In January 2010, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood selected Mohammed Badie as its new leader, replacing former Supreme Guide Mohammed Mahdi Akef. At the time, the election was considered a victory for the “conservative” wing of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. A Saudi newspaper report provides some biographical detail about Dr. Badie (see ref note below):
Muhammad Badi (67 years old) has been able to keep his membership of the Muslim Brotherhood Guidance Bureau for 17 years as he is considered to be one of the most loyal leaders to the organization of Sayyid Qutb. According to the Arab Scientific Encyclopedia issued by the Egyptian State Information Service in 1999, Badi is one of “the greatest 100 Arab scientists.” Badi is the founder of the High Veterinary Institute in the Arab Republic of Yemen. Badi was born on 7 August 1943 in Al-Mahallah al-Kubra (in the Nile Delta), attended the Veterinary Medicine College in Cairo in 1960, graduated in 1965, and was appointed a lecturer at the Veterinary Medicine College in Asyut University in the same year. In 1959 Badi met Dr Muhammad Sulayman al-Najjar, member of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, who invited Badi to join the Muslim Brotherhood, and Badi agreed. The new general guide was sentenced in a number of cases, the most famous of which was a 15-year imprisonment in 1965 in the military case that included among the sentenced the fundamentalist leader Sayyid Qutb; Badi spent 9 years in prison on the basis of that sentence, and then he returned to his post at Asyut University, after which he was transferred to Al-Zaqaziq University, and then he traveled to Yemen, and from there he returned to Bani-Suwayf University.
Additional details on the relationship between Mohammed Badie and Sayyid Qutb, one of the most important and most radical ideologues in the history of the Muslim Brotherhood were provided by an Al-Jazeera report:
Born in 1943 in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla el-Kubra, Badie was jailed for nine years in the 1960s after being accused of membership of a Brotherhood paramilitary cell that allegedly planned the overthrow of the government. He later became responsible for ideological education in the group. In the case for which Badie was jailed, thousands of Islamists were convicted and imprisoned while influential radical Islamist thinker Sayid Qutb was executed. Although disowned by some Brotherhood members for his radical views, Badie and others in the movement continued to embrace Qutb, who advocated armed struggle to impose Islamic law.
Dr. Badie told reporters at the press conference announcing his selection that “We reject violence…We believe in incremental reform and that takes place in a peaceful and constitutional way.” However, Dr. Badie also called for cooperation ”between Arab and Islamic countries to resist the projects of colonialism, western and Zionist hegemony.” In the letter, Dr. Badie also criticized Israel claiming that it “seeks the abolition and cancellation of our values, cultures and Islamic identity.” In June 2012, Dr. Badie preached the destruction of Israel in order to liberate it from “the filth of the Zionists.”
In a 2010 sermon, Dr. Badie predicted the end of the United States.:
“The Soviet Union fell dramatically, but the factors that will lead to the collapse of the U.S. are much more powerful than those that led to the collapse of the Soviet empire – for a nation that does not champion moral and human values cannot lead humanity, and its wealth will not avail it once Allah has had His say, as happened with [powerful]nations in the past. The U.S. is now experiencing the beginning of its end, and is heading towards its demise.
Dr. Badie also says in the sermon that “Resistance is the only solution against the Zio-American arrogance and tyranny, and all we need is for the Arab and Muslim peoples to stand behind it and support it.” Dr. Badie further demonstrated his “Islamized anti-Semitism” in 2001 when he asserted a “U.S,/Zionist conspiracy” in the secession of South Sudan.
Note: (Source: London Al-Hayah Online in Arabic — Website of influential Saudi-owned London pan-Arab daily. URL: http://www.daralhayat.com)