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The taxpayer-backed academy calls for an “Islamic world-view,” preparing students to spread Islam to fellow Americans, and currently advertises instruction in fiqh, the jurisprudence used to elaborate Sharia.
Pennsylvania awarded $5 million in taxpayer-backed funding to expand a private Islamic school whose own handbook declared “Our Culture Is Toxic To Muslims,” warned families against outside cultural influences, and explicitly instructed students to develop an Islamic worldview and spread Islam’s message to other Americans, according to state records and school materials reviewed for this investigation.
The school’s parent Islamic Society was also attended by men later convicted in the Fort Dix terror plot and hosted a guest imam who preached that, if Muslims possessed sufficient faith, they would “impose the word of Islam upon the world.”
The Commonwealth’s records identify the project without euphemism: “Al Aqsa School Expansion.”
State Senator Nikil Saval’s office confirmed the $5 million award to Al Aqsa Islamic Society, specifying that the money would expand the existing school with additional classrooms, a gymnasium, and shared community spaces.
Democratic State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta says he was instrumental in securing what his office calls the largest state grant ever awarded to a Muslim organization in Pennsylvania. His office also says Al-Aqsa’s leadership intends to expand school enrollment from roughly 300 students to “up to 3,000 students.”
Governor Josh Shapiro personally appeared at Al-Aqsa’s Ramadan iftar in March 2025 to celebrate the investment.
What received considerably less attention was what the institution Pennsylvania is subsidizing has said about American culture, the worldview it seeks to instill in students, and the kind of religious leaders it wants them to become.
“OUR CULTURE IS TOXIC TO MUSLIMS.”
The language comes from Al-Aqsa Islamic Academy’s official 2018-2019 Parent-Student Handbook.
An entire message from the school’s principal appeared beneath the headline:
“Our Culture Is Toxic To Muslims.”
The substance of the message makes the headline considerably harder to dismiss as hyperbole.
The principal warned Muslim parents that outside media could effectively enter their homes and teach their children “how to dress, talk, deal with the opposite sex”, as well as shape how they interacted with their parents.
The message characterized Western media as damaging to children’s character, warned about cell phones and inappropriate material, and urged Muslim families instead to gather together and read the Quran, according to the school’s archived Parent-Student Handbook.
In its official statement of educational objectives, Al-Aqsa said it sought to develop students around an “Islamic world-view.”
The school also called for strengthening students’ Islamic identity, orienting their lives toward worship of Allah, and teaching them to understand their role as representatives of God.
Then came the objective that makes the taxpayer-funded expansion particularly notable:
“carry the message of Islam to his fellow Americans.”
THE SCHOOL CURRENTLY ADVERTISES ISLAMIC JURISPRUDENCE.
Al-Aqsa’s current materials provide another detail absent from most coverage of the taxpayer award.
A December 2025 post from the Al-Aqsa Islamic Society describing its Academy lists its Islamic Studies offerings as including Tajweed, Quran memorization, Hadith, Arabic, and Fiqh.
Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence.
Oxford Reference describes fiqh as the work of Muslim jurists in elaborating the details of Sharia through legal investigation and debate.
That instruction sits alongside a broader curriculum that explicitly describes the purpose of Islamic Studies as developing an Islamic personality rooted in the Quran and the life of Muhammad, according to Al-Aqsa Academy’s curriculum materials.
The Academy’s current mission similarly says students are to become morally and socially responsible citizens on the basis of Islam and the Sunnah. Staff are selected in part according to their Islamic values, while a qualified Islamic scholar directs religious education and other scholars teach Quran memorization and Islamic Studies.
Islamic Studies teacher Eman Mustafa says she wants to help students become “effective Muslim leaders” and establish a “community of leaders that follow the Quran and sunnah,” according to her faculty biography.
Another teacher says Al-Aqsa staff share a goal of nurturing future leaders who represent Islam, while the Academy describes its principal as motivated by a desire to inspire future generations of Muslims.
THE TERRORISM CONNECTION.
In May 2007, as federal authorities broke up what became known as the Fort Dix terror plot, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the Duka and Shnewer families attended Al-Aqsa Islamic Society as well as another mosque in South Jersey.
The connection went beyond merely knowing the address.
Al-Aqsa spokesman Marwan Kreidie told the newspaper that the Duka brothers had been performing roofing work on the mosque free of charge immediately before their arrests.
Those arrests did not end in mere accusations.
In December 2008, a federal jury convicted Dritan Duka, Shain Duka, Eljvir Duka, Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, and Serdar Tatar of conspiracy to murder members of the United States military. The Department of Justice said the group had conducted weapons training, surveilled domestic targets, and discussed killing American military personnel.
The three Duka brothers were later sentenced to life imprisonment.
PENNSYLVANIA IS HELPING MAKE IT MUCH BIGGER.
The $5 million award is part of a far more ambitious expansion of Al-Aqsa’s footprint in Philadelphia.
Al-Aqsa Islamic Society’s own project website says the organization presently encompasses a K-12 school, mosque, and community grocery store and is pursuing a roughly 70,000-square-foot expansion to serve its growing educational, religious, and cultural operations.
The complete project is estimated at $43.6 million.
Phase One calls for a new Academy with 12 additional classrooms, science laboratories, a library, administrative offices, a gymnasium, and multipurpose space.
Al-Aqsa’s project website prominently lists the Commonwealth’s $5 million RACP award among the money obtained for the expansion.
The Islamic Society says its Academy currently has roughly 350 students, with another approximately 240 public-school students participating in weekend Islamic Studies.
Its stated plans would initially create space for another 300 Academy students.
But Kenyatta’s office has described a far more aggressive long-term target: up to 3,000 students.
Al-Aqsa’s master plan does not end with the Academy.
Phase Two is a new mosque.
The Islamic Society’s expansion plan says the proposed project will increase mosque capacity to 2,440 attendees.
Pennsylvania’s $5 million grant, however, is specifically designated for expansion of the school facilities and shared community spaces.
RADICAL SERMONS AT THE MOSQUE.
The school is affiliated with the same Al-Aqsa Islamic Society that operates the mosque.
That mosque has its own record of controversy.
Between November 2018 and February 2019, guest imam Abdelmohsen Abouhatab delivered three sermons at Al-Aqsa containing statements subsequently condemned as antisemitic.
Among them was his description of Jews as “the vilest” people.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the remarks and said several professors fluent in Arabic independently confirmed the accuracy of the translation it reviewed.
A MEMRI translation of another passage rendered Abouhatab as telling the Al-Aqsa congregation that if faith truly took root, Muslims would impose Islam’s word upon the world. The translation was subsequently reproduced in reporting on the sermons.
The question is no longer what Al-Aqsa believes. Its own documents answer that. The question is why Pennsylvania taxpayers are being forced to finance its expansion.
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