Meet the Muslim Brotherhood

OPINION:

In 1918, V.I. Lenin renamed the Bolshevik Party the Russian Communist Party. Western scholars and policymakers soon began studying communism and the threat it posed to free nations.

In 1920, the German Workers’ Party adopted a new name: the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, better known as the Nazi Party. Western scholars and policymakers soon began studying Nazism and the threat it posed to free nations.

In 1928, Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Western scholars and policymakers were uninterested, regarding it as nothing more than a religious-social welfare organization and therefore no threat to free nations. For nearly a century, that view has persisted despite accumulating evidence to the contrary. Now, finally, clearer perceptions are emerging.

One example: Last week, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the think tank over which I’m proud to preside, published a monograph titled “Patient Extremism: The Many Faces of the Muslim Brotherhood.” I have space here to highlight just a few of its insights and offer just a few of my own.

First, to comprehend what motivated al-Banna, you need to consider what happened in 1922: The Ottoman Empire, having made the mistake of siding with Germany in World War I, collapsed when Turkish nationalists, led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, abolished the Ottoman Sultanate.

The Ottoman Caliphate, a religious institution associated with the Sultanate, was abolished two years later as part of Ataturk’s secular reforms.

To Mr. al-Banna, there could be no greater tragedy and humiliation.

The first caliphate was established in 632 CE, immediately after the death of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. Thereafter, a succession of caliphates conquered and ruled much of the world.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s mission: to establish an even mightier empire and caliphate based on Islamic supremacy, the expansion of the Dar al-Islam (the lands of Islam, contrasted with the Dar-al-harb, where wars must be waged) and the conviction that “Islam is a faith and a ritual, a nation and a nationality, a religion and a state, spirit and deed, holy text and sword.”

The Brotherhood today is not monolithic. Each branch determines the best approach to make progress in its region.

Some, such as Hamas, conduct terrorist attacks — though by calling violence directed against civilians “resistance” and spinning its vow to exterminate Jews “from the river to the sea” as “anti-colonialism,” it enhances its appeal to the left.

Other branches adhere to a policy of nonviolence, but based on “prudence not principle,” as the FDD monograph observes. “They may accept leaders chosen by the people, but their bedrock conviction remains that no government is legitimate unless it rules according to the dictates of Shariah, Islamic law.”

Osama bin Laden and his longtime deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, had ties to the Brotherhood early in their careers.

Although the Brotherhood is Sunni, it has influenced Iran’s Shiite rulers. Before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been Iran’s supreme leader since 1989, translated into Persian several books by Sayyid Qutb, a leading ideologue of the Brotherhood who followed al-Banna in the 1940s and early 1950s.

Qutb proposed that a revolutionary “vanguard” (tali’a) of true believers would be necessary to overthrow existing orders and wage jihad against the West (“all the Satanic forces and Satanic systems”) and Muslims insufficiently hostile to the West.

The Brotherhood has come a long way since the days of al-Banna and Qutb. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of NATO member Turkey since 2014, supports Hamas and embraces the Brotherhood’s broader goals, perhaps imagining himself as the first Ottoman sultan and caliph of the 21st century.

Qatar, designated as a Major Non-NATO Ally of the U.S., also supports Hamas, along with many other branches of the Brotherhood in many other places. The emirate’s rulers are fabulously wealthy thanks primarily to vast offshore natural gas reserves, particularly the North Field, which the Qataris share with Iran’s rulers.

Among the projects on which they spend their fortune: Al Jazeera media platforms, which have long disseminated Brotherhood propaganda, much as the Cominform, short for the Communist Information Bureau, did for the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Al Jazeera collaborates and shares content with various foreign media outlets, including the BBC, France 24, Reuters and PBS. In addition, Wikipedia regards Al Jazeera as a “reliable source” for its articles. This may partly explain why there is now burgeoning support for Hamas in many Western countries.

In the U.S., there are mosques where Brotherhood imams preach and organizations that present themselves as advocates for Muslim civil rights but are, transparently, Brotherhood fronts.

Now, a bit of good news: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the U.S. is preparing to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization.

Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, has introduced the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2025. Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart, Florida Republican, and Jared Moskowitz, Florida Democrat, have introduced a companion bill in the House.

Final thoughts for today: Communism has not been defeated. On the contrary, Beijing is now the headquarters of the most powerful Communist Party in history. Nazism may be making a comeback. Last month, podcaster Tucker Carlson conducted a cordial interview with neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes, who said he thought Adolf Hitler was “very, very cool.”

Of course, the Muslim Brotherhood is waging a jihad that began 1,400 years ago.

All this reinforces my long-standing belief that there are no permanent victories, only permanent battles. We can fight those battles, or we can shout “No more endless wars!” and capitulate.

I’m not aware of a third option.

• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a columnist for The Washington Times and host of the “Foreign Podicy” podcast.