CHICAGO - While Christians were celebrating the birth of their worldview's Savior Jesus Christ this week, nearby in Chicago's downtown Sheraton Hotel during a four-day conference, Islamists were encouraged to "believe, act and engage" to stir a renaissance of their faith.
The theme of the event is, “Toward a Renaissance: Believe, Act & Engage.” The “Arab Spring associated with the Islamic Awakening in many parts of the Muslim world” is given as an example of this “renaissance.” By “renaissance,” MAS-ICNA means the Islamist ideology. That is the message an expected audience of 9,500 will hear.
The roster of speakers is filled with Islamists, one of which is even called an Islamist in his biography on the convention website. The page for Sheikh Abdelfattah Mourou, a founder of the Tunisian political party Al-Nahda, says he “started his Islamist activities in the 1960s.” He worked alongside Rashid al-Ghannouchi, another one of the party’s founders, who has a very extreme past but is still consistently described as a “moderate” in the Western media.
One major speaker is Tariq Ramadan, who was banned from entering the U.S. in 2004 because of a donation he made to a Hamas front. The ban was lifted in 2010 on orders from Secretary of State Clinton. He is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and the son of Said Ramadan, who was a major Brotherhood leader in Europe.
More on this week's convention on FrontPageMag.com
