Despite years of controversy over its Muslim Brotherhood ties, the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC)—one of Canada’s largest Islamist-aligned charities—held its annual convention in Toronto from May 16 to 18, 2026. Like previous MAC events, the Toronto convention featured speakers with documented links to terrorist groups and a track record of promoting antisemitism, homophobia, and misogyny. Several speakers had appeared at the 2025 convention, where attendees were exposed to similarly extremist views.
They want a global caliphate.
Diplomat by Title, Islamist by Conviction
Among the returning speakers was Ebrahim Rasool, the former South African ambassador to the United States who was declared persona non grata by the Trump administration in March 2025 following his comments about the MAGA movement.
A long-time champion of Hamas, Rasool has praised the group’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, as “one of the greatest inspirations” and urged Palestinians to “stand up and fight under the flag of Islam” following Yassin’s 2004 assassination. He served as a key contact for Hamas officials visiting South Africa in 2007, appeared as a speaker at Iran’s 2020 Al-Quds Day events alongside Hezbollah supporters, and has described time spent with Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Yusuf al-Qaradawi as among “the most memorable days” of his life. His NGO, the World for All Foundation, maintains close partnerships with the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), a major Brotherhood-linked clerical body.
Ebrahim Rassol.
(DoD photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo via Wikimedia)
Speaking on a panel titled “Proactive Muslims and the Responsibility of Developing Our Society,” Rasool accused the Trump White House, France’s National Rally party, the former Orbán government in Hungary, and the “society of Israel” of perpetuating racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and misogyny on a global scale.
Rasool later invoked the Islamic jurisprudential concept of siyasa—a term rooted in the tending of horses, that has since extended metaphorically to encompass governance in accordance with the general principles of Sharia—to counsel attendees that Muslims are “not here to imitate the worst habits” of the West but “to emulate the best of our traditions.” He structured his address around what he called the “four Rs” of siyasa: “Revolt/Resist,” “Reform,” “Reconstruct,” and “Responsibility,” framing each through a pastoral metaphor drawn from classical Islamic political thought, in which the shepherd represents the ruler, the flock represents the Muslim community, and wolves represent external threats.
The framework carried pointed political application, with South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle invoked as a model for what Rasool characterized as the ongoing “genocide” in Gaza. On “Revolt/Resist,” he urged Muslims to “repel the wolves who come to eat our sheep” and resist external actors he portrayed as abusers of the Muslim community. On “Reform,” negligent or abusive political leaders are shepherds to be removed through the ballot box. “When we are in Canada,” he told attendees, “we need to change the shepherd when it’s needed.” “Reconstruct,” he said, meant moving “from the damage of the past to the promise of the future” once the wolves had been driven out. Using the agricultural metaphors of “cultivate the pasturelands” and “manage our crops,” he counselled Muslims to tend the gains of political victory—the essence of “Responsibility,” the final R.
Later discussing conflicts abroad, Rasool argued that Muslims outside active war zones bore equal responsibility to support resistance movements. “If you are not in the resistance and the revolt in Gaza or in the conflict zones, Sudan and so forth,” he told attendees, “You have the responsibility to support it and to make sure that no arms from Canada goes, no material support, no veto goes there in order to empower the wolves.”
Building the Ummah Through Charity
Rasool was joined on the panel by two other prominent Islamists: Anas Altikriti and Rania Lawendy.
Altikriti participated virtually after reportedly being denied entry into Canada. A director of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), which the U.K. government alleged in 2016 was “dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood,” he has been described as “a key spokesman and lobbyist for the Brotherhood in Britain” and has personally acknowledged those connections in a 2005 interview: “My family is Muslim Brotherhood.” He founded the Cordoba Foundation, designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates in 2014, and a recent MiddleEast24 investigation identified him as a key player within Hamas funding networks in Europe.
Lawendy, former CEO and founder of Action for Humanity Canada, has deep ties to MAC, including as principal of MAC Maple Grove School. Representing Human Appeal Canada, she urged the audience to support afflicted Muslims worldwide—driven not by what she dismissed as the Western “saviour complex” but by religious obligation. Invoking the key Islamic concepts of akhirah (“afterlife”) and sadaqah jariyah (“perpetual charity”), she pressed attendees to invest in a cause that would thrive long after they are gone.
Lawendy recounted a meeting with Hany el-Banna, the controversial founder of the terror-linked Islamic Relief Worldwide, who told her that those in need are not “beneficiaries” but “right-holders”—because “they have a right on our wealth.” She reminded the audience that “humanitarian work is not separate from the development of the ummah (global Muslim community).”
Integrate, Not Infiltrate
The panel’s Q&A featured queries from young audience members seeking guidance on countering threats to Islam’s advancement in the West—a telling indicator of Islamist youth radicalization concerns. One question cut to the heart of it: “How, as young, born-and-raised Canadians, can we apply ourselves—especially in politics—to infiltrate the Western wolves?”
Perhaps wary of fueling longstanding accusations of Islamist entryism in the West, Rasool rejected the language but not the impulse. “We are citizens. Citizens don’t infiltrate their own government. They participate in it,” he said. “We must get out of a language of us-and-them.” He urged young Muslims to leverage their skills to “be at the forefront of solutions,” invoking the golden eras of Andalusia, the Ottoman Empire, and Baghdad as models. When Lawendy suggested substituting “integrate” for “infiltrate,” Rasool embraced the distinction: “We must integrate. Not assimilate. Not isolate. Integrate.”
Altikriti was blunter. “I hate the word “integrate.” This is a tool used to beat the Muslim community. We don’t need to integrate. We need to abide by the law.”
The exchange is revealing. All three speakers counselled against assimilation into Western society, but seemingly differed on how far that rejection should extend. Rasool and Lawendy stopped at instrumental integration—which serves Islamic interests—while Altikriti dispensed with it altogether.
Taxpayer-Funded but Accountability-Free
Other speakers from MAC’s 2025 convention, including Khaled Hanafy, Franck Amin Hensch, Khaled Al-Qazzaz, Hussein Elkazzaz, Fadel Soliman, Wael Haddara, and Jasser Auda—all of whom have been linked to the Muslim Brotherhood or the International Union of Muslim Scholars—attended this year’s convention.
Yasmine Mohammed, author of Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam and co-director of the CLARITy Coalition, was unsparing in her assessment: “The insidious Islamist goal of destroying Western values to replace them with Sharia could not possibly be more transparent. They want a global caliphate. I know this because I grew up going to Islamic schools and mosques in Canada. I was forced into a marriage with an Al Qaeda terrorist in Canada. This has been happening in Canada for decades. Unfortunately, we are not only too arrogant and ignorant to face the threat head-on—we actually continually facilitate the process. Politicians only see the number of Muslims and then pander to whoever will vote for them. It’s a sociopathic, narcissistic, and dangerous strategy that sells their country in exchange for another term in office.”
The speakers’ participation at MAC’s largest annual event reflects the degree of transatlantic coordination between Canadian and European Muslim Brotherhood-aligned entities. Many have longstanding associations with individuals and institutions linked by researchers to the global Brotherhood movement, providing essential context for their remarks on Muslim political engagement in the West.
That context matters for a reason beyond the ideological. MAC holds charitable status and received over $38 million in taxpayer funds between 2020 and 2024. Repeatedly platforming Brotherhood-aligned speakers, including figures deemed inadmissible into Canada, may not breach the letter of charity law, but it arguably violates its spirit. The question that follows is a legitimate one: should an organization with MAC’s record continue to enjoy tax-exempt privileges funded by Canadian taxpayers?
