“The Muslim Brotherhood is the only organization that believes that its ideology is an applied ideology, which means you can be a liberal, you can be far Right, you can be a Muslim, you can be an atheist, you can be an agnostic, you can be Christian and still push the Muslim Brotherhood narrative,” Imam Mohammad Tawhidi, also known as the Imam of Peace, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
By describing itself as “applied,” the Muslim Brotherhood is able to garner support from diverse groups, such as liberals supporting pro-Hamas rallies, even if these individuals would not be able to live under Hamas rule, he said.
“The main threat presented by the Muslim Brotherhood is that they are misunderstood,” he added. “They don’t want you to know who they are.”
The Muslim Brotherhood was established about 100 years ago. It is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization that seeks the establishment of a caliphate.
After it originated in Egypt, its ideology spread into many other countries, including the West. Nevertheless, several Muslim countries have since banned the organization, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, and it is rejected by many Muslims.
The Muslim Brotherhood has several vectors of penetration, such as through the NGO and charity sector, whereby so-called community organizations present themselves as humanitarian or integration partners, but they act as conduits for ideological indoctrination, recruitment, and foreign funding, Tawhidi said Wednesday at a European Parliament conference.
“In reality, the Muslim Brotherhood seeks to replace representative Muslim leadership with proxies who advance a political Islam agenda,” he told the conference.
Muslim Brotherhood and terrorism
Several terrorist organizations stemmed from the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology, most notably Hamas, al-Qaeda, and ISIS as an offshoot of al-Qaeda. Hamas’s actual logo – not the green banner associated with Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades, the so-called military wing of Hamas – features the Muslim Brotherhood logo.
“It’s the mother organization,” Tawhidi told the Post. “These organizations were born out of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
While Hamas and al-Qaeda are designated as terrorist organizations in many Islamic and Western countries, the Muslim Brotherhood, which claims to be a mainstream Islamic movement, is not, he said.
“When ISIS and al-Qaeda are designated as terrorist entities by the whole world, they’ve essentially designated one of the children of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Tawhidi said. “So, everyone designates the Muslim Brotherhood ideology as a terrorist ideology. They just haven’t designated the mother organization, because it’s been so clever in navigating the legal frameworks and democracies.”
“It’s only roaming free in democracies,” he said.
Its slightly nebulous categorization and ability to maneuver through Western societies makes challenging them difficult, Tawhidi said.
“As an example, in Judaism, you have the Orthodox, you have the Reform, you have the Conservatives, you have the ultra-Orthodox and so on,” he said. “These are all considered denominations or schools of thought. So, attacking one of them because of who they are is clear antisemitism.
“But the Muslim Brotherhood is not a Muslim denomination; it’s an organization, which means when you criticize it, you cannot be considered an Islamophobe, because you’re not criticizing the religion; you’re criticizing an organization.”
For Tawhidi, the name “Muslim Brotherhood” is almost blasphemous.
“They’ve hijacked the name of the religion, and then they’ve hijacked the term brotherhood,” he said
In most religions, the notion of brotherhood and family is sacred, Tawhidi said.
The Muslim Brotherhood has taken this term, which is ummah in Islam, “and they’ve taken the name of the religion, okay, to legitimize their terrorism,” he said.
If the organization gets caught operating in Kuwait, or the UAE, or Saudi Arabia, or Bahrain, or Egypt, “they are finished; they’re gone,” Tawhidi said. “They won’t even find a lawyer to defend them. But they advise governments in Europe, Canada, and America.”
“What you are seeing now are the fruits of 100 years of efforts,” he said. “Infiltration is an ongoing phenomenon. We are dealing with acceptance; the Muslim Brotherhood has been accepted.”
The organization is now “setting the standards, telling [the West] how many refugees you need to accept from Gaza,” Tawhidi said. “They are being policy-makers in a democracy, when they don’t even believe in a democracy.”
Western democracies are beginning to crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood, especially France, which has been chasing down branches and detaining leaders, and Germany, which has been shutting down their mosques.
Last week, the Post reported on the closure of the Bleuets Mosque in Marseilles after it appeared in a recent French government report on the Muslim Brotherhood.
Commissioned by Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, the 73-page document warned of the ways in which the Muslim Brotherhood seeks to subvert French society through networks of mosques, schools, associations, and digital platforms.
Canada and the US are also catching on. This past June, a report by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) revealed the deep-rooted presence and growing influence of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations across Canada, which it warned now presents “a significant national security concern,” leaving “Canada vulnerable to a potential terror attack.”
In July, US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced a bill, seeking to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization under US law.
“Muslim Brotherhood branches have sought to destabilize and undermine United States allies and partners throughout the Middle East,” he wrote, adding that “Hamas is a Muslim Brotherhood branch, according to its charter, which describes Hamas as ‘one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine.’”
Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood
Influence from the Muslim Brotherhood in Western societies has not received as much attention in recent years as the influence and infiltration of the Iranian regime and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the West. Reports have been released by top intelligence agencies in the UK, Australia, and the US, warning of the dangers of Iranian soft power and radicalization efforts.
Asked whether the Muslim Brotherhood is a bigger threat in reality than Iran, Tawhidi said: “Iran is the Shia version of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
“Before in the 1970s, the Muslim Brotherhood influenced the clerics of the regime in Iran,” he said. “Now, the Iranian regime has turned around and started funding Muslim Brotherhood organizations like Hamas.”
Despite one being Shia (Shi’ite) and the other Sunni, “When your objective is the same, the annihilation of the Jewish state, it no longer matters what your faith is,” Tawhidi said.
But active work is being done to counter the Muslim Brotherhood, including the organization Global Imams Council, for which Tawhidi serves as a governing member. The GIC is made up of Islamic scholars and faith leaders from all Islamic sects and schools of thought, Shia and Sunni, with the aim of fostering unity, uniting Imams, and advocating for peaceful coexistence among all communities.
“We are working to counter extremism, building bridges between the different communities, and countering the Muslim Brotherhood in Canada, in North America, and so on,” Tawhidi said.
He believes in future peace in the Middle East, citing the new models for Islam being set by countries such as the UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia.
Asked whether he was optimistic, Tawhidi said: “Yes, 100%.”