Over a four-week span, Frontpage will publish profiles
of individual chapters of the Muslim Students Association and Muslim Student
Union on a variety of campuses around the country, showing how they work to
advance the cause of radical Islam and to lead the effort to stigmatize Israel. These
profiles are compiled in our new booklet, "The Muslim Students Association
and the Jihad Network." To read the introduction, click
here, "The MSA at UCLA," click
here, "The MSA at Berkeley, click
here, "The MSU at UC Irvine," click
here, "The MSA at Brown," click
here, "The MSA at Columbia," click
here, and "The MSA at Michigan State," click
here, "The MSA at Ohio State," click
here, "The MSA at Penn State," click
here, "The MSA at Queensborough Community College," click
here, "The MSA at Temple," click
here, "The MSA at UC Santa Barbara," click
here, "The MSA at Michigan," click here, "The MSA at U Penn," click here, "The MSA at Wisconsin," click here, and "The MSA at Virginia Commonwealth University," click here. – The Editors
Established
in 1955, the Harvard Islamic Society (HIS) is a student organization whose
mission is to “meet the social and religious needs of the Muslim community at Harvard University and to promote Islamic
awareness on campus.”
During
his tenure as HIS president, Zayed Yasin (a 2002 Harvard graduate) held a
charity dinner to raise funds for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and
Development (HLF). Also during his tenure, Yasin signed a divestment petition calling
on Harvard to cut its financial ties to corporations that conducted business
with Israel.119
In
early 2002 Yasin was named by Harvard as one of three students who would speak
at the University’s June 6 commencement ceremony. He prepared a speech for this
event titled “My American Jihad.” When questioned about the rationale
underlying his choice of title, he claimed the term jihad had no violent
connotations.120 To avoid controversy Harvard
removed the words “My American Jihad” from the title as it appeared in the
official commencement programs.
In
March 2005, HIS held its annual Islam Awareness Week. Among the featured
presentations was “Islam, Hip-Hop & Black America”
in which the presenter, a hip-hop journalist named Adisa Banjoko, delivered a
45-minute speech about Islam’s influence on hip-hop cultures. “Most African-American
males,” he claimed, “do not relate to the Bible and do not trust the Bible,”
and described his introduction to former Black Panther Kiilu Nyasha as a watershed
moment in his personal life, and as a motivating factor in his conversion to
Islam at age 21.121
Another
presentation was on sharia law by Suheil Laher, a Muslim chaplain at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of numerous articles extolling
the virtues of jihad. Laher has frequently cited the declaration of Abdullah Azzam,
mentor of Osama bin Laden: “Jihad and the rifle alone! No negotiations; No
conferences; and No dialogues.”
Laher
was once affiliated with Care International, the now defunct Muslim charity
that served as the Boston branch office of the New York-based al-Kifah Refugee
Center, from which Islamic Group leader Omar Abdel-Rahman funded and planned
the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.122
NOTES:
119
http://www.harvardislamicsociety.org/
http://www.academia.org/news/struggle.html
120
Ibid.
121
http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/486
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/
archive/2004/10/31/LVG229GR5S1.DTL
122
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individual Profile.
asp?indid=844
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.
aspx?GUID={B9EABA98-CB5A-4FDA-8A75-E91DA4FE3697}
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6300