MOA says IQOU/QOU is “a premier institute for the study of Holy Qur’an, Islamic traditions and Sufic Sciences.”[i]
IQOU operates as MOA’s educational branch and awards certain members with unaccredited degrees. It has also served as a recruiting center for participants in Sheikh Gilani’s guerrilla warfare training courses, as he stated in his secret “Soldiers of Allah” videotape filmed in the early 1990s.[ii]
The FBI said during the trial of Fuqra members for a 1991 bomb plot in Toronto that the International Quranic Open University in Lahore, Pakistan is a front for terrorism.[iii] In 1992, the MOA training camp in Colorado was raided and a letter to Gilani from a MOA member was seized. It was addressed to the Quranic Open University at 18B Upper Mall Scheme, Mian Mir Rd, Jilani House, Lahore, Pakistan.
Internal MOA documents show that the Quranic Open University also had a Dawah Division. Dawah refers to the proselytizing of Islam. The documents state that the QOU’s Dawah Division had a U.S. headquarters at Dawa Center and Publications in Charlotte, N.C. and an international headquarters on Gulberg Road in Lahore, Pakistan.
[i] “International Qur’anic Open University.” The Muslims of America. http://www.tmoamerica.org/organizations/522-iqou/
[ii] The video can be see at the Fuqra Files YouTube channel and more information about the tape is available in the section of this website about terrorist/jihad training.
[iii] Goddard, John. (2010). Forgotten Islamist terror plot targeted Toronto. Toronto Star. https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2010/08/31/forgotten_islamist_terror_plot_targeted_toronto.html
PDF: WM-Letter-on-Existance-of-Quranic-Open-University-and-Dawah-Center
