Zunera Ishaq, the ICNA and a Listed Terrorist Entity: The Niqab Debate in Canada

From the TSEC network:

Zunera Ishaq, the woman at the centre of the “niqab debate” in the Canadian election campaign, works for the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). The ICNA has its annual conference in partnership with the Muslim American Society (MAS), an organization which has been listed as a terrorism entity.[i] The MAS, along with Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was listed by the United Arab Emirates as a North American based terrorism front/proxy group for the Muslim Brotherhood in late 2014.

The ICNA has had a series of conventions with the MAS, the most recent of which was the May 23/25 2015 40th annual ICNA-MAS convention in Baltimore MD.[ii] The 2015 conference featured speakers such as Siraj Wahhaj,[iii] “unindicted person who may be alleged as co-conspirators” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.[iv] The annual conventions of the ICNA/MAS has also featured (in)famous speakers such as Anwar al-Awlaki (ICNA/MAS 2002), who was a recruiter and motivator for terrorist groups who died in a drone strike ordered by President Obama in Yemen in 2011.[v]

The ICNA Sisters, Zunera Ishaq’s employer, is a spin-off group of the Muslim Student Association, which itself is a Muslim Brotherhood founded group and has been a centre for extremist Islam in Canada and the USA. The ICNA was founded by a number of South Asian members who had been involved with the Jamaat E Islami in their home countries and later formed Islamic study circles in Montreal. These study circles would eventually become the ICNA and its “Sisters Wing” group.[vi]

The ICNA is also part of a larger group which has been attempting to infiltrate Liberal Party of Canada.[vii] This was reported in 2014 as:

“Major Islamic groups in Canada like the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), the National Council of Canadian-Muslims — formerly the Canadian affiliate of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) — and others are full of members linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, its Jamaat-e-Islami sister group and their ideology.”

Has the Liberal Party of Canada been Infiltrated by Extremist Candidates? It would appear that is has. In addition to those who have successfully achieved nomination status, others have failed such as AQ Mufti, an ICNA official, who was a Liberal Party nominee competitor for the federal riding of Mississauga-Streetsville.[viii]

The ICNA’s convention partner, the MAS, largely operates in the USA, but it does feature a number of Canadians in leadership roles. One such person is Dr. Yaser Haddara of McMaster University.[ix] Dr. Haddara was also a communications advisor to the Muslim Brotherhood’s President of Egypt, Dr Morsi.[x] According to the MAS Youth Wing:

Yaser Haddara is former Chair of the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC)/Muslim American Society (MAS) Youth Division and he is currently serving as Vice President of the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC). He has been involved with a number of efforts aimed at young Muslims including Muslim Youth Camp (MYC) in California and American Muslims Intent on Learning and Activism (AMILA). Yaser holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and is presently Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at McMaster University in Hamilton , Ontario . He has spoken on Islam at the invitation of student groups on campuses across the U.S. and Canada and has been a guest lecturer on Islam and on the Quran at Stanford University and Massey College . He is married and has (blocked out).

The Niqab Debate

The niqab debate is not about religious choice, as nothing in Islam actually requires wearing a niqab. It is about civilization jihad and imposing extremist Islamicist values on Canadians. The niqab is the uniform of militant Islam.

All of the groups noted in this article (ISNA, ICNA, MAS[xi], Jamaat E Islami, CAIR/NCCM) have one thing in common: they are front or proxy groups for the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood in North America has made its mission clear. That mission is civilization jihad. On page seven of their 1991 explanatory memo, the Muslim Brotherhood stated:

The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all the word means. The Muslim Brotherhood must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers…”[xii]

“[W]e must possess a mastery of the art of ‘coalitions’, the art of ‘absorption’ and the principles of ‘cooperation.’”

Ms. Ishaq also shows on her Facebook page that she is a member of the Jamaat-e-Islami Facebook group. The Jamaat E Islami, the ideological sister group of the Muslim Brotherhood, was founded by Sayyid Abul Ala al-Maududi. His view, according to his own book, is that:

“Islam wishes to destroy all States and Governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam regardless of the country or the Nation which rules it.”

Ms Ishaq’s court victory is not about rights for women. Rather, it is about extremist Islam in Canada and those who support importing the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist groups.

[i] http://www.wam.ae/en/news/emirates-international/1395272478814.html

[ii] http://www.icnaconvention.org/

[iii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuRcNa87Efs

[iv] http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/masjid-taqwa

[v] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-15121879

[vi] See The South Asian religious diaspora in Britain, Canada, and the United States, Harold G. Coward, John R. Hinnells, Raymond Brady Williams, SUNY Press, 2000, ISBN 0-7914-4509-7. See also Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Jane I. Smith, Rowman Altamira (2002). “Muslim minorities in the West: visible and invisible”. ISBN 0-7591-0218-X. See also Afsaneh Najmabadi (2003). “Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures: Family, law, and politics” BRILL. ISBN 90-04-12818-2.

[vii] http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/brotherhood-front-groups-target-canadian-parliament

[viii] http://electmufti.com/nomination-election.html

[ix] https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/masyouth_seattle/conversations/messages/147

[x] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/03/us-egypt-protests-barracks-idUSBRE9620VT20130703

[xi] http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/08/muslim_brotherhood_phonebook_c.php

[xii] http://www.clarionproject.org/Muslim_Brotherhood_Explanatory_Memorandum