Muslim Brotherhood

Although in recent years, the organization has claimed to be a moderate and reformist movement, compelling evidence abounds of the group's undiminished links to terrorism.

The Palestinian chapter of the Brotherhood created the terrorist organization Hamas. Though previously covert in their alliance, in late 2011, the organization officially accepted Hamas as part of the global Brotherhood movement.

To emphasize this development, Hamas added the phrase "a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood – Palestine" to its official name, and Article II of the Hamas Charter explicitly identifies Hamas as "one of the wings of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine."

The Brotherhood is awash with individuals with explicit links to terrorism, and its members publicly encourage jihadist terrorism against the United States and Israel. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the architect of 9/11, was a member of the Brotherhood. Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian Brotherhood preacher, was a mentor to al Qaeda kingpin Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was a Brotherhood member as a young man, though he later broke with the group because of its willingness to participate in political elections. And bin Laden himself belonged to the Saudi branch of the Brotherhood before being ejected in the late 1980s for insisting on waging jihad against the USSR in Afghanistan.

Head of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, Ali Sadreddine Bayanouni, has repeatedly pledged his support for the terrorism of Hamas and Hezbollah and Muhammad Mahdi Othman Akef, who served as Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Guide from 2004-2009, openly expressed his support for suicide bombings in Israel and Iraq (during the Iraq War) "in order to expel the Zionists and the Americans."

Current Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi has written, "There is no dialogue between them [the Jews] and us, other than in one language -- the language of the sword and force."

The Muslim Brotherhood believe that Islam should be “given hegemony over all matters of life.” Toward that end, the Brotherhood seeks to establish an Islamic caliphate, or kingdom, first spanning the present-day Muslim world and eventually the entire globe. The organization further aspires to dismantle all non-Islamic governments wherever they currently exist, and to make Islamic Law (Shari’a) the sole basis of jurisprudence everywhere on earth.

Their stated and public credo is, like that of Hamas: “God is our objective, the Koran is our Constitution, the Prophet is our leader, struggle [jihad] is our way, and death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations.”

Since its founding, the Muslim Brotherhood has supported the use of armed struggle, or jihad, against non-Muslim “infidels.” As al-Banna himself wrote: "Jihad is an obligation from Allah on every Muslim and cannot be ignored nor evaded." Added al-Banna, "It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet."

In 1982, the Muslim Brotherhood adopted a 14-page strategic plan known as “The Global Project for Palestine,” which outlined a 12-point strategy to “establish an Islamic government on earth.” This project represented a flexible, multi-phased, long-term plan for a “cultural invasion” of the West. It called for the utilization of multiple tactics, including immigration, infiltration, surveillance, propaganda, protest, deception, political legitimacy, and outright terrorism. The Project has served, since its drafting, as the Muslim Brotherhood's “master plan.”

At a 1995 conference (hosted by the Muslim Arab Youth Association) in Toledo, Ohio, Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi vowed that Islam would “conquer Europe [and] America -- not through sword but through Da’wa [proselytizing].” He also urged Muslims to “continue to fight the Jews” and “kill them.”

In 1995, Mustafa Mashhur, who would head the Brotherhood in Egypt from 1996 to 2002, published “Jihad Is the Way,” the last of a five-volume work titled The Laws of Da’wa. “Jihad Is the Way” detailed the Muslim Brotherhood's determination to advance Islam's global conquest, to reestablish an Islamic Caliphate, and to infuse all Muslims with a sense of duty to wage jihad against Israel. Masshur said that the Muslim Brotherhood differed from al Qaeda only in its tactics, not in its goals.

The Muslim Brotherhood today is global in its reach, wielding influence in almost every country with a Muslim population. Moreover, it maintains political parties in many Middle-Eastern and African countries, including Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, and even Israel.

Outside of the Middle East, the Brotherhood exercises a strong influence in Muslim communities throughout Europe. Among the more prominent Brotherhood organizations in the region are: the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations, the Muslim Association of Britain, the European Council for Fatwa and Research, the Islamische Gemeinschaft Deutschland (IGD), and the Union des Organisations Islamiques de France (UOIF).

The extent of the Muslim Brotherhood's economic activity and funding sources is uncertain and considered one of the movement’s most closely guarded secrets, directly managed by the general guide, his deputies, and the secretary general by virtue of being its major source of power. The movement’s leaders claim that there is no central economic body responsible for funding its activities.

In their view, all funds come directly from the pockets of its members, however, most information suggests that the extensive financial network is based on private donors outside of Egypt (mainly from Persian Gulf states and the West), including well-organized foundations; funds collected from the movement’s activists, mainly the wealthy ones; “charity funds” (zakat) collected in mosques and during public conferences organized by the movement (such as Ramadan fastbreaking meals and conferences on the Palestinian issue); and profits from investments made by the movement and its members in various companies and enterprises in Egypt and elsewhere.

The Muslim Brotherhood appears to have extensive connections with Islamic banks and financial institutions, on which it relies to manage its routine financial activities. It is also likely that the movement’s financial system is nourished by regular budgets transferred by the Egyptian regime to legal charitable societies strongly controlled by Muslim Brotherhood members.

The movement was founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, an Islamic scholar, schoolteacher and devout admirer of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. The 1930s saw the Muslim Brotherhood become an underground organization, which emerged again in the 1940s and grew to over 2 million members after World War II. In the 1948 War for Israeli Independence, the Brotherhood aided Arabs in Palestine with troops and attacked Jewish citizens of Egypt in retribution.

In December 1948, a Brotherhood member assassinated Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi Nuqrashi. Egypt's government retaliated by banishing the Muslim Brotherhood from the country. Then, in February 1949, Hasan al-Banna was killed by government agents in Cairo. A harsh, official crackdown was initiated against the Brotherhood; thousands of its members were imprisoned and many others were confined to detention camps.

In 1952, the Brotherhood split into two factions. One, led by Hasan al-Hudaybi, favored working with Nasser's secular government in an effort to gradually move the country toward Islamic fundamentalism. A more radical faction, led by the writer and ideologue Sayyid Qutb (1909-1966), advocated armed revolution against corrupt (i.e., non-Islamist) regimes in the Middle East and, more broadly, against unbelievers in Western nations.

After Muslim Brotherhood member Abdul Munim Abdul Rauf tried to assassinate Egyptian President Nasser in October 1954, the Brotherhood, which had recently received permission to resume its operations in Egypt, was outlawed once again. Nasser dissolved the organization, burned down its headquarters, arrested approximately 15,000 of its members, and executed some others—most famously Qutb.

Many of the remaining members fled the country. The Muslim Brotherhood receded as a political force in Egypt, where it has been banned ever since. Notwithstanding the ban, the Egyptian government has permitted the Brotherhood to operate within limits since the 1970s, keeping the organization in check with frequent arrests and crackdowns.

The first American chapter of the Brotherhood was formed in the early 1960s, following the arrival of hundreds of young Muslims in the U.S. to study, particularly at large Midwestern universities such as those in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. Some of these students had been Muslim Brotherhood members in their homelands and now wanted to spread the group's ideology in America. The Muslim Brotherhood's early activities in the U.S. centered around the Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada, founded in 1963. The two groups continue to share a close, but still secretive, connection.

Sayyid Qutb
Writer and ideologue Sayyid Qutb (1909-1966) started a more radical faction within the Muslim Brotherhood, which advocated armed revolution against corrupt (i.e., non-Islamist) regimes in the Middle East and, more broadly, against unbelievers in Western nations.

Mohammed Morsi
Morsi is Chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party, which the Brotherhood founded in the wake of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. At one of his campaign rallies, a hardline Islamist cleric named Safwat Hegazy declared: “We are seeing the dream of the Islamic Caliphate coming true at the hands of Mohammed Morsi.” Morsi made a plan to Islamicize Egypt, which included memorizing the koran in school, changing police uniforms and the Egyptian national anthem, etc. During his first few months in office, Morsi assumed virtually dictatorial powers and began to brutally subdue his enemies.

Muhammad Badi [a.k.a. Muhammad Badie]
In January 2010, Badi was named as the Brotherhood's new Supreme Guide. He has characterized America and Israel as “the Muslim’s real enemies" and stated that the “change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life.” In July 2012, he said that "all Muslims" have an "individual duty" to "purify [Israel] from the hands of usurpers and cleanse Palestine from the clutches of the Occupation ... They must wage Jihad with their money and lives and free it, and free its prisoners, male and female … and enable all of the displaced to return to their homeland, their homes, and their possessions."