Muslim Brotherhood uses COVID-19 to collect donations

Nahla Abdel Moneim

Charities have played a key role in the survival the Muslim Brotherhood’s international organizations, especially in the United States as the world is suffering from the coronavirus pandemic. The Brotherhood has taken advantage of the crisis to collect donations under the pretext of spending these donations on combating COVID-19 and buying supplies for refugee camps.

All Muslim Brotherhood’s websites, which are based in the United States, ask visitors to donate before browsing to enable the organization combat the coronavirus pandemic.

Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is one of the most famous organizations that set up a donation form on its website. The donation form starts from $35 and $50.

CAIR also collects zakat from Muslims during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. The organization said it wanted donations to reach $2.6 million by the end of the month of Ramadan.

Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) has also intensified its efforts to collect zakat and donations to combat COVID-19 pandemic.

Commenting on the Brotherhood’s endeavors to collect donations, Saeed Sadek, professor of political sociology at Cairo University, described these donations as social capital collected by the Muslim Brotherhood to support its political plans in the future.

“The Brotherhood doesn’t pay for free. It donates to realize goals. It takes advantage of anything to collect money no matter the circumstances are. It uses such donations to fund its own activities. The group also politically invests such donations by helping the poor, who would vote for it later. Collecting money makes the Brotherhood a powerful investment entity working only to realize its own objectives,” Sadek added.