Global media is reporting that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has condemned Al Qaeda’s threats directed against Egyptian Christians. According to one report:
An Al-Qaeda threat to Egypt’s Coptic Christians has met with growing condemnation from Muslim figureheads and the press in Egypt, which said it was an attack on national unity.The Muslim Brotherhood opposition group said Muslims must protect Christian houses of worship after an Al-Qaeda group in Iraq threatened to target Copts and other Christians. “The Muslim Brotherhood is stressing to all, and primarily Muslims, that the protection of holy places of all monotheistic religions is the mission of the majority of Muslims,” the group said in a statement on its website late on Tuesday. The Islamic State of Iraq, which claimed Sunday’s deadly hostage-taking in a Baghdad church, said in an audiotape that all Christians were “legitimate targets” after a deadline expired for Egypt’s Coptic Church to release two priests’ wives the message said had converted to Islam.
Previous posts have discussed the claim by Egyptian Copts that the Egyptian government is afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood, the statements by a well-known Egyptian blaming the Muslim Brotherhood for the deteriorating position of religious minorities in Egypt, and reactions by the Muslim Brotherhood to a shooting attack against Coptic Christians in southern Egypt claiming that religious intolerance was not to blame. Another post discussed an interview with the Secretary-General of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) in which its Secretary-General accuses Egyptian Coptic churches of storing weapons in their monasteries to be used against Muslims. The IUMS is headed by Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi.
The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood can be considered to be the “mother” organization of what is referred to in these pages as the Global Muslim Brotherhood which developed as Muslim Brothers fleeing Egypt settled in Europe and the United States, as well as other places, throughout the years. The global network has since eclipsed the Egyptian organization as evidenced by global Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi’s decision to turn down the leadership of the Egyptian organization when it was offered to him in 2004.