Primary Source Document
Mohamed Akram — May 22, 1991
Government Exhibit 003-0085 · United States v. Holy Land Foundation et al. · 3:04-CR-240-G
In 2004, FBI agents searching the home of Ismail Elbarasse — a Hamas fundraiser in Annandale, Virginia — discovered a trove of Muslim Brotherhood documents hidden behind a false wall in his basement. Among them was an 18-page internal memorandum, written in Arabic in 1991 by a senior Hamas operative and Muslim Brotherhood executive named Mohamed Akram.
The document was entered into evidence in 2007 as Government Exhibit 003-0085 in the Holy Land Foundation trial — the largest terrorist financing prosecution in American history. The excerpts below are drawn from the official U.S. government translation, exactly as submitted to the federal court.
The memo was not intended to be public. It was an internal strategic document for Brotherhood leadership, which is why it speaks so candidly.
Exhibit 1 — The Strategic Goal
"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."
This is the document's central thesis. The Brotherhood's goal in America is not coexistence or integration — it is the elimination of Western civilization from within, using America's own institutions as the instrument.
The phrase 'by their hands and the hands of the believers' is important. The Brotherhood planned to use non-Muslim Americans — politicians, campus activists, institutions — as unwitting instruments of their own civilization's destruction.
Exhibit 2 — The Civilization-Jihadist Process
"The process of settlement is a 'Civilization-Jihadist Process' with all the word means."
The memo specifically uses the term "settlement" — al-istitan — to describe the Brotherhood's strategy for embedding itself in American society. This is not immigration in the ordinary sense. It is a deliberate, organized project of colonization.
Exhibit 3 — The Organizational Network
"A list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends" [Attachment 1 to the memorandum]
Appended to the memo is a list of 29 Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations operating in North America as of 1991. They include the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), the Muslim Students Association (MSA), the Muslim American Society (MAS), the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), and the Islamic Association for Palestine — the direct predecessor of CAIR, founded in 1994. Many have endorsed or funded candidates documented in this tracker.
Exhibit 4 — Penetrating Political Institutions
"In order for Islam and its Movement to become 'a part of the homeland' in which it lives, 'stable' in its land, 'rooted' in the spirits and minds of its people, 'enabled' in the live of its society and has firmly-established 'organizations' on which the Islamic structure is built and with which the testimony of civilization is achieved, the Movement must plan and struggle to obtain 'the keys' and the tools of this process in carry out this grand mission as a 'Civilization Jihadist' responsibility."
The memo is explicit that the Brotherhood's goal is to obtain the "keys" to American institutions — not just to participate in them, but to control them. Elections are one such key. The candidates documented in this tracker are the product of a strategy articulated in this document 35 years ago.
All excerpts are drawn from the official U.S. government translation, Government Exhibit 003-0085, United States v. Holy Land Foundation et al., 3:04-CR-240-G (N.D. Tex.). The full document is publicly available through the Investigative Project on Terrorism and DocumentCloud.