The Troubling Past and Frightening Future of Jihad, Part 2

The Troubling Past and Frightening Future of Jihad, Part 2
By Michael Youssef
4/29/2011

Over the years, I've returned many times to Egypt, the land of my birth. That land has changed dramatically since my boyhood. In recent years, this formerly secular and religiously tolerant nation has become a hotbed of Islamic extremism. Though there has been political repression in Egypt throughout my lifetime, the one benefit of that repression is that Muslims, Jews, and Coptic Christians lived together in relative peace and security.

Today, however, the peace and security of Egypt have been shaken. Radical, fundamentalist Islam is grabbing for power in Egypt. The radicalization of Egypt was vividly illustrated for me during my most recent visit to the Mediterranean resort city of Alexandria. There, men and women still go to the beach as they did when I was a boy—but now they do so in full Islamic garb.

For decades, anti-Western, anti-Israel, anti-Christian militancy has been on the rise across the Muslim world. Radical Islam is being inculcated in young Arab minds through Wahhabi madrasas. We are seeing the fruit of radical Islamic education in Egypt in the growing persecution of religious minorities. The Wall Street Journal (May 18, 2010) reported on "waves of mob assaults" by Muslims against Coptic Christians in Egypt. In Marsa Matrouh, an estimated 3,000 Muslims rampaged against Christians, destroying Christian homes and shops. Some 400 Christians took refuge behind barricades in their church. The Christians called for police protection, but the police did not arrive until after the violence ended—and they refused to prosecute the Muslims.

The fall of the Mubarak government in February 2011 has given radical Islamists an opening to seize power and transform Egypt into an Iran-style theocratic state. In March 2011, Egypt held an historic referendum on constitutional amendments designed to move the nation from military rule to a permanent government. The amendments were designed to give political power to well-organized political movements—and the amendments were strongly supported by the Muslim Brotherhood. Opposition to the amendments came from the Christian Coptic community, secular political leaders, and the student organizers who had sparked the original uprising in Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood won by a huge margin—77 percent!

Just a few weeks earlier, President Obama had said, "I think that the Muslim Brotherhood is one faction in Egypt. They don't have majority support." The president seems unaware that the Brotherhood is a vast global network with 600,000 members in Egypt alone. This Brotherhood victory in the Egyptian referendum shows that the revolution in Egypt has already been co-opted by radicals and hard-liners. I predict that those in the West who celebrated the Egyptian revolution, thinking it would lead to freedom and democracy, will be bitterly disappointed by future events.

Is the Obama administration worried that the Egyptian revolution might be hijacked by the Muslim Brotherhood? Not at all! White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said flatly that Egypt's new government should include "a whole host of important non-secular actors," a reference to the Muslim Brotherhood.

And in February, President Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, testified before a congressional committee that the Muslim Brotherhood is "a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence. . . . They have pursued social ends, a betterment of the political order in Egypt, et cetera. . . . There is no overarching agenda, particularly in pursuit of violence, at least internationally."

"Largely secular"? "No overarching agenda"? It boggles my mind to think that our nation's intelligence director could be so far out of touch with reality! After all, the organization is called the Muslim Brotherhood—not the Secular Brotherhood. The "overarching agenda" is right there in the name!

The Muslim Brotherhood is the largest, oldest, and most influential Islamic political group in the world. Its motto: "Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Quran is our law, Jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope." The terror organization Hamas is an offshoot of the Brotherhood, created specifically with the goal of destroying Israel. The Brotherhood is dedicated to the establishment of a global caliphate, the imposition of Islamic law worldwide. The Brotherhood's supreme guide, Mohammed Badie, has openly stated his goal of raising up "a jihadi generation that pursues death, just as the enemies pursue life."

One of the leaders of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and '60s was Sayyid Qutb. Through his writings, he exerted a profound influence on such key al-Qaeda leaders as Ayman Zawahiri, the U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, and Osama bin Laden. So the Muslim Brotherhood of half a century ago has helped engender the radical jihadist movement of today.

Most Americans would be shocked to learn the extent of the Muslim Brotherhood's activities in Europe and the United States. A large number of Islamic organizations in America—including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America, and the North American Islamic Trust—are known offshoots or front groups of the Brotherhood. Fundraising for the "Ground Zero Mosque" in lower Manhattan has been facilitated in part by Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal, described by Investor's Business Daily (August 26, 2010) as "a major financier of Muslim Brotherhood fronts in the U.S."

When we connect the dots, we find that the same organization that is quietly seizing control of the revolution in Egypt is also advancing its stealth agenda in America and across Europe. That organization is the father of Hamas and al-Qaida, and the fountainhead of jihadist ideology around the world—the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Christian West is under attack. Invasion and conquest are well underway. From the "Ground Zero Mosque" to the uprisings in the Arab world, the Islamic Jihad movement has announced its intention to eradicate the Jews and the Christian faith, to destroy our culture and our freedom, and to impose Islamic law on the entire world.

Tragically, Western civilization not only seems unaware of the threat, but actually welcomes and celebrates the coming of its own destruction.
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To read Part 1, click here.

To read more about the Muslim Brotherhood history, click here.