| Many American Commentators have labeled the
Muslim Brotherhood as "radical Islamists" deeply hostile to
America. Hostile to any government that is unwilling to
convert to Islamic Law and governing. So why in the 1960's did the
organization establish a chapter in the United States?
After all America is a democracy. There was not a strong
Muslim presence in the United States. America is friend and
ally to Israel the arch enemy of fundamental Islam. Well
the answer is complex but we will do our best to shed light on
this very secretive movement that has changed the face of
American Islam.
During the 1960's an influx of Muslims arrived in the United
States to study at American Universities. Some of the
students were members of the Muslim Brotherhood in their
homelands and decided the best way to create unity among
Muslims in America and to recruit from this pool of possible
candidates for the Muslim Brotherhood was to create the Muslim
Students Association in 1963. The main concentration was
in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan schools. They hoped to
spread the Brotherhood's ideology with other Muslims in
America and provide support for the new Muslims arriving
yearly to take advantage of the American education system and
to gain life experience. To many the transition from the
Muslim world to American culture was too dramatic and they
felt too isolated due to their beliefs. The purpose of
creating these types of organizations in America was to make
the transition for Middle Eastern Muslims easier.
There was not a lot of attention paid by Americans to the
influx of the Muslim students arriving more and more
frequently as each year passed. Many believed it was an
educational and a cultural exchange. To many Muslim
students this was exactly what it was. However much light was revealed on the organization at the university
level of the Muslim Brotherhood Chapter in the United States.
In government exhibits presented in the United States of
America vs. Holy Land Foundation it presented the following
information:
Even though Sayyid Qutb a very influential Muslim
Brotherhood member detested American culture and believed that
America was no place for Muslims, persecution of the
Brotherhood members in Egypt and other Middle Eastern
countries still forced many to flee their native
countries for America. Qutb ideology preached that
America was an evil culture and a threat to the Islamic world
based on his experience living in America during 1949 while at an
American college.. His writings have been very
influential to many militant Islamic groups including al
Qaeda. Inside American mosques and in the student unions
at the higher education institutions of higher learning there
has been a growing issue of fundamental Islam that preaches
and practices disdain for American culture and politics.
An atmosphere of conservative leadership working within the
American framework is creating small cells of possible
terrorist minded individuals that are capable of acting out
the next 911. American born citizens have converted to
Islam and some are gravitating toward the conservative styles
of groups like the Taliban and al Qaeda. It is unfair to
label all Muslims in America as possible terrorists and it
would be an unacceptable practice. However, for one to
say that this type of recruitment and secrecy coupled
with a goal of creating a worldwide Muslim government as
proposed by the driving force of the Islamification of America
within the Muslim Brotherhood would be dangerous and
irresponsible. In the future it is certain that we will
see more and more American born individuals associated with
terrorism organizations. At the current time the
creation of this dilemma is in it's infancy. Over time
it would not be surprising to see more John Walkers (American
Taliban) and
Adam
Gadahn
(American al Qaeda). The
reason this is stated is because The Muslim Brotherhood and
the Saudi government has made it no secret that they are eager
to build as many mosques in North America as possible as a
place for worship for the future converts to Islam.
According to the Mapping Sharia in America Project we do know
there are approximately 6 million Muslims in the US. This
number is growing exponentially. David Gaubatz, the director
of counterintelligence and counterterrorism for the Society of
Americans for National Existence (SANE) told Insight Magazine,
"Our initial investigation has concluded there are between 400
to 500 radical Islamic centers in the U.S. In those places,
they preach an extreme version of Islam that says America and
the West are the enemy. They espouse violence, hatred and the
need for terrorism." Many of the Islamic centers are operating
under the auspices of the Saudi Arabian government and U.S.
front groups for the radical Muslim Brotherhood based in
Egypt. For more information check out our article:
Terrorist
Sleeper Cells in America
According to a leader in the organization involved in the
case The United States of America vs. Holy Land Foundation, during the 1970's a new era began for the Muslim
Brotherhood in America. The first bylaws of the
organization began to place more emphasis on Ikhwan's (Muslim
Brotherhood) influence and organization. A steady flow
of Saudi and other Gulf states Muslims arrived in America to
attend the Universities. In 1972, the Muslim Kuwaiti
Youths Association was founded which was later converted in
1976 into the Muslim Arab Youths Association and its work
centered around the Muslim students coming to America from all
the Arab countries. In 1980, the Muslim Students Union was
developed into the Islamic Society in North America (ISNA) to
include all the Muslim congregation from immigrants and
citizens, and to be a nucleus for the Islamic Movement in
North America.
Over the last 40 years, small groups of devout Muslim men have
gathered in homes and Universities in U.S. cities to pray,
memorize the Koran and discuss events of the day. These
collection of diverse groups wanting to expand on the bonding
of fellow Muslims arriving in America created entities with
the support and assistance of members of the Muslim
Brotherhood organization such as the Islamic Society of North
America (ISNA), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR),
and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), all
three listed by the Department of Justice as co-conspirators
in terrorism.
Since the Early
days of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States a code of
secrecy was developed that would keep the members and
positions of the organization in the dark. A group aiming to
create Islamic states worldwide has established roots here, in
large part under the guidance of Egypt-born Ahmed Elkadi.
Elkadi, an Egyptian-born surgeon and a former personal
physician to Saudi Arabia's King Faisal headed the group from
1984 to1994 but abruptly lost his leadership position.
Many moderate Muslims in America are uncomfortable with the
views preached at mosques influenced by the Brotherhood,
scholars say. Those experts point to a 2001 study sponsored by
four Muslim advocacy and religious groups that found that only
a third of U.S. Muslims attend mosques. The majority of
mosques built in America over the past twenty years were
sponsored by the Muslim brotherhood along with the Saudi
government. According to a story in the Chicago Tribune in
suburban Bridgeview, Ill., some moderates say they quit
attending the Mosque Foundation because the leadership became
too conservative and dominated by Brotherhood members.
The Muslim Brotherhood in the United States claim their
organization has broken no laws in America. They also
claim that they have no intentions on ever overthrowing the
democratic government here either. The Brotherhood's
plan is to build as many mosques as possible and to convert as
many Americans as possible to Islam. After a few
generations they hope that America will choose to impose
Islamic law on itself through a democratic process controlled
by a Muslim society that America will become. As mentioned
earlier the brotherhood is extremely secretive and operate
like many fraternal organizations or other forms of secret
societies. . Even today, few outside the Islamic inner
circles from which it recruits know when, how often or where
the Brothers meet to discuss the organization's goal: the
creation of Islamic states throughout the world, including the
U.S.
Not anyone can join the
Brotherhood. The group had a detailed procedure on how to find
and evaluate potential members, according to a Brotherhood
instructional booklet for recruiters
Leaders would scout mosques, Islamic classes and Muslim
organizations for those with orthodox religious beliefs
consistent with Brotherhood views. The leaders then would
invite them to join a small prayer group, or usra, Arabic for
"family." The prayer groups were a defining feature of the
Brotherhood and one created by al-Banna in Egypt. When the
time was right and the members agreed the candidate would then
be asked to officially join. according to the Tribune article
a former member says he found out that the U.S. Brotherhood
had a plan for achieving Islamic rule in America: It would
convert Americans to Islam and elect like-minded Muslims to
political office.
In recent years it is
commonplace for visitors at Muslim bookstores located in the
American mosques to be able to pick up books by anti-West
writers and other conservative Muslim Brotherhood members such
as Sayyid Qutb that teach a deep hatred of Western culture.
The Muslim Brotherhood in America has been a mixed bag of good
and potentially harmful activities. It is the
clandestine small groups that spring from such a secret
organization that attempt to work outside the box of the more
recent moderate stance the group has taken. These
Clandestine cells tend to raise money for terrorist
organizations throughout the world and recruit members. It is
hard to prove who is a member of the brotherhood and who is
not, this makes it tough for federal law enforcement agencies
to connect the dots. It is tough to grasp a religion based
organization that has no tolerance for other religions
converting Muslims away from Islam attempting to create a
world wide Islamic state through conversion of non-religious
and other religions group members. In America the
Brotherhood has this freedom to operate and as long as it is
not implicated directly to violating U.S. laws will continue
to do so working slowly toward the goal of an Islamic state in
America. The reality is that in the future as the
connections are made by law enforcement through a better
understanding and education on the operations of the group
will be better able to realize the clandestine groups as part
of the whole and put an end to the secrecy that protects the
Muslim Brotherhood from being banned as they have in other
countries in the Middle East.
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