Editor’s Note: With all the recent headlines about the Muslim Brotherhood and its potential ascension to power in Egypt, we thought we’d re-post this piece from our own expert on their organization and methods, Christopher Holton. This piece originally appeared on Sept. 23, 2010…
On Thursday, September 17th I had the good fortune of addressing the Ascension GOP Roundtable at a luncheon sponsored by the Ascension Republican Women.
The subject of my speech was the threat of Jihad, Shariah (Islamic law) and the Muslim Brotherhood in America. Among the topics I discussed was Louisiana’s new law designed to protect individual constitutional liberties from the infiltration of foreign legal doctrines, such as Shariah (as I explained in a recent Hayride article).
Among the attendees at this event was a reporter for the Baton Rouge Advocate named David Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell arrived about 10 minutes after my speech began and he and I spoke for several minutes after the conclusion of the event.
On Saturday morning, September 18th, The Advocate published an article written by Mr. Mitchell about my speech two days before:
Speaker tells group dangers of shariah
In that article, two professors from LSU, Mark Gasiorowski and Reem Meshal, took issue with my remarks, calling them “off-base,” “inflammatory,” and “irresponsible.”
Professor Gasiorowski, who served as a visiting professor at the University of Tehran in the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1994, 1996 and again in 1998, dismissed the threat of Shariah law and, most ominously, mischaracterized the Muslim Brotherhood as “a moderate political organization working within the political system to oppose Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.”
Professor Meshal, who went to high school in Saudi Arabia before moving on to college in Egypt, misrepresented the meaning of the term jihad, the broadness of shariah law and again, most ominously, the meaning of the term “Al Takeeya” (usually spelled Al Taqiyya).
Rather than engage in a tit for tat with these two professors, neither of whom attended my speech, I decided to consult third-party sources for the purposes of this article to address the statements attributed to the two professors in the Advocate article.
The Threat from Shariah
We will start with Professor Gasiorowski’s dismissal of the threat of shariah in which he stated:
“It is really irresponsible to talk that way because we don’t have shariah law, and we’re not going to.”
Gasiorowski is wrong on both counts.
In my previous Hayride article on Louisiana’s countershariah law, I specifically cited three examples of Shariah law being invoked in U.S. court systems.
These were but three examples out of scores in which parties to court cases have sought to invoke shariah law in the United States. These examples came to us courtesy of Louisiana lawyer Stephen Gele of the group Lawyers Against Shariah. I asked Gele to comment on Gasiorowski’s cavalier dismissal of the threat of Shariah:
“The threat of the infiltration of shariah into American law is real and immediate. On many occasions litigants have demanded that American courts apply shariah.
The Louisiana Supreme Court in Amin v. Bakhaty, 01-1967 (La.10/16/01), 798 So.2d 75, explicitly rejected a demand to enforce Egyptian child custody law because “Islamic family law … structures some of the rights between family members based solely on gender” and not “the minor child’s best interest.”
However, a Maryland appellate court in Hosain v. Malik, 108 Md.App. 284, 671 A.2d 988 (Md.1996), enforced a Pakistani custody order, issued under a shariah rule granting sole custody to the father when the child reaches the age of seven, handing a little girl brought to America by the mother over to the father. The Maryland court enforced the order by the Pakistani court even though the mother lacked representation because, although she may have been arrested for adultery if she returned to Pakistan for the custody proceedings and been subject to “public whipping or death by stoning,” the court found such punishments were “extremely unlikely.”
Further, American courts on occasion must decide whether to apply shariah, or recognize decisions rendered under shariah, when addressing whether foreign judgments should be recognized, whether forum selection or choice of law clauses in contracts should be enforced, what jurisdiction’s law to apply, and whether cases should be dismissed or transferred to be tried in other countries under forum non conveniens. Our courts have, and likely will continue to, adjudicate the application of Islamic shariah.”
J. Michael Waller, PhD, professor of International Communication at the Institute of World Politics also took exception to the dismissal of the shariah threat and, after reviewing Gasiorowski’s background, also raised some compelling issues about Gasiorowski:
Shariah is a threat to all people who love freedom and who seek the rights that are guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Shariah forces all people to submit to a totalitarian Islamic theocracy. Freedom of speech, expression, assembly, and belief are banned under shariah law.
Under shariah, women are second- or third-class citizens, with few rights of any kind, forced to exist as chattel.
Under shariah, men are permitted to beat and abuse their wives, and even to rape them.
Under shariah, male family members are permitted to murder female family members who “shame” them.
Under shariah, Christians and Jews must either convert to Islam, be killed, or submit to Islamic rule as “dhimmis” and be forced to pay high taxes meant to render them slaves of the Islamic state. Non-Muslim believers apart from Christians and Jews are not even given the dhimmi option – they must either convert or be killed, according to shariah law. Most art and music is banned under shariah.
And if you are gay or lesbian in a shariah society, the law dictates that you must be put to death.
A public university professor who is granted repeat visiting professorships to a shariah-controlled university in today’s Islamic Republic of Iran was obviously doing something that the ayatollahs liked. Unless that professor today is an active supporter of the student opposition to the Islamic Republic, and has been outspoken against the Iranian regime’s horrific abuses against students at that very university, he should be considered an ideological ally of the ayatollahs and not a true academic.
It is a scandal for American taxpayers to be subsidizing such a professor’s salary. If the professor defends shariah law, then he is promoting an ideology that seeks the overthrow of the United States Constitution, as well as the constitution of the state of Louisiana, in which case he should be barred from holding any position of public trust.
The Meaning of Jihad
Next, we come to the question of Professor Meshal’s definition of Jihad. The Advocate article neglects to supply just what definition of Jihad Professor Meshal uses, but in my speech, I cited the definition of Jihad contained in a book called Reliance of the Traveler: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, written by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri and translated into English by Nuh Ha Mim Keller. This book is one of the most widely read and recognized Shariah law manuals in the world and has the endorsement of the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, the leading Sunni Muslim university in the world.
From page 599 of Reliance of the Traveler:
“Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion.
This is the first definition of Jihad given. To be sure, there is another definition of Jihad as well: “spiritual warfare against the lower self,” sometimes referred to as “inner struggle.”
Both are correct and disputing that there is more than one definition of Jihad is curious at best. So, I consulted some scholars to get their opinion on the subject.
One of the key issues with regard to the definition of Jihad is the question as to which definition is most widely used in Islamic literature.
We consulted Bill Warner, PhD of the Center for the Study of Political Islam for an answer. Warner did a mathematical statistical analysis of Islamic literature to answer just this question. Warner analyzed Sahih al-Bukhari, one of the six canonical hadith collections of Sunni Islam (the hadith are prophetic traditions about the life of Mohammed).
Islam claims that there is a “greater jihad” that is inner spiritual struggle and that the killing jihad is the “lesser jihad”. How much of the jihad literature is about the “greater jihad”?
Bukhari contains 645,745 words he devotes 132,315 words to jihad. Linked just below are all of the hadiths that refer to any religious practice as being equal or better than jihad. These “better or equal to jihad” verses are 2347 words, or 1.7% of all jihad hadiths (2347 / 132,315 = 0.017, 1.7%) are devoted to “better of equal to jihad”.
None of these use the phrase “greater jihad” but they do give something more important than jihad or equal to it. Of course, other hadiths say that jihad is the best.In short, only 1.7% of Bukhari jihad references can be made to apply to inner struggle. The other 97.3% are the jihad of killing kafirs.
For those interested, Dr. Warner has compiled all of the Jihad passages from Bukhari here.
I also consulted another expert on terrorism and Jihad for his opinion on the definition of Jihad.
Alex Alexiev is a Fellow at the prestigious Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. where he specializes in Islamic extremism and terrorism. A former senior analyst and project director at the Rand Corporation, he has over twenty five years of experience in the national security field having directed numerous research projects for the Department of Defense, and US intelligence agencies. He is the author of books, monographs and articles on national security topics and has testified to US congressional hearings on a number of occasions.
I asked Alexiev his opinion of Professor Meshal’s dispute of my definition of Jihad and he provided a clear answer:
With respect to jihad, It is well known that all the peaceful and tolerant verses of the Quran from the Meccan period have been declared invalid through the ploy of abrogation (naskh) and the violent injunctions of the later Medinan period are the only valid ones. Thus, the verse of the sword (Sura 9:5) urging wholesale violence against non-Muslims is considered to have abrogated over a hundred verses advocating tolerance and peace. As a result there is little talk about either tolerance or peace with infidels in either the hadith or the sharia and virtually all discussion of jihad has to do with aggressive, violent jihad and not with inner striving as apologists maintain.
People that claim otherwise like your critics are either abysmally ignorant of Islam or are lying.
Al Taqiyya: Sacred Deception in Islam
Speaking of lying, in my speech, I pointed out that Taqiyya was the uniquely Islamic concept of “sacred deception” in which Muslims were not only permitted to lie to protect or advance the religion, they are required to do so.
Now we must address Professor Meshal’s contention that Al Taqiyya refers only to the “ancient belief of the Shia [Muslims which] allowed them to deny their faith during persecution hundreds of years ago.”
Alexiev acknowledges Meshal’s definition, but points out that it is not the only definition of taqiyya:
Taqiyya was indeed practiced widely by the Shias who have always been persecuted by the Sunnis, but it is also approved of and practiced by the Sunnis especially in modern times with growing diaspora communities among the infidels.Indeed, lying to infidels is obligatory in some circumstances. Here is what two of the highest Sunni authorities in Quranic exegesis have to say about it:
Al Tabari (838-923), author of the standard reference work Tafsir Al Tabari, “If you (Muslim) are under their authority (of the infidels), fearing for yourself, behave loyally to them with your tongue, while harboring inner animosity toward them.”
Ibn Kathir (1301-1373), author of another authoritative work, Tafsir Ibn Kathir, “Whoever at any time or place fears their (the infidels’) evil, may protect himself through outward show.”
I was also able to track down Stephen Coughlin for his insight on taqiyya. Coughlin is a retired Army intelligence officer and international lawyer who was an adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Islamic law and Jihad. He wrote what is probably the most important doctrinal work on the global Islamic insurgency, To Our Great Detriment: Ignoring What Extremists Say About Jihad, which can be downloaded for free from the Center for Security Policy’s web site.
Coughlin is considered one of the Western world’s foremost experts on Shariah and has instructed military, intelligence and law enforcement personnel across America on the enemy threat doctrine.
Here are Coughlin’s thoughts on taqiyya:
Al Taqiyya is a concept based on Quran 3:28 and 16:106 as well as hadith, tafsir literature and judicial commentaries that permit and encourage precautionary dissimulation as a means for hiding true faith in times of times of persecution or deception when penetrating the enemy camp. It involves concealing or disguising one’s beliefs, convictions, ideas, feelings, opinions, and/or strategies at a time of eminent danger, whether now or later in time, to save oneself from physical and/or mental injury. Taqiyya has been used by Muslims since the 7th century to confuse and split ‘the enemy.’
Dr. Warner agrees with Coughlin but takes a different approach to illustrate the wide acceptance of taqiyya:
First we need an expert: Mohammed. If these experts agree with Mohammed, they are right. If they disagree with Mohammed, they are wrong. Only Mohammed counts.
Dr. Warner then cited the following passages from Islamic literature:
• When deception advances Islam, the deception is not a sin.
B5,59,369 Mohammed asked, “Who will kill Ka’b, the enemy of Allah and Mohammed?”
Bin Maslama rose and responded, “O Mohammed! Would it please you if I killed him?”
Mohammed answered, “Yes.”
Bin Maslama then said, “Give me permission to deceive him with lies so that my plot will succeed.”
Mohammed replied, “You may speak falsely to him.”
• Ali was raised by Mohammed from the age of ten and became the fourth caliph. Ali pronounced the following on lies and deception.
B9,84,64 When I relate to you the words of Mohammed, by Allah, I would rather die than bear false witness to his teachings. However, if I should say something unrelated to the prophet, then it might very well be a lie so that I might deceive my enemy. Without question, I heard Mohammed say, “In the final days before Redemption there will emerge groups of foolish youths who will say all the right things but their faith will go no further than their mouths and will flee from their religion like an arrow. So, kill the apostates wherever you find them, because whoever does so will be rewarded on Judgment Day.”
• Deceit in war:
M032,6303 According to Mohammed, someone who strives to promote harmony amongst the faithful and says or conveys good things is not a liar. Ibn Shihab said that he had heard only three exceptions to the rules governing false statements: lies are permissible in war, to reconcile differences between the faithful, and to reconcile a husband and wife through the manipulation or twisting of words.
There is a whole section (page 744) in Reliance of the Traveler: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, dedicated to lying and, more specifically, “permissible lying” under Shariah law.
Taqiyya is still in use today and, despite what Professor Meshal may claim, it has a much broader meaning than Shias hiding from Sunnis.
The Muslim Brotherhood
Perhaps the most disturbing and frankly outrageous statement made by either professor was Professor Gasiorowski’s contention that the Muslim Brotherhood is “a moderate political organization working within the political system to oppose Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.”
The Muslim Brotherhood is the granddaddy of all modern Sunni Jihadist terrorist organizations and the lead organization in the global Islamic insurgency that we are confronted with today.
But don’t take my word for it:
I consulted three leading experts on terrorism and Jihad to set the record straight on the Muslim Brotherhood.
The first was Steve Emerson. Emerson is considered one of the leading authorities on Islamic extremist networks, financing and operations. He serves as the Executive Director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism, one of the world’s largest storehouses of archival data and intelligence on Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorist groups. Emerson and his staff frequently provide briefings to U.S. government and law enforcement agencies, members of Congress and congressional committees, and print and electronic media, both national and international. Since 9-11, Emerson has testified before and briefed Congress dozens of times on terrorist financing and operational networks of Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and the rest of the worldwide Islamic militant spectrum.
Emerson is the author or co-author of six books on terrorism and national security, including:
- Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the U.S. (Prometheus, 2006)
- American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us (The Free Press, 2002)
- Terrorist: The Inside Story of the Highest-Ranking Iraqi Terrorist Ever to Defect to the West (Villard Books /Random House, 1991)
- The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation (Putnam’s Sons, 1990)
- Secret Warriors: Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era (Putnam’s Sons, 1988)
- The American House of Saud: The Secret Petrodollar Connection (Franklin Watts, 1985)
He and his organization have been quoted or profiled in hundreds of newspaper and television stories since 9-11.
I asked Mr. Emerson what his thoughts were on the idea that the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate political organization:
The Muslim Brotherhood is the parent group of all Sunni terrorist groups–including Al Qaeda, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. It’s members have been involved in modern day terrorism ever since the assassination of Anwar Sadat. The Muslim Brotherhood is a radical Islamic organization whose officials called for terrorist attacks on Israelis and Americans. To claim that it’s a moderate group is the same as saying that the Ku Klux Klan is a civil rights group. Muslim Brotherhood officials are not allowed to come into the United States because of their ties to terrorist groups. So the description of the Muslim Brotherhood as moderate is intellectually fraudulent and a lie.
Dr. Waller agreed with Emerson:
The Muslim Brotherhood is “moderate” in comparison to al Qaeda, but it shares al Qaeda’s long-term goals, which is why it is not moderate at all. Though based in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is an international organization founded after the collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate in Turkey after World War I, and devoted to re-establishing a caliphate – a totalitarian Islamic government that rules under shariah law – anywhere it can. The ultimate stated goal of the Muslim Brotherhood is to build a global caliphate to spread its medieval ideology worldwide, and force all of humanity to submit to shariah law.
Finally, I consulted a man who has spent his entire career literally fighting Jihadist terrorists: John Guandolo.
Guandolo is a 1989 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, who took a commission as an Officer of Marines. He served with 2d Battalion 2d Marines as an Infantry Platoon Commander in combat in Operations Desert Shield/Storm. From 1991-1996, he served in 2d Force Reconnaissance Company as a Platoon Commander, Assistant Operations Officer, and the unit’s Airborne and Diving Officer. During this time he deployed to the Adriatic/Bosnia.
In 1996, Mr. Guandolo resigned his commission in the Marine Corps and joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation, serving at the Washington Field Office. From 1996-2000, he primarily conducted narcotics investigations domestically and overseas. In 2001, he served for one year as the FBI Liaison to the U.S. Capitol Police investigating threat on the President, Vice-President, Members of Congress and other high government officials. Mr. Guandolo worked for over five years on Counterterrorism matters, developing an expertise in the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Doctrine, and the global Islamic Movement. In 2006, Mr. Guandolo created and implemented the FBI’s first Counterterrorism Training/Education Course focusing on the Muslim Brotherhood, the subversive movement in the United States, and the global Islamic Movement. In his last year and a half in the FBI, he served on a Surveillance Unit.
He served on the Washington Field Office SWAT team for over nine years and as its Team Leader for three of those years. Mr. Guandolo is a Nationally Registered Paramedic and First Aid Instructor.
While in the FBI, Mr. Guandolo received two (2) United States Attorney’s Awards for Investigative Excellence, and in 2007 was awarded the “Defender of the Homeland” Award by Senators John Kyl and Joseph Lieberman on behalf of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C.
Not surprisingly, Mr. Guandolo has some strong feelings about the Muslim Brotherhood and his feelings are in direct conflict with those of Professor Gasiorowski.
I asked Mr. Gaundolo: In your professional opinion and in your extensive law enforcement and intelligence experience, is the MB a “moderate” organization?
Simply put – No.
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is an international organization which seeks to overthrow un-Islamic governments and replace them with Islamic States via any means necessary to include violence. From the time of its formation in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood’s objectives – as articulated in their By-Laws (available online in English) and in every doctrinal MB book, speech and publication since then right up to today – are clearly stated. The MB seeks to implement Islamic Law as the law of the land across the world in pursuit of re-establishing the Global Islamic State known as a “Caliphate.”
The MB has ALWAYS utilized violence at some point or another. One of the primary wings of their organizational structure is the Special Section, previously known as the “Secret Apparatus” which exists to conduct military operations – assassinations, bombings, ambushes, etc.
Hamas was formed out of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood and is a designated Terrorist organization by the US government. The leaders of Al Qaeda began their journey into Islamic training in the Muslim Brotherhood – Osama bin Laden is a Muslim Brother. Nearly every Al Qaeda commander overseas is a Muslim Brother. Nearly every major Sunni Islamic terrorist group is rooted in the Muslim Brotherhhood and/or their doctrine.
The current Supreme Guide (Leader) of the International Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Badi, continues to call for Jihad in order to achieve Brotherhood objectives. When using the word “jihad” Badi is referring to “fighting” – the only definition found in ALL authoritative Islamic Law (shari’ah) which is “warfare against non-Muslims.”
If all of this leads someone to believe the Brotherhood should be considered “moderate” I would have to question that person’s understanding of that word.
I then asked Mr. Guandolo, “Is the Muslim Brotherhood limited to opposition to Mubarak in Egypt?”
No. The Brotherhood has organizational structure in over 100 countries around the world. In North America, nearly every major Islamic Organization is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood or a derivative thereof.
I then asked, “How would you characterize the MB? Is it a threat to America? What forms does that threat take?”
The Muslim Brotherhood is an International Islamic organization dedicated to destroying individual liberty and subordinating all people to Islamic Law (Shari’ah) – a form of slavery. They are the vanguard of the current Global Isamic Movement and will use ALL means at their disposal to win. They fight a Total War.
Primarily in the West, they are engaged in Information Warfare, which includes influence operations, political warfare, subversion of a society’s foundational institutions, propaganda, and the like. They are masters of this. They come wearing suits and a smile. In the United States we know through the Muslim Brotherhood strategic documents found in an FBI raid in Annandale, VA in 2004 that the MB seeks to defeat us by waging a “Civilization Jihad” to destroy our Western Civilization from within and doing it by our hands. The MB seeks to co-opt political, religious, and law enforcement/military leaders into believing a counter-factual understanding of Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Once this is achieved – and I will argue it has been achieved in America to a great degree – the MB can count on a co-opted Director of the FBI, DHS Secretary, General, Police Chief, etc to maintain the counter-factual narrative for them. When a police officer, Navy Commander, FBI agent, or State investigator brings FACTS to bear on in issue involving Islam or the MB (with whom the US Government exclusively works) the MB will not usually step in and squash that guy or gal, their chain of command will step in and discipline them, silence them, investigate them, and fire them. “Civilization Jihad by (our) hands.”
We see this happening across the country. It is no surprise since the FBI, DHS, State Department, and many police departments only work with known Muslim Brotherhood entities – some even getting their advice from known members of Hamas. For instance, the current and two previous administrations at the White House primarily work with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Massive evidence revealed at the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial in Dallas, Texas in 2008 – the largest terrorism financing trial in US history – revealed CAIR is a Hamas entity and its leaders, Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmad, are Hamas operatives.
So why do we keep seeing them on CNN and Fox News programs? Why are they still meeting with government officials? CAIR and Omar Ahmad are named co-conspirators in the HLF case. ISNA and its affiliate NAIT (the bank for the MB in North America) were demonstrated to be support entities for Hamas and both are named co-conspirators in the HLF case. Why is the President of ISNA Ingrid Mattson working at the White House? Why is ISNA’s Vice President, Imam Mohammed Majid working with the FBI (and receiving awards) and DHS?
The MB has had such great success in the West because: they are well-organized and well-funded (primarily by Saudi Arabia); our leadership has proven to be unwilling to fulfill their Oaths of Office and defend the Constitution against this grave threat; because our citizens have allowed their liberties to be eroded by the MB, cultural Marxists and socialists without a fight (until recently); and American leaders have failed to define the enemy and boldly state our American Principles which are worth fighting and dying for.
The good news is that we are seeing American citizens, local police, state legislators, and now a handful of courageous US Congressmen/women and Senators stepping up to challenge the counter-factual narrative (also known outside the beltway as Politically Correct BS).
I encourage all your readers to recognize that we have an ongoing insurgency in America spearheaded by the Muslim Brotherhood (nearly every Islamic organization in the US). In a Counterinsurgency, the focus of main effort is the local police and the local populace. Citizens in small towns around this nation must support aggressive action by their police, with the support of local town councils, to root out the leadership of the MB in their area. Mayors, local county leaders, businessmen, Christian and Jewish leaders, as well as academics need to be held accountable for enabling and supporting the MB’s efforts in these local towns – legally what the “enablers” are doing is called “aiding and abetting the enemy.”
My last question to John Guandolo: Why would someone characterize the MB as “moderate?”
Because they are grossly ignorant or are intentionally lying to fulfill an agenda which seeks to keep Americans from knowing the truth about the grave and immediate threat we face from the MB in this great country. Remember, this is Information Warfare first and foremost.
The unmistakable conclusion through consultation with known, recognized experts in the field of terrorism, Jihad, and Shariah is that Professors Gasiorowski and Meshal are wrong on all counts., when it comes to the threat of Jihad, Shariah and the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.
Conclusion
I will close this lengthy article with a video and a quote from another national security practicioner.
The video is a 28-minute segment from CBN on the Muslim Brotherhood threat in the United States. It features Marine and former FBI special agent John Guandolo. I urge all readers to view this video as it provides a valuable education in the face of the misinformation and deceit prevalent about the Muslim Brotherhood in America today:
The following concluding statement comes from LTC Phil Prescott, US Army (Retired), PhD. Colonel Prescott served America for over 20 years as a Special Forces and intelligence officer. His last assignment was as an adviser on enemy threat doctrine to the Joint Chiefs of Staff:
The LSU professors are free to have their personal opinions on any facet of Islam. What they fail to understand is that it makes no difference what they think Islam is; what matters is what important Muslims think islam is. And there are few Muslims more important than the vast network of Muslim Brotherhood political organizations and Saudi/Wahabbi religious institutions. it is therefore vital to understand is how the Muslim Brotherhood and other radicals view islamic doctrines.
Jihadists around the globe are very consistent about the violent teachings in Islam. They do not consider these teachings to be of merely historic interest, like the ancient Hebrews’ war against the Hittites. The war against unbelievers commanded by Mohammed is a war they believe must take place right now.
They act according to what they are taught.
As for the actions of the Muslim Brotherhood, the professors are correct that the Brotherhood prefers to achieve its objective through non-violent means. However their objectives are not peaceful or tolerant at all: the Brotherhood itself states that its goal is the triumph of allah’s religion over all others, and the replacement of all existing governments with an Islamic caliphate. One can read the Brotherhood’s 1991 planning document and clearly see their hostile and seditious intent.
It is vital to understand that the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities in the United States adversely influence the actions of young Muslims by telling them that they have an obligation to fight the ‘enemies of allah’ even if this requires violent jihad against their neighbors. The Muslim Brotherhood teaches the hate and the intolerance that is spawning home grown jihad around us, such as the attack by Major Nidal Hassan on his fellow soldiers at Ft. Hood, and the planned attack on shopping malls in Massachusetts by Terek Mehenna.
Ayn Rand taught a parable: if you see a rock and wish it to be a tree, it will never be a tree no matter how hard you wish….The Muslim Brotherhood teaches intolerance and hatred. it is a seditious organization, no matter how hard one wishes it not to be….
Three of the experts quoted in this article, John Gunadolo, J. Michael Waller, PhD, and Stephen Coughlin were key contributors to a new report published by the Center for Security Policy on the threat of Shariah to America. That 177-page report is available free of charge in electronic form at http://www.shariahthethreat.com.
A New Orleans native, Christoper Holton is a Vice President at the Center For Security Policy. He lives in South Louisiana.
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