An African news portal is reporting on what is described as the first conference of the Muslim World League (MWL) that was recently held in Nigeria. The allAfrica.com report begins:
14 APRIL 2013 It was the grandest Muslim conference held in Nigeria in a long time, and Vice President Mohamed Namadi Sambo spent three full days in Sokoto attending it. It was the first conference of the Muslim World League ever held in Africa, and it was a small miracle that Sokoto was chosen as the venue for this event. Quite right, Sokoto was always in very good standing as the capital of the old Sokoto Caliphate, one of the most remarkable phenomena of Muslim state building and religious reinvigoration ever seen on the African continent. The Muslim World League [MWL], also known by its Arabic name Rabita al-Alam al-Islami?, is one of the largest Islamic non-governmental organisations in the world with its headquarters in the holy city of Makka, Saudi Arabia. It was founded in 1962 by eminent Muslim figures from 22 countries led by the then Saudi Crown Prince Faisal ibn Abdul Aziz, who later became King of Saudi Arabia. Back in the 1960s, the Sardauna of Sokoto Sir Ahmadu Bello was one of the important figures who promoted the MWL’s world-wide work, which included advocating the application of the rules of the Shari’a either by individuals, groups or states and coordinating the efforts of Islamic preachers the world over. Other functions of Rabita include developing methods for the propagation of Islam, peacefully in accord with the Qur’an and the Sunnah; education and culture; holding symposia, rehabilitation, and refresher courses; bringing intellectuals and opinion leaders together during the pilgrimage season with the aim of fostering closer relations among them and urging them to develop practical methods of raising the standard of Muslims in the world; overseeing the activities of the Fiqh Council and lending it the support it needs to find Islamic solutions to contemporary problems; promoting activities that aim at spreading the Arabic language and raising the standard of teaching to both Arabs and non-Arabs; setting up branch offices as well as Islamic centres to serve the purpose of Islam; extending urgent relief to Muslims affected by war and natural disasters; and making the activities and construction of mosques more effective.
Read the rest here.
The Muslim World League was established in 1962 as a means for the propagation of Saudi “Wahabbi” Islam. Muslim Brothers played an important role in its founding and, to date, the League has been strongly associated with the Brotherhood.
A post from November 2011 reported that the NIgerian branch of the U.S. based International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) sits on an Islamic coordination council in Nigeria. As discussed in a post from August 2007, the website of the Muslim Student’s Society of Nigeria states that it played a “leading role” in the formation of a variety of important Islamic organizations, both internationally, and in the U.S. including IIIT. According to a recent Hudson Institute report, IIIIT was founded in the U.S. in 1980 by U.S. Muslim Brotherhood leaders including Jamal Barzinji and Hisham Altalib who wished to promote the “Islamization of Knowledge” and who were also early leaders of ISNA. IIIT was associated with the now defunct SAAR Foundation, a Saudi-funded network of Islamic organizations located in Northern Virginia that was raided by the Federal government in March 2002 in connection with the financing of terrorism and both organizations had been under investigation at that time by the U.S. Justice Department until at least mid 2007.