Dictatorship within political Islamic groups

There is a fair level of uncertainty surrounding the real position of the contemporary political Islamic group movements regarding the issues of democracy, peaceful and democratic change, and human rights.

Theoretically and ideologically, Islam is the religion of liberty which has established for centuries ago the very famous basis stating that no human being was born as slave: ” why you enslave people while they all born free”. In the mean time, Islam is the religion of democracy under the name of “shora”, which means exactly that within the muslin society, there should be a very high level of freedom of speech and opinion between the leader and the ordinary people except in matters already determined in Quran, because all instructions in Quran should be obeyed, and all muslins have to comply with that under any circumstances.

The big question is: did the contemporary political Islamic movements accept or respect these principles of “Shora”? And did they practice what they breach in their day to day life?

Let us take the example of the ”Muslim Brotherhood“ which is, in fact, one of the largest Islamic movements that enjoys important presence and influence in many muslin countries like Egypt , Jordan , Syria , etc.

The Syrian branch of the Muslin Brotherhood is lead by Mr Ali Al Bayanoni in the last 10 years, an old fashion Syrian lawyer, and former civil servant. I have been a member of this branch for more than 27 years, but during the last 6 years while living in London where the Mr Al Bayanoni is based, I have got the opportunity to be in direct contact with him and his way of dealing with other members, and to be more involved in many activities and relations taking place here in London. Many MB members including myself could easily discover the fact that this 72 years old leader could not accept any kind of objection or criticism for his way of leading, and he considers any member of the movement as rival or rebellious if he –the member- demonstrate any kind of objection or criticism towards Bayanoni‘s way of dealing with all aspects related to the organization. We all found ourselves facing someone of the mentality of the sixties and seventies when the horrible military militias and the dictatorship of the old regimes ruled over the Middle East and some parts of Europe ; Franco of Spain, Chachisco of Romaine Abdulnaser of Egypt , and Havez Al Assad in Syria. However, the main difference between them and Mr Bayannoni is that unlike them, he does not have prisons and executioners to torture or to kill his opponents. Nevertheless, he has the same type of tribunal to obstruct and kick out anyone who has the courage to pronounce any single word of objection against him. Furthermore, the ordinary members found out that he also bigheaded arrogant which contradicts directly with the very basic teaching of Islam stating that any muslin should be “abased” for his muslin brothers and strong against the non believers, Mr Al Bayannoni did exactly the opposite. Although he was keen during five years to be so “humble” towards the dictatorship regime of Bashar Al Assad in Syria, he was so lofty towards us, his inner circle and his followers for very long time.

The worst was discovered by us when we found out that Mr Al Bayannoni is packed strongly and supported by the very high level of muslin brotherhood high rank of scholars and religious people who represent the framework of the authority within the brotherhood. If someone like me managed to get face contact with them, in what is called the “high court” he would straight away discover that the duty of this court is not searching for the truth and ordering for the justice to be done, no , its main role is to protect the dictatorship of Mr Al Bayannoni against any one who may try to threaten his authoritarian method of acting among the Syrian brotherhood who are mainly living in the exile in many Arabic countries and have no means of power to stand in front of him and to say no , we do not accept your absolute manner of leading us.

This finding was horrible because the very fundamental element of the theory which makes the cornerstone of the brotherhood establishment is that they are instigating and stimulating all other muslins to practice and to respect the Islamic Sharea law, which is already known as the most syllabus against any kind of oppression, cheating, double-dealing and fraud, not in money and shares, but in values, morality and belief.

The very high rank of muslin scholars standing behind the authoritarian MB leader Al Bayannoni are representing a real scandal in the morality level because basically they are lying, cheating, making false decision and shameful picture of the practice of the contemporary political Islamic movements.

Ali Al Ahmad