Friday, February 11, 2011

Muslim BROTHERHOOD background...

          In 1928 the Muslim Brotherhood was formed by a 22 year old school teacher, HASAN AL-Banna. Muslim Brotherhood was started as an Islamic revivalist movement following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and  ban of the caliphate system of government which had united the Muslims for hundreds of years. Based on the idea, Islam was not just a religious observance, but a total way  of life, on the tenets of Wahhabism,  known today as "Islamism." Al-Banna supplemented the traditional Islamic education for the Society's male students with jihadia training.

The Brotherhood grew over the next 20 years,  not only as a religion and education, but also political party,  the Party of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimoon. It blamed the Egyptian government for being passive against "Zionists" and joined the Palestinian side in the war against Israel  and started committing terrorist acts inside of Egypt, which led to a ban on the movement by the Egyptian government. A Muslim Brother assassinated the Prime Minister of Egypt, Mahmud Fahmi Nokrashi, on December 28, 1948. Al-Banna, the founder  was killed by government agents in Cairo in February, 1949.

The Egyptian government legalized the Brotherhood again in 1948, but only as a religious organization; it was banned again in 1954 because it insisted that Egypt be governed under shari'a (Islamic law).

Abdul Munim Abdul Rauf, a Brotherhood activist, attempted to assassinate Egyptian President Nasser in 1954 and was executed, along with five other Brothers. Four thousand Brothers were also arrested, and thousands more fled to Syria, Saudia Arabia, Jordan, and Lebanon.

In 1964, Nasser granted amnesty to the imprisoned Brothers, hoping that their release would weaken interest in the recently formed Arab Socialist Union party; the result was three more assassination attempts by the Brothers on Nasser's life. The top leaders of the Brotherhood were executed in 1966, and many others were imprisoned.

Nasser's successor, Anwar-as-Sadat, promised the Brothers that shari'a would be implemented as the Egyptian law and released all of the Brotherhood prisoners; however, the Brothers lost their trust in Sadat when he signed the peace agreement with Israel in 1979; four Brothers assassinated Sadat in September, 1981.

Officially banned by the Egyptian government since 1954, the Muslim Brothers captured 17 seats in the Egyptian Parliament running as independents; they also hold important offices in professional organizations in Egypt.

Today, a very complex financial network connects the operations of over seventy branches of the Muslim Brothers worldwide. During the Muslim Brothers' seventy-plus years of existence, there have been cycles of growth, followed by divisions into factions, including clandestine financial networks, and violent jihad groups, such as al-Jihad and al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya in Egypt, HAMAS in Palestine and mujahideen groups in Afghanistan.

  Are they still violent? The leaders renounce violence, at least publicly.The Brotherhood says its call to jihad is spiritual, and that it believes in advancing Islam through politics and teaching. This is hardly a separation of "church and state." It is unclear what their intension are but experts are divided on whether the Brotherhood’s new, more moderate line marks a real change or a ruse. “It would be delusory to take the Muslim Brotherhood’s democratic protestations at face value,” says Leslie Gelb, a former president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “No one really has any sound idea of how they might rule.’’  There are some who believe the Brotherhood is watching and waiting for their turn to pounce. The WORLD'S LARGEST AND MOST INFLUENTIAL  ISLAMIST MOVEMENT GROUP had better be watched and watched closely.Their charter states," must be fully prepared to fight the tyrants and the enemies of Allah as a prelude to establishing an Islamic State....

Sources:
 IkwanWeb the Muslim Brotherhood english language web site.
El-Awaisi, Adb Al-Fattah
Fas.org(FAS  Intelligence Resource Program) Web site





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