The Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ) was set up in April 1979 by Mazhar Krasniqi and other Muslim community leaders to draw together the regional Islam organisations of Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury into one centralised New Zealand-wide body.
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Following the creation of the Muslim Association of Canterbury, local Muslims in Christchurch initiated correspondence with other Muslim organisations in Auckland and Wellington, with an eye towards creating a national Muslim organisation and helping to develop the Halal meat trade. On 18 November 1978 the first preparatory meeting was held in Christchurch : Hajji Abbas Ali and Robert “Abdul Salam” Drake (architect of the Ponsonby mosque) came representing Auckland; whilst Hajji Salamat Khan, Dr Hajji Khalid Rashid Sandhu and Abdul Rahman Khan came from Wellington ; Palmerston North was represented by Ali Taal, a postgraduate student from Gambia. A consensus was reached and it was agreed to meet again for further talks and on 15 April 1979 the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ) was formally established. Auckland resident Mazhar Krasniqi (an Albanian SS Goya refugee from Kosovo) was the inaugural president and Dr Hajji Hanif Quazi was the first Secretary-General.
In 1981 Sheikh Khalid Hafiz was appointed Imam of Wellington , a post he held until his death in 1999, and employed as such by the International Muslim Association of New Zealand. Soon after his arrival he was appointed senior religious advisor to the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand.
In June 1984, the Federation signed the first annual contract with the New Zealand Meat Producers Board (later the Meat Industry Association) to provide Halal certification services in exchange for a modest remuneration. The first contract was for $60,000 in 1984. Currently the figure is closer to half a million dollars and helps subsidise much of the Islamic activities across New Zealand.
In April 1988 FIANZ held its first ever South Island AGM at the Canterbury mosque and Christchurch resident Dr Saleh Al Samahy from Saudi Arabia was elected president. A second South Island AGM was held at the mosque (in Riccarton) over 24–25 June 1989 where Dr Sandhu of Wellington was elected president and Dr Al Samahy was made vice-president. The following year a local convert to Islam, Soraiya Gilmour, was appointed FIANZ Treasurer.
In November 2005, the Federation celebrated its 25th anniversary (a year late) and Eid al Fitr in Parliament House, Wellington. The event was attended by the then FIANZ president Muhammed Javed (Zaved) Iqbal Khan (originally from Fiji), the inaugural president Mazhar Krasniqi, and a former president Dr Hajji Muhammed Ashraf Choudhary.
In June 2008 the "FIANZ First Stakeholders Forum" was organised by New Zealand government civil servants at the parliament in Wellington. The theme was "To Build Strong New Zealand Muslim Families" but only a few Muslims were actually invited. Ultimately the only respected and interesting speaker was the Nigerian Dr Mustapha Farouk from Hamilton (whose name remains consistently mispelt in the FIANZ website). The following year FIANZ organised the "FIANZ National Muslim Convention" over 24–25 October 2009 in Auckland and the theme was "Building Strong Muslim Families". This was attended by approximately 300 local Muslims. The most important speaker was Dr Mustapha Farouk and FIANZ Assistant Secretary Brent "Abdul Lateef" Smith (a Major in the New Zealand army).
The current (18 July 2009+) Exceutive Committee includes :
President - Dr Anwar Ghani / Waikato Muslim Association
First Vice President - Muhammed Javed (Zaved) Iqbal Khan / South Auckland Muslim Association
Second Vice President - Mohamed Eshaq Ali / New Zealand Muslim Association
Secretary - Dr Hajji Mohammed Musa / Muslim Association Canterbury
Assistant Secretary - Hajji Abdul Lateef Smith / Manawatu Muslims Association
Treasurer - Adam Awad / International Muslim Association of New Zealand (Wellington)
Assistant Treasurer - Steve Ali Akbar / Otago Muslim Association
Over the past thirty years, with growing numbers of Muslims in New Zealand, there have been a number of serious and ongoing complaints directed at the Federation. The most serious issue centres around whether FIANZ is primarily a religious minority organisation or an ethnic minority cultural outfit : it has been suggested that the Federation conducts its affairs more like a Third World organisation than a New Zealand one. As early as 1983 one Arab Muslim resident in Wellington dismissed FIANZ as "a group of Fijian labourers".[1] More recently FIANZ leadership was tagged "..as a conservative businessmen's club of relaxed Muslims, well integrated in New Zealand society and benignly sexist."[2]
Other lingering criticisms reflect cultural matters.[3] Despite a veritable obsession with the "public" appearance of following the Sunnah, the Federation in fact remains a very personal vehicle. At critical and often seemingly random points, administrative decisions and recognisable general policies (or perspectives), hold little grip : highly subjective evaluations seem to spontaneously decide and attempt to smother further communal discussion on various issues. Positions within the Federation Executive Committee and staff (and indeed staff salaries) seem to be settled less by actual talent or qualification than by arbitrary and fluctuating whims. Above all other considerations, it appears to be the largely undefined and changing will of the Federation president that determines policy which is later presented as conforming to the Sunnah. A good exmple of this has been the recent (2008–2010) dispute over the Halal certification of Nando's in New Zealand : after securing the approval of the Federation ulema FIANZ issued a Halal certificate for chickens served at the restaurant chain, however many Muslims remain unconvinced pointing to the machine-kill of the chooks (which many Muslims find unacceptable).
There is a widespread suspicion among many New Zealand Muslims that a vague small fluctuating group - a Nomenklatura - are manipulating the Federation to keep themselves in positions of authority without any real interest in either advancing the welfare of the New Zealand Muslim minority or spreading Islam in the country. The president selects his Executive Committee from among the most compliant members of the Federation Council at an AGM and then determines their tasks, not according to the legal constitution, but according to personal ambition : he decides his own role within the Federation, and his own tasks and even his own successor. Organised chaos.[4]
There have also been criticisms directed at the close relationship between certain Federation leaders and the New Zealand Labour Party after it was disclosed that FIANZ had contributed over $10,000 to their failed 2008 election campaign.