Ibrahim Hooper

Ibrahim Hooper, born Douglas Hooper, is the National Communications Director and spokesman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a post he has held since CAIR's founding in 1994. ^{1 2} No source used here names a school or madhhab for him, so his data record leaves his faith as unknown. ¹

CAIR's own biography records that Hooper holds a bachelor's degree in history and a master's degree in journalism and mass communication, that he has been with CAIR since its founding in 1994, and that as its spokesman he appears frequently on national and international television programmes to offer an Islamic perspective on current events or to debate controversial issues. ¹ The English Wikipedia article on CAIR independently lists him among the organisation's key people as its National Communications Director, and records CAIR's formation in June 1994 and its headquarters in Washington, D.C. ² Secondary profiles, many of them hostile to CAIR, describe him as a white convert to Islam who was born Douglas Hooper in Canada and previously worked for the Islamic Association for Palestine; those details are reported here as their claims, not as facts established by CAIR's biography, which gives no birth name, birthplace or birth date. ^{3 1}

This section sets out positions and responses as reported in the sources; it is not a verdict by the museum.

Hooper is best known for statements made as CAIR's spokesman. In a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, before CAIR was founded, he said he would not want to create the impression that he would not like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future, while saying he would pursue that through education and not violence — a quotation his critics cite against him and which is usually quoted without its nonviolence clause. In 2003 he said that if Muslims became a numerical majority in the United States they would likely seek to replace the Constitution with Islamic law. ³ Critics also cite CAIR's and Hooper's hedged early responses on Osama bin Laden's responsibility for the 1998 embassy bombings and for the September 11 attacks. ³ CAIR itself is a contested organisation in American public life: it describes itself, and is described in the article, as a Muslim civil-rights and advocacy group, while the United Arab Emirates, Texas and Florida have designated it as a terrorist organisation — designations CAIR disputes. ² Hooper's own published writing includes interfaith commentary, for example a Religion News Service piece arguing that respect for Jesus, whom Muslims also revere, can serve as common ground between Christians and Muslims. ¹

No birth date is recorded for Hooper: the founder's queue gives 1955, but no source consulted for this record, including CAIR's own biography, gives any birth date or birthplace, so no born block is written rather than an unsourced one. There is no standalone Wikipedia article for him. ^{1 2}

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.