Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, one of the largest Islamist political movements in the Arab world, rejected on Thursday sectarian fatwas by Saudi clerics against supporting Hizbollah in its fight against Israel. Several Saudi clerics have issued religious opinions or fatwas banning support for the Lebanese guerrilla group. “It is not allowed to support this Shia party, to operate under its control or to pray for their victory,” one Wahhabi authority, Sheikh Abdullah bin Jabreen, said. “Our advice to Sunnis is to have nothing to do with them.”
Mohamed Habib, the deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is also Sunni but not Wahhabi, told Reuters: “This is not the time for it (issuing such fatwas) and this is not the right circumstance. This fatwa gives the impression that there is a Shia danger that threatens the region and introduces division at the level of the Arab and Muslim world.”
A statement by Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Mahdi Akef on Wednesday referred obliquely to the Saudi fatwas, saying that some people were trying to revive old sectarian divisions. “Some governments are trying to disguise their failure to assist the resistance and even support for the Zionist aggression and American arrogance by bringing up matters such as the differences between the Shi’a and the Sunna and by saying that the Lebanese resistance is working for Iran,” it said.