Abdul Rahman al-Suwaidi is a former Emirati Islamist leader. Repentant, he delivers here a relentless testimony about the 35 years he spent in the hell of the Muslim Brotherhood. In front of our cameras, he reveals, in a series of uncompromising interviews, the Brotherhood’s best kept secrets, unmasks his double discourse and reveals the hearing of his hidden tentacles implanted throughout the world…

– How does the “world office” of the Muslim Brotherhood work? And why is it surrounded by so many secrets and intrigues? 

– The world organization of the Muslim Brotherhood can be vertically subdivided into 3 levels : the 1^st level includes the so-called National organisations, such as the Organization of Muslim Brotherhood in the Emirates etc. Those ones are autonomous. They have their organigram and their executive officer who is the Controller or the Emir. It also has its own association. The 2^nd level includes Regional Groups organized as Regional Councils. In the Emirates, it is called the Gulf Coordinating Council (GCC) or Gulf Council. It includes 8 countries. The 6 GCC countries: Oman, Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait. To which are added Yemen and Iran. Given Yemen is located in the Arabian Peninsula and Iran has a facade on the Gulf. There is an Asia Office, a Europe Office, an Africa Office etc.

The chief executives of nation-based organizations are responsible for structuring and coordinating these Regional Groups and selecting their Chief-Officers. The 8 Gulf Council countries are required to agree among themselves to designate the Chief Officer, the Secretary and the chargé d’affaires of the Golf Office. These latter, in turn, hold joint Gulf-Asia-Africa-Europe. Meetings which are often held in Europe and precisely in Great Britain, in order to choose the members of the World Office.

By declining these 3 levels, national, regional and global, we see that the status of Egypt is somewhat incompatible with the logical of this hierarchical order. On the one hand there is Egypt, the country of the founder of the Organization, Hassan Al-Banna. On the other hand is the UK-based “World Office” that manages the global activities. This presence in Great Britain makes it possible to improve communication, especially since there is a lot less security worry, compared to Egypt where the situation is often unstable. So the Comptroller and the members of the Organization in Egypt do not have the prerogatives to communicate, order or proscribe things. Thereby the Egyptians have a certain hold on the World Office, though this grip has recently begun to ease with the proliferation of organizations.

– Why local Muslim Brotherhood organizations in some countries deny the very existence of this “world office”?

– Some channels have denied any membership in the World Organization, but following the recent crisis they announced their withdrawal from this Organization to which they said they did not belong. The precarious and shaky foundations on which the big entity was built are mostly at the origin of the contradictions we observe today. The Organization is shaking at regional and global levels. These contradictions can be expected to increase, especially when local organizations in some countries are in crisis and reveal things that would not have been disclosed in times of stability.

All organizations classified as a terrorist organizations, in all countries and religions,

including the Muslim Brotherhood, have two faces: one open to the general public, the other hidden. This also applies to the secret World Organization of the Muslim Brotherhood whose existence is denied by some and not by others.

– They could simply hide the existence of the “world office”, why do they go so far as to publicly deny its existence?

– Is the absence of the patriotic dimension in the thought of the Brotherhood the main reason for this confusion? Yes, it is a contributing factor. Even if it’s not the only one. Because loyalty must be exercised naturally towards the state and the government of the country where we live. This is in fact what many Muslim jurists have mentioned since the Abbasid period, when the State had scattered into many Islamic sultanates. None of these jurists said that the Muslim must give up his loyalty obedience and allegiance to the prince of such Sultanate, Emirate or State.

It is true that the Caliph had a symbolic authority but it was to the prince of each region that allegiance is pledged. We have never heard that in such country allegiance was pledged to another country or another thought. This is the contradiction in the organization of the Muslim Brotherhood where, by a succession of sermons, loyalty is concluded by allegiance to the Supreme Leader. So, the official allegiance lent to the ruler of the country where we live becomes a formality.

Concealment causes an inferiority complex in some. Because their allegiance is not for the ruler of their own country but is pledged to others. So, they deny the existence of the International Organization, to make credible their allegiance to the leader of their country, which is in reality only an appearance.

As far as I’m concerned, it does not make sense that there is a double loyalty, as if it were a person with a split personality. If you have two referents at once, one says to go to the left and the other to the right. And you say to yourself: I am as loyal to this one as to that one. If they both agree, you do not have to worry. But, if they disagree, which one will you follow?

That is why we never mention these things at the middle and lower levels of the Brotherhood. It is stated that loyalty is only to the leader of the country where we live. Otherwise, new recruits risk fleeing the Organization if they learn that their allegiance must go abroad.

The most experienced members of the Brotherhood end up understanding how do the structures of the Brotherhood work at the global level. They consider that their loyalty to their country is formal and that their fundamental allegiance is to the Supreme Leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. However, this is problematic. If a precise position must be stopped, concerning a given situation in the country or around the world, should they conform to the position of the Supreme Leader or the one of the leader of their country?

Very often it is the position taken abroad that is retained. That is why they attempt to hide the existence of the world directional entity or the World Office of the Muslim Brotherhood, call it as you want. They say that such an instance does not exist. Which is contradictory.

That is why Bay’a is the main cause of the promulgation of laws criminalizing certain practices. If your ID documents, your nationality and your passport specify that you are from such a country, how can you pledge allegiance to a foreign organization? The law regards this as treason or intelligence with the enemy. Denying the existence of the World Organization makes it possible to reduce the risk of prosecution. So they formally say that their allegiance goes to their country and do not acknowledge having pledged allegiance abroad.

This concealment makes it possible for them to circumvent the fact that having two entities that can give instructions and assign responsibilities is not logical. Because, if they agree, everything is fine. But in case of disagreement, their instructions will be contradictory and will provoke a kind of schizophrenia among the members of the Brotherhood. On a personal level, this causes dissociative disorders, between the outside and the inside, and leads to what is called taqiya, that is, duplicity

This duplicity generates a confusion and a cacophony perceptible by the close entourage of the person in question. Especially when the Organization adopt points of view very far from those of the State of which that person bears the nationality and to which he must be loyal. That person is therefore in contradiction with the national interest. This generates an intrinsic conflict. Because, belonging to the Fatherland becomes dependent on the orientations of the Organization. While it is in the interest of the Motherland to prevail on the support a person can have for an Organization and the sympathy it can show for the activities and the instances of this Organization.

That’s why the law criminalizes this type of practice and punishes their authors by the deprivation of nationality or citizenship, since their loyalty goes abroad. Some countries call them agents serving the enemy, others accuse them of intelligence with a foreign entity. So what about people with total allegiance and dependence? So they undoubtedly abandoned patriotic belonging for the benefit of another supranational Organization.