The Goals of the Muslim Brotherhood

As seen, with an inevitable degree of simplification, the goal of the Brotherhood can be described as the establishment of an Islamic state through ‘Islamisation from below’, a slow process that would culminate in the creation of a purely Islamic system of government as the natural consequence of the Islamisation of the majority of the population. Yet, as soon as it established a presence in the West, a pragmatic movement like the Brotherhood immediately understood that the goal of turning Western countries into Islamic states is little more than a lofty ambition.

So what are the goals of the Brotherhood in the UK and, more broadly, the West? It seems apparent that the goals of the first layer, the pure Brothers, are very much related to its members’ countries of origin. For example, the Egyptian Brotherhood members who are currently in London are very much focused on supporting the Brotherhood’s cause in Egypt and see the UK as a convenient safe haven and base of operation from where to mount their political, diplomatic, media and legal battle.

The aims of the second layer, the long-time British-based Brothers, and the third, the Brotherhood-influenced milieus, are arguably different and can be summed up as follows:

• To spread their religious and political views to British Muslim communities. Western countries are seen by the Brothers as a sort of Islamic tabula rasa, a virgin territory where the socio-religious structures and limits of the Muslim world do not exist and where the Brothers can implement their dawa freely, overcoming their competition with their superior mobilisation skills and funds.

• To become official or de facto representatives of British Muslim communities in the eyes of the government and the media. Such a position would allow them to exert a degree of influence significantly higher than what a politically savvy yet extremely small movement could otherwise obtain.

• To support domestic and international Islamist causes. The Brothers aim at using their positions of influence to advocate for various Islamist causes both with local Muslim communities and British policy-makers and public. It is not uncommon for the Brothers to do so by formulating their positions through substantially different frames with their

It is noteworthy that some of the new leaders of MAB, like its British-raised current president Omar el Hamdoun, fully understand these dynamics. Omar el Hamdoun (London), interview with author, May 2014. 33 It should nonetheless be noted that occasionally the ambition of turning the West into Islamic states through dawa is raised by various Brotherhood leaders. In 2004, for example, Egyptian Brotherhood murshid Mohammed Akef declared his “complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America, because Islam has logic and a mission.” He added, “Europeans and the Americans will come into the bosom of Islam out of conviction.” Al Qaradawi has repeatedly expressed the same view. In a 1995 speech at an Islamic conference in Toledo, Ohio, he stated: “We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America, not through the sword but through dawa.”

As said, the first two layers of what has been termed as Brotherhood comprise only a few hundred activists and a relatively larger number of sympathisers. They directly control only a dozen or so mosques throughout the UK. Yet, thanks to a combination of ideological flexibility, unrelenting activism, large funding and poor organisation of competing trends, the Brotherhood networks have in the past shown an enormous ability to monopolise the Islamic discourse.

The Brotherhood has made its interpretation of Islam the most readily available, and put its ideological stamp on most Islam-related issues, be they strictly religious or more properly political. Some of its concepts and frames have become adopted, almost subconsciously, by a large number of British Muslims who have no affiliation or contact with the Brotherhood.

Moreover, even the organisational decline should not be seen as permanent, as history has shown the Brotherhood’s ability to resurge from times of crisis. The movement still possesses a relatively sophisticated structure inside the country, including a financial infrastructure (charities, businesses) the exact extent of which is difficult to determine. Moreover, the group also has a cunning ability to compensate for its small numbers by working through a sophisticated web of proxies and transversal alliances.