Speaking via Webinar on 20 July 2020, presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden addressed the “Million Muslim Votes” summit, sponsored by a Muslim Brotherhood operation called Emgage Action. Among other things, he (certainly unwittingly) endorsed jihad against the United States (U.S.) when he cited from a hadith, well-known to Muslims, but likely not so much to Biden. It’s worthwhile here to explore just how this whole episode may have occurred.

Emgage Action is a Muslim Brotherhood-linked Political Action Committee (PAC) that endorsed Biden back in April 2020. Left out of most media accounts, however, is the fact that Emgage Action’s parent organization, Emgage USA (formerly called Emerge USA, an acronym for Empowering, Motivating, & Educating Resourceful Grassroots Entities), is a front group for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which is the U.S. branch of designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, HAMAS (itself the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood). CAIR was named by the Department of Justice an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation HAMAS terror funding trial.

The Emerge USA/Emgage USA connection to the Muslim Brotherhood may be traced back to the founding in November 2006 in Broward, Florida of a 501(c)3 called “Center for Voter Advocacy” whose mission was to promote Muslim candidates for elected office. The founder of the Center for Voter Advocacy was Khurrum Wahid, a past Director of CAIR-FL and legal advisor to CAIR National.

Wahid has been a regular speaker at Muslim Brotherhood events sponsored by front groups like the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). From the Center for Voter Advocacy, Wahid moved on to become a co-founder of Emerge USA, along with a young Brotherhood operative named Farooq Mitha, who served in the Obama administration from 2010-2011 as Special Assistant to the Director of the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Small Business Programs.

In August 2014, Emerge USA changed its name to the current Emgage USA. Many of the Emerge USA leadership figures, including Wahid and Mitha, simply moved over to Emgage USA, where Wahid served as Chairman and is now listed as a Co-chairperson. Mitha is listed as a Board Member. 2014 is the year that the Muslim Brotherhood (under the aegis of the Turkish AKP, or Justice and Development Party) formed its first political umbrella group in the U.S., the USCMO (U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations). Emgage is one of the USCMO’s key members.

So, to recap this dizzying sequence of linkages (yes, it is done deliberately to obscure the connections): first, there was the Muslim Brotherhood. Then, HAMAS. The U.S. branch of HAMAS is CAIR, founded in 1993. Through the continuing leadership figure of Khurrum Wahid, we can trace from CAIR, to the Center for Voter Advocacy, to Emerge USA, and now to Emgage USA. It is Emgage USA via its Emgage Action PAC that endorsed Joe Biden and featured him as speaker at the 20 July 2020 online summit. Biden’s senior advisor, Farooq Mitha, sits on the Board of Emgage USA, a key member organization of the Muslim Brotherhood’s U.S. political group, the USCMO.

At that summit, Biden mindlessly quoted from a well-known hadith [177] 78 – (49) by Sahih Muslim, one of the two most authoritative of all hadith collectors. David Wood produced an excellent video about that hadith, explaining exactly what it says and what it means. This is the hadith itself:

“Whoever among you sees an evil action, let him change it with his hand (by taking action), if he cannot, then with his tongue (by speaking out); and if he cannot, then with his heart (by hating it and feeling it is wrong), and that is the weakest of faith.”  

According to this hadith (and another follow-on one as well), true believing Muslims are obligated to “strive” with hand, tongue, and heart against those who fail to obey Allah’s commandments, encoded in Islamic Law, or shariah. It does not matter if those failing to obey are Muslims or not: shariah is meant for the entire world, like it or not.

We know the Arabic word for “strive” as “jihad”. Jihad to impose and enforce shariah includes kinetic warfare to terrorize unbelievers (think al-Qa’eda), subversion (think the Muslim Brotherhood), promotion of Shariah Compliant Finance (think the U.S. Treasury Department), and information operations (think taqiyya by posers who only pretend to oppose shariah). Amputation, beheading, crucifixion, execution for adultery, apostasy, and homosexuality, flogging, and sex slavery are all part of Islamic Law.

Every informed Muslim listening to Joe Biden understood that he was encouraging them to wage jihad against non-believing Americans. We can be fairly certain that Biden had no idea what he was actually saying, but just as certain that Muslims listening now know he can be made to say whatever they would like to hear. This is incredibly dangerous.

On a final note, then, we need to ask how this segment found its way into Biden’s speech. Which advisor, which speechwriter made sure that hadith came out of Joe Biden’s mouth? Well, how about senior Biden advisor Farooq Mitha, whom we now know is a Muslim Brotherhood operative, who sits on the Board of Emgage USA, a key member of the USCMO?  Matthew Edwards wrote a good summary of how the Islamic Movement has penetrated the Biden campaign at Jihad Watch on July 1, 2020, entitled “Islamic Movement Influence Operations Target Biden Campaign”.

That Joe Biden has no idea who’s inside his campaign is bad enough. But wondering whether the Trump campaign does is even more worrisome.

Clare M. Lopez is the Founder/President of Lopez Liberty LLC.