by Jassim Mohamad – Bonn
Baden-Württemberg office of the BfV has reported that the Muslim Brotherhood are concentrating on infiltrating institutions such as universities.
The German government continues to tighten its measures against the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood, after pressure from the opposition parties in Parliament. The German government sent a memorandum to Parliament No. (20/2224), revealing detailed information about the Brotherhood’s financial arm and its hidden goals.
In October 2021, the research report ‘Network of Networks: The Muslim Brotherhood in Europe was published. In the report, two esteemed scholars who focus on the Muslim Brotherhood present some very concerning findings in relation to the Commission’s funding of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations. The report notes that the Muslim Brotherhood’s ultimate goal is to build an Islamic state based on Sharia law. It is not a supporter of liberal democracy or western values.
The Muslim Brotherhood is not a single, centralized organization, but a web of different branches formally independent from one another linked by ideological patterns, umbrella organizations and individual ties. Their ideology is described as radical and dangerous, undermining national security and social cohesion.
The DMG
The DMG had come under public criticism for its association with the Muslim Brotherhood. The press release from the ZMD announcing its schism with the DMG, sent out on 31 January 2022, brought a temporary end to this public controversy. In the period since the DMG’s membership was suspended in 2019, the ZMD has become more publicly visible and entrenched itself further in the media, civil society, and politics, according to the Eradicalization website report.
Ibrahim El-Zayat “Brotherhood Economy Minister”.
Ibrahim El-Zayat is the son of Farouk El-Zayat, an Egyptian engineer who left Egypt in the 1960s and settled in Germany where he married a German convert to Islam and who lived in Marburg, a University town north of Frankfurt. Ibrahim grew up in Marburg where he attended the Martin-Luther-Schule (Gymnasium) in 1987. Ibrahim El-Zayat was a founder and director of the Federation of in Europe (FIOE), heading its public relations department.
The Europe Trust
Europe Trust is a United Kingdom based company and charity which was first registered as a charity in 1996. The 2005 financial report says that the principal activity of the company “was that of to establish a portfolio of assets (awqaf) businesses and investments to generate resources to fund social and economic projects for communities in Europe. Europe Trust has purchased a property in Berlin’s Wedding district for four million Euros. Several associations and groups have moved in there that are being monitored by the German State Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The directors and trustees of Europe Trust are European Muslims of Middle Eastern descent. It employs three staff members and has multiple volunteers. Former trustee and co-founder Dr. Ahmed Kadhem al-Rawi serves currently as the chief executive.
The Europe Trust, a UK-based organization with close ties to the radical Muslim Brotherhood organization, has acquired a €4 million property in the Berlin district of Wedding, an area that is already home to several associations that are being monitored by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).The supporters of The Europe Trust, which is regarded as the primary financial vehicle of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe, are regarded as adherents to so-called “legalistic Islamism” — a strain of political Islam that’s outwardly law-abiding, but aims to establish Islamic states via infiltration of a society’s institutions instead of waging violent jihad to realize its goals, Die Welt reports.
According to a report in the Stuttgarter Nachrichten, the Muslim Brotherhood is becoming more influential in Europe, and is a particular concern in Germany. The German security service, the BfV, suspects that there are more than a thousand supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Germany alone. The Baden-Württemberg office of the BfV has reported that the Muslim Brotherhood are concentrating on infiltrating institutions such as universities.
Conclusion
It is expected that the German government will continue to take strict measures to monitor and control the funding sources of the Muslim Brotherhood in Germany, but the internal intelligence still needs more powers in order to reach the results. Despite parliamentary pressure on the German government to reveal its information about political Islam, specifically the Muslim Brotherhood, German intelligence is still reluctant to announce the details of its work in order to preserve the progress of the investigations. It is expected that the German government will announce in the future more details about the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in Germany and from whom it is only a matter of time.
Article first published on Levant News.
Jassim Mohamad is a researcher who focuses on international security & counter-terrorism; his work covers Europe, Middle East (Iraq, Syria, Libya, Iran and Yemen), and African Sahel. He is the Head of the European Center for Counterterrorism and Intelligence Studies ECCI.
