It wasn’t until the 9/11 World Trade Center terrorist attacks shook America that the global order for the first time took serious cognizance of the threat posed by Islamic extremism to world peace and security. What however awaited as a shocker to investigative and counter-terrorism agencies was how violent terrorist outfits like Al-Qaeda, in this case, were backed by a more complex than the most complicated internal network of Islamic charities and organizations spread worldwide. These entities had dedicated decades to creating a global systematic apparatus to disseminate radical Islamist ideology, proselytizing many in the West. Terrorists who took up arms for jihadist causes ultimately came from this proselytized section of Muslims. Violent extremism after all has roots in none other than ideological extremism. In this regard, the Muslim Brotherhood is a stand-out Islamic organization.
MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD/ THE BROTHERHOOD/ al-Ikhwān al-Muslimūn
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is a religiopolitical organization founded in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna in Egypt. It has time and again claimed to be a peaceful, democratic body that condemns violence in all its forms and manifestations. However, its charitable, accommodating façade is breached by the organizational motto itself which is:
“Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”
The ultimate goal of MB, in a distilled sense, is to unleash jihad against the non-Islamic regimes of the world and establish a global Caliphate. It was MB in fact which first converted Islam into a political activist ideology.
It is pertinent to note that such terrorist outfits as the Al-Qaeda and Hamas have drawn support from the Brotherhood.
Starting in the 1950s, many Middle Eastern governments began cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood, particularly in Egypt. The Ikhwanis (members of the Brotherhood) soon recognized that social and political liberties elsewhere, primarily in Europe and America would enable them to easily spread their Islamist ideology. While the Muslim Brotherhood spans the Middle East and Africa and has spread into Southeast Asia and the West, it has manifested itself globally in very varied forms, ranging from nonviolent political actors to groups that have resorted to terrorism.
https://images.app.goo.gl/ZT3W9MQPPvE3Gbhy5
THE SUCCESS OF MB IN WESTERNIZED NATIONS
The MB has worked in secrecy for decades, to promote Islamist ideology in Westernized societies through planned action.
Western democracy is “corrupt,” “unrealistic,” and “false,” according to former Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Mahdi Akef
“Jihad must be waged against] the Muslim’s real enemies, not only Israel but also the United States. Waging jihad against both of these infidels is a commandment of Allah that cannot be disregarded.”
—Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie, Sept. 2010
The infamous Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial of the early 2000s in the US (HLF was charged with providing millions of dollars to Hamas) led to the public emergence of several internal documents tied to the MB.
The document was Mohamed Akram’s “Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America”.
The 18-pager breaks down the goals into 6 elements:
- Establishing an effective and stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood,
- Adopting Muslims’ causes domestically and globally,
- Expanding the observant Muslim base,
- Unifying and directing Muslims’ efforts,
- Presenting Islam as a civilizational [sic]alternative,
- Supporting the establishment of the global Islamic state wherever it is
“Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions”
- Mohammad Akram
MB’s ideology, as is exemplified both by the said document and otherwise, looms on a bottoms-up approach of rooting Islamist beliefs and concepts in the minds of individuals; leveling up progressively to the family, the society, the State, and ultimately a global order where only and only Islam appears to be the fundamental way of living. This transformation is sought to be achieved over several decades, even centuries, by adhering to the following general points of action:
- Islamic centers operating as ‘House of Dawah’
- Network of local sympathizers
- Education in Islam and indoctrination
- Strengthening of local Muslim communities and their subsequent ghettoization
- Strategic alliances with non-Muslims
MB has success in the Islamization of the West can be assessed against the above-stated strategic action points. It is pertinent to note that be it North America or Europe, MB has deployed pretty much the same standard method of infiltration everywhere in the world.
Islamic centers operating as ‘House of Dawah’
From the time of publication of this document to the present times, mega-scale dawah centers have come to pockmark every nook and corner of America.
The list includes ISNA, which is a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated charity.
https://121islamforkids.com/islamic-dawa-centers-the-big-dawa-centers/
The activities taken up by these dawah centers range from educational and spiritual activities to literature dissemination as enlisted above. If Mohammad Akram’s plan of action is read closely, he had also strategized for Islamic centers to be set up in the Americas as locus points for dawah activities. So, it is safe to say that the current centers have come to develop on lines similar to MB’s vision from the 1990s.
The Furqaan Dawah Centre project is proposed by the US-based Al-furqaan Foundation, supported by the Qatari regime which is in turn a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer. https://furqaandawahcenter.org/
While these dawah centers operate in a highly covert manner, a few investigations wherein some of these centers were cracked down for terror link-ups drive home the point that how their end goal is to embed jihadi thoughts in the minds of their followers.
Network of local sympathizers
MB-led Islamist movement didn’t take shape overnight. A 1977 meeting of MB members, including Youssef Nada, Ghaleb Himmat, and Yusuf Qaradawi among several others, in Lugano culminated in a decision to set up think tanks across Europe and the US to fuel its ideological base. International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) was the first, headquartered now in Virginia, USA.
With secrecy guarding MB’s operations, it is a rare treat that the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial exposed a list of 29 on-ground partners it had in the USA in the 1980s itself, that is, within less than two decades of venturing into that Land. The list is attached below:
As is exemplified by the above list, these MB-affiliated bodies have been exposed across various fields, right from education, research, infrastructure (housing), and politics. Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a US-based non-profit with its origin rooted in a Muslim Students Association (MSA) convention is a stand-out name in the list. ISNA remains an unindicted co-conspirator in the Hamas-support prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), despite its appeals to the court to remove that status.
Besides, ISNA has always been in the news for the controversial remarks posted by its members, contradicting with its claims of being a moderate, peaceful Islamic organization. During ISNA’s 2006 convention, Kamran Memon, an attorney from Muslims for a Safe America, attempted to justify the 9/11 attacks in the US:
“Some Muslims in the Muslim world decided that they were just not going to take it anymore. They were angry at our ongoing support from their enemies, so they began to attack American targets to pressure our government to change its foreign policy. They attacked American targets in 1992 in Somalia; in 1993 in New York; in 1995 and 1996 in Saudi Arabia; 1998 in Tanzania and Kenya; and 2000 in Yemen. But the U.S. government did not change its foreign policy, so those Muslims who decided that they weren’t going to take it anymore attacked America on September 11…… They are also angry at us because they look at us, the elder generations, and they see us sitting on our hands not doing anything serious to alleviate the suffering of Muslims in the Muslim world. And when they get that angry, then they do things like if you believe that Muslims did it, they do things like the London bombings in July 2005; because they see no other way to change American foreign policy other than violence.”
Education in Islam and indoctrination
In 1963, two Brotherhood members, Ahmed Totonji and Jamal Barzinji, who helped form the Muslim Students Association (MSA) in the USA. By the early 2000s, nearly 600 MSA chapters were actively nurturing Islamist ideas among next-generation American Muslims at universities throughout the United States and Canada. American Muslim students, already an identity-wise vulnerable sub-section, with a genuine interest in getting more rooted in their religion would turn to one of these branches in their local universities. What followed was instead a carefully planned and curated exposure to radical Islamic thoughts and Jihadist ideology, and they would become part of a political Islamic group planning the eventual hijack of secular ideals of the Western societies. One book increasingly being cited for discussion by many of these associations is Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s Kitab At-Tawheed, the foundational book for Wahhabi Islam.
Extremists have used MSAs to recruit like-minded youths to the Jihadist cause. Anwar al-Awlaki was an American Islamic preacher and al-Qaeda terrorist killed by a controversial U.S. drone attack. He was formerly President of the Colorado State University MSA
It is pertinent to note that the extent of Islamic schools’ network in the US is equally concerning with regard to a push for Islamic radicalization. There are around 300 Islamic schools in the United States, serving more than 50,000 students. Some schools are registered members of the Council of Islamic Schools in North America (CISNA), and others have earned CISNA accreditation status.
The same pattern of setting up student bodies was followed in Europe as well around the same time.
The International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations (IIFSO), set up in 1969 and headquartered in Turkey is the umbrella organization for More than 100 of such organizations in 70 countries. The youth organization of the Bangladeshi Jamaat-e-Islami, the Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS), is a member of IIFSO. ICS was instrumental in bringing about the 2024 coup ousting the Shaikh Hasina regime.
Strengthening of local Muslim communities and their subsequent ghettoization
The step next to pushing radical ideology among local Muslims in Westernized nations is uniting them under the common cause of the Islamist movement by fanning an us versus them mentality among them. Islamists in Europe are beginning to push for the creation of self-segregated societies—a process that has been labeled “voluntary apartheid.” This tactic has been enthusiastically supported by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has repeatedly advised Muslims living in the West to create their own “Muslim ghettos” to avoid cultural assimilation.
While American Muslims have yet not entertained the idea of forming ‘parallel societies’ as enthusiastically, an alarming spurt in the Muslim population there is rather alarming. This is especially so as demographic change by way of population jihad by Islamists is grabbing attention in international media in the light of President Donald Trump’s latest remarks on the same.
Islam is the second-largest religion in Europe after Christianity now, with socio-economic and legal challenges posed by spurt in Muslim immigrants from the Post-Arab Springs era into European territories is already a concern. And latest population trends forecasted for the American soil only make the future Islamist takeover an imminent threat. The Pew Centre puts forth that The Americas is the only region where the percentage increase in the number of Muslims will be greater from 2010 to 2030 than it was from 1990 to 2010, seeming evidence of targeted action by Islamists.
While demographic change in the West is still a trend under active study, evidence from elsewhere is a case strong enough against the Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘Population Jihad’ agenda.
The Turkish occupation state, with the participation of Muslim Brotherhood associations, is building mosques and settlement complexes in the occupied areas of Syria under humanitarian labels, with the aim of changing the demographic structure and settling mercenary families there.
https://hawarnews.com/en/162402564025287
Strategic alliances with non-Muslims
The Brotherhood’s documents clearly state a need for “a mastery of the art of coalitions and the principles of cooperation.” But while at it, MB has always maintained a clear stance that despite strategic partnerships with non-Muslim partners (including political groups, business class, and trade lobbyists) in newer territories is a pre-requisite to infiltrate the politico-economic apparatus; the focus is not to dwindle off the cause of Islamist movement. Hence, these alliances are only viable to them as long as their own agenda is served.
The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) mentioned earlier in this report is a case in point. IIIT is an MB-affiliated think tank. Abdurahman Alamoudi, a close associate of the IIIT leadership was tasked by the U.S. government in 1991 to select Muslim chaplains for the U.S. military. Between the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was a frequent guest of Presidents Clinton and Bush. However, this was the same person who was later identified by the U.S. Treasury Department as having funneled more than $1 million to a UK-based affiliate of al-Qaeda.
Abdurahman Alamoudi pictured with former US Presidents Bill Clinton & George W. Bush (http://www.cheriberens.net/why-does-the-fbi-ignore-the-35-jihadi-training-camps-and-thousands-of-radical-mosques.html )
A more shocking case however is that of a long-term MB sympathizer and Al-Qaeda leader. He was the Imam at Dar al Hijra Mosque in Virginia (where the FBI participates as an ‘outreach partner’) and gave presentations in the Pentagon as he engaged with US officials on their outreach programs for the Muslim community.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/exclusive-al-qaeda-leader-dined-at-the-pentagon-just-months-after-9-11
These are only two of the many instances that exemplify as to how deeply the Brotherhood penetrated the US political setup between its 1987 meeting to discuss strategic goals of expansion into the US and Canada and the next 20-25 years.
CONCLUSION
When assessed against the goals outlined in the Brotherhood’s classified documents and the crucial writings of its key leaders, it is hard to ignore how MB’s spread of influence in the West spanning several decades is so greatly in alignment with those plans of action as initially outlined. It brings home two points. First, MB is working as per a set plan toward their end goal of establishing of a Global Caliphate. Two, they are a committed group not bound by the constraints of time. To put it briefly, their goals are clear; their progression towards them is slow and yet steady.
Cloaking themselves in civil rights and charity work, the leaders of these organizations have successfully managed to disguise their true agenda: supporting Islamism, and protecting and augmenting the operations of radical groups that support terrorism. Turning a blind eye to the Brotherhood and its ideological extremism is a direct threat to the democratic order which world governments must awaken to take cognizance of. Muslim Brotherhood is a phenomenon which in spite of the challenges it poses for counter-terrorism agencies owing to its unconventional structure and secrecy of operations, must be curtailed at all costs.
