Islamic Society of North America

The Islam­ic Soci­ety of North Amer­i­ca (ISNA) is a Plain­field, Illi­nois-based umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tion that describes its vision as being “an exem­plary and uni­fy­ing Islam­ic orga­ni­za­tion in North Amer­i­ca that con­tributes to the bet­ter­ment of the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty and soci­ety at large.” ISNA emerged out of the ear­ly US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood infra­struc­ture and was named as an unin­dict­ed co-con­spir­a­tor in the Holy Land Foun­da­tion ter­ror­ism tri­al as a result of what the US Jus­tice Depart­ment called the organization’s “inti­mate rela­tion­ship with the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, the Pales­tine Com­mit­tee, and the defen­dants in this case.” A report by the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) edi­tor demon­strates ISNA’s his­to­ry of ties to the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and Hamas as well as its his­to­ry of fun­da­men­tal­ism and sup­port for ter­ror­ism, which ISNA has long denied. Although more recent­ly hav­ing issued robust con­dem­na­tions of anti-Semi­tism and empha­siz­ing it “nev­er was, and is not now, affil­i­at­ed with or influ­enced by any inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions includ­ing the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood,” cur­rent ISNA lead­ers con­tin­ue to have orga­ni­za­tion­al and fam­i­ly ties to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB) in the US, including:

• Saafa Zarzour, ISNA Pres­i­dent and Pres­i­dent of CAIR Zarzour is also a board mem­ber and for­mer prin­ci­pal of the Uni­ver­sal School, locat­ed in Bridgeview Illi­nois and which has strong ties to the USMB.

• Mag­da Elka­di Saleh, ISNA US Vice-Pres­i­dent and daugh­ter of the late Ahmed Elka­di, a promi­nent ear­ly leader in the USMB.

• Mohammed Jal­laludin, ISNA Cana­da Vice-Pres­i­dent and a for­mer board mem­ber of the Mus­lim Stu­dents Asso­ci­a­tion (MSA), the first key MB group in the US.

• Mir Khan, for­mer Chair and Vice-Chair of the ISNA Con­ven­tion Steer­ing Com­mit­tee and who also served as Pres­i­dent of MSA at the North­east­ern Illi­nois University.

• Mali­ka Khan, ISNA West Zone Con­fer­ence Pro­gram Chair and a for­mer CAIR San Fran­cis­co — Bay Area Exec­u­tive Board mem­ber

• Iqbal Unus, for­mer ISNA Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al and who has also served as an ear­ly Pres­i­dent of MSA.