Complete published contentImported from the organization’s visible public page and placed into the redesigned reading experience.
The Muslim Brotherhood in America
In 1953, Princeton hosted an “Islamic Colloquium.” Several attendees—identified as prominent Muslims, including Brotherhood representatives—met with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. U.S. defense and intelligence advisors viewed the meeting as a way to influence the Muslim world against communism.
One delegate was listed in White House notes as the “Honorable Saeed Ramadan, Delegate of the Muslim Brothers.” A now-declassified CIA memo described him bluntly: “Ramadan seems to be a Fascist, interested in the grouping of individuals for power. He did not display many ideas except for those of the Brotherhood.”
The Brotherhood’s own bylaws specify a key method for advancing their aims in the West: build “educational, social, economic, and scientific institutions”—that is, mosques, schools, clinics, shelters, and clubs.
Campus to community: the MSA and a nationwide network
In 1963, the Brotherhood helped create the Muslim Students Association (MSA) at the University of Illinois, Urbana. MSA chapters spread nationwide and became recruiting nodes—incubators for leaders and organizations that would later shape much of organized Muslim life in America. Early public messaging emphasized Islam as a mainstream faith; in recent years, campus chapters have often pressed aggressive demands for accommodation while working to marginalize critics.
Through the 1970s, the Brotherhood’s footprint expanded with professional associations—AMSS (social scientists), AMSE (engineers), IMA (medical), MCA (communities)—and youth groups like MAYA and MYNA, embedding influence in multiple sectors.
Funding, property, and influence: NAIT and ISNA
In 1973, the Saudis established the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which came to hold title or control over a large share of U.S. mosque properties and institutions. With ownership typically came influence: approved imams, curricula, literature, and funding streams.
In 1980, the Brotherhood consolidated many groups under the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), now the largest Muslim Brotherhood umbrella in North America. The 1980s–1990s saw hundreds of new organizations, mosques, and schools built—primarily with Saudi funding—cementing a durable infrastructure.
Breaking the Code
In August 2004, a Maryland officer stopped a vehicle after observing a woman in Islamic dress filming the Chesapeake Bay Bridge supports. The driver, Ismail Elbarasse, was detained on a material-witness warrant in a Hamas case. An FBI search of his Annandale, Virginia home uncovered a hidden sub-basement containing the archival records of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America.
Those documents confirmed what counterterrorism investigators had long suspected: a broad network of U.S. organizations aligned with the Brotherhood’s goals—namely, implementing Islamic law in America and supporting the long-term project of restoring a caliphate.
The Holy Land Foundation Trial
Between 2007 and 2008, federal prosecutors tried the Holy Land Foundation (HLF)—then the largest Muslim charity in North America—and several leaders for providing material support to Hamas. The first trial ended in a mistrial; the retrial concluded on November 24, 2008 with guilty verdicts on multiple counts, including conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, funding a specially designated terrorist, and money laundering.
The government showed HLF had channeled roughly $12.4 million to Hamas behind the guise of charity, supporting the goal of eliminating Israel through violent jihad. Sentences included:
- Shukri Abu Baker and Ghassan Elashi: 65 years each.
- Mohammad El-Mezain: 15 years.
- Mufid Abdulqader: 20 years.
- Abdulrahman Odeh: 15 years.
- HLF (the organization): convicted on multiple conspiracy and material-support counts.
The case also brought uncontested exhibits into the public record that mapped connections among U.S. organizations linked to Hamas and, more broadly, to the Muslim Brotherhood’s U.S. infrastructure. Some associated entities, including NAIT, later challenged their designation or listing in court; aspects of those appeals proceeded under seal.
Bottom line: By the 2000s, U.S. authorities had publicly documented an extensive MB-aligned network in America—rooted in student associations, professional bodies, property trusts, and charities—pursuing long-term social, political, and legal influence consistent with the Brotherhood’s stated mission.
