The party has been described as one of many parties/movements in Muslim states "that grew up alongside the Iranian revolution", and it was originally inspired by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The group supported the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, claiming that "It was not an embassy, but a spy centre". Their influence in 1984 was such that, according to Robin Wright, a British journalist living in Tunisia, stated that the Islamic Tendency was "the single most threatening opposition force in Tunis. One word from the fundamentalists will close down the campus or start a demonstration." The group, or some of its members, were also responsible for the bombing of some tourist hotels in the 1980s.