In April 2026, the US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) held its annual Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill. USCMO’s mission is to “advocate for policies grounded in justice, equity, and the common good.” On Advocacy Day it called for dismantling Islamophobia, demanding accountability, and fighting for justice. This all sounds very American, very plausible, and well within the mainstream of American politics. That is, unless you have read Egyptian-American researcher Cynthia Farahat’s The Secret Apparatus: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Industry of Death (New York: Post Hill Press, 2023).
In it, Farahat argues that the Muslim Brotherhood, to which USCMO and many of its related organizations, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have close ties, continues to support Islamist terrorism, or jihad, as its primary function. The so-called Secret Apparatus, the secret internal unit that many academics, policymakers and terrorism experts believe long ago dissolved, is instead alive and “responsible for establishing the world’s most dangerous terror groups and ideologically and militarily guiding them with the help of state sponsors such as Iran, Turkey, and Qatar.” (p. 32)
The Secret Apparatus, at almost 400 pages, provides an encyclopedic analysis of these inner workings of the Muslim Brotherhood. Farahat’s text is dense; it can easily serve as a reference book. What makes it particularly valuable is that the vast majority of her citations are open-source books, newspaper and media reports quoting directly from various Muslim Brotherhood leaders, as well as ex-Brotherhood individuals like Egyptian lawyer Tharwat al-Kherbawy. Most sources are in Arabic, bypassing translations or analysis by outsiders.
What Farahat writes about was not meant for Western consumption. To help decipher Islamist language, she provides a short guide to the Islamist meaning of key Western concepts. Freedom, for example, means “freedom from all forms of transgression against Shari’a law.” (p. 323) A citation in the Official Muslim Brotherhood Encyclopedia goes further: “[I]f Muslims are granted freedom they will not chose (sic) anything but Islam, to live and die by it, and to jihad for it till death.” (p. 324) So much for Western human and civil rights, not to mention peace and security.
Unsurprisingly, much of the contents of The Secret Apparatus directly contradicts conventional thinking. A few examples:
· The Muslim Brotherhood and terrorism: using citation after citation, Farahat shows, in the words and actions of Brotherhood leaders, their continuing commitment to jihad. In the United States, they may focus more on peaceful means of gaining power, but overseas they continue to promote jihad.
· Tight organization: Farahat describes the internal components of the Brotherhood, noting that they often use innocuous titles to hide their actual functions. Thus the title Secret Apparatus, as opposed to the General Apparatus, avoids any actual suggestion that it might promote jihad. Her analysis refutes the long-standing argument that the Muslim Brotherhood is merely a movement, not an organization.
· Sunni-Shia relations: cooperation between the Muslim Brotherhood and Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini goes back to 1938, when Khomeini visited Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna in Cairo. According to Banna: “We cooperate in what we agree upon between us, and excuse each other’s differences.” (p. 66) Long denied by Western experts, this collaboration is now obvious in, for example, Iran’s support for Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
· Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as the Brotherhood’s General Guide: Farahat notes that, in 2016, Brotherhood Mufti Yusef al-Qaradawi declared Erdoğan a Sultan (p. 283). Since then, under his leadership, Farahat argues that Turkey has become the “command-and-control center for Islamic terrorism,” with the help of Egyptian Brothers who fled after Egyptian president Muhammad Morsi was deposed. (p. 286)
Western “experts” would do well to rely on the actual words and actions of Muslim Brotherhood members rather than on Western interpretations or Islamist propaganda if they want to have a clue as to what’s going on. As former Middle East Forum president Daniel Pipes writes in a foreword, “The book. . . makes a compelling case to see the MB not as one of many contending Islamist organizations but as a historic trailblazer and the source of untold misery.” (p. 23) All those concerned about Islamist threats against the West – or indeed, the Middle East, Europe and Latin America – should keep a copy of The Secret Apparatus handy.