Al-Huda Institute is a Salafist organization which runs chain of religious schools with campuses in

Islamabad Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital T ...

and

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

as well as in

Missisauga Mississauga ( ), historically known as Toronto Township, is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is situated on the shores of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, adjoining the western border of Toronto. With a popul ...

, Ontario, Canada.

Ideology

Al-Huda's founder, Farhat Hashimi, has stated that they do not follow any particular sect of contemporary Islam and refer to themselves simply as Muslims as was done during the time of early Islam . It is known for its conservative religious syllabus with a focus on scripture. Faiza Mushtaq, who did her PhD on Al Huda, says the schools produce "activists and reformers" who believe they are returning to "'real Islam, true and pure." Sadaf Ahmad of

Lahore University The University of Lahore ( ur, ), abbreviated as UOL, is a private university located in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. It was founded at collegiate level in 1999 under the IBADAT Educational Trust and was granted full degree awarding status in 2002. ...

says "Al Huda founder Farhat Hashmi's denunciation of various cultural practices and disapproval of Westerners and Indians gives women a new conception of their identity as Muslims."

Canadian Branch

Al-Huda's Mississauga campus opened in 2004 and is a private school accredited by the Ontario Ministry of Education. As of 2015 it offers two main fields of study. There were about 160 female students in kindergarten to Grade 6 attending daily classes. On evenings and weekends the school offers seminars for teenagers and adults.

Students linked to terror groups

Tashfeen Malik, the

i co-perpetrator of a shooting attack in San Bernardino on December 2, 2015, was a student of al-Huda before marrying and moving to California. There she and her husband executed the worst

Islamic terror Islamic terrorism (also known as Islamist terrorism or radical Islamic terrorism) refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists. Incidents and fatalities fr ...

attack in the U.S. since the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

in 2001, killing 14, and seriously injuring, 22 people. Four Canadian female students ranging from 16 to early 20s, attended seminars at the Mississauga branch between about 2013–2015. They then traveled to the Middle East to join ISIL in Syria. The oldest woman attended the school for three months in 2012, and according to an interview her sister gave

CBC News CBC News is a division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC.ca. ...

, she has been living in Syria since summer of 2014. In July 2014 the three younger girls were intercepted by security personal in Turkey and sent back to Canada before they reached ISIL territory.

Notable alumni

* Tashfeen Malik – Islamic terrorist who was one of the perpetrators of the

2015 San Bernardino attack On December 2, 2015, a terrorist attack, consisting of a mass shooting and an attempted bombing, occurred at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. The perpetrators, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married couple ...

in which 14 people were murdered

References

Islamic universities and colleges in Canada Religious schools in Pakistan Terrorism in Pakistan Salafism in Pakistan {{Pakistan-university-stub