The GMBDW has unearthed an astonishing article from March 1993 titled “Inside the American Moslem Community” (see Note below) and authored by none other than the late Jamal Khashoggi, apparently murdered inside the Saudi Embassy in Turkey. In the article, Khashoggi confirms the major theses concerning the history of the US Muslim Brotherhood as documented in a 2009 report by the GMBDW author including the following findings:
- The “Islamic Mainstream” in the United States (and Europe) was controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood.
- The leaders representing the Muslim Brotherhood in the US had successfully established a huge infrastructure in the US consisting of over a thousand mosques and Islamic Centers as well as organizations active in a wide variety of areas.
- Key individuals identified in the report were in fact US Muslim Brotherhood leaders.
- The goal of the Muslim Brotherhood in the US was to “naturalize” Islam, meaning essentially to gain societal legitimacy for the leaders and organizations controlled by the Brotherhood.
The article begins by identifying what is described as “tension between Americas Islamic mainstream, which is “controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the newcomer jihadist movement”:
The bombing of New Yorks World Trade Center has raised tension between Americas Islamic mainstream, which is controlled by the Moslem Brotherhood, and the newcomer jihadist movement, led by such clerics as Sheikh Mohammad Abderrahman, according to al-Hayat. Al-Hayats Jamal Khashoggi, writing from New York, says the tension is expected to spread to the Arab world, where differences between the Moslem Brotherhood and the more violent Islamist movements have so far taken the form of mutual criticism through books, audio-tapes and sermons.
The article goes to cite Khashoggi as stressing that the Muslim Brotherhood “is the Islamic mainstream in America and Europe”:
Stressing that the Moslem Brotherhood is the Islamic mainstream in America and Europe, he said some Brotherhood members are still in favor of maintaining contacts with Sheikh Omar Abderrahman in the hope of moderating his fire-and -brimstone views and converting him to less violent ways. But this view was ebbing with the rise of a trend in favor of cutting off all contacts with Abderrahman, reversing the Brotherhoods policy of patiently working on the more violent Islamists until they joined it voluntarily.
The article then reports the blockbuster statement by Khashoggi that US Islamic leaders, already identified as the representing the US Muslim Brotherhood, were worried about an “Israeli media campaign” that could have jeopardized the “enormous infrastructure” established by the Brotherhood in the US:
Khashoggi says the American media campaign against Moslem fundamentalists after the New York blast and coincided with the Israeli media campaign warning the U.S. about fundamentalist Palestinian bases on American soil had the established Islamic leaders in the U.S. worried. They had spent a long time building an enormous infrastructure in the country over a thousand mosques and Islamic centers, along with tens of Inside the American Moslem community. organizations active in various fields, from publishing to missionary work to investment and they were afraid that these would now come under increasing political pressure.
The GMBDW editor’s report on the history of the US Muslim Brotherhood documents many of these “front organizations’ such as:
- North American Islamic Trust (NAIT)
- International Islamic Association for Palestine (later to become the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)
- Muslim American Society (MAS)
The article goes on to identify the late Mohammad al-Hanouti and Abderrahman al-Amoudi as US Muslim Brotherhood leaders whose first priority was to “naturalize Islam in America”:
Sheikh Mohammad al-Hanouti, the Palestinian director of the Islamic Center in Jersey City and one of the few Moslem leaders who openly criticize Sheikh Omar and prevent him from speaking at their establishments, told Khashoggi the Moslems first priority was to naturalize Islam in America, and Sheikh Omars efforts to bring the conflicts of the Middle East to us conflicted with that priority. Abderrahman al-Amoudi, who heads the American Moslem Council in Washington, said that Sheikh Omar does not represent the Islamic mainstream, and we are surprised that the Americans are focusing on that aberration. Amoudi said his Councils major mission was to get American Moslems involved in the political system and organize them into a powerful lobby capable of gaining Moslem rights under the American Constitution. This was a tall order, he said, considering the abundance of wealthy lobbies in Washington (the Councils annual budget is $ 250,000) and the fact that many Moslems opposed engagement in the American political process, even considered it un-Islamic. Amoudi said the Council maintained contacts with everyone, including American Jews, which, of course, costs us the friendship and confidence of many Moslems.
Both the late Mohammad al-Hanouti and Abderrahman al-Amoudi, currently imprisoned in connection with a Libyan plot to kill a Saudi Crown Prince, are identified in the US Muslim Brotherhood report as heads of US Muslim Brotherhood committees. Alamoudi is further identified in the report as a leading force in a Political Action Committee (PAC) established by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) at that time.
The article then identifies a founder of the Muslim Brotherhood who was said to have been living in Florida:
Mohammad Abu al-Saud, a founder of the Moslem Brotherhood who has been living in Florida for two decades, told Khashoggi this insular existence must be combatted because it generates American hostility to the Moslems. He himself is an active member of the Democratic Party, he says.
The US Muslim Brotherhood report authored by the GMBDW editor had identified a Mahmoud Abu Saud who was described in a Chicago Tribune report as “particularly involved in the Brotherhood’s beginnings in Egypt and remains well-known in the Arab world.” The report also noted that Ahmed Elkadi, one of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood in the US, married Abu Saud’s daughter and reported that Elkadi had relocated from Missouri to Panama City, Florida, where he established the Akbar Clinic. This Islamic medical center was funded with $2.4 million from a Luxembourg bank managed by his father-in-law (Abu-Saud).
Finally the article cites Khashoggi as identifying the goals of the the Muslim Brotherhood in the US as a “drive to naturalize Islam in the U.S” with some working on “minority jurisprudence”, a term associated with Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi:
The Islamic mainstreams drive to naturalize Islam in the U.S. is being pursued with vigor by American Moslem leaders all over the country. Some of these, like New Yorks Mohammad Mehdi, are trying to drive the message home to America that the nations culture can no longer be desiness of toppling the parties iscribed as Judeo-Christian but must be expanded to take account of Islam. Pressure by Mehdis group persuaded a number of establishments in New York to display the crescent with the minora and the Christmas tree last Christmas. Others, like Maher Hathout and a group of ulema in Los Angeles, are working on what they call minority jurisprudence an interpretation of the Islamic texts that would allow Moslems to make some religious concessions to meet American culture halfway another step in the direction of naturalizing the faith.
The late Maher Hathout was known to have been active in the “Islamic Movement” and to have been a founder and leader of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a political lobbying arm of the us Muslim Brotherhood. The US Muslim Brotherhood report references an individual likely to have been Maher Hathout.
As the US Brotherhood report had documented, Brotherhood leadership over the years has repeatedly denied connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. As the report states:
More important is the claim made by the MAS, for example, to have gone “way beyond” the Egyptian Brotherhood, implying some form of reform and/or moderation on the part of the U. S. Brotherhood. There are many reasons to be suspicious of this and similar claims. First, almost all of the U. S. Muslim Brotherhood organizations continue to exist in their original form, often led by their founders and/or family members. No attempt appears to have been made to “clean house” by bringing in new and untainted leadership. Second, no public attempt appears to have been made by any U. S. Brotherhood organization or leader to acknowledge the history of the Brotherhood in the U. S. Only disingenuous denials have been issued when damaging documents come to light such as those examined in this report. Finally, where detailed investigations have been made of U. S. Brotherhood organizations, they have revealed an extensive history of support for Islamic funda- mentalism, anti-Semitism, and support for terrorism that has included ideological, financial, and legal support, particularly for Hamas and other Palestinian terror organizations. For example, many of the individuals and organizations identified in this report have either been convicted or named as unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas terrorism financing case.
The author sees no reason to change this assessment at this time and once again calls upon the US media to do their job with respect to this subject as once as done many years ago by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ian Johnson and former Washington Post reporter Douglas Farah. The GMBDW notes however that it has been as least 18 years since since any major US media outlet has covered the subject of the Muslim Brotherhood in the US with the Washington Post seemingly acting now has a shill for the US Brotherhood.
As for Jamal Khashoggi himself, most of the US media continues to lionize the apparently murdered “journalist” while at the same time studiously ignoring and/or discounting the mountain of evidence showing that he was deeply immersed in the networks of the Global Muslim Brotherhood. The GMBDW wonders since Khashoggi is so highly thought of by much of the US media, whether or not they will accept his 1993 analysis of the US Muslim Brotherhood and proceed to report accordingly?
We are not holding our breath.
Note: “Inside the American Moslem community” Mideast Mirror March 26, 1993
(Supplemental- We should add that in February 2017 the Washington Post, where Khashoggi wrote and who has been his biggest supporter, cited unidentified “experts” who claimed there was “no evidence” to support the claim that major US Muslim organizations are tied to the Global Muslim Brotherhood. The article also cited the very same groups’ own denial of such ties. All of this is in direct contradiction of the Post report written by Doug Farah in September 2004.)