OFFLINE

On Tuesday, Der Spiegel published an exposé on Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the “father figure” of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The charismatic Qaradawi, an Egyptian by birth, is one of the most popular Muslim clerics in the Middle East. He’s written at least 100 books and his weekly television program is viewed by 60 million Muslims on Al-Jazeera. He hates Jews and has asked Allah to kill “every last one” of them.

He has praises Hitler for putting the Jews in their place during the Holocaust, and threatens that the next time will come at the “hands of the believers.”

Der Spiegel reports that Qaradawi envisions a "United Muslim Nations" as a contemporary form of the caliphate. While called a “Muslim scholar” by some, Al-Qaradawi is actually seen by experts on Islam as the spiritual mentor of Al-Qaeda and Egypt’s version of Iran’s Khomeini.

In spite of all the propaganda about the Muslim Brotherhood being a bunch of moderates who are simply misunderstood, their spiritual mentor is certainly anything but! The long list of incriminations that Al-Qaradawi has been a party to reads like the epitome of what makes a true Islamic radical and enemy of the West.

Qaradawi has predicted that Islam will soon conquer Europe, but that this conquest will come not “by the sword but by preaching and ideology.” He also says that Muslims should obtain nuclear weapons.

In 2001, Qaradawi issued a fatwa approving suicide bombings against Israel.

In 2003, with male jihadists being caught too often before they could strike, Qaradawi expanded the fatwa to approve suicide bombings by women.

In 2004, he issued a fatwa calling for the killing of American troops in Iraq, and later expanded this authorization to include the killing of American civilian support personnel. He explained: “All of the Americans in Iraq are combatants, there is no difference between civilians and soldiers, and one should fight them, since the American civilians came to Iraq in order to serve the occupation.

He also called on the Egyptian military to open the border crossing with Gaza immediately to allow free passage of goods and people into and out of the territory, home to 1.5 million Palestinians.

Images of a triumphant Qaradawi in leading prayer at the spot that triggered Egypt's revolution might trigger memories of Ayatollah Khomeini's return to Iran months after the Shah fled. Though analysts at the time did not anticipate him seizing power, the Islamic Republic was born just two months later.