See also: Huma
Abedin
Hassan
Abedin
Institute
of Muslim Minority Affairs
International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief Muslim
Brotherhood
International Islamic Committee for Woman and
Child
Born
in 1940 in what is now Pakistan, Saleha
Mahmood Abedin is the widow of the late Zyed
Abedin, an Indian-born academic who taught at the
prestigious King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia during the early
1970s. In 1976 Saleha gave
birth to a daughter, Huma
Abedin,
while
she and her husband were living in the United States.
The following year, Saleha earned a
PhD in sociology
from the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1978, the Abedin
family relocated from Kalamazoo,
Michigan to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. This move took place when Abdullah
Omar Naseef, then-vice president of Abdulaziz University, recruited
Zyed Abedin, who had been his colleague at the University earlier in
the decade, to work for the
Institute
of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA),
a
Saudi-based Islamic think tank that Naseef was preparing to launch.
Both Zyed and Saleha Abedin would serve as editorial-board members of IMMA's
in-house publication, the Journal
of Muslim Minority Affairs (JMMA).
It should be noted that Abdullah
Omar Naseef was an
Islamic extremist
with a significant history of ties to al
Qaeda; moreover, he became
secretary-general
of the Muslim
World League (MWL),
a
fundamentalist group with
links
to Osama
bin Laden, in 1983. In the 1990s, Saleha
Abedin herself would serve as an official representative
of MWL.
After
her husband died in 1993, Saleha Abedin became the
director
of IMMA; today she serves as editor-in-chief
of its Journal.
In
addition to her duties with IMMA, Abedin is a board member
of the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief (IICDR), a Union of Good-affiliated
organization that has long been banned in Israel because of its ties
to the terrorist organization Hamas.
Abedin also directs
the Amman, Jordan-based International Islamic Committee for Woman and
Child (IICWC), a Muslim World League affiliate that identifies
itself as part of the aforementioned IICDR. Abiding by a charter
authored by Yusuf
al-Qaradawi and several other leading Muslim
Brotherhood members, IICWC
advocates the implementation of strict Sharia Law and calls for the
repeal
of Egyptian statutes that currently ban female genital mutilation, child marriage,
and marital rape. Because each of these practices find doctrinal
support in Sharia, IICWC favors them.
Saleha
Abedin is
an influential
founding member
of the Muslim Sisterhood, a pro-Sharia entity composed
of the wives of some of the highest-ranking leaders in the Muslim
Brotherhood. A report
by the Egyptian opposition newspaper Al-Liwa
Al-Arabi
says that these women are recruited to: “smuggle secret documents”;
“spread the Brotherhood’s ideology by infiltrating universities,
schools and homes”; “fulfill the interests of the Brotherhood”;
and “organiz[e] projects which will penetrate [the Brotherhood's] prohibited
ideology into the decision-making in the West ... under the guise of 'general needs of women.'” One particularly
noteworthy member
of the Sisterhood is Nagla Ali Mahmoud, wife of Mohammed
Morsi (the Islamist who was elected president of Egypt in June
2012).
Saleha Abedin is perhaps best-known for her efforts in
editing and translating (into English) author Fatima
Umar Naseef's 1999 book,
Women
in Islam: A Discourse in Rights and Obligations,
which quotes extensively
from the writings of the eminent Muslim Brotherhood theorist Sayyid
Qutb. Lauding Naseef as “a prominent Saudi scholar,” Abedin
describes the book as “a comprehensive study of the rights and
obligations of women in society from the Islamic perspective.” Specifically, the
book asserts
that all Muslim women must wear the hijab,
or veil; that Sharia offers women “the only escape” possible from
the tyranny of manmade laws that “enslave” them; that female
genital mutilation is permissible; that stoning and lashing are
appropriate punishments for adultery; that apostates should be
executed for abandoning the Muslim faith; that those who kill
apostates should not be subject to the death penalty; that women are
not only permitted, but obliged, to participate
in violent jihad; that social interaction between the sexes is
forbidden; that women have no right to abstain from sex with their
husbands; that a woman should not let anyone into her family's house
unless approved by her husband; and that free speech should not be
permitted if it does not “benefit” Islam.
In addition, Abedin is a member
of several interfaith organizations, including the Millennium World
Peace Summit, the Vienna Round Table for Christian Muslim Dialogue,
the Peace Council, the Parliament of World Religions, and the World
Council of Muslims for Interfaith Relations. She founded Dar Al-Hekma
College (in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia), and is a Professor of Sociology at
the King Abdulaziz University Women’s College (also in Jeddah).
Saleha
Abedin's daughter, Huma
Abedin, worked at IMMA for 12 years (1996-2008) and is closely affiliated with Hillary Rodham Clinton. Saleha's other daughter,
Heba Abedin (formerly known as “Heba A. Khaled”), worked alongside Huma an assistant
editor with JMMA, and continues in that role to this day. And Saleha's son,
Hassan
Abedin, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and is an associate
editor of JMMA.