A 1991 Muslim Brotherhood internal document. A 2008 federal court exhibit. The architecture it predicted, and the institutions that now exist.
In 1991, the Muslim Brotherhood’s North American leadership produced an internal planning document titled An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America. It was authored by Mohamed Akram, addressed to the organization’s Shura Council, and never meant for public release. In 2004, the FBI recovered it from the Falls Church, Virginia home of a Brotherhood Shura Council member. In 2008, it became Government Exhibit 003-0085 in the Holy Land Foundation case; H.R. 8236 later described that trial as “the largest terror finance case in U.S. history.”
| 1982 | The Brotherhood’s global strategy document — “The Project” — is drafted in Switzerland. Seized 2001 from Brotherhood financier Youssef Nada in Lugano. |
| 1991 | The Explanatory Memorandum is written. It enumerates six strategic objectives and lists 29 named American organizations. |
| 2004 | FBI seizes the document during a counter-terrorism investigation in Virginia. |
| 2008 | The document is entered into U.S. federal court as evidence. Holy Land Foundation convicted. |
| 2015 | UK government review concludes Brotherhood association is “a possible indicator of extremism.” |
| 2025 | French Ministry of the Interior identifies 280 French Brotherhood-linked associations; describes “entryism” strategy as threat to national cohesion. |
The Memorandum describes the Brotherhood’s work in the United States in language that is not ambiguous:
“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.” Government Exhibit 003-0085, page 7 of 18
The document then specifies institutional categories the Brotherhood intended to build in America: schools, legal advocacy organizations, financial institutions, youth networks, media platforms, political-action organizations, jurisprudence councils, attorneys’ societies, women’s organizations, and research centers. The full brief treats later institutional examples as source-bounded comparisons, not as proof that every institution in those categories is Brotherhood-controlled.
Three government records and reviews. The same movement appears in multiple jurisdictions. The safer conclusion is not that every protest was directed from one center, but that long-running institutional infrastructure existed before October 7 and can be activated in moments like this.
This brief does not claim that the Brotherhood is the explanation for all antisemitism. Other vectors exist. It does not characterize all American Muslims, or all Muslim institutions, as Brotherhood-aligned. The Brotherhood’s documented strategy is to displace alternative Muslim voices and capture community representation. Reformist Muslims who have opposed Brotherhood ideology — Zuhdi Jasser, Asra Nomani, Irshad Manji — have paid sustained professional and personal costs. The first victims of Brotherhood institutional capture are the Muslims it claims to represent.
Read the full brief at contranox.com/the-blueprint-1991-memorandum