Tag Archives: International Institute of Islamic Thought

Texas Mega-Church Welcomes Islamists to ‘Global Faith Forum’

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The 3,000-member NorthWood Church of Keller, T.X. is holding a “Global Faith Forum” in November. In yet another Islamist-attended interfaith event, Christians will hear from a former Saudi intelligence chief, a former director-general of Al-Jazeera, officials from U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entities and the non-Muslims who embrace them.

Pastor Bob Roberts. Jr. is known for his efforts to build-bridges with Muslims. He spoke at the “Christ at the Checkpoint” conference put together by Palestinian Christians at Bethlehem Bible College. So did Florida Pastor Joel C. Hunter, who has been negative attention for his association with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity. Hunter is also critical of “Christian Zionists.”

An article posted on Hunter’s website reports how the “Christ at the Checkpoint” audience, including students from Wheaton and Eastern Universities, “were moved by the testimony of Palestinian men and women who shared the pain and suffering they experience on a daily basis caused primarily by the continuing occupation.”

Pastor Roberts reacted to the anti-Islam Innocence of Muslims video by suggesting that governments crack down on its distribution. He said, “There is a ‘clear and present’ danger the U.S. courts have ruled in regard to freedom of speech—I think that has to extend globally.” 

In January, NorthWood Church hosted Azhar Azeez, Vice President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). ISNA is an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terrorism-financing trial. Federal prosecutors labeled ISNA a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity, a fact confirmed by the Brotherhood’s own secret documents.

In November, his church’s Global Faith Forum will bring the spotlight to his interfaith efforts and those involved in them. Event speakers include Rep. Kay Graner (R-TX), former South Carolina Governor David Beasley and Christianity Today editor Mark Galli, but they aren’t the main attractions.

The conference website’s home page proudly advertises Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2005 to 2007, as a main speaker. Before that, he was the Saudi foreign intelligence chief from 1977 to 2001, making him a top figure in Saudi Arabia’s proliferation of Wahhabism around the world for over 20 years. He represented a Sharia-based government that persecutes Christians.

Faisal Bin Muammar was an advisor at the Saudi Royal Court and Secretary-General of the Riyadh-based King Abdul Aziz Center for National Dialogue.

Safi Kaskas is a co-founder of East West University in Chicago and a “strategy consultant for a number of business organizations in the USA and Saudi Arabia.” He is a member of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists. A 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo identifies AMSS as one of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends.” The memo says its “work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.” The AMSS is also closely linked to the International Institute of Islamic Thought.

Another main speaker is Professor John Esposito, one of the top non-Muslim supporters of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network. He is a frequent guest speaker at their events and was a witness for the defense in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation.

Read more at Front Page

The US Naval Academy And the US Muslim Brotherhood Part 2: The Case Of Akbar Ahmed

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Akbar Ahmed

Akbar Ahmed

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The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch has identified a second professor at the US Naval Academy who is close to the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a part of the US Muslim Brotherhood and where Global Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi reportedly serves as a trustee. The GMBDW reported yesterday that Ermin Sinanovic, who is teaching a course at the academy on “Muslim World Affairs”, would also be teaching at two different venues for IIIT. Dr. Sinanovic was not alone however. In September 2008, US media reported that Dr. Akbar Ahmed would be joining the U.S. Naval Academy to fill a new chair for Middle East Studies and would be teaching courses, advising midshipmen and faculty, and assisting in research projects. According to his CV, Dr. Ahmed served as First Distinguished Chair for Middle East/Islamic Studies at the US Naval Academy from 2008-2009.

Dr. Ahmed is a former Pakistan High Commissioner (Ambassador) to the UK and Ireland and currently the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington DC. He is frequently described as a prominent Islamic moderate who has received numerous awards and accolades. However, Dr. Ahmed also has a long association with the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), established in 1980 by some of the most important figures in the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. Dr. Ahmed’s association with IIIT appears to have begun with a relationship to Ismail Faruqi who Dr. Ahmed said appointed him to both IIIT and the Islamic Institute of Advanced Studies, previously known as the Graduate School of Islamic & Social Sciences (GSISS), an organization once sanctioned to certify Muslim chaplains for the U.S. military and also associated with the US Muslim Brotherhood. Dr. Ahmed writes:

Later from his base in Temple University, where he headed the Islamic Studies Department, [Dr. Faruqi] embarked on the serious and gigantic task of re-thinking the fundamental concepts of modern social sciences within an Islamic framework. He called it  ’the ‘Islamization of Knowledge’. This was his vision and it became his passion. Towards this end he helped set up the International Institute of Islamic Thought, and, recently, the Islamic Institute of Advanced Studies, both in the USA. (My name was placed on the faculty of the two Institutes thanks to him.)

Other close of ties of Dr. Ahmed to IIIT include:

  • Dr. Ahmed wrote a book published by IIIT and described by Ismail Faruqi as “the first of a series of works which the International Institute of Islamic Thought presents to the reader in fulfillment of its program for the Islamization of the sciences.” Dr. Ahmed was honored by IIIT in 2001, partially in consideration of his book.
  • Dr. Ahmed has been a member of the advisory board of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, the publication of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists, another part of the U.S. Brotherhood and headquartered at IIIT .

Dr. Ahmed is also currently an adjunct scholar at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a think tank whose other scholars include many individuals tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood including Louay Safi, a former Research Director at IIIT and important US Muslim Brotherhood leader and who will be one of Dr. Sinanovic’s co-instructors at the upcoming IIIT Summer Program.

None of these associations are mentioned in Dr. Ahmed’s most current CV.

A brief review of Dr. Ahmed’s positions on suicide bombings suggest that he has staked out a position similar to that of Tariq Ramadan, a global Muslim Brotherhood leader and grandson of the Brotherhood’s founder, with whom he has jointly signed lat least one  letter. That is, while condemning such terrorism as “un-Islamic”, Dr. Ahmed attempts to contextualize the phenomenon, blaming it on social/political circumstances rather than religious incitement.

A 2007 newspaper article suggested that Dr. Ahmed was one of four Muslim-Americans that played a role in crafting a Department of Homeland Security memo urging employees not to use terms including ‘jihad,’ ‘jihadist’ or ‘Islamic terrorist’ in describing Islamic terrorists.

Read more at Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch

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Muslim Brotherhood Inside American Colleges

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Nazareth College in Rochester, NY, is just one of many American universities who are "partnering" with the International Institute of Islamic Thought, a verified Muslim Brotherhood front group.

Nazareth College in Rochester, NY, is just one of many American universities who are “partnering” with the International Institute of Islamic Thought, a verified Muslim Brotherhood front group.

By Ryan Mauro:

In 1988, an FBI informant inside the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network warned that it had a front called the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). The IIIT leadership, the source reported, said they were in the first of six phases to “institute the Islamic Revolution in the United States.” Their current objective was to “peacefully get inside the United States government and also American universities.” And they have.

The source warned that the Muslim Brotherhood in America has “unlimited funds” and has “set up political action front groups with no traceable ties to the IIIT or its various Muslim groups.” The source’s identification of IIIT as a front is verified in a 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo. The Brotherhood itself lists IIIT as number 28 of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends,” working toward the Brotherhood’s self-defined goal, which it says is a “grandjihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.”

IIT’s Director of Academic Outreach from 1984 to 1994  was Sayyid Syeed, a founder and former secretary-general of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Footage from 2006 shows him saying, “Our job is to change the Constitution of America” (you can view it inThe Grand Deception).

ISNA is also identified as a Muslim Brotherhood front group in the 1991 memo and was labeled as a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity by federal prosecutors. It was also designated an unindicted co-conspirator in the terrorism-financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation. Syeed is now the director of ISNA’s Office for Interfaith and Community Alliances.

Read more The Clarion Poject

 

US Naval Academy Instructor Teaching On Behalf Of US Muslim Brotherhood

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According to promotional material, a United States Naval Academy professor is teaching on behalf of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a part of the US Muslim Brotherhood and where global Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi reportedly serves as a trustee. IIIT recently announced its Summer Students Program for 2013 to be held from May 26 – July 3. According to the IIIT announcement, one of the instructors for the program will be Professor Ermin Sinanovic, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland who will be teaching the following course titled “Muslim World Affairs”:

Ermin Sinanovic

Ermin Sinanovic

This course is meant to provide students who had little or no background on the Muslim world with a basic understanding of its contemporary history, its geopolitics, its diverse cultures, languages and ethnic groups. Also, the course introduces the key issues and developments that framed the relationship between the world of Islam and the West, such as the colonial encounter, the capitalist expansion of the West, the emergence of the nation-state and its institutions, the discovery of oil in the Middle East and its implications, the communication revolution and contemporary globalization and their impact on cultures, values and life styles; and finally the US foreign policy towards the Muslim world and its implications. This course will be covered in twelve hours.  Instructor: Professor Ermin Sinanovic, US Naval Academy, Maryland.

According to his bio, Ermin Sinanovic is:

…an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, USA. He studied for an MA and a PhD in Political Science at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. Prof. Sinanovic obtained two BAs (one in Qur’an and Sunnah Studies, the other in Political Science) and an MA (Islamic Civilization) from the International Islamic University Malaysia. His research interests include transnational Islamic revival, Southeast Asian politics, Islamic movements, Middle East politics, Islamic political thought, and Islam and politics in general. At the Naval Academy, Prof. Sinanovic teaches courses on Southeast Asian politics, Middle East politics, and Islam and politics. He speaks Bosnian, English, Arabic, and Malay. “

One of the other instructors at the IIIT summer program will be US Muslim Brotherhood leader Louay Safi, identified in the announcement as affiliated with the College of Islamic Studies of the Qatar Foundation. In 2009 Louay Safi, also an official at the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), was at the center of a controversy when it was learned that the US Defense Department brought him to Fort Hood as an instructor and that he had been lecturing on Islam to troops in Fort Hood who were about to deploy to Afghanistan. In February 2010, the activities and lectures of Dr. Safi on all military bases were suspended pending  criminal by the U.S. military. A shooting took place at Fort Hood near Killeen, Texas on November 5, 2009 in which a single gunman killed 13 people and over 30 people were injured in the worst shooting ever to take place on an American military base. The only suspect in the shooting is Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old U.S. Army major serving as a psychiatrist. Dr. Safi has also been recently identified as a leading member of the Syrian National Council, a Syrian opposition group dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Read more at Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch

 

As this excerpt from the Discover The Networks Profile of IIIT shows, the “see no Jihad” propaganda will no doubt be a part of Ermin Sinanovic’s course instruction:

 

In the early 1990s, IIIT invented and promoted the term “Islamophobia,” a term which implies that any societal fear associated with Islam is necessarily irrational, even if that fear stems from the fact that Islam’s prophet and its modern-day imams call on believers to kill infidels, or from the fact that the 9/11 attacks were carried out to implement those calls. Moreover, the term suggests that any negative societal reaction to such exhortations to violence reflects a bigotry that itself should be feared.

Former IIIT member Abdur-Rahman Muhammad — who was with that organization when the word was formally created, and who has since rejected IIIT’s ideology and terminated his membership in disgust — now reveals the original intent behind the concept of Islamophobia: “This loathsome term is nothing more than a thought-terminating cliche conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating down critics.” In short, in its very origins, “Islamophobia” was a term designed as a weapon to advance a totalitarian cause by stigmatizing critics and silencing them. This plan was an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood’s deceptive “General Strategic Goal for North America.”

Although the term was coined in the early 1990s, “Islamophobia” did not become the focus of an active Brotherhood campaign until after 9/11.

Controlled by the extremist, Saudi-based Wahhabi movement, IIIT maintains that reports about mosques distributing hate-filled literature are untrue, and claims that the concept of jihad in no way condones or connotes violence. As an IIIT public-relations flyer puts it: “Jihad does not mean ‘holy war.’ Literally, jihad in Arabic means to strive, struggle and exert effort. It is a central and broad Islamic concept that includes struggle against evil inclinations within oneself, struggle to improve the quality of life in society, struggle in the battlefield for self-defense or fighting against tyranny or oppression.” The back of the flyer contains a list of recommended websites and books on Islam. Among the authors of these books are such apologists for extremism as John Esposito, Karen Armstrong, Hassan Hathout, and Bill Baker.

Countering Muslim Disinformation

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imagesCANW1XU4By Robert Spencer:

According to Islamic supremacist hate groups such as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), no one would have any problem with Islam if it weren’t for bigoted non-Muslims who irresponsibly “link Islam to terrorism” – and this link, they claim, gives rise to acts of violence against Muslims. Hamas-linked CAIR and its allied groups have for years now been pumping out disinformation designed to “clear up misconceptions”about Islam and set the record straight. On its website Hamas-linked CAIR says that it was established in order to “promote a positive image of Islam and Muslims in America,” and declares that “we believe misrepresentations of Islam are most often the result of ignorance on the part of non-Muslims and reluctance on the part of Muslims to articulate their case.”

However, the cure offered by American Muslim groups may be worse than the disease. All too often these groups construct a “positive image of Islam” out of smoke and mirrors. Instead of dealing forthrightly and constructively with the concerns and questions that non-Muslims have about Islam’s relation to jihad terrorism, Islamic supremacist groups in the U.S. are more interested in throwing sand in our eyes.

A quintessential example of this is a publication of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a Muslim Brotherhood group: “Q& A on Islam and Arab Americans,” which originally ran in USA Today and circulates widely. It’s a handy compendium of many of the chief claims that Islamic supremacists make in order to lull non-Muslims into complacency and confuse them regarding the nature of the jihad threat.

1. Islam means peace.The flyer notes that “the Arabic word for ‘Islam’ means ‘submission,’ and it derives from a word meaning ‘peace.’” Indeed, in Arabic, Islam and salaam (“peace”) share the same linguistic root, but this in itself is virtually meaningless. All sorts of words share the same roots, and can still have quite divergent meanings — such as the English word love and the related Sanskrit word lubh (lust). Noting the derivation of the word Islam in this brief information flyer can only be an attempt to lend credibility to oft-repeated claim that Islam is a religion of peace. But that idea glosses over Islam’s doctrines of war and subjugation, with the IIIT does not address and pretends do not exist.

2. “Jihad does not mean ‘holy war,’” says the IIIT. “Literally, jihad in Arabic means to strive, struggle and exert effort. It is a central and broad Islamic concept that includes struggle against evil inclinations within oneself, struggle to improve the quality of life in society, struggle in the battlefield for self defense or fighting against tyranny or oppression.”

This was a precursor to Hamas-linked CAIR’s deceptive and misleading “#MyJihad” campaign, which attempts to convince non-Muslims that jihad is about making friends and getting exercise. To its credit, the IIIT goes farther than Hamas-linked CAIR by mentioning the battlefield, and in this it is more accurate than CAIR’s preposterously innocuous farrago. Islamic theology distinguishes between the “greater jihad,” which involves “struggle against evil inclinations within oneself,” and the “lesser jihad,” which is hinted at here as “struggle in the battlefield for self defense or fighting against tyranny or oppression.” Still, left unmentioned is the fact that throughout history, Muslims have not stopped at self-defense or fighting against tyranny. Onemanual of Islamic law — certified as conforming “to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni Community” by Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, the most prestigious and influential Islamic institution among Sunni Muslims worldwide —calls jihad “a communal obligation” to “war against non-Muslims.” It is an obligation to make war upon “Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians” until they “become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax,” and to fight “all other peoples until they become Muslim.”

Read more at Atlas Shrugs

Democratic-Leaning National Security Group Partners With MPAC

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GlobalMB @ November 13, 2012

Islamic media is reporting on the relationship between a Democratic-leaning U.S. national security affairs group and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.  According to an OnIslam report:

Monday, 12 November 2012 00:00 CAIRO – A Muslim activist is winning the admiration of Americans for his efforts to tackle issues that stoke tension between Muslims and non-Muslims and energize younger generations to balance between their faith and the western life. ‘What I like about working with Haris and MPAC is that they understand both the needs of their community and the way Washington works,’ Heather Hurlburt, director of the nonprofit National Security Network, told The Washington Post. Hulburt’s group cooperated with Haris Tarin, director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) in Washington to hold a series of hearings on extremism in the US. MPAC… Busting America’s Islam Myths US Muslim Footballer Balances Faith, Life ‘It’s an incredible challenge for a Muslim group to emerge as an advocate in the national security area, and they are really impressive.’ Tarin has won praise in the US for his efforts to tackle issues that stoke sentiments against US Muslims as extremism. ‘We want to ensure that American Muslims are seen as an integral part of the American fabric, that they feel comfortable with both their faith and their American identity,’ Tarin said. ‘We want to be seen as partners, not suspects.’ Born to a former Afghan diplomat, Tarin grew up in Los Angeles and earned a BA at California State University, Northridge. He taught Islamic and social studies at a Muslim school, before moving to a job at MPAC, the publicity arm of the Islamic Center of Southern California, to promote Islam in line with progressive, peaceful and nonsectarian values. Over the span of past week only, the dynamic young Muslim showed a role model for active Muslim youth. He spoke at a Washington panel on how the next US president can combat extremism without using security solutions. Later on, he delivered a guest sermon for `Eid al-Adha, one of the two main Islamic occasions, in Alexandria, during which he wore casual Western clothes but recited prayers in perfect Arabic. Tarin also hosted an election night party and discussion in Great Falls. ‘We have a civic duty to engage in our society. If you don’t make your voice heard, someone else will,’ he told the Muslim audience.

Read the rest here.

A post from earlier this month reported that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was the main feature at a May 2012 fundraising event that included important leaders of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) who sat at the same table with Pelosi. A subsequent post also reported on the formation of a National Muslim Democratic Council.

The website for the National Security Network (NSN) describes itself as “founded in June 2006 to revitalize America’s national security policy, bringing cohesion and strategic focus to the progressive national security community. A Washington Post article reported that the NSN’s advisory board “reads as a who’s who of major left-leaning defense and security experts.” The NSN Advisory Council includes the following individuals of interest:

  • Leslie H. Gelb (Chairman, President of the Council on Foreign Relations)
  • Stanley S. Arkin (Chairman of a private intelligence group)
  • Samuel R. Berger (U.S. National Security Advisor, under President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001)
  • Richard Clarke (former U.S. National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism)
  • Gen. Wesley Clark (retired Army General, former Democratic Presidential candidate)
  • Dr. Gail Furman (major Democratic donor)

MPAC, headquartered in Southern California, was established initially in 1986 as the Political Action Committee of the Islamic Center of Southern California whose key leaders likely had their origins in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Since that time, MPAC has functioned as the political lobbying arm of the U.S. Brotherhood. MPAC has opposed virtually every count-terror initiative undertaken or proposed by the U.S. government. At times this opposition was said to be on civil-rights grounds but, just as often, MPAC claimed that U.S. counter-terror efforts were aimed at the U.S. Muslim community itself. MPAC has consistently supported and facilitated terrorism by supporting terrorist organizations and, more broadly, constructing an elaborate ideology defending the use of violence by Islamists and Islamist organizations.  Although proclaiming a love for the Jewish people and engaging in interfaith dialog, MPAC has made frequent anti-Semitic statements that assert or imply an organized Jewish campaign to defame and exclude U.S. Muslims. MPAC has also gone beyond criticism of Israel, engaging in demonization of the Jewish state. Such demonization includes accusations of “rape of the Palestinians” in regard to the Al-Aqsa mosque, comparisons with Nazis, accusation of apartheid and genocide, accusations of “butchery”, and suggestions that Israel is seeking the eradication of Islam from its territories. More than any other U.S. Muslim Brotherhood organization, MPAC has developed extensive relationships with the U.S. government which have included numerous meetings with the Department of Justice and the FBI.

Qaradawi Organization Says Pope Must Apologize “Just As He Apologized To The Jews”

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Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi

GlobalMB @ September 27, 2012

MEMRI has provided additional details on the apology demanded from the Pope by the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS). According to a communique translated by MEMRI, the IUMS is demanding that the Pope apologize “just as he apologized to the Jews.”:

On September 13, 2012, the day before Pope Benedict XVI began his visit to Lebanon, the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), headed by Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi, issued a communiqué attacking him. The IUMS called on the pope to apologize for the acts of slaughter committed by the Crusaders in Spain, and for a 2006 lecture in which he claimed that the Muslim religion supports violence. The following are excerpts from the communique:[1]

The Pope Should Apologize To Muslims ‘As He Apologized To The Jews’ ‘While the [International] Union [of Muslim Scholars] is working to calm the rage of Muslims worldwide, [which was aroused] by non-Muslims insulting the honorable Messenger [i.e. the Prophet Muhammad], [so that they] confine themselves to peaceful protests and not attack any embassy or Christian site – it [also] calls on the pope to apologize to Muslims for his lecture [in 2006 in Regensburg, Germany],[2] his apostolic exhortation,[3] and the slaughters committed by the Crusaders [against Muslims] in Andalusia, just as he apologized to the Jews.

‘It is known that the IUMS espouses the mainstream [Islamic] ideology, which is based on peaceful coexistence and respecting the rights of others, and calls for constructive dialogue as the best way to solve problems and build balanced relationships. Therefore, the IUMS tried to conduct dialogue with the Vatican, but felt that it was one-sided. In addition, the current pope, in his famous lecture, made false accusations about Islam and its magnificent Messenger, may Allah’s prayer and peace be upon Him. The IUMS demanded that he apologize for the content [of the lecture], but he did not do so. As a result, the IUMS ceased dialogue with the Vatican until [the pope] apologized or until the situation changed… ‘

Read the rest here.

The International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) was launched on July 11, 2004 in conjunction with a visit by Youssef Qaradawi to London for a meeting of the European Council for Fatwa and Research. Many prominent individuals tied to the Global Muslim Brotherhood are or have been associated with the IUMS including:

  • Rachid Ghannouchi (leader of the Tunisian Muslim Brotherhood)
  • Ismail Haniyeh (Hamas Prime Minister in Gaza)
  • Safwat Hegazi (close to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood )
  • Isam al-Bashir (Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood leader)
  • Jamal Badawi (U.S. Muslim Brotherhood leader)
  • Mohammad Sawalha (U.K. Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas)
  • Basheer Nafi (Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader, formerly associated with the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)
  • Isaq Farhan (Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood)
  • Salah Sultan (formerly tied to U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, noted anti-Semite)
Qaradawi, a virulent anti-Semite is often referred to here as the most important leader of the global Muslim Brotherhood, an acknowledgement of his role as the de facto spiritual leader of the movement. In 2004, Qaradawi turned down the offer to lead the Egyptian Brotherhood after the death of the Supreme Guide. Based in Qatar, Sheikh Qaradawi has reportedly amassed substantial wealth through his role as Shari’ah adviser to many important Islamic banks and funds. He is also considered to be the “spiritual guide” for Hamas and his fatwas in support of suicide bombings against Israeli citizens were instrumental in the development of the phenomenon. A recent post has discussed a video compilation of Qaradawi’s extremist statements.

 

The Islamization of Knowledge in the New Egypt

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By Andrew C. McCarthy

Well, when you’ve got totalitarian ambitions, and you’ve already started locking up dissenting journalists, what’s the next logical step? If you’re the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, newly minted president of Egypt, it is obvious: start banning books.

Morsi’s government has reportedly banned importation of A History of the Modern Middle East, a well-known textbook by William L. Cleveland (who died in 2006) and Martin P. Bunton. The Egyptian daily, Al-Ahram, says no reason was given for the ban. The reason, however, is patent to anyone familiar with the Muslim Brotherhood.

One of the highest Brotherhood priorities is the “Islamization of knowledge.” That, as I’ve noted elsewhere, is the explicit purpose of the International Institute of Islamic Thought, a think-tank in Virginia that the Brotherhood founded in the early 1980s. IIIT’s mission is to forge “a new synthesis of all knowledge in an Islamic epistemological framework” — to borrow the fitting description found in an important 2009 study, “The Muslim Brotherhood in the United States,” written by Steven Merley for the Hudson Institute’s Center on Islam, Democracy, and the Future of the Muslim World.

When your ultimate goal is the Islamization of societies, nothing is more important than acculturating people to the way Islamic supremacists perceive the world — which, Islamists well know, is very different from how Westerners perceive it.

Understand that, as Patrick Poole recently recounted at the Tatler, Mohamed Morsi became immersed in Brotherhood ideology in the late seventies as a member of the Muslim Students Association when he was an engineering student in California. I described the MSA and its history in The Grand Jihad. Started in the 1960s, it is the foundation of the Brotherhood’s American infrastructure. It now has hundreds of chapters at colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada. The MSA’s purpose is to indoctrinate young Muslims in the thought of Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, among other Islamist luminaries. Banna, who was an Egyptian educator, designed a plan for ground-up revolution that depends mightily on inculcating in the young the Brotherhood’s interpretation of history. The idea is to train them to see current events as part of an Islamist narrative. (By the way, did I mention that Huma Abedin, Secretary of State Clinton’s top aide, was an officer of the Muslim Students Association when she attended George Washington University and worked at the Clinton White House? See Walid Shoebat’s latest post here. Soon, there will soon be more to say about Walid’s remarkable investigation of the Abedin family’s Brotherhood roots.)

Clearly, it is a lot easier to pull off the Islamization of knowledge when you are in charge of the government of a Muslim country, as Morsi now is. You use the power of the state to keep out the Western influences and replace them with Islamist influences. But the idea is exactly the same as what outfits like IIIT and MSA are trying to accomplish with the much smaller — but growing — American Muslim population.

It’s time for Karl Rove to come clean about what he knew

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by  at Shoebat.com

After publishing this post yesterday, which included a photo circa 2000 that shows Abdurahman Alamoudi meeting with George W. Bush and Karl Rove, I decided to look into the book that Rove was quite likely given by the delegation seen in the photo. It’s entitled, The Cultural Atlas of Islam and was written by a man named Ismail Al Faruqi in 1986.

Now, obviously, Karl Rove cannot be held accountable for accepting a book from a group he met with; it happens all the time. In fact, in 2009, Barack Obama accepted a far left-wing book from Hugo Chavez. That made news because Chavez wanted to make a public spectacle of himself.

However, there were red flags raised by the Secret Service and Intelligence officials relative to both Alamoudi and Sami Al-Arian. Yet, Bush and/or Rove met with them on more than one occasion after this book was put into Rove’s hands. If there were suspicions about Alamoudi prior to these meetings, wouldn’t it have been prudent to investigate the author of material this group felt was important enough to put into Rove’s hands?

According to Newsweek, via History Commons:

…Alamoudi and the AMC had been previously criticized for their ties to Hamas and other militant groups and figures (see March 13, 1996). Bush and/or Rove will meet with Alamoudi on other occasions (see (see July 2000, June 22, 2001, September 14-26, 2001). US intelligence learned of ties between Alamoudi and bin Laden in 1994 (see Shortly After March 1994);

Yes, Alamoudi visited the White House after 9/11. As it turns out, Al Faruqi is identified as the founder of one of the Muslim Brotherhood front groups listed as unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation trial (HLF). That group is the Association of Muslim Social Scientists of North America (AMSS). Here is what Discover the Networks says about AMSS:

Established in 1972 by Temple University professor Ismail Raji al-Faruqi and University of Pennsylvania graduate student Abdulhamid AbuSulayman, the Association of Muslim Social Scientists of North America (AMSS) is a constituent organization of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and a sister organization of the International Institute of Islamic Thought.

AMSS describes itself as “an independent membership-based organization that encompasses the United States and Canada.” It has no corporate, legal or financial relationship with any organization bearing the name of AMSS in any other country. Its mission is “to provide a forum through which Islamic positions on various academic disciplines can be promoted, with an emphasis on the social sciences and humanities”; to further “the continuity of the Islamic intellectual heritage”; and “to serve the interests of the larger Muslim community by bringing together Muslim and non-Muslim scholars in an academic setting to examine and define Islamic perspectives on issues of global concern that contribute to the prosperity of Muslims around the globe and the betterment of humanity.”

AMSS collaborates with the International Institute of Islamic Thought to publish the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences (AJISS), which is distributed in more than 50 countries around the world. Launched in 1984, AJISS is an interdisciplinary publication of scholarly research on all facets of Islam and the Muslim world: politics, history, economic philosophy, metaphysics, psychology, religious law, and Islamic thought.

So, the author of the book given to Rove in 2000 was closely affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that has pledged to work toward the destruction of the United States. The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), another unindicted co-conspirator in HLF also lists al-Faruqi as its founder.

Are we to believe that the Bush administration did not know of the nefarious intentions of these individuals and groups?

Take a look at an article written by Franklin Foer on November 12, 2001 that was published by The New Republic:

On the afternoon of September 26, George W. Bush gathered 15 prominent Muslim- and Arab-Americans at the White House. With cameras rolling, the president proclaimed that “the teachings of Islam are teachings of peace and good.” It was a critically important moment, a statement to the world that America’s Muslim leaders unambiguously reject the terror committed in Islam’s

To the president’s left sat Dr. Yahya Basha, president of the American Muslim Council, an organization whose leaders have repeatedly called Hamas “freedom fighters.” Also in attendance was Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who on the afternoon of September 11 told a Los Angeles public radio audience that “we should put the State of Israel on the suspect list.” And sitting right next to President Bush was Muzammil Siddiqi, president of the Islamic Society of North America, who last fall told a Washington crowd chanting pro-Hezbollah slogans, “America has to learn if you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of God will come.” Days later, after a conservative activist confronted Karl Rove with dossiers about some of Bush’s new friends, Rove replied, according to the activist, “I wish I had known before the event took place.”

Again, it’s time for the highest members of the Bush administration – including Karl Rove – to come clean about who they met with, what they knew about them, and why they continued meeting with them after they knew it.

The stakes are too high and the jig is very close to being up.

Ben Barrack is a talk show host and author of the upcoming book, Unsung Davids

The Islamist Plan for Victory: “Gradualism”

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By Ryan Mauro at FSM:

One of the mistakes that the West makes is that it doesn’t listen to what the Islamists are saying. If only we listened, we could hear their strategy. On November 20, Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, the top Muslim Brotherhood theologian and arguably the most influential Sunni cleric in the world, called on Muslims to embrace “gradualism.”
 
The doctrine of gradualism is successful because we fail to appreciate the ability of the Islamists to be skillful political strategists. Gradualism is an intelligent form of jihad based on pragmatism, patience, long-term planning and self-evaluation. The Islamists evaluate their performance and recalibrate their strategy accordingly. The West misinterprets this as being “moderate,” when in reality, not all Islamists are as reckless as Al-Qaeda.
 
“Gradualism in applying the Sharia is a wise requirement to follow,” Qaradawi declared, stating that Mohammed followed it.
 
The Islamists, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, have always worked in stages. In December, the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Mohamed Badi, outlined six phases: Sharia over the individual; Sharia over the family; Sharia over the society; Sharia over the government; the resurrection of the Caliphate and finally, “mastership of the world.” The Muslim Brotherhood is in the process of completing the fourth phase in Egypt.
 
In this stage, the Islamists implement Sharia by describing it as their form of “democracy” and “freedom.” They will argue that each democracy is different and so we must be tolerant of their version. Sheikh Qaradawi explains, “What I am for is a genuine type of democracy, for a society driven by the laws of Sharia that is compatible with the values of freedom, human rights, justice and equity.”
 
Qaradawi admits that “our democracy is different.” Secular democracy like that in the West does not honor God and is immoral. “Democracy itself also can make what it wants as lawful, or prohibit anything it does not like. In comparison, the Sharia as a political system has limits. If we are to adopt democracy, we should adopt its best features.”
 
As far back as 1982, the Muslim Brotherhood had drawn up a 12-point strategy to “establish an Islamic government on earth.” It was discovered when the Swiss authorities raided the home of Yousef Nada in 2001 and is referred to as “The Project.”
 
The document says to exercise “flexibility at the local level” and “to reconcile political engagement and the necessity of avoiding isolation on one hand, with permanent education and institutional action on the other.” It calls for “controlling the local centers of power through institutional action” and to build alliances with other Islamic groups even if there are disagreements. It supports “temporary cooperation” with non-Muslim groups that are anti-Israel and “struggle against colonialism.”
 
The strategy document says the worldwide Brotherhood must “support movements engaged in jihad across the Muslim world” but “should not look for confrontation with our adversaries, at the local or the global scale, which would be disproportionate and could lead to attacks.” It talks of constructive “self-criticism” and using the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to further its strategy, “since it acts as the keystone of the renaissance of the Arab world today.” In other words, use the conflict to radicalize the masses.
 
Hamas, a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, also acts in accordance with gradualism. In December, the leader of Hamas stated that it was working towards the “interim objective of liberation of Gaza, the West Bank, or Jerusalem.” The destruction of Israel, or in the Islamists’ words, the “liberation of all Palestine,” follows.
 
Wherever the Muslim Brotherhood and similar Islamists operate, there is a phased strategy—even in the United States. The Islamic Circle of North America, one of the most powerful Muslim-American groups in the U.S., explained its five phases in its handbook published in 2010 and it very closely follows what Badie said in Egypt. The phases are: Educating yourself; Converting your family; Outreach into the community; “establish an Islamic society” on the state level and then a “united Islamic state, governed by an elected khalifah in accordance with the laws of Sharia.” 
 
An FBI memo written in 1988 likewise documented that a source, apparently within the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S., described a six-phased plan. At the time, the Muslim Brotherhood, specifically the International Institute of Islamic Thought and the North American Islamic Trust, were working on the first phase. It included creating “political action front groups with no traceable ties” so that it can “peacefully get inside the United States government and also American universities.” The source told the FBI that Brotherhood operatives “claimed success infiltrating the United States government.”
 
In 2004, the FBI found seized another Brotherhood strategy document that describes its “work in America as a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization within.” It describes 5 phases:
 
·  The “secret establishment of leadership”
·  “…gradual appearance on the public scene.” This phase calls for “infiltrating various sectors of government,” “gaining religious institutions,” “gaining public support and sympathy,” and “establishing a shadow government.”
·  “Escalation phase.” This focuses on “utilizing mass media” and the document says that this stage is “currently in progress.” Unfortunately, we do not know when this was written.
·  “Open confrontation with the government through…political pressure.” It also calls for “training on the use of weapons domestically” and says that there are “noticeable activities in this regard.” Could this have something to do with the Jamaat ul-Fuqra training camps on American soil?
·  The final phase: “Seizing power to establish their Islamic Nation under which all parties and Islamic groups are united.”
 
The Islamists have a comprehensive long-term strategy for victory that’s been around for decades. It’s about time that we made one of our own.
 
 
Ryan Mauro is the National Security Analyst for Family Security Matters. He is the Founder of WorldThreats.com, a national security analyst at Christian Action Network, a Strategic Analyst for Wikistrat and a national security commentator for FOX News.