Siraj Wahhaj

Siraj Wahhaj is the imam of the Masjid al-Taqwa mosque in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York City. Many consider him an effective antidrug activist and community leader; he is regularly accused of terrorist ties in conservative media, and was the first Muslim cleric, in 1991, to address the U.S. House of Representatives.

Born an American citizen named Jeffrey Kearse, he traced a spiritual path from the Baptist church, to the Nation of Islam where he was known as Jeffrey 12X, into Sunni Islam. He has been described as representing "two intertwined components of African-American Islam: a constructive do-for-self philosophy and a conspiratorial antagonism toward government and the white establishment."