Circumstances in Egypt will not improve unless Sharia is applied, Jihad Movement Mufti Sayed Imam said.
Imam said the Afghanistan’s Taliban model and Somali Islamic rule are the best systems and most able to protect society from “thuggery” and rape.
In an interview on privately owned satellite channel CBC Saturday, Imam called the Egyptian state an “infidel,” since the Muslim Brotherhood, after President Mohamed Morsy’s took office, introduced — like previous regimes in Egyptian history — manmade laws that he described as “imported from abroad.”
The mufti, whom show host Emad Adib described as the “real leader of the movement,” said the “infidel state does not mean that its people are infidels, but they should perform jihad as long as they have the ability.”
He defined “jihad” as “fighting infidels, not to seek livelihood and or education.”
“The Muslim Brotherhood does not have a basis in Sharia,” Imam said, saying the group has since its foundation been too flexible toward Sharia. “Hassan al-Banna believed the Egyptian state was a home for Islam, and its ruler was Muslim, which is incompatible with the idea of founding the group.”
Banna, an Islamic scholar, founded the Brotherhood in 1928.
“The Brotherhood spent 80 years between infidelity and negligence until we ended up with it as infidel ruler, and those who want the permanence of infidelity are infidels,” Imam said.
The mufti also discussed Al-Qaeda, saying the group is just training camps. He said most Al-Qaeda members were Saudis and Yemenis as well as followers of Osama bin Laden who “refused to comply with any approach and to give him the freedom to act with this followers, and he expulsed those who demanded that he adopt a doctrine.”
Bin Laden required his followers to have absolute obedience, Imam said. A person would not follow bin Laden unless he or she was “ignorant of religion or a mercenary.”
Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri’s relationship with Al-Qaeda came late, only three months before the September 11 attacks, Imam said, adding that Zawahiri, an Egyptian, was not aware of bin Laden masterminding the attacks.
Imam said he has cut relations with others.
“I see, however, that armed jihad is the duty of everyone, whatever their sins, depending on their abilities,” he said.
