The Brotherhood: America's Next Great Enemy (33 page)

Read The Brotherhood: America's Next Great Enemy Online

Authors: Erick Stakelbeck

Tags: #Political Science / Political Ideologies / Conservatism & Liberalism

In a sane society, an ongoing, existential struggle against Islamists—of both the violent and stealth variety—would mean fewer mosques, not more. But the West, including the United States, isn’t too concerned with self or cultural preservation these days. Besides, the new iPhone is out and Honey Boo Boo is on the tube—so who has time to worry about depressing stuff like jihad and sharia? Better to bury our heads in the latest gadgets, watch the Kardashians, and have another brew. It’ll all work out in the end: after all, in Barack we trust, and he shall protect and provide.
It’s estimated that at least 10 percent (or roughly 157 million) of the world’s Muslims subscribe to the al-Qaeda/MB model. The highly respected Middle East expert Daniel Pipes believes the number could be as high as 15 percent .
27
No matter how you slice it, that’s a whole lot of violence-minded Islamic supremacists. And remember, most of these estimates came before the Islamist explosion (no pun intended) brought on by the so-called Arab Spring.
By the way, a good number of those terror-supporting, 10-to-15-per-centers hail from countries like Egypt, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan—the same places that are providing a sizable chunk of the ever-increasing Muslim arrivals to America’s shores, where a rapidly expanding mosque network awaits them with doors open and indoctrination program at the ready. A comprehensive 2011 study by the Washington-based Center for Security Policy found that 81 percent of U.S. mosques feature Islamic texts that promote violence.
28
According to the study’s authors:
Of the 100 mosques surveyed, 51% had texts on site rated as severely advocating violence; 30% had texts rated as moderately advocating violence; and 19% had no violent texts at all. Mosques that presented as Sharia adherent were more likely to feature violence-positive texts on site than were their non-Sharia-adherent counterparts. In 84.5% of the mosques, the imam recommended studying violence-positive texts. The leadership at Sharia-adherent mosques was more likely to recommend that a worshiper study violence-positive texts than leadership at non-Sharia-adherent mosques. Fifty-eight percent of the mosques invited guest imams known to promote violent jihad. The leadership of mosques that featured violence-positive literature was more likely to invite guest imams who were known to promote violent jihad than was the leadership of mosques that did not feature violence-positive literature on mosque premises.
29
 
The study found that one popular tract at U.S. mosques is none other than Muslim Brotherhood luminary Sayyid Qutb’s
Milestones
, which has helped inspire the jihadist careers of al-Qaeda and many others. With incendiary literature like this so commonplace, is it any coincidence that several American mosques have been the scenes of terrorist plotting and fundraising over the past three decades?
30
Of course, the U.S. government’s unspoken response to these frightening statistics is a collective shrug, followed by a phalanx of DOJ lawyers who’ll ensure that still more mosques are built.
It’s also no coincidence that pricey mega-mosques are popping up in areas with miniscule Muslim populations. Rest assured MAS officials knew full well the heavily Jewish demographics around Voorhies Avenue when they made the Sheepshead Bay purchase. It’s also a certainty that the Islamists behind the sprawling Islamic Center of Murfreesboro were well aware of the reaction they would receive when they proposed building a mega-mosque in the devoutly Christian heart of the Bible Belt, right next to a Baptist church, no less. These moves are direct, calculated challenges by Islamists against Judeo-Christian civilization. As I wrote in
The Terrorist Next Door
:
Throughout the West, mosques are often built right next door to, or directly across the street from, churches or synagogues. I’ve been to many mosques in the United States and Europe ... and seen this phenomenon firsthand. Just for kicks, take a few minutes and check out the location of your local mosques. I guarantee that many will either be in close proximity to Christian churches or synagogues, or will occupy buildings that are renovated churches. You’ll also notice that minarets at U.S. and European mosques will usually be built higher than the steeples of neighboring churches. All this is no accident. Again: domination is the name of the game, and bigger is better.
31
 
That helps explain why the Brotherhood-connected Muslim American Society, around the same time it acquired the Sheepshead Bay property, also attempted to purchase an empty Roman Catholic convent in nearby Staten Island. That attempt failed, a rare victory for mosque opponents in the Age of Obama. Not to worry, though: MAS simply opened a mosque in another heavily Catholic neighborhood nearby—in a building that formerly housed a Hindu temple.
32
Yes, symbolism abounds with Islamists, as the proposed mega-mosque at Ground Zero—sight of the most lethal jihadist attack in U.S. history—clearly showed. It’s no secret that historically, when Muslims conquer an area, they build a large mosque to symbolize Islam’s domination over the newly vanquished territory. It’s the Islamic version of the Roman victory arch. Some of the most notable examples are The Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem—which are built atop the remains of the ancient Jewish Temple—and the Ayasofya Mosque, formerly known as the Hagia Sophia Church of Constantinople before the Ottoman Turks conquered the city in 1453, mosque-ifying the church and changing the city’s name to Istanbul.
For the Muslim Brotherhood, building mosques in decidedly non-Muslim areas is about much more than symbolism. According to the Brotherhood’s own documents, select “Islamic centers” are Ikhwan beachheads and command centers. What follows is an eye-opening passage from the 1991 MB Explanatory Memorandum captured by FBI agents (and detailed in Chapter Two) that reveals the integral role mosques play in the Brotherhood’s strategic, long-range plan to conquer America. Yes, I said conquer:
Understanding the role and the nature of work of “The Islamic Center” in every city with what achieves the goal of the process of settlement:
 
 
 
The center we seek is the one which constitutes the “axis” of our Movement, the “perimeter” of the circle of our work, our “balance center”, the “base” for our rise and our “Dar al-Arqam” to educate us, prepare us and supply our battalions
in addition to being the “niche” of our prayers.
This is in order for the Islamic center to turn—in action not in words—into a seed “for a small Islamic society”
which is a reflection and a mirror to our central organizations. The center ought to turn into a “beehive” which produces sweet honey. Thus, the Islamic center would turn into a place for study, family, battalion, course, seminar, visit, sport, school, social club, women gathering, kindergarten for male and female youngsters, the office of the domestic political resolution, and the center for distributing our newspapers, magazines, books and our audio and visual tapes.
In brief we say: we would like for the Islamic center to become “The House of Dawa” and “the general center” in deeds first before name.
As much as we own and direct these centers at the continent level, we can say we are marching successfully towards the settlement of Dawa’ in [the United States]
.
Meaning that the “center’s” role should be the same as the “mosque’s” role during the time of God’s prophet, God’s prayers and peace be upon him, when he marched to “settle” the Dawa’ in its first generation in Madina. [F]rom the mosque, he drew the Islamic life and provided to the world the most magnificent and fabulous civilization humanity knew.
This mandates that, eventually, the region, the branch and the Usra turn into “operations rooms” for planning, direction, monitoring and leadership for the Islamic center
in order to be a role model to be followed.
33
[emphasis added]
Again, those are the words of a top Muslim Brotherhood strategist, lifted straight from an official Brotherhood document penned only two decades ago. Some conclusions here; first, judging by the massive spike in mosque building since the Explanatory Memorandum was written in 1991, the Ikhwan’s strategy is working to perfection.
Second, we must assume that the countless Islamic centers nationwide that are currently run by MB-linked groups and individuals are indeed considered by the Brotherhood as “the axis” of its subversive movement, “the base for [the MB’s] rise” in America and the “beehive[s]” from which jihadist “battalions” will be supplied in any future coordinated action by Islamists on U.S. soil. These mosques would also ostensibly serve as “operations rooms” in such a scenario. And in the Brothers’ view, the more mosques they “own and direct,” the closer they are to their goal of transforming America into an Islamic state governed by sharia—or, in the very least, into a weakened, divided state dotted with self-governing Islamic enclaves governed by sharia.
These are the only logical conclusions that can be reached after reading the passages I included above from the Brotherhood’s own Explanatory Memorandum. In that document, the Ikhwan lay out their gradualist plan for Islamizing America. Just as I take the Iranian regime at face value when it vows to wipe Israel and the United States off the map, so, too, do I regard with utmost seriousness the Muslim Brotherhood’s desire to conquer the United States from within, in part through rampant mosque building. The Muslim Brothers are ruthless, committed, and ideologically driven. They mean business.
Of course, to the complacent, ignorant, liberal mind, the Brotherhood’s plans sound completely outlandish and improbable—just as Hitler’s did in
Mein Kampf
. But in the Brothers’ view, these plans are perfectly feasible—and even more important, they firmly
believe
that they can make them happen. With a combination of generous global financing, patience, discipline, and fanatical commitment, the Ikhwan fully expect to make their sharia dreams a reality one day in America—or across large swaths of it.
It was I, my cameraman, a mosque, and a snail. All we needed were a rabbi and a Catholic priest—but given the locale, their absence was understandable.
I had just recorded a few reporter standups in front of the Islamic Center of Munich when the little fellow with the big shell gamely inched his way across the street in front of the mosque.
I had expected the Muslim Brotherhood’s first beachhead in the West to be located in a heavily Islamicized area of Germany’s third-largest city. Instead, it was tucked away on a leafy side street in a quintessentially Bavarian neighborhood so quiet and nondescript that a snail’s journey could capture your attention. If not for the minaret rising high above the skyline, you would never know the Islamic center was there.
But any notion that snails were the street’s only occupants was quickly put to rest when a young, hijab-clad woman and a bearded Arab man emerged from the mosque and walked toward us.
“Can we help you?” the woman asked suspiciously. “I noticed that you were filming.”
I’d been through this drill countless times in my years of investigating radical mosques throughout the United States and Europe. Usually, once someone inside the mosque notices that there is a TV crew filming out front, a few of the mosque’s congregants will hop in a car and drive by slowly a few times, talking on cell phones as they survey the scene. They may stop and ask us some questions or they may call the police. At other times, the imam may emerge from the mosque after talking to the advance team and approach us with questions of his own.

Other books

The Dragondain by Richard Due
Vacant Possession by Hilary Mantel
Here Be Sexist Vampires by Suzanne Wright
A Moment to Prey by Harry Whittington
Everyday Play by Christy Isbell
Spoonful of Christmas by Darlene Panzera
Love's Paradise by Celeste O. Norfleet