Muslim Brotherhood vs. Al Qaeda but still Same Goal

John R. Houk
© September 26, 2010

The Hudson Institute sent an email of past and current articles written for its Center on Islam, Democracy and the Future of the Muslim World. As I was surfing through the Center on Islam site an article posted nearly a year ago caught my eye. The article is entitled, “The Brotherhood vs. Al-Qaeda: A Moment Of Truth?”

The author Jean-Pierre Filiu writes about conflict that is between two large Wahhabi/Salafi groups in Islam. Part of the conflict is related to dissatisfaction with the Muslim Brotherhood’s current tendency to infiltrate sovereign governments (Muslim and kafir) to act as a Trojan Horse to establish the Salafi Islamic vision of a Caliphate on a global scale. It is not that the Muslim Brotherhood is opposed to Islamic terrorism; the MB strategic emphasis is political infiltration to speed up the Islamic theopolitical process of Islam dominating the planet.

Some big dogs in MB intellectual writings became unhappy with the emphasis of using Western rules of politics to spread Islamic domination. Notably Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abdallah Azzam became disaffected with the MB political strategy. The al-Zawahiri and Azzam MB types thus went to a place to employ what they felt should be the preeminent means of Jihad thought to dominate the world. They went to Afghanistan to engage in battle with occupying Communist USSR. Communism is atheistic.

Just as an aside I am amazed how much Left Wingers support and nearly ally themselves with Salafi-Muslims. Marxist Lefties are anti-religion and Islam is a religious supremacist movement with a history of executing irreligious people especially if the irreligious reject and refuse to submit Islam. God forbid that Islam conquers the world but if Islam did so the Communists and atheists will be among the first to lose their heads.

So back to al-Zawahiri and Azzam: Disgruntled MB members went off to Afghanistan to hook up with the locals to battle occupying Soviets. The most popular of those locals emerged as the Taliban. After the Taliban and other Afghan Islamic ethnic groups and paramilitary groups successfully utilized a CIA conduit through Pakistan defeated the Soviets the Taliban went about building ethno-tribal alliances. The biggest challengers to the Taliban were assassinated: so much for Muslims not killing Muslims in the religion of peace. MB foreign Mujahedeen had tasted the victory of Islam over the infidel (kafir). Although many returned to their home Islamic nations these were dissatisfied with the way Muslim despots operated their nations in seeming collusion with kafir governments. The irony of this anger against the West is that the Communist-Soviets would not have been ejected from Afghanistan without American Intelligence and military aid (the CIA probably the most notable but also probably not the sole American Intelligence agency).

At any rate one foreign Mujahedeen leader was a billionaire from the wealth Saudi bin Laden family – Osama (Usama) bin Laden. Bin Laden hooked up with Abdallah Azzam and eventually Ayman al-Zawahiri and founded al Qaeda. I believe initially Azzam was the al Qaeda top dog. I also believe Azzam lost his life probably by assassination with Osama bin Laden becoming to dog and ex-MB intellectual al-Zawahiri becoming the bin Laden lieutenant at al Qaeda. Currently al-Zawahiri may even be a co-equal with Osama at the al Qaeda network of independent international Islamic terrorist cells.

Al Qaeda’s philosophy for Islamic global domination is closer akin to the hope that every Mo-Muslim will rise to overthrow violently (perhaps ala Shia Iranian Revolution led by Khomeini) Muslim leaders viewed as corrupters of Islam by Wahhabi-Salafi al Qaeda.

If I am reading the report written by Jean-Pierre Filiu for the Hudson Institute correctly, both the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda have the same goal of viciously establishing a global Caliphate according to the principles placed forth by Islam’s founder Mohammed. Both the MB and the AQ believe in infiltration and terrorist violence. The MB/AQ difference is that the MB highlights political infiltration first followed by violence as the infiltration becomes stronger while the AQ whole heartedly supports violence by raising the Muslim rabble (similar to the Marxist-Leninist principles of proletarian violence) to cast off Muslim leaders cooperating with the kafir. Part of the AQ difference from the MB is the willingness to murder kafir (that would be us non-Muslims) striking fear and submission as the Caliphate empire supposedly emerges.

JRH 9/26/10