(Originally published March 22, 2016 on TSEC Network. Re-printed with permission.)
The Muslim Students Association and “Black Lives Matter” had their display tables set side by side at the recent University of Ottawa “Islam Awareness Week.” During the full week of 07 March 2015, the two groups handed out books to students and staff at the university and spread their ideology.
The Muslim Students Association (MSA), was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood as one of its front groups with an eye towards recruitment and education.[1]
All of those from the MSA seemed to be Sunni Muslim. None were Ahmadiyya, Ismaili or Shia. An individual asked about the lack of representation of other Muslim groups stated they did not know why this was occurring.
Multiple books were handed out. One was the Qur’an in English, while two others explained that all the scientific progress in modern civilization is to be found in the Quran and the Sunnah.
The third book handed out was on ISIS and essentially tried to explain that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam. When questioned, an individual at one of the booths stated that the West and the media are the ones who make a bad image of Islam. When pushed, this individual said there were no internal contradictions or problems within the faith.
The presence of a “Black Lives Matter” booth is consistent with the efforts of the Muslim Brotherhood front groups in North America. Attempts by Islamist groups to exploit the black community to their advantage are not new. The most recent examples were seen in Ferguson Missouri when CAIR USA (Council on American Islamic Relations) made repeated attempts to inject itself and the Islamist ideology into events there.[2]
CAIR USA itself is a listed terrorist group in the United Arab Emirates[3] as well as being identified as a front group for HAMAS, itself a Muslim Brotherhood entity.
Ironically, the second most influential person in the Muslim Brotherhood (Sayed Qutb) spent two years in the United States and made incredibly racist statement about blacks. The most infamous one was:
Jazz – This is that music that the Negroes invented to satisfy their primitive inclinations, as well as their desire to be noisy on the one hand and to excite bestial tendencies on the other. The American’s intoxication in “jazz” music does not reach its full completion until the music is accompanied by singing that is just as coarse and obnoxious as the music itself. Meanwhile, the noise of the instruments and the voices mounts, and it rings in the ears to an unbearable degree….[4]
The University of Ottawa
The University of Ottawa is famous, or perhaps infamous, for its list of alumni who have gone on to become jihadist fighters and other major players in the Islamist world. This includes Al Qaeda financier and Human Concern International board member Ahmed Said Khadr from the 1980s and John (Yahya) Maguire who did a propaganda film for ISIS in 2015. Both were radicalized while associated to the Muslim Student Association at the University of Ottawa. As noted by Michelle Sheppard of the Toronto Star on her history of Omar Khadr (Ahmed’s son), the Muslim Student Association was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood.[5]
The University of Ottawa Prayer Room
The University of Ottawa should probably close its common prayer room. The Quilliam Foundation, the world’s leading de-radicalization organization, has stated that Islamist Muslims tend to try to take over common area prayer rooms and create ‘Muslim-only’ areas. Rather, these rooms should allow for other faith adherents to use these facilities.
The Quilliam Foundation also notes that university authorities should ensure prayer rooms do not become an Islamist underworld, a centre for Muslim students to withdraw between lessons and thus avoid extra-curricular interaction with other students. The result of this form of activity is that Wahhabbist and Salafist literature then tends to dominate, the ideology spreads and there is the attempted exclusion of others.[6]
At the University of Ottawa prayer room, students report that Muslim students tell them they cannot enter the room with their shoes on, even if the event is non-Muslim. They also report that they cannot find out how to book the room and their efforts are blocked.
It is not clear who controls the room. The Community Services office (3rd floor) normally controls all bookings for common rooms. They, however, appear to indicate this is the one room they do not control. Their suggestion is to go to the Student Federation, which also claims to not know. However, they suggest that the VP Social of the Student Federation (Hadi Wess) might be responsible, but that cannot be confirmed.
Of current interest, it should be noted that the same problem is occurring at Montreal’s Maisonneuve College. Students who are sympathizers of ISIS have attempted to take over some sections of the library and had done the same to the prayer room/common space, resulting in its closure. Students at Maisonneuve had reported they were afraid of Muslim students in those areas. Violence has occurred during the course of the attempted takeovers and the staff at the college fear for their safety.[7] This is occurring in Canada this year!
Other universities have already closed prayers for reasons of Islamist extremism such as the Technical University of Berlin, the Technical University of Dortmund and the University of Essen Duisburg in Germany.[8]
University of Ottawa and the Muslim Brotherhood
A number of individuals at the university have close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. While some can be found in the engineering faculty, the most interesting may be Dr. Aliaa Dakroury, who was an Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication from 2008 to 2012; at Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication from 2005 to 2010; and Departments of Sociology and Anthropology and Law from 2008 to 2011. She is now an Associate Professor and School Director of the Social Communications Program at Saint Paul’s University in Ottawa. Dr. Dakroury is the managing editor of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences (AJISS).[9]
What is not noted, however, is that the AJISS is the official journal of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). The IIIT is the think tank of the Muslim Brotherhood[10] and was created as such in 1981, ironically enough by a Canadian of Palestinian origin. Ismail al-Faruqui left Montreal Canada in about 1978 and created the IIIT in 1980. The organization was founded following an international conference of “major Muslim Brotherhood figures, including Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf Al Qaradawi, in Lugano, Switzerland in 1977. The conference was held under the auspices of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists’, itself a spinoff of the Muslim Student Association, the Muslim Brotherhoods first public front group in North America.[11]
Dr. Faruqui was stabbed to death, along with his wife, in 1986 by Joseph L. Young (aka Yusuf Abdul Ali). The IIIT and others have attempted to pass off this murder as a Zionist or CIA plot, but the criminal investigation and trial showed that the murderer, Mr. Young, was a Black Muslim convert. He claimed, with some evidence, that he killed Faruqui and his wife due to his poor treatment within the organization, despite having converted to Islam. Racism may have been a factor.
The Closing of the Prayer Room
Should the University of Ottawa consider closing its common prayer room? Given the problems at the University of Ottawa, as well as those observed at Algonquin College, Maisonneuve College and many others, this is a question worth considering.
