Civilization Jihad and the Myth of Moderate Islam

By Paul Sutliff

Today we have an enemy that selected and targeted us without an open declaration of war. Our government has known this since 2004. We as Americans, however, have been left largely uninformed. That enemy is the Muslim Brotherhood and is carrying out in North America what they call Civilization Jihad. ISIS is a foreign enemy people recognize. But the Muslim Brotherhood is here working in the top levels of colleges, public schools, society, and government. This is not fiction! It is today's reality!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Sutliff
• Release date: Dec 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9798985074758

Paul Sutliff

Paul is the author of Civilization Jihad and the Myth of Moderate Islam (2016), which was peer-reviewed and recommended! Paul’s unique background and experience have enabled him to establish ways to address Civilization Jihad and Islamization that many others have not, in order to make America safer. His proposed resolution for Congress is an example of how his mind can cut through the complex to address a problem simply. Clare Lopez of the Center for Security Policy, and Tom Trento of The United West are supportive of this resolution.Paul has also written a book for Social Studies teachers to learn how their own textbooks contain glaring historical errors placed purposefully in order to distort what is historically recorded. What every Social Studies Teacher Needs to Know About Islam (2017), utilizes Islamic histories written by Muslims for Muslims and and is now provided for educators.Mr. Sutliff holds BA in Religion and Philosophy from Roberts Wesleyan College, a Master’s of Science in Education from Nazareth College of Rochester, and recently completed a Graduate Certificate in Intelligence Analysis from Henley-Putnam School of Strategic Security at North American University.Mr. Sutliff’s work has been published or shared on the American Thinker, Peoples Pundit Daily, Campus Watch, the Middle East Forum, TheRebel.media, and The Counter Jihad Report.com and Brenner Brief News, the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

Book preview

Under Attack by an

Unknown Enemy

On May 22, 1991 the Muslim Brotherhood in North America, published an Explanatory Memorandum: On the General Strategic Goal for the Group. This document would not be discovered by the U.S. government until 13 years later in 2004 and would not be shared with the public until 2007.

In 2004 a Maryland Transit Officer observed a woman in a burka taking pictures of the support structure for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. The officer watched as she got in a car with a man who was driving. The officer considered the behavior suspicious and did a standard traffic stop. Ismail Elbrasse, the woman’s husband, handed his ID to the officer, who verified the information. A flag came up on Elbrasse as he was wanted by the FBI for questioning. This event provided enough evidence to get a search warrant of his house. Federal officers discovered a hidden sub-basement with 90 banker’s boxes of documents from the Muslim Brotherhood in North America, among these one stood out – The Explanatory Memorandum.

That document was used by the federal government to further investigation into Operation Green Quest. Operation Green Quest was a cooperative counter-terrorism taskforce including Treasury department personnel, members of the FBI, Customs Agents and several other agencies. It was created in October 2001 for the purpose of tracking finances that are used to support terrorism. At the time of Operation Green Quest was introduced to the public 66 persons and corporations had their finances frozen and seized.

Eventually, The Explanatory Memorandum was used in 2007 as evidence in United States v. Holy Land Foundation, et al. This document revealed for the first time to the United States government and its people that they have a real enemy – a group they had previously dismissed as someone to watch but not to be concerned over. The document had one all-important section that is cited whenever the Muslim Brotherhood is discussed in America. It simply states:

4- Understanding the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America:

The process of settlement is a Civilization-Jihadist Process with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who choose to slack. But, would the slackers and the Mujahedeen be equal.¹

Essentially, what the Muslim Brotherhood has done is learn from the great strategist Sun Tzu. Tzu said, The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Civilization Jihad is modeled on these very words. America has an enemy that wishes to destroy it without lifting a finger in an act of aggression.

For those of us who lived through the Cold War and those who are older who remember World War II, understanding the damage a spy/infiltrator can do is understandable. We remember men and women who were caught attempting to destroy America from within.

During World War II, we caught many Nazi spies. The Duquesne Spy Ring was the largest espionage case in United States history with 33 members being charged. 19 pled guilty to spying for the Germans, while 14 were tried and found guilty in December 1941. Their pictures are below.

Today we have an enemy that selected and targeted us without an open declaration of war. Our government has known this since 2004. We as Americans however have been left largely uninformed. We can not broker peace with an enemy or intimidate an enemy we have not acknowledged.

According to General George Washington, the man who would be our first Constitutional President of this great country,

There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet an enemy.²

Are we prepared? Are we prepared to stop an enemy that is actively seeking the destruction of our government and way of life?

Sadly, even after the discovery of the Explanatory Memorandum, no declaration of war against the Muslim Brotherhood was made, and to date this group has not been declared a terrorist entity.

Important questions should arise when this is considered. But perhaps the most important is:

Do we know this enemy?

Chapter 2

Know Thy Enemy:

The Violent History of a

Moderate Group

(aka Muslim Brotherhood)

In 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood was founded by Hassan Al-Banna in Egypt. The group’s motto stated its purpose clearly as not religious in nature alone:

Allah is our objective; the Quran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.

The motto declared openly that it was a resurgence of Islam, as only the Prophet Mohammad is their leader. It was designed as a political group that sought to engage in warfare for the furtherance of their god Allah.

To understand the formation and success of this group, some understanding of what had happened in Egypt and the Islamic community around this time is essential.

The Background

The end of the Caliphate

In 1924, the last Caliphate – one labeled the leader of Muslim -- was ended in Turkey. Some place the credit for this on Atturak but the action was initiated by the Turkish Grand National Assembly in March 1924 when they passed a bill deposing Caliph, Abdul Medjid Effendi and ending the caliphate.  According to Time Magazine published on March 17, 1924:

At Constantinople, Vali (Governor) Dr. Adran Bey, went to the Dolma Baghche Palace, home of the Calif. He there demanded to see the Calif in the Throne Room. When the Calif arrived, the Vali ordered him to ascend the throne, read the decision of the Grand National Assembly to him, ordered him to descend the throne and pack his things.

One hour later the deposed Calif, his wife, daughter, two members of his harem and his private secretary left the country for Switzerland.³

The Caliph was akin to the Pope ruling Roman Catholicism.  He had the authority to declare holy war (jihad) and the authority to declare peace as long as he did not go against Sharia (Islamic law). His fatwas carried the legal weight of law. Losing the Caliph, a person that represented all of Islam, in some ways forced many Muslims to start to look locally for answers.

Egypt by 1928: Political Background

In the mid-1800s the Suez Canal project led to a growing European influence over Egypt. Britain was not happy that slave labor was being used to build the canal and the French had gained influence through its design, which was enough to cause the British to worry. Worse still Egypt had gone into such massive debt building the Canal and maintaining its military that European financers ended up taking over Egypt’s treasury! Britain and France negotiated an exchange of control of the Canal for debt forgiveness. The influence of Europeans over many aspects to Egyptian life angered many Egyptians.

By 1881 the Egyptian led a successful rebellion and the result in 1882 was a coordinated attack by France, Britain and British-Indian forces. Britain seized control of Egypt and held it until after World War 1. The influence of foreigners grew from 10,000 living in the country before the Suez Canal began to 90,000 foreigners residing in Egypt by the 1880s. In 1928, when Al-Banna created the Muslim Brotherhood, there were over one million foreigners living in Egypt.⁴ The quest to maintain an Egyptian culture and identity was foremost in the minds of many Egyptians of the 1920s amidst the rule of the British.

Islam in Egypt

By the early 1920s Muslim Egyptians were divided. Egyptians were taking sides on the Liberal Experiment often stating the belief that it was an intrusion into their country and an attempt to remove their historical and cultural roots. The following paragraphs will introduce the reader to a better understanding of what this meant to Egyptians.

Hassan al-Banna’s formation of the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Mulimum) was in many ways a response to the time. The Ikhwan held on to the religion and culture of Islam.

Sheikh Mohamad Abdou (1849-1905), who was Egypt’s grand Mufti (Muslim cleric with the most authority in the country), responded to the waves of change the country was experiencing. He argued for compatibility between Western contributions and the tenets of Koranic Islam (that is, free from the backward-looking social, tribal and cultural contexts that he believed had been imposed on the ‘rational religion).’⁵

Tarek Osman, author of Egypt on the Brink (2013), discusses two additional Islamic scholars: Imam Al-Ghazi who considered the study of logic obligatory for students of theology and jurisprudence⁶ and, Abbas Mahmoud Al-Akkad who focused on the adaptive genius of Islam and Koranic philosophy.⁷ Osman said that, these Islamic reformists sought to free Egyptian society from its backward-facing perspective and reliance on abtrusive theologizing which failed to gain social purchase.⁸

However, some Egyptians may have seen the reformists as directed by the secular Egyptian government. Under Mohammad Ali (179-1849) and his predecessors there was a push to explore intelligent revisionist paths of thought.⁹ Thus, a push to bring European/ Western architecture and thought to Egypt became known as  Mohammad Ali’s great Liberal Experiment. It was in some manner Europeanizing Egypt and bringing swaths of European style architecture which was a leading cause for an increase in European tourism.

Hungry for leadership in Islam

Hassan al-Banna’s formation of the Muslim Brotherhood was at a time when people were hungry for new leadership and al-Banna was offering those who heard him the chance to dream of a new Islamic state where Sharia and the Koran were supreme.

Al-Banna said, It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet. His followers understood this well. So well that his small start of 6 persons from the Suez Canal project grew to over 300 within 10 years.

Al-Banna kept his group oriented towards educating the poor about Islam and the eloquence of those he taught and worked with impressed many, including the British. He was seen as a great helper to the poor and downtrodden as his Society of Muslim Brothers worked with the poor providing assistance and education in Islam.

In 1932 Hassan Al-Banna was transferred to Cairo in his positon as an elementary teacher of Arabic. By 1932, Al-Banna had a total of 120 branches of the Ikhwan and was publishing a weekly magazine entitled, The Muslim Brotherhood.¹⁰ In 1933 they began to hold annual conferences. At the first conference Al-Banna said:

Every Muslim must believe that the Brotherhood’s system manhaj¹¹represents true Islam and anyone who opposes it is in effect an enemy of Islam.¹²

This type of statement of exclusivity in Islam was not unheard of during this time. Around 1912, Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia had stated something similar. Interestingly their chosen name was Ikhwan (Brothers). Imam Abd al-Aziz was their leader. The group taught strict adherence to dress codes also.

They taught the Ikhwan that in order to be true Moslems they should emulate the appearance and conduct of the Prophet. Therefore, they should wear the turban but shun the headband ‘iqal which they looked at as heresy; they should shave their moustaches but cultivate their beards and should wear a short robe reaching between the knee and ankle. ¹³

The Ikhwan and the traditionalists, like their ancestors during the religious conquests of the seventh century, considered every one who is not of them, an infidel who should be killed and his property seized….The Ikhwan killed a great number of them [Christians and shi’a in the Eastern province of Ahsa] and forced those that remained to convert to Wahhabism and pray in  the Wahhabi mosques.¹⁴

As World War II began Hassan al Banna developed a relationship with Adolf Hitler.¹⁵ According to the Assyrian International News Agency Al-Banna wrote to Hitler regularly. Hassan al-Banna took a lesson from the Hitler Youth movement and created Mohamed’s Youth.¹⁶

The Muslim Brotherhood/Ikhwan held their fifth annual conference in 1939. Sheikh Hassan al-Banna declared that that the Brothers will use effective force when other means are insufficient.¹⁷ This allowed for the Ikhwan to actively support Hitler.

On a side note, Mark Erickson of Asia Times Online has an answer for those with any question of a modern day connection between the Nazis (National Socialism):

Islamism and fascism have a long, over 80-year history of collaboration based on shared ideas, practices and perceived common enemies. They abhor Western decadence (political liberalism, capitalism), fight holy wars - if needs be suicidal ones - by indiscriminate means, and are bent on the destruction of the Jews and of America and its allies.¹⁸

Erickson also credits this relation between Hitler and Hassan Al-Banna to helping the Muslim Brotherhood grow at a rapid speed in the midst of the War during the 1930s and 40s. For it was in seeing a common enemy of the Jewish people that rallied many to join Al-Banna and his Nazi collaboration.

During WWII, Al-Banna began to blend religious teaching and social outreach with military training for those interested. Considering the Caliphate had ended it could be seen as an attempt to give place to the 6th Right of Pure Worship¹⁹ in Sunni Islam: Jihad.

Interestingly during World War II, no disagreements between the Muslim Brotherhood and the secular government of Egypt were noted.

No conflict seemed to arise as his following grew. As a leader in social assistance and education, as an eloquent speaker, his opinion was sought after. World War II was bursting at the seams and Adolf Hitler’s influence was felt in Egypt. By 1942 Al-Banna had established groups in