At five in the afternoon, Cairo time (56).. The Muslim Brotherhood and America (8–11)

The Crisis of Trust… and the Crisis of “Publicity”

Once again, we return to the series of articles “The Muslim Brotherhood and America,” which we had been compelled to interrupt twice: the first time when France’s decision to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization took us by surprise, and the second when we began another series on “Arab National Security.”

Today we continue with Mahdi Akef’s assessment of conditions within the Brotherhood’s U.S. branch following his well-known visit there in 1991. After listening to all the views of the branch’s leaders—both supporters and opponents of the idea of operating openly—the report was not merely a set of administrative observations, but rather an “organizational diagnosis” of an internal crisis at the heart of the United States.

Akef begins by affirming that the situation in America requires decisive and swift intervention, but with one essential condition: the decision must observe “balance” among all orientations, so that no faction would assume it favored one side over another (referring here to the dispute over secrecy versus openness: whether the organization should declare itself and operate openly and legally, or function covertly and without public acknowledgment).

He then places his finger on the core danger: trust is absent among all parties, and this— in his view— is more dangerous than the disagreement itself.

He proceeds to what he sees as the heart of the matter, speaking as a member of the generation of the founding Guide, Hassan al-Banna: “education.”

Akef states that the educational methodology there (that is, in America) contributes to weakening commitment, because the administrative dimension almost completely dominates relationships, while the educational dimension relies solely on a “cultural approach,” expanding it in ways that may not suit the levels of “da‘wa brotherhood.”

As for spiritual cultivation, the revival of values, the rooting of belonging, and the deepening of the jurisprudence of “soldiership” and the discipline of performance—all of this is nearly absent. He adds that camps and training courses are entirely devoid of such elements, which, in his view, has opened the way to intolerance of opinions and sharp debates, even to the point of mutual disparagement.

At the level of solutions, Akef proposes that urgent action requires a decisive and binding decision to impose a “freezing of disputes,” preventing them from turning into constant discussion, alongside the formation of a reconciliation group active in consolidating the concepts of the jurisprudence of da‘wa and deepening the values of soldiership, love, brotherhood, selflessness, and sincerity of intention. The “Epistles of the Martyred Imam” should serve as the principal gateway to education and guidance, as an uncontested foundation.

The noteworthy point here is that the man addresses a problem unfolding in America—a country of freedoms and open debate—by elevating the values of soldiership and recommending exclusive reliance on al-Banna’s epistles as the sole foundation, in complete detachment from reality. This, in fact—not only in America but across Europe and the West more broadly—led to the transformation of the Brotherhood, and of Islam and Muslims, into a group of isolationists, deployed when needed as a scarecrow, whether for Arab rulers or for Western societies alike.

Mahdi Akef further stresses the necessity of evaluating officials based on their efforts to connect with grassroots members according to these principles, with utmost precision and firm commitment. He concludes with a practical recommendation: intensifying visits to America, particularly by leaders from Egypt, with the mission of these visits being “educational rooting above all else,” and working to strengthen relationships among the leadership.

Key Observations on the Report:

The report reveals the scale of the debate that arose in the early 1990s regarding secrecy and openness in operations within the United States. The overwhelming majority of the organization’s leaders in America tended to reject operating openly, out of concerns summarized as follows:

• The security of the organization and its leadership, especially those arriving from or returning to the East.
• A potential decline in the level of organizational, intellectual, or educational commitment.
• The embarrassment of Eastern branches, particularly with states friendly to America.
• The difficulty of combining members operating covertly with others operating openly within a single organization.
• A shortage of covertly trained leadership cadres capable of leading an open organization.

Akef presented alternatives for exiting the crisis, most notably:

1.    That ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) serve as the public form of da‘wa work after amendments to its statutes and bylaws.

2.    A general organization and a special one, entirely separate, with two distinct leaderships.

3.    One organization and one leadership, but with two branches: public and covert.

4.    Maintaining the status quo, since any rapid action is undesirable at present.

Legitimate Questions:

• If the Brotherhood complains of restrictions in Eastern countries and declares that it does not prefer secrecy, why did it reject openness in the “mother of democracies” and instead favor secrecy?
• If they contemplated a dual-structured organization (public/covert) in America, why did they deny the existence of two organizations in Egypt—one public and the other covert?
• Why did they consistently deny that the organization’s interest always takes precedence over the nation’s interest, when, faced with a choice between organizational security and improving the image of Muslims in the West, they chose organizational security—clearly elevating it above all other considerations, even the image of Islam and Muslims in the West?

To be continued…

We resume tomorrow…

Paris: 5:00 p.m., Cairo time.