Where have you gone, Sayyid Syeed? the ISNA honcho was conspicuously absent from the program, and social media posts of the #ISNA55 conference. Is he okay?
ISNA Rift Over Selling Out To Erdogan
As we reported a few months ago, there’s been a major rift inside ISNA over the organization selling out its soul to the Turkish government. In fact, ISNA uncritically embraced Erdogan by selecting his daughter as its keynote speaker at its annual convention two years ago.
Our sources reported that Sayyid Syeed was strongly opposed to the Erdogan alliance since its start.
Arab Ikhwanis Vs. Pakistani Deobandis, Absent Turks
Afterwards, the conflict escalated to a larger struggle between the USCMO (dominated by Arab Ikhwanis) and the Pakistani Deobandi elite. interestingly, neither Syeed nor USCMO’s Chairman Ousama Jammal appear to have been present at the #ISNA55 convention in Houston.
The other odd absence from the convention is the Turkey love fest itself. After slobbering all over Erdogan’s government in past years, there were no signs of any pro-Turkey advocacy.
ISNA’s Veil of Secrecy
These absences suggest that something is up inside ISNA that has not been made public (shocker!!). My sources are trying to figure it out. Here are a some possibilities:
- ISNA’s Pakistani Deobandi core won the confrontation with the Arab Islamists then decided that it wasn’t a good idea to pal up publicly with Erdogan given his authoritarian image
- The USCMO Arab Ikhwanis decided to cut out ISNA from their partnership with Erdogan in order to keep Turkish funding for themselves
- Erdogan realized that ISNA doesn’t carry that much influence where Turkey needs it and cut off funding.
If any readers have insights to share about this strange development please be in touch.