Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Aslam Abdullah and Ghasser Hathout, 

American Muslim Identity: Speaking for Ourselves (Los 

Angeles: Multimedia Vera International, 2003); Zahid 

H. Bukhari, Sulayman S. Nyang, et al., Muslim’s Place 

in the American Public Square (Lanham, Md.: Altamira 

Press, 2004).

Muslim Students Association

The Muslim Students Association (MSA) was 

founded by 75 foreign students studying in the 

U

nited

  s

tates

 and c

anada

, at a conference con-

vened in January 1963 at the University of Illinois 

at Champaign-Urbana. It has since become the 

largest Muslim organization in North America, 

with chapters at many if not most North American 

colleges and universities. These chapters are com-

posed of undergraduate and graduate students, 

domestic and foreign, enrolled at the host institu-

tions. Depending on how student organizations 

are instituted at each school, they typically have 

faculty advisers and build cooperative relation-

ships with other campus groups. MSA chapter 

funding comes from local fund-raising activities, 

and chapters often qualify for partial funding 

by campus student associations. The national 

organization’s policy on funding states that the 

MSA rejects donations from foreign sources; it 

also opposes funding from any one donor who 

may therefore seek to gain undue influence on a 

chapter. Because the MSA emphasizes the ideal 

of achieving Muslim unity, it accepts members 

without regard to nationality, ethnicity, or Islamic 

religious affiliation. Nevertheless, it bears a strong 

Sunni reformist stamp in its portrayal of Islam and 

its membership, with many of its leaders being 

from South Asia. This has led to the creation of