The Islamist movement(1)
strives to unite all of the groups that are working for the Islamic
cause into one front that seeks victory for Islam. The movement must
establish Islam throughout the world and must confront all the
invading forces that oppose Islam's call. This front must play an
active part in propagating the proper manners of discourse and the
right ways of dealing with opposing views — so as to lay the
groundwork of cooperation based on the norms and to be tolerant of
differences.
Hasan Al-Banna sought to unite the Islamic groups in
Egypt and thus set down the famous "twenty principles" that
embodied the minimum number of general concepts that should be agreed
upon by all Muslims. This is what the Islamist movement should
continue to follow in order to achieve its major objectives because
the movement will only be strong if all of the groups work together
for the Islamic cause. By these groups, I of course mean the serious,
righteous groups, not those groups of deviants or those who claim
false links to Islam.
Any Islamist group will be making a fatal mistake if
it thinks that it can undertake single-handedly the establishment of a
contemporary Islamic rule that can withstand internal disputes and
external plots. All of the groups and movements should consolidate
their efforts and unify in order to form a formidable Islamic bloc
that will be able to support its allies and deter its enemies.
What I fear most is for the Islamic spirit of
brotherhood to be overcome with a feeling of selfishness whereby each
group tries to prove itself and to expose the faults of other groups
to the extent that it focuses all of its efforts on destroying others,
and not on building itself into a strong part of a larger.
I also fear that narrow-mindedness will gain control
of the way of thinking among Islamist groups, making them exaggerate
their differences, turning molehills into mountains, and matters that
allow scholarly debate and ijtihad into fundamentals of the Shari`ah.
The establishment of a strong Islamic rule that can
revive the religion of this Ummah and make our worldly life better is
something that should be collectively undertaken by all Islamist
groups. This should be undertaken without regard of their different
attitudes and policies, and should include all righteous individuals
who are zealous of their religion but who are not necessarily members
of any group or organization.
I believe that the Islamist movement will succeed if
it manages to recruit and unite all Islamic forces towards this end so
that all of them have the same concerns and so that they will also
consider any victory or setback of the movement to be a gain or loss
for themselves.
