Islamist organizations have launched aggressive proselytization campaigns using the FIFA World Cup series to recruit new converts in 16 cities of the United States, Canada, and Mexico, where the tournaments that began in early June and will end on July 19.
The West Zone of the Muslim Ummah of North America (MUNA), in collaboration with the Hollywood Mosque, kicked off its dawa (proselytization) at SoFi Stadium in California on June 13, with banners inviting football fans to “discover Islam” as a “faith of peace, purpose, and submission to the Creator.”
Dawa is to the Islamists of today what the ‘long march through the institutions’ was to 20th-century Marxists.
MUNA missionaries offered free copies of the Qur’an in English, Spanish, Bengali, and other languages, promoting the Islamic text as a book that “has inspired billions of people for over 1,400 years” and Islam as a religion “regardless of race, language, nationality, or background.”
“Global events such as the FIFA World Cup provide a valuable opportunity to connect with people from diverse religious, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds and to present the true teachings of Islam,” organizers said in a report published in the MUNA bulletin.
MUNA Islamist Roots in Jamaat-e-Islami
Researchers and security analysts have widely recognized MUNA as the US-based affiliate of the violent South Asian Islamist movement, Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, identified by a US Congress Resolution as a theocratic group posing a “threat” to “democracy and human rights.”
The movement was founded in India by the Islamist theorist Abul Ala Maududi, whose ideas about Islamist conquest helped shape the development of groups like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. A Focus on Western Islamism (FWI) report identified the regular presence of Bangladeshi leaders and supporters of Jamaat-e-Islami at MUNA events.
Islamist missionaries are already bragging about their success in winning converts to Islam. The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), through its dawa project, WhyIslam, released the video testimony of Ricardo, a Mexican airport worker in Mexico City, who recited the shahāda (Islamic creed) on camera and converted to Islam as a result of an ICNA preacher’s proselytism.
“ICNA and WhyIslam teams are busy doing dawah across 16 host cities in 3 countries. Ricardo was day one. There are many more like him about to arrive,” ICNA boasted, announcing that it would conduct 300 dawa events, advertise on billboards, and distribute the Qur’an in all FIFA’s host cities. “Dawa has always been the top priority of ICNA. This focus has kept ICNA at the forefront of dawa activities in North America for the past four decades,” the organization noted.
ICNA Glorifies Jihadist Ideology
Islamism analysts have warned of ICNA’s Islamist links and goals. ICNA was founded by activists associated with Jamaat-e-Islami and has been described by the Investigative Project on Terrorism as having “glorified jihad and martyrdom and advocated JI’s Islamist ideology as a panacea to problems afflicting the global Muslim community.”
As per a January FWI report, several keynote speakers at a December 2025 Islamic conference co-hosted by ICNA had lengthy track records of hatred, antisemitism, and extremism, including Imam Yasir Qadhi, who previously described the Holocaust as false propaganda.
A research paper published on the SSRN preprint platform titled “ICNA’s Islamist Propaganda and Jihad Advocacy” uncovers ICNA’s connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, its Tarbiyah (training) process for establishing an Islamic state, and its partnerships with Islamist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hizbul Mujahideen, and Al-Khidmat as well as with MUNA.
A 2010 Member’s Handbook published by ICNA’s Tarbiyah Department defines it as “an Islamic Jama’ah, an entity striving toward Iqamat-ad-Deen (‘Establishment of the Religion’) in North America” and outlines a strategic approach, listing five stages to attain a global Caliphate.
Charity Watchdog Probes UK-Based Dawa Organization
Another controversial organization that has launched a World Cup Dawah project is the Islamic Education & Research Academy (IERA), which claims to have distributed over a million books, leaflets, and dawa cards to over 100 countries around the world, making thousands of converts.
The UK-based group notes that the World Cup is “a unique opportunity to share the message of Islam” since “millions of football fans from every nation [are] gathering in one place.” It even advertises its achievements: 13,910 people reached; 469 people have recited the shahāda.
IERA was investigated by the Charity Commission for England and Wales amid allegations that its leaders promote anti-Semitism and have called for homosexuals and female adulterers to be stoned to death. The inquiry, which ended in 2016, asked trustees to do more to prevent associating with entities that “encourage or support terrorism and/or extremist views.” IERA reported an income of £3,191,052 for the financial year ending June 2025.
Another major dawa initiative for the World Cup is being driven by the Al-Furqaan Foundation through its “The Clear Islam” project. The missionary project uses advertising asking fans if they are “ready for the result … when the final whistle blows.” It states: “We are not here to convert you. We are here to connect with you. Our mission is not to preach, but to share.”
Experts Warn of Dawa as Trojan Horse to Islamic Caliphate
But scholars and ex-Muslims have warned that dawa is not simply the sharing of Islamic faith as is understood in the Christian sense of “evangelism.” The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain warns that dawa is a “huge industry which sometimes uses misinformed or misleading arguments that largely go unchallenged.”
“Dawa as practiced by radical Islamists employs a wide range of mechanisms to advance their goal of imposing Islamic law (sharia) on society,” Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a human rights activist and former Muslim, explains in her book The Challenge of Dawa: Political Islam as Ideology and Movement and How to Counter It. “The ultimate goal of dawa is to destroy the political institutions of a free society and replace them with the rule of sharia law.”
“Dawa is not the Islamic equivalent of religious proselytizing,” Ali said in her 2017 testimony before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Ali cited Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Sheikh ibn Baz, who explained how dawa and jihad work together: “The aim of dawa and jihad is not to shed blood, take wealth, or enslave women and children; these things happen incidentally but are not the aim… The truth has been spread through the correct Islamic dawa, which in turn has been aided and supported by jihad whenever anyone stood in its way.”
“Dawa is to the Islamists of today what the ‘long march through the institutions’ was to 20th-century Marxists. It is subversion from within, the use of religious freedom to undermine that very freedom,” Ali emphasized.
“It is interesting to see several well-funded Islamic organisations investing in engaging in dawa during this World Cup. These Muslims are bold and confident, and their presence at World Cup events is a visible reminder of the increasing influence of Islam in the West,” Tim Dieppe, Islamic scholar and Head of Public Policy at Christian Concern told FWI.
“Their aim is nothing less than the Islamisation of the West. Engaging in dawa is a step towards that aim,” he warned.
