Session Abstract
The Strategic Vision of the Muslim Brotherhood “Project”: Planning the Islamist Takeover of the West
“I have complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America, because Islam has logic and a mission.” – Muhammad Mahdi Othman ‘Akef, Muslim Brotherhood movement leader
Many signs of the growing influence of radical Islam in the West are becoming apparent. Supported by generous international patrons and vast amounts of petrodollars, extensive networks of mosques, organizations and charities have been established throughout Europe and America with the goal of directing the energies of Islamic communities in the West towards the eventual political domination of Islam and the institution of shari’a as law. Leading the way in this effort has been the international Muslim Brotherhood network.
The Muslim Brotherhood, represented in the US by the Muslim American Society and other organizations, developed a strategic document in the early 1980s known as “The Project” to cast the vision of how the Islamization of the West might be accomplished.
Calling for the utilization of various tactics as part of a broad 12-point cultural strategy to “establish an Islamic government on earth”, ranging from directed immigration, infiltration of existing institutions, conducting surveillance and gathering intelligence, publishing propaganda, establishing political legitimacy and the sparing but escalating use of violence, including terrorism, The Project has served for more than two decades as the Muslim Brotherhood “master plan” for operations in the West with startling success. It should be noted that much of the material from The Project was incorporated into Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s best-selling book published in 1990, Priorities of the Islamic Movement in the Coming Phase.
The details of The Project were known to the Western intelligence community after Swiss authorities recovered a copy of the document in November 2001 during a raid conducted at the home one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s top financiers. Through the work of a Swiss journalist, Sylvain Besson, details of The Project were first made public in an article he wrote for the Swiss daily, Le Temps, and the October 2005 publication of his book, La conquête de l'Occident: Le projet secret des Islamistes. One Western official cited by Besson has described The Project as “a totalitarian ideology of infiltration which represents, in the end, the greatest danger for European societies.”
It should be noted that The Project is not the product of some grand international conspiracy, but instead, shrewd cultural strategy and an acute understanding of the West by the Muslim Brotherhood. The Project is not about secretly imposing the organization’s power, but obtaining social and political power in Western countries.
In fact, The Project is just one of many similar cultural strategies developed by Islamists operating in the West. Both the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Pakistani Jamaat Islamiyah have developed strategic vision documents strikingly similar to The Project. This strategic visioneering by Islamist organizations planning the eventual domination of the West seems to have originally been sparked by a 1980 publication by the Islamic Council of Europe entitled, Muslim Communities in Non-Muslim States, which states that the ultimate goal of the strategy for Muslims in the West is that the Muslims should become a majority and the entire nation eventually be governed according to Islam.
The details of The Project and these other strategic documents formulated by international Islamist groups will be the focus of this session.
