A Texas Islamist network working to radicalize Shia Muslim students at educational institutions across the state, including Texas public universities, is made up of agents and proxies for the murderous Iranian regime.
In March, the Iranian regime and its proxies across the world organized “Al-Quds Day,” a global annual event to celebrate Hezbollah and Iranian revolutionary ideals. Several Western governments expressed alarm, with British minister Sarah Sackman, a Labour Party politician, describing Al Quds as a dangerous expression of support for the “malign regime in Iran and the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps] and its proxies.”
Al Quds Day events have taken place across Texas for many years, relying on a network of Shia student organizations and their backers.
In Dallas, Shia Islamist students and youth activists protested in support of the Iranian regime on the Grassy Knoll, coordinated by two North Texas Khomeinist organizations: DFW Shias for Justice and the Ahlul-Bayt Student Association (ABSA) at the University of Texas Dallas.
In a direct response to U.S. conflict with Iran, the Ahlul-Bayt Student Association has published calls for the “ummah [Muslims across the globe] to unify against our common enemy … the United States.”
DFW Shias for Justice has, in response to a slideshow of designated terrorists from Hezbollah, Hamas and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), expressed hope that “the blood of the martyrs … will be avenged. The Zionist entity will be no more by next Eid.”
DFW Shias for Justice celebrates social media posts in support of Hezbollah and Hamas officials and insignia
The North Texas Al Quds Day protests also received the backing of domestic far-Left activists tied to the Chinese Communist Party, as well as the Texas branch of a Sunni Islamist organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which the governor of Texas has designated as a terrorist organization.
In Houston, the Al Quds Day protest was spearheaded by RISE Against Oppression, a Houston-based “collective of Muslim grassroots activists” involved in pro-Hamas student encampment protests in 2024.
RISE calls on Muslims to “awaken,” “impose Islamic laws,” and warns that “Islam and the teachings of the Quran should prevail in all countries. … it should advance on all regions of the world.”
The Al Quds event was also promoted by the University of Houston’s Ahlul Bayt Student Organization, along with far-Left China-linked organizations such as the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
Footage from the Houston rally revealed Iranian regime rhetoric and praise for Iran’s late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who earlier this year ordered the murder of tens of thousands of Iranian protesters, and was responsible for the murder of many hundreds of Americans.
One speaker at the 2026 Houston Al-Quds Day, Muzzamil Zaidi, is a prominent regime advocate, who in in 2020 was the subject of a federal investigation in which the Department of Justice stated that Zaidi and his coconspirators “have considerable operational links to the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps],” a U.S-designated terrorist organization. In 2024, Zaidi and the other defendants pleaded guilty “for their roles in an illicit scheme to collect tens of thousands of dollars from the United States to Iran, including in the name of Ayatollah Ali Husseini Khamenei.”
RISE, the University of Houston Ahlul Bayt Student Organization, and Muslim Congress (a Khomeinist organization which assists with the organization of Al Quds Day events across the United States) all operate out of the Islamic Education Center of Houston, a leading radical Shia mosque in the city.
While the Islamic Education Center serves as an important base for Shia students in Houston, the mosque’s imam is reportedly “directly appointed by the office of [Iran’s] Supreme Leader.” And in 2022, the mosque filmed a performance by school-age children at the mosque, in which they pledged allegiance to Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei, singing: “[Khamenei] is calling on his children, his soldiers… In spite of my age, I will be your army’s commander…May my father and mother be sacrificed for you, I will sacrifice everything for you…”
Children at the Islamic Education Center Houston perform a song pledging allegiance to Iran’s Supreme Leader
In March, the Houston mosque published a statement mourning the “martyrdom” of Khamenei, claiming he “stood firmly for truth, justice, and moral responsibility.” The mosque statement denounced “his killing as part of broader geopolitical struggles in which powerful Zionist political forces seek greater dominance and control.”
As for the Ahlul Bayt student organizations across the state, they operate under the Ahlul Bayt Student Association Network, which boasts of over 90 chapters across North America. The network is a subsidiary of the Al-Kisa Foundation and the Saba Islamic Center in California, which publish and promote educational curricula based on the teachings of Iranian regime founder Ayatollah Khomeini. These curricula are utilized by Shia educational initiatives in Texas, including at the Houston mosque.
Texas-based component organizations of the Ahlul Bayt network also organize an annual Texas Ahlulbayt Student Summit, in which Iranian-trained clerics teach subjects such as “Islamic leadership…. In Loving Memory of Shaheed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,” whom they refer to as “the greatest leader of our time.”
Several national Khomeinist organizations partner with student members of the Ahlul Bayt network. The Texas-registered Camp Arafah, for instance, organizes retreats for student activists across the country. In a possible violation of U.S. Treasury sanctions, Camp Arafah claims to collect khums [a Shia tithe] on behalf of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, an act for which it must have expressly secured an ijazah [license] from Khamenei’s office. Camp Arafah instructors include Iranian-trained operatives and clerics, such as Samira Rizvi, a University of Houston graduate who moved to the regime’s clerical base in Qom in 2012.
Other Shia student graduates in Texas have founded new mosques in the state, including the Islamic Ahlul Bayt Association mosque in Austin. The Austin mosque’s imam, Jafar Muhibullah, studied at the Iranian regime’s flagship seminary in Qom, later receiving a doctorate from the University of Tehran. In a presentation for a regime-controlled media outlet in Iran, Muhibullah praises the “victory of the Islamic revolution in 1979.” In sermons, Muhibullah refers to “our leader [Iranian Supreme Leader] Ayatollah Khamenei.”
Today, the mosque and its imam are closely involved with the Ahlul Bayt student association at the University of Texas in Austin. Events at the mosque openly discuss the importance of influencing local and state politics, highlight the importance of “collective action” such as Al Quds Day, and urge supporters to “attend school board meetings to support inclusive curriculums.”
Along with student activism and political advocacy, Khomeinist entities in Texas also provide financial support to Shia students in Texas. While several Shia mosques, including the Iran-controlled Islamic Education Center in Houston, have long provided scholarships to Shia students, the growing sharia finance industry also appealed to Khomeinist institutions across the state.
In 2016, members of Iranian regime-aligned mosques, including the Islamic Education Center in Houston and the Islamic Ahlul Bayt Association in Austin, established a sharia finance operation, named the Jafari No-Interest Credit Union, which offers college tuition loans to members of “certain [Shia] community centers in Houston, Dallas and Austin.” The credit union’s old website openly cites a religious ruling by Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei to justify its activities.
In the last Texas legislative session, House Bill 4195 offered a partial but necessary answer to the threat posed by these Islamist agendas: a prohibition on Texas public schools, universities, and affiliated entities from accepting funds, gifts, partnerships, research deals, scholarships, sponsorships, or other support from foreign adversaries.
Such safeguards are overdue. A dangerous foreign Islamist clerical and student network, working in alignment with a hostile state with which the United States is in open conflict, today operates openly in educational institutions across the state, propelled by regime-aligned activist groups and wealthy Khomeinist mosques and their regime-trained imams.
In light of federal inaction, it now falls on Texas to pass legislation such as HB 4195 and implement new safeguards against foreign radical influence operations and their violent ideals.