The mudslinging between the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda over the Brotherhood?s participation in the Egyptian elections represents the difference between the two groups. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who denounced the Brotherhood in an videotaped speech aired on January 6, used to be a Brother in Egypt until he came to the conclusion, as he describes in his writings, that change could not be accomplished by working within the system, as has more or less been the Brotherhood?s strategy. Zawahiri, and his Salafi cohorts in al-Qaeda, believed the existing structures needed to be razed by violence so that a righteous Islamic state could be formed. The Muslim Brotherhood believes that they can take power through non-violent means and enact Sharia law.
The difference between the two is primarily tactical in nature. One eschews violence while the other relies upon it, but both toward the same goal of implementing Sharia law to create the ideal Islamic state (Islamism). The argument between the Brotherhood and its wayward son is over strategy, not ends. The Brotherhood dislikes al-Qaeda because it gives Islamist organizations, like itself, a bad name and allows governments to crackdown on Islamist political rivals in the name of counterterrorism. Al-Qaeda dislikes the Brotherhood because it would like to co-opt the entire Islamist movement into armies of terrorist foot soldiers.
To outsiders, it may seem that the Brotherhood is providing a comfortable ideological middle ground between secularism and al-Qaeda-brand Islamism. Better to have a group that has sworn off violence to achieve its authoritarian Islamist vision than one that uses it to achieve the same vision. From another perspective, the Brotherhood may be viewed not as a middle ground that co-opts Islamists from al-Qaeda, but as a stepping stone, or a gateway organization, into al-Qaeda?s ideology by legitimizing Islamism. Since it is only tactics that the groups bicker over, it is not difficult to picture how individuals or splinter groups could start with the Brotherhood and decide to adopt violent strategies as they became more committed.
This has happened throughout the twentieth century. The Brotherhood, founded in the 1920s, is considered the father of modern Islamist movements, including the violent ones and including al-Qaeda itself. Zawahiri is also not the only violent terrorist who made a journey that started with the Brotherhood and ended in terrorism.
Western observers may view the Brotherhood?s fight with al-Qaeda with optimism that the former may have the credibility to take recruits and converts away from the latter with their more peaceful vision of Islamism. At the same time, they should be aware that the flow of people has historically gone in the other direction, with the Brotherhood serving as a stepping stone into more malicious entities.