The [Muslim?] Origins Of Project Hope

Project Hope and Harmony, not yet a nonprofit organization although filing papers for that status are said to be planned, is the organization which insisted that Herndon, Virginia build a center for day laborers. This center will operate at taxpayers' expense and will not check on the immigration status of day laborers who utilize the site.

From the August 20, 2005 edition of the Washington Post comes a bit of information about the origins of Project Hope:

"On a frigid winter day two years ago, Mukit Hossain drove past a 7-Eleven in Herndon and noticed a large group of men, some wearing only sweat shirts, shivering like leaves in the parking lot.

"Something made him stop and ask what they were doing. In broken English, one man explained that they were looking for work. With their chances as bleak as the weather at 3 in the afternoon, Hossain asked why they did not just give up and go home.

"'We don't have much of a home to go to,' Hossain recalls the man telling him.

"From that encounter, a charity was born that ultimately has led to a government-sanctioned day-laborer site that has generated national attention.

"Hossain called a meeting of civic and religious leaders, many of whom had worked quietly for years helping day laborers learn English, find housing and get medical care. He proposed that they join forces and collaborate under a name with a distinct mission: Project Hope and Harmony, whose sole goal would be to create and run an orderly site for itinerant laborers...."

Mukit Hossain, who immigrated to the United States from Bangaladesh some thirty years ago, is a successful businessman here in the United States. According to a PRWEB Press Release:

"Mukit will assume the position of Exe VP & COO on June 1, 2004. Most recently, he has served as the President of ContinewTechnology. Prior to ContinewTechnology, Mr. Hossain served at Teleglobe Communication Company as a senior executive in charge of ‘access’ development, and subsequently, for global buildout of web-hosting, collocation and POP facilities. Before that, he held several executive level positions in charge of Program Management, Marketing, Network Planning, Data Services and Partnership Management at WinStar Communications. He arrived in the DC area with an assignment to start the local telecom venture of LCI (now part of Qwest) – from business/product definition to implementation. Mr. Hossain entered the CLEC industry via his assignment to develop market strategy for Teleport Communication Group (TCG – now AT&T Local). Mr. Hossain also served in technical and marketing positions for Telecommunication and IT services at Ameritech and GTE. Mr. Hossain has Bachelors degrees in Economics, Mathematics and Philosophy from Duke University and a Masters degree in Economics with emphasis in Econometrics and Business Management from North Carolina State University."

He is, then, eminently qualified to have organized Project Hope.

Returning now to the above-cited article in the Washington Post:

"For Hossain, helping immigrants, most from Central and South America, is a Muslim issue. Charity is one of the five pillars of Islam. So he raised money from Muslim businessmen in Herndon to buy 400 winter coats for the laborers, brought them food through another charity he started, called Food Source, and even rounded up day laborers to attend a Thanksgiving dinner at an Iraqi restaurant where falafel, not turkey, was served.

"'I consider them my neighbors,' said Hossain, an immigrant from Bangladesh who came to the United States 30 years ago to attend Duke University....

"Hossain wants to buy bicycles for the day laborers so they can get to the site without taking shortcuts across private property. The All Dulles Area Muslim Society Center, a large mosque in Sterling, has offered to provide a van to transport workers to and from the site...."

A Google Search of Mukit Hossain pulled up lots of information about Mukit Hossain. One Google hit contained this blunt comment:

"Hossain and the other Muslims working with Project Hope and Harmony have been accused of trying to justify illegal immigration, but their commitment to the issue has remained strong."

Another hit stated this:

"The War on Terror suffered another setback when the 'Virginistan' Senate honored Mukrit Hossain, an Islamist who has used his 'charitable' work - for Da'wa and to undermine the interests of the United States. Hossain has not only parlayed giving food and coats to illegal migrants into a federally funded exercise in Da'wa (Islamic propagation), he has assisted those who broke the law with legal aid to help them fight to stay in the US . Hossain exploits his 'charitable' work for furthering his Islamist agenda,and openly proclaims this to be his political mission as well....Hossain is also active in MAS, the Muslim American Society, the group which is in the forefront of campaiging for the release of jailed presidental assassin wannabe Omar Abu Ali. MAS also lauded Hossain as a 'supporter' of their organisation which is directly linked to ICNA and by extension Al Qaeda. The trustee of MAS's Islamic American University is Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi who proclaimed that Muslim women have an Islamic duty to become suicide bombers."

A third Google hit produced this:

"Perhaps most outrageous of all is that the FAITH 'charity' -Foundation for Appropriate and Temporary Immediate Help- which Hossain is being lauded for which helps illegal migrants get around American law and enables him to expose them to Islam, is registered at 500 Grove Street an address which was raided by law enforcement because 'it housed more then 100 interlocking Muslim organisations... which gave material aid to terrorists.' Besides Hossain and FAITH's activities in recruiting illegal migrant converts to Islam, one must also conclude that the potential for these people to become terrorist operatives is just as likely."

Back in May 2005, Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch did a bit of analysis on MAS, the head of which is Mahdi Bray:

"A convert to Islam, Mahdi Bray is not one of those, like Ibrahim Hooper, who has attained national prominence. He is a tireless worker at the local level, however, and in his dual presentation of self, or presentation of dual selves, most instructive. Soft-spoken and smiling and all sweet reason, and with a comfortably American voice, when addressing Infidels, he becomes something quite different for Muslim audiences, where he has been known to chant-and-rant, as in his call of support for Hamas before a crowd in Washington, or whipping up a crowd to show up at a courtroom to mock the proceedings which involved charging a Muslim with plotting to kill the American President. He is also careful, at the local level, to carry out all those carefully-calibrated and well-publicized deeds of supposed charity – to earn Infidel goodwill – that are described as being so useful in the conduct of Da’wa at Muslim sites.

"In his last appearance in the Boston Globe, some months ago, he is seen in a photograph (he made sure there would be a Globe photographer handy) helping to lift a box of donated food for the poor, which we are naturally supposed to believe is disinterested Muslim charity, but zakat, of course, can only be given to Infidels for the sake of promoting Islam....

"The list of those he has chosen to vocally defend is instructive...

"In October 2000 he appeared at a demonstration called in support of Hamas and Hizbullah:

“In American Jihad, [Steve] Emerson notes that when Abdurrahman Alamoudi of the American Muslim Council, who is now serving a 23-year prison sentence for a terrorism financing conviction, encouraged the Muslim crowd at an October 2000 rally cosponsored by MPAC to declare their support of the jihad terror groups Hamas and Hizballah, 'MPAC’s Political Advisor, Mahdi Bray, stood directly behind Alamoudi and was seen jubilantly exclaiming his support for these two deadly terrorist organizations.' This was just three weeks after Bray 'coordinated and led a rally where approximately 2,000 people congregated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C.' Emerson reports that 'at one point during the rally, Mahdi Bray played the tambourine as one of the speakers sang, while the crowd repeated: "Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is calling us, let’s all go into jihad, and throw stones at the face of the Jews [sic]."

"Mahdi Bray was at another demonstration in December of that same year:

"On December 22, 2000, MPAC's Mahdi Bray organized a rally in Lafayette Park outside the White House to celebrate a 'Worldwide Day for Jerusalem.' In Arabic, the crowd responsively chanted with the emcee, 'Khaybar, Khaybar oh Jews, the Army of Muhammad is coming for you!' Posters calling for 'Death to Israel' and equating the Star of David with the Nazi swastika were openly displayed and anti-Semitic literature calling for the destruction of the Jews and Israel was distributed. Members of the crowd burned the Israeli flag while marching from the White House to the State Department.

"And here is some testimony before Congress about Mahdi Bray:

"United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary

"Terrorist Recruitment and Infiltration in the United States: Prisons and Military as an Operational Base.
"Statement of J. Michael Waller Annenberg Professor of International Communication Institute of World Politics

"Before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 14 October 2003

"Appendix 2: Key Organizations Involved in Muslim Prison Recruitment
"National Islamic Prison Foundation (NIPF) – Contact: Mahdi Bray; 1212 New York Ave. NW, Suite 525, Washington, DC 20005. This is the same address as the American Muslim Council (AMC).
"• Specifically organized to convert American inmates to Wahhabism.”

Is there a comprehensive list of groups which have funded, or are funding, Project Hope and Harmony, defined in the Washington Post as "an umbrella group, not a nonprofit organization." How closely tied is Project Hope to the Muslim American Society? And why should any group--of whatever civic or religious persuasion--be allowed to promote illegal immigration within the United States?