The Nueces Mosque and the danger of the Islamization of Texas - Part I

Just over a month ago, Governor Greg Abbott officially designated the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations under Texas state law. The designation forcefully stated the decision that Texas would not tolerate Islamist-linked organizations or networks with operations of political or ideological subversion to operate freely within the state.

Paradoxically, a $25 million Islamic infrastructure project with documented ties to the Muslim Brotherhood is moving forward in Austin that is raising all the alarms. It is the rebuilding of the Nueces Mosque, an experiment that looks like a prefabricated model of ghettoization for students in a closed loop of Islamist worship, housing, education, finance and law that has been denounced by a report by the Rair Foundation.

The Nueces Mosque was the first mosque established in Austin. It is an Islamic center founded in 1977 by the University of Texas Muslim Student Association (MSA), made up mostly of members of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is a project born on campus as a Saudi-backed initiative to seed Islamic institutions abroad.

Strikingly, as of January 2025, nearly a year before Abbott designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, the fundraiser hosted by the Islamic Center of Brushy Creek (ICBC) revealed that the first property acquisition of the Nueces Mosque was made possible by a check from Saudi Arabia, delivered through the Saudi Arabian embassy. Following the November designation, this project with documented foreign funding would merit detailed scrutiny.

The leaders of the project declared their intention to acquire additional properties in the vicinity to expand the influence of the Nueces Mosque beyond the current building, which would make it the nucleus of an institutional zone around the campus. This aspect in itself is alarming since the parent entity of the mosque is the Islamic Center of Greater Austin (ICGA) and the ownership of the building is held by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). During the federal United States v. Holy Land Foundation trial (2007), the Department of Justice designated the NAIT as a key financial entity within the Hamas support network in the U.S.

"The project mirrors a pattern seen across Europe: the establishment of Islamist centers where youth, power and politics converge."

A massive, million-dollar operation disguised as a student initiative

The project envisions a vertical complex designed to integrate multiple functions into a single, self-sufficient Islamic structure: a second floor for a 600-space mosque for prayer; a second floor for the Mufti Umer Esmail Center for Education and Outreach, dedicated to Islamic instruction and civic engagement. This is where future Islamic leaders are trained, not only in religious doctrine, but in mosque management, Shariah financial oversight and institutional programming.

On the upper floors, nearly a hundred student rooms are planned, structured explicitly around Islamic norms. These numbers indicate a massive institutional operation, not a student initiative. The promotional slogans do not disguise the intent: "What starts here, changes the 'Ummah,'" "Build a 'Waqf' and an endowment for future generations." The project is designed so that students no longer have to make trade-offs between commitment to academia and religion.

Sheikh Yaser Birjas of the Texas-based Valley Ranch Islamic Center, originally from Kuwait, proposed that this model be replicated nationally and described mosques as a continuous bridge that guides students from high school to college, to Muslim student associations and back to mosque-centered adulthood, ensuring that they always remain in the mosque environment as they advance academically and professionally. According to the planning documents, the Nueces Mosque redevelopment seeks to shape "the future of Islam in the West" by directly linking worship, housing, education and university outreach, beginning with the University of Texas at Austin.

Fundraising presentations revealed that the total budget is expected to reach $25 million, through Shariah-compliant loans and Zakat funds. According to the project proforma, the student housing is projected to generate more than $1 million in annual net income. But the student residences would function as both a fundraising system and a monitoring tool. The Nueces Mosque has produced a document justifying the use of Zakat funds for the reconstruction and expansion of the project.

Zakat is a religious tax obligatory on Muslims under Islamic law. Unlike ordinary donations, Zakat is governed by strict Islamic legal rules that limit its use to causes deemed to advance Islam itself. Because Zakat is an obligatory religious tax, usually bundled and disbursed through clerical networks insulated from secular auditing, it has repeatedly been revealed in international terrorist financing investigations as a favored mechanism for moving funds under a religious cover:

"We will accept funds from donors who feel comfortable discharging their personal zakat towards this noble project and mission. In particular, the Dawah Center and Seminary project are generally considered Zakat-eligible. ... Nueces Mosque is a one-of-a-kind community consisting of academics, intellectuals, students, young professionals, and families, uniquely situated in the backdrop of the seat of government and nestled on a leading academic and research campus."

"The aims and objectives of the Nueces Mosque Reconstruction Project reach far beyond simply building a mosque. Nueces Mosque believes that it qualifies as such an organization because of its central role in 'establishing conviction in the hearts and minds of young Muslim students and being uniquely positioned to spread Islam in the West."

The document, drafted under the authority of mosque leaders, argues that campus-based Islamic institutions qualify for Zakat and that mosques, seminaries and Dawah centers adjacent to universities constitute the front line for the preservation and advancement of Islam in the West and therefore deserve religiously obligatory funding.

Youth, power, politics: Not a coincidence

The dissonance between the various authorities in Texas and Austin, specifically, create a legal, institutional and political vacuum that is allowing the development of a project of such scope. A practical example provides the key to such a misunderstanding: during the fundraising presentation, organizers described how a building currently used for prayer at 1908 Nueces St., which has been declared a historic landmark, will be relocated to make way for the new Islamic complex.

The city reportedly reached an agreement with a contractor to lift the historic structure intact and move it to another location. Interestingly, the designation would be preserved, which is a contradiction, but at the same time the land would be cleared for the aforementioned remodeling. This is not, then, a routine rezoning but an extraordinary concession. Historic monuments serve to prevent zoning that would affect the conditions of such monuments. However, in this case, the authorities have coordinated with the project to remove a protected structure and allow construction to continue uninterrupted.

The institutions that are calling attention to this project highlight this and other strategic factors as signs of growing concern. The project is in close proximity not only to the University of Texas but to the Texas Capitol, that is, at the heart of the heart of political power and student life in one of the most vibrant places in the United States. This mirrors a pattern seen throughout Europe: the establishment of Islamist centers where youth, power and politics converge. In turn, Austin (a predominantly Democratic city in a predominantly Republican state) explains the interest for the location of this experiment: a long-term strategy to overcome pitfalls to enable local institutional and cultural transformation. None of this is a coincidence.