MASONRY IN EGYPT
Is it still around? Samir Raafat Insight Magazine, March 1, 1999
A Cairo loge meets in the 1940s under portrait of King Farouk (MC->does the guy seated under the pole holding a sword on the right of the picture remind you of anyone?)
below: freemason certificate (courtesy Omar Hamed Zaki)
Last month in Jordan a prestigious lineup of Western leaders led by incumbent President Clinton and three former US presidents paid their last respects to King Hussein. While all kinds of deductions as to why they had all turned up were disputed live on national TV from Bangkok to Cape Town, one inference was passed by. The wily king may have also been a Prince of Jerusalem, one of the highest titles conferred by Freemasons.
Whether or not Hussein visited Masonic lodges and took part in their rituals is unknown, yet there are persistent claims in certain circles that he was an honorary Grand Master. Not peculiar for a monarch who spent most of his reign juggling alliances, some more treacherous than others.
As a Freemason King Hussein would have kept excellent company for, besides the Mozarts, Goethes and Garibaldis, most of Europe’s royals and several former American presidents including its sitting vice-president, are professedly on the Masonic roster.
But wait a minute. Hussein Ibn Talal far from being a Westerner was a descendant of the Prophet. How then could a Moslem notable of his standing become an alleged member of a secret society with origins in the heartland of a 17th century Judeo-Christian Europe?
Adapting the Big Bang theory to Freemasonry, we discover how the French Revolution and subsequent Napoleonic Wars accounted for the dissemination of the ‘Society’ outside its known borders. Which is why, by the late 19th century, Masonic lodges were scattered across the Ottoman Empire, from Constantinople where Young Turks were beguiled by the secretive brotherhood, to Greater Syria and Egypt where emerging nationalists aped their European assailant in their inherent opposition to autocratic authority.
In Egypt, Freemasonry imploded into feuding camps: Anglo-Saxon and French, ostensibly reflecting the dual imperialistic control–military and cultural– which had entrenched itself along the Nile Valley.
A favorite Masonic hall south of the Levant was Kawkab al-Shark–Star of the East. Somehow, its propinquity to after-life symbolism conjured up echoes of the cult of Isis and Osiris giving it a distinct character and flavor.
Lodges evidencing Ancient Egyptian names included Sphinx, New-Memphis, Pyramids, Cheops and Le Nil. Founded by Jules Cesar Zivy the latter loge was dependent on the Grand Orient of France.
The distinction of first modern Freemason in Egypt goes to General Kleber, the luckless man left behind by Napoleon to govern the “Oriental Empire.
From the time of unlucky Kleber up until April 1964, Freemasonry continued uninterruptedly in Egypt. What had started as a secret movement eventually came out in the open as evidenced by notices in newspapers, the social pages and other forms of printed media.
Historians may assent however Freemasonry in Egypt came out of the closet during the Orabi Revolt of 1882. That Ahmed Orabi Pasha was himself a member of the Order was never proven, we know however that several of his supporters were.
In his book How We Defended Orabi A.M. Broadley declares that Egypt’s most liberal cleric, Sheik Mohammed Abdou, was himself an avowed Mason. “Sheikh Abdu was no dangerous fanatic or religious enthusiast, for he belonged to the broadest school of Moslem thought, held a political creed akin to pure republicanism, and was a zealous Master of a Masonic Lodge.”
Later in the same paragraph Broadbent states how many of the Deputies in the Egyptian Chamber had hastened to join the craft.
Broadbent gives us an insight on Freemasonry in Egypt during the 1880s when he differentiates between the principles and practice of Freemasonry in England and on the continent in Europe. While the British system embraced nothing more exciting than charity and good-fellow-ship, “foreign Masonry is almost avowedly an appropriate and convenient arena for political discussion, and both political and religious agitation.”
Thus, according to Broadbent, “in Egypt the tenets of continental Masonry, with its Republican watchwords of Fraternité, Liberté, Egalité had evidently overshadowed the strong British elements which once prevailed in our numerous lodges.”
Although none of the leaders of Egypt’s National party belonged to the brotherhood, a large number of their subordinates were among its most active and zealous members, according to Broaddent.
Part of a budding middle-class, Egyptian nationalists had joined the Society in an attempt to penetrate an impregnable ruling class guarded jealously by Mohammed Ali’s descendants and their Circassian entourage.
Consequently, when the Khedive’s men arrested the sir-tujar (provost of the traders guild) of Sharkia charging him with conspiring against the state and supporting Ahmed Orabi Pasha’s “insurgency” with money and the like, it was a Freemason barrister from London who took up his defense.
Nevertheless, the British-led kangaroo court in Cairo declared Orabi and his Freemason supporters guilty as charged–they had dared ask for the substitution of khedivial absolutism with a more representative government.
Judge Ragheb Idriss Bey ex-governor of Kalioubieh, Grand Master and Sovereign Grand Commander of Egypt below: announcement in al-Ahram of his re-election as Grand Master in 1897
Grand Loge of Egypt election results November 1924
While Orabi was exiled to the British crown colony of Ceylon, the sir-tujar and other Orabi sympathizers were sentenced to imprisonment and fines ranging from LE 1,000 to LE 5,000.
The situation turned on the British several decades later with the arrival of Mohammed Farid and Saad Zagloul. Self-declared Freemasons they respectively headed the National and Wafd parties which called for popular uprisings against Egypt’s Anglo-Saxon occupiers.
With time, inter and intra-Freemasonry rivalries increased in proportion to the numbers of halls and lodges that surfaced all over Egypt. Scottish, French, Italian and English halls operated side by side with the National Grand Lodge of Egypt. There was even talk of a Masonic cemetery in Old Cairo to be shared with freethinkers and intellectuals.
Worse still as evidenced by the local press in 1925, when some women in Alexandria clamored for membership in the ‘brotherhood’.
Besides the British Craft and Marks Masons, the most important Halls within Masonic circles in Cairo were the Grecia and Bulwer lodges overlooking Midan Ismail (today, Midan Tahrir).
The Egyptian Gazette dated 9 January 1903, states that “the new Masonic Hall [used by both lodges] comprises a commodious and handsome lodge-room capable of seating 100 brethren; a large assembly room; committee secretaries’ and robbing rooms; as well as a refreshment room opening on to a spacious terrace whence a magnificent view is obtained on the new building of the Museum of Antiquities, Kasr-al-Nil barracks, the Nile and the open country beyond with the pyramids in the far distance.” Both these lodges reported to the Grand Lodge of England
al-Ahram 4 July 1938; freemason benefit in Old Cairo
tombstone of Freemason in Old Cairo cemetery erected by the Rising Sun Loge of Cairo
At the time there were about 54 Egyptian lodges operating in Um al-Dunya. Later, between 1940 and 1957 we find 18 Masonic halls listed in Cairo, 33 in Alexandria, 10 in Port Said, 2 in Mansourah, 2 in Ismailia and one each in Fayoum, Mehala al-Kobra and Minieh (numbers fluctuated slightly during the interim yeas). Throughout that period, the largest and most important Masonic Hall was located at No. 1 Toussoun Street in Alexandria.
Ignoring its working class origins, modern Freemasonry sought to attract the privileged elite. And since faith did not really matter, Anglicans, Catholics, Jews and Moslems from the power elite rubbed shoulders in Lodges and Halls across the Middle East. After all, one of the Society’s basic ideas was the rejection of dogma.
But the society’s secretive character rendered it an easy target for defamation and accusation. History abounds with situations where Church and State took turns at vilifying the elitist brotherhood often rendering it more surreptitious than it already was.
If Freemasonry had burst its banks during the French Revolution when an entire nation revolted against church and state, it met with a devastating crisis during WW2 when Europe’s traditional societies all but crumbled with thousands of Freemasons ending their lives in German concentration camps.
Other wars and revolutions, from Italy to Latin America alternately pushed Freemasonry into the forefront of national and international events.
As attacks against Freemasonry multiplied in 19th century Europe, one race was repeatedly singled for a favorite target.
Living as a minority almost everywhere Jews perceived the Society as a way to achieve equality–and with time they became the torchbearers of Freemasonry. And since much of the Masonic symbols, rituals and erudition were linked to Jewish mystic, the accusations cropped up whenever an economic crisis loomed or when the purported Judeo-Christian alliance fell out of favor
The Vatican, which saw any brotherhood other than its own (eg. the Knights of Columbus) as a major threat, was at the vanguard of anti-Freemason movements fanning the flames of the ‘conspiracy’ controversy whenever possible. But since Christendom had little influence in a predominantly Moslem Ottoman Empire, the expansion of Freemasonry among its cosmopolitan elite went on unhindered.
But as we can see from the local press the Holy See and al-Azhar al-Sharif need not worry. After all Grand Lodges were peopled with humans who typically fought among themselves both privately and publicly. For instance in October 1923 as a result of in-house elections, members of one of the more important Egyptian Lodges started accusing one another in the press. It seems like any elections manipulation and trafficking of ballots had taken place. So much for secrecy and cloaks and daggers!
“In a characteristically tolerant Egypt, Freemasonry grew more out of fashion than conviction. It was more public than secret” comments Karim Wissa, an Egyptian diplomat who submitted a paper on local Freemasonry at Oxford. Like many of his brood and generation, Wissa can attest to at least one great-grandfather having been a District Grand Master.
“There were two kinds of Freemasons in Egypt in those days” says Wissa, “those like my landowning ancestors who adhered to the traditionalist English Freemasonry, and others who because of their fervent nationalism, joined the liberal French lodges headed in Egypt by Azhar luminaries Gamal al-Din al-Afghani and his disciple Mohammed Abdou. Interestingly, both men tended to address their companions as ‘ikhawan al saffa wa khullan al wafa‘(sincere brethren and faithful companions).” [Note: this form of greeting emanated from a distinct school of thought linked to Islamic enlightenment going back to the Abbassid dynasty].
From Khedive Ismail to King Fouad, Egypt’s monarchs accepted an honorary Grand Mastership. Yet none of Egypt’s monarchs were physically initiated into the National Grand Orient of Egypt and their attendance was restricted to official portraits hanging on the walls of Masonic lodges and halls. Other District Grand Masters included British High Commissioners (ambassadors) as well as several Sirdars–British commanders of the Egyptian army.
When Farouk ascended the throne, Freemasonry in Egypt was fast becoming “guilty by association,” accused of entertaining strong Zionist affiliations. This accusation was subsequently refuted in a study conducted by a team of diplomats attached to the office of Egyptian Foreign Affairs minister Dr. Mahmoud Fawzi.
In the minds of traditionalists, the physical similarities between Masonic halls and B’nai B’rith lodges –a Judeo-Zionist organization fashioned upon the Masonic model- were far too obvious for anyone not to confound the two. And because they were seen as hand in glove it is doubtful the young king ever supported the Society as such.
Once WW2 came to an end, B’nai B’rith lodges in Cairo and Alexandria were summarily closed down
“Hadn’t the analogous B’nai B’rith done everything in its power to turn Palestine into an exclusive homeland for the Jewish Diaspora?” exclaimed the growing number of Masonic detractors.
Which is why following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, it was open season for opponents of Freemasonry to pursue their claims that Masonic halls were subversive and dangerous, bent on undermining Arab nationalism and patriotism. This was almost a replay of the Vatican’s anti-Freemasonry whisper campaigns propagated by in the middle of the last century and early this one
Anti-Freemason articles cropped up in the post-1948 Arab World “proving” the connection between Zionism and Freemasonry. In Egypt, arguments leveled against Freemasonry were selectively derived from fin de siècle freemasons George Zaidan and Shaheen Makarius. Both writers had commended contemporary businessmen and entrepreneurs, many of them Jewish, for their active role in reviving Egypt’s capitalistic economy. Six decades later their statements were salaciously re-interpreted so that the businessmen and entrepreneurs of the past were portrayed as eager tools of a Judeo-Zionist collusion bent on dominating the regional economy
As the predominant conspiracy hypothesis takes credence in the Near East, the legality of Freemasonry was questioned and subsequently tabled on the Arab League’s agenda. Jumping on the bandwagon books and articles on the subject began to surface. In a 660-page volume entitled “Freemasonry In The Arab World” Hussein Omar Hamada dedicates much of his book juggling Masonic conspiracy theories
With the post-1952 exodus of Egypt’s haute khawagerie, lodges and Masonic temples had already lost many of their more affluent members. Some freemasons, whether out of fear or self-interest simply stopped turning up at the meetings so that even the all-Egyptian Star of the East had a hard time supporting itself!
On 4 April 1964, the Masonic Temple on Alexandria’s Toussoun Street was shut down by order of the Ministry of Social Affairs. The reason: “Associations with undeclared agendas were incompatible with rules covering non profit organizations.”
Sufficiently disturbing evidence for the State to be concerned about Freemasonry’s political goals would turn up the following year in Damascus when master spy Eli Cohen was apprehended. Having eluded Syrian intelligence for many years posing as an Arab, it was discovered that Eli had been a freemason in Egypt where he was born.
Yet despite the 1964 decree declaring the demise of Freemasonry in Egypt, loud cries of “not so” can still be heard. And if one were to concede to Abou Islam Ahmed Abdallah book “Freemasonry In Our Region” 1985), Freemasonry is alive and well in the guise of Rotary Clubs and other like-minded associations. “Having accomplished their earlier mission to establish a Jewish state, Masonic conspirators now intend to undermine Islam using charity work and community outreach as their tools” says Abdallah in his opening chapter. He then consecrates a substantial portion of his elusive writing equating the “new Masonic cancer” with Rotary and Lions organizations and with Jehovah’s Witness, Freedom Now, Solar Tradition, New Age and several other “fringe” organizations.
Like it always has been in the past, theories of sinister plots by ambiguous secret societies and associations still make headlines. So much so that books linking the British Royal family to Masonic Grand Masters and ‘breaking news’ detailing President Francois Miterrand’s secret relations with the Brotherhood have become common literature
For sure, as we enter a new millennium, Masonic handshakes and cranky rituals continue to excite certain elements within our society.
Former Masonic Halls in Cairo: Where were they located?
- Tiring Building on Attaba Square.
- Acher Building off Champolion Street (where Townhouse Gallery is located today).
- Freemasons Hall, Madrassa al-Fransawi Street, Mounira.
- Building at corner of Antekhana and Mahmoud Bassiouni Streets.
In view of the many emails sent asking about the existence of masonic halls/lodges in Egypt, the answer is there are none.
http://www.egy.com/community/99-03-01.php
Go to the link above for better pictures.
Another interesting account…
Masonic HIgh Council of Egypt:
Freemasonry first appeared in Egypt in around 1798, introduced by French Masons in Napoleon’s conquering armies. We do not know if Napoleon was a Freemason but he certainly used the Craft to befriend the people by first showing every respect for their religion and then mixing with them socially in an international brotherhood. He wasted no time in flooding the country with circulars about respecting the Moslem religion and in founding the Isis Lodge, into which several eminent people were initiated.
The name “Isis” was adopted after the mysterious rites
of the Priests of Isis, sister and wife of Osiris, a prominent figure in Egyptian mythology…..
READ MORE/SEE PICTURES: http://www.rgle.org.uk/RGLE_MHC_Egypt.htm
The second article was written by a Mason. I’ve read that the Muslim Brotherhood are Masons and practice Sufi, dunno how true that is as there’s so many sillly notions around the net, but being at least being Masons would explain the connection with the Community Organizing Globalist Banksters. Global Community Organizing is something our current president knows very well considering that’s the only job he’s ever done in his life and it wouldn’t surprise me if he was a Mason.
The Muslim Brotherhood: The Nexus of Jihadists, Spooks, and Deviant Elites
During the Egyptian revolution of 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood was considered “the standard bearer of Egypt’s opposition” (Miller). The downfall of Mubarak helped the Muslim Brotherhood gain momentum on the Egyptian political landscape, with the establishment of the Islamic transnational movement’s first political party, Freedom and Justice (ibid). Yet, according to journalist David E. Miller, the new party “faces an uphill struggle” (ibid). Miller elaborates:
The Brotherhood officially remains banned in Egypt and its leaders declined to detail what its positions will be or even state with certainty whether non-Muslims will be able to hold leadership positions. Analysts say many Egyptians are suspicious of its Muslim agenda. (ibid)
Egyptians have every right to be suspicious of the Muslim Brotherhood. Far from a simple social organization, the Muslim Brotherhood represents the nexus where fanatical Islamists, deviant elites, and the criminalized elements in government and the Intelligence Community meet.
While the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928, the seed of its radicalism and fanaticism sprouted 90 years earlier with the birth of a Persian named Jamal Eddine al-Afghani. Originally named Jamal Eddine, this Persian, according to Robert Dreyfuss in his book Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam:
… adopted the name “al-Afghani” in order to create the impression that he was born in Afghanistan. By claiming Afghan origins, Afghani could disguise his identity as both a Persian and Shiite, the minority branch of Islam, thus giving him a broader appeal in the mostly Sunni Muslim world. (22)
Afghani’s name change was just one of many examples of how this crafty Persian attempted to be all things to all people. By playing the chameleon, Afghani was able to influence and manipulate many in the Muslim world. Behind the mask, however, he “was a heterodox thinker who was a Freemason, a mystic, a political operative, and, above all, someone who believed… in the ‘social utility of religion’” (22). While he appeared to be a devout Muslim, Afghani’s sentiments towards the Islamic religion were far more pragmatic. Dreyfuss elaborates:
Afghani treated religion as a tool. He was outwardly pious, constructing a detailed scheme for a politics governed by the pared-down, seventh century version of the simple Muslim society of Mecca during the era of the prophet. (22)
Dreyfuss provides an excerpt from Afghani’s writings that demonstrates his intentions to subvert Islam for his own purposes. The excerpt reads:
We do not cut the head of religion except with the sword of religion. Therefore, if you were to see us now, you would see ascetics and worshippers, kneeling and genuflecting, never disobeying God’s commands and doing all that they are ordered to do. (Qutd. in Dreyfuss 22)
In the public eye, Afghani was careful to present himself as a devoted follower and preacher of Islam who was opposed to the imperial power that were undermining the self-determination of the Arab people (23). Behind the scenes, however, Afghani “was a closet atheist who railed not only against Islam, but all religions” (23). The pragmatic atheist and his esoteric adherents were nothing if not cynical, preaching anti-imperialism to the masses while they enjoyed the role of “ally, errand boy, and tool of the imperial powers” (21). Dreyfuss writes: “… while he (Afghani) posed as an anti-imperialist when it suited his purposes, Afghani and those in his inner circle engaged in a conspiratorial alliance with those very imperialists” (23).
This “conspiratorial alliance” with deviant elites in the west gave birth to the Muslim Brotherhood’s precursor in 1885. It was in that year that Afghani “proposed the idea of a British-led pan-Islamic alliance” (20). The Persian acquired the sponsorship of the British elite, even occasionally acting in an intelligence-oriented role for the British oligarchs. Dreyfuss describes the Afghani’s exploits:
From the 1870s to the 1890s, Afghani was supported by the United Kingdom, and at least once, the record shows – in 1882, in India, according to a secret file of the Indian government’s intelligence service – Afghani officially offered to go to Egypt as an agent of British intelligence. (20)
Possibly drawing from his Freemasonic background, Afghani designed his pro-British pan-Islamic movement to operate like a secret society. In true Masonic fashion, the Persian possessed two sets of teachings: a public one for the masses and a private one for the movement’s elite. Dreyfuss states: “Throughout his life, Afghani had one message for the ‘mass’ and another for the ‘choice spirits’: for the masses, pan-Islamic; for the elite an eclectic brand of philosophy” (23).
The Pan-Islamic movement birthed by Afghani was an Arab variant of what authors Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould refer to as “mystical imperialism,” which was a “philosophy that rationalized the expansion of empire by infusing a sense of the divine into the raw politics of empire building” (“Mystical Imperialism: Afghanistan’s Ancient Role”). Mystical imperialism was the result of elite projects in religious experimentation, which “sought to create a syncretistic cult-like religion with the over-arching goal of uniting the various factions and cultures within the empire” (“Mystical Imperialism: Afghanistan’s Ancient Role”). Afghani almost certainly imbibed elements of mystical imperialism while in the lodges of Freemasonry. Fitzgerald and Gould explain that mystical imperialism drew “on Anglo and Franco-Egyptian Masonic societies for inspiration” (ibid). Afghani was very familiar with Freemasonry of the Anglo-Egyptian and Franco-Egyptian variety. Dreyfuss writes: “In the 1870s, in Egypt – while outwardly professing to be a pious Muslim – Afghani frequented the lodges of the Anglo-Egyptian and Franco-Egyptian Freemason societies” (26).
In 1869, Afghani left Afghanistan to look for fertile soil abroad to plant the seeds of what would become Pan-Islam. From the very beginning, the Persian received support from the British elite. According to Dreyfuss, Afghani “went first to India, whose British-led colonial authorities welcomed the Islamic scholar with honors, graciously escorting him aboard a government-owned vessel on an all-expense-paid voyage to Suez” (25).
After his trip to India, Afghani made a brief visit to Cairo and then traveled Turkey (25). His stay in Turkey, however, was short-lived, ending in expulsion when his religious views became a threat to the Turkish religious establishment (25). Afghani returned to Cairo where he “was adopted by the Egyptian prime minister, Riad Pasha, a notorious reactionary and enemy of the nascent nationalist movement in Egypt” (25). By taking up league with an opponent of the nationalist movement, Afghani was again coming into proximity with the imperial powers; the imperialists considered the nationalist movement to be a threat to their regional dominance.
Pasha provided Afghani with residency in Cairo’s Al Azhar mosque “considered the center of Islamic learning worldwide” (25). Receiving a monthly government stipend, Afghani went to work laying the building blocks of Pan-Islam with British sponsorship. Dreyfuss states: “Feted by the British in India, transported by London to Egypt, and sponsored by England’s agent in Cairo, Afghani patiently laid the cornerstone of Pan-Islam (25).
During his time at the Al Azhar mosque, Afghani took a disciple named Mohammed Abduh under his wing (26). From 1871 to 1879, Afghani and Abduh worked together (27). In 1879, when the nationalist movement began gaining ground in Egypt and Pasha started to lose his political influence, the two left Cairo together (27). While in Egypt, however, Afghani and Abduh were British agents who worked feverishly to create a movement for mobilizing the Arab world on behalf of the British elite. Dreyfuss elaborates:
In the half century between 1875 and 1925, the building blocks of the Islamic right were cemented in the place by the British empire. Afghani created the intellectual foundation for a pan-Islamic movement with British patronage and the support of England’s leading Orientalist, E.G. Browne. Abduh, Afghani’s chief disciple, founded, with the help of London’s Egyptian proconsul Evelyn Baring Lord Cromer, the Salafiyya movement, the radical-right, back-to-basics fundamentalist current that still exists today. To understand the proper role of Afghani and Abduh, it is important to see them as experiments in a century-long British effort to organize a pro-British pan-Islamic movement. (20-1)
After his expulsion from Egypt, Afghani entered into a long period of travel. He went to India, London, Paris, Russia, Munich and Iran (25). Afghani was initially welcomed in Iran. Things changed, however, when the Persian let his revolutionary impulses consume him. Afghani encouraged social upheaval that would presage the 1979 revolution. Dreyfuss explains:
In Iran, the shah made him war minister and prime minister, but Afghani and the shah soon parted ways, and Afghani began agitating against the Persian monarch. Foreshadowing Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1970s revolution, Afghani took refuge in a mosque and organized the clergy to support him, until he was arrested and deported to Turkey. In 1896, his followers would assassinate the shah, ending that king’s fifty-year reign. (25-6).
An agitator and revolutionary to the very end, Afghani died in 1897 (26). Afghani’s radical brand of Islamism, however, did not die with him. In 1928, an Egyptian school teacher and imam Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood, which Dreyfuss describes as “the direct outgrowth of the pan-Islamic movement of Afghani and Abduh” (49).
Many of the concepts of pan-Islamism may have been passed to Banna by his father, who was a student of Abduh (51). It was a Syrian named Rashid Rida, however, who Dreyfuss characterizes as the “transmission belt” of pan-Islam to Banna (49). In 1897, Rida came to Egypt seeking Abduh (49). Both Afghani and Abduh were a source of inspiration for Rida. The Syrian was “an avid follower of The Indissoluble Bond, Afghani and Abduh’s weekly” (49). Rida located Abduh, who was enjoying the patronage of Lord Cromer, Egypt’s ruler (49). According to Dreyfuss, Rida became Abduh’s “chief acolyte” (49).
Determined to spread pan-Islam, Rida formed the Society of Propaganda and Guidance, which Dreyfuss tells us was “an early forerunner of the Muslim Brotherhood” (49). This organization, with its related Institute of Propaganda and Guidance, was responsible for indoctrinating the next generation of Islamists. Dreyfuss writes:
Its (the Society of Propaganda and Guidance’s) enrollees included students from as far away as Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Central Asia, and East Africa. They formed a second wave of the international cadre for an Islamist movement, after the secret societies tied the Indissoluble Bond. (50)
These second wave Islamists included eminent and well-known Egyptian sheikhs and religious figures who used their clout and influence to bring followers of Abduh and Rida together in the “Lighthouse Party,” a political organization that shared its name with an eight-page weekly newspaper founded by Rida in 1898 (49 and 50). Motivated by its opposition to the new Nationalist Party, the Lighthouse Party brought adherents of Abduh and Rida together to form yet another political organization, the People’s Party (50). Again, the British elite helped the Islamist descendants of Afghani and Abduh thrive. Lord Cromer, the British Consul-General in Egypt, played a major role in supporting the People’s Party. Dreyfuss states:
The People’s Party, reportedly created with British support, openly supported the British occupation of Egypt, and it won plaudits from Lord Cromer, who described its members as a “small be increasing number of Egyptians of whom comparatively little is heard.” In his 1906 Annual Report, Lord Cromer wrote: “The main hope of Egyptian Nationalism, in the only true and practicable sense of the word, lies, in my opinion, with those who belong to this party.” (50)
Hassan al-Banna became a member of the second wave of Islamism, influenced by his reading of Rida’s The Lighthouse (20). Dreyfuss tells us: “Rashid Rida’s chief acolyte was Hassan al-Banna” (50). Banna and his Muslim Brotherhood played a pivotal role in the rise of Islamism. According to Dreyfuss, their influence remains relevant to this very day:
It is impossible to overestimate the importance and legacy of Hassan al-Banna. The twenty-first century War on Terrorism is a war against the offspring of Banna and his Brothers. They show up everywhere – in the attorney general’s office in Sudan, on Afghanistan’s battlefields, in Hama in Syria, atop Saudi Arabia’s universities, in bomb-making factories in Gaza, as ministers in the government of Jordan, in posh banking centers in the Gulf sheikhdoms and in the post-Saddam Hussein government. (50-1)
Like its pan-Islam predecessor, the Muslim Brotherhood plays an integral role in the deep political world, engaging in intrigues and subversive activities with the covert machinations that drive the undercurrent of politics and history. These covert machinations can be seen at work before World War Two with the British travel writer Freya Stark. Stark was not just a writer. She was also an agent of British intelligence. Stark was used by British intelligence to foster an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood (Dorril 622). Brotherhood collaboration with Western intelligence continued with an alliance between the Brotherhood and the CIA that began around 1955. According to former CIA agent Miles Copeland, it was around this time that America began looking for the Muslim equivalent of Billy Graham, hoping to use such a charismatic individual to influence the Arab world. When this failed, the Agency began forging ties with the CIA (Aburish 60-61). What was the motive for this marriage between Western intelligence and the Muslim Brotherhood? This alliance would help the Western power elite neutralize the challenge to their hegemony coming from the secular Arab nationalist movement. Said Aburish elaborates:
In the 1950s and later, the West opposed the secular Arab nationalist movement for two reasons: it challenged its regional hegemony and threatened the survival of its clients’ leaders and countries. Specifically, there was nothing to stop a secular movement from cooperating with the USSR; in fact, most of them were mildly socialist. Furthermore, most secular movements advocated various schemes of Arab unity, a union or a unified policy, which threatened and undermined the pro-West traditional regimes of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other client states. The West saw it as a challenge that had to be met. (60)
Was the alliance between the CIA and the Brotherhood merely a continuation of the alliance between British intelligence and the Brotherhood? According to the authors of Dope, Inc. the OSS, which was the forerunner of the CIA, was merely a subsidiary of British intelligence (540). When the Office of Strategic Services was being organized, William Stephenson, Britain’s Special Operations Executive representative in the United States, was brought in for “technical assistance” (418). Stephenson’s involvement would lead to the creation of “a British SOE fifth column embedded deeply into the American official intelligence community” (454). When it came to religious engineering to promote fanaticism within the Arab world, it could be that the British power elite passed the mantle to the American power elite.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s involvement in the realm of intelligence and national security politics has contributed to a profound decline in the integrity and moral strength of intelligence agencies the world over. Even Israeli intelligence has periodically soiled itself by jumping into bed with the Muslim Brotherhood. In his book, The Other Side of Deception: A Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad’s Secret Agenda, former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky reveals that the Mossad, the national intelligence agency of Israel, began destabilizing Jordan by arming the Muslim Brotherhood along with its offshoot organization, Hamas, and similar fundamentalists (182). As part of its destabilization plans, Israel participated in a covert weapons pipeline that supplied the Muslim Brotherhood (254).
To the average Israeli, supporting the Muslim Brotherhood is suicidal… even treasonous. For those Israeli elites and criminalized portions of the Mossad that wish to maintain an Israeli national security state, the move is quite reasonable. The threat of Islamism provides factions within Israel with a pretext for the refusal of treaties and the maintenance of military strength. Ostrovsky elaborates:
The Mossad realized that it had to come up with a new threat to the region, a threat of such magnitude that it would justify whatever action the Mossad might see fit to take.
The right-wing elements in the Mossad (and in the whole country, for that matter) had what they regarded as a sound philosophy: They believed (correctly, as it happened) that Israel was the strongest military presence in the Middle East. In fact, they believed that the military might of what had become known as “fortress Israel” was greater than all of the Arab armies combined, and was responsible for whatever security Israel possessed. The right-wing believed then – and they stillbelieve – that this strength arises from the need to answer the constant threat of war.
The corollary belief was that peace overtures would inevitably start a process of corrosion that would weaken the military and eventually bring about the demise of the state of Israel, since, as the philosophy goes, its Arab neighbors are untrustworthy, and no treaty signed by them is worth the paper it’s written on.
Supporting the radical elements of Muslim fundamentalism sat well with the Mossad’s general plan for the region. An Arab world run be fundamentalists would not be a party to any negotiations with the West, thus leaving Israel again as the only democratic, rational country in the region. (251-52)
There is a sad and dangerous irony to all of this. While Israelis have been facilitating a fundamentalist Islamic threat to undermine regional treaties, factions in the West have been supporting Islamic fundamentalist and questionable Arab elements in hopes of giving rise to a comprehensive Middle East Peace plan. Western funding of a fundamentalist Islamic threat is motivated by the “level battlefield doctrine” (LBD), a Reagan Administration policy that was designed to weaken Israel. It is the opinion of these writers that the LBD policy is still being practiced by deviant elites and criminalized portions of Western intelligence. Israeli investigative reporter Joel Bainerman describes the policy:
The LBD became and some say still is today the cornerstone of U.S. policy towards Israel. The doctrine is based on a Saudi Arabian notion that the problem in the Middle East is not with the Arabs, but in Israel’s reckless use of its military superiority. The Administration must ensure that the Arabs are put on parity with Israel militarily so that Israel will be pressured into concessions which will lead to a comprehensive Middle East peace. (The Crimes of a President 184-85)
Needless to say, both sides are fueling a vicious cycle. In the end, Israel does not achieve regional dominance and the Western elite does not achieve regional peace. The Muslim Brotherhood and other radical Islamists are the only ones who come out the clear victor.
The Muslim Brotherhood received an important endorsement in May of 1979 at the Bilderberg meeting held in Austria (Engdahl 171). At this meeting, British Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis suggested that endorsing the Muslim Brotherhood would allow the Western elite “to promote balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines” (171). This balkanization process would result in the rise of various autonomous groups and the spreading of chaos in the Near East (171). In what Lewis termed an “Arc of crisis,” the chaos would eventually spill over into the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union (171). This would help the Western elites counter Soviet moves to become the world’s sole hegemon, thus preserving the Cold War dialectical rivalry that had been so advantageous to the Western oligarchs.
The power elite’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood had begun one year earlier, when Carter appointed Bilderberg attendee George Ball to head a White House Iran task force that fell under the authority of then-National Security Advisor Brzezinski (171). Ball recommended pulling support for Iran’s leader at the time, the Shah of Iran (171). He also suggested supporting the Shah’s opposition, the infamous Ayatollah Khomeini (171). While Khomeini’s fanaticism was obvious to many, the Carter Administration portrayed the cleric as a progressive reformer. Mike Evans elaborates:
Carter’s ambassador to the U.N., Andrew Young, said, “Khomeini will eventually be hailed as a saint.” Carter’s Iranian ambassador, William Sullivan, said, “Khomeini is a Gandhi-like figure.” Carter adviser James Bill proclaimed in a Newsweek interview on February 12, 1979, that Khomeini was not a mad mujahid, but a man of “impeccable integrity and honesty.” (14)
The Muslim Brotherhood was the movement behind Khomeini (Engdahl 171). According to Dreyfuss, Khomeini’s godfather and teacher, Ayotollah Seyyed Abolqassem Kashani was the “chief representative of the Muslim Brotherhood in Iran” (110). Kashani played a role in the formation of the Devotees of Islam, thereby facilitating the spread of the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence into Iran. Dreyfuss writes: “In 1945, Kashani helped found the unofficial Iranian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Devotees of Islam, led by a radical mullah named Navab Safavi” (111).
Khomeini received assistance from Western intelligence during the earliest days of his revolutionary activities against the shah of Iran. In 1964, Khomeini’s attempts to topple the shah led to his brief imprisonment by SAVAK, the shah’s secret police, and exile to Turkey (Trento, Prelude to Terror 196). In hopes of influencing the fanatical religious leader, the CIA made arrangements for Khomeini to take up residence in a safe haven in Iraq (Prelude to Terror 196). Trento provides the details:
The CIA arranged for the Iraqi regime to let Khomeini move to the holy city of An-Najaf, where he directed his campaign against the shah. When Saddam Hussein came to power as Iraq’s vice president in 1968, he permitted the CIA to place a number of Iranian-born agents around the ayatollah. From the huge and beautiful golden-domed mosque in An-Najaf, Khomeini was the most influential cleric in the region. (Prelude to Terror 196)
By 1978, it became painfully apparent to Saddam that Khomeini imperiled his secular power (Prelude to Terror 196). Given this potential threat to his primacy, Saddam paid credence to the shah’s recommendation that Khomeini seek asylum elsewhere (Prelude to Terror 196). According to Trento, Khomeini relocated to Neauphle-le-Chateau, a hamlet outside of Paris (Prelude to Terror 196). While in France, the transient religious leader was joined by several Iranians that happened to be on the CIA payroll (Prelude to Terror 196). These Iranians assisted Khomeini with his preparations for a victorious return to Iran (Prelude to Terror 196). In an interview with author Mike Evans, a former covert operative revealed that money from the U.S. government made its way into Khomeini’s coffers during his stay in France. Evans shares the specifics of the account:
A former naval intelligence officer and CIA operative during the Carter Administration, who asked to remain anonymous, related to me that the U.S. government wrote checks to Khomeini in increments of approximately $150 million. (This operative was directly involved in the operation of funding the cleric). According to this gentleman, Khomeini’s French operation was paid for by the U.S., including the Air France flight that returned the fanatical Islamic cleric to Tehran. He fully believes Khomeini left France for Iran because Carter stopped giving the cleric money. It is his opinion that Jimmy Carter should have been tried for treason for aiding and abetting an enemy of the United States. (14)
When Khomeini returned to Iran in 1979, he did so “with several CIA agents on his staff” (Trento,Prelude to Terror 197). Just a few weeks before Khomeini’s return, it became apparent to the Shah that the West was preparing to oust him. According to Mike Evans in his book Jimmy Carter: The Liberal Left and World Chaos, it was the Guadeloupe summit in January of 1979 that provided the Shah with the tip-off. Evans writes:
In the midst of the turmoil in Iran or perhaps because of it, President Carter called for a summit on the French Republic island of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean. Invited to meet with Carter in January 1979 were French President Valery Giscard d’ Estaing, West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, and British Prime Minister James Callaghan. In his memoir, Answer to History, the Shah wrote:
“Giscard said they hoped to ‘evaluate the situation of the world,’ with special emphasis on events in the eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. I believe that during those meetings the French and West Germans agreed with the British and the American proposals for my ouster.”
It was at Guadeloupe, according to d’ Estaing, that Carter showed his hand in favor of the ouster of the Shah. (14-15)
With his feet planted firmly on Iranian soil, Khomeini began his crusade to transform Iran into an Islamic republic, with factions of Western intelligence providing assistance and support from behind the scenes. Western intelligence factions cultivated the revolutionary environment in Iran before and after Khomeini’s arrival. CIA case officer Robert Bowie ran covert operations against the Shah that allowed the coup to be successful (Engdahl 171). The CIA-led coup used economic pressures placed on Iran by London to create the pretext for religious discontent against the Shah (172). London refused Iranian Oil production, “taking only 3 million or so barrels a day on an agreed minimum of 5 million barrels per day” (172). This move imposed revenue pressures on Iran, and agitators trained by U.S. intelligence went about blaming the Shah’s regime (172).
According to William Engdahl, the destabilization of the Shah’s regime was also aided by American’s working within Iran’s security establishment:
As Iran’s economic troubles grew, American “security” advisers to the Shah’s Savak secret police implemented a policy of even more brutal repression, in a manner calculated to maximize popular antipathy to the Shah. At the same time, the Carter Administration cynically began protesting abuses of “human rights” under the Shah. (172)
The efforts to tear down the Shah’s government from within were not limited to encouraging corruption among the ranks of SAVAK. The Western alliance against the Shah also encouraged Iran’s military to retract its support for the embattled Iranian ruler. Mike Evans elaborates:
When Carter later sent General Robert Huyser to Iran as his special emissary to persuade the Iranian military leaders to acquiesce to the Shah’s exile, Huyser represented not only the U.S. but the entire Western alliance. His counterparts in Iran agreed to the exile of Pahlavi only after Huyser produced copies of the record of the meeting in Guadeloupe.
Before General Huyser’s death in 1997, I met with him in his home. During the meeting the general told me, “Jimmy Carter was responsible for the overthrow of the Shah.” Huyser maintained Carter had “deceived not only the Shah, but me also.” (15)
The action taken against the Shah was successful and the deposed Iranian leader fled the country in January of 1979 (Engdahl 172). Writing about his downfall, the Shah later stated:
I did not know it then – perhaps I did not want to know – but it is clear to me now that the Americans wanted me out. Clearly this is what the human rights advocates in the State Department wanted… What was I to make of the Administration’s sudden decision to call former Under Secretary of State George Ball to the White House as an adviser on Iran?… Ball was among those Americans who wanted to abandon me and ultimately my country. (172)
Khomeini’s rise to power in Iran was a major victory for the Muslim Brotherhood that stood behind him, and Western intelligence had made no small contribution to that victory.
As the Iranian Revolution of 1979 illustrates, the Muslim Brotherhood periodically forge alliances with criminalized portions of the intelligence community and deviant elites forge to destabilize common foes. The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 is not the first time that deep political elements in the West have reached out to the Muslim Brotherhood to depose an Egyptian leader. According to former CIA operative Robert Baer, Washington turned to the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s when Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser implemented nationalist policies that were viewed as detrimental by elite factions in the West. Under the banner of “anticommunism,” covert support for the Muslim Brotherhood was arranged by John Foster and Allen Dulles, who were representatives of the Wall Street elite in the State Department and the CIA. Baer writes:
The White House looked on the Brothers as a silent ally, a secret weapon against (what else?) communism. This covert action started in the 1950s with the Dulles brothers – Allen at the CIA and John Foster at the State Department – when they approved Saudi Arabia’s funding of Egypt’s Brothers against Nasser. As far as Washington was concerned, Nasser was a communist. He’d nationalized Egypt’s big-business industries, including the Suez Canal. He bought his weapons from the Soviet Union. He was threatening to bulldoze Israel in the sea. The logic of the cold war led to a clear conclusion: If Allah agreed to fight on our side, fine. If Allah decided political assassination was permissible, that was fine, too, so long as no one talked about it in polite company.
Like any other truly effective covert action, this one was strictly off the books. There was no CIA finding, no memorandum of notification to Congress. Not a penny came out of the Treasury to fund it. In other words, no record. All the White House had to do was give a wink and a nod to countries harboring the Muslim Brothers, like Saudi Arabia and Jordan. That’s what happened during the Yemeni civil war that got under way in 1962. When Nasser backed an anti-American government and sent troops to help it, Washington quietly gave Riyadh approval to back Yemen’s Muslim Brothers against the Egyptians. (98-99)
At the time, the Muslim Brotherhood had its own motives for moving against Nasser. In 1954, the Egyptian president issued a decree outlawing the Brotherhood in Egypt (Dreyfuss 101). The decree was a response to an incident that occurred at Cairo University, when pro-Nasser nationalists were attacked by Brotherhood members (101). It is interesting to note that Nasser viewed the Muslim Brotherhood as an agent of a foreign power. According to Dreyfuss, Nasser “blasted the Brotherhood as a Pawn of the British” (101). The Egyptian president was not being paranoid. Nasser’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood “coincided with rising British frustration with the Egyptian leader during U.K.-Egypt negotiations over the transfer of the Suez Canal and its bases to Egypt” (101). Many of the unreconstructed imperialists in Britain were stridently opposed to dealing with Nasser. British opposition to the Egyptian nationalist leader included Prime Minister Anthony Eden. Dreyfuss writes: “From 1954 on, Anthony Eden, the British prime minister, was demanding Nasser’s head” (101). Both Eden and MI6′s George Young spoke very bluntly about killing Nasser (101). In one conversation, Eden went as far as to state: “What’s all this nonsense about isolating Nasser or ‘neutralizing’ him, as you call it? I want him destroyed, can’t you understand? I want him murdered… And I don’t give a damn if there’s anarchy and chaos in Egypt” (101).
It appears that what made Nasser so dangerous to Western elites was his understanding that foreign powers were the primary cause of his nation’s ills. Israeli investigative journalist Joel Bainerman echoes this contention. In an article entitled, “Why the Middle East Conflict Continues to Exist,” Bainerman asserts that neither Jew nor Arab is to blame for persistent fighting in the Middle East. Instead, he says, “a third player, the Foreign Elite (FE), is why the Middle East remains unstable” (“Why the Middle East Conflict Continues to Exist”). It is a failure to recognize this third player in Middle East issues that prevents both the Jews and Arabs from bringing true stability to the region:
There is a “third entity” in the conflict in addition to the Israelis and the Arabs: the foreigners (in order of importance, the US, Britain, China, France, Germany). Without them, there would be no Middle East conflict because it is the foreign influence that keeps the “situation” from being resolved. Unfortunately, both Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews believe they are each other’s worst enemy – without considering the third element – the foreigners – that is the enemy of both. The thing that Arabs and Jews have most in common is this common enemy, yet the leaders on both sides (not being legitimate or independent) tell their people that the other side is their number one enemy. Hence the conflict continues. (ibid)
Apparently, Mubarak also came to realize the danger posed by foreign elites to his country. His awareness of this threat was heightened four years prior to the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, when a U.S. Intelligence report prepared in the fall of 2007 fell into his hands. Debka-Net-Weekly provides the details:
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence and Middle East sources report that for four years, Mubarak was in on the plan hatched between Washington, Egyptian army elements and Egyptian opposition groups. It was first put on the White House table in the fall of 2007, towards the end of the third year of President George W. Bush’s second term.
The Egyptian ruler had good foreknowledge of its main features and told his associates on more than one occasion that they encompassed the steps for his overthrow and the nature of the regime to replace his. Mubarak viewed President Barack Obama’s public demand early on in the current protest campaign for his regime to grant more freedom and institute democratic reforms as a coded signal for encouraging the conspirators.
A US intelligence report dated Sept. 10, 2007 which came into Mubarak’s hands revealed Washington’s objectives for the post-Mubarak era.
The document outlined the steps the US would promote for engendering democracy in Egypt against Mubarak’s will. It showed Washington working for substantial changes in Egyptian society through the very circles which last week rode the popular wave to bring about Mubarak’s downfall.
This is how the 2007 US intelligence report phrased it:
“Our fundamental reform goal in Egypt remains democratic transformation, including the expansion of political freedom and democratic pluralism, respect for human rights and a stable, democratic and legitimate transition to the post-Mubarak era… President Mubarak is deeply skeptical of the US role in democracy promotion. Nonetheless, USG programs are helping to establish democratic institutions and strengthen individual voices for change in Egypt… Due to ongoing GOE interference with US democracy and human rights assistance programs, the Deputies Committee decided on April 10 to proceed with offshore programming as appropriate…”
The U.S. Intelligence report provided Mubarak with reason to believe, as Nasser had before him, that the Muslim Brotherhood was acting as an agent of a foreign power. According to Debka-Net-Weekly, the report “went on to describe the activity of American bodies within the outlawed Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood” (ibid). While the Muslim Brotherhood claims to represent Arab people, it is really nothing more than another deep political player that periodically collaborates with foreign elites and intelligence agencies.https://mediachecker.wordpress.com/
Bottomline: Egypt, just as the other countries before them (Color Revolutions – Serbia, Georgia et al), had a ”manufactured revolution”, compliments of the the American taxpayer, of which I am one. Some are getting very wealthy from these tragedies and it certainly isn’t the American taxpayer nor the victims of these so-called revolutions.
Freemason University to open in Serbia
Assembly of the United Grand Lodges of Serbia gave the initiative for the integration of our Freemasonry. In the Masonic Centre in Belgrade will be the temple of the Academy of Arts
At the annual conference of the United Grand Lodges of Serbia (UVLS) in Belgrade, gave the 400 delegates, as “news” found out, the approval for the construction of the first Mason University, and to start the process of unification of Serbian Masonry.
We agreed that one of our missions, which will contribute to progress and UVLS, but our society is the establishment of a higher education institution where professors and lecturers will be Serbian Masons and brothers from abroad. For students, we provide scholarships, and then – says Vladimir Markovic, a master UVLS. – The goal is to educate the Masons, to raise the quality of education in Serbia and help stop the “brain drain” in the world. We have adopted the project of building the entire Masonic complex in which we make our new church’s first university.
The Academy is planned to start operating next year in a rented building, and that by 2017. University Masonic building with boarding. It will be the only public institution of the fraternity of Freemasons in the Balkans and in many ways unique in the world….
Projekat budućeg masonskog kompleksa u Beogradu
http://www.novosti.rs/vesti/naslovna/aktuelno.293.html:386472-Slobodni-zidari-pokrecu-univerzitet
See site for visual on the plans.
More on the Muslim Brotherhood here:
https://mediachecker.wordpress.com/?s=muslim+brotherhood
Universities for Freemasons and Anarchial Revolutions? What next? A University for the Salifist Jihadi?
