Sam Westrop is director of the Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch project, which combats the ideas and institutions of lawful Islamism in the United States and throughout the West. Westrop spoke to a January 12 Middle East Forum Podcast (video). The following summarizes his comments:
Conservatives, pro-Israel groups, and counterterrorism analysts who “hyper-fixate” on the label “Muslim Brotherhood” misuse the term when they mean “Islamist” more broadly.
Historically, the global influence of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) “has been somewhat exaggerated.” Its offshoots and splinter groups, especially in the U.S., have become largely defunct because the original Egyptian MB now “lies in tatters.” Conservatives, pro-Israel groups, and counterterrorism analysts who “hyper-fixate” on the label “Muslim Brotherhood” misuse the term when they mean “Islamist” more broadly. Such tunnel vision, coupled with insufficient attention by policymakers, has allowed lesser known Islamist networks in the West, such as the Sunni fundamentalist Deobandis, its rival fundamentalist Sunni sect, the Barelvis, and Jamaat-e-Islami, to flourish with increasing power. A few years ago, a member of Barelvis’ Wati Islami sect carried out a murder in Paris, and a member of the Deobandi missionary organization, Tablighi Jamaat, attempted to murder Washington, D.C., guards a few months ago.
“Here in the West, South Asian Islamism is by far the most important in terms of numbers—and soon to be as well financially.” These lesser-known Islamist groups “have far greater power than the Brotherhood ever had,” with some predating the MB. Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a Middle Eastern Salafist group that enlisted “a steady stream of recruits to Salafi jihad” in the 1990s and 2000s, was formed as a reaction to the MB. “Islamism around the globe is diverse and competitive, and the Brotherhood has never controlled it.”
In 2013-2014, the Egyptian MB splintered with the collapse of the Morsi regime. “Today, competing leaderships vying for power live in London, Istanbul, and Qatar, Doha.” Since the leaders of the Egyptian MB dispersed across the Middle East, they have become pawns in the hands of Qatar’s Wahhabis and Erdoğan’s Islamist government in Turkey. Despite its presence, the MB’s power in the U.S. is limited because most Muslims in the world are not of Middle Eastern origin.
Three generations have passed since the first iteration of MB groups in the U.S. was formed. No longer connected to Middle Eastern roots, they “are now distinctly homegrown and American” followers of the MB ideology originated by Sayyid Qutb. The persistent threats from these “Qutbists” are that they radicalize children and make common cause with the far left in a “Red-Green” alliance to subvert democratic institutions.
It is not to say that the MB in the U.S. was without influence. In the 1960s and 70s, the MB established Muslim student associations in the U.S. that are known by their current legacy organizations such as the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America, and the Muslim American Society. The Muslim community in the U.S. is concerned that the ex-MB Qutbist group, CAIR, has partnered with so many different radical groups that it has diluted Qutb’s pure ideology. Muslim parents who would rather have their progeny imbued with the MB ideology of its founder are instead seeing their children being indoctrinated into “a generic kind of radicalism.”
Of the 8,000 American Islamic nonprofits in the U.S., only between 2,000 and 3,000 are Islamist-controlled.
Consider the demonstrations that erupted following the October 7 massacre by Hamas, an MB splinter group. By and large, the crowds who took to the streets to rally on Hamas’s behalf were from the far left, not from the legacy groups started by the MB who left Egypt for the West. Of the 8,000 American Islamic nonprofits in the U.S., only between 2,000 and 3,000 are Islamist-controlled. Today, MB groups exist as a series of networks set up by MB supporters that compete for dominance over American Islamism.
Abroad, Gulf countries like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have designated the MB as a terrorist group because “they regard Islamism through a Middle Eastern lens.” Although there is a push here in the U.S. to designate the MB as a terror group, “I wouldn’t base our understanding of global Islamism on the Emirati and Saudi view.” There is skepticism over such a designation because it would do little by way of prosecution. “These groups are already vulnerable under existing law.”
Legacy MB organizations in the U.S. are already part of a network of fundraisers for Hamas that were prosecuted in the Holy Land Foundation trial in the 2000s. Although these groups were involved with Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, the problem is still “the failure to enforce existing law.” Not one domestic Hamas organization in the U.S. has faced prosecution since October 7. Instead, these groups openly operate through “dozens of 501c’s, accountancy firms, advocates, [and] lobbyists” in a variety of for-profit and non-profit infrastructures.
Qutbist, a.k.a. MB-founded groups, support these Hamas entities. The SAFA network in Virginia is exemplary of such groups. It is “a collection of businesses and charities that has hundreds of millions of dollars to its name. And far from being prosecuted by [the] federal government, [and the] longstanding proof of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad ties, the federal government now uses them as a contractor,” with some of SAFA’s companies used by the Pentagon.
“All sorts of federal rules are being ignored while policymakers look the other way, and there’s a lack of political will to change policy.” Designating the MB as a terrorist organization may precipitate enforcement of the law, but absent an updated understanding of the Islamist threat, “if we don’t define the threat, we cannot fight the threat.” In the decades since 9-11, the public still does “not yet understand who Islamists are, what the threat is.”
Policymakers may well consider Middle East Islamism in decline, but they ignore the fact that “in South Asia, in the Far East, Islamism is in ascendance.” This oversight has ramifications here in America. South Asian Muslim communities in the U.S. constitute a plurality and are far more radicalized by Islamists than are other Muslim communities, but “lawful and jihadist-minded Islamists” share the common trait of Jew-hatred. In the aftermath of October 7, South Asian Islamist organizations “have largely stayed clear of mass anti-Israel demonstrations.” Although it could well be that they did not want to draw attention to themselves, their sermons and social media reveal that the “violent antisemitic designs of these networks is extraordinary.”
South Asian Muslim communities in the U.S. constitute a plurality and are far more radicalized by Islamists than are other Muslim communities.
Leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, who are expected to come to power in Bangladesh, do not raise money by meeting with MB leaders. Rather, they meet with South Asian Islamists here in New York and Chicago. “Designate Tablighi Jamaat, designate the Wati Islami, designate groups like Jamaat-e-Islami about to take over Bangladesh and whose leaders freely fly to the U.S. to raise money and gain support from a wealthy and radicalized diaspora community. There is an enormous Islamist threat in the United States, and just focusing on the Brotherhood can be a severe mistake.”
The White House continues its embrace of Islamist patrons in Qatar and Turkey, which may be why there is a failure to enforce the law and prosecute Hamas and the other Sunni Islamist groups tied to terror financing and violence. Enforcing the law would force America to confront its troubling alliance with these Islamist governments that wish us harm. “A far more important approach to this whole problem would be not to designate the Brotherhood, but would be to re-examine our relationship with those states.”
