Muslim Brotherhood

The Muslim Brotherhood is a Sunni Islamist organization. Since the beginning, its message has been that Western secularism must be resisted by a return to faithful adherence to the historical Sunnah of the prophet – the social and legal customs and practices of the Islamic community following the example of Muhammad. Their goal is to instill the Quran and the Sunnah as the sole reference point for ordering the life of the Muslim individual, family, community, and state.

Schoolteacher and Islamic scholar Hasan Al-Banna (1906-49) founded the Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928. Within a few years, the Brotherhood had become the most powerful organization in the country. After the Brotherhood was implicated in the 1948 assassination of the Prime Minister, Hasan Al-Banna was assassinated by the government in 1949.

Al-Banna’s successor Sayyid Qutb (1906-66) was also an educator and Islamic scholar (he wrote many books, including a best-selling 30-volume commentary on the Quran). Upon his return home from graduate studies in the USA, where he was disgusted by the moral corruption he thought he saw in Christians, he determined to resist the evil influence of secularism. He grew to hate all Christians because they led people away from the Sunnah. Qutb moved the Brotherhood to extremist activism. Drawing on lessons from Marxism, he created multiplying cell groups that spread radical commitment to living the Sunnah. His execution in 1966 turned him into a martyr and a hero to millions of Islamists ever since.

The Brotherhood has had enormous influence in fomenting radical Islamism around the world, and almost all other contemporary Islamist groups can trace their inspiration back to the example and ideology of the Brotherhood. For years they were strongly supported financially by Saudi Arabia, but in recent years their primary state supporters have been Qatar and Turkey.

The Brotherhood has had enormous roles in almost every Arab country in the aftermath of the Arab Spring that began in 2010. In both Tunisia and Egypt the first governments following the deposing of the previous dictators were aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood. In both cases, the people soon overthrew the Brotherhood rulers, who acted quickly to impose Sharia law upon the unwilling people.

The Brotherhood in Egypt – and across the Middle East – often engages in social work in order to gain popular support. They are unceasing in their efforts to revive what they consider to be true Islam across the world. And wherever they are not accepted and embraced, they see themselves as persecuted, faithful Muslims who alone are loyal to the Sunnah.

Despite the enormous worldwide influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and the radicalism they champion, Jesus still calls us to, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44). How is that possible? The answer lies with, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but…against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12). This is a spiritual battle against our adversary, the devil, who “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet 5:8).

The terrible darkness and underlying evil is abhorrent. We grieve the resulting bloodshed and pain. Yet, God’s love reaches not only those suffering under this oppression, but it reaches even into the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood. It can be hard to pray for people who carry out such evil, but just as God transformed Saul into Paul through an encounter with Jesus, so can He transform today’s persecutors into tomorrow’s evangelists. And He is doing just that.