by Robin Simcox, Spectator
What should the British government do about the Muslim Brotherhood? This question has confounded policy-makers for decades and was brought to the fore last month when the United States sanctioned, for the first time, a London-based Muslim Brotherhood leader.
Announcing the sanctions, the US Treasury described Mahmoud al-Abyari as a ‘senior leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’ with a ‘long history of senior leadership roles’, including in its General Secretariat.
For the United States, the secretive, transnational network founded in Egypt in 1928 is ‘the root of all modern Islamist terrorism’. To the Israelis, it ‘promote[s] a radical vision of Islam’. To Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, the Brotherhood is ‘very dangerous’. The group is outlawed in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The UK, however, has never banned the Brotherhood or called it a terrorist organisation: successive governments have treated it as little more than a political headache, one they wish would disappear. The Treasury’s sanctions against al-Abyari show this position will be harder than ever to hold much longer.
The Brotherhood claims it is a proselytising group offering a middle way for Muslims between the godless West and the performative violence of Isis and al Qaeda. One that fuses Islam and politics, but which seeks to bring about change democratically. One that, it says, is avowedly non-violent
Numerous Brotherhood members and sympathisers, however, are on record endorsing terrorism. Its foundational thinker, Sayyid Qutb, did more than most to propel revolutionary, violent jihad via his incendiary text Milestones. Its founder, Hassan al-Banna, worked for the restoration of the caliphate.
During my term as the government’s independent adviser on extremism, I saw firsthand how the Brotherhood operates a sophisticated network laser-focused on Islamising societies from the bottom up. It stoked grievances and extremism over Palestine and Islamophobia, in particular, and obscured its activities via a complex network of interlocking charities, companies, NGOs and media outlets.