Other CAIR-CAN senior directors praised Hassan al-Banna and vowed to implement his doctrine in Canada.
Hassan al-Banna was described as a role model by three senior directors of the NCCM / CAIR-CAN
When CAIR-CAN became the National Council of Canadian Muslims, it presented itself as “a leading voice that enriches Canadian society through Muslim civic engagement and the promotion of human rights.”
This description is misleading given the fact that many of the leaders of the NCCM / CAIR-CAN (past and present) have collaborated with organizations in Canada and abroad whose track records are incompatible with human rights. Although the NCCM / CAIR-CAN Executive Director Ihsaan Gardee claimed in a CBC interview that his organization has never had any relationship with the Washington-based Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), documents issued by his own organization prove otherwise.
In the context of the NCCM’s recent allegations of defamation against the Prime Minister’s Office for having linked the NCCM to Hamas, discussing the relationship between Washington-based CAIR and the NCCM / CAIR-CAN is all the more relevant given the fact that in a 2009 American case, a federal judge concluded that “The [U.S.] government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA [and other organizations] with Hamas.”
The NCCM / CAIR-CAN’s claim that it is committed to human rights can also be challenged by looking at the ideologues endorsed by the leaders of this organization over the years. Given the fact that important leaders of the NCCM / CAIR-CAN have openly endorsed ideologues whose goal is to establish a totalitarian society based on sharia, this organization must be considered a threat to human rights and definitely not a source of enrichment for Canadian society.
One such totalitarian ideologue who has been endorsed by prominent NCCM / CAIR-CAN directors is Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Banna advocated the establishment of a society based on sharia and in his essay To what do we invite humanity?, he praised Hitler as a role model for Muslims looking for “success, influence and fortune.” As a matter of fact, when the New York Times announced Hassan al-Banna’s death in 1949, it highlighted that his organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, had become a movement “with mystic and fascist overtones.”
Hassan al-Banna was openly endorsed by at least three senior NCCM / CAIR-CAN directors. In 1999, before the incorporation of CAIR-CAN, current NCCM director Khadija Haffajee was on the Editorial advisory board of Islamic Horizons when the magazine hailed Hassan al-Banna as “a True Guide.”
In 2004, while he was on CAIR-CAN’s Board, Jamal Badawi described al-Banna as “most inspirational.” Badawi added that “More than any other individual he [al-Banna] has epitomised twentieth century Islamic thought and ideology.”
In 2012, while he was a CAIR-CAN director, Wael Haddara was also the president of the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC). MAC’s website proclaimed back then that “MAC’s […] modern roots can be traced to the Islamic revival of the early twentieth century, culminating in the movement of the Muslim Brotherhood. […] MAC adopts and strives to implement Islam […] as understood in its contemporary context by the late Imam, Hassan Albanna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. MAC regards this ideology as the best representation of Islam as delivered by Prophet Muhammad.” The same mission statement was already posted on MAC’s website in 2005 when Jamal Badawi and Wael Haddara were both MAC directors and CAIR-CAN directors.
According to the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch, “The Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) appears to be one of the only organizations in the world that has acknowledged its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Wael Haddara resigned his position on CAIR-CAN’s Board of Directors in April 2012. On December 12, 2012, MAC issued a press release announcing Haddara’s resignation as president of the organization for “personal reasons.” On December 28, 2012, Wael Haddara was identified in an official United Nations document as a member of the Egyptian delegation at the UN. He had become a close advisor to now deposed Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi. Haddara had just been promoted from the Muslim Brotherhood infrastructure in Canada to the original one in Egypt. This was the logical outcome of Wael Haddara’s involvement with CAIR-CAN and the Muslim Association of Canada.
Khadija Haffajee
CAIR-CAN was incorporated in 2000. When Khadija Haffajee joined its Board of Directors (either in 2000 or 2001), she was already on the Majlis al-Shura of the Islamic Society of North America, ISNA’s decision-making body. Khadija Haffajee was first elected as an ISNA’s administrator in 1997 and re-elected in 2001 and 2004. As a member of ISNA’s leadership, she was on the Editorial advisory Board of Islamic Horizons. ISNA refers to its own publication as “ISNA’s flagship bi-monthly magazine.”
Khadija Haffajee and another current NCCM director, Shahina Siddiqui, have presented their autobiographies in a book entitled Muslim Women Activists in North America: Speaking for Ourselves. It was edited by Katherine Bullock and released in 2005. As this article is being published, the portion of the book concerning Haffajee is still available on Google Books.
ISNA was established in 1982 by the Muslim Brotherhood leadership in North America in order to mobilize and radicalize Muslims outside of college and university campuses. The Muslim Students Association (MSA) had already been established in 1963 to target Muslim students. In the 2009 American legal case referred to previously, the judge remarked that a Muslim Brotherhood document produced as Exhibit 3-64 by the U.S. government “further ties ISNA to the Muslim Brotherhood by listing it as an ‘apparatus’ of the Brotherhood.”
ISNA is number 1 and MSA number 2 in a listing of 29 organizations affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood network in North America that was added to an internal memorandum written by an MB leader in 1991. In this memorandum, the goal pursued by the Muslim Brotherhood in North America is clearly presented:
POINT 4 The Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood) must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions… It is a Muslim’s destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes.”
This memorandum was made public after it was seized by police and produced for evidentiary purposes in a 2008 trial that led to the conviction of all accused in a terror financing case. This excerpt was also quoted in the 2009 American legal case referred to earlier.
In July 2013, the ISNA Development Foundation’s charitable status was revoked by the Canada Revenue Agency because it provided tax receipts for donations made to a non-status organization that was funding a jihadist organization in India. At the time, ISNA’s leaders claimed that “There has been no links of authority or responsibility between the United States and Canadian organizations for a few decades, despite the similarity of names.” When the charity status revocation occurred in July 2013, at least two administrators of ISNA-Canada (Mohamed Bekkari and Khalid Tarabain) were on the U.S.-based ISNA’s Board (ISNA’s Board in June 2013 – ISNA’s Board in August 2013).
Hassan al-Banna’s 50-point Manifesto
One of the articles praising Hassan al-Banna in the March-April 1999 edition of Islamic Horizons highlighted an important proposal of his totalitarian program: getting rid of all political parties and replacing them by a one-party state (“He [al-Banna] called for mediation between [political] parties and even for their dissolution so they could emerge as a single entity serving according to the guidance of Islam.”)
This one-party state proposal is the first one in Hassan al-Banna’s 50-point Manifesto. According to Ikhwanweb, the Muslim Brotherhood’s website, the Manifesto was part of a letter sent by Hassan al-Banna to many Muslim leaders in 1947, including the king and the prime minister of Egypt. It contains fifty proposals for a systematic implementation of sharia. They are grouped in three categories (1. Political, judicial and administrative; 2. Social and educational; 3. Economic). The 50-point Manifesto is available on Point de Bascule.
Here are some of the proposals advocated by Hassan al-Banna and those who revere him as their “True Guide”:
1. POLITICAL, JUDICIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE SECTORS
1.1 – An end to party rivalry, and a channelling of the political forces of the nation into a common front and a single phalanx.
1.2 – A reform of the law, so that it will conform to Islamic legislation in every branch.
1.6 – The surveillance of the personal conduct of all its employees, and an end to the dichotomy between the private and professional spheres.
2. SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL SECTORS
2.3 – An end to prostitution, both clandestine and overt: the recognition of fornication, whatever the circumstances, as a detestable crime whose perpetrator must be flogged.
2.4 – An end to gambling in all its forms – games, lotteries, racing, and gambling-clubs.
2.5 – A campaign against drinking, as there is one against drugs: its prohibition, and the salvation of the nation from its effects.
2.6 – A campaign against ostentation in dress and loose behavior; the instruction of women in what is proper, with particular strictness as regards female instructors, pupils, physicians, and students, and all those in similar categories.
2.7 – A review of the curricula offered to girls and the necessity of making them distinct from the boys’ curricula in many of the stages of education.
2.8 – Segregation of male and female students; private meetings between men and women, unless between the permitted degrees [of relationship] to be counted as a crime for which both will be censored.
2.10 – The closure of morally undesirable ballrooms and dance halls, and the prohibition of dancing and other such pastimes.
2.11 – The surveillance of theatres and cinemas, and a rigorous selection of plays and films.
2.12 – The expurgation of songs, and a rigorous selection and censorship of them.
2.13 – The careful selection of lectures, songs, and subjects to be broadcast to the nation; the use of radio broadcasting for the education of the nation in a virtuous and moral way.
2.14 – The confiscation of provocative stories and books that implant the seeds of skepticism in an insidious manner, and newspapers which strive to disseminate immorality and capitalize indecently on lustful desires.
2.15 – The supervision of summer vacation areas so as to do away with the wholesale confusion and licence that nullify the basic aims of vacationing.
2.16 – The regulation of business hours for cafés; surveillance of the activities of their regular clients; instructing these as to what is in their best interest; withdrawal of permission from cafés to keep such long hours.
2.19 – Due consideration for the claims of the moral censorship, and punishment of all who are proved to have infringed any Islamic doctrine or attacked it, such as breaking the fast of Ramadan, wilful neglect of prayers, insulting the faith, or any such act.
2.26 – Consideration of ways to arrive gradually at a uniform mode of dress for the nation.
2.27 – An end to the foreign spirit in our homes with regard to language, manners, dress, governesses, nurses, etc; all these to be Egyptianized, especially in upper class homes.
3. ECONOMIC SECTOR
3.4 – The protection of the masses from the oppression of monopolistic companies, keeping these within strict limits, and obtaining every possible benefit for the masses.
3.5 – An improvement in the lot of junior civil servants by raising their salaries, by granting them steady increases and compensations, and by lowering the salaries of senior civil servants.
Other facets of Hassan al-Banna’s program
On February 4, 1949, the New York Times reported that “the terrorist Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt has formed a suicide squad of 200 men, each sworn to give his life to the cause in some venture such as the assassination of [Egypt’s] Premier Mahmoud Fahmy Nokrashy Pasha.” Egypt’s Premier Pasha was killed by a veterinary student member of the Muslim Brotherhood on December 29, 1948. This suicide squadron was the original model that inspired Hamas to organize its own suicide operations many years later and launch attacks not in Egypt this time, but at the heart of Israel. In its charter, Hamas identifies itself as “one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
In the introduction of its charter, Hamas quotes Hassan al-Banna, who proclaims his determination to destroy Israel: “”Israel will exist, and will continue to exist, until Islam abolishes it, as it abolished that which was before it.”
In a 2009 speech on “Understanding Jihad and Martyrdom,” given at the Chebucto Mosque in Halifax (Nova Scotia), long-time CAIR-CAN director Jamal Badawi justified the use of suicide bombers and praised those who are killed in action as martyrs. The Investigative Project on Terrorism has gathered some audio excerpts of Badawi’s speeches on the subject.
In his essay On Jihad, Hassan al-Banna has also compiled numerous passages of the Koran, hadiths and excerpts of texts written by Muslim scholars on the subject. One of these excerpts, wholeheartedly endorsed by al-Banna, summarizes his adherence to the notion that military jihad is a legitimate way to further the cause of Islam: “It’s an obligation for us [Muslims] to fight against them [the infidels] after inviting them [to join Islam], even if they do not fight against us”.
Stockwell Day about Hassan al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood
In 2011, while Stockwell Day was President of the Treasury Board in the Canadian government, he commented in the House of Commons on the situation in Egypt. At one point in his speech, he talked about Hassan al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood. Some of his remarks were general and applied not only to Egypt but to Canada as well. They help better understand the background of organizations such as the National Council of Canadian Muslims.
HANSARD (Parliament of Canada – February 2, 2011)
– Stockwell Day: “The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna talked and wrote in a very intelligent and articulate way about the necessary use of terrorism when the time came. He talked about using politics and he talked about using propaganda.”
“President Nasser tried to work with members of the Muslim Brotherhood, or Al-Ikhwan as they were called, up until they tried to assassinate him. Then he used very repressive means, driving many of them into Saudi Arabia. When they fled to Saudi Arabia, we saw that joining of the Saudi-Wahhabi and the Muslim Brotherhood Salafi group, leading to the modern terrorist Islamist movement.”
[…] “As recently as 2008 their supreme guide, Mahdi Akif, praised bin Laden as a Moujahid. He called for jihad in Egypt. That was as recently as 2008. Their motto is still that ‘Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.’ This is the Muslim Brotherhood.”
[…] “It is something in the DNA of those of us in the west that we incline ourselves to appeasement before, at times, the most evil forces. That is regarded as a weakness. That part of our DNA is actually based on hope. We try to appease, hoping that rational minds will prevail. It is actually a virtue, I believe, of western civilization, that particular hope. Hope without reason [however,] can lead to great catastrophe.”
[…] “As we have heard other people say, trust but verify.”
While in the Opposition in Ottawa a few years earlier, Stockwell Day had experienced the Muslim Brotherhood’s lawfare tactics first-hand when IRFAN-Canada sued him for defamation in 2006 after he had accused the group in 2004 of raising funds for the terrorist organization Hamas. Day was eventually proven right when the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) discovered that, for the 2005-2009 period alone, IRFAN-Canada had transferred $14.6 million to Hamas. In April 2011, the CRA revoked IRFAN-Canada’s charitable status (CRA – GMBDR – Toronto Star).
In December 2012, after IRFAN-Canada’s charitable status was revoked for funding Hamas, then Liberal leadership candidate Justin Trudeau nevertheless accepted to speak at the IRFAN-sponsored Reviving the Islamic Spirit (RIS) convention in Toronto. Point de Bascule criticized Trudeau for doing so. Shortly after, CAIR-CAN (as NCCM was known at the time) issued a press release to condemn Point de Bascule “for slandering” and Islamophobia. The latter term is constantly used by Muslim Brotherhood operatives to silence the critics of their totalitarian program and make such critics pass for racists. Three days after CAIR-CAN’s press release, IRFAN-Canada withdrew its sponsorship of the convention. Once in the spotlight, its links with Hamas had become a liability for RIS organizers. What CAIR-CAN had described as “slanders” on Wednesday had become an unchallenged fact for RIS organizers by Saturday.
Apart from being engaged in the destruction of Israel, in recent years leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood branch Hamas have frequently advocated the Islamic conquest of the West (2008 – 2011 – 2012). On July 16, 2013, Hamas threatened to launch terrorist attacks in countries where Israel’s embassies are located. Canada is among the potential targets, of course.
Excerpts of a New York Times article announcing Hassan Al-Banna’s death
MOSLEM BROTHERHOOD LEADER SLAIN AS HE ENTERS TAXI IN CAIRO STREET
Terrorist Leader Is Killed In Cairo
February 13, 1949 – page 5
By ALBION ROSS
“[The Muslim Brotherhood] was banned after authorities had declared it responsible for a series of bombing outrages and killings last year [1948].”
[…] “It was disclosed recently that an inner circle of the banned Brotherhood had recognized Sheikh Hassan [al-Banna] as Caliph, which would have amounted to proclaiming him as political chief of the Islamic world. This group of eighty conspirators, it was stated, carried out acts of terror by lot.”
[…] “At first it [the Muslim Brotherhood] was a religious and reform organization and had no trouble with the authorities. During recent years, however, it had taken on the character of a political movement with mystic and fascist overtones.”
“Sheikh Hassan’s followers were fanatically devoted to him, and many of them proclaimed that he alone would be able to save the Arab and Islamic worlds. The campaign of terror appears to have had the purpose of systematically intimidating the authorities, courts and police in preparation for a seizure of power.”
Conclusion
The promises and the good intentions enunciated by the NCCM / CAIR-CAN to media and police organizations must be compared with what the NCCM / CAIR-CAN leaders are telling their own supporters before we can legitimately conclude that this organization is an asset to counter the radicalization occurring in the Muslim community. The promotion of a totalitarian ideologue such as Hassan al-Banna by very important NCCM / CAIR-CAN leaders demonstrates that this organization is definitely not a part of the solution but a part of the radicalization problem in the Muslim community in Canada.
Further reading
Point de Bascule: File Council on American Islamic Relations Canada (CAIR-CAN) / National Council of Canadian Muslims
Point de Bascule (January 17, 2014): Prime Minister Harper’s director of communications slams the National Council of Canadian Muslims for “documented ties to a terrorist organization such as Hamas”
Point de Bascule (July 18, 2013): National Council of Canadian Muslims: The new name chosen by CAIR-CAN helps cover its links with Washington-based / Hamas-linked CAIR
Point de Bascule (December 21, 2012): CAIR-CAN condemns Point de Bascule and uses John Ralston Saul as a poster boy to legitimize the Islamist agenda
Point de Bascule (August 13, 2013): Early 2000s – Legal battle between CAIR and ISNA to get the acronym CAIR as trade-mark in Canada
Point de Bascule (January 20, 2014): NCCM’s Ihsaan Gardee, Justin Trudeau’s advisor Omar Alghabra, Amnesty Secretary General Alex Neve and National Post’s Jonathan Kay tweet about NCCM and Hamas
