Over the next two weeks, 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, and "The MSA at Ohio State," click here. – The Editors
The
Muslim Students Association of Pennsylvania State University (MSA-PSU) was
founded in February 1964 by four students (who were natives of Iraq, Pakistan,
Egypt, and Indonesia)
“with a vision to create a haven for Muslims on campus and to spread awareness
and tolerance for Islam.”78
Today the Penn
State student body
includes more than 1,000 Muslims, many of whom are MSA members.
MSA-PSU’s
mission is “to realize Islam through words, actions, and intentions to Muslims
and non-Muslims on the Penn
State campus and in the
society at large for the love of God.”79 In
2006 the organization was the recipient of the Paul Robeson Award – named after
the Stalinist singer and actor.80
The
MSA-PSU website addresses the issue of women’s rights in Islam in a
disingenuous fashion: “Under Islamic law, women have always had the right to
own property, receive an education and otherwise take part in community life.
Men and women are to be respected equally. . . . (In fact, the Koran states
that “men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to
the other” Qur’an 4:34; that a woman is like a field to be used by a man as he wills
2:223; that a woman’s testimony is worth only half that of a man 2:282; that a
son’s inheritance should be twice the size of a daughter’s 4:11; that a man may
marry up to four wives and may have sex with slave girls also 4:3; and that husbands
may beat disobedient wives 4:34.) 81
The
MSA-PSU website also addresses the topic of jihad in a deceptive way,
minimizing the militaristic implications of the term and wrongly characterizing
jihad as a tradition with direct parallels in other faiths: “Like Christianity,
Islam permits fighting in self-defense, in defense of religion, or on the part
of those who have been expelled forcibly from their homes. … ‘Jihad’ does not
mean ‘holy war.’ Literally, jihad means to strive, struggle, and exert effort.
It is a central and broad concept that includes struggle against evil
inclinations within oneself, struggle to improve the quality of life in society,
struggle in the battlefield for self-defense …, or fighting against tyranny or
oppression.”82
Guest
speakers who have appeared at MSA-PSU events include:
• Ingrid Mattson,
President of the Islamic Society of North America's U.S. office. (ISNA is an arm of the
Muslim Brotherhood, and part of the Brotherhood's stated plan to carry out
"a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western
civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands
... so that ... God's religion Islam is made victorious over all other
religions.") In a September 2002 interview with PBS, Mattson stated that
she did not see "any difference between certain Christian leaders'
criticisms of Islam and of al-Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden using Islamic theology
to justify violence against Americans."83
• Sheikh Khalid Yasin:
This U.S.-born Muslim convert has said that "if you don't have a people
that is governed by Sharia, then you have a lawless people"; that a secular
Islamic state absolutely "cannot work"; that Sharia should become the
law of the land in all nations because Allah "is the best lawgiver";
that "there's no such thing as a Muslim having a non-Muslim friend; that
"there has been no evidence that has surfaced, no bona fide irrevocable,
irrefutable evidence that had been surfaced that showed that there is a group called
al-Qaeda that did the September 11 bombings;" that "we now know"
that the World Trade Center fell not as a result of the planes that crashed
into the Twin Towers, but rather "from internal explosive charges,the same
way it's done in a construction site"; and that homosexuals should be
killed because the Koran mandates it.84
In
October 2007, MSA PSU organized a “Peace Not Prejudice” seminar series to
counter the Terrorism Awareness Project’s Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week
activities of that same month. The organization claimed that any discussion centered
on the term “Islamo-fascism” was unacceptable because it “trespasses the
frontiers of freedom of speech that is bounded by the infringement of other
people’s rights with respect to freedom of belief and falsified attack on their
personal integrity.”85
Simultaneously
embracing and rejecting the concept of free speech rights, MSA-PSU stated: “We
believe Penn State University,
as an institution of learning, should provide an opportunity for all to express
opinions in a safe and rational way. We fear, however, that this Islamophobic
program will have hazardous consequences on the Penn State
community. It is important to distinguish between freedom of speech and hate
speech.”86
Meanwhile,
the featured speakers at MSA-PSU’s “Peace Not Prejudice” campaign included the
following individuals:
• Raeed Tayeh:
In its publicity for Tayeh’s appearance, MSA-PSU described him as “an
American-born Muslim and former head of the public relations office of the
Muslim American Society” who “also served as communications director for
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.”87 The
organization made no mention of Tayeh’s prior connections to the Islamic Association
for Palestine and the American Muslims for Jerusalem,88
both
of which had ties to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, the
nowdefunct American fundraising arm of Hamas. Nor did it mention that Tayeh was
also a research fellow for another Hamas front group, the United Association
for Studies and Research; nor that Rep. McKinney had fired Tayeh after the
latter had written a letter to The Hill complaining
about the “pro-Israeli lawmakers” whose “emotional attachments to Israel”
constituted an “Israeli occupation of ... Congress”; nor that on another
occasion, Tayeh had said: “Oh how I dream of that wonderful day, when our
Palestinian flags are raised … when the refugees return, and when Zionism will
die.”89
• Dr. Mehdi Noorbaksh:
In its publicity for Noorbaksh’s appearance, MSA-PSU described him as an
“Associate Professor of International Affairs at Harrisburg
University” who has “published
extensively on the Middle East politics.” But
the organization made no mention of the fact that Noorbaksh had criticized the Danish
newspaper that had published some cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad for
its “selective targeting” of “the very sanctity of the Muslim faith”; and that
he flatly rejects the Western notion that freedom of speech should be protected
in cases where it shows insufficient “respect for the belief held by 1.2 billion
Muslim followers.”
• Lawrence Davidson:
This Associate Professor of History at West Chester University in Pennsylvania,
who actively participates with his colleagues in an academic boycott of Israel,
has condemned Israel’s “barbarism”; stated that Israel is guilty of “killing, robbing
and ethnic cleansing” against Palestinian Arabs; derided Israel’s “evolution …
into a Jewish fascist state”; and asserted that Israeli Jews “will continue to
steal other people’s land, colonize it in violation of international law, and
slowly but surely grind Palestinian culture into dust.”90
NOTES:
78
http://live.psu.edu/story/26802?rss=12
79
http://www.clubs.psu.edu/up/msa/Mission.html
80
http://www.clubs.psu.edu/up/msa/Who_We_Are.html
81
http://www.clubs.psu.edu/up/msa/Islam.html
82
Ibid.
83
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.
asp?indid=1470
84
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories
s942897.htm
http://socaljss.wordpress.com/2007/11/09/racist-antisemiticspeaker-
malik-ali-returns-to-uci/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wf85XZaN1M
http://www.smh.com.au/news/nationalsheik
calls-prime-ministers-com
mentsinflammatory/2005/07/24/1122143727561.html
85
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2007/10/21/muslim_student_
associations_re.aspx
86
Ibid.
87
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individual Profile.
asp?indid=686
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.
asp?indid=1508
88
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6383
89
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6458
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001540
http://www.newsbusters.org/node/6599
90
http://www.counterpunch.org/davidson06092007.html