A prominent educator and activist in South Florida will be removed from two committees associated with the Broward County School Board, after officials learned of her ties to radical Muslim groups and promotion of antisemitism. The decision came after her connections to Islamist organizations and her own promotion of antisemitism were brought to their attention by this author.
Officials will remove Naima Khan-Ghany from her seats on the Broward County School Board Diversity and Human Relations Committees, at the end of June.
‘In light of what has taken place,’ Khan-Ghany’s duties have been ‘put on hold,’ and come July 1st, she will no longer be affiliated with either committee and will be replaced by other appointees.
Janysse Edouard, the Executive Secretary of School Board member Dr. Jeff Holness stated, on June 6th, that “in light of what has taken place,” Khan-Ghany’s duties have been “put on hold,” and come July 1st, she will no longer be affiliated with either committee and will be replaced by other appointees.
For over seven years, Trinidad-born Naima Khan-Ghany has served in different capacities within the Broward County School Board, most notably on the Diversity and Human Relations Committees, the latter of which she chairs. Through much of that time and well before, she has affiliated with several Islamist groups, many of which are extensions of international terrorist entities.
Khan-Ghany has worked with the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which, in July 2014, co-sponsored a Miami rally where event goers repeatedly chanted “We are Hamas” and “Let’s go Hamas.” She has worked with the South Asian terror-linked Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and spoke at a 2015 banquet for ICNA’s social services division, ICNA Relief. She has been photographed with ICNA Relief USA’s Government Affairs Coordinator Syed Ammar Ahmed, who once joked about threatening to blow up a school, and ICNA Relief USA’s COO Abdul Rauf Khan, who has used his social media to target Jews and gays.
In April 2021, Khan-Ghani incorporated the Muslim Students Association of Middle and High Schools, otherwise known as the Broward County MSA Council, through which she is an advisor to local chapters of the MSA, an entity originally started by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. The next month, she used the Council to sponsor an anti-Israel lecture featuring former South Florida imam Ibrahim Dremali. Khan-Ghani was the event’s contact. Dremali told the crowd, “The Jews… want to destroy the Dome of the Rock,” the Muslim shrine. Days prior to the event, Dremali said, “If the Arab leaders open the borders for Palestine… the Jews they’ll be inside that ocean.”
In 2011, Khan-Ghany hosted shows for Al-Hikmat TV, the media arm of the Darul Uloom Institute (DUI). DUI has been a haven for high-profile al-Qaeda militants, including “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla and al-Qaeda Commander Adnan el-Shukrijumah. At Al-Hikmat, Khan-Ghany used her MSA group to organize an event with el-Shukrijumah’s younger brother, Nabil el-Shukri. The leader/founder of DUI is Shafayat Mohamed, an imam who has been thrown off numerous Broward community boards for his hate-filled talks against homosexuals, complaining about the existence of gay Muslims and claiming natural disasters are caused by gay sex.
Khan-Ghany has targeted Jews and Israel, herself. In May 2021, she made a series of posts on social media questioning Israel’s right to exist and right to defend herself and calling for Israel’s outright destruction. She wrote that Israel’s claim of “self-defense” was a “usual excuse.” She posted a call for prayers for the “liberation of Palestine… from the river to the sea.” She called for a boycott of Israeli products. And she promoted videos of notorious anti-Semite Rick Wiles equating Jews with Communists, Bolsheviks and Satanists, referring to European (Ashkenazi) Jews as “so-called” Jews, and spewing the age-old libel about Jews owning the media.
Last month, much of this information about Khan-Ghany’s extremist activities was exposed in an article by this author. The article was published after Khan-Ghany had been reappointed to the Broward County School Board’s Diversity and Human Relations Committees by newly elected School Board member Jeff Holness. Holness has happily attended more than a few Islamist events organized by Khan-Ghany. The appointments have caught the ire of at least one parent of Broward County public school children.
In an email obtained by this author and addressed to Holness and his fellow School Board members, the parent, who requested her name not be shown, wrote, “Ms. Khan-Ghany’s social media posts and troubling association with known haters of the Jewish people makes me question the validity of your so called ‘Diversity Committee’… Does ‘Diversity’ translate to hatred of Jews and Israel? Are my children, and further, all Jewish children in Broward County safe and afforded the same protections as other children? With all of the documented social media postings, it is clear that Ms. Khan-Ghany MUST be removed from this position.”
The office of Jeff Holness responded with the following: “On behalf of School Board Member Dr. Jeff Holness, this is to confirm receipt of the email below and thank you for reaching out. Your input is valued and appreciated. Your concern regarding this matter is taken very seriously by Dr. Jeff Holness, please note that Dr. Holness is looking into your concerns.”
After the article was published, Khan-Ghany scrubbed all posts, save for one, from her Facebook page. The remaining post solicits funds for the US and Pakistan-based Islamist group Friends of Humanity International, Inc (FHII), where she has served on its Board of Directors. FHII is the brainchild of Mohammed Javed Quereshi, the man who introduced Islam to convicted terrorist Jose Padilla, prior to Padilla joining al-Qaeda and plotting to set off a radiological bomb in the US. Quereshi is also co-founder of the Islamic Foundation of South Florida (IFSF), another radical mosque Khan-Ghany has worked with.
Khan-Ghany’s efforts to scrub her Facebook page came too late to squelch the controversy, as she has now been effectively removed from both of her posts.
Joe Kaufman is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the Chairman of the Joe Kaufman Security Initiative.
Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.