The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report

About

The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report was created to fill a significant gap in the understanding of Islamic extremism. Most observers are familiar with the pan-Islamic organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Founded in 1928 by Egyptian schoolteacher Hassan El-Banna, the Egyptian Brotherhood's served as the wellspring of Islamism and political Islam. Its importance as a 'springboard'; toward radicalization for individuals such as Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has been widely discussed. Far less known is the existence of a global network of individuals and organizations that developed as Muslim Brotherhood members dispersed to other countries while fleeing the periodic crackdowns on the organization in Egypt.

Many of these Muslim Brothers (Ikhwan) settled in Europe and the United States where they went on to found what have become the some of the most prominent Islamic organizations in their new home countries. Once established, these organizations began seeking legitimacy and have worked to influence and control the development of Islamic discourse and political activity in their respective countries. Less publicly, they are almost always associated with fundamentalism, anti-Semitism, and support for Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and often, Hezbollah. While claiming to disavow al Qaeda linked terrorism, the Ikhwan are at best lukewarm in their condemnation of Islamist violence and commonly issue statements justifying such violence. When compared to the Egyptian organization, there has been relatively little scrutiny of the network that is referred to here as the global Muslim Brotherhood. This network has become far more important to the Islamist movement worldwide than the Egyptian organization, which is largely confined to activities inside Egypt where its members are under constant government surveillance and control.

The global Muslim Brotherhood has been organized in the United States since 1963, when the Muslim Student Association was established by Brotherhood members fleeing their home countries. Key figures in the MSA, as well as others linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, went on to form numerous other organizations, many of which have been recently identified by the U.S. government in court documents as part of the U.S Brotherhood. The relevant U.S. organizations include:

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)
The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)
The Muslim Student Association (MSA)
The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)

The global Muslim Brotherhood has been present in Europe since 1960 when Said Ramadan, the grandson of Hassan Al-Banna, founded a mosque in Munich. Since that time, Brotherhood organizations have been established in almost all of the EU countries as well as many non-EU countries such as Russia and Turkey. Many of these organizations have banded together into an EU-level lobbying group known as the Federation of Islamic Organizations of Europe (FIOE), based in Brussels and which includes well-known European Brotherhood organizations such as:

The Union des Organizations Islamiques de France (UOIF)
The Islamische Gemeinschaft in Deutschland (IGD)
The Muslim Association of Britain (MAB)

as well as some 26 other European organizations. FIOE, in turn, is the parent body for other pan-European Brotherhood bodies such as the European Council For Fatwa and Research (ECFR) and the Europe Trust.

The global Muslim Brotherhood network also includes important Saudi institutions, many of which were founded by Muslim Brothers who settled in the Kingdom. These include the Muslim World League (MWL) and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), both of which were created to propagate Saudi 'Wahhabi' Islam, a conservative version of Islam that teaches that the only true form of the religion is as it was practiced centuries ago. Wahhabism allows for no modernizing influences on the religion, and teaches that women are inferior to men, sharia law-including amputations and stonings-is the will of Allah, Jews are descended from pigs and apes, Muslims have the divine right to rule over the earth, and all non-Muslims are infidels entitled to few rights. These U.S., European, and Saudi organizations, as well as Islamic organizations in other parts of the world, operate as a coherent network- sharing similar ideology, backgrounds, funding, and institutional links. They hold numerous conferences year after year, attended by the same core group of individuals.

While much remains to be learned about how the global Muslim Brotherhood is coordinated and led, recently released U.S. court documents indicate a degree of structure previously unknown. In addition, one individual holds a position of such esteem and influence within the global Muslim Brotherhood that he is referred to here as the leader of the network. Sheikh Youssef Qaradawi is a highly influential theologian living in Qatar who also heads the European Council for Fatwa and Research and appears on a weekly Al Jazeera television program. Sheikh Qaradawi first rose to prominence through his participation on the editorial board of Al Dawa magazine, an Egyptian publication that was allowed to circulate during the regime of Anwar Sadat and which was largely financed by money coming from Saudi Arabia. The Al Dawa editorial board was composed largely of Muslim Brothers who had fallen out with the Brotherhood Supreme Guide over their willingness to cooperate with the Egyptian regime.

It is this network that will be covered by the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report. Each day, a large variety of news and other sources are sifted in order to identify the most relevant developments of the day and presented in the form of postings that refer back to the original source material. Almost all of these are 'open source' but from time to time may also consist of material from other sources. All individuals and organizations references to the Muslim Brotherhood should be understood to refer to the global network as opposed to the Egyptian organization unless otherwise noted.