The Brotherhood in Your Backyard: Young Muslims
Renewed congressional scrutiny of the Muslim Brotherhood brings attention to the 29 organizations from the 1991 Memorandum, their offshoots, and their documented advancement of Brotherhood objectives
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Editor's note: This is the inaugural article in a series examining alleged Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the United States—the 29 organizations listed in the infamous 1991 Muslim Brotherhood Explanatory Memorandum outlining a "Civilization-Jihadist Process" to destroy Western civilization from within. With renewed U.S. government focus on Brotherhood networks and recent congressional scrutiny, this series investigates the documented connections between these groups and their historical advancement of Brotherhood strategic objectives in America.
Young Muslims (YM) is the youth division of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), which appears as item #26 in the 1991 Muslim Brotherhood Explanatory Memorandum on the Brotherhood’s strategic goals in North America.
Archived Young Muslims materials from before 9/11 show the organization promoted a youth event titled “Jihad Camp,” circulated reading lists featuring Islamist and Muslim Brotherhood-linked ideologues, and hosted texts containing anti-Jewish and anti-gay passages, including one describing Jews as “an avid enemy of Islam” and another defending execution for homosexual conduct to “maintain the purity of Islamic society.”
In December 2009, five young men from ICNA's Arlington, Virginia chapter traveled to Pakistan seeking to wage jihad against U.S. forces in Afghanistan — all five were convicted on terrorism charges and sentenced to 10 years in a Pakistani prison.
In its own charter, Young Muslims said its goal was to “seek the pleasure of Allah by educating, training and developing the Muslim youth to be Islamic workers for Iqamat-ad-Deen in North America,” a term its archived materials defined as “the Establishment of Islam in its totality.”
Taken together, Young Muslims’ archived materials, reading lists, and later controversies point to a youth network shaped by ideological currents that overlapped with broader Islamist and jihadist movements.
“Jihad Is Our Way”
Young Muslims was established in the early 1990s as ICNA’s youth wing, operating through local cells called “NeighborNets” across the United States and Canada. The “YM Personal and Collective Development Plan” describes jihad as “the highest act; sacrificing everything.” The development plan directed NeighborNet coordinators to provide members with background on “Major Islamic Events of the past and present,” including “The Jihad in Afghanistan,” the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Islamic movements in Pakistan and India, and the Muslim Brotherhood of the Arab World.
Prior to September 11, 2001, Young Muslims operated what it openly called “Jihad Camp” for youth in Pennsylvania. The organization’s internal documents state that members should be “movement oriented” — willing to “go to any spot in the world, and be able to evaluate the situation and start working accordingly” with their “priorities set, with Islamic Work on the top.”
A Reading List for Radicals
The recommended reading list for Young Muslims reveals the ideological foundation. The list included works by Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, widely described as one of the Brotherhood’s leading intellectual and spiritual figures, and Jamaat-e-Islami founder Abul A‘la Maududi.
Among the materials promoted on Young Muslims’ website was Maududi’s “Towards Understanding Islam,” which frames jihad as mandatory worship: “Jihad is a part of this overall defense of Islam… in the language of the Shari’ah this word is used particularly for the war that is waged solely in the name of Allah and against those who perpetrate oppression as enemies of Islam. This supreme sacrifice of lives devolves on all Muslims.”
Qaradawi’s “Priorities of the Islamic Movement,” hosted in full on the Young Muslims website, calls for supporting violent jihad movements worldwide: “It is a duty to defend every land invaded by infidels… all Muslims must support them with money, arms and men as required until all their land has been liberated.”
Bigotry as Doctrine
Texts found on Young Muslims’ website included “The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam,” which suggests that executing homosexuals “maintains the purity of Islamic society and keeps it clean of perverted elements.” Another text, “The Amazing Quran” by Gary Miller, states: “It is true that many Christians and many Jews have become Muslims, but as a whole, the Jewish community is to be viewed as an avid enemy of Islam.”
The DC Five: From Arlington to Afghanistan
The five men who became known as the DC Five all knew each other from the ICNA Center mosque in Arlington, Virginia. Ramy Zamzam, 22 at the time of his arrest, was a dental student at Howard University who had worked with the mosque's youth director, Mustafa Abu Maryam, on fundraising for a new mosque. Ahmed Abdullah Minni had been on his high school wrestling team. Waqar Khan, Umar Farooq, and Aman Hassan Yemer rounded out the group. All had grown up attending youth activities at the ICNA mosque, according to reporting by NBC.
In late November 2009, the five disappeared from their homes. Before leaving, they created a farewell video titled “A Final Message” in which Zamzam’s voice declared: “When Muslim lands are invaded, when Muslim children are terrorized, when Muslim women are raped, when our brothers and sisters are attacked and killed… jihad becomes, by the consensus of the scholars, an individual obligation.”
According to an FBI affidavit, three of the men departed Dulles Airport on Nov. 28, 2009, and the remaining two left the following day, with Pakistan as their destination. Their families contacted the FBI on Dec. 1 after finding a farewell video and realizing they had disappeared. Once in Pakistan, the group sought contacts who could help them reach Afghanistan, including by approaching a mosque in Hyderabad they believed was associated with Jaish-e-Mohammed, which the affidavit described as a designated foreign terrorist organization in Pakistan. They were taken into custody by Pakistani authorities in Sargodha on Dec. 9, 2009.
Pakistani authorities charged them with conspiracy to commit terrorist attacks, planning attacks in Afghanistan, and directing others to commit terrorism. In June 2010, a Pakistani court convicted all five on terrorism charges and sentenced each to 10 years in prison. In April 2023, Zamzam pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to a terrorism charge after he and his co-defendants had spent nearly 13 years in Pakistani prison.
At his January 2010 court appearance in Pakistan, Zamzam shouted to reporters: “We are not terrorists. We are jihadists, and jihad is not terrorism.”
Not an Isolated Case
In 1997, ICNA’s publication The Message International honored Jibril Abu Adam (born Lawrence Nicolas Thomas), a young American convert killed fighting in Kashmir. The article, titled “Actions Speak Louder than Words,” celebrated his radicalization and martyrdom. At ICNA’s 1997 Southeastern Regional Convention in Atlanta, the organization presented a plaque to his family reading: “In recognition of Jibril Abu-Adam for his devotion to His Creator and his ultimate sacrifice on behalf of his fellow Muslims in Kashmir.”
ICNA’s Response
Following the DC Five arrests, ICNA and Young Muslims claimed they had no role in radicalization. Local youth director Mustafa Abu Maryam, who had worked with Zamzam on fundraising, stated: “Our group discussion never talked about politics, never talked about ongoing conflicts, never talked about fighting against anyone, indirectly or directly.”
Yet the organization’s own documents, reading lists, and history tell a different story. As Dr. Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy told the Investigative Project on Terrorism: “This theo-political ideology is the gateway drug toward violent Islamism for susceptible Muslims.”
Young Muslims continues to operate today, describing itself as “a pioneering national youth organization” focused on “companionship, mentorship, education, and service.” The most explicit archived materials cited in this article appear to be no longer accessible on the organization’s current public platforms. Yet the historical record remains significant, showing how the group once embedded youth programming in ideological frameworks influenced by Islamist and Muslim Brotherhood ideologues.