Former first deputy supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Habib, said the integration of the Brotherhood in political life requires the group to review its ideas and denounce violence.
“But the group leaders are not willing to do so,” Habib told Al-Tahrir channel on Saturday, adding that they are also responsible for the Rabaa sit-in because they did not listen to the messages the United States sent them through Qatar and others.
“Reviewing extremist ideas will dry sources of violence in Egypt and serve as a model,” he said, calling on the Al-Azhar to counter extremist ideology and contribute to such revisions.
He acknowledged that the group's founder, Hassan al-Banna, was the one who laid the foundation for Sayed Qutb to call for resorting to force. “Banna did not believe in pluralism or democracy,” he said. “And the group never had the courage to admit that.”
He said the fifth supreme guide, Mostafa Mashhour, was interpreting certain Quranic verses to incite violence and that Supreme Guide Mahdi Akef was supposed to stay until 2016 but decided to quit when he saw that the future was black.
Habib was eliminated from the group just one step before becoming its supreme guide.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
