This article originally appeared in the National Post.
By Joe Adam George and Dagny Pawlak, September 8, 2025
“The Ikhwan (Arabic for “brethren”) 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 (Muslims) so that it is eliminated and God’s religion (Islam) is made victorious over all other religions.”
This disturbing excerpt formed part of a 1991 strategic memo that outlined the Muslim Brotherhood’s plans to conquer North America. It was produced as evidence in the Holy Land Foundation case, the largest terror-financing trial in United States history.
A recent report from the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), an American think tank, offers insights into the Muslim Brotherhood’s alleged deep-rooted presence and influence across Canada’s civil, academic, political and financial spheres.
According to the report, Canada has become “a hub for Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations that are exerting significant influence in Canadian civil society, academia, politics and government.” Many of them have received millions of dollars in funding from the Canadian government, despite “verified ties to extremist entities, including Hamas.” Canadian organizations referenced in the ISGAP report have denied the allegations.
The allegations in the report seem to confirm that the Muslim Brotherhood’s “sabotage strategy” is clandestinely materializing in Canada.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a transnational Sunni Islamist movement that’s committed to creating a global caliphate based on the principles of Sharia law. It is widely considered to be the most influential and largest Islamist group in modern history.
A shadowy and far-reaching network, it is quietly bolstered by powerful state actors, such as Qatar and Turkey. The Brotherhood engages in both violent and non-violent forms of jihad to achieve its ultimate aim of Islamist supremacy, a goal clearly articulated by its Egyptian founder Hassan al-Banna, who stated: “It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”
A virulent antisemite and fervent admirer of Adolf Hitler, al-Banna’s pathological revulsion for the West, Israel and Jews was perhaps second only to fellow Brotherhood ideologue Sayyid Qutb. Considered the “intellectual father of modern-day jihad,” Qutb’s radical writings provided the ideological foundation for the Salafi jihadist movement, inspiring al-Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, and spawning terrorist groups like Hamas and ISIS.
In her book, “The Secret Apparatus: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Industry of Death,” Cynthia Farahat, an Egyptian-American counter-terrorism expert, contends that the Muslim Brotherhood is “the world’s incubator of modern Islamic terrorism” and “the world’s most dangerous militant cult.”
Although the Brotherhood officially renounced violence in the 1970s, its actions and support for terrorist groups render its declarations hollow. After Hamas was created in 1987 to capitalize on the first intifada, the Brotherhood’s international leadership directed its global branches to support the terrorist group. In 2021, Brotherhood members congratulated the Taliban following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
According to Gilles Kepel, a leading scholar on the Middle East and Islam in the West, the term “Islamophobia” was first popularized by the Brotherhood as a way to delegitimize criticism of its Islamist ideology by equating it with antisemitism. This deceptive comparison, Kepel asserts, enables the Muslim Brotherhood to claim moral high ground through perceived victimhood and to redirect that sentiment against Israel and Zionism.
A recently leaked French government report provided the most detailed official study to date of the Brotherhood’s modus operandi and its presence in Europe. Its findings were direct and ominous: the Brotherhood seeks to achieve its religio-political goal of gradual societal transformation; it has plans to conquer not just France, but the entire western world. These findings also reflect those of a 2015 U.K. government investigative report.
The ISGAP report’s findings about the Brotherhood’s alleged extensive network across Canada should come as no surprise. This country is the ideal host for the parasitic Islamist group, thanks to a permissive environment created by a fragile national identity, wokeism, multiculturalism, vote-bank politics and unchecked immigration.
Just as in Europe and the U.K., the report suggests the Brotherhood has built an extensive ideological infrastructure in Canada in the form of charities, schools and mosques — a strategy that enables it to infiltrate civil society and influence policymaking under the guise of religious and educational activities.
Testifying before a 2015 Senate committee hearing on national security, Marc Lebuis, director of Point de Bascule — an organization that tracks jihadist movements in Canada — stated that a senior Muslim Brotherhood leader in Canada encouraged Muslims to take up influential positions in the government and justice system and stop applying legal provisions that are incompatible with sharia law.
With the threat of Islamist terror attacks intensifying worldwide on account of the Middle East conflict, efforts to curb the group’s nefarious activities are gathering steam. In April, Jordan banned the Brotherhood, becoming the latest Arab country to do so after Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
Austria remains the only western country to have banned the group. But plans to designate it as a terrorist organization in the United States are picking up steam, and a Belgian member of the European Parliament recently called for an investigation into the group. French President Emmanuel Macron has also started to crack down on the Brotherhood’s influence in France, following the leak of his government’s review of the group.
Canada must follow suit. The increasingly menacing nature of the pro-Hamas protests, the 670 per cent increase in antisemitism, the rising youth radicalization and the 488 per cent increase in terrorism charges are indicators of the Brotherhood’s successful efforts to penetrate and manipulate Canadian society and institutions.
Its Islamist ideology promotes visceral hatred and rejects liberal democratic values. When Brotherhood-linked groups gain legitimacy within western societies, they perpetuate a corrosive worldview that undermines social cohesion and foments division and radicalization.
Moreover, the group’s insidious and covert operations pose an active national security threat and significantly raises the risk of cross-border terrorism that can further hurt Canada-U.S. relations.
However, banning the Brotherhood alone will not curb the threat. To effectively curtail its influence, authorities must cut public funding to affiliated groups, prosecute those who commit crimes, blacklist front groups used for terror-financing and expose the Brotherhood’s revolting views on women, LGBT people, Jews and democratic values.
The Liberals must take the ISGAP report seriously and develop an “elbows up” approach to quell the Muslim Brotherhood’s “grand jihad” plans for Canada.
Joe Adam George is a national security analyst at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and Canada research lead for Islamist threats at the Middle East Forum.
Dagny Pawlak was a senior communications officer at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
