Holy Land Foundation convicted of funding Hamas – Muslim Brotherhood ‘Explanatory Memorandum’ in evidence
On 24 November 2008 a federal jury in Dallas convicted the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, once the largest Muslim charity in the United States, and five of its leaders of providing material support to Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organisation. The US Justice Department said the defendants had provided approximately $12.4 million to Hamas. In May 2009 the court imposed sentences of between 15 and 65 years.
Among the prosecution's evidence was an internal Muslim Brotherhood document, Government Exhibit 003-0085: "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America", dated 22 May 1991. The George Washington University Program on Extremism describes it as "an 18-page internal memorandum sent by Mohammed Akram, a member of the Shura Council of the U.S. Brotherhood, to the rest of the Shura Council in 1991". It was among the Brotherhood archives the FBI found in 2004 in a hidden sub-basement of the Annandale, Virginia home of Ismail Elbarasse.
In the court's English translation, the memorandum states: "The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] 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." It gives the group's strategic goal as the "enablement of Islam in North America" and attaches "a list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends".
According to the GWU report, Akram later served as secretary general of the International al-Quds Foundation, a Lebanon-based institution headed by Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
More sources:
- justice.gov - Federal jury in Dallas convicts Holy Land Foundation and its leaders (24 Nov 2008)
- justice.gov - Sentences handed down (May 2009)
- fbi.gov - Holy Land Foundation convictions
- GWU Program on Extremism - The Muslim Brotherhood in America (Lorenzo Vidino, July 2025)
- Explanatory Memorandum - scan of Government Exhibit 003-0085 with court translation (Center for Security Policy archive copy)
