The Brotherhood hopes to realize a 273-old Persian dream

Peaceful co-existence between Sunnis and Shiites, in particular, and between the followers of all Islamic schools of thought, in general, is the dream of everybody who is in his right mind.

Sectarianism always turns the life of nations that want to rise up at the security and economic levels into hell. 

Relations between Sunnis and Shiites were peaceful and based on mutual respect all through the first half of the 20th century. In 1939, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, got married to a member of the Egyptian royal family, namely Fawzia Fuad, turning into an example of Sunni-Shiite co-living. Fawzia was Sunni and the Iranian shah was Shiite. She became the queen of Iran. Egyptians and Iranians warmly welcomed this, celebrating it in both countries and inviting the attention of all international media. Queen Fawzia co-ruled Iran with her husband, until they were divorced in 1948.

Their relation was an expression of the elevation of relations between Sunnis and Shiites. Nonetheless, some radicals used the same relations to serve their own agenda. These radicals included members of the despicable Muslim Brotherhood group. In Iran, the Brotherhood had its parallel which was called Fada'iyan-e Islam which was founded and led by Iranian theology student Navvab Safavi.

The two groups worked closely together under what came to be called the "Project for Binding Sunnis and Shiites Together".

To say the truth, the project was full of deception. Sunnis and Shiites were close to each other already when the project started. Nonetheless, the project meant to strike a military alliance between the two groups against peoples in both Egypt and Iran. These two groups wanted to control both peoples in the name of Islam. This was a terrorist alliance that aimed to destroy both Egypt and Iran altogether. They wanted to destroy both states in order to remodel them to their own distorted view, one we can see in practice in countries like Sudan and Afghanistan.

Both countries were totally destroyed by the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood group. They are governed by the Muslim Brotherhood project. Fortunately, the same project failed to destroy Egypt, even as the terrorist revival project succeeded in Iran in 1979. The same project succeeded in suppressing the great Persian people of Iran. It opened the door for a massive renunciation of the Islamic religion as a whole. Iranian-German author Ali Sadrzadeh described this as an "apostasy Tsunami" that sweeps through the whole of Iran. The terrorist Iranian revival project gave Iranians nothing but displacement and unbelief.

To better understand relations between the Brotherhood and terrorist groups in Iran, we need to go back to the year 1734. This was when then-Iranian shah Nader Shah Afshar, known as the "Napoleon of Iran", organized the first official conference to bind the followers of all Islamic schools of thought together. The conference came hard on the heels of Afshar's failure to occupy Iraqi cities in 1733, 1734 and 1743.

The Iranian shah believed that he could achieve by the conference what he failed in achieving by force of arms. He organized the conference in the Iraqi city of Najaf. He suggested the following in the conference:

1 – Persians stop insulting the Rashidun Caliphs; stop mutilating themselves in Ashura; accept Sunni religious rituals, and follow imam Ja'far al-Sadiq. Sunnis in return accept the followers of the same imam.

2 – The Persians be allowed to perform the annual hajj ritual according to the teachings of imam Ja'far al-Sadiq.

3 – The Persians be allowed to be accompanied by a Shiite guide as they perform the hajj ritual.

4 – The Ottomans and the Persians exchange prisoners of war.

5 – The Ottomans and the Persians exchange ambassadors.

The conference proved a failure. However, the Muslim Brotherhood and Iranian cleric Taqi al-Din al-Qomi succeeded in implementing Afshar's recommendations.

According to Tharwat al-Kherbawi's book, "Imams of Evil", al-Qomi met Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna soon after he arrived in Egypt in 1937. Al-Qomi also met the grand imam of al-Azhar then, sheik Mustafa al-Maraghi, according to Iranian newspaper Ajtihad. The grand imam of al-Azhar, the newspaper said, backed al-Qomi's mission and organized meetings between him and some senior scholars of al-Azhar, including sheikh Abdel Meguid Selim and sheikh Mustafa Abdel Razeq. These scholars formed the nucleus of the binding project.

Al-Qomi returned to Iran briefly after World War II. He then returned to Egypt to found the House for Binding the Followers of Islamic Schools of Thought in Cairo in February of 1947.

The founding sheikhs of the house, according to the Iranian newspaper, were sheikh Abdel Meguid Selim, sheikh Mustafa Abdel Razeq, sheikh Mahmud Shaltot, sheikh Abdel Aziz Essa, sheikh Mohamed al-Hussein al-Kashef al-Ghata and Hassan al-Banna, among others. Al-Qomi was the first secretary of the house. Other al-Azhar dignitaries who joined the house later included sheikh Hassan al-Baqori, sheikh Mohamed al-Ghazali and Sheikh Mohamed Mitawali al-Shaarawi.

The house was only needed politically by the radicals. When the house was founded, relations between Egypt and Iran were strong already, given the marriage of the shah of Iran and a member of the Egyptian royal family.

In 1948, Hassan al-Banna wanted to end tensions that occurred between Sunnis and Shiites in 1944. This was when relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran were good as well. Nevertheless, in that year, Saudi Arabia executed an Iranian national called Sayyed Abu Taleb Yazdi after accusing him of desecrating holy sites. Iranians said Yazdi felt sick as he performed the hajj and vomited. The Saudis say, however, that he was drunken. The man's execution caused tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Al-Banna then suggested implementing the recommendations Afshar made almost 200 years earlier. 

According to Kherbawi's book and another book by Hadi Khosrowshahi, the former assistant Iranian foreign minister, called "Look at Intellectual and Social Heritage of Sheikh Hassan al-Banna", the House for Binding the Followers of Islamic Schools of Thought published books on the hajj rituals in the four schools of Islamic though in which it showed the presence of commonalities between these rituals.    

The books even claimed that Saudi authorities refused to clarify the presence of these commonalities to other Muslims.

The same books were given to Egyptian pilgrims to distribute to fellow pilgrims in Mecca during the hajj. This, according to Muslim Brotherhood media, brought Sunnis and Shiites together in a wonderful way.

Al-Banna made the realization of this old Persian dream his own mission. He wanted to add the Ja'fari school of thought to the other established four schools of Islamic thought. This happened in 1960 at the hands of one of the founders of the House for Binding the Followers of Islamic Schools of Thought, namely sheikh Mahmud Shaltot. Shaltot made an official edict in which he considered the Ja'fari school of thought the fifth school of Islamic thought.

Friendly and brotherly relations between Sunnis and Shiites bring peace to the Middle East, in general, and Egypt, in particular. Western states managed to make progress only when they abolished sectarianism. Sectarian wars are but a cancer that causes the displacement of peoples, their impoverishment and the destruction of their countries.

Nevertheless, the Brotherhood-Iranian project for binding Sunnis and Shiites together is nothing but a terrorist military alliance. The Brotherhood only wants to reach out to other similarly radical Shiite groups. It at the same time accuses Shiites of unbelief. The group does the same with other Sunnis.

Welcome to brotherly relations and friendship between Sunnis and Shiites. Welcome to brotherly and friendly relations between Muslims and the followers of all faiths.

Nonetheless, we stand united against the imperial and terrorist Brotherhood project for binding Sunnis with the Iranian government, the world's sponsor of terror no. 1.