Extremism on Campus, Muslims Students Association

By Gary L. Olds

Christian Action Network

1/29/07

Although the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) may present itself as a non-political and benevolent student religious group dedicated to the celebration of Islam; providing students with a venue though which they may develop their faith, the truth behind the organization may not be quite so benign.

Today, hundreds of MSA chapters exist on college campuses throughout the U.S. and Canada and is easily the most extensive Muslim student organization in North America.  Created in 1963 by the Saudi government at the University of Illinois, this organization presents itself as a faith-based and benevolent campus entity dedicated to “serve the best interest of Islam and Muslims in the United States and Canada so to enable them to practice Islam as a complete way of life,” as their constitution states.  But, unlike most other college groups, the MSA is much more than it appears.  So, what is it about this energetic and self-described “patriotic” group of young Muslims that has sent up so many red flags?

During the past several years, operating both on campus and off, some chapters of the MSA have acted in collaboration with a number of Islamic groups and individuals.  The MSA organizes events featuring militant speakers, so-sponsor events and conferences with radical Islamic groups, and co-sponsor fundraisers for killers and Islamic radicals.  In addition, they use their publication, Al-Talib, to disseminate their often radical, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel views.

Notwithstanding the damning nature of these facts, it would seem prudent to treat these MSA branches with some consideration by campus and community activists.  By its own description, the group is dedicated to Islamic societies on college campuses in Canada and the U.S.  They advocate orthodox Islam and are involved in social activities, such as fundraisers for the homeless during Ramadan and other worthwhile projects.  MSA is an umbrella organization in which many Muslim students become involved, without necessarily advocating it extremism. 

Within the group are many innocent, patriotic American Muslims who joined the group with worthy motives of studying their faith or advancing their legitimate collective interests.  Hopefully, many of these students may begin to resist the Wahhabi dominance.

 

Created, funded, and bred in the North American continent by the Saudis, the MSA is much more than the “campus Muslim club” it professes to be.  The organization is, at best, Pro-Muslim, anti-American, and is indiscriminately opposed toU.S. policies before and following the September 11 attacks.  At worst, it represents our enemy’s effort to infiltrate our schools and indoctrinate our students with confrontational language of radical dissent and resistance.  By learning to hate America, protesting U.S. policy, or funding terrorist activities, many MSA national and its chapters pose an imminent threat to the United States, especially with terrorism escalating abroad.  Author Erick Stakelbeck writes, “…one can only hope that this volatile organization is exposed for what it truly is – the sworn enemy of the
United States, conducting a jihad right here in our own backyard.”

 

Consider some of the recent, not so innocent, activities of the MSA at a time when we (U.S.) are engaged in a “war against Islamic terrorism”:

 

–          At a MSA meeting in March 2003 at Queensborough Community College in Queens, New York, the event featured a speech about Iraq by two American-based leaders of Al-Muhajiroun, a well-known Islamic fundamentalist organization that supports Osama bin Laden and whose leader, Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammed, has long been suspected of having ties to al-Qaeda.  According to a firsthand account by Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily.com, one speaker, “Faheed” told those in attendance that there is a conspiracy against Islam by Christians and Jews, and that “we, as Muslims, must not recognize any government authority, or any authority at all besides Allah.”  Faheed continued, “We are not Americans!  We are Muslims!  [The U.S.] is going to deport us!  It is us vs. them!  Truth against falsehood!  The colonizers and masters against the oppressed, and we will burn down the master’s house…we reject the U.N., reject America, reject all law and order.  Don’t lobby Congress or protest because we don’t recognize Congress!  The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it!”

 

–          Faheed continued his rant against
America, telling the MSA students, “The so-called terrorists are the only people who truly fear Allah.  We must join these organizations.  They are the only worthy causes, and the mighty superpower only fears them…[The U.S. ] is not strong. 
Vietnam, they lost. 
Somalia, they ran away from. 
America hasn’t won anything since World War II.  We can defeat
America…Eventually there will be a Muslim in the White House dictating the laws of the Shariah.”  It is interesting to note that Osama bin Laden has said much the same thing.

 

Keep in mind, these comments took place in America, during a time of war, to our students and at our schools.

       –          MSA members at UCLA raised money for Hamas and Hezbollah at their annual “Anti-Zionist Week.”

–          Nihad Awad, addressed the 2003 Iowa MSA Annual Conferences.  In 1994, he told a college audience, “I am a supporter of the Hamas movement.”

–          The MSA of UCLA invited Taliban ambassador Sayyid Hashimi to speak on campus six months before 9/11.

–          University of Idaho MSA President Sami Omar Al-Hussanyen, was ordered deported for working for a radical Muslim charity with ties to terror.  While on campus, he had sought access to a chemical lab containing nuclear material.–          In October 2004, MSA at theUniversity of Pennsylvania sponsored “Rev.” Bill Baker, the one-time chairman of the neo-Nazi Populist Party, a fact the local MSA president dubbed “irrelevant.”

–          Prior to 9/11/01, the MSA formally assisted three Islamic charities in fundraising: the Holy Land Foundation, Global Relief, and Benevolence Foundation.  After that date, all three were accused by the FBI of having serious links to terrorism and were ordered closed.  The MSA issued a formal statement of protest, stating, “How three of the nation’s largest Muslim charities could be made inoperable at the peak of the giving season of Ramadan seemed unbelievable.”

According to Jonathan Dowd-Gailey, of Middle East Quarterly, “This is only the tip of the iceberg.  There is overwhelming evidence that the MSA, far from being a benign student society, is an overtly political organization seeking to create a single Muslim voice on U.S. campuses – a voice espousing Wahhabism (A Sunni fundamentalist Islamic movement espoused by Osama bin Laden), anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism, agitating aggressively against U.S. Middle East policy, and expressing solidarity with militant Islamist ideologies, sometimes with criminal results.”

For national security and to improve campus life for Muslim and non-Muslim  students alike, perhaps it is time to have our university leaders work with “moderate” students to form new Muslim students’ organizations which pay attention  to what is the traditional purpose of religiously-based campus groups – to celebrate and share in the fellowship of faith; not the promotion of radical Islamic ideology.