Haqqani on Muslim Brotherhood's real agenda

At a Hudson Institute conference in Washington last year, the Muslim scholar Zeyno Baran spoke about how the radical Muslim Brotherhood has established front groups in the US to mask and mainstream its Islamist ideology. Baran said:

Now, when we engage with Islamist organizations, either in conferences or government outreach programs, that is seen as endorsing that group and gives them legitimacy and empowers this sort of Islamism to become much more legitimate in the eyes of, let's say American Muslim groups.

If groups like CAIR or ISNA, Council on American Islamic Relations, CAIR, or the Islamic Society of North America, the two indicted coconspirators in the Holy Land trial case that I'm sure you all know about, and I believe you mentioned it briefly in your introduction, when those groups are invited to events with U.S. government, then most of the American Muslim groups who don't really understand these issue think that they are the legitimate representative organizations and they need to be supporting them. And instead of then having sort of non-Islamist networks being formed, many of the Muslims feel that this sort of the non-Islamist Muslims feel that there's really nowhere for them to go since the government is not reaching out to them, and since through decades of funding, institutional networking, creating of organizations, the Brotherhood and its affiliates have been taking over, or starting to take over the mainstream, that is the answer when some of you say, where are the real moderate Muslims, why aren't they speaking up, and that is partly the reason why they don't speak up because they don't think that there is really any interest or really opportunity for them.

Also on the panel was Islamic scholar Husain Haqqani, who recounted the history of how the Muslim Brotherhood took over mainstream Muslim institutions in the US. I reproduce his remarks below, not only because they are important to keep in mind when many Americans prefer to believe that CAIR, ISNA and the other mainstream Muslim organizations pursue a benign agenda, but also because Dr. Haqqani is now Pakistan's ambassador to the United States.

Remarks by Husain Haqqani:

Let me begin by saying that this morning we all heard about the Muslim Brotherhood's history, but to set the stage for my discussion of the Muslim Brotherhood's politicization of Islam in America, I would like to begin by just a few direct quotes from the work of the Muslim Brotherhood's founder, Hassan al-Banna to explain the world view of the Muslim Brotherhood as the movement sees it.

In one of his writings, Hassan al-Banna claims Muslims should strive for the Muslim individual, Muslim family, Muslim nation, Muslim government and a state that should be able to lead the Islamic governments, should be able to unite the dispersed Muslims, should be able to regain their honor and superiority, should be able to recover their lost lands, their usurped regions and their occupied territories. Then it should be able to raise the flag of Jihad and the call towards Allah until the entire world is benefited by the teachings of Islam. Addressing members of the Muslim Brotherhood, he writes: Always remember that you have two basic objectives: number one, that the Islamic
country should be free from all foreign control, for freedom is the natural right of every man which can be denied only by an oppressive dictator; second, although the concept of freedom is very different (just in case anybody is wondering), in this free land, a free Islamic government should be established, which should act according to the Islamic commands and enforce its collective system, declare its right principles as operative and popularize among the people its message which is based on wisdom. As long as the government is not established, all Muslims will be guilty, and for any slackness and carelessness in this connection will have to be accountable before Allah.

Following this, there is the Muslim Brothers' concept of a pledge of allegiance, and here there are six points to which the allegiance is undertaken.