Imtiaz Mohammad, the Republican nominee for Florida House District 103 following an uncontested primary, has undergone a striking political transformation. His history in Democratic and progressive politics, involvement with controversial Muslim groups, appearances at an institution linked to persons implicated in terrorism, and past statements disparaging America present a political résumé more aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) than the Republican Party.
Mohammad, who grew up in the Hyderabad region of Pakistan and arrived in the United States in 1991, has spent years participating in South Florida politics. He founded the American Muslim Progressive Caucus (AMPC) and has been a strong supporter of Bernie Sanders, the Squad, abolishing ICE and turning Florida into a sanctuary state for illegals.
Mohammad changed his party registration, reportedly by mid-2022. In 2024, when he ran for State Senate as a Republican, the Broward Republican Executive Committee (BREC) removed him from a voter guide following protests from several individuals, including this author.
Two years later, the reception appears markedly different.
The Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) recently included Mohammad on a flyer congratulating State House candidates. Last month, Mohammad attended the RPOF Victory Rally in Tampa, where his campaign photographed and filmed encounters with prominent Florida Republicans, including gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds, U.S. Senator Ashley Moody, Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, and RPOF Chairman Evan Power – and posted them on social media.
It was not the first time Mohammad used the image of a prominent Republican to enhance his political presentation. He previously posted a graphic on Facebook featuring an AI-generated likeness of U.S. Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart alongside his own. Mohammad removed the graphic after this author brought it to the congressman's attention.
Politicians routinely pose with candidates and members of the public, and such encounters do not necessarily constitute endorsements. But when exploited, the images can falsely suggest political affiliation or approval.
This is a problem when considering that Mohammad is involved with radical Muslim groups.
This past June, Mohammad posted on Facebook that he had partnered with WhyIslam to serve food to its volunteers. While this may seem innocuous, WhyIslam is the religious outreach, or dawah division, of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), a group with deep historical roots in Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), a South Asian Islamist movement that has provided an ideological platform and recruiting base for terrorist groups in the region. In November 2019, three Republican congressmen wrote to the State Department accusing ICNA and its affiliated charity, Helping Hand for Relief and Development, of being "directly involved in terror finance" and of having "openly worked with U.S. designated terrorist organizations" in Kashmir.
In 2006, ICNA partnered with and was a top donor to JI charity Al-Khidmat Foundation (AKF), at the same time that AKF presented $100,000 to Hamas leader Khaled Mashal at his Syria residence. ICNA continues to partner with AKF. ICNA also counted ex-JI death squad commander Ashrafuzzaman Khan among its senior leaders. In 2013, Khan was sentenced to death in absentia by Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal for the murders of 18 people during the country's 1971 war of independence. In 2014, ICNA co-sponsored a pro-Hamas rally in Miami.
Mohammad has been well acquainted with ICNA for years. He describes the group as a "humanitarian champion." In 2017, Mohammad was a contact for an ICNA benefit dinner featuring Monzer Taleb, a self-proclaimed Hamas memberwho has shared a Facebook post that Jews in Israel "should be relocated to Germany."
WhyIslam has generated controversies of its own. A 2008 promotional video for the group featured Mazen Mokhtar, a supporter of Palestinian suicide bombings and former administrator for qoqaz.net, a fundraising and recruitment website for al-Qaeda. WhyIslam's now-defunct online message board was run by moderators who posted messages glorifying Hamas and Hezbollah, denigrating Jews, and calling for Israel's destruction.
This past July, Mohammad posted on Facebook photographs of himself campaigning at the Darul Uloom Institute (DUI), an educational facility where several al-Qaeda-related terrorists have passed through.
Jose Padilla, who was convicted in 2007 of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people overseas and of providing material support to terrorists, arrived at Darul Uloom in 1992 to study Arabic and the Quran under the mosque's late imam, Shafayat Mohamed, and left in the late 1990s. Adnan el-Shukrijumah, who led prayers at the institute, went on to become a senior al-Qaeda operative and was charged in 2010 over the plot to bomb New York City's subway system; he was killed in Pakistan in 2014. Imran Mandhai, who taught Arabic at Darul Uloom, was sentenced to 14 years for conspiring to bomb electrical power stations and a National Guard armory in South Florida.
Shafayat Mohamed himself acknowledged reports that one of the 9/11 hijackers may have prayed at Darul Uloom as well, as this author witnessed on April 17, 2005.
Shafayat Mohamed generated separate controversy through his extreme rhetoric concerning homosexuals. In a 2005 essay titled "Tsunami: Wrath of God," the imam claimed that gay sex caused the 2004 Indonesian tsunami. In a 2015 sermon, he lamented the existence of gay Muslim communities and discussed his removal from "several" Broward County advisory boards – which this author proudly caused – over this issue.
In 2018, it was at Darul Uloom that Imtiaz Mohammad infamously proclaimed "America [is] run on hate" and "American people are the most uneducated nation in the world."
The following year, Mohammad took aim at his fellow Democrats – U.S. Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Ted Deutch. In what appeared to be a bigoted allusion to their Jewish backgrounds, he asked, "Are they representing all Americans or just one community?????"
And in December 2025, just as Republican candidates were readying themselves for the coming election year, Mohammad sought to condemn Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's designation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a terrorist organization. CAIR has foundational and financial ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Mohammad has also been photographed with CAIR figures, including former CAIR legal advisor Khurrum Wahid.
Political conversions happen. People legitimately change their views, parties and priorities. Photographs do not constitute endorsements, and associations with controversial organizations do not establish criminal wrongdoing.
But political reinvention does not erase political history.
Imtiaz Mohammad has gone from progressive Democrat activism to appearing alongside prominent Republican leaders and representing the party on the ballot. The question is not whether Mohammad is permitted to call himself a Republican. He is. The question is whether party officials are going to stay silent and ignore his bigoted and Islamic extremist background.
In 2024, Broward Republicans took that record seriously enough to remove Mohammad from a voter guide following public objections. Two years later, the Florida Republican Party needs to step up and do the same.
Mohammad should be banned from party events, and his photo and name should be immediately removed from RPOF's "Congratulations" flyer. Legitimizing his campaign is a threat to the Republican Party and a threat to Florida's security.
Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.
Joe Kaufman is a nationally recognized counterterrorism expert and Chairman of Kaufman Security. For two decades, he has served as an advisor to the Iranian opposition and co-founded the opposition group Cyrus Force. Recently, Kaufman successfully led the shutdown of a pro-Hamas conference scheduled to take place in South Florida. He was the 2024 Republican nominee for U.S. Congress in Florida's 23rd District, receiving 48% of the vote – the highest vote percentage of any Republican to run for the seat.
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