Is the Muslim Brotherhood able to operating a state? – Center East Monitor

Earlier this week, a former prime minister of Qatar claimed that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood was not certified to run the state through the short-lived authorities of the primary freely-elected Egyptian President, Dr Mohamed Morsi.

Talking to Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas, Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Al-Thani mentioned that his nation hosted a gathering between Morsi’s assistants and representatives of the administration of the then US President, Barack Obama, to debate the financial insurance policies and plans of the Islamists in authorities. He defined that the People wished to discover Morsi’s choices and plans so as to pave the best way for potential cooperation. The Qataris official and his American friends have been, nonetheless, shocked.

“I left the assembly with a unfavourable impression,” mentioned Sheikh Hamad. “Morsi’s aides have been disappointing and didn’t match expectations. Morsi’s staff was not match for being on the head of a small store, not to mention the presidency of Egypt. Poor folks.”

I have no idea why Sheikh Hamad made such feedback as a result of he has held no official put up in Qatar for a very long time. What appears sure, although, is that he was attempting to downplay the capabilities of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been going via a really troublesome set of circumstances since Morsi was the sufferer of a army coup in 2013.

Though Sheikh Hamad’s feedback elevate numerous questions concerning the {qualifications}, abilities and careers of Muslim Brotherhood leaders and officers inside and past Egypt, the motion’s historical past means that it was the biggest and simplest Islamic group ruled by a decentralised system. Regardless of all the things that has occurred, it stays probably the most organised political organisation within the Arab and Islamic world. Goal observers imagine that it is usually the preferred and that it will win any free and honest elections at any time, even within the face of fierce campaigns to discredit it.

If that actually is the case, then why did the Muslim Brotherhood fail in Egypt, in addition to in Syria, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco? The reality is that it didn’t fail; the motion itself was failed by the liberals, who have been very important of the dictatorships of their nations and referred to as for democratic elections, however then didn’t respect the outcomes. The Brotherhood was additionally failed by the hypocritical worldwide neighborhood, which additionally refused to assist the election winners and gave the Islamists no area or leeway to really govern their nations. It was very clear that Israel and its Western allies, particularly the US, propped up the remnants of the ousted tyrannies and recruited a compliant media to destabilise nations with Islamist governments.

I’m positive that Sheikh Hamad is conscious of the Brotherhood’s achievements world wide, not solely in Egypt and the Arab nations. I’m positive that he is aware of very effectively that the Muslim Brotherhood laid down the foundations of all of the Gulf States, together with Qatar. It was Brotherhood officers and members equivalent to Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradawi, Abdul Badei Saqr and Qasim Darwish who developed the curriculums utilized in Qatar’s faculties and universities. Egyptian-born Sheikh Qaradawi remains to be the best Muslim scholar in Qatar. He and his colleagues gentrified the Qataris and taught them the average steerage and ideas of Islam. Sheikh Hamad should know this.

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Mohamed Badie, the Supreme Information of the Muslim Brotherhood throughout Morsi’s presidency in Egypt, was ranked among the many 100 biggest Arab scientists by the Arab Scientific Encyclopaedia issued by the Egyptian Info Service in 1999. Morsi himself was rated as the very best parliamentarian in 2005 when he was the top of the Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary bloc and stood with nice braveness in opposition to authorities corruption and pretend payments passing via the Egyptian parliament.

Morsi was the second affiliate professor in world historical past to turn out to be an elected head of state. The primary was US President Woodrow Wilson, who served from 1913 to 1921. As president, Morsi deliberate to extend spending on analysis and growth to 2.5 per cent of gross home product, to hyperlink analysis institutes to trade, and to advertise the safety of mental property. I do not suppose that such plans will ever be on the agenda of some other president within the Arab world.

Through the Morsi presidency, Egypt had, for the primary time, a professor as Speaker of the Individuals’s Meeting; Saad El-Katatny is a professor of microbiology. The Shura Council was additionally headed by a professor, Ahmed Fahmy, a professor of pharmacology at Zagazig College. The record of such eminent appointees is lengthy, and Sheikh Hamad is aware of this very effectively, however selected to disregard it.

Away from politics, the Muslim Brotherhood runs massive social and medical charitable networks which have served hundreds of thousands of Egyptians who couldn’t get pleasure from free public providers because of the mismanagement and corruption that has plagued successive Egyptian governments over a few years.

I feel that Sheikh Hamad’s feedback have been meant to discredit the Muslim Brotherhood, as a result of he and people like him in regimes all throughout the Center East know that the motion is certainly able to successful elections and displacing the corrupt and incompetent folks in positions of energy. It’s affordable to counsel that he was faraway from decision-making circles in Qatar earlier than the transition of energy to Sheikh Tamim Al-Thani due to his hatred of the Brotherhood. Emir Tamim, nonetheless, appreciates the motion’s contribution to the event of his nation.

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Individuals within the area know that if the Muslim Brotherhood was in authorities — and, importantly, was allowed to manipulate correctly — then life would take a flip for the higher. That’s what has occurred in Turkey the place average Islamists near the motion have been in authorities for 20 years. They turned the nation from a debtor to a creditor state and raised the GDP from $680.20 in 2000 to $2,471.70 in 2020.

In keeping with the Turkish Statistical Institute, the nation’s flour exports have elevated below the Islamists from round 355,000 tonnes in 2000 to three.5 million tonnes in 2017. Turkey grew to become the world’s largest flour exporter in 2021. Egypt, in the meantime, stays unable to feed its residents with out big imports and worldwide support.

All of this tells me that Islamists are certainly able to operating a state if they’re given the chance to take action freed from exterior interference. Sheikh Hamad and his ilk want to know that if the Arabs and Muslims need to be counted among the many world powers, then a very good begin could be to have an Islamist authorities, in any other case they are going to stay enslaved by the power-hungry who steal nationwide assets and throw the crumbs to their residents.

The views expressed on this article belong to the writer and don’t essentially mirror the editorial coverage of Center East Monitor.