By David R. Graham
14 November 2007

Al Qaeda, Hamas And The Muslim Brotherhood

An Analytical Miscellany      

Al Qaeda (AQ) and Hamas are military arms of a monastic order calling itself The Muslim Brotherhood (TMB) or The Brotherhood (Arabic ikhwan).

Monastic orders are of two types: religious monastic orders, desiring reunion with God, self and world, and irreligious monastic orders, desiring hegemony of as much territory and as many people as they can reach.

Because it aims at geo-anthropological hegemony, TMB is an irreligious monastic order.

Both religious and irreligious monastic orders derive their power from two qualities of mind and spirit: the quality of renunciation or detachment (Sanskrit vairagya) and the quality of single-pointedness or concentration (Sanskrit ekaagratha).

Nations and individuals, too, derive their power from these qualities. They derive their health, peace and prosperity from the same qualities.

The boasting of Usama bin Laden that his warriors are not afraid of death and thus are invincible demonstrates the detachment of TMB and its military arms. It does not demonstrate an invincibility of those arms, which are terribly powerful, on account of their detachment and single-pointedness, but not invincible, on account of their fanaticism.

The manifesto of TMB demonstrates their single-pointedness: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

This nostalgic-utopian, puritanical manifesto announces the classical Salafist doctrine of systematic domination of the earth. It derives from rejection of experience that Islam is not the only legitimate religion, is not a self-sufficient culture, is not a sovereign political entity. is not an immutable continuance of history and is not an invincible military force.

In pursuance of their rejection of the authority of experience, this plunge into radical detachment and concentration for a mission of anachronistic-utopian world-hegemony establishes TMB as an irreligious monastic order and drives its military arms, including AQ and Hamas.

TMB is gifted at not facing facts.

Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb, the ground layers of TMB, reasoned correctly that only a monastic order imbued with detachment and single-pointedness could hope to reject and reverse the evidence of history regarding the religious, cultural and military aseity of Islam, which they posited as reality dissembled by Muslims and seduced by non-Muslims.

Yet their hope is forlorn, though not without ability to plunge the world into bad news, because its basis, the assumption that Islam has aseity, is not true, not a fact.

Notwithstanding, purification of the Muslim Ummah (the idolatrous analog of the Corpus Christianum) and destruction of resisters of Islam by detached and single-pointed dedication to global Islamic aseity was established as the basis of TMB, launching it as an irreligious monastic order with military arms.

TMB remains so today, faithful to its perverse principle and vigorously embarked upon fulfillment of its anachronistic-utopian mission by all means deemed appropriate to the occasion, meaning, by direction or stealth, by confrontation or infiltration, by hate or bleating, by murder or persuasion, by coercion or inspiration, by radicalism or moderation, by whatever activity is judged necessary in any context to establish Islamic aseity.

Although not invincible, the power bestowed by these qualities of mind and spirit on TMB and their military arms is enormous and should be respected, never underestimated.

These qualities sustain monastic orders, religious and irreligious, over centuries and against enemies. Their actualities are awesome phenomena, demanding accurate appraisal and self-appraisal by anyone essaying either to accommodate, isolate or extirpate them.

Few monastic orders maintain military arms. When one does, it is for one of two reasons: to protect something considered of compelling proximate concern (e.g., Cistercians in founding the Poor Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem) or of ultimate concern (e.g., writers in founding the Salafi movement and TMB), or, to establish and extend a systematic hegemony (e.g., again, writers in founding the Salafi movement and TMB but also popes and tribal leaders in founding the Holy Roman Empire). Usually protection is all or part of an initial motivator, and if it emerges, hegemonism always becomes the exclusive motivator.

That which is truly ultimate, of course, needs neither protection nor extension of hegemony. Only God has aseity and God is not Islam, or any religion.

The deformation of protection into hegemonism is analogous to the deformation of religion into idolatry, whereby ultimate concern for that which is ultimate, the love and freedom of God, is deformed by propensity to regard as ultimate that which is not ultimate, such as writings, scriptures, modes and articles of worship, religions, philosophies, systems of law, commerce, government and education, persons, organizations, groups, totems, theories, etc.

Nothing finite, insofar as it is finite, is worthy of ultimate concern and everything existing is finite. Nothing that exists, therefore, is worthy of ultimate concern with respect to its existence.

Fanaticism is a consequence of attaching ultimate concern to that which is finite and not ultimate, to some thing that exists.

A military arm of a monastic order can be defeated on a field of battle. But until the originating monastic order is defeated on the field of life, its military arms will create a new field of battle by seeking to dominate new territory as well as territory previously denied it.

To eradicate AQ and Hamas, one has to defeat the monastic order engendering them and for the sake of whose principle they operate.

Everywhere AQ and Hamas are closed with, they are defeated. They have a poor military record.

This is for two reasons, one moral and one material. The moral reason is that their base (Arabic al qaeda) is fanaticism rooted in an improper ultimate concern, which degrades their power to persist and their power to attract. The material reason is that they have no native military/industrial structure to support their operations.

AQ and Hamas rely on money, principally Arab (especially Saudi), Afghan, Asian and Pakistani business, drug, human and petroleum dollars, to purchase military supplies and learn military affairs from their enemies, those they abuse as "crusaders."

AQ and Hamas are clients of the people and modes of life they despise. They cannot build airplanes and computers or generate electrical and other networks yet they need airplanes and computes and networked communications to conduct operations.

TMB depends on the educational, religious, governmental, financial and legal systems of those it hates. TMB cannot build national and multi-national systems for living, yet it needs those systems as developed by nations of Christian principle as resources for its hegemonistic agenda, as straw men for its propaganda and recruiting and as access to the rear areas of those systems so they can conduct operations against them and advance towards global cultural, religious and moral hegemony.

The internal shame of their dependence on their enemies stokes the underlying fanaticism of TMB and their military arms.

Perhaps they have considered how they would acquire spare parts for their oil operations and weapons systems and customers for their drugs and humans were their plans to extirpate resisters of Islam to succeed.

The contradiction at the center of TMB and its military arms virtually guarantees their ultimate defeat.

In religious terms, not being self-reliant, TMB and its military arms are adharmic (Sanskrit adharma, counter-embodiments of proper conduct) and will not be supported by reality for that reason.

Meanwhile, their capacity for destruction is enormous, relentless and obdurate. Nor will it go away without being ridden down and driven out.

This kind "goes not away except by prayer and fasting."

Detachment ("fasting") and concentration ("prayer") superior to those summoned by TMB and its military arms are required to defeat TMB and its combinations.

Were stewards of her welfare responsible regarding the threat of TMB and its military arms, the United States would be on total war footing and closing with AQ, Hamas and TMB since 1979 at the latest. Likewise would be all nations founded for freedom, peace and justice.

The duty of legislatures is to protect freedom. The duty of executives is to protect peace. The duty of judiciaries is to protect justice. These separate and equal duties derive from the structure of being, the essential nature of reality. They are neither alienable nor optional and must be fulfilled.

Absent realizations of detachment and single-pointedness superior to those it maintains, TMB will continue spreading dis-ease and de-construction world-wide.

Proximately, therefore, the question rises what to do about AQ, since it is a global military presence.

The immediate answer is, close with AQ and defeat it militarily wherever it attempts to root or roost. This means, as well, removing its supports.

Although it is not a global military presence, the immediate answer to Hamas is the same, close with and defeat it. Again, this means, as well, removing its supports.

The continuing answer is, close with TMB on its myriad of fronts, including lawyers, judges, financiers, businessmen, propagandists, clerics, professors and organizations, and mew them up by all means available, including political, physical, legal, intellectual, cybernetic, educational, financial, moral and religious.

Until the body of this irreligious monastic order, The Muslim Brotherhood, is flip-flopping at the Feet of God, death-rattling at the feet of the nations' armies and condemned at the feet of the nations' courts, the world will not be quit of them, who, precociously, aim to control those courts and armies and speak exclusively for those Feet.

A notable postscript to this analytical miscellany is that the International Criminal Court does not indict AQ, Hamas or TMB. They indict Europeans and some Africans. They want to indict Americans. The ICC are not doing the job they claim to have. Nor do they want to be.

The Rev. David R. Graham
Adwaitha Hermitage
November 2007