Sunni Group Aligns With Shiite Iran

Recent reports show that the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni terrorist organization, was being trained and supported by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. On Monday, the U.S. State Department responded by making it a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group.

• Many Sunni Islamists have turned against the Islamic Republic of Iran since the irgc started bombing Arab Gulf states. Yet the Sudanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood is following the lead of the group’s acting leader, Egyptian Mahmoud Hussein, who condemned the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran and called on Arabs to confront “Zionist recklessness” and American “arrogance.”

The alignment of these Sunni and Shiite entities points to a key Bible prophecy.

Background: For centuries, the religious split between Sunnis and Shiites has caused the main political tension within the Muslim world. This reality began to change in 1979 when the Iranian Revolution blended the radical theology of the Muslim Brotherhood with Shiite Islam.

• After the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini read the writings of Muslim Brotherhood leader Sayyid Qutb, he rejected the idea that no ayatollah could hold political power until the Mahdi’s return and devised a controversial theory of Islamic government in which the state is guided by one cleric acting as the Mahdi’s deputy.
• Many Shiite clerics, in both Iraq and Iran, opposed Khomeini’s clerical rule, yet his theory allowed him to create a theocratic dictatorship despite not being a direct descendant of Mohammed’s cousin Ali, as Shiite theology requires.

These historical facts mean that the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood and the Shiite regime in Iran are more ideologically aligned with each other than with traditionalists within their own sect of Islam.

Prophecy says: With the Shiite regime in Iran being attacked by America and Israel and gaining support from moderate Sunni states, Bible prophecies that apply to this crucial region are coming closer to fulfillment.

Watch for Iran to reach out to the radical Muslim Brotherhood, which is influential in Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia and other North African states. The much-touted Shiite Crescent in the Middle East has collapsed, but Bible prophecy indicates that radical Islam, led by Iran, will remain influential in Egypt, Ethiopia and Libya (Daniel 11:43).

This indicates that groups like the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood will continue to recognize the Iranian supreme leader as the head of radical Islam and will act on that alignment with deadly force.