Zuhdi Jasser

His father, Mohamed Kais Jasser, is a cardiologist who studied medicine at the University of London and Syria in the early 1960s, he was an active critic through his newspaper columns, which led to his migration with his pharmacist wife in 1963 from Beirut, Lebanon to the United States.

Jasser was raised in Appleton, Wisconsin, until the age of 6.

The family then moved to Neenah, Wisconsin, where he was raised in the Sunni branch of Islam.

Zuhdi Jasser, also known as M. Zuhdi Jasser, and Mohamed Zuhdi Jasser (محمد زهدي جاسر; born November 17, 1967) is an American religious and political commentator and medical doctor specializing in internal medicine and nuclear cardiology in Phoenix, Arizona.

Jasser is a former lieutenant commander in the United States Navy, where he served as staff internist in the Office of the Attending Physician of the United States Congress.

Born on November 17, 1967, in Canton, Ohio, Jasser is the son of Syrians who immigrated to the United States in the 1960s, owing to repression in their homeland.

His grandfather, Zuhdi Jasser, who owned a vegetable oil company in Syria was a devout Muslim with an admiration of the West.

He attended the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, earning his bachelor of science in 1988; then he attended the Medical College of Wisconsin on a U.S. Navy scholarship, receiving his M.D. in 1992.

He served in the Navy for 11 years, receiving the Meritorious Service Medal and attaining the rank of lieutenant commander by the time of his honorable discharge in 1999.

His tours of duty included staff internist for the U.S. Congress, medical department head aboard the USS El Paso (LKA-117), and chief resident at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

He moved to Arizona after his discharge from the Navy, taking over part of his father's medical practice.

Jasser frequently writes and talks about the issue of political Islam.

James Woolsey former head of the CIA and Seth Liebsohn, author and radio show host describe him as "the kind of man our government should listen to".

Jasser utilizes his commentating, speaking engagements, and media appearances "to press Muslim leaders to aggressively oppose a 'culture of separatism' ".

Jasser has also engaged in interfaith activities, serving on the board of the Arizona Interfaith Movement; helping to found an Arizona-based organization called The Children of Abraham, a Jewish-Muslim dialogue group in 2000, and a chapter of Seeds of Peace in 2003.

Jasser has said that he and his family have helped build a number of small mosques in different cities using locally raised funds, and at times encountering, but always overcoming local opposition.

Jasser believes acts of Islamic terrorism are rooted in the ideology of political Islam or Islamism.

In 2003, with a group of American Muslims, Jasser founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) based in Phoenix, Arizona, and in 2004 he was one of the founders of the Center for Islamic Pluralism.

Jasser and a group of American Muslims founded the nonprofit American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) in 2003 with the goal of demonstrating the compatibility of Islam with democracy and American values.

Jasser is the group's president and chief spokesman.

The AIFD supports separation of religion and state, religious pluralism, equality of the sexes, the unconditional recognition of Israel, and the creation of an independent Palestine "on the current 'occupied territories.'" The organization rejects terrorism and any justification for it.

He has expressed the opinion that the 2009 Christmas Day attempted airplane bombing, the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, and the 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt have not prodded the United States into the appropriate action, but rather have resulted in politically correct denial by U.S. government authorities, and inaction by most American Muslims.

He believes that even the Bush administration took inadequate measures against Islamism in America.

He says the U.S. needs to provide alternatives for Muslim youth and promote reformist groups.

In his television appearances, Jasser has claimed that 3 to 5 percent of U.S. Muslims are militant and 30 to 40 percent do not believe in separation of mosque and state.

He also states that he believes many Western Muslim imams are too timid in their response to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant seemingly both criticizing but also sympathizing with its goal of a caliphate stating "Clearly, the majority of the mosques in the United States are led by imams who are Islamists – who believe that in Muslim-majority countries that the state should be identified as an Islamic state."

Testifying at Rep. Peter King's controversial homegrown Islamic terrorism hearings, Jasser has stated that Muslims are "long overdue for an ideological counter-jihad," claiming that Muslim American leaders, including imams, are contributing to radicalization.

Jasser is an outspoken supporter of Israel and believes that Muslim organizations and leaders need to be held to a litmus test to see whether they recognize Israel as a state.

On March 10, 2011, Jasser appeared as a witness at the first in a series of hearings conducted by the United States House Committee on Homeland Security on "The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and the Community's Response".

Jasser's testimony focused on how the polarization of American views of the Muslim community are an obstacle to reform within the faith.

During his testimony he said that American Muslim organizations had been "circling the wagons" and have too frequently cautioned Muslims against speaking to law enforcement without a lawyer present.

He also said that political Islam was based on the idea that the government should be run under Islamic law, which he said violated the American concept of separation of church and state.

On June 24, 2011, Jasser appeared before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution to testify in favor of H.R. 963, the "See Something, Say Something" Act.

Jasser's medical practice is in Phoenix, Arizona, and he resides in Scottsdale, Arizona, with his wife and three children, who are being raised as Muslims.

Jasser describes himself as a devout Muslim who believes that "America in fact provides the best atmosphere for Muslims to practice our faith".

He does not claim to be a formal expert in Koranic Arabic, or in sharia (Islamic jurisprudence), but he "see[s] Islam (consistent with 'Ijtihad', the tradition of critical interpretation of Islamic scripture) as applicable in the modern world and subject to logic and reason".

Jasser began criticizing American Muslim organizations including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America, the North American Imams Federation, the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America, Muslim Students' Association, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Muslim American Society, the Islamic Circle of North America, and the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, because he sees them as Islamist, meaning they support a mixing of Islam and politics.

He has been especially critical of CAIR, a Muslim American civil rights group that, according to Jasser, is focused on "victimology" and does not adequately condemn the goals of the terrorist groups.

A CAIR official has responded, "[W]ith these people, nothing we would do would satisfy them" and going so far as to claim that Zuhdi is "a mere sock puppet for Islam haters".

In March 2012, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) appointed Jasser to serve a two-year term on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.