Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., who now is under fire for suggesting the U.S. needs to be “looking at” the Islamic madrassa model of education which teaches the Quran, has a history of association with a radical Muslim group that was an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to raise money for Hamas.
The group in question, the Islamic Society of North America, was listed by the Muslim Brotherhood as a “likeminded” organization that shares the goal of an Islamic nation.
During the address, Carson stressed the importance of the Quranic model of education found inside madrassas.
He stated: “America will never win the war against terrorism without help from the Muslim community. America will never tap into educational innovation and ingenuity without looking at the model that we have in our madrassas, in our schools, where innovation is encouraged, where the foundation is the Quran.”
Continued Carson: “And that model that we are pushing in some of our schools meets the multiple needs of students. …I have found that we need an educational model that is current, that meets the needs of our students. America must understand that she needs Muslims.”
Many madrassas have a reputation for teaching anti-Western values.
In response to the controversy, Carson issued a press release stating that no “…particular faith should be the foundation of our public schools…”
But Carson, who is Muslim, has been openly pro-active with the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA.
At ISNA’s annual convention held at the end of August 2008 in Columbus, Carson and Rep. Keith Ellison participated in a panel discussion entitled “Mobilizing the Muslim Political Machine: Effective Strategies for Community-Based Political Advocacy.”
The panel focused on community organizing tools for and participation in the electoral process, as well as how to create political action committees.
Carson and Ellison again participated at the July 2009 ISNA convention. The topic of discussion this time was “Effective Strategies for Muslim Political Advocacy.”
The panelists, including Ellison and Carson, shared ideas on how the Muslim community can effectively engage in political advocacy.
Another at ISNA session, the two panelists addressed the state of education in the Muslim community.
‘Burn down the master’s house’
ISNA was established in 1981 by activists from the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Muslim Students Association.
It was the subject of a terrorism investigation in December 2003 by the Senate Finance Committee, which looked into “possible links between nongovernmental organizations and terrorist financing networks.”
In June 2007, ISNA was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a U.S. Department of Justice legal case brought against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development officials regarding the funneling of millions of dollars to the Hamas terrorist group. The official court documents named the ISNA among “entities who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood.”
In his October 2003 statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, J. Michael Waller, the Annenberg Professor of International Communication at the Institute of World Politics, testified: “The Islamic Society of North America is an influential front for the promotion of the Wahhabi political, ideological and theological infrastructure in the United States and Canada. …. . . ISNA seeks to marginalize leaders of the Muslim faith who do not support its ideological goals.”
Waller expands on ISNA’s range of influence, stating that the group sponsors propaganda and doctrinal material for an estimated 1,500 to 2,500 mosques in North America in pursuit of its objective – having Islam dominate in North America.
Indeed, ISNA’s North American Islamic Trust owns between 50 and 79 percent of U.S. mosques. It not only owns and finances them, but also is subsidizing construction of more mosques in the U.S.
ISNA and the Saudi-funded Muslim Students’ Association are partners. WND previously attended an association event at which violence against the U.S. was urged by speakers.
“We are not Americans,” shouted one speaker, Muhammad Faheed, at Queensborough Community College in 2003. “We are Muslims. [The U.S.] is going to deport and attack us! It is us versus them! Truth against falsehood! The colonizers and masters against the oppressed, and we will burn down the master’s house!”
ISNA was named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document – “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America” – as one of the Brotherhood’s likeminded “organizations of our friends” who shared the common goal of destroying America and turning it into a Muslim nation, according to Discover the Networks.
Islam scholar Stephen Schwartz describes ISNA as “one of the chief conduits through which the radical Saudi form of Islam passes into the United States.”
According to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, ISNA “is a radical group hiding under a false veneer of moderation” that publishes a bimonthly magazine, Islamic Horizons, that “often champions militant Islamist doctrine.” The group also “convenes annual conferences where Islamist militants have been given a platform to incite violence and promote hatred,” states Emerson. Emerson cites an ISNA conference in which al-Qaida supporter and PLO official Yusuf Al Qaradhawi was invited to speak.
Emerson further reports that in September 2002, a full year after Sept. 11, speakers at ISNA’s annual conference still refused to acknowledge Osama bin Laden’s role in the terrorist attacks.
Also, ISNA has held fundraisers for terrorists, notes Discover the Networks. After Hamas leader Mousa Marzook was arrested and eventually deported in 1997, ISNA raised money for his defense. The group also has condemned the U.S. government’s post–Sept. 11 seizure of Hamas’ and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s financial assets.
With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott
