The person on the right in this photo is Mahdi Bray, an
ex-convict who converted to Islam, one of the leaders of the Muslim American Society (MAS), famous, among other things, for
publicly declaring his support for Hamas and Hezbollah.
(Algemeiner) The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is leading a pro-Sharia public relations campaign, aimed at persuading Americans that these beliefs aren’t something to fear or leading to domination.
As it does this, however, it continues to guide followers toward texts that go in a starkly contrasting direction. It has pushed underground a series of curricula detailing its adult radicalization program, but more extremist materials pop up in youth events, the group’s bookstore, and elsewhere.
ICNA has long been involved in the radicalization of its members, with an indoctrination process into South Asian and Muslim Brotherhood extremist texts. Many of those titles disappeared from ICNA and the ICNA Sisters’ web pages after a series of articles by the Investigative Project on Terrorism.
That doesn’t mean that ICNA has changed its tune. A recent investigation by the Toronto Sun revealed that the organization has marketed pro-violence and pro-Islamist texts, particularly by South Asian extremist Sayyid Abu ‘Ala Maududi, through its Canadian bookstore. These texts, according to Canadian Muslim moderate Tarek Fatah, have a profound effect on the Muslim youth.
“This sort of literature lays the seeds into their minds that the West is the enemy, and they are the troopers who have to fight that enemy,” Fatah told the Sun.
“Maududi, in his books, is asking for young Muslim men to wage war.”
Required reading of some of Maududi’s books is also still part of ICNA’s membership process, especially for youth. This year’s annual “Quiz Competition on Islamic Knowledge and Skills” tested 11th and 12th graders throughout the country on their knowledge of one of his masterpieces, Towards Understanding Islam.
“The greatest sacrifice made in the way of God is jihad. In it man sacrifices not only his own life and belongings, but destroys those of others as well,” Maududi teaches in the text, which is posted on ICNA’s youth website. “What comparison would the loss of some lives – even if it were thousands or more be to the calamity that would befall mankind as the result of the victory of evil over good. What comparison would it be to the tremendous anguish mankind would suffer if falsehood overtook truth, and if aggressive atheism won over the religion of God,” he says, arguing that Islam must dominate all other political and social philosophies.
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