The Muslim Brotherhood has taken the extraordinary step in stating no MB “militants” will travel to Lebanon to fight against Israel.  Well, why would they?  They do claim they are a peaceful organization trying to further Sharia.  From an August 11, 2005 interview:

MA: Does the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood categorically reject violence?

AB: We have always rejected violence, and have a long history of participating in the political life of Syria, but the Baath regime created conditions under which no political party could engage in peaceful political activism. All documents of the party outline our peaceful approach.

Naturally, the MB has a long history of militant Islam and has historically maintained a secret military wing aside from the group’s political wing.  Has anything changed?  The MB wants to tell us it has, but why else would the group categorically state no MB members would travel to Lebanon if there was no MB military wing?

This latest statement also flies in the face of Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the MB leader, who said 10,000 MB members were traveling to Lebanon to fight.  So now we have MB politicians joining ranks with the peaceful and charitable Hezbollah?

“The aim of Akef’s speech was to inspire people to embrace jihad ahainst the Jewish state,” said the lawmakers in a statement, adding that “the training undertaken by youths in the organization’s camps are merely spiritual and physical to forge their character, teaching them respect and courage.”

“The military training camps of the Brotherhood, which is an international organization, exist in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon because they are occupied countries, but in Egypt the confraternity only uses words as weapons,” said lawmaker Mohasser Radi.

“Muslim Brothers in Egypt will use weapons only on the day they will have to defend their country against a foreign enemy,” he said. “The faith and defence of rights are the only weapons the Brotherhood uses in Egypt.”

That’s rather interesting since the MB was founded primarily to push the British out of Egypt during the 1920s.  But once the MB decided that quest was sufficiently finished, it started the much more involved task of writing rules for participating in militant jihad that included the branching out into several areas of operations.  One of those areas, coincidentally, was Palestine.

Jihad, in the strictest sense of the word or as defined by those who want to use jihad for purposes other than to murder, means a spiritual awakening.  Using this definition, why would the MB hold what they call “military training camps” to teach youth how to embrace Allah?  Of course this is all under the assumption the MB is peaceful and jihad has absolutely nothing to do with war.  Is it possible to awaken spiritually against another nation?

Throughout my years in life, I have met many “born again” Christians and the mere act of being born again is a spiritual awakening.  I have never once heard any of these born agains state they are being born again to defeat another set of peoples or a nation.

The answer to all of these questions is that jihad to the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t a spiritual awakening, but rather the same type of jihad Al Qaida is waging; a war on anything they deem un-Islamic.  The MB, despite repeated statements and a fairly in depth media campaign as of late, has yet to shed its old militant side.  How could it?  The group’s main philosopher, Sayyid Qutb, wrote from prison that all Muslims have a duty to Allah to fight all that do not embrace Allah’s doctrines.  In the past that has included Egyptian leaders and it just so happens the current radical Islamic jihad we are seeing kill a disproportionate number of Muslims to people of other faiths is based largely on the writing of Qutb and the foundation of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Peaceful?  Hardly.  Taqiyya?  Absolutely.