The Muslim Brotherhood (24 page)

However, it is striking to note that in many cases the same few individuals have been in control of these organisations for years and appear unwilling to relinquish power. Figures such as Mahmoud Zuhair or Lhaj Thami Breeze have been in important leadership positions within the UOIF for decades despite the fact that the North African community in France is very well established. Dhaou Meskine has noted of Islamist organisations in general: ‘A lot of organisations retained the backwardness of their own states back home. The leadership can’t give up its position. It reflects the situation in the Third World where the leader can only be got rid of by death or a coup!’
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Moreover, these organisations are like small cliques or in some instances almost a ‘family business’. The same few individuals appear on the boards of each other’s organisations and seem to have the Islamist circuit neatly divided up between themselves.

One of the problems engendered by this situation is that these leaders are so concerned about their own positions as foreign residents that they are unlikely to try to rock the boat too much, thereby decreasing their clout within their own constituencies. Meskine also noted: ‘The mistake was setting up organisations with those from outside. If someone is linked to outside he says yes to everything they [the authorities] want him to do because he can’t oppose anything or insist on anything. He fears for his papers and residency so he always says yes.’
¹¹⁴
In addition, despite their keenness to promote the idea of a European Islam, some of those first-generation leaders continue to feel that they are not truly part of European society. Some Muslim leaders of these Ikhwani-oriented organisations still frame their debates in terms of Muslims versus the West, or us and them, as if they are not themselves part of the Western world and Europe is an entirely different cultural entity.

In spite of having been in the UK since the 1970s, Ahmed al-Rawi, who established the Ikhwan’s European network, the Federation of
Islamic Organisations in Europe (FIOE), talks about Europeans as if they are part of a separate world. In a 2006 interview he stated: ‘Despite the hostility between us and them [the Europeans] and the negative image that they carry about Islam, they are in general very logical, so if they find someone who mixes with them and explains things to them, they would become convinced [about Islam].’
¹¹⁵
This approach is hardly surprising; the first generation may genuinely consider Europe as their home but they are struggling to find their own place in the continent and still consider themselves to be part of the Islamic world.

Being part of the first generation brings its own anxieties about preserving cultural and traditional values and these organisations repeatedly stress the need to refrain from being ‘contaminated’ by Western values. As a result these groups are keen to emphasise the merits of Islamic educational establishments and in some cases of Muslim communities being dealt with as separate entities. In one mosque in Manchester the Ikhwan-oriented imam was pushing in 2004 to be allowed to legislate for the local Muslim community under Sharia law. In a similar vein, a Libyan Ikhwani in the UK said that he was happy for his daughter to follow the UK’s national curriculum but wanted her in a separate Muslim school so that she wouldn’t be ‘contaminated by the influences of the Western girls around her’.
¹¹⁶
Likewise Mohsen N’Gazou expressed his anxieties about the impact that mixing with French society would have on the next generation of Muslim children and lobbied to get the funds to set up a private Islamic school in the city.
¹¹⁷
Whilst this is understandable for the first generation, who are still grappling to come to terms with being a minority community, it risks emphasising and encouraging the differences between Muslims and non-Muslims and arguably makes life more challenging for the second and third generations.

Moreover, whilst the various Ikhwani-oriented Islamist organisations are stressing the need to focus on Europe, for many their primary references continue to be the Middle East and the Islamic
world. Furthermore, although they may not be formally linked to the Brotherhood in Cairo, these organisations still consider Cairo to be a key spiritual reference. It is also notable that whilst these organisations stress their independence from the Brotherhood, many Ikhwani in the Middle East still tend to refer to them as extensions of the movement. The former Murshid has said:

We are present in every country. Everywhere there are people who believe in the message of the Muslim Brothers. In France, the Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF) does not belong to the organization of the Brothers. They follow their own laws and rules. There are many organizations that do not belong to the Muslim Brothers. For example, Shaykh al-Qaradawi. He is not a Muslim Brother, but he was formed according to the doctrine of the Brothers. The doctrine of the Brothers is a written doctrine that has been translated in all languages … Everyone who believes in this doctrine can be considered as a Muslim Brother.
¹¹⁸

He has also said of those institutions in Europe:

These organisations and institutions are independent and autonomous. We don’t control them. It is the brothers abroad who lead these organisations. The structures linked to Qaradawi are organisations of the Brotherhood directed by the brothers of different countries … Those who cooperate with us are not all brothers … but we tend not to make any distinction between them.
¹¹⁹

In a parallel situation, Mohamed Habib has allegedly said of the Muslim American Society, ‘I don’t want to say MAS is an Ikhwan entity … This causes some security inconveniences for them in a post-Sept.
11 world.’
¹²⁰
Mohsen N’Gazou explains this mismatch thus: ‘Those Ikhwan in the Middle East look at us as an extension of them because we are part of their school of thought. They are more extreme and think that we are lost.’
¹²¹

Such contradictions do little to assist Ikhwani in Europe, whose main preoccupation seems to be carving out a niche for themselves within the European polity in order to have a greater degree of influence over their own communities in the continent. Their strategy appears to be to mould themselves as key interlocutors and reference points for European Muslim communities and since 9/11 in particular to demonstrate their willingness to move towards adopting more liberal values. There are of course still more rigid elements within their midst, but this approach is a clear response to the changing context within Europe and demonstrates classic Ikhwani pragmatism. However, by adopting such an approach these organisations will always have a limited appeal and will remain the realm of the few. Ironically, as a result of this narrow support base, other Ikhwani figures who reside in Europe but continue to be members of the Ikhwan in their home countries are much more powerful than those who are desperately trying to play a part in European societies. London-based Syrian Ikhwani leader Ali Saddredine al-Bayanouni was always far more influential than Ahmed Sheikh who leads the MAB or Ibrahim El-Zayat of the IGD. In many ways the power of the Ikhwan in Europe is still based upon its relationship to the Islamic world and the cause that it is supporting. The Palestinian cause will always hold more interest to the vast majority of the community than any discussion of creating a European
fiqh
. As such, the Ikhwan in Europe may be developing an increasingly sophisticated discourse and may dominate many of the continent’s mosques and Islamist centres, but its ability to influence Muslims in the continent remains as limited as ever.

Perhaps the most controversial issue to haunt the Ikhwan since its inception has been its relationship to violence. In spite of its claim to be a pacific movement, it has been castigated in some circles as a violent organisation bent on imposing Islamic Sharia across the world. In 2006
Front Page Magazine
carried an article that said:

On October 28, 2005, President George W. Bush denounced IslamoFascist movements that call for a ‘violent and political vision: the establishment, by terrorism, subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom’. The Muslim Brotherhood, also known as the Ikhwan, is a good example of what the President described and what he must protect us against.
¹

Others have observed that many of those who have gone on to advocate more militant interpretations of Islam had passed through the ranks of the Brotherhood, where they received their ideological grounding. Some analysts refer to the Ikhwan as a ‘stepping stone’: ‘For someone
who is interested in dedicating their lives to a radical Islamist cause, it can be a pathway up … to a more serious dealing with Islam.’
²

Many famous militants have passed through the Ikhwan’s ranks, including al-Qa‘ida ideologue Mustafa Setmariam, also known as Abu Musab al-Suri, who was a member of the Syrian Ikhwan before he moved on to join more radical groups. Similarly, the man known as the father of the Afghan mujahideen, Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, was a member of the Brotherhood before he became more engaged in violent jihad. Even 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta came from a family that was allegedly linked to the Brotherhood. As such the Ikhwan has been accused as acting as an incubator for more radical ideas and of spawning terrorist recruits.

It is not only in the West that such allegations are levelled at the Brotherhood. They have also been forthcoming in the Arab world. Intellectuals such as the Egyptian leader of the Ta’jamu political party, Rifat Said, have observed that whilst the Ikhwan’s leaders deny that they have taken part in terrorist actions, they try to outdo each other by claiming, ‘I killed more than the others.’
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Perhaps the Brotherhood’s greatest critics, however, were the nationalist regimes of the Middle East. The former Egyptian government repeatedly presented the Egyptian Ikhwan as the political face of a terrorist organisation.
⁴
There were also repeated assaults on and warnings about the Brotherhood in the state-controlled media. An article in
Al-Gomhuriya
in 2007 declared:

The victory of Hamas and the Brotherhood at the ballot box does not mean that they are politicians and that they are capable of running the state … All that Hamas is capable of doing is to be crack troops of suicide. Unfortunately, however, they are not committing suicide alone. They are forcing the entire people to commit suicide, and I fear that this is the same tactic and path that the Brotherhood in Egypt is taking.
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A few months earlier, following a martial arts demonstration by a group of young students linked to the Brotherhood, the editor of the same newspaper wrote:

The fighting training, martial arts, and self-defence that the students demonstrated at Al-Azhar University revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood has a great measure of Fascism and extremism … Like the Fascists and the Nazis, the Muslim Brotherhood is not interested in whether Egypt is destroyed or conquered … These inciters strive for one thing only – to create a military, or militia, parallel to the Egyptian army … the Muslim Brotherhood wants [Egypt’s] sons to die in battles waged by the regional and neighbouring powers, in which we have no interest. Perhaps they are striving to brainwash the youth and to exploit them for other aims within the country that will lead the youth only to great danger.
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The Brotherhood fiercely denies such allegations, asserting that it is a moderate organisation that does not advocate taking up arms to gain power but rather prefers the slower approach of educating society from below in preparation for the eventual establishment of an Islamic order. When asked about the Ikhwan’s desire to establish an Islamic state, Mustafa Mashour explained:

… we are not talking about seizing power in a coup d’état. Our method is peaceful; it is preaching and moulding public opinion to respond to our ideology. If we can succeed in establishing an Islamic state through elections, no one will be able to say that we overthrew the government, because we are using constitutional methods. We are not violent or bloody revolutionaries; we merely say that Islam is the solution.
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The Ikhwani have always stressed that they do not want to take power but rather wish that the ruler they are living under would apply Islamic laws correctly. This may in part be a reflection of the fact that the Ikhwan’s leadership has tended to come from the professional classes and has therefore been less inclined to engage in violent behaviour than some of the more radical groups.

The Brotherhood has emphasised this pacific stance particularly forthrightly in recent years, especially since 9/11, and has done its utmost to distance itself from any connection with violence. Former Murshid, Mehdi Akef, has explained that the Ikhwan only co-operates with other Islamist movements if they have the same comprehensive understanding of Islam as the Brotherhood, if they use the principle of
shura
and if ‘violence is not one of their methods’.
⁸

Seizing on the radicalisation discourse that began doing the rounds in the West after 9/11, the brothers have even gone so far as to assert that they can teach people the ‘correct’ version of Islam, thereby decreasing support for more militant alternatives.

Yet whilst the Ikhwan is keen to present itself as a peaceful organisation and has proven itself to be largely pacific, it does have a history of getting involved in violence when the opportunity has presented itself. Right from the outset the concept of violence was enshrined in its famous motto, which remains the maxim today: ‘Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.’ At its inception, the Ikhwan attached a far greater importance to the concept of jihad in both its violent and non-violent sense than was the tradition in the Islamic circles of the day. This differentiated it from other Islamic societies and organisations.
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Moreover, the movement began engaging in violent acts during the very early days of its existence under Hassan al-Banna, through the infamous Nizam al-Khass. In the 1980s the Syrian Ikhwan had its own particular experience with violence, as explained in detail in
Chapter Two
.
In addition, the brothers also believe that fighting jihad against a foreign occupier is a religious duty and have openly supported the resistance in places like Palestine or Iraq.