The ideological bond between Iran and Muslim Brotherhood

The links between clerics in Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood date back to before the establishment of what is known as the “Islamic Republic” in 1979, where their ideological concepts and references converge.

The relationship began with the visit of Ruhollah Mostafavi Musavi Khomeini to Egypt in 1938, where he met Hassan el-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, as confirmed by writer and researcher Tharwat Al-Kharbawi in his book “The Imams of Evil.”

The Muslim Brotherhood ideology inspired the Khomeinist movement in Iran, and Sayyid Qutb, one of the most influential Brotherhood theorists, has always been popular among Iranian Islamists. Although Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, did not openly acknowledge the Brotherhood’s influence, it is true that the current Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has translated Qutb’s work into Farsi. According to Mohsen Kadivar, a prominent Iranian theologist, Qutb is Khamenei’s favorite writer.

The Muslim Brotherhood and the Khomeinist version of Islamism entertain an apocalyptic vision of the world. They are invested in the totalitarian ideology of Islamism, which holds that Islam is a total way of life that must supplant all other ways of life, including liberal democracy. The Islamic Republic and the Muslim Brotherhood detest and disregard the Westphalian order that is the basis of modern international law and seek to establish a pan-Islamic superstate through the conquest of the Middle East and, eventually, the rest of the world. They both share anti-Western, anti-Israeli, and anti-GCC sentiments.

The Iranian Islamists learned a lot from their Sunni brethren early on. They followed the Brotherhood’s model of infiltrating the West’s political, cultural, and academic institutions and guiding public opinion to legitimize their positions and gain leverage in the Middle East. In the U.S., the Shiite Student Islamic Association was founded as a splinter cell of the Brotherhood’s Muslim Students’ Association in North America in the 1960s.