Florida’s school-choice dollars are bankrolling the American Youth Academy – a rebranded network founded by operatives of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and sustained by Muslim Brotherhood heirs and sympathizers.
Nestled in the suburbs of Temple Terrace, Florida, the American Youth Academy (AYA) operates as a K-12 Islamic school serving around 1,165+ students. Its website promises “academic excellence in a safe, nurturing, and Islamic environment” to cultivate “successful 21st-century global citizens.”
But behind that polished façade lies one of Florida’s most alarming stories: AYA has a documented history with terrorist supporters – and even literal terrorists – that continues to this day.
The AYA’s origins lead directly back to the Islamic Academy of Florida (IAF), founded in 1992 by Sami Al-Arian and Mazen al-Najjar, both professors at the University of South Florida (USF).
Even more shocking, the late Ramadan Shalah – a leader of the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) – also taught at the IAF.
Yet this terror-tied school still benefits from Florida’s taxpayer-funded school-choice voucher system – a program designed to rescue children from failing public schools, not to bankroll Sharia-compliant institutions promoting militant and unconstitutional ideology right under our noses.
This report is brought to you as a part of RAIR’s series on taxpayer-funded Jihad in America’s schools.
(…) After IAF was stripped of its lucrative taxpayer-funded vouchers, it was clear that the school had to rebrand. Despite the terror-tied founding of the Islamic Academy of Florida, it was allowed to continue as an Islamic school with a new name: “American Youth Academy”.
In October 2005, the Tampa Tribune reported:
“Board members admit that creating a new image can be confusing because the new school uses the same buildings, desks, books and equipment as the Islamic Academy. Nearly half the teachers and many students are the same.”
Magda Elkadi Saleh
The school also hired a new principal, Magda Elkadi Saleh, who worked at the school for over a decade before becoming principal at the Bayaan Academy in Tampa.
As reported at RAIR Foundation USA, not only has Saleh served as Vice President (USA) of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and as a member of both the Council of Islamic Schools in North America (CISNA) and the Islamic Schools League of America (ISLA), her late father, heart surgeon Ahmed Elkadi, was a pivotal member of the Muslim Brotherhood in America; and a founder of the Muslim American Society (MAS) as well as the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and others.
Ahmed Elkadi
Ahmed Elkadi, according to an article at the Chicago Tribune in September 2004, oversaw a group whose “ultimate goal, one so controversial that it is a key reason they have operated in secrecy: to create Muslim states overseas and, they hope, someday in America as well.”
The article specifically points out that “the U.S. Brotherhood has had a significant and ongoing impact on Islam in America, helping establish mosques, Islamic schools, summer youth camps and prominent Muslim organizations.”
With this in mind, consider that the Tampa Tribune article emphasized that the American Youth Academy has “ambitious plans: [to build] a 73,000-square-foot concrete and steel building on the property, which is next to a mosque, a focal point for the growing Muslim community.”
Shaker El-Sayed
Ahmed Elkadi was a “longtime friend” of Shaker El-Sayed, former Secretary General of the Muslim American Society and Imam of the Dar-Al-Hijra Islamic Center in Virginia. El-Sayed criticized the case against Sami Al-Arian as “a war on Muslim institutions.” Shaker El-Sayed dismissed convictions in the so-called “Virginia Jihad” network as proof that “Muslims should not expect justice”. El-Sayed resigned as imam after an uproar over comments where he advocated female genital mutilation to curb women’s “hypersexuality.”
But Magda Elkadi Saleh’s connection to the Muslim Brotherhood does not end with her father. Her maternal grandfather was Mahmoud Abu-Saud, an economist and early Muslim Brotherhood leader “who had been repeatedly jailed in connection with his Brotherhood activities”. Abu-Saud was active in Muslim organizations and was a co-founder of the now-defunct American Muslim Council along with the notorious Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi, who was sentenced in 2004 to 23 years for terrorism financing and plotting to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.
As reported at RAIR, Magda Elkadi Saleh strongly promotes using taxpayer money to fund students. “In a society that is becoming increasingly diverse, choice allows families to pursue their values without imposing them on others,” she wrote in an OpEd she penned with Rabbie Moshe Matz in September 2023.
In a video from June 2025, Saleh declared that there is a “huge demand for Islamic education” in Tampa.
Recent Times to Present Day
In 2022, researcher and Front Page News columnist Joe Kaufman observed: “Given American Youth Academy’s radical history, it is amazing that it continues to exist and with impunity.”
Basem Ali
Kaufman posted a video featuring AYA Board Chairman Basem Ali referring to the founders of the school as “visionary leaders”. “Back in 1992,” he said during a 2022 AYA fundraiser, “a group of young, energized leaders in the community decided that they want to open an Islamic school in Tampa.”
He explained that the “visionaries” solicited funds from Nigeria-born Houston Rockets basketball player Hakeem Olajuwon, who gave a check for $250,000., which was used to “start the new building.”
It is very revealing that Basem Ali spoke so openly about terror-connected leaders at the fundraiser. Did the people in the audience find it strange that he was praising literal terrorist supporters, and even a terrorist leader? If so, they kept their opinions to themselves. Were Basem Ali’s fellow Board of Trustees offended that he was so openly praising the men who brought shame to the school for many years?
The answer is clearly no. Ali, the President and CEO of Giant Oil, Inc., is still on the Board of Trustees at AYA as part of the “Strategic Planning and Development Committee.”
Basem Ali, a Prolific Donor
Not surprisingly, Basem Ali is a prolific donor to militant left political candidates, particularly those with strong pro-Palestinian stances, channeling a total of $62,300 in contributions from 2010 to 2024. His most substantial support has gone to Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, totaling $22,100 across multiple donations, including $3,300 twice in early 2024 and $5,000 in 2020, underscoring his alignment with her vocal criticism of Israeli policies.
Basem has also poured $27,500 into Virginia State Senator Sam Rasoul’s campaigns, highlighted by two $10,000 gifts in March 2021 alone. Other notable recipients include $5,000 to Republican Congressman Gus Bilirakis in 2012 – his sole contribution to a GOP figure – $2,700 to Ammar Campa-Najjar in 2018, $2,000 to Ilhan Omar that same year, $1,500 to Keith Ellison across two donations, and $1,500 to Rush Darwish in 2020.
Hassan Shibly
Former CAIR-Florida Executive Director Hassan Shibly, who was forced to resign in 2021 in the wake of abuse allegations from his ex-wife, has been a huge supporter of the American Youth Academy, where his children attended school.
Shibly has also supported Sami Al-Arian, along with his CAIR-Florida colleagues. In 2020, Al-Arian was featured in a CAIR Florida series “Exposed”, which featured Muslims who were allegedly wrongly persecuted in America. The series frames Sami Al Arian’s persecution as a deliberate, politically orchestrated effort to silence a prominent Muslim activist, rather than a legitimate criminal investigation.
The series also featured cause célèbres such as the “Holy Land Foundation Five”, convicted of funneling money to Hamas and “Lady al-Qaeda” Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted of attempted murder after firing an M-4 rifle at U.S. personnel questioning her about documents containing instructions for terror activities. Also in the conviction are charges of planned “mass casualty” events within the United States.
In the episode, Shibly referred to the Al-Arian case as “a tremendous travesty of justice” and stated that Al-Arian and his family were “one of the first political victims of 9/11…whose rights were undermined, whose lives were devastated for political reasons in complete contravention to the U.S. Constitution, to the principles of liberty and justice and equity.”
Yet despite his support for Sami Al-Arian, Hassan Shibly has been a mainstay at the American Youth Academy. If the school really wanted to distance themselves from the terrorist activities of their predecessors, why would they support Hassan Shibly?
In the video compiled by Kaufman, Shibly also addressed the 2022 fundraiser, where he praised the “founders” of the school:
“It’s a tremendous blessing from Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, that we are here today. The founders and the board members of this institution have paved the way for us to build such a powerful institution that will last, inshallah, for generations. And it is indeed a gift from Allah if He allows us to be written amongst those who are supporting this great institution.
In the following video, investigative journalist Tsvi Yehezkeli goes undercover to expose the Muslim Brotherhood’s operations in America – focusing on CAIR Florida and its leader, Hassan Shibly. This segment is part of his 2016–2017 series Under a False Identity, now translated and subtitled for RAIR’s audience. To watch the full five-part series, click here.
Noor Salhab
Noor Salhab is on the Board of Trustees at the American Youth Academy, specifically on the Finance Committee. He has a long-standing, deep relationship with Sami Al-Arian.
On July 8, 2008, Noor Salhab wrote a letter in support of Sami Al-Arian. He said in part:
While we have known Dr. Al-Arian since 1988, we got to know him and his family even better since 1995. I worked with him for many years, got to know him and his family on a personal basis. I have served with him on two boards: the board of the school which he founded in 1992 (The Islamic Academy of Florida) and the board of the mosque (Islamic Community of Tampa).
For a period, Noor Salhab was president of Masjid al-Qassam. From the Middle East Forum in 2012:
The mosque maintains a significant link to the Al-Arian era through its president, Noor Salhab. In the early 1990s, Salhab leased his home to Al-Arian as office space for a think-tank called the World and Islam Studies Enterprise, where Shallah was a director.
As noted previously, the World and Islam Studies Enterprise effectively shut down in the wake of Sami Al-Arian’s 2003 indictment on terrorism charges.
To gain further insight into his mentality, Noor Salhab was quoted by local media in 2012 trashing Israel in the wake of a military operation that involved Israeli airstrikes targeting Hamas and other militant infrastructure in response to rocket fire from Gaza, which had intensified in the weeks prior.
“Hamas did not start the current conflict, as Israel, the U.S. and western media insist,” Noor Salhab said during an anti-Israel protest, “In addition to the devastating and illegal Israeli economic blockade on Gaza, on November 4th Israel killed a Palestinian man near the Gaza border, a man reportedly to be ‘mentally unfit’ and unarmed. The killing of a 12-year old Palestinian boy who was simply playing soccer followed this unprovoked attack.”
Forever Expanding
The American Youth Academy is the living continuation of a terror-linked network, sanitized through rebranding and sustained by Florida’s taxpayer dollars.
Started from humble beginnings, the AYA is forever expanding:
Behind the rhetoric of “academic excellence” lies a legacy built by operatives of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and nurtured by the Muslim Brotherhood’s American infrastructure. And while ordinary parents think they are funding opportunity and diversity, they are in fact financing indoctrination – the very ideology that despises the freedoms their tax dollars were meant to defend.
Florida’s 2023 voucher expansion was designed to empower families, not to embolden Jihadists. Yet under the banner of “choice,” the state is subsidizing the heirs of Islamic Jihad.
Until lawmakers act, the American Youth Academy will remain a case study in national blindness – a warning that when the West funds its enemies in the name of tolerance, it pays for its own undoing.
Noor Salhab
Noor Salhab is on the Board of Trustees at the American Youth Academy, specifically on the Finance Committee. He has a long-standing, deep relationship with Sami Al-Arian.
On July 8, 2008, Noor Salhab wrote a letter in support of Sami Al-Arian. He said in part:
While we have known Dr. Al-Arian since 1988, we got to know him and his family even better since 1995. I worked with him for many years, got to know him and his family on a personal basis. I have served with him on two boards: the board of the school which he founded in 1992 (The Islamic Academy of Florida) and the board of the mosque (Islamic Community of Tampa).
For a period, Noor Salhab was president of Masjid al-Qassam. From the Middle East Forum in 2012:
The mosque maintains a significant link to the Al-Arian era through its president, Noor Salhab. In the early 1990s, Salhab leased his home to Al-Arian as office space for a think-tank called the World and Islam Studies Enterprise, where Shallah was a director.
As noted previously, the World and Islam Studies Enterprise effectively shut down in the wake of Sami Al-Arian’s 2003 indictment on terrorism charges.
To gain further insight into his mentality, Noor Salhab was quoted by local media in 2012 trashing Israel in the wake of a military operation that involved Israeli airstrikes targeting Hamas and other militant infrastructure in response to rocket fire from Gaza, which had intensified in the weeks prior.
“Hamas did not start the current conflict, as Israel, the U.S. and western media insist,” Noor Salhab said during an anti-Israel protest, “In addition to the devastating and illegal Israeli economic blockade on Gaza, on November 4th Israel killed a Palestinian man near the Gaza border, a man reportedly to be ‘mentally unfit’ and unarmed. The killing of a 12-year old Palestinian boy who was simply playing soccer followed this unprovoked attack.”
(Read more: Rair Foundation, 11/10/2025) (Archive)
(RAIR Foundation USA (Rise • Align • Ignite • Reclaim) is a grassroots activist and investigative journalism organization made up of everyday Americans leading a movement to reclaim our Republic from the network of individuals and organizations waging war on our nation — on our Constitution, our borders, and our Judeo-Christian values.
RAIR is an integrated media platform amplifying the voices of the silent majority, while informing the citizenry of the daily assaults on freedom and fostering grassroots leaders and activists in order to combat the threats from Islamic supremacists, radical leftists and their allies.)