By Marylou Barry
What is ISNA, and why do U.S. religious groups want to partner with it?
First, a little background…
The Islamic Society of North America, the largest group of its kind in this country, devotes several pages of its extensive Web site to its “partners,” the secular and religious organizations with which it claims to “dialogue” – and whose established reputation, understandably, could help ISNA earn some badly needed credibility points.
Co-founded in 1981 by now-imprisoned felon Sami Al-Arian, ISNA serves as an umbrella for numerous Wahhabi Muslim groups in North America. It receives funding from the Saudi government and has been identified by the U.S. State Department as part of the Muslim Brotherhood, which also spawned Hamas. According to the New York Times it represents a third of the mosques in the United States, although Shia sources claim that 80 percent of U.S. mosques are currently under Saudi control. As long ago as 2003, terrorism expert Stephen Schwartz testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security that ISNA already was operating at least 324 mosques in the U.S. through the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT).
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