Muslim Brotherhood organizes mass iftar to attract new members

Doaa Emam

Ideological interest organizations treat the holy month of Ramadan as a season to attract new followers, or to communicate with members and leaders of other groups with the same ideology.

The terrorist Muslim Brotherhood organization in various countries like Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan and Lebanon announce a mass iftar (breakfast) with the presence of leaders.

According to former Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Issa, the mass iftar is a habit by the fifth general guide of the brotherhood, namely Mustafa Mashhur (1996 – 2002), who used to invite political powers and Muslim Brotherhood members over iftar in one of Cairo’s grand hotels.

Not all figures and powers used to accept this invitation, according to Issa, however, many political figures and powers kept on attending the mass iftar, which also had another purpose, that is to melt the ice and clear the barriers between political powers and the Muslim Brotherhood.

He also criticized how much food and money would it take to organize such massive iftars.

Last year, Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, a Mauritanian Islamic scholar and poet previously associated with al-Qaeda, and Mohamed el-Salahy, who was one of the terrorists accused of planning the 9/11 attacks, got invited to attend a mass iftar by Tawasol, the Brotherhood’s arm in Mauritania.

Members of the group also criticized the decisions by the Egyptian Ministry of Endowments to hold control over mosques lest the terrorist group could attract new members to recruit.

A Muslim Brotherhood member who is currently undergoing intellectual reviews in prison, Amr Abdel Hafez, has said that any congregation that fails to attract new members is considered a failure in the eyes of the group, not to mention that the terrorist group considers Islam and the brotherhood as two sides of the same coin, so they believe that attracting new members would pour into the interest of Islam.

He also added that the state of confusion between religion and organization should be encountered and that the society cannot accept anything just because it had been slightly laced with religion.