Mohamed AbuTaleb, who frequently collaborates with Hamas-tied groups, delivered a prayer at the Cooper dinner
Former North Carolina governor Roy Cooper quietly hosted a controversial imam with deep ties to Hamas at the North Carolina governor’s mansion in 2018 for a dinner where the imam led a Muslim prayer, mingled with fellow Muslim leaders, and posed for pictures with Cooper and his wife.
The imam’s presence at the secret soiree, reported here for the first time by the Washington Free Beacon, could be a complication for Cooper, a self-styled “moderate Democrat,” as he seeks to flip the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.). Cooper is already under pressure for what critics say is a milquetoast response to a series of post-Oct. 7 resolutions by the North Carolina Democratic Party which demonized Israel and trafficked in antisemitic tropes.
The 2018 gathering at the Executive Mansion in downtown Raleigh was held to mark iftar, the end of the Ramadan fast. At the time, Cooper’s team issued no press release about the dinner and published no guest list for the event, which the Free Beacon has learned was attended by more than 35 local Muslim leaders, including Dr. Mohamed AbuTaleb, a prominent imam with close affiliations to several Hamas-aligned organizations.
AbuTaleb delivered a prayer at the dinner and was pictured standing directly behind Cooper in a group photo taken at the mansion that evening, according to pictures and a video obtained by the Free Beacon. At the time, AbuTaleb served as imam of the Islamic Association of Raleigh and led the organization as it cut checks to a subsidiary of a group with alleged connections to terrorist entities including Hamas. Today, AbuTaleb is a frequent speaker at events hosted by the Muslim American Society, which federal prosecutors say is an “overt arm” of the Hamas-aligned Muslim Brotherhood, and works at an Islamic think tank alongside another imam who encouraged students to “take out” a pro-Israel professor in 2024.
Sam Westrop, the director of the Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch project, said that while AbuTaleb is more careful with his own rhetoric than the extremist people and groups with which he frequently associates, Cooper should have thought twice before inviting him to the governor’s mansion.
“Elected officials should be more cautious when choosing the company they keep,” Westrop told the Free Beacon. “Mohamed AbuTaleb is a longstanding contributor to the Muslim American Society, a Hamas-aligned organization deemed by federal prosecutors to be the ‘overt arm’ of a violent foreign extremist movement. However well-intentioned his actions were, by embracing Islamists, Governor Cooper betrays ordinary Muslims and sanitizes the radical forces imposed on their communities.”
AbuTaleb’s prayer leadership at the iftar dinner may explain why Cooper made so little fanfare of it at the time. The only acknowledgment the then-governor made of the event came more than two weeks later in a vague post on X where he celebrated the “first ever Iftar dinner at the Executive Mansion” but provided no other details. His wife, Kristin Cooper, posted pictures of the dinner on Facebook, none of which show AbuTaleb.
Another attendee, North Carolina state senator Mujtaba Mohammed (D.) posted a photo of the full Muslim delegation posing with Cooper on a stairway in the mansion, with AbuTaleb standing directly behind the then-governor. Also in attendance was Durham County, N.C., commissioner Nida Allam, a far-left extremist who’s trafficked in classic antisemitic tropes such as “river to the sea” and “the United States of Israel,” has accused Israel of genocide, and has referred to antisemitic activist Linda Sarsour as her mentor (when she was gearing up for an ultimately unsuccessful House campaign, Allam apologized for some of her remarks).
Cooper’s ties to AbuTaleb could reignite the criticism he faced last year for his passive response to the North Carolina Democrats’ anti-Israel resolutions in June 2025 that called for an arms embargo on Israel; accused Israel of genocide and apartheid; called Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks “unjustifiable;” and referred to Palestinian terrorists detained by Israel as “hostages” equivalent to the Jewish hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
Cooper’s team initially told CNN that he “generally does not opine on party resolutions,” but later came out in measured opposition to the resolutions following widespread criticism, Jewish Insider reported. He never roundly condemned the resolutions. Cooper, 69, is from the generation of Democrats who largely supported Israel, and like many Democrats of his vintage, he’s been increasingly out of step with the younger, more radical elements of his party, and events like the iftar dinner reveal his efforts to build bridges to the anti-Israel forces rapidly gaining power in the state party and whose support he will need to win a statewide election in the Republican-leaning state.
At the time of Cooper’s iftar dinner in 2018, AbuTaleb served as imam of the Islamic Association of Raleigh, a prominent North Carolina Muslim congregation that in 2012 was the religious home for several members of a homegrown terrorist ring that plotted to attack the Marine base in Quantico, Va. The Islamic Association of Raleigh disclosed in its 2017 annual report giving over $100,000 to Islamic Relief USA, a subsidiary of Islamic Relief Worldwide, a group that has been accused by the House Ways and Means Committee of harboring “connections to terrorist entities, including Hamas, and a history of antisemitic behavior.”
Islamic Relief USA has moved to sever its relationship with Islamic Relief Worldwide in the wake of the terrorism allegations. The group filed a federal lawsuit in March claiming Islamic Relief Worldwide is resisting its efforts to sever its relationship.
AbuTaleb resigned from the Islamic Association of Raleigh in 2022 and now works as a senior fellow for the Yaqeen Institute, a Texas-based Islamic think tank where he publishes articles criticizing Israel’s “sinister application” of AI-based military targeting in Gaza. At the Yaqeen Institute, AbuTaleb works alongside his fellow imam, Tom Facchine, a New Jersey-born convert to Islam best known for urging students at Columbia University to “take out” an outspoken pro-Israel professor in 2024.
Efforts to reach AbuTaleb directly were unsuccessful and the Yaqeen Institute did not return a request for comment.
In May 2025, AbuTaleb spoke at the Muslim Association of Canada’s annual convention, which also featured an “electrifying” speech on how to “smash” the “Zionist billion-dollar PR machine” by Sami Hamdi, a London-based Muslim influencer who said he felt “euphoria” after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. ICE detained Hamdi over his open support for Hamas in October 2025 and he was later released back to the United Kingdom.
AbuTaleb also frequently collaborates with the Muslim American Society, a group that federal prosecutors alleged in a 2008 court filing of having been “founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” The Muslim Brotherhood has a direct relationship with Hamas, with the latter being founded as the Palestinian branch of the former.
Cooper’s campaign did not return a request for comment.
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