Shaikh Waleed Basyouni is the Imam of Ta’leemul Islaam Masjid, a mosque in Houston, Texas. He currently teaches at the Houston-based AlMaghrib Institute and was formerly an instructor at American Open University in Alexandria, Virginia.

Basyouni is a member of the North American Imams Federation and the Assembly of Muslim Jurists (a subsection of America’s Fatwa and Research Committee). He serves as Director of the Texas Dawah Convention and as an advisor to numerous Islamic organizations in the United States. He is a frequent guest speaker at universities, conventions, interfaith meetings, and community centers in the U.S. and abroad. He also has appeared many times on radio and television talk shows.

Basyouni holds a bachelor’s degree in Islamic Sciences from Al-Imam Muhammad University in Saudi Arabia and a master’s degree in Islamic Creed from Al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud University (also in Saudi Arabia). He studied under Sheik Abdelaziz bin Baz (d. 1999), who is described by the French scholar Gilles Kepel (in his book Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam) as “the principal Wahhabite ideologist” committed to ensuring that Saudi Arabia “remained true to Wahhabite norms, resisting the pernicious influence of Jews and Christians.”

In a July 2006 speech entitled “What Have You Done for the Deen of Allah?” Basyouni stated that Muslims are “the only people who know God” and, as such, are uniquely righteous and clearly distinguishable from nonbelievers.

“Do you think Christian know who is God?” Basyouni asked in imperfect English. “Do you think Jewish know who is God?” He then repeated an anti-Jewish libel from the Koran, centered around the story of Mohamed laying siege on the wealthy Jews of Medina. “Seven years,” he said, “the prophet and his companions suffered from the Jew in Medina. Seven years, the Jew try to destroy this, a new Muslims’ country…. They try everything. They try to kill him (Mohammed]…. They try to make deals with the Kufar, so they could attack Muslims. They support the hypocrites. They start everything. Seven years, suffering from them.”