America Is Harboring a War Criminal Who Executed Seven Professors - And Let Him Become a Vice President of One of America's Largest Muslim Organizations, ICNA
Ashrafuzzaman Khan, a former top official of the Islamic Circle of North America in Queens, New York, personally slaughtered seven university professors as the chief executioner of Jamaat-e-Islami’s Al Badr death squads during the 1971 Bangladesh massacre. Despite being convicted in absentia of war crimes, he helped build one of America’s largest Muslim organizations and continues to live freely in the United States.
The United States federal government must immediately open denaturalization proceedings against Ashrafuzzaman Khan and send this convicted war criminal to Bangladesh to face his death sentence without further delay. Contact your elected officials today and demand they pressure the DOJ to act. Share this article far and wide until Ashrafuzzaman Khan is on a plane to Dhaka!
Ashrafuzzaman Khan, as “chief executioner”, personally slaughtered seven university professors for the violent Islamic Jamaat-e-Islami’s Al Badr death squads during the 1971 Bangladesh intellectual massacre.
The Al Badr militia, backed by Pakistan and Jamaat-e-Islami, slaughtered hundreds of professors, doctors, and journalists in the final days of the war to cripple the new nation.
Despite his execution in Bangladesh for war crimes, Motiur Rahman Nizami’s (founder and commander of Al Badr) sons continue the family’s influence – one son Nazibur Rahman Momen as a Jamaat-e-Islami parliamentarian in Bangladesh who worked for many years as a barrister and former lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London, and the other son Mohammad Nakibur Rahman as a University of North Carolina professor, spokesperson for Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh and Treasurer of the Muslim Brotherhood-aligned US Council of Muslim Organizations in America (USCMO).
Convicted in absentia and sentenced to death by Bangladesh’s war crimes tribunal in 2013, Ashrafuzzaman Khan fled to the US and rose to become Vice President and a key builder of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), one of America’s largest Muslim organizations.
ICNA defended Khan as a “model citizen,” then quietly scrubbed his name from its site after the conviction became public.
Abul Ala Maududi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami whose works are promoted by ICNA, declared in his 1939 speech “Jihad in Islam” that Islam must destroy all non-Islamic governments. Abul Ala Maududi’s own family embedded itself in American institutions: Maududi’s son Dr. Syed Ahmad Farooq helped found the Islamic Circle of North America, one granddaughter Sophia Farooq serves as a Republican official in Georgia, and another granddaughter Saira Farooq works as a statistician at the Department of Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Khan’s associate, another convicted Al Badr killer Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, fled to London, where he became a senior figure in the Muslim community. He received 225,000 pounds from the UK government after suing for libel over his documented crimes.
Despite DOJ probes into his past, US authorities have done nothing to rid America of convicted war criminal Ashrafuzzaman Khan. No deportation, no denaturalization. Khan remains free.
There’s an Islamic leader living openly in Queens, New York, who played a central role in building one of the most prominent Muslim organizations in the United States from its earliest days. He held top leadership positions across national Islamic groups, mentored generations in his community, and even pushed local authorities to change parking rules so Muslims could pray without tickets during Eid celebrations.
He also personally executed seven university professors at gunpoint.
And he is still living freely in America.
This is the story of Ashrafuzzaman Khan and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) – the account of a convicted mass murderer living openly as an Islamic leader in Queens, as the federal government opts to ignore his heinous war crimes to this day.
Following his involvement in the organized targeting and murder of intellectuals during the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence, Ashrafuzzaman Khan emigrated to the United States, where he subsequently became a Vice President of ICNA.
Ironically, Khan addressed an “anti-war” protest on April 9, 2011 sponsored by the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), which is dominated by the “hardcore Marxist” Workers World Party. The coalition was endorsed by a mixture of Islamic and far-left organizations, yet another example of the Red/Green Axis, a convergence of Marxism and Islam.
At the time of this writing, this rare video of Khan is still available on the ICNA YouTube page. The description explicitly notes that the video was “provided by UNACpeace.org”.
Consider the irony of a convicted war criminal addressing an antiwar protest. This is not at all unusual, however. For the far left and for Islam, “peace” has never meant peace. It means submission.
The Intellectual Massacre That Crippled a Nation
In 1971, as Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) fought for independence from Pakistan, 23-year-old Ashrafuzzaman Khan served as a commander in the notorious Al Badr militia. Formed by the Islamic political party Jamaat-e-Islami with direct support from the Pakistani army, Al Badr’s mission was to crush the independence movement by any means necessary. Founded by Abul Ala Maududi, Jamaat-e-Islami advocates for an Islamic state governed by sharia.
The structural “mastermind” behind the terror campaign was Major General Rao Farman Ali, the military adviser to the governor, whose handwritten notebook directly coordinated the systematic elimination of the Bengali intelligentsia.
As Pakistani forces faced defeat in December 1971, Al Badr launched a calculated extermination campaign. Between December 10 and 14 – just days before Bangladesh’s victory – they compiled a hit list of the country’s brightest minds: university professors, doctors, journalists, and writers. Armed squads stormed homes at night, dragged victims away at gunpoint, murdered them using bayonets and shooting them at close range (see page 219-220), and dumped their bodies in mass graves and swamps outside Dhaka. The goal was clear: decapitate the intellectual class so the new nation could never rebuild.
Prosecutors later identified Khan as the “chief executioner” of this operation. See page 4 of the Bangladesh indictment, courtesy of the IPT:
Download: prosecutors-refer-to-ashrafuzzaman-khan-as-chief-executioner
Eyewitness testimony was damning: a driver recounted transporting victims to execution sites where Khan personally shot seven university professors. A survivor described seeing Khan issuing orders during the abductions and killings. Investigators even recovered a diary from a safe house linked to Khan containing the names and addresses of the targeted professors – scheduled for death within days.
Bangladesh declared independence on December 16, 1971. Following the war, Ashrafuzzaman Khan fled to Pakistan, where he worked for the state radio service, before eventually relocating to the United States. His associate, Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, settled in London. Both individuals – Ashrafuzzaman Khan and Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin – were later tried and convicted in absentia by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal for their roles in the 1971 atrocities.
To date, neither has been returned to Bangladesh to face justice.
UK Taxpayers Fork Out £225,000 to Convicted War Criminal Who Butchered Bengali Intellectuals
Ashrafuzzaman Khan’s associate, convicted war criminal Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, also slaughtered Bengali intellectuals in 1971 as a leader of the Al Badr death squads. Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal-2 convicted him in 2013 on multiple charges of crimes against humanity for his role in abducting, torturing, and murdering 18 prominent professors, journalists, and doctors in the final days of the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence.
He was sentenced to death by hanging.
He fled to Britain shortly after the war, secured British citizenship in 1984, and has lived openly in London ever since as a senior figure in the Muslim community. He has been a “campaigner against Salman Rushdie“, served as Director of Muslim Spiritual Care Provision in the National Health Service, chairman of Muslim Aid, vice-chairman of the East London Mosque, and helped establish the Muslim Council of Great Britain.
In 2019, the UK Home Office published an official report that correctly identified Mueen-Uddin as one of those responsible for the 1971 war crimes. He sued the British government for libel. The UK Supreme Court ruled in his favor in 2024, and on 25 November 2025 the Home Secretary and Home Office stood in open court, issued a groveling apology, and paid him £225,000 in damages plus his legal costs for repeating the documented facts of his conviction.
This verdict, and the very fact that Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin lives free in England, is a slap in the face to the families of the victims of the massacres in Bangladesh.
ICNA Fights Back; Says Khan is a ‘Model Citizen’
Founded in 1968, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is a U.S.-based organization ideologically influenced by Jamaat-e-Islami. Then-president of ICNA Naeem Baig defended Ashrafuzzaman Khan, declaring that he is a “model citizen”. “His service to the Muslim community and his relationship with people of all faiths and backgrounds is very well known in the community,” Baig said. “He’s a man who dedicated his life to the community. That’s what we know of Imam Khan,” he continued.
Still, the pressure to distance themselves from Khan must have been too great, as ICNA scrubbed him from their website.
As an aside, Naeem Baig was leading the organization when ICNA became a founding member of the US Council of Muslim Organizations, a coalition of Islamic groups “comprised almost solely of elements of the US Muslim Brotherhood”.
It is no surprise, then, that ICNA maintains deep, longstanding ties to the global Muslim Brotherhood network. It is explicitly listed as one of the Brotherhood’s “organizations and the organizations of our friends” in the 1991 “Explanatory Memorandum” – the internal Brotherhood document that outlined a “civilizational jihad” to undermine Western society from within (see page 15):
Download: Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America
ICNA’s Deep Connection to Jamaat-e-Islami Founder and Jihadi Thought Leader Abul A’la Maududi
ICNA’s “reading list emphasizes works by the late Jamaat-e-Islami founder Sayyid Abul ‘Ala Maududi.” While Maududi is not a household name in the West, he “created the ideological template for the modern Islamic state”. Maududi heavily influenced “Milestones” author Sayyid Qutb, who believed that any social or political order not based strictly on Sharia is illegitimate.
Maududi also produced one of the most influential and widely respected English translations of the Quran, accompanied by his own extensive tafsirs (detailed commentaries and legal interpretations of the verses). The work, titled Towards Understanding the Quran, is regarded by many as a definitive modern reference. The translation and commentary make clear that Maududi viewed the Quran as a comprehensive blueprint for Islamic revival and global dominance-an explicit manual for what can be described as Islamic manifest destiny.
A Chicago Tribune article from 2004 described Sayyid Qutb’s “In the Shade of the Koran” and “Milestones” as books that “urge jihad, martyrdom and the creation of Islamic states.”
In 1939, Maududi delivered a revealing speech titled “Jihad in Islam” at Lahore’s Town Hall, where he openly called for the destruction of all non-Islamic governments worldwide and the establishment of global Islamic rule through jihad. Speaking amid rising international tensions on the eve of World War II, Maududi made clear that Islam is a revolutionary ideology that cannot coexist with other systems. He declared that jihad’s objective is to eliminate un-Islamic rule everywhere and impose Sharia universally, rejecting any permanent peace with non-Muslim sovereignty.
Deeply reminiscent of philosophy prescribed by the Muslim Brotherhood’s “Project”, Maududi’s speech laid out the ideological blueprint for civilization jihad:
“Islam wishes to destroy all States and Governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam, regardless of the country or the Nation which rules it… It must be evident to you from this discussion that the objective of Islamic ‘jihād’ is to eliminate the rule of an un-Islamic system and establish in its stead an Islamic system of state rule. Islam does not intend to confine this revolution to a single State or a few countries; the aim of Islam is to bring about a universal revolution.”
Read the entire speech here:
Download: Maududi’s ‘Jihad in Islam’
Maududi has preached that Islam was not like other religions because it offers a “system encompassing all fields of living” including politics, economics, and legislation.
He wrote:
“[Muslims] must strive to change the wrong basis of government, and seize all powers to the rule and make laws from those who do not fear Allah.”
ICNA honors Sayyid Abul ‘Ala Maududi to this day.
Jamaat-e-Islami, which Maududi founded, promoted his vision of Islam as a total political system requiring struggle to seize power and impose Sharia worldwide. Despite this, Maududi was allowed to come to the United States, where his son, Dr. Syed Ahmad Farooq, was a physician in Buffalo, New York. Maududi died in America, as revealed in a very uncurious death announcement at The Buffalo News on September 23, 1979.
Dr. Syed Ahmad Farooq, notably, was secretary of the founding ad-hoc committee that gave rise to ICNA, convened at the 1967 MSA convention:
After his death, Maududi was flown back to Pakistan. The late Muslim Brotherhood thought leader Youssef al-Qaradawi led the funeral prayer (janazah) for Maududi.
Qaradawi, architect of the militant International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) and a vocal champion of Hamas, attended the infamous 1977 meeting of Brotherhood exiles in Lugano – the meeting that spawned the Muslim Brotherhood blueprint for dominating the West known as “The Project”.
In an interesting twist, it turns out that Dr. Syed Ahmad Farooq’s daughter Sophia Farooq is a controversial Republican official in Georgia, currently serving as Chair of House District 41 in the Cobb Republican Assembly, who has defended Farooq, referring to criticisms as “racist attacks”.
Further, her sister Saira Farooq works at the Department of Homeland Security as a Statistician in the Citizenship and Immigration Services department.
Ashrafuzzaman Khan and ICNA
Ashrafuzzaman Khan arrived in the U.S. after the 1971 war and quickly rose within ICNA. He helped build and expand the organization, eventually leading its largest chapter in New York – its national headquarters – and serving as Secretary General. He also held leadership roles in the North American Imams Federation (now the North American Imams Fellow [NAIF]).
In 2016, years after Ashrafuzzaman Khan’s conviction became public, ICNA issued a posthumous tribute to Jamaat-e-Islami leader Motiur Rahman Nizami, widely identified as the founder and commander of the Al Badr militia.
Consider this 2010 description of atrocities:
“‘…Nizami was the organiser of the collaborators. He used to make plans and direct his associates. Most of the war criminals are relatives and followers of Nizami.’
The collaborators, widely called razakars, led by Nizami committed mass killings in Baushgari, locals said. Asad, one of the razakars, led the occupation troops to the remote village where the Hindus had taken shelter.
In Baushgari some 350 people were killed on that night. The entire Demra was turned into a graveyard as eight to nine hundred people were martyred, locals told the team.”
For his crimes, Nizami was executed in Bangladesh. ICNA “strongly condemned” the execution, referring to it as a “shameful act of judicial killing”.
ICNA even presented the “Community Appreciation Award” to Nizami posthumously in May 2016. Nizami’s son, Mohammad Nakibur Rahman received the medal from then-ICNA President Naeem Baig:
Mohammad Nakibur Rahman is the “US spokesperson for Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh” and a professor of finance at the University of North Carolina. He has also been a speaker for the Muslim Ummah of North America (MUNA), which “promotes the agenda of the Bangladeshi branch of Jamaat-e-Islami”, as well as for ICNA/MAS conferences, and currently serves as Treasurer for the deeply subversive Muslim Brotherhood-aligned coalition, the US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO).
Here is a recent ICNA Houston convergence flyer advertising Rahman as a speaker:
Nakibur stated in part:
“When my father was executed, the government planned to bury him in the middle of the night, but they could not take his body to our village until 7 in the morning. As soon as his body arrived in our little village-despite mass arrests and roadblocks-thousands of people gathered at 7 a.m. to offer the funeral prayer (janazah). My brother said that if you were not there, you wouldn’t believe what a sea of people it was. You could see people as far as the eye could see. And that was not all. People walked for miles because their cars were blocked. There were 26 janazah prayers offered that day, each one bigger than the last. And it didn’t stop there. We are really grateful to world leader President Erdoğan because he pulled out the Turkish ambassador the very next day, and in every event, he couldn’t stop talking about my father. That wave continues right here in Baltimore.”
In media reports, Nakibur Rahman characterized the execution of those convicted for 1971 war crimes as “only a sacrifice” that would ultimately serve to make the Jamaat-e-Islami party “stronger”.
Nizami’s other son, Nazibur Rahman Momen, is a member of the Bangladesh Parliament representing the Jamaat-e-Islami party. This follows years of service as a barrister and former lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London.
Consider: Just over a decade ago, Motiur Rahman Nizami was executed for war crimes tied to the 1971 massacres in Bangladesh. Today, his son sits in Parliament – representing the very organization that spawned Al Badr, the militia conceived of by his father that was responsible for the slaughter of over a thousand innocent Bengali intellectuals and professionals.
It is difficult to fathom how the families of the murdered Bangladeshi citizens feel about this betrayal. One could imagine that the 9/11 families in America feel similarly betrayed with terrorist-supporter Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York.
Bangladesh’s Tribunal, America’s Indifference
In 2010, Bangladesh established a war crimes tribunal. Survivors testified against Khan, including a man who, as a child, watched his father being dragged away by Khan’s men. Khan refused to appear, staying safely in Queens and represented only by a court-appointed lawyer. In November 2013, he was convicted for his role in the atrocities and sentenced to death.
The State Department’s response was a bureaucratic shrug: “We are aware of reports… We have nothing more to add.” The U.S. has no extradition treaty with Bangladesh. It is inconceivable that a convicted war criminal is allowed to stay in America.
ICNA’s reaction? They attacked the tribunal as a “political sham” designed to silence opposition. Then, quietly in late 2013, Khan’s name vanished from ICNA’s website – scrubbed without explanation or apology. No condemnation of his crimes. No severance of ties. Just erasure and business as usual.
In 2009, IPT News indicated the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating whether Khan lied about his past during his citizenship application – a charge that could lead to denaturalization. Nothing public ever came of it. As of the most recent accounts, Khan, now in his late 70s, remains in Queens with no record of arrest, deportation, or punishment.
The Pattern America Refuses to See
This is a pattern: jihadists and their enablers infiltrate respected institutions, build power bases under the cover of community service, and count on Western “tolerance” and bureaucratic inertia to shield them from accountability. ICNA’s refusal to denounce one of its own architects – even after a genocide tribunal conviction – speaks volumes about where their true loyalties lie.
While American families interact with ICNA’s programs, mosques, and conventions, the organization that sheltered and elevated a man who executed professors to cripple a nation continues operating with impunity.
The United States allowed a war criminal to help shape one of its largest Islamic networks. Authorities knew. ICNA knew. And still, nothing was done.
This is how civilizations are lost – not with a bang, but with scrubbed websites, polite shrugs from embassies, and the slow replacement of accountability with denial. Americans deserve better. Our Republic demands it.
Federal Government Must Act Now: Strip Khan of Citizenship
The United States federal government must immediately open denaturalization proceedings against Ashrafuzzaman Khan and send this convicted war criminal to Bangladesh to face his death sentence without further delay. For decades American authorities have known of his role as chief executioner in the 1971 Al Badr intellectual massacre yet have done nothing while he built one of the largest Islamic organizations in the country and lived openly in Queens as a naturalized citizen.
The 2009 DOJ investigation into his concealment of Al Badr leadership and atrocities on immigration forms provided clear grounds for revocation of his citizenship under long established law – the same legal mechanism used successfully to denaturalize Nazis who hid their wartime collaboration.
Enough is enough.
Khan personally shot seven Dhaka University professors at gunpoint as part of a calculated campaign to decapitate a nations future and Bangladesh rightly convicted him in 2013 for these crimes against humanity. The federal government has both the legal authority and the moral duty to strip him of citizenship and repatriate him now so that justice can finally be served for the families of his victims and so that America stops serving as a safe haven for Islamic war criminals who helped shape networks still operating inside our borders.
GLOSSARY:
1971 Bangladesh War of Independence: Conflict in which Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) fought for independence from Pakistan; during the final days Al Badr, a Jamaat-e-Islami death squad, carried out the targeted killing of intellectuals.
Ashrafuzzaman Khan: Islamic leader and top ICNA official in Queens, New York; personally executed seven university professors at gunpoint as Al Badr chief executioner in 1971; convicted in absentia of war crimes; helped build ICNA and held leadership positions in it; still living freely in America.
Abul Ala Maududi (Sayyid Abul ‘Ala Maududi): Founder of Jamaat-e-Islami; ICNA reading list emphasizes his works; Called for the destruction of all non-Islamic governments worldwide and the establishment of global Islamic rule through jihad; his writings influenced Sayyid Qutb, whose books urge jihad, martyrdom and the creation of Islamic states; died in the United States.
Motiur Rahman Nizami: Jamaat-e-Islami leader who founded Al Badr; ICNA presented him a posthumous Community Appreciation Award; executed in Bangladesh for war crimes.
Mohammad Nakibur Rahman: Son of Motiur Rahman Nizami; professor of finance at the University of North Carolina; Treasurer for the US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), received ICNA award on behalf of his father; Praised Erdoğan for his support.
Nazibur Rahman Momen: Son of Motiur Rahman Nizami; barrister and former lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London; member of the Bangladesh Parliament representing Jamaat-e-Islami.
Naeem Baig: Former President of ICNA; defended Ashrafuzzaman Khan as a “model citizen”; was leading the organization when ICNA became a founding member of the USCMO, a coalition of Islamic groups comprised almost solely of elements of the US Muslim Brotherhood; Presented the Community Appreciation Award to Nizami posthumously in May 2016.
Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin: Associate of Ashrafuzzaman Khan; convicted in absentia for 1971 atrocities; settled in London. In 2019, the UK Home Office identified him as one of those responsible for the 1971 war crimes; he later sued for libel and received a £225,000 settlement plus a public apology in 2025.
Rao Farman Ali: Pakistani major general; structural mastermind behind the 1971 intellectual massacre.
Sophia Farooq: Granddaughter of Abul Ala Maududi; Republican official in Georgia serving as Chair of House District 41 in the Cobb Republican Assembly.
Saira Farooq: Granddaughter of Abul Ala Maududi; works at the Department of Homeland Security as a Statistician in Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Dr. Syed Ahmad Farooq: Son of Abul Ala Maududi; physician in Buffalo, New York; secretary of the founding ad-hoc committee that gave rise to ICNA, convened at the 1967 MSA convention.
Youssef al-Qaradawi: A major Muslim Brotherhood thought leader, led the funeral prayer (janazah) for Abul Ala Maududi. He is referenced in connection with the 1977 Brotherhood meeting that spawned “The Project,” the multi-generational blueprint for imposing Islam in the West.
Zohran Mamdani: Mayor of New York (referenced in comparison).
Al Badr: Militia formed by Jamaat-e-Islami with Pakistani army support; responsible for the targeted killing of Bengali intellectuals in 1971.
Red/Green Axis: Term used in the article to describe the convergence of Marxism and Islam, illustrated by Ashrafuzzaman Khan addressing an anti-war protest sponsored by a coalition including far-left groups.
Muslim Brotherhood: International Islamic network; Tied to ICNA, including listing in the 1991 Explanatory Memorandum outlining a civilizational jihad strategy.
“The Project”: 1977 Brotherhood strategy document referenced in connection with Youssef al-Qaradawi and long-term goals of Islamic dominance.
Explanatory Memorandum: 1991 internal Muslim Brotherhood document outlining a civilizational jihad strategy in North America; explicitly lists ICNA as one of its organizations.
Jamaat-e-Islami: Islamic political party that formed Al Badr militia with Pakistani army support; advocates for an Islamic state governed by sharia.
ICNA (Islamic Circle of North America): US-based organization founded in 1968, ideologically influenced by Jamaat-e-Islami; one of America’s most prominent Muslim organizations.