Muslim Students Association

The Muslim Student Association, or Muslim Student Union, of the U.S. and Canada, also known as MSA National, is a religious organization dedicated to establishing and maintaining Islamic societies on college campuses in Canada and the United States. It serves to provide coordination and support for affiliated MSA chapters in colleges across North America. Established in 1963, the organization now has chapters in colleges across the continent, and is the precursor of the Islamic Society of North America and several other Islamic organizations. The Muslim Students Association has at times been the subject of scrutiny; for example, the New York Police Department (NYPD) targeted MSAs across several US college campuses for monitoring as part of their Muslim surveillance program.

The Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada is also known as MSA National. It is an umbrella organization for all of affiliated chapters at various campuses across the continent. Local chapters are only loosely connected with the parent institution, and often take different names, such as "Islamic Students Association", or "Muslim Discussion Group". Not all campus Muslim groups are necessarily affiliated with MSA National.

There is no fixed hierarchy between MSA National and local chapters; as such, the policies and views of the national organization are not necessarily shared by local chapters. The United States and Canada are divided into five zones, three in the US and two in Canada. Each zone has a zonal representative, chosen by the members of the affiliated chapters within that zone. Chapters make up regional councils.

The first MSA National chapter was formed in 1963 at the campus of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) by international students. The initial leadership came from Arabic-speaking and Urdu-speaking members, with guidance from students of the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood and Pakistan-based Jamaat-e-Islami Islami movements. A Saudi Arabian charity, the wahhabist Muslim World League, provided early funding for the group. Early goals for the movement included the promotion of "a self-definition [that] involves initially and fundamentally [an] Islamic identity" of its members, as well as an appropriate Islamic lifestyle while they were in the US.

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