MONTREAL – A graduation ceremony for a private Muslim school was cancelled Saturday due to the radical views of two guest speakers, the mayor said.

The Academy of North American Sharia had planned to have Salah Alsawy and Omar Shahin speak at the ceremony, which was to be held in the Montreal suburb of Outremont.

"As soon as we received this information, we felt it was essential to cancel the booking," said Outremont Mayor Marie Cinq-Mars in a statement.

Shahin has garnered headlines for declarations that Muslims need to place priority on sharia law over western law.

Alsawy is the secretary general of the Assembly of Muslim Jurists in America, an organization that has voiced support for female circumcision.

In a tweet, Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre said that the decision to cancel the event was reached due to a report on Alsawy and Shahin on QMI’s sister TV station LCN.

The application to use the community centre had mentioned it was for a graduation ceremony but "there was nothing there that would alarm the area," said Outremont communications director Sylvain Leclerc.

The request had not mentioned the academy’s name.

"The word sharia would have set off bells," said Leclerc."