Al-Huda Institute is a Salafist[1] organization which runs chain of religious schools with campuses in Islamabad and Karachi, Pakistan as well as in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
[4] 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.
"[4] Sadaf Ahmad of Lahore University 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.
[6] Tashfeen Malik, the Pakistani 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.
The oldest woman attended the school for three months in 2012, and according to an interview her sister gave CBC News, she has been living in Syria since summer of 2014.