The brothers disagreed and the stolen item appeared

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The first thing that Islam states is that justice does not know favoritism, and for this reason God Almighty said: “It is not according to your hopes.” The slogan does not intercede for its owner, nor does the declared goal purify the means. However, throughout its history, the Brotherhood organization continued to write “God is our goal” on its banner, then waged its internal battles over power and money, and sought in its external battles to gain rule, influence, and money, as if the slogan was a prior instrument of acquittal. If the dispute was revealed within their home, what mattered was no longer what they said about their goal, but rather what they did on the way to achieving it.

The Brotherhood has excelled throughout its history in duality of speech. There is an outward public speech that tickles the feelings of the common people, and raises the slogans of reform, virtue, restoring the caliphate, and purifying politics with religion. On the other hand, there is a realistic and dark secret speech that revolves around spoils, empowerment, and controlling the joints of money and influence. These shrewd people, not “preachers,” repeatedly claimed that they wanted to reform politics with religion. The inevitable and tragic result was that they corrupted their religion with politics and money.

Therefore, what is currently happening inside the Brotherhood’s political and media shops that speak in the name of Islam abroad is not an ordinary dispute between people who disagreed on the way to manage their organization, but it reveals the nature of this organization, as the ongoing clash between them during recent years has shown an increasing division between centers of influence in London and Istanbul, and the end of the so-called central leadership.

This is not a new phenomenon in the history of the group, but rather it is a “gene” that is transmitted from one generation to the next, carrying with it the factors of the group’s extinction, as if this group emerged into life from a corrupt womb, and it carries in its formation the preliminaries of its end.

In 1947, one of its oldest and most important internal conflicts exploded, when the dispute between Hassan al-Banna and Ahmed al-Sukkari ended in Al-Sukkari’s dismissal from the group. Al-Sukkari was not a marginal member, but was one of the oldest close associates of al-Banna, and a friend of his for many years. He held the position of deputy guide, and had a major political and organizational presence within the group. Then the dispute came out into the open, and al-Sukkari published articles in which he made accusations against al-Banna related to money and donations they had collected. For the Palestinian cause, Al-Banna took it for himself.

This incident remained one of the most embarrassing pages in the group’s history, and was the wreath of shame on its head for a lifetime.

Then came modern times to reproduce the dispute in the same way, but with more widespread tools and less ability to hide. In 2019, an audio recording of Brotherhood leader Amir Bassam appeared, in which he made accusations against prominent leaders, including Mahmoud Hussein, regarding financial donations to the group that Mahmoud Hussein hoarded for himself and his son, at a time when the group’s members in Turkey were suffering from difficult financial situations.

These facts remained in the context of an audio recording and mutual accusations, but their organizational significance does not need much explanation. The organization, which continued to address its followers in the language of asceticism, detachment, and self-denial, found itself without religion, morals, or asceticism in the face of money, and the organization, which demanded patience and sacrifice from its members, found its leaders struggling over money, its sources, and methods of managing it.

The latest chapters of this conflict are evident in the disputes that erupted between Hamza Zawbaa, Suhaib Abdel-Maqsoud, Suhaib Al-Kashef, and other personalities and platforms whose differences came out of closed rooms and into the open. Over many years, during which money was collected under multiple titles such as supporting media channels and platforms, helping families, financing media activity, and what was associated with what was called the “Media Association.”

But when millions and millions disappeared from their coffers, a dispute over money began, and mutual accusations came to the surface about the amount of money, its sources, methods of managing it, and its fate. What is noteworthy is that those who have demanded from their bases for decades to listen and obey, and who considered discussing leadership decisions to be a departure from the group, did not find any embarrassment in breaking this silence when the conflict entered the sphere of money and influence, and recordings and leaks turned into means of settling scores, and financial accusations became weapons against each other, while the rules that pushed It donated and financed the activity without a clear picture of the accounts of this money and how to dispose of it.

This is an organization that was initially established to serve a hateful colonial project. If the matter were for God alone, the people who carried the slogan would not have turned into opponents exchanging accusations of lying, treachery, and betrayal in order to gain money and influence. Religion in itself does not need a secret organization to protect it, nor a group that monopolizes speech in its name, nor a human leadership that grants its members certificates of loyalty and innocence.

As for the political organization, by its nature it seeks influence, it needs money, it needs rules, it needs leadership, and it needs means to maintain its cohesion. When the political organization wears the garb of holiness, it becomes more difficult to hold it accountable. Because criticism of the leadership can be presented as a criticism of religion, and disobedience to the organization can be portrayed as disobedience to the believing community.

Therefore, the current conflict does not only reveal a division in leadership, but rather reveals a deeper impasse in the idea itself, revealing a group that demands its followers to be detached, then its leaders fight over money, asking them to listen and obey, then its leaders attack each other with recordings and leaks, and talk about establishing religion, while its internal conflicts reveal that power, influence, and money were always present at the heart of the project.

Banners may be sacred, but those who carry them are human, and when money and power enter the equation, actions reveal what words hide.