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- The economic interest of the Muslim Brotherhood, from its early inception, coincided with its advocacy and political interests, so the economic factor, along with its advocacy choices and political orientations, constituted one of the basic dimensions in the formulation of the group's ideological vision. Organization and theorizing so that the group became - in the words of one of its defected leaders - "led by bankers and bankers, not by preaching scholars."
- Researching the economic file of the Muslim Brotherhood constitutes a very difficult task due to the complex precautionary measures that the group follows in order to obliterate its sources of financing and the way it manages its financial wealth and areas of spending. Its extended historical experiences in its tense relations with successive governments and the judiciary.
- The economic discourse of the Muslim Brotherhood branches out from their general ideological discourse based on three basic principles: 1- Islam is an integrated and self-sufficient life system. 2- Islam is a system that is formed and built on two main sources; They are the Qur’an and the wisdom of the Prophet in his biography and Sunnah. 3- Islam is a system applicable in all times and all places in the world.
- The close connection between economics and ideology is embodied as the most important controls of the Brotherhood’s mind in addition to organization, by analogy with the determinants of the Islamic political mind, which Muhammad Abed al-Jabri restricted to “the tribe, the booty, and the creed” as keys with which to read Arab and Islamic history. By practicing a kind of systematic projection of these determinants on the case of the Muslim Brotherhood, we find that the faith based on religion has become an ideology and the clan based on tribalism has become an organization, while the spoil based on gaining by force has turned into an economy.
- The Brotherhood economy is distinguished by its being directed at the service of the group's intellectual and political project, and it has the ability to adapt to various political systems, and that it is a politicized economy and tends towards religiosity, as the group sought to employ religion to develop its financial resources and build its economic empire, and it is a service economy that aims to penetrate into society as well. A family economy linked to relations of kinship and intermarriage between the leaders and members of the group, and on the other hand it is an economy that invests in quick-profit consumer activities and avoids investing in capital goods that will build a strong national economy, as it is a globalized economy and is open to the world, which allowed the group to take advantage of the existing gaps. In some safe havens to boost their economic capabilities.
- The group paid special attention to the financial issue within its organizational documents and regulations, both in terms of methods of collection, aspects of spending, or administrative distribution of responsibilities, and within its administrative structure it created the position of auditor, treasurer and financial committee as administrative elements to control the movement of funds within its organizational structure. This is due to its awareness of the importance of money in strengthening the organization’s strength, ensuring its continuity and independence, as well as demonstrating “transparency” in front of its followers, enhancing their confidence in its leadership, and testing the degree of their willingness to sacrifice for it.
- Al-Banna and his brothers, after moving to Cairo in 1932, received the generous support of several political parties. They are views that viewed the group as an educational missionary entity that extends socially and has no involvement in politics, as well as benefited from palace funds and the support of Western powers as well, headed by the British occupation authority, and succeeded in adapting to the policies followed in Egypt after independence and employing it in the development of its financial wealth.
- The group's great ambition to adopt a holistic vision in dealing with issues of religion and the world and issues of the nation, the nation, the individual and society - especially after its transformation in a later period into a regional and international player in the political arena and the global financial network thanks to its international organization - pushed its leadership to expand the financial resources of the community to include in addition to The "individual" sources, represented by contributions, donations and zakat funds, are "institutional" sources represented in investment projects that are directly or indirectly affiliated with the group.
- The group strengthened its presence in Western countries, by watching over projects that became known as "halal trade", thus increasing the amount of money it collects from the profits of companies operating for it abroad. The group's projects also received administrative facilities from a number of foreign governments thanks to their skills in exploiting the country's laws, its ideological affinity with its government, its interests being compatible with it, and its ability to be employed to achieve geopolitical gains.
- The Brotherhood’s infiltration into state and society institutions at a time when Egypt witnessed more extremism in the terrorist organizations ’discourse, fueling concern about the growing influence of the Brotherhood in the financial and business market, especially since the late 1980s, and it also began harassing the country's ruling system, especially since press reports were preoccupied with terrorist acts at the time. The suspicious movements of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders often exacerbated the regime’s fears about the moneyplacement companies run by the group’s members.
- The political, security and intellectual circles in Europe have begun to express their concern about the movement of the group’s funds out of control and the frightening growth of its influence on the ranks of Europe’s Muslims, of whom an important part has become the nationality of the country of residence.
- Among them is Nadia Minette, head of the Counter-Terrorism Committee in the Belgian Parliament, which considered in December 2017 that empowering the Brotherhood in Europe contributed to undermining the integration of Muslims into its countries, adding that the matter extended "to the exploitation of their financial resources in spreading extremism and the use of European lands as a springboard for their terrorist activities in the country." the world".
- The group’s arrival to power in Egypt constituted a true test of its intentions, as it sought from the economic point of view to employ its management of the economy to develop its financial wealth and achieve its political project of restoring the Islamic caliphate, and accordingly, the country's economy witnessed a remarkable decline, as revealed by the decline in the credit rating of the Egyptian economy.
- Economy was one of the pillars of the Brotherhood’s strategy, after the fall of its rule, to resist security pressures on the one hand and exhaust the Egyptian state in a long-term economic war on the other hand. It is a strategy based on employing a complex network of exchange institutions, banks and shops, and intertwined relationships with drug mafias, currency dealers, Egyptians in foreign countries and others, to strike the economic stability in Egypt. This strategy on the part of the Egyptian state has met an unprecedented firmness that reflects its determination to mobilize its full energy in destroying the Brotherhood’s money empire by issuing a number of decisions and laws that strengthen its security grip in order to encircle the group’s sources of power and dismantle its networks.
- The continuation of the group as a factor for geopolitical balances and a point of intersection of strategic interests makes regional and international powers betting on their survival and employing them as a media and political pressure card on Arab regimes and what this entails in terms of turning a blind eye to prohibited or suspicious activities and movements related to the financial aspect in particular. Rather, Qatar and Turkey consider the group a Trojan horse to interfere in the affairs of the countries of the region.
