# Muslim Brotherhood

The Society of the Muslim Brothers (جماعة الإخوان المسلمين , Jami'ah al-Ikhwān al-Muslimūn), shortened to the Muslim Brotherhood, is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928. The organisation gained supporters throughout the Arab world and influenced other Islamist groups such as Hamas with its "model of political activism combined with Islamic charity work", and in 2012 sponsored the elected political party in Egypt after the January Revolution in 2011. However, it suffered from periodic government crackdowns for alleged terrorist activities, and as of 2015 is considered a terrorist organization by the governments of Bahrain, Egypt, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

## Quotes

* It is a complex subject: the Muslim Brotherhood comprises both a transnational network, with links in the UK, and national organisations in and outside the Islamic world. The movement is deliberately opaque, and habitually secretive.
** David Cameron, Muslim Brotherhood Review (20 July 2015)
* The Muslim Brotherhood’s foundational texts call for the progressive moral purification of individuals and Muslim societies and their eventual political unification in a Caliphate under Sharia law. To this day the Muslim Brotherhood characterises Western societies and liberal Muslims as decadent and immoral. It can be seen primarily as a political project.
** David Cameron, Muslim Brotherhood Review (20 July 2015)
* Parts of the Muslim Brotherhood have a highly ambiguous relationship with violent extremism. Both as an ideology and as a network it has been a rite of passage for some individuals and groups who have gone on to engage in violence and terrorism. It has stated its opposition to al-Qaida (AQ) but it has never credibly denounced the use made by terrorist organisations of the work of Sayyid Qutb, one of the Brotherhood’s most prominent ideologues. Individuals closely associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK have supported suicide bombing and other attacks in Israel by Hamas, an organisation whose military wing has been proscribed in the UK since 2001 as a terrorist organisation, and which describes itself as the Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood.
** David Cameron, Muslim Brotherhood Review (20 July 2015)
* Aspects of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology and activities therefore run counter to British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, equality and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. The Muslim Brotherhood is not the only movement that promotes values which appear intolerant of equality and freedom of faith and belief. Nor is it the only movement or group dedicated in theory to revolutionising societies and changing existing ways of life. But I have made clear this government’s determination to reject intolerance, and to counter not just violent Islamist extremism, but also to tackle those who create the conditions for it to flourish.
** David Cameron, Muslim Brotherhood Review (20 July 2015)
* The process of settlement is a "Civilization-Jihadist Process" with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions.
** 'An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America,' 1981 from United States District Court, Northern District of Texas, "USA v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, ElBarasse Search-3."

## External links

* "Revolution in Cairo: Interview with Shadi Hamid". Frontline (PBS). Feb 2011.
* "Egyptian democracy and the Muslim Brotherhood" European Union Institute for Security Studies
* Muslim Brotherhood Special Report
* Muslim Brotherhood Review: Written statement by David Cameron
* The Unbreakable Muslim Brotherhood: Grim Prospects for a Liberal Egypt. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (September-October 2011). Retrieved on 3 August 2016.