Muslim Student Association

MSA National established its first chapter in 1963 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), “by a conference of Muslim students from around the U.S. and Canada.” As of 2002, there were 106 MSA chapters across North America. As of 2008, the MSA claimed it had “over 250 MSA chapters on university and college campuses throughout the United States and Canada.”

MSA National also provides “Zonal Representatives” to “facilitate and promote more effective networking” between local MSA’s within their geographic region and with MSA National. There are five representatives, each representing a different “zone” designated by MSA: East Zone USA, Central Zone USA, West Zone USA, East Zone Canada and West Zone Canada.

In 2008, The Hudson Institute reported [p.78] that MSA was founded as part of an effort by the Muslim Brotherhood, who were “looking for people with higher education to fill out a more robust talent pool. Since many young Muslims had come to the United States to receive an education, the Muslim Brotherhood recognized that they could get better quality cadres by drawing from Muslims studying in the United States.”

MSA has also “sought and acquired funding to do a massive translation project of all the major texts of radical Islam,” including numerous texts from the Muslim Brotherhood ideological network.

The 2008 Hudson Institute report also noted [p.90] that "When American Muslim college students visited their school’s Muslim prayer room, they could choose any of these Islamist books to take home and to this day [they] remain available free of charge.”

According to a 2008 Hudson Institute report, “Current Trends in Islamist Ideology,” MSA was founded [p.90] by an Iraqi Kurd, Jamal Barzanji [Jamal Barzinji] and his family network, “all of whom were associated with the Muslim Brotherhood,” as well as Ahmed Totonj, at UIUC. Barzanji and Totonj also reportedly had leading roles in establishing multiple U.S. Brotherhood entities.

In addition, Barzanji, who died in 2015, had reportedly been “at the center of” a 2008 “federal investigation into terrorist financing” and had his house and offices raided by U.S. federal agents in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks.

A 2013 Huffington Post article, titled “MSA National: For 50 Years, ‘Students’ Has Been Its Middle Name,” described the founders of the MSA as “the best ambassadors of American values and a testament to the goodwill we have generated through a meaningful immigration policy… an immigrant phenomenon, which transformed over time into an American institution.”

The Huffington Post article was written by Altaf Husain, then vice president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and, according to ISNA, a member of the board of directors of MSA National.

As of November 2020, MSA National did not list the members of its board of directors on its website, saying only: “The MSA National Board of Directors is a diverse group of professionals that provide strategic guidance and oversight for the organization.

Husain’s byline on the Huffington Post piece noted that he was a former vice president and two-term president of MSA National, having served from 1997 to 2003.

As of November 2020, Husain was an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Howard University (Howard), as well as chair of the Howard’s Community, Administration and Policy Practice concentration, Chair of the Curriculum Committee, with oversight for the Masters of Social Work (MSW) program and a research fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.

A 2013 Huffington Post article said the organization “relied in the early years of its founding on financial support from Muslims and Muslim governments abroad.”

The article acknowledged: “That early period is controversial because of allegations that some of those governments lent financial support in order to exercise control over a particular interpretation of Islam through sponsorship of the printing of literature and speaking tours of speakers.”

The article went on to state that “By the late 1990s, a critical mass of Muslim American students was vocal in its demands for an overhaul and restructuring of MSA National. Among the major reforms was the decision to finance MSA National operations entirely through funds raised in America.”

The piece also claimed that “allegations of extremism and unfounded links to terrorism” were “unsubstantiated.”

A 2008 article in the Wall Street Journal stated that when the MSA was founded, it was funded by “the Muslim World League, a Saudi charity.” The MSA was formed “initially to support foreign students studying in the U.S. and, according to the organization's Web site, to advance Da'wah (proselytizing).”

In January 2008, MSA National published a guidebook on “How To Establish And Operate A Successful MSA Chapter.”

A New York Times article, written by Neil MacFarquhar in 2008, described the original MSA chapters as “basically little slices of Saudi Arabia.” It also noted that the group was “largely financed” by the Saudis and that chapters “advocated theological and political positions derived from radical Islamist organizations.”

A 2007 New York Police Department (NYPD) report described the MSA as a place where “Extremists have used these university-based organizations as forums for the development and recruitment of like-minded individuals – providing a receptive platform for younger, American-born imams, to present a radical message in a way that resonates with the students.” The NYPD report also noted that many MSA chapters had been “permeated” by “Salafi-based radicalization.”

Hussein Hamdani, a former Treasurer of MSA at McMaster University in Canada, reportedly wrote a “Starter’s Guide” for MSA chapters on “How To Run A Successful MSA,” where he reportedly said: “It should be the long-term goal of every MSA to Islamicize the politics of their respective university.”

A president of the MSA at Colorado State University during the mid-1990s, Anwar al-Awlaki became an al-Qaeda cleric linked to numerous terror plots, including the 9/11 terror attacks and the 2009 Fort Hood shooting.

Al Awlaki’s radical influence continued to be felt even after his death, and he has been linked to the terrorists responsible for the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

Ahmed Said Khadr, the head of Canada’s “first family of terror,” a reported friend of Osama Bin Laden and father of convicted killer Omar Khadr, was reportedly radicalized at the University of Ottawa’s MSA in the 1970s. Ahmed Khadr was killed in a 2003 shootout with Pakistani security forces near the Afghan border.

Khadar Khalib was reportedly a member of the Islamic State terror organization and a former president and known activist with Algonquin College’s MSA chapter in Ottawa, Canada. According to a December 2016 National Post article, Khatib “allegedly left Ottawa to join ISIL.”

Khatib was reportedly killed in Syria in November 2014, but his death was unconfirmed. Khatib was reportedly charged in absentia by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in February 2015 with two terror offenses.

The man who reportedly recruited Khatib to join ISIS, Awso Peshdary, was also an activist with the MSA. Peshdary also faced terror-related charges. The key witness against Peshdary was an undercover agent in the MSA.

John Maguire, reportedly affiliated with the MSA at the University of Ottawa, joined the Islamic State in 2012, was charged with terror-related offenses in absentia, and was reportedly killed in Syria.

Abdurahman Al-Amoudi, a former MSA national president, was convicted on terrorism-related charges in 2004 by a U.S. federal court and sentenced to 23 years in prison.

Al-Amoudi spoke favorably of the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah at a rally in October 2000 outside the White House, saying: “It’s [Israel] an occupation, and Hamas is fighting to end an occupation,” as well as [00:00:30] “Hear that [former U.S. President] Bill Clinton, we are all supporters of Hamas! Allahu Akhbar! I wish to add that I am also a supporter of Hezbollah!”

Omar Shafik Hammami, who became known as Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki, was president of MSA’s chapter at the University of South Alabama during the early 2000s. Hammami has been described as a “propagandist for al Qaeda-backed militants looking to wage global jihad.”

In 2012, a federal warrant was issued for Hammami’s arrest, and he was added to the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists List.” Hammami was charged with “providing material support” to the Somalia-based terrorist organization Al-Shabaab, of which he was reportedly “a leading member.”

Ramy Zamzam, who was president of the MSA’s Washington, D.C. council while a student at Howard University, was detained as one of the “D.C.5” in Pakistan and held on terror charges. The D.C. 5 were reportedly “successfully radicalized” and ultimately sentenced to a “ten-year sentence in a Pakistani jail on a terrorism conviction.”

Before leaving for Pakistan, Zamzam left behind a video that has been described as “a ‘farewell’ message, made in preparation for acts of terrorism.”

Ali Asad Chandia, who was president of the MSA at Montgomery College in Maryland from 1998 to 1999, was arrested in 2005 on “charges of providing material support to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a designated foreign terrorist organization” in Pakistan, for which he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Chandia’s conviction on terrorism charges was sustained despite several appeals; however, the sentence was overturned.

Aafia Siddiqui, a former member of the MSA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was reportedly named as an associate involved in plotting the 9-11 terror attacks by “mastermind” Sheikh Kahled Mohammed. Siddiqui reportedly married Mohammed’s nephew Ammar al-Baluchi.

She also reportedly helped Mohammed “with a plot to blow up underground gas tanks around Baltimore” and was reportedly identified by “witnesses at a United Nations war-crimes-tribunal meeting in the African nation of Sierra Leone… as the woman who had visited Liberia in the months before the 9/11 attacks to oversee a $19 million diamond deal on behalf of Al Qaeda.”

Siddiqui was arrested by police in Afghanistan on “suspicions of being a suicide bomber.” She was reported to be in “possession of documents describing how to make explosives and chemical weapons at the time of her arrest.”

Siddiqui was sent to Unted States following her arrest, where she was eventually sentenced “to 86 years in prison for the attempted murder of two US soldiers.” The soldiers were part of a U.S. interview team whom Siddiqui attacked when she was detained in Afghanistan. During her trial, Siddiqui reportedly went “through a number of lawyers, leery of some due to their Jewish ancestry.”

Ziyad Khaleel, who reportedly once “headed the MSA at Columbia College in Missouri,” was also an al-Qaeda “facilitator” who performed tasks including buying a satellite phone used by Osama bin Laden, which bin Laden “used to plan the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.”

Khaleel was also “the U.S.-based fundraiser” for the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA-USA). In 2004, the U.S. Treasury Department designated IARA-USA and five of its senior officials as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists” for supporting bin Laden, al-Qaeda, Hamas and the Taliban.

Salman Ashrafi, an MSA leader at the University of Lethbridge in Calgary who later became a member of the Islamic State and carried out a 2013 suicide bombing at an Iraqi military base, reportedly killing 46 people.

Ferid Imam, a former MSA president at the University of Manitoba and an alleged Al Qaeda terrorist, was charged with “terrorism-related offences in connection to a 2009 plot to blow up packed subway cars in New York.”

Imam was also reportedly a “small-arms instructor” who taught al-Qaeda recruits in a Pakistani training camp how to fire AK-47 assault rifles, throw hand grenades, and use shoulder-mounted rocket launchers.

A 1991 strategy paper reportedly written by U.S. Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Akram (Mohammed Adlouni) listed the MSA as “one of our organizations and the organizations of our friends.”

Other groups recorded on the list included the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP).

ISNA Canada lost its non-profit status in 2013 over alleged links to Pakistani terror groups. Abundant evidence shows that the Muslim Brotherhood used ISNA extensively to support Hamas. The IAP is a now-defunct organization, alleged to be a group founded as the media arm of Hamas in the U.S., and which was later proven to disseminate Hamas propaganda and raise money directed to Hamas.

Additionally, Arab Muslim members of the MSA who reportedly adopted [p.99] the ideologies of Islamist ideologues were then to be recruited into the Muslim Brotherhood.

A 1987 FBI memo, reportedly obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, stated that the MSA was among Muslim groups that “are inter-related… having been identified as supporters of the Islamic Revolution as advocated by the Government of Iran (GOI). Their support of JIHAD (holy war) in the U.S. has been evidenced by the financial and organizational support provided through NAIT [North American Islamic Trust] from Middle East countries to Muslims residing in the U.S. and Canada.”

The 1987 FBI memo also stated that the National American Islamic Trust (NAIT) was organized by MSA leaders. As of 2015, NAIT was reportedly the financial arm of the MSA.

The Chicago Tribune reported in 2004 that while Muslim Brotherhood members helped form the MSA, the "overall influence" of the Muslim Brotherhood members has "been limited.”

In 2004, MSA West hosted Amir Abdel Maik Ali at the University of California, Berkeley. Maik Ali is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a “leading domestic jihadist.” Ali reportedly spoke at the event about wanting “a revolution to establish a strict Muslim theocracy” in the U.S.

The SPLC also described Ali as a supporter of the terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah, who “unabashedly praises violence in the form of suicide bombings aimed at civilians” and uses “standard anti-Semitic canards.”

MSA West hosted Ali again in 2011 at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he reportedly said “compared current U.S. policies to Nazi Germany” and described a 2009 attempt to blow up a passenger airline and a 2010 failed Times Square car bombing as "fake hogwash.”

At the 2011 MSA West UCLA event, Ali led [00:00:57] the crowd in “the pledge of allegiance,” where he changed the wording to include the motto of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In February 1995, the MSA chapter at the University of California - Berkeley reportedly held a rally in support of Hamas, following a series of terror attacks in Israel. Some of the activists reportedly “expressly volunteered to serve as future suicide bombers.”

In May 2002, MSA at the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) reportedly co-sponsored with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UC Irvine a “display of mock ‘body bags’ of Palestinians claimed to have been 'murdered’ by the Israeli army.”

In April 2014, the MSA chapter at Rutgers participated in Israel Apartheid Week (IAW). Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) is presented as “an international series of events that seek to raise awareness of Israel’s settler-colonial project and apartheid system over the Palestinian people” and build support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. IAW has been re-named Palestine Awareness Week.

A 2012 Anti-Defamation League (ADL) report on the “Top Ten Anti-Israel Groups in America” noted that many MSA “individual chapters… organize anti-Israel events.”

On July 14, 2014, during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE) against Hamas, the MSA chapter at Rutgers University (Rutgers) promoted on Instagram the “latest” #RUMSA Blog, which demonized Israel and compared Palestinians in Gaza to Jewish Holocaust victims, calling Gazans “the Anne Franks of today.”

Israel commenced OPE in July 2014 to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.

The MSA Rutgers Instagram post concluded with the hashtags: “#GazaUnderAttack #FreePalestine #RUMSA #pray #standup #submissions #humanity #crime #palestine #gaza #israel #zionist #protest #annefrank #holocaust #twitter.”

In March 2015, the MSA chapter at Ryerson University sold tickets to an SJP Ryerson event that featured anti-Israel activist Remi Kanazi. Anti-Israel poet Remi Kanazi is known for his aggressively anti-Israel spoken-word performances. He has supported terrorism and has compared Israel to both ISIS and the Ku Klux Klan.

In May 2017, the MSA chapter at the University of California at San Diego, along with the university's SJP chapter, erected a wall meant to mock Israel’s security barrier. The wall built by MSA and SJP was “filled with statements about what it means to be a Zionist (‘the three basic characteristics of Zionism are: racism, expansionism, settler ‘colonialism’), comparisons likening Israel to an “apartheid state.’”

Israel’s security barrier, 97% of which is a low chain-link barrier, was built as a deterrent to Palestinian terror attacks. The concrete portions of the fence were built in response to Palestinian sniper attacks.

In April 2018, the MSA chapter at Tulane University promoted SJP’s anti-Israel “Palestine Week” on Facebook.

Also in April 2018, the MSA chapter at Swarthmore University promoted an SJP Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign at the university in a “Letter of Solidarity.” The MSA Swarthmore Board issued a statement to “formally support SJP’s demands to stop the distribution of Sabra Hummus products on campus, and… urge the college to reaffirm its commitment to deshelve the products when SJP first undertook this campaign in 2012.”

Sabra hummus is partially owned by the Israeli company, Strauss Group.

As of November 2020, the MSA at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor was listed by the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) as a “local group” to connect with, alongside other anti-Israel organizations.

USCPR — formerly known as the U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation — is a coalition of American-based anti-Israel organizations that lobbies the United States Congress to adopt anti-Israel policies and end government support for Israel.

In October 2000, the president of MSA at UCLA reportedly “led a crowd of demonstrators at the Israeli consulate in chants of ‘Death to Israel!’ and ‘Death to Jews!’”

On May 10, 2010, at UC San Diego, MSA member Jumanah Imad Albahri attended a lecture by conservative pundit and activist David Horowitz. An exchange ensued in which Albahri refused [00:01:10] to condemn Hamas as a genocidal organization and later said [00:02:49] she was “for” a statement attributed to the head of Hezbollah, hoping that all Jews would gather in Israel, so that Hezbollah would not have to hunt them down globally in order to exterminate them.

In December 2016, a Jewish student reported that the then-president of the MSA at Ryerson University acted in an intimidating manner when the student tried to express support for Holocaust Awareness Week at Ryerson.

The student reported that she was “aggressively told by the president of the MSA and Vice President of SJP to ‘sit down’ because there are too many people” with her opinion.

In addition to individual chapters and their activities, “MSA National organizes events and programs annually” and “develops tools and resources to facilitate information sharing and unite students across North America.”