The website of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) has reported that The Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) held its annual meeting in Herndon, Virginia on July 31-August 1, 2007. The report notes the close relationship between FCNA and the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR) which it calls the FCNA “counterpart in Europe.”:
The Fiqh Council of North America in its meeting in Herndon, Virginia on July 31-August 1, 2007 noted with satisfaction the recent Fatwa of its counterpart in Europe “the European Council for Fatwa and Research” related to the permissibility of the use of calculation method for determining the beginning of Lunar months including the months of Ramadan and Shawwal.
No further details on the meeting were provided.
FCNA is an organization comprised of Islamic scholars, most if not all of whom are associated with the Muslim Brotherhood global network, including Jamal Badawi who has been identified in a recent post as probably associated with the Shura Council of the North American Brotherhood. FCNA grew out of the activities of the Muslim Student Association (MSA) and later became affiliated with ISNA, itself an outgrowth of MSA. FCNA maintains a relationship with other similar bodies in the global Muslim Brotherhood including, as noted above, the ECFR as well as the Islamic Fiqh Academy in Saudi Arabia. The ECFR, headed by global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi, is a component of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), the Muslim Brotherhood umbrella group in Europe and its membership is also comprised of many individuals associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Two individuals known to be ECFR members, Jamal Badawi and Solah Soltan, are also associated with the FCNA. As a previous post has reported, Soltan recently left the U.S. after his citizenship application was denied.