Muslim Students' Association

The Muslim Students Association, or Muslim Student Union, of the U.S. and Canada, also known as MSA National, is a religious organization dedicated to establishing and maintaining Islamic societies on college campuses in Canada and the United States. It serves to provide coordination and support for affiliated MSA chapters in colleges across North America. Established in 1963, the organization now has chapters in colleges across the continent, ^[1] and is the precursor of the Islamic Society of North America and several other Islamic organizations. The Muslim Students Association has garnered significant controversy, as well, in particular the New York Police Department's (NYPD) monitoring across several US college campuses of what they termed MSAs. ^[2]

Organization

The Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada is also known as MSA National. It is an umbrella organization for all of affiliated chapters at various campuses across the continent. Local chapters are only loosely connected with the parent institution, and often take different names, such as "Islamic Students Association", or "Muslim Discussion Group". Not all campus Muslim groups are necessarily affiliated with MSA National.

There is no fixed hierarchy between MSA National and local chapters; as such, the policies and views of the national organization are not necessarily shared by local chapters. The United States and Canada is divided into five zones, three in the US and two in Canada. Each zone has a zonal representative, chosen by the members of the affiliated chapters within that zone. Chapters make up regional councils.

History

The first MSA National chapter was formed in 1963 at the campus of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) by international students.^[3][4][5] The initial leadership came from Arabic-speaking members,^[5] with the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood helping to establish the group.^[6][7] A Saudi Arabian charity, the Muslim World League, provided early funding for the group.^[8] Early goals for the movement included the promotion of "a self-definition [that] involves initially and fundamentally [an] Islamic identity" of its members, as well as an appropriate Islamic lifestyle while they were in the US.^[3]

With time, MSA groups became more interested in seeking how to integrate and institutionalize Islam and Islamic culture into American life. Current issues such as the position of women in Islam and problems in the Islamic countries began to be debated.^[3] The groups proved important as mobilizers in developing increasing Muslim political activity in the United States.^[5] Student leaders, as these graduated, went on to form the Islamic Society of North America.^[3][5] From the 1960s onwards, the MSA engaged in educational activities, including the translation and publishing of works by major Islamic scholars. In 1966 MSA founded the Islamic Book Service, to distribute magazines and books. In addition, books about Islam were distributed on campuses to both Muslims and non-Muslims.^[3] In the 1970s, a fiqh, or legal council was established by MSA; initially the fiqh rendered opinions on minor issues such as the start of Ramadan. By 1988, however, it was making decrees on a broad range of religious and social issues.^[3]

Activities

Today, the organization is present in various forms on several campuses across the United States and Canada.^[8] In contrast to early membership, members are now frequently American-born Muslims.^[3] The groups are funded by campus students as well as the university to which it belongs.^[9] Activities include prayer times, lectures, discussion, and social events, and seek to unify Muslim students from different cultural backgrounds.^[3] MSAs host "Islamic Awareness Week" activities to educate students about Islam.^[3] At a campus level, groups lobby universities for recognition of Islamic holidays and prayer times, the availability and size of prayer rooms and for the provision of religiously permitted food on campus.^[3] MSAs engaged in various charitable activities. They raise funds through events known as "Fast-A-Thons", which originated at the University of Tennessee.^{[citation needed]} The MSA launched a "Peace...not Prejudice" campaign to dispel stereotypes and paint Islam in a positive light.^[10]

The Muslim Interscholastic Tournament (MIST) was founded in 2001 by a freshman at the University of Houston. It consists of annual Regional Tournaments for high school students in the United States and Canada that take place in Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, DC, Philadelphia, New York City, Houston, Southern California, and Toronto.^[11] The winners from each Regional Tournament qualify to complete at the annual National Tournament. The tournament features 31 different competitions and lasts two-three days, ending with the Awards Ceremony on the final night.^[12]

Controversies

Aafia Siddiqui Incident

Journalist Deborah Scroggins, in exploring how suspected al-Qaeda member Aafia Siddiqui became an Islamist extremist, wrote for Vogue that if Siddiqui "was drawn into terrorism, it may have been through the contacts and friendships she made in the early 1990s working for MIT's Muslim Students Association. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the world's oldest and biggest Islamist movement, established the first MSAs in the country... and the movement's ideology continued to influence the MSA long after that."

Muslim Brotherhood Ties at MIT

At MIT, several of the MSA's most active members followed the teachings of Abdullah Azzam, a Muslim Brother who was Osama bin Laden's mentor. According to Scroggins article, "[Azzam] had established the Al Kifah Refugee Center to function as its worldwide recruiting post, propaganda office, and fund-raising center for the mujahideen fighting in Afghanistan... It would become the nucleus of the al-Qaeda organization."^[13]

California Irvine Muslim Student Union

The University of California Irvine Muslim Student Union is an affiliated chapter of MSA National, which was suspended for the 2010–11 school year for protesting against Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren at a university sponsored event.^{[14][15][16][17][18]}

New York Police Department Monitoring of MSAs

The NYPD monitored Muslim student associations, what they referred to as MSAs, in Northeast US, citing a list of 12 people arrested or convicted on terrorism charges in the United States and abroad who had once been members of Muslim student associations. In rationalizing their monitoring activities, the NYPD noted they followed the same rules as the FBI. The universities involved in the student monitoring included Yale, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, Syracuse, New York University, Clarkson University, the Newark and New Brunswick campuses of Rutgers, and the State University of New York campuses in Buffalo, Albany, Stony Brook and Potsdam, Queens College, Baruch College, Brooklyn College and La Guardia Community College. In one monitoring incident, a conference which was to be attended by MSA affiliated students was monitored which included as a speaker Siraj Wahaj, a prominent but controversial New York imam who has attracted the attention of authorities for years. ^{[19] [20]}

See also

• USC-MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts
• Islamic Society of North America
• 2010 World Muslim Population
• Muslim Brotherhood
• Muslim Brotherhood Influence Operations

References

External links

• Muslims Students' Associations of the US & Canada
• List of MSAs Around the Globe
• Discussion about Diversity-NYTimes Article on MSAs

United States Campus Chapters

Sorted by ZIP code:

• Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR 00918, USA
• University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
• Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA 01609, USA
• Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
• Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
• Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA
• Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02453, USA
• Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02481, USA
• University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 02881, USA
• Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA
• University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA
• Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 05753, USA
• Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
• Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA
• Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ 07043, USA
• Rutgers University, Newark, NJ 07102, USA
• New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, USA
• Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940, USA
• Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
• Baruch College, New York, NY 10010, USA
• Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
• Fordham University, Bronx, NY 10458, USA
• Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA
• Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY 11210, USA
• State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180, USA
• State University of New York at Albany, Albany, NY 12222, USA
• State University of New York at New Paltz, New Paltz, NY 12561, USA
• Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY 13676, USA
• Buffalo State College, Buffalo, NY 14222, USA
• State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA
• Monroe Community College, Rochester, NY 14623, USA
• Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 14623, USA
• University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA
• Northampton Community College, Bethlehem, PA 18020, USA
• Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
• Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
• Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837, USA
• Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015, USA
• Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010, USA
• Villanova University, Villanova, PA 19085, USA
• University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
• Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA
• University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA
• George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA
• Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057, USA
• Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
• University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD 20742, USA
• George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22033, USA
• Thomas Edison High School, Alexandria, VA 22310, USA
• University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA
• the College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187, USA
• Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284, USA
• Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
• West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA
• Guilford College, Greensboro, NC 27410, USA
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
• North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
• Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
• University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29201, USA
• Georgia Perimeter College, Alpharetta, GA 30022, USA
• Northview High School, Johns Creek, GA 30097, USA
• Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA
• Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA
• Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
• University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA
• University of North Florida, Jacksonville, FL 32224, USA
• University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL 32514, USA
• Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL 32901, USA
• Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, USA
• University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA
• University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA
• University of Alabama at Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899, USA
• University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL 36688, USA
• Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN 37129, USA
• Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37240, USA
• University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
• Tennessee Tech University, Cookeville, TN 38501, USA
• University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677, USA
• Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA
• University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, USA
• Berea College, Berea, KY 40404, USA
• University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA
• Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
• Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA
• University of Toledo, Toledo, OH 43606, USA
• Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH 44074, USA
• Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA
• University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, USA
• Kent State University, Kent, OH 44420, USA
• College of Wooster, Wooster, OH 44691, USA
• Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056, USA
• University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA
• Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701, USA
• Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN 46222, USA
• Indiana University Northwest, Gary, Indiana 46408, USA
• Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
• University of Evansville, Evansville, IN 47722, USA
• Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 USA
• University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI 48104, USA
• University of Michigan at Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, 48128, USA
• Henry Ford Community College, Dearborn, MI 48128, USA
• Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202, USA
• Saginaw Valley State University, University Center, MI 48710, USA
• Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
• Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008, USA
• Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI 49931, USA
• Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA
• University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA 50614, USA
• University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
• University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53715, USA
• University of Wisconsin at La Crosse, La Crosse, WI 54601, USA
• University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire, Eau Claire, WI 54702, USA
• University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
• Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA
• Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60201, USA
• College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL 60137, USA
• East West University, Chicago, IL 60605, USA
• University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612, USA
• Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL 60616, USA
• Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, IL 60625, USA
• Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL 60626, USA
• University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
• Bradley University, Peoria, IL 61625, USA
• University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
• Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA
• University of Missouri at St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63121, USA
• Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
• Truman State University, Kirksville, MO 63501, USA
• University of Missouri at Kansas City, Kansas City, MO 64110, USA
• University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
• University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA
• Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA
• Washburn University, Topeka, KS 66621, USA
• Emporia State University, Emporia, KS 66801, USA
• Wichita State University, Wichita, KS 67260, USA
• University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE 68182, USA
• University of Nebraska at Lincoln Lincoln, NE 68588, USA
• Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA
• Loyola University New Orleans, New Orleans, LA 70118, USA
• University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA 70148, USA
• Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA 71272, USA
• University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA
• University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA
• University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK 74104, USA
• University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA
• Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275, USA
• University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203, USA
• University of Houston, Houston, TX 77004, USA
• Rice University, Houston, TX 77251, USA
• Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View, TX 77446, USA
• Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
• University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
• Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA
• University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
• Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA
• University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA
• University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
• Weber State University, Ogden, UT 84408, USA
• Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
• Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
• Midwestern University, Glendale, AZ 85308, USA
• University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
• University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
• New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA
• University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA
• University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
• California State University, Long Beach, CA 90840, USA
• California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
• California State University, Northridge, Northridge, CA 91330, USA
• Diamond Bar High School, Diamond Bar, CA 91765, USA
• California State Polytechnic University (Cal Poly), Pomona, CA 91768, USA
• University of California, San Diego San Diego, CA 92092, USA
• University of California at Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521, USA
• (UCI) Muslim Students Union Irvine, California 92697
• California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407, USA
• Golden Gate University, San Francisco, CA 94105, USA
• Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
• University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
• Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053, USA
• San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA 94132, USA
• San Jose State University, San José, CA 95192, USA
• San Joaquin Delta College, Stockton, CA 95207, USA
• University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211, USA
• Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
• University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
• Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225, USA
• University of Alaska at Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA

Canada Campus Chapters

Sorted by Canadian Postal Code:

• University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, K1N 6N5, Canada
• University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada
• Dalhousie Student Union, Halifax, NS, B3H 4J2, Canada
• University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, E3B 5A3, Canada
• Laval University, Québec, QC, G1K 7P4, Canada
• McGill University, Montreal, QC, H3A 1X9, Canada
• Concordia University, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8, Canada
• University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, H3T 1N8, Canada
• Sherbrooke University, Sherbrooke, QC, J1K 2R1, Canada
• Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6, Canada
• Queen's University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada
• Trent University, Peterborough, ON, K9J 7B8, Canada
• McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L8, Canada
• York University, Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3, Canada
• Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3, Canada
• University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 1A1, Canada
• University of Toronto at St. George, Toronto, ON, M5T 2Z9, Canada
• University of Toronto at Scarborough, Toronto, ON, M1C 1A4, Canada
• University of Toronto at Mississauga, Mississauga, ON, L5L 1C6, Canada
• University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1, Canada
• Wilfrid Laurier University, Kitchener, ON, N2L 3C9, Canada
• University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada
• University of Western Ontario, London, ON, N6A 3K7, Canada
• Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL, A1C 5S7, Canada
• University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2R3, Canada
• Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6, Canada
• University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1, Canada