The Ikhwan Behind Bars

Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, better known as the Muslim Brotherhood, is a radical Islamic organization dedicated to purifying Islam, returning the faithful to the true precepts of the Koran and the hadith, and working towards the establishment of a worldwide Caliphate.

For those who want an “Islamic Reformation”: you’ve already got one, and the Muslim Brotherhood is it. Dedicated reformers blow themselves and innocent bystanders up almost every day in “Palestine”, Pakistan, India, London, and virtually every other place in the world that has a significant Muslim presence.

The Ikhwan grew out of a long-established tradition of Salafist reform. The current version of it was founded by Hassan al-Banna in Egypt in the early 20th century. After his assassination in 1949, al-Banna was succeeded by Sayyid Qutb, who was hanged by the Egyptian government in 1966.

Ayman al-Zawahiri (who is also Egyptian) is the most well-known of the current leadership of the Ikhwan. Since the merger of Al Qaeda and Zawahiri’s group, the both organizations are now essentially part of the Muslim Brotherhood. Many other groups, such as Hamas, have direct connections with the Ikhwan.

The West has been widely infiltrated by agents of the Muslim Brotherhood through its innumerable affiliated groups. If you see CAIR or ISNA or MAB or Taqiyya Tariq Ramadan on TV, they will deny any connection with the Ikhwan, but they are representing its interests and pushing its goals in their adopted countries. Ramadan in particular is instructive, since he is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.

There are many eager dhimmis in the West who want to recognize the Muslim Brotherhood as a legitimate negotiating partner, who see it as “expressing the legitimate aspirations of the world’s Muslims”. In contrast, the Ikhwan is banned in its countries of origin as a dangerous and seditious organization. The regimes that have to deal with it first-hand know all too well what it is up to.

Egypt, for example, is forced periodically to crack down on Brotherhood members in its midst. Here’s the latest example, according to ANSAmed:
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Egypt: 34 Muslim Brotherhood Members Arrested

CAIRO, OCTOBER 22 — In the operations carried out in the last 48 hours, security forces in Egypt have arrested 34 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition movement in Parliament, prohibited by the law, but usually tolerated, in five governorates in the country. At dawn 12 were arrested in Beni Suef, 100 kilometres south of Cairo, and another 22 were arrested yesterday in Alexandria, Port Said, Fayoum, and Cairo.

“These arrests are the consequence of the will of the Muslim Brotherhood to organize a campaign to break the Israeli block on Gaza — said the spokesperson of the fraternity, Essam El Eryan — after the last demonstration, set on last October 6 to send medicine, was prohibited by security forces”. The Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip is almost entirely blocked uninterruptedly since July of 2006, after Hamas assumed control of the territory, as a consequence of the electoral victory in the previous months.

For those who advocate democracy in the Muslim world: be careful! You just might just get what you wish for. In most cases, if the will of the people in Muslim countries were truly represented, the Muslim Brotherhood would be voted into power:

Once again, according to ANSAmed:

Egypt: Students Elections, Tension After Islamists Banned

CAIRO, OCTOBER 22 — There is tension at the University of Cairo after the cancellation of sixty young pro-Islam students from the list of candidates for the student elections, which ended on 20 October in the Egyptian capital. They invaded the university, which was surrounded by police, along with a hundred candidates who are part of the Islamist movement, writes weekly paper Al-Ahram Hebdo, with their faces covered and their wrists chained, shouting slogans against the Government and the University administration.

“Everyone should know about the injustices which Islamic students are suffering” they chorused. “158 out of 1,365 candidates have been expelled. Of these, 60 were pro-Islam”. “All thrown out”, maintains the spokesman for the Islamic students, Mohamed Mohie.

This is not an isolated phenomenon: many students report that they have been cancelled from the student lists over the years, just for being part of the Islamist movement. It was the same at the University of Helouan, where two days ago demonstrations took place: tens of Islamist students marched in protest over the removal of eighty of their candidates. The University authorities defended themselves saying that “the 82 students cancelled from the list had been disciplined and for this reason banned from presenting their candidacy”.

According to University regulations, students must have a “good reputation”. “Who can say what is mean by good reputation?” asked the spokesperson of the Islamist students at Helouan, Ahmad Sobhi. Since 1979 University rules forbid the formation of any student groups based on religion or politics. Many maintain that this is aimed at Islamist students and can only lead to violent uprisings or total political apathy by young people. In fact, in 2007, students belonging to the Fraternity of Muslim Brothers organised a paramilitary demonstration at the University of Al-Azhar to protest against the University’s policy against them, opening a fierce debate over the presence of Islamists inside the country’s Universities. The Islamist student movement was born in the 1970s in the Egyptian universities, where the Muslim Brothers are gaining popularity. This was the reason why the Government raised its level of attention.

Radical Islam in Egypt is associated with youthful rebellion, non-conformism, the forces of change and renewal, and all the other things that make it attractive to the younger generation — which enjoys a numerical advantage. A democratic revolution in Egypt and many other Islamic countries would catapult the Ikhwan into power.

So here we have an interesting contrast between the sclerotic and corrupt despotisms of the Muslim world on the one hand, and the sclerotic and corrupt democracies of the West on the other. In the former, the Ikhwan is ruthlessly suppressed; in the latter, it is a valued negotiating partner.

The Islamic despotisms and the Western dhimmis have the same goal: to maintain the wealth and privileges of those who hold authority in their increasingly precarious established power structures.

So they have arrived at opposite strategies to accomplish the same end: the maintenance of undisputed oligarchic control.


Hat tip: Insubria.