The Muslim Brotherhood: Diverting National Funds to Serve Secret Organizational Goals
Researcher on Islamist movements, Tarek El-Bachbichi, revealed the practices of the Muslim Brotherhood in managing financial resources. He explained that, since its foundation by Hassan Al-Banna, the Brotherhood has redirected donations originally meant for national causes—such as the Palestinian cause—towards internal organizational objectives. These funds were primarily used to purchase weapons in order to strengthen the group’s military and organizational activities, rather than to genuinely support the Palestinian cause, as publicly promoted.
The Egyptian outlet News Room detailed these financial diversions, noting that they were not isolated exceptions but rather part of a structural system built on secrecy and the redirection of resources to serve the Brotherhood’s strategic goals—even at the expense of public trust and the group’s declared principles.
According to El-Bachbichi, the real danger lies not only in the financial diversion but also in the Brotherhood’s very ideology, which consciously or unconsciously seeks to weaken societies and dismantle national armies. This is achieved by promoting loyalty to the organization over loyalty to the nation, turning individuals into tools for spreading ideology rather than participants in genuine and transparent civic engagement.
He further noted that internal financial oversight within the Brotherhood is largely symbolic, designed more to protect organizational ranks and positions than to ensure integrity or actual accountability. This, in turn, paves the way for misuse of resources and organizational deviations without effective monitoring.
The researcher also discussed the social dimension of such organizational commitment, highlighting its impact on the family lives of Brotherhood leaders. Familial relationships are often strained by the secrecy and rigid obligations imposed by membership, which sometimes leads to dysfunction in parenting and intra-family relations.
At the same time, El-Bachbichi pointed to the Brotherhood’s stance on women’s roles, noting that its founder, Hassan Al-Banna, was reluctant to allow women to participate in organizational activities. This reflected a traditional ideological perspective tied to preserving secrecy and maintaining control over internal operations.
These practices, El-Bachbichi concluded, demonstrate that the Brotherhood has transformed into an organization focused primarily on its own internal objectives and organizational tools, exploiting national resources that were supposed to support patriotic causes.
