The Islamic Conversion Operating Inside American Schools, Prisons, Libraries and Institutions
Across the United States, a coordinated network of Islamic organizations is operating inside public schools, prison systems, public libraries, university campuses, teacher conventions, and major sporting events. They distribute Qurans, Sharia law pamphlets, hijabs, and conversion kits. They train missionaries. They place ads on subway cars. They target the FIFA World Cup. They show up in Texas high schools without permission.
They present themselves as educational. They describe their mission as “building bridges of understanding.” They invoke the language of tolerance, inclusivity, and interfaith dialogue.
Their own internal documents tell a completely different story
The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)
ICNA is the hub of this network. Founded in 1968 by South Asian Muslim immigrants, it is the American affiliate of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) which is the Islamist political movement created by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, who taught that Muslims “must strive to change the wrong basis of government, and seize all powers to rule and make laws from those who do not fear God.”
ICNA’s own stated goal: “to seek the pleasure of Allah through the struggle of Iqamat-ud-Deen — the establishment of the Islamic system of life as spelled out in the Qur’an and the Sunnah of Muhammad.”
In plain English: the replacement of American constitutional governance with Islamic law.
ICNA is headquartered in Jamaica, Queens, New York. According to IRS Form 990 filings reviewed through ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer, ICNA reported $5.4 million in revenue and $9.4 million in total assets in fiscal year 2024 and 99.4% were funded by charitable donations, all tax-deductible under U.S. law.
ICNA has chapters in over 22 states and holds conventions drawing tens of thousands of attendees annually.
Its founding leadership included a man convicted of war crimes. Ashrafuzzaman Khan served as ICNA’s Secretary General and led its New York chapter. He was simultaneously a fugitive from international justice.
In November 2013, the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh convicted Khan on 11 charges of kidnapping and murder of 18 intellectuals including doctors, professors, and journalists that were systematically executed in the final days of Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence. Khan served as commander of Al-Badr, a death squad that compiled lists of intellectuals targeted for elimination. Evidence showed he personally shot seven Dhaka University professors.
The court sentenced him to death by hanging. He was tried in absentia. He has lived freely in the United States ever since. When investigators began asking questions in 2013, ICNA quietly removed his name from its website without comment, apology, or acknowledgment.
Congressional and Law Enforcement Findings
A 2018 U.S. House Subcommittee on National Security hearing stated ICNA was “hatched” by Jamaat-e-Islami and discussed its dangerous extremist ties.
A 2019 Congressional investigation specifically named ICNA among organizations posing threats to democracy and human rights.
The Anti-Defamation League in 2009 and 2010 accused ICNA of platforming extremist and antisemitic speakers at its conferences.
ICNA has been identified as part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network by multiple national security researchers and congressional investigators.
ICNA does not operate through a single organization. It has built a network of branch off projects, each with a friendly public face and a common hidden mission.
WhyIslam (1877-WHY-ISLAM)
WhyIslam is ICNA’s flagship conversion project, established in 2000 and headquartered in Somerset, New Jersey. It presents itself as an educational hotline and website dedicated to “clearing up misconceptions about Islam.”
What it actually is was documented by ICNA’s own internal handbook, reviewed by the Middle East Forum:
“WhyIslam is a subdivision of the Dawah [proselytizing] Department that works to promote Islam among non-Muslims.”
The same handbook instructs members to tell non-Muslims a completely different story which is that WhyIslam wants to “build a bridge of understanding” and “educate the American public.” Members are trained to lie about the mission.
WhyIslam has grown to over 1,000 volunteers and hundreds of chapters nationwide. It has placed ads in 1,000 New York City subway cars. It runs a 24/7 bilingual hotline. It mails free Qurans to anyone who requests one. Its stated goal: reaching every American in all 50 states.
GainPeace (1-800-662-ISLAM)
GainPeace is ICNA’s Chicago-based conversion arm, launched in 2009. By its own accounting it has:
Answered 40,000 calls from non-Muslims on its hotline
Mailed 300,000 dawah postcards to Americans in rural areas
Hosted 150 mosque open houses
Put up 90 billboards across the country
Organized 120 dawah training workshops in the U.S., Canada, Caribbean, South America, and Europe
Trained 8,000 Muslims to share Islam with non-Muslims
Averaged one conversion per day through its hotline
GainPeace also runs the “Guidance Behind Bars” program which targets the incarcerated populations in American prisons and a “Dawah Van Initiative” that travels to communities to spread Islam door-to-door.
The National Dawah Academy
ICNA’s National Dawah Academy offers a formal Diploma Program in Field Dawah Studies and training full-time Islamic missionaries at $59 per course. Its website states the goal is “sharing the message of Islam with every American through Quran distribution, mentorship, and community outreach in all 50 states.”
Current active programs listed on
include:
Reaching rural communities through digital dawah “where mosques don’t exist”
Setting up Islamic resources at local libraries nationwide
Educating teachers about Islam in classrooms
Sharing Islam at major sporting events
Sharing Islam at book fairs across the country
Door-to-door neighbor outreach with “dawah kits”
On-the-ground dawah at community events, festivals, and gatherings nationwide
IslamInSpanish
IslamInSpanish is a Houston-based dawah operation targeting 40+ million Spanish-speaking Americans. It runs a 10,200-square-foot Islamic center in the Alief district of Houston and operates a professional media studio to spread Islam across the Americas. Its core message frames Latin American history as rooted in Islamic Spain telling Latinos that “your roots are in Muslim Spain” as a conversion hook.
In March 2026, taxpayer-funded school buses from Humble Independent School District in Texas transported more than 30 students from Kingwood and Atascocita High Schools to the IslamInSpanish center — a trip organized in part by the school’s Muslim Student Association.
WHERE THEY ARE OPERATING RIGHT NOW
WhyIslam representatives entered Wylie East High School during lunchtime In February of 2026 and distributed: free Qurans, hijabs to female students, and “Understanding Shariah” pamphlets. They had no permission. The district confirmed: “Outside organizations are not permitted to distribute materials to students without prior approval.” A staff member was placed on administrative leave. The superintendent apologized publicly, saying: “Public schools are not the place for promoting personal belief systems.”
What the media coverage almost universally failed to mention: WhyIslam is a conversion front, its parent organization’s handbook instructs members to lie, and its former leader is a death-row war criminal.
Texas: Humble ISD (March 2026)
Taxpayer-funded buses from Kingwood and Atascocita High Schools took more than 30 students to the IslamInSpanish Islamic Center in Houston — organized by the school’s Muslim Student Association. The trip was described as an “educational” field trip. The center’s explicit purpose is dawah converting non-Muslims to Islam.
New Jersey: NJEA Teachers Convention (November 2024)
At the nation’s largest educator gathering the New Jersey Education Association Convention with over 300 professional development programs ICNA was granted a prominent booth. They distributed “teacher guides” instructing educators to:
Give Muslim students designated prayer spaces during school hours
Ensure halal food options
Enforce hijab requirements and modesty codes on female Muslim students
Provide female-only swimming classes, private showers, and female sports partners
This was framed as inclusivity guidance. It was a Sharia compliance instruction manual, distributed at a taxpayer-funded professional development event.
College and University Campuses
The Muslim Students Association (MSA) is present at nearly 600 campuses across the United States and Canada, with roughly 150 directly affiliated with MSA National. MSA was founded in 1963 by Brotherhood members and was explicitly listed as part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s U.S. network in a 1991 internal Brotherhood strategy document.
A 2007 NYPD report called MSA chapters “potential incubators” for extremism, noting: “Extremists have used these university-based organizations as forums for the development and recruitment of like-minded individuals.” The NYPD identified seven specific MSA chapters of concern and investigated Salafi radicalization permeating others.
Former MSA leaders who went on to extremist activity include:
Anwar al-Awlaki — MSA president at Colorado State in the 1990s, later became al-Qaeda cleric linked to the 9/11 attacks and 2009 Fort Hood shooting
Ferid Imam — former MSA president charged in connection with a 2009 plot to bomb New York subway cars
Multiple other MSA-affiliated individuals charged with terror-related offenses in the U.S. and Canada
MSA National’s own stated mission includes “campus activism and dawah” proselytizing to non-Muslim students. MSA chapters across the country host “interfaith tables,” Ramadan iftars open to non-Muslims, and Islamic Awareness Weeks specifically designed to introduce Islam to non-Muslim students.
Prisons
ICNA explicitly lists “Dawah in Prisons” as a core program. GainPeace operates the “Guidance Behind Bars” program, mailing conversion kits to incarcerated Americans and providing follow-up mentorship to new converts. No national oversight exists for what materials are being distributed to vulnerable populations in American prisons, or how many converts are being made.
Libraries
ICNA’s National Dawah program lists “setting up Islamic resources and conversations at local libraries nationwide” as an active ongoing initiative. Representatives show up at public libraries to distribute free Qurans and engage patrons in conversion conversations — funded by tax-exempt donations.
Major Sporting Events
WhyIslam and GainPeace ran outreach booths at the 2026 Super Bowl in the San Francisco Bay Area, distributing Qurans and brochures under slogans like “Is Life Just A Game?”
The 2026 FIFA World Cup (June 11 – July 19, across 11 U.S. host cities: New York/New Jersey, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Seattle, Kansas City, San Francisco Bay Area, and Boston) has been branded by WhyIslam as “the biggest dawah opportunity of a lifetime” and “a once-in-a-generation dawah moment.”
Their own campaign video states: “Millions will descend on American cities… This is not just a sporting event it is an unprecedented chance to share the message of Islam with people who may never otherwise encounter it.”
Plans include: 20 nationwide billboards in host cities, booth operations, literature distribution, and volunteer mobilization across all 11 cities — targeting 5 million+ international visitors from 48 nations.
Billboard and Transit Advertising — Nationwide
Dallas: Highway billboards seen by millions of commuters
New York City: 1,000 subway cars plastered with WhyIslam ads
Chicago: GainPeace bus advertisements citywide
Nationwide: 90+ billboards erected by GainPeace alone
Every organization in this network follows the same operational playbook. It has five stages, and it is not speculation. It is spelled out in ICNA’s own internal handbook:
Stage 1 — Individual Level: Convert individuals. Build a committed base of members. This is the primary role of WhyIslam, GainPeace, and MSA chapters.
Stage 2 — Family Level: Strengthen Muslim family units. Support new converts. Build community bonds. ICNA’s Embrace program and convert support networks handle this.
Stage 3 — Societal Level: Penetrate social institutions. Provide social services, gain community trust, infiltrate schools, libraries, and civic spaces while proselytizing. This is where WhyIslam in Texas schools, ICNA at teacher conventions, and CAIR in school districts operate.
Stage 4 — State Level: “Islam gains traction in a larger segment of society and a good part of the society’s thinking individuals join the movement. Then it may move to establish an Islamic society, obedient to Allah’s commands.”
Stage 5 — Global Level: “Wherever the Islamic movement succeeds to establish true Islamic societies, they will form coalitions and alliances.” The endgame: a global Islamic caliphate.
The handbook explicitly instructs members to misrepresent Stage 3 operations. When operating WhyIslam in public:
Tell non-Muslims: “We want to build a bridge of understanding”
Tell members: “We are advancing the Establishment of Islam”
The same pattern applies across every organization in the network. CAIR calls itself a civil rights group. ISNA calls itself a Muslim community service organization. MAS calls itself a charitable and religious nonprofit. MSA calls itself a college faith club. IslamInSpanish calls itself a cultural education center.
Every one of them, by their own internal documents or by the findings of congressional investigations, federal courts, and law enforcement, pursues a deeper agenda than the one they show to the public.
They have big plans for 2026:
FIFA World Cup 2026 — The Biggest Dawah Campaign in History
Starting June 11, 2026, the FIFA World Cup comes to the United States. WhyIslam has called it “the biggest dawah opportunity of a lifetime.”
Here is their publicly stated operational plan:
20 nationwide billboards in all 11 host cities
Volunteer booth operations in New York/New Jersey, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Seattle, Kansas City, San Francisco Bay Area, and Boston
Literature and Quran distribution targeting 5 million+ international visitors
Digital dawah campaigns targeting visitors who may “never otherwise encounter” Islam
Rural America — The New Frontier
ICNA’s National Dawah website explicitly lists “reaching communities in rural areas through digital dawah bringing the message of Islam where mosques don’t exist” as an active current program. Rural American communities, which have had almost no exposure to Islamic proselytizing, are now being deliberately targeted through social media, digital ads, and mail campaigns.
The Latino Community — 40 Million Targets
Both ICNA (through a Spanish-language WhyIslam site) and IslamInSpanish explicitly identify America’s 40+ million Spanish speakers as a primary conversion target. WhyIslam’s National Dawah site describes reaching “40M+ Spanish speakers in America a vastly underserved community hungry for truth.”
Teacher Training — Shaping the Classroom
ICNA’s ongoing national program “educating teachers about Islam to foster understanding and combat misinformation in classrooms” is continuing to expand. What happened at the New Jersey teachers’ convention in 2024 was not an isolated event. It was a preview.
The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics
After the World Cup, the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics will bring another 5+ million international visitors to California. WhyIslam has already identified it as the next major target event.
Every organization named in there is registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit under U.S. law. This means:
All donations to them are tax-deductible and American taxpayers subsidize their conversion campaigns
They are exempt from most federal, state, and local taxes
They enjoy broad legal protections for religious activity
They can legally proselytize in many public spaces
Their internal communications are largely shielded from public scrutiny
No law currently prevents a 501(c)(3) organization from training its members to lie about its mission to the public, as long as that mission is framed as religious. No law prevents an organization from targeting public school students for conversion, as long as they are invited by a student club. No law prevents an organization whose former leader is a convicted war criminal from continuing to operate, collect donations, and receive tax-exempt status.
This is the gap these organizations exploit. And they have been exploiting it, systematically, for over 50 years.