During the 18th annual MAS-ICNA Convention held at the McCormick Place in Chicago in December 2019, Nihad Awad and Hatem Bazian were panelists for the Islamic Movement clearinghouse Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), whose executive director is Dalia Mogahed. Bazian is co-founder (along with Hamza Yusuf and Zaid Shakir) and Professor of Islamic Law and Theology at Zaytuna College. In the late 1980s, Bazian, while a student, was an outspoken advocate for the Central American Solidarity Movement, an entity known for its open embrace of communist ideology.
