In 1953, Princeton University hosted a group of “prominent Muslims” for an “Islamic Colloquium.” Brotherhood delegates asked for and were granted a meeting with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who agreed to the meeting on advice from his defense and intelligence advisors, who saw it as an opportunity for the U.S. to influence the Muslim world and use them against the communists.
One of the delegates at the meeting was the “Honorable Saeed Ramahdan, Delegate of the Muslim Brothers,” as described in the official White House documents. A now-declassified CIA documents recording the events of this meeting described Ramadan as follows: “Ramadan seems to be a Fascist, interested in the grouping of individuals for power. He did not display many ideas except for those of the Brotherhood.” 198
It is critical to recall the MB’s aforementioned bylaws, and specifically that the approved “means” to achieve the Ikhwan’s objectives in America includes this mandate: “Make every effort for the establishment of educational, social, economic, and scientific institutions and the establishment of mosques, schools, clinics, shelters, clubs.” (Emphasis added.)
As the Muslim Brothers “settled” in North America, they did so according to their stated bylaws. At the University of Illinois in Urbana, the Ikhwan created its first front organization in North America, the Muslim Students Association (MSA) in 1963. Today, MSA chapters are present on many college campuses across the country, serving as recruiting nodes for the MB and, in some cases for violent jihadist organizations (some of which are described in chapter five). As will be explained further in the following pages, out of the MSA came nearly every Muslim organization in America today. Initially, as MSA chapters sprang up on American campuses, they presented Islam in public as an acceptable alternative to other religions, never mentioning its revolutionary aspects. In recent years, MSA members have become ever-more-aggressive in their demands for accommodations and silencing all who oppose them.199
In the 1970s, a number of trade organizations were formed by the Brotherhood for the purpose of insinuating its members more deeply into American society. These included the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS), the Association of Muslim Scientists and Engineers (AMSE), the Islamic Medical Association (IMA), the Muslim Communities Association (MCA), and others. The Brothers also formed other student groups in the 1970s, including the Muslim Arab Youth Assembly (MAYA) and Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA). 200
In 1973, the Saudis created an important new enabler of Brotherhood operations in the United States and domination of American Muslim communities: the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). NAIT “controls” approximately 80 percent of the titles/deeds to the mosques, Islamic organizations and Islamic schools in this country.201 Typically, along with such ownership comes Saudi-trained and appointed imams, textbooks for the madrassas, jihadist literature and videos for the bookstore, paid hajj pilgrimages (the obligatory trip to Mecca) and, in some cases, training for jihad. 71
In 1980, the Brotherhood created a new organization to extend the footprint made possible by the swelling ranks of Muslim Students Association alumni. It brought together most of its groups under the authority of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which is today the largest Muslim Brotherhood front in North America.
The creation of ISNA ushered in an era of massive growth of the Movement in North America. Through the 1980s and 1990s, the Brotherhood created hundreds of new organizations and built hundreds of mosques and Islamic schools across North America. It did so primarily with funding from Saudi Arabia. 202
Breaking the Code
In August of 2004, an alert Maryland Transportation Authority Police officer observed a woman wearing traditional Islamic garb videotaping the support structures of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Maryland, and conducted a traffic stop. The driver of the vehicle was identified as Ismail Elbarasse and detained on an outstanding material witness warrant issued in Chicago, Illinois in a Hamas case.
The FBI’s Washington Field Office raided Elbarasse’s residence in Annandale, Virginia, and in the basement of his home, a hidden sub-basement was found. In the sub-basement, the FBI discovered the archives of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America.
The documents confirmed what investigators and counterterrorism experts had previously suspected and contended about the myriad Muslim-American groups in the United States – namely, that nearly all of them are controlled by the MB and, therefore, as shariah dictates, are hostile to this country, its Constitution and freedoms. The documents make clear their sole objectives are to implement Islamic Law in America in furtherance of re-establishing the global caliphate.203