How Muslim Brotherhood began as a religious institution
The Muslim brotherhood is also called the Muslim brethren or The Society of Muslim Brothers. This is an Islamic organization that has a political approach to Islam. It was founded in the year 1928 in Egypt by cleric Hassan al-Banna after the Ottoman Empire collapsed. The organization has been strongly linked to the reign of terrorism that has been downplayed by many Muslims in the world. They state that the organization only has an Islamic political approach in the country and therefore they do not involve themselves with violence. Many terror groups have been linked with the organization across the world and also terror attacks that have claimed lots o deaths around the world (Munson, 2001).
According to the founder of the organization al-Banna, “It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet”. This is the main reason that the organization has always opposed secular tendencies of nations that are known to be Islamic. Their main aim is to return the precepts that are in the Quran so that these nations can go back to becoming the Islamic nations that embrace the Islamic way o politics. Many nations have come under criticism from the organization stating that they forgot their ways. Those that have not deflected back to the brotherhood's ways are subjected to attacks that they believe is allowed to people who do not follow ‘Allah’. The organization has rejected all the notions of western influence and rejected extreme Sufism. The members of the brotherhood organize prayer meetings and sports clubs that they use for socializing. The organizations motto is; “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.”
The brotherhood has been using force by killing non-Muslims and also other people who did not believe in what they were after. Their targets are commonly known as Kefirs, who is always subjected to their ruthless attacks. They use extrajudicial force so that they can spread their message and create awareness. They target being the leaders of the world and therefore use this force as a strategy to force their religion to be believed. Their biggest targets being Christians as most nations opposed to them are Christian nations or have the majority of the people as Christians. They stand out and majestically opposed all the other religions and claimed that Allah is the only god in the universe and that all people should believe him. Other of their targets is Muslim nations that have faded their beliefs in Islam. They are termed as traitors and are ruthlessly murdered in the name o embracing Allah. The Quran is used as the law and they follow all what that the Quran says. Any notion that the Quran is against, they target to eliminate it especially from Muslims that are near them before spreading it further.
The actions that the group has been taking are both in Egypt and Middle East countries. They have tried to spread the message in many ways as well as initiating other brotherhoods in different places that have been mainly to fight for their religion. Islam is the only thing that brings them together and keeps them going as they have always stated. They have sworn to fight for Islam especially politically so that what their message can be heard appropriately. Their target being to restore the belief in Islam and make sure that all people in the world acknowledge Islam as the only right religion in the world (Tadros, 2011). Converting other beliefs into Islam has also been a long-time target of the brotherhood. Although they have not succeeded in doing this, some regions in Europe and Middle East are controlled by the brotherhood through other organizations that they have mentored. The Egyptian brotherhood always appears when these organizations are mentioned, and their role is always depicted as a big one in these occurrences. This is either by direct involvement or through big terror masterminds that have been mentored by the brotherhood.
Their ideologies and beliefs are, therefore, not only felt in Egypt but also extend to outside Egypt. Middle East countries and European countries have been the largest victims of the brotherhood so far. The organization has a flag that is green in color and which the hoist in every region they have conquered or in regions that the Muslims are in control. These are the Muslims that feel that they are strong to stand up for their religion without fear. Nations whose people believe in Jihad and view it as the only way that people will get to accept the religion. Their intentions have however raised a lot of fear in both Muslims and non-Muslims as the violence has proven to be very strong. Their targets always have minimal chances of survival. Weapons of mass destruction are always the order of the day to them, and they would not hesitate to use them. In the brotherhood, the arrest or killing of one of them would result to such a situation to anyone who claims responsibility. Countries like the United States have always been the victims in these situations, and their citizens are always killed once in territories those are controlled by the brotherhood. Their threat is always imminent and has been a world crisis that has not been solved yet.
Discuss how religious organizations gain political power, particularly how the Muslim Brotherhood gained power in Egypt.
Religious organizations have been seen to gain power in the regions of influence mainly through the use of force. They kill people who are opposed to them and only spare the ones that serve their religion and are willing to fight with them so that they can increase the influence that they have. This has been used by many religious organizations especially ones that try to uphold Islamic. They have been branded as terrorists due to the attacks that they have carried out across the world so that they can gain fame and also making sure that the ideologies and their beliefs are followed by everyone. Many start civil wars with the aim of using this opportunity to draw many people towards its side and also kill the enemies who might prove to pose a strong rebellion in the future. An example is the Islamic State in Syria, which started a civil war with the aim of gaining control of the country. They have managed to control many parts of Syria ousting their enemies and any countries that support the Syrian government (Pierce, 2014).
Religious organizations always give their mission religious grounds especially to people who seem to have deviated to what they are supposed to follow. They kill these people and make sure that they use the religious ground for these acts. Some have their intentions based on these while others intentions are always to gain something else while attracting people to their side using their religion. It has led to querying of the motives of these religious organizations have been questioned by many leaders across the world as other political and religious organizations. Suicide bombing known as Jihad by Muslims has been one method that has been used relating it to the Quran (Monier & Ranko, 2013). Suicide bombers kill themselves together with their victims and always believe that they will be rewarded in the next life by Allah for the sacrifice that they made so that his word could be spread and believed. Torture and intimidation are also largely used especially where the target victims are needed to suffer so that they can accept the religion and its political views. People who also deviate from the views of the religion are also another group that is always subjected to torture before they are killed as a lesson to the others.
After the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt had been formed, it was an ally of the government and worked closely with the government in fulfilling its mandate. It was only viewed as a social and religious organization that did not pose any danger to the people o Egypt. This attracted attention to other Muslims who also formed their organizations that believed in the welfare of their people. An example is the Syrian Brotherhood that was formed in Aleppo. The founder of the Egyptian Brotherhood was a long time admirer of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime that Hitler supported. The regime was violent in nature and included killing of people who did not support Germany and also killed the Jews that lived in Germany. The brotherhood was still not violent in nature and had not started any politics. Al-Banna saw this as a way that he could use to help the Muslims and also ensure that the Islamic religion was embraced in the country at high levels. People had to be punished for anything that they did wrong or if they did not believe in Islam (Arjomand & Brown, 2013).
In the 1930’s, the brotherhood started becoming political in nature. It became an official political group in the year 1939. It developed a program in which the followers of the organization were trained with militarily skills and started engaging in political terrorism with their main targets the Egyptian Coptic Christians and governmental officials which was not based on religious grounds. People who were opposed to the organization were immediately killed before they could pose any rebellion towards the organization's new motive and the strategies that they were using to gain what they wanted. The movement by then supported the government of Gamal Abd an-Nasser but resisted any left wings that the government wanted to get involved with. One of the Muslim Brothers assassinated the then prime minister Mahmud Fahmi Nokrachi in the year 1948. The brotherhood was then banned, and the leader al-Banna was killed in the year 1949 in Cairo. This turned the organization to be more violent especially in gaining power in the government. They raised a number of politicians to the parliament who were supposed to help them achieve what they wanted politically (Trager, 2011).
This was when the brotherhood started having lots of powers as it had support from the government through its politicians. It intimidated other politicians through assassinations, and they were forced to be subjects to the organization. If they went contrary to the requirements, they would be assassinated or overthrown from their posts altogether. This also triggered the raising of other political brotherhoods across the world that used the same methods while others just stuck to being social and religious organizations which were harmless. The brotherhood in Egypt would support a leader but later assassinate them if they did not meet the needs that the brotherhood wanted from them (Sweeney, 2013). This kind of intimidation called for loyalty of high levels which the politicians had to offer to the brotherhood so that they could feel safe achieving their mandate for the country. The leaders did not have any choice but had to follow what the organization wanted and also covered the actions of the organization especially the killing of high-level politicians who were opposed to the organization. If a politician was opposed to the organization, they were immediately declared enemies and were terminated immediately.
The organization gained more and more power by the years until its power was proven in the year 2011. It carried a lot of revolutions in the north of Africa including Egypt. The current president by that time Hosni Mubarak was overthrown and they supported their candidate Mohammed Morsi to the presidential seat. They, therefore, control the highest position in the country and several other countries which shows that they powers have increased. The organization has become political and has subjected the politics of Egypt the way that they prefer. They have changed the system, and their effect is also felt in Syria where the Islamic State has taken control of big parts of Syria and Iraq (Baker, 2014).
How religion and politics are combined today and their effects on the state
Religion and politics have been combined to form something that has been brutal and violent to people who do not believe in them. Non-Muslims in Egypt have been killed due to their religious and political views. The Islamic law that has been subjected in the modern day has proved to be very difficult for people to follow, and they end up being killed because they opt to fight for their rights. Extrajudicial killings have increased more than in any other years on the grounds of politics and religion (Whickham, 2011). The two have been combined in the wrong manner. Politics should favor all the sides that are being represented. In this case Christians and Muslims should all be viewed as equal and represented in the same way. They all have their beliefs, and they should be treated in a manner that their beliefs are recognized and are respected in the same way. Therefore, the government should set a system that respects both Christians and Muslims and respects their opinions without favoring one of them (Ghanem & Mustafa, 2011).
The effects of the combination of the two are that many people have been killed. The number of non-Muslims killed is large in that christian do not feel safe in the country at all. They have migrated from the country so that they can at least go to regions where there is peace and which they can feel that they are safe. The effect of the Egyptian politics has, therefore, gone ahead and affected the whole world through massive revolutions that are being carried out by religious and political organizations following what the brotherhood in Egypt has achieved. Their achievements affect the whole world if political. They give other organizations motivation to carry out their unlawful activities which affect the politics of the world.
Conclusion
The Egyptian brotherhood founded in the year 1928 in Egypt by cleric Hassan al-Banna after the Ottoman Empire collapsed. The organization has been strongly linked to the reign of terrorism which has been downplayed by many Muslims in the world. They state that the organization only has an Islamic political approach in the country and therefore they do not involve themselves with violence. Many terror groups have been linked with the organization across the world and also terror attacks that have claimed lots o deaths around the world. The organization has rejected all the notions of western influence and rejected extreme Sufism. The members of the brotherhood organize prayer meetings and sports clubs that they use for socializing. The organizations motto is; “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.”
They target being the leaders of the world and therefore use this force as a strategy to force their religion to be believed. Their biggest targets being Christians as most nations opposed to them are Christian nations or have the majority of the people as Christians. They stand out and majestically opposed all the other religions and claimed that Allah is the only god in the universe and that all people should believe him. Other of their targets is Muslim nations that have faded their beliefs in Islam. They are termed as traitors and are ruthlessly murdered in the name o embracing Allah. The Quran is used as the law and they follow all what that the Quran says. They have gained political power in Egypt and neighboring countries. Their control of the region has subjected fear of terror to non-Muslims living in these countries. It was in the 1930’s when the brotherhood started becoming political in nature. It became an official political group in the year 1939. It developed a program in which the followers of the organization were trained with militarily skills and started engaging in political terrorism with their main targets the Egyptian Coptic Christians and governmental officials which was not based on religious grounds.
The movement in the 1930’s supported the government of Gamal Abd an-Nasser but resisted any left wings that the government wanted to get involved with. One of the Muslim Brothers assassinated the then prime minister Mahmud Fahmi Nokrachi in the year 1948. The brotherhood was then banned, and the leader al-Banna was killed in the year 1949 in Cairo by government officials. This turned the organization to be more violent especially in gaining power in the government. From this occasion, they have been able to raise their power across the country politically.
References
Arjomand, S. A., & Brown, N. J. (Eds.). (2013). The Rule of Law, Islam, and Constitutional Politics in Egypt and Iran. SUNY Press.
Baker, R. W. (2014). The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement by Carrie Rosefsky Wickham (review). The Middle East Journal, 68(2), 323-324.
Ghanem, A. A., & Mustafa, M. (2011). Strategies of electoral participation by Islamic movements: the Muslim Brotherhood and parliamentary elections in Egypt and Jordan, November 2010. Contemporary Politics, 17(4), 393-409.
Monier, E. I., & Ranko, A. (2013). The fall of the Muslim Brotherhood: implications for Egypt. Middle East Policy, 20(4), 111-123.
Munson, Z. (2001). Islamic Mobilization. The Sociological Quarterly, 42(4), 487-510.
Pierce, A. R. (2014). US “Partnership” with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and its Effect on Civil Society and Human Rights. Society, 51(1), 68-86.
Sweeney, S. (2013). The Role of Islamist Political Parties In Tunisia and Egypt in the Wake of the Arab Spring.
Tadros, S. (2011). Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood After the Revolution. Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, 12, 4-17.
Trager, E. (2011). Unbreakable Muslim Brotherhood: Grim Prospects for a Liberal Egypt, The. Foreign Aff., 90, 114.
Wickham, C. R. (2011). Muslim Brotherhood and Democratic Transition in Egypt, The. Middle EL & Governance, 3, 204.
