If the Global Muslim Brotherhood Doesn’t Exist, Why Are They Holding A Meeting?

Many years ago, when the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) Senior Edi­tor was work­ing sole­ly on the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, he coined the term “Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood” to refer to the glob­al net­work of indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions that devel­oped as Mus­lim Broth­er­hood mem­bers dis­persed to oth­er coun­tries while flee­ing the peri­od­ic crack­downs on the orga­ni­za­tion in Egypt. Over the years, var­i­ous schol­ars, pun­dits, and oth­ers have denied the exis­tence of a GMB. Most famous­ly, the Egypt­ian Mus­lim Broth­er­hood itself alleged:

The so called Glob­al Net­work of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood is mere­ly a Hol­ly­wood fic­tion that only exists in the minds of those who cre­at­ed it as part of their scare tac­tics to insight fears among the pub­lic and insti­gate gov­ern­ment hostilities.

It turns out that the fic­tion­al Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, using the label of “Mus­lim Coun­cils in the West,” is hold­ing a vir­tu­al meet­ing this week and spon­sored by the US Coun­cil of Mus­lim Orga­ni­za­tions (USCMO). Accord­ing to the USCMO announce­ment:

A lead­er­ship con­fer­ence for Mus­lim lead­ers in the west

Join nation­al lead­ers in this unique con­fer­ence to dis­cuss impor­tant issues of com­mon inter­est to those who live in the West. This con­fer­ence fol­lows USCMO’s first con­fer­ence which was held in Wash­ing­ton, DC, in 2016. By the grace of Allah and the valu­able par­tic­i­pa­tion of our guests, the 1st con­fer­ence was a great suc­cess. One of the major out­comes was the “Wash­ing­ton Dec­la­ra­tion” to form an assem­bly body for west­ern Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions. The ad-hoc com­mit­tee that was formed dur­ing the con­fer­ence will present its report at this con­fer­ence insha’Allah. Like the 1st con­fer­ence in 2016, we are invit­ing the Mus­lim Coun­cils and their mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions from North Amer­i­ca, Latin Amer­i­ca, Europe (UK, France, Ger­many, Spain, Italy, Bel­gium, Den­mark, Nor­way, Swe­den, …), Aus­tralia, New Zealand, and South Africa. We look for­ward to hav­ing you join us this year!

Accord­ing to a Face­book post, the meet­ing is being coor­di­nat­ed with the Coun­cil of Euro­pean Mus­lims (CEM), for­mer­ly known as the Fed­er­a­tion of Islam­ic Orga­ni­za­tions in Europe (FIOE), and rep­re­sent­ing the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Europe. Planned top­ics for the meet­ing include:

• The state of nation­al coun­cils and their communities.
• Wash­ing­ton Dec­la­ra­tion Ad-Hoc Com­mit­tee Report,
• Islam­o­pho­bia, White Suprema­cy, and the Far Right.
• A spe­cial case study on Christchurch Massacre.
• The impact of Covid-19 on the Mus­lim communities.
• The Mus­lim relief response dur­ing the pandemic.

The meet­ing announce­ment goes on to iden­ti­fy 21 “invit­ed coun­cils,” all of which are known to be tied to the Glob­al Mus­lim Brotherhood:

• Coun­cil of Euro­pean Mus­lims (for­mer­ly the Fed­er­a­tion of Islam­ic Orga­ni­za­tions in Europe)
• Aus­tralian Fed­er­a­tion of Islam­ic Councils
• Orga­ni­zación Islámi­ca para Améri­ca lati­na y el caribe (Islam­ic Orga­ni­za­tions of Latin America)
• Mus­lim Coun­cil of Britain)
• Musul­mans de France (French Muslims)
• Nation­al Coun­cil of Cana­di­an Muslims
• Islamiska För­bun­det (Islam­ic Asso­ci­a­tion in Sweden)
• Liga Islámi­ca de España (Islam­ic League of Spain)
• Deutsche Mus­lim­is­che Gemein­schaft (for­mer­ly the islamis­che Gemein­schaft Deutschland)
• Mus­lim Asso­ci­a­tion of Ireland
• Mus­lim Asso­ci­a­tion of Britain
• Ligue des Musul­mans de Bel­gique (League of Mus­lims of Belgium)
• Dan­sk Islamisk Råd (Dan­ish Islam­ic Council)
• Ligue des Musul­mans de Suisse (League of Mus­lims of Switzerland)
• Allean­za Islam­i­ca d’Italia (The Islam­ic Asso­ci­a­tion of Italy)
• Det Islamske For­bun­det – Rabi­ta (The Mus­lim League in Norway)
• Guyana Islam­ic Trust
• Cana­di­an Coun­cil of Imams
• Islam­sk Råd Norge (Islam­ic Coun­cil of Norway)
• Aso­ci­jaci­ja za kul­tu­ru, obra­zo­van­je i sport (Asso­ci­a­tion of Cul­ture and Edu­ca­tion of Bosnia, AKOS)
• Islam­ic Dawa Move­ment of Trinidad & Tobago

Many of the above orga­ni­za­tions are known to be mem­bers of the CEM. Appro­pri­ate­ly, the con­fer­ence announce­ment iden­ti­fies the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood char­i­ty known as Islam­ic Relief USA as the sole con­fer­ence spon­sor. Based on pho­tos here and here of the con­fer­ence, the fol­low­ing indi­vid­u­als could be identified:

• Ous­sama Jam­mal (US Coun­cil Of Mus­lim Organizations)
• Dor­saf Bend­hiab (Euro­pean Forum Of Mus­lim Women)
• Lin­da Hyok­ki (Euro­pean Forum Of Mus­lim Women)
• Samir Falah (Deutsche Mus­lim­is­che Gemein­schaft)
• Sabri Shiref/Sherif (Deutsche Mus­lim­is­che Gemeinschaft)
• Raghad Altikri­ti (Mus­lim Asso­ci­a­tion of Britain, sis­ter of Anas Altikri­ti)
• Khal­lad Swaid (Deutsche Mus­lim­is­che Gemeinschaft)
• Del­war Hosain (Mus­lim Ummah of North America)
• Abdul­lah al Mamun (Mus­lim Legal Fund)
• Harun Khan (Mus­lim Coun­cil Of Britain)
• Abdel­rah­man Rizk (like­ly Forum of Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Orga­ni­za­tions FEMYSO)*
• Zahid Bukhari (like­ly Islam­ic Cir­cle of North America)*
• Anas Altikri­ti (Cor­do­ba Foun­da­tion)

(* affil­i­a­tions marked as “like­ly” indi­cate that only names were list­ed on the photos)

In Feb­ru­ary 2016, the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Dai­ly Watch (GMBDW) report­ed that the USCMO had held the 1st Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence of Mus­lim Coun­cils in the West Feb­ru­ary 1–3 in Arling­ton, Va. The USCMO announce­ment described that con­fer­ence as “a major ini­tia­tive for Mus­lims in West­ern nations” An event PR site added that that the con­fer­ence was expect­ed to fea­ture a White House brief­ing and a vis­it to the US Con­gress as well as a ban­quet to which var­i­ous gov­ern­ment offi­cials around the world were to be invit­ed. It is not known if these events, in fact, took place. Illus­trat­ing the ties to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, a video for the con­fer­ence fea­tured twelve indi­vid­u­als, includ­ing Ous­sama Jam­mal, the USCMO Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, and Coun­cil on Amer­i­can Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR) leader Nihad Awad. Most sig­nif­i­cant­ly, the indi­vid­ual to the far-right is Anas Altikri­ti, the most impor­tant leader of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in the UK. The Twit­ter feed of Moham­mad Kozbar, the head of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood-con­trolled Fins­bury Mosque in Lon­don, Indi­cat­ed that he attend­ed the con­fer­ence along with Altikri­ti. The Mus­lim Amer­i­can Soci­ety, part of the USCMO, as indi­cat­ed below, announced the cre­ation of a steer­ing com­mit­tee for the Coor­di­nat­ing Body of Mus­lim Coun­cils in the West.

The GMBDW report­ed in March 2014 on the for­ma­tion of the USCMO, com­prised of eight US Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions, most of which are part of the US Mus­lim Brotherhood:

• Amer­i­can Mus­lims for Pales­tine (AMP)

• Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR)

• Islam­ic Cir­cle of North Amer­i­ca (ICNA)

• Mus­lim Alliance in North Amer­i­ca (MANA)

• Mus­lim Amer­i­can Soci­ety (MAS)

• Mus­lim Legal Fund of Amer­i­ca (MLFA)

•  Mus­lim Ummah of North Amer­i­ca (MUNA)

• The Mosque Cares (Min­istry of Imam W. Deen Mohammed)