Mohammed Badie & Akef; Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood

In January of 2010, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood named Mohammed Badie [Badi'] as its new leader. Mr. Badie was jailed for nine years in the 1960s because of his membership in a Brotherhood paramilitary cell that planned the overthrow of the government.

Badi' was an ardent disciple of Sayyid Qutb, the leading Islamic theologian of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and '60s who advocated armed struggle to impose Islamic law.
[Source - AFP]

The Investigative Project notes:

Qutb called on Muslims to wage jihad to "liberate" the entire world from the servitude of man-made laws, which would be replaced by Shariah.

An article posted on the Brotherhood's English-language website notes that Badie "has been said to follow the conservative ideals of the late Sayed Qutb." Badie is seen as "one of the most loyal leaders to the organization of Sayyid Qutb," according to the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayah.

In an interview [with an Arab news service in November of 2009]...,, Badi' was stalwart in his opposition to the idea of a woman or a Copt assuming the presidency of Egypt, basing his decisions strictly and solely on Islamic law.

The interviewer [asked Badie] if the people have the right to choose what they want. Badie [replied] "If the people choose something against the Sharia, it is not proper to implement it. If there is a conflict with the Sharia, it must not be put into force."

But what else can we expect from someone who was imprisoned with Sayyid Qutb?

According to Al-Hayah:

"[Badie]... was sentenced in a number of cases, the most famous of which was a 15-year imprisonment in 1965 in the military case that included among the sentenced the fundamentalist leader Sayyid Qutb; [Badie] spent 9 years in prison on the basis of that sentence…

The Longwar Journal notes:

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood openly sided with Khomeini's revolutionaries as they overthrew the Shah.

One of the principal architects of jihadist thinking is Sayyid Qutb... Qutb is widely, and correctly, described as the intellectual forefather of al Qaeda, which still references his writings to this day...

Well, Qutb didn't just influence al Qaeda's thinking. Ayatollah Khameini, the current supreme leader of the Iranian revolution, translated two of Qutb's most important volumes into Persian. Those two translated volumes have been widely read inside Iran and some say they are the most circulated Islamist tracts.

All of this is a shorthand way of saying that the Iranian revolution and the Muslim Brotherhood share a similar political ideology... When Ayatollah Khatami roots for the protesters in Egypt, then, it is a safe bet that he and others in Iran are specifically cheering on the Muslim Brotherhood....

Throughout the 1990s Iran was allied with Hassan al Turabi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader who helped orchestrate a military coup in Sudan in 1989. Turabi, in turn, was one of Osama bin Laden's main benefactors from 1991 through 1996. As was documented during the trial of some of the terrorists responsible for the 1998 embassy bombings, bin Laden was introduced to key Iranian leaders...

In 2010, Badie was quoted as saying that the U.S. "is experiencing the beginning of its end and is heading towards its demise."

In September of 2004, the head of the International Council of Muslim Clerics published a fatwa declaring that "it is an obligation incumbent on the Muslims to kill American citizens in Iraq, since they are in Iraq in order to assist the soldiers and the occupation forces."

Among the Signatories of that fatwa was Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood from 2004 till 2010. Mr. Akef supported Mr. Badie's bid to succeed him as the current leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In August of 2004, Mr. Akef published an open letter in which he expressed his support for the insurgency in Iraq:

"Islam considers the resistance to be Jihad for the sake of Allah and this is a commandment, a personal obligation...," he said. "[This commandment] takes precedence over all other [religious] duties. Even a woman is obligated to go to war, [even] without her husband's permission, and youth are permitted to go out and fight."

Some addtional quotes from Mr. Akef:

1) "I have complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America, because Islam has logic and a mission."

2) "Without the betrayal in Iraq, the Iraqis would have tormented the Americans with all kinds of torments," and would have forced U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraq.

3) "I expect America to collapse soon. The elements of this collapse in America [already] exist."

In October of 2008, the Muslim brotherhood's website reported that Akef had declared the following:

The change to which the nation is aspiring...can only be done through jihad... Akef asserted that [this] requires the raising of the young people on the basis of the principles of jihad so as to create mujaheddin who love to die as much as others love to live..."

Akef also called on the young people to understand... that their happiest moment is when they are received in heaven after being martyred...

Additionally, Akef was quoted as saying:

"[We are commanded] to wage Jihad. Jihad is a personal duty incumbent upon every Muslim man and woman. If you do not maintain your call, you will not be able to preserve Egypt. The precious Egypt of resistance and of culture - we are its owners. But, as for that accursed, Egypt, (run by) those accursed people..., we have nothing to do with them! We are among the owners of the great, respectable Egypt..., who proclaim the truth and who work toward its revival."

In 2008, Akef was asked by an Arab news service:

“Regarding resistance and jihad…do you consider Osama Bin Laden a terrorist or an Islamic Mujahid?”

Akef replied:

“In all certainty, a mujahid, and I have no doubt in his sincerity in resisting the occupation..."

A 1991 Muslim Brotherhood 'strategic memorandum' for North America states:

"The ikhwan [Muslim Brothers] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within, and sabotaging its miserable house by their [own] hands and the hands of their believers, so that it is eliminated and Islam is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad."

In June of 2009, Al Arabiya reported that, under pressure from the United States, the Secretariat-General of the lower house of the Egyptian Parliament invited ten members of the Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary bloc to attend Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo.

An Al-Arabiya reporter speculated that Brotherhood members would be invited to a special meeting that Obama was to hold with writers, politicians and members of Egyptian civil society.

Similarly, the Atlantic cited various Middle Eastern news sources who reported that the Obama administration insisted that at least 10 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's chief opposition party, be allowed to attend Obama's speech in Cairo.

Scott Wheeler, director of the National Republican Trust PAC, at the time, criticized the administration for allowing the Muslim Brotherhood into the event.

"The American people did not vote for President Barack Hussein Obama to make peace with Muslim terrorists," he said in a statement.

Commentators noted at the time that President Obama never mentioned the word "terrorism" or "terror" in his speech.

In March of 2009, Hillary Clinton confirmed that the Obama administration had dropped the phrase 'war on terror' from its lexicon. The Muslim Brotherhood, however, continues to remain a vital component of Obama's lexicon.

In April of 2009, the Egyptian daily newspaper, Almasry Alyoum, reported that President Obama, in February, had met with members of Egypt's Islamist opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood.

The newspaper reported that Obama met the group's members, who reside in the U.S. and Europe, in Washington, and that the members requested that news of the meeting not be publicized.

President Obama recently indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood would likely play a role in the forming of Egypt's new government.

Obama, no doubt, is sitting back in the Oval Office right now with a congratulatory smile on his face. For indeed the winds of "change", that he had promised to bring about, are sweeping all across the Arab world at an accelerated pace - at a rapid pace that even he could not have possibly envisioned.

"If I can achieve all of this in two years by simply reaching out to the enemy," Obama is likely thinking to himself, "then the sky is the limit as to how much I can accomplish over the next two to six years!"

Congratulations, Mr. President, on a job well done!