The Muslim Brotherhood and Qatar: by their actions they are condemned to be outcasts

The malicious work of Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood has caused chaos around the world, writes Saeed AlMazrouei

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Dictionaries define the word "outcast" as "one that is cast out or refused acceptance (as by society)". This definition would also apply to a party that is an outcast. Society might refuse to accept it for several reasons. This essay will follow the Muslim Brotherhood to show how this organisation's actions led to its own destruction. Hassan Al Banna founded the group in 1928 and, over the years, they have undergone several facelifts in order to survive.

After their dispute with former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, mainly on how they would manage Egypt, they tried and failed to assassinate him. That led to their first casting out of society. That incident showed that the Muslim Brotherhood were not who they claimed to be – that is, a group whose main purpose was being a moderate Islamic party – but, rather, that they were willing to resort to force in order to reach their goals. That is what they did in 1981, when they assassinated Anwar Sadat. They asserted their cunning strategies, revealing beyond any shadow of a doubt that they were not practising what they preached. Thus, their second banishment arrived.

The leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood started fleeing Egypt, heading to different parts of the Arab world where they started a new strategy to create supporters, followers and groups that would keep them alive and provide financial support and a safe haven for them while they were hiding out.

Among those places were Iran, the GCC, North Africa, Europe, Turkey and other parts of the world. Most would understand their reason for heading to fellow Arab states. But to venture to countries that were once considered as their potential enemies – such as Iran (which totally opposes their basic Islamic beliefs), Turkey (which occupied Egypt and the Arab world) and Europe (which they consider to be the "land of infidels") – is something that will always raise a question mark over the Brotherhood’s intentions.  Those intentions were revealed later on. Through their journey of destruction they succeeded to have a strong foothold in every one of those countries.

Unfortunately, the Muslim Brotherhood succeeded in infiltrating many countries, especially throughout the Arab world, mainly because they used religion as their spearhead tool.  Back in the 1970s, many Arab states were still struggling to either fight their way from colonialism or to establish their nascent countries. The Brotherhood seized that chance and spread their wings in every state they could reach, placing their members in vital organisations, especially the education sector.

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The strategy was to work in the shadows and to attract supporters among every community, building a hierarchy that answers to their supreme leader. From then up until the 1990s, they played their hide-and-seek strategy, digging tunnels to evade sunshine that would expose them as thieves aiming to rob every country of its peace and stability.  By then, many countries realised the threat that the Brotherhood might inflict on their stability and they labelled them as a terrorist group, including countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan and some Arab countries such as Egypt, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Of course, other countries were reluctant to do so, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, mainly for their own agendas.

The recent crisis that has unravelled after Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE and Bahrain called out Qatar for playing behind their backs, revealed that one of the GCC members had been plotting alongside with the Brotherhood. The group had supported activities destabilising internal security.

In June 2017, those same four major Arab countries, after exhausting all efforts to bring Qatar to its senses – to denounce supporting terrorism and to cease providing a safe haven for outlaws, including Muslim Brotherhood members, Taliban leaders, members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Al Qaeda supporters – exposed Qatar as a major financier of terrorism around the world, spending billions of its nation's money trying to tear down its neighbours' peaceful existence.

The puzzle of Qatar was pulled to pieces and, like Humpty Dumpty who fell off the wall, can no longer be fixed. The whole world now knows what Qatar is doing and how it is trying to use its money to create chaos around the world. Its basic tool is the hand of the Muslim Brotherhood that extends all over the globe.

Qatar’s narrow-minded vision failed to foresee the world’s reaction when its little secret was exposed and evidence of that secret saw the light of day.  Now, the entire world knows what Qatar is trying to achieve, in tandem with its malicious fellowship with the Muslim Brotherhood. They wrote the ending to their own story and have condemned themselves to be forever outcasts.

Saeed AlMazrouei is a researcher in international affairs