Islamic Speakers Bureau Backed By Radical Profs
by Jonathan
Schanzer
American Thinker
May 31, 2009
http://www.meforum.org/2141/islamic-speakers-bureau-backed-by-radical-profs
A California nonprofit dedicated to "teaching about Islam
& Muslims" at U.S. high schools and college campuses features a board
of advisors that is stacked with some of the most controversial activist
professors in the field of Middle Eastern studies today. The imprimatur of
these scholars may signal a troubling shift toward the support of
proselytizing efforts and the further unraveling of Middle East Studies in
America.
The board
of Islamic Networks Group (ING) is a veritable Who's Who of Islamist
apologists and activists. Leading the list is John Esposito, the founding
director of the Saudi-funded Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at
Georgetown University. He famously
stated that the suicide-bombing Hamas organization engages in "honey,
cheese-making, and home-based clothing manufacture."
Joining Esposito on the ING board is Sherman Jackson of the
University of Michigan, who was a trustee at
the North American Islamic Trust and worked
with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), both un-indicted
co-conspirators in the U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation.
There's also Ingrid Mattson, a convert to Islam, who is a
professor at the Hartford Seminary and president of the un-indicted
co-conspirator ISNA. While much of her work is controversial, she is
famous for a CNN
chatroom interview in 2001 in which she stated that the radical Saudi
Wahhabi ideology is "a reform movement" that "really was analogous to the
European Protestant reformation."
Hamza Yusuf Hanson, who is not a scholar but sits on the ING
board, publicly
declared his own extremism at an ISNA convention. In 1991, he
reportedly delivered a speech titled "Jihad is the Only Way" to the
Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), which is an arm of the radical
organization Jamaat-i-Islami in Pakistan.
While Maha El-Genaidi, the
founder, president and CEO of ING, does not appear openly to embrace
radicalism, she reportedly has worked with the
Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), also an un-indicted
co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case. El-Genaidi also participated
in an event sponsored by the Muslim Students Association with Siraj
Wahhaj, an un-indicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center
bombing.
ING's reach is wide. Its web site lists
more than a dozen affiliated organizations in North America. They reflect
a broad network involved in Islamic outreach (da'wa), otherwise
known as proselytizing.
The list of ING affiliates includes such Muslim outreach
organizations as: The Islamic
Speakers Bureau of Nebraska; the
Islamic Resource Group in Minnesota; the Islamic Education and Resource Network
in Michigan; the Islamic Center of
Cincinnati; the Organization of
Islamic Speakers Midwest Illinois; the Islamic Speakers Bureau of
Atlanta; the Kentucky Islamic Resource
Group; the Islamic Speakers
Bureau of San Diego; and the Islamic Speakers Bureau of
Vancouver.
Because ING charges nothing for its campus speeches, hosts
aren't deterred by financial needs. Thus, with a modest 2007 budget of
$356,000, the latest figure available via public tax returns, ING made an
astonishing 750 classroom
visits in one year, a figure that doesn't include visits to churches,
senior centers, corporations, and forums for policemen and healthcare
workers. According to a recent ING
newsletter, the group reached 14,000 students and adults after public
schools and universities responded to a large-scale ING direct mail
campaign.
ING also disseminates its message through the printed word.
Access to the ING online store is now denied for reasons unknown, but a few of
the organization's publications are available on the Internet. Among them
is Arab and Muslim Stereotyping in American Popular Culture by Jack
Sheehan, a former communications professor at Southern Illinois University
who was
also a visiting professor at Esposito's Center for Muslim Christian
Understanding. Another title is Presenting
Ramadan and Eid in Elementary School: Grades K-6 Kit for Parents and
Teachers, designed to generate excitement about these Muslim holy
days through art, music, and "lunar activities."
ING also appears to have created a curriculum about Islam
for grades 7 through
12. It also appears that the State of California, at least at one
point, used ING curriculum. However, the ING links on the California
Department of Education website are now dead.
There is nothing even vaguely radical on the ING website.
The organization's behavior appears to be consistent with its message of
pluralism. One might only observe that the organization attempts to
whitewash the radical strains of the religion (a common theme in the work
of Esposito and Mattson).
Without challenging ING's freedom to preach, two important
observations should be made.
First, it is now clear that some Middle Eastern Studies
professors have ceased being observers of Islam and are now engaging in
its propagation. Countless analysts have noted that Middle Eastern Studies
professors substitute scholarship
with apologia for radicalism. Still others openly agitate
against the United States or Israel. However, it is rare to see
scholars openly lend their support to proselytizing efforts of this
kind.
It is too early to know whether the scholars on the ING
board represent an anomaly or a trend. The motivations of Mattson and
Sherman - both converts to Islam - are somewhat understandable. Esposito,
a non-Muslim, is more of a mystery.
On a more practical level, elementary school, high school,
or college administrators mulling a free visit from El-Genaidi's group
should be forewarned about the academic engine that powers ING. ING's
leading thinkers have a history of cavorting with apologists for
radicalism-and the radicals themselves.
Jonathan
Schanzer, an adjunct scholar at Campus Watch, is deputy
executive director of the Jewish Policy Center and
author of Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for
Palestine.
Related Topics: Academia, Muslims in the United
States, Radical Islam
Jonathan
Schanzer | 
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