I am giving special thanks this year for the hard work of patriots who toil without recompense to expose the many vectors of Islamic subversion currently eroding the already hollowed-out institutions of Western society.

To this end, I will tell a story about a story. It concerns the first Muslim prayer service ever held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. As I wrote last week, this weirdly "invitation-only" service, which took place on Friday, Nov. 14, gathered representatives of Muslim groups with proven links to Hamas and to Hamas' parent group, the Muslim Brotherhood. This means that, however briefly, jihad-linked groups took over the National Cathedral, where presidents and other great Americans have lain in state. These terror links led some media to label the event overall a "Muslim Brotherhood event," or an "Islamist" or "extremist" event. As the service itself demonstrated, however, it was all strictly Islamic.

How do I know that? Not from 24/7 media, national or local. Not from the armies of think tanks that occupy Washington and its environs. Not from religious or political leaders, either. No professional organization with experts or a newsroom that I am aware of bothered to analyze the Muslim service at the National Cathedral, even though it was live-streamed on the Internet and available to all.

I am able to tell you about the contents of the service only thanks to the incredible international counter-jihad movement. This movement lives and breathes in the ether of the Internet, on an array of blogs, on YouTube. This case of Islam at the cathedral shows how the network works.

First, the blog Vlad Tepes captured the streaming footage of the 80-minute Muslim service. Next, Arabic translator Rita Malik assessed the English and Arabic service for Gates of Vienna and provided a summary that was posted there. Enter Islamic expert Andrew Bostom, author of several indispensable books on Islamic jihad, anti-Semitism and Islamic totalitarianism, who analyzed several of the Koranic verses used in the service by consulting some of the essential Koranic commentaries that Muslims use to understand their religious book. Bostom posted his findings at his blog, AndrewBostom.org.

Finally, Gates of Vienna and Vlad Tepes compressed everything to create a watchable, educational YouTube video of four and a half minutes. (As a bonus, Gates of Vienna also posted the short video's transcript.) Soon, the video was mirrored at other counter-jihad sites, such as the Scandanavian blog Tundra Tabloids and Denmark's EuropeNews.dk.

Swift and seamless volunteer operations like this keep anyone informed who wants to be informed. For their extremely hard work, I am truly thankful.

What exactly did the Muslims preach from their mock-up mosque inside the cathedral far from Christian symbols and imagery save one cross that Muslim worshippers literally turned their back upon? Last week, I mentioned some Koranic verses denigrating Jews and Christians that are typically part of Islamic prayer sessions. One of these, Koran 1:7, was indeed in the main sermon by South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool.

More shocking, however, was the inclusion of Koran 3:26-27. Addressing Allah, this verse sequence begins: "Possessor of the kingdom, You give the kingdom to whom You will, and You take the kingdom from whom You will, and You endure with honour whom You will, and You humiliate whom You will."

Sounds like the invocation of an all-powerful deity, right? Nothing much to raise the hackles on a passing infidel -- unless, that is, he is consulting the Koranic commentaries as Andrew Bostom did.

At his blog, Bostom explains that these lines, as explicated by authoritative Koranic commentaries, contain an inherent threat of jihad conquest. Bostom shows that classical scholars such as Ibn Kathir (1300-1373) and Al-Suyuti (1445-1505) are in accord on the historical context in which these verses were, as Muslims believe, "revealed" by Allah.

Ibn Kathir relates them to a time when Allah was said to have prepared to allow Muslims "to reach the eastern and western parts of the world and (give) dominance to his religion (Islam) and law (Sharia) over all other religions and laws." Similarly, Al-Suyuti pegs them to a promise to Muslims conveyed by Muhammad of "sovereignty over Persia and Byzantium" -- in other words, sovereignty over Zoroastrians (Persia) and Christians (Byzantium). It is difficult not to notice that these same ancient lands overlap or abut the current ISIS battlefield.

For a 20th-century gloss, Bostom cites the noted Koranic commentary by Maulana Muhammad Shafi (1897-1976), a prolific Islamic scholar and former grand mufti of India. Of these same verses, Shafi writes: "In these verses, Muslims have been taught and prompted to make a particular prayer which, in a subtle way, gives an indication that they are going to overpower disbelievers."

Overpower disbelievers?

Shafi points out that these same lines "so eloquently (bring) into focus the most perfect power of Allah as it manifests itself in the rise and fall of nations and in revolutions that rock countries. ... Here, enemies of Islam have been warned that they have not learned their lesson from the rise and fall of past wielders of power."

Enemies of Islam have been warned? Episcopalians can call this "ecumenism," but it sure sounds like jihad to me. Now, at least, we all know it.