For the first time, the Muslim Brotherhood has released a draft document outlining a detailed political platform. The blueprint reveals the radical nature of the group and its goal of establishing an Islamic state in Egypt reminiscent of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s highly popular though officially banned fundamentalist organization, has transformed its image in recent years from known terrorist organization to legitimate political group. It has increasingly presented itself as a reform movement.
The hard-line draft political platform released in September, the Brotherhood’s most concrete policy paper to date, forbids Christians and women from holding the presidential office and establishes a board of Muslim clerics to oversee the government.
Abdel Moneim Said, head of the Al Ahram Center for Strategic and Political Studies, called it “an assassination to the civic state.”
The Associated Press stated: “The proposed commission recalls the system in Iran, where clerical councils have final say on a wide range of political issues and can even vet candidates running for president and parliament” (October 11; emphasis ours).
Though the Brotherhood has been banned from government since 1954, its members (fielded as “independents”) captured a fifth of parliamentary seats in 2005 elections.
Just as democracy has facilitated the rise of Hamas, Hezbollah and other organizations rooted in terrorism, so has it opened doors for the Muslim Brotherhood. Dissatisfaction with the autocratic rule of President Hosni Mubarak, together with a general push by the United States for democratic reform in the Middle East, has enabled Muslim Brotherhood members to become the largest opposition group in Egyptian politics.
As discontent with Egypt’s political system increases, Islamists are increasingly being seen as a favorable alternative. This trend, together with Mubarak’s ailing health, means Egypt is primed for political upheaval.
As the Brotherhood grows more powerful, watch for it to seek to align Cairo more closely with Tehran, a prospect that is in line with end-time biblical prophecies.