CanadaThe role of women in the rise and development
of Islamic organizations in Canada is one of extra-
ordinary and unique efforts owing to the wide
diversity of people, cultures, races, languages, and
ethnicities within the Muslim Canadian commu-
nity and the Canadian mosaic at large.
The Islamic organization is the primary venue in
which Muslims express and safeguard their iden-
tity. In 1963, Muslim university students founded
the Muslim Students Association of the United
States and Canada (MSA), consisting of 13 chap-
ters across the United States. In 1967, the MSA
encompassed 36 chapters across North America
and by 1970 the number had risen to 68. The estab-
lishment of the MSA took place almost one century
after Muslims first arrived in Canada. History
records the first Muslim presence in Canada as
Agnes and James Love, a Scottish couple who gave
birth to the first Canadian Muslim child in 1854.
The first wave of Muslim immigration began in
1880, and a second wave arrived following the
First World War. The third and major wave of
Muslim immigration came to Canada following the
Second World War.
The multicultural nation-state par excellence
fully welcomed the new waves of refugees and
immigrants fleeing from repressive governments or
simply seeking an opportunity for an enhanced life.
Educational pursuits were swiftly fulfilled, jobs
obtained, and Muslims contributed economically
to the multicultural society. From a mere 13 Mus-
lims in 1871 to 98,165 in 1981, and 579,640 in
2001, organizational bodies sprouted up across
Canada revealing the Canadian Muslim presence,
of which the first was the MSA.
In the initial stages of development of the MSA,
most of the Muslim university students, pre-
dominantly international students, were men. (In
Canada the MSA membership included, in addition
to students, those immigrants who had already
established themselves in the workplace). Conse-
quently the executive committee was comprised of
only men. Eventually, wives of the male MSA mem-
bers became involved as members of the MSA in
their own right. Most of the menial tasks in the
Political-Social Movements: Islamist Movements
and Discourses and Religious Associations
MSA fell to women; these included assisting in the
typing and editing of the first MSA publication, al-
Ittihad, and organizing and founding numerous
structured fundraising projects, such as the bazaar
at each MSA Convention. Consequently, most of
the financial resources of the MSA can be attributed
to the efforts of its female members. The financial
contribution in addition to other behind-the-scenes
work of women formed the backbone of the his-
torical movement.
In 1968, the MSA created a women’s subcom-
mittee as a means for female members to voice their
opinions as well as to initiate projects within the
organization. In 1972, Khadija Haffajee, of South
African descent, was the first woman to lecture
from an MSA platform. Subsequently, she rose to
the position of Canadian Zonal MSA Represen-
tative for women in 1978, a position she held until- During this period, she was the only woman
present at the MSA National meetings in Canada.
Furthermore, Haffajee was the first Canadian
woman to become chairperson of the Women’s
Committee for MSA Continental in 1982. This
position involved overseeing projects conducted
mainly by women, which included developing edu-
cational literature and hosting religious learning
circles and camps. These endeavors fostered some
of the most prominent contemporary women
activists in North America.
In MSA chapters that were dominated by foreign
attitudes and/or cultural paradigms, women were
not publicly or visibly involved. Nonetheless, in
other chapters, women easily occupied advisory
and/or executive positions, including that of presi-
dent. This phenomenon is widely observed com-
mencing in the 1990s when the children of those
who came to North America in the 1960s and
1970s (the generation which initiated the MSA)
entered university or college and became a pre-
dominant part of the MSA themselves (as first gen-
eration Canadians/Americans). Currently, in 2003,
the Continental MSA Executive, which at one point
was all male, consists of five women and three men,
while a female president heads at least 25 percent of
the MSA-affiliated chapters. However, maintaining
a presidency position does not determine the extent
and/or level of women’s activism within the MSA