The Muslim Brotherhood: An Association for
Jihadists
By Frank
Salvato
One of the more
clandestine groups in radical Islam is the Muslim Brotherhood. Originating in
Egypt in 1928, the group has been outlawed in Egypt yet it members hold seats in
the Egyptian government. That this radically fundamentalist Islamist group is
the parent organization to some of the most violent terror groups operating
today. It thrives as a pseudo professional association for terrorists while
feigning legitimacy as a political movement. So, what is the Muslim Brotherhood
and why should every American be concerned about its activities both within the
United States and around the world?
The Muslim
Brotherhood has become a central issue in federal court proceedings now taking
place in Dallas, Texas. These proceedings involve what, until now, has been
portrayed as an Islamist philanthropic organization, The Holy Land Foundation.
But the Muslim Brotherhood, the Holy Land Foundation and over 300 unindicted
co-conspirators are enabling and funding terrorist groups around the world with
money derived from people right here in the United States.
The Muslim Brotherhood is the name of a world-wide Sunni Islamist
movement, which has spawned several religious and political organizations in the
Middle East, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, dedicated to the
jihadi credo:
"God is our
objective, the Quran is our Constitution, the Prophet is our leader, struggle is
our way, and death for the sake of God is the highest of our
aspirations."
It should be
noted that al Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahri, joined the Muslim Brotherhood at age fourteen.
It should also be noted that the Muslim Brotherhood was responsible for the
assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
The Muslim
Brotherhood was conceived in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna, a 22-year-old elementary
school teacher, as a fundamentalist Islamic movement in the aftermath of the
collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent ban of the caliphate system.
Al-Banna believed that Islam was not only a religious dogma but an all-inclusive
way of life. Al-Banna based his fundamentalism on the tenets of Wahhabism,
supplementing the radically fundamentalist Islamic education for the Society's
male students with jihadi training.
As stated in the
organization’s charter and on its website, the Muslim Brotherhood seeks to
install an Islamic empire ruled under Sharia Law and a Caliphate across the
Muslim world and ultimately the entire world, through stages designed to
“Islamisize,” incrementally, targeted nations. We can witness this very action
taking place in Europe today.
The Muslim
Brotherhood has been active in the United States since the 1960s. Its goals,
both stated and as perceived through their actions, have included propagating
Islam and creating havens for and integrating Muslims into the US. One of their
main strategies for achieving these objectives has been dawah or Islamic
renewal and outreach. In the 1960s, groups such as US military personnel, prison
inmates and African-Americans were specifically targeted for dawah.
The Muslim
Brotherhood has succeeded in setting up numerous US front groups since the 1990s
that should be regarded as hostile and a threat to the United States, according
to Stephen Coughlin, a lawyer and military intelligence specialist on the
Pentagon Joint Staff.
Islamist
activists involved with the Muslim Brotherhood have started organizations in the
US including the Muslim Students Association in 1963, North American Islamic
Trust in 1971, the Islamic Society of North America in 1981, the American Muslim
Council in 1990, the Muslim American Society in 1992, and the International
Institute of Islamic Thought in the 1980s.
In a September
2007 memorandum, Coughlin explains that many US Muslim aid and civil rights
groups viewed as moderate by the Justice Department and other government
agencies are linked to the pro-jihadi Muslim Brotherhood. The groups are also
engaged in influence and deception operations designed to mask their activities
and the overriding goal of their organization, that being the advancement of
Islamofascist doctrine within the United States.
In December 2001,
the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control joined the
European Union in designating the Holy Land Foundation as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist
group.
In July of 2004,
a federal grand jury in Dallas, Texas, returned a 42 count indictment against
the Holy Land Foundation. The charges levied against the organization included:
conspiracy, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, tax
evasion and money laundering. The indictment alleged that the Holy Land
Foundation provided more than $12.4 million to individuals and organizations
linked to the terrorist group Hamas from 1995 to 2001.
The ensuing trial
has exposed a direct connection between the Holy Land Foundation and the Muslim
Brotherhood in the release into evidence of several documents, one of these
documents being the "Ikhwan in America."
The “Ikhwan in
America” is essentially a 20 point plan to replace the American Democratic
Republic with an Islamist State ruled under Sharia Law. This document reveals
that the Muslim Brotherhood engages in activities ranging from going to camps to
do weapons training (referred to as Special work by the Muslim Brotherhood), to
engaging in counter-espionage against US government agencies such as the FBI and
CIA (referred to as Securing the Group).
One key excerpt
of this 20 point plan is as disturbing as it is revealing:
"The process
of settlement is a 'Civilization-Jihadist Process.' The 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."
Recently, the
Justice Department participated in a conference held by the Islamic Society of
North America in Chicago. The ISNA, directly linked to the Muslim Brotherhood,
is one of 300 unindicted co-conspirator groups, including the Council on
American-Islamic Relations, named in the Holy Land Foundation indictments.
Congressman Peter
Hoekstra of Michigan and Congresswoman Sue Myrick of North Carolina wrote to
then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to express their concern over the Justice
Department's attendance at the ISNA conference describing their participation as
a "grave mistake" as it would serve to legitimize a group with "extremist
origins." The Justice Department’s response was that its participation at the
weekend meeting was part of an "outreach efforts...to educate the public about
how the department works to protect religious freedom, voting rights, economic
opportunity, and many other rights."
When one
reconciles this statement from the “Ikhwan in America,”
“The 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...”
with this
statement from the Justice Department’s response to Congressmen Hoekstra &
Myrick,
“...participation at the weekend
meeting was part of an "outreach efforts...to educate the public about how the
department works...”
one can
successfully argue that the US Justice Department was walking into – and
continues to facilitate – information gathering activities by an organization
whose goal is to replace the sovereignty and authority of the US Constitution
with Sharia Law in their quest for a global Caliphate.
The Muslim
Brotherhood, an ideologically radical and fundamentalist jihadi group, is, in
essence, the ideological association that binds all Islamist jihadi groups
together. It is global, it has massive financial means and it is targeting
Western Civilization.
Related Reading:
The Muslim Brotherhood: Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_brotherhood
Ayman al-Zawahri
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayman_al-Zawahiri
The Muslim Brotherhood: FAS
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/mb.htm
The Holy Land Foundation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Land_Foundation_for_Relief_and_Development#Terrorism_charges
The NEFA Foundation
http://www.nefafoundation.org/hlfdocs.html
Inside the Ring: Jihadist Threat
http://www.gertzfile.com/gertzfile/ring091407.html
