Does Islam need Islamist organizations to defend it?

Islamist organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood, put teamwork in a very high esteem. Nonetheless, some of these organizations tend to view teamwork negatively. For instance, the Salafist Madkhali Strain views teamwork as heretic. The same strain views the state as the real team.

Teamwork is the tool most Islamist organizations use to reach power. These organizations had always had plans for rebellion against governments.

They consider Islam as a legal system that can replace man-made laws. But this is something, the Islamist organizations believe, one individual cannot do alone. It must be done by groups and teams. This is why teamwork is important for these organizations.

Islamist organizations depend heavily on the ideas of Ibn Taimia and Mohamed Ibn Abdel Wahab who lobbied for the founding of an Islamic caliphate. This too cannot be done by individuals, but by groups and organizations.

The very presence of the groups and the organizations opened the door for the presence of a very important principle, namely the total obedience of their members. The interests of the organizations always overshadow the individual interests of their members. They also overshadow and are more important than the interests of the states where these organizations are located.

This explains why Muslim Brotherhood members usually obey the orders of their leaders, even without understanding or agreeing to these orders. The organization members who joined the sit-in on Rabaa al-Adawiya Square in eastern Cairo in 2013 did not know why they were doing this.

None of the members of the Brotherhood could find answers to questions in this regard. This was why rifts were rife among the people who joined the gathering.

There is no privacy inside Islamist and Jihadist organizations. Some of these organizations even convince their members that everything they own belongs to these organizations.

Respect to teamwork, Islamist organizations think, is always tested at difficult times. The Brotherhood likens teamwork to laser rays that are strong because they are the outcome of the combination of different energies.

The members of Islamist organizations also believe that leadership inside the organizations is a God-given thing. They believe that the members of society cannot be members of their organizations if they are not pious enough. They think leaders are in their positions because they are close to God. If these leaders lose leadership, this can be seen as retribution from God.

God is central to all Islamist organizations. The presence of God gives the members of these organizations the right to claim righteousness in their rivalry with other organizations. Each of these organizations believes that it is the one chosen by God.

When Mohamed Morsi won the presidential elections in Egypt in mid-2012, Brotherhood supreme leader Mohamed Badie said Hassan al-Banna's dream had apparently started to come true.  

Teamwork as an issue was always at the center of debates between Islamist movements. The Brotherhood believes that teamwork is a must. They also believe in the importance of swearing allegiance to the supreme guide.

Jamaa Islamiya also believed the same. It made a research on this issue.

However, the Salafists believe teamwork is unnecessary. Nevertheless, the Salafist School in Alexandria applied a systematic way as it campaigned for itself. The school depended on a system that was so much similar to that of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Although the Salafists have a strong following, most Salafist movements are not organized. Despite this, the Salafist movements have their own leaders and symbols.

The Brotherhood failed to modernize its concept of teamwork. This caused it a lot of problems.

The fact is that the Islamic religion does not need all these organization for its protection or defense. This religion has inside it whatever can guarantee its continuity. All these organizations claim that they are there to defend this religion. The fact, however, is that they are lying. They use religion in deceiving people and to reach power.