COURSE DESCRIPTION:

1. Lectures on National Security & Counterterror Analysis (Introduction)
2. Understanding the War on Terror Through Islamic Law. Rather than rely on politically-motivated soft science explanations for the animating factors and dynamics of the counter-terrror threat to America, it is imperative to consult the Islamic law upon which its adherents base their threat doctrine.
3. Abrogation and the ‘Milestones’ Process. At the core of the brief was an evolving analysis of the relationship between the Islamic legal doctrine of abrogation and the Muslim Brotherhood strategic doctrine based on Sayyid Qutb’s Milestones.
4. The Muslim Brotherhood, the Arab Spring & the ‘Milestones’ Process. A timeline of the Muslim Brotherhood’s efforts in defining and leading a region-wide quiet coup, known to the world as the Arab Spring.
5. The Role of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Enforcing Islamic Law. Understanding the OIC’s efforts to use the Islamic law of slander (what we understand as anti-“blasphemy” laws) as the basis for a new international speech code.

INSTRUCTOR: Stephen Coughlin. Over more than a decade following 9/11, Major Stephen Coughlin was one of the U.S. government’s most astute and objective analysts, and an expert on the connections between Islamic law, terrorism and the jihadist movement around the globe. Through knowledge of published Islamic law, Major Coughlin had a demonstrated ability to forecast events both in the Middle East and domestically and to accurately assess the future threat posture of jihadist entities before they happened. He has briefed at the Pentagon, for national and state law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and on Capitol Hill for Members of Congress. Today, he is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy. His book, Catastrophic Failure, will be released in 2013.