Brotherhood and Iran: eternal tyranny in the name of religion

Doaa Emam

Observers of Iranian affairs thought that a 34-year break in relations would not end through a warm embrace between former President Ahmadinejad and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi in the cross-border meeting they held in Riyadh during the Islamic summit called for by the Saudi monarch in the summer of 2012. However, Morsi traveled to Tehran, and then Ahmadinejad visited Cairo in May 2013 as the first Iranian president to visit Egypt since 1979.

It was strange that Morsi and Ahmadinejad agreed to open an Iranian embassy in Egypt, which is the largest regional power in the region and sees itself as a political force against the majority Shiite Iran, Sunnis are oppressed. But the search for allies led the Brotherhood to seek strength through the Iranian regime and normalize relations with the mullahs during the group’s year of rule from 2012-2013.

Asked about his assessment of the relationship between the group and Iran, an unnamed Brotherhood youth said, “Tehran is like a house for the homeless. We know it’s not clean, but we need it.”

After the Brotherhood was ousted from power during the June 30, 2013 revolution, meetings continued between the leaders of the fugitive group in Qatar and Turkey. Ibrahim Mounir, Secretary General of the International Organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, met with a number of Shiite leaders close to the leader of the Iranian Revolution, including Shiite clerics Mohsen Araki and Ahmed al-Hassani, on the sidelines of the 10th Islamic Unity Forum Conference, which was held in London in July 2017.

Community interest before religion

The reasons behind the sectarian differences between the Brotherhood as a Sunni organization and the Shiite state can be understood by revisiting the historical relationship that began in the 1940s when Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the group, presented the Brotherhood’s interest in religion.

According to Dr. Tharwat al-Kharbawi, a researcher on Islamic movements, there is a historical document observing the 1938 visit of Ruhollah Khomeini to the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood and his meeting with the group’s first leader.

When Al-Azhar adopted a policy of reconciliation among the jurisprudential schools of thought, Iranian cleric Muhammad Taqi al-Qami visited Egypt and met with the Brotherhood founder. For this reason, Tehran’s streets are full of banners showing a number of Islamist movement founders, including Hassan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Khomeini and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

In his book entitled “The Muslim Brotherhood and the Khomeini-Khamenei Iran”, researcher Mohamed Sayed Rasas explained that Morsi and Tehran put forward an initiative to form a quartet consisting of Cairo, Riyadh, Ankara and Tehran to deal with the Syrian situation, but Saudi Arabia vehemently objected to the danger of involving Iran in an Arab issue, as Iran is part of the problem.

Rasas added that Iran would never care about the interests of the Arabs or Muslims, as it considers Islam its arch enemy due the destruction of the Persian Empire.