selim.
“After that he said that he received information that people were planning a demonstration and he expressed his concern about the safety and security of people in the place. So he decided to shut down the place until investigations are over. The entire complex is shut down, only open for the Muslim national school.”
As to when the complex might reopen, that is “up to the internal investigator”, says Dr Selim said.
The 5,000sq m centre, funded by the al-Maktoums, is one of the largest in Europe. It cost £5 million to build in 1996 and contains a main mosque that holds more than 1,700 people as well as two smaller prayer halls.
It also has a Muslim national school, a sports hall, a library, an exhibition hall, an information centre, offices, a women’s education and social centre, a shop, a restaurant, eight apartments and a mortuary.
It was designed by architects Michael Collins & Associates and won a Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland award in 1997. Set on 3.5 acres, it was Ireland’s second purpose-built mosque, after one built in Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo, in 1987, which was opened in 1996 by the then president of Ireland Mary Robinson.
The Clonskeagh centre is the busiest Islamic centre in Ireland, with a staff of about 10 in administration, three in maintenance and four in security, as well as the principal, deputy principal and about 40 teachers at the Koranic school. It receives an annual budget from the Al Maktoum Foundation of €2.5 million.
Staff continue to be paid while the internal investigation is under way.
