Transnational Islamic networks

From Cairo to Kabul: The Expanding Reach of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda

International Review of The Red Cross

The report traces how transnational Islamist networks—rooted in movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami and radicalized further by thinkers like Sayyid Qutb and Abul Ala Maududi—have reshaped political Islam across South and South-west Asia. It contrasts the region’s older, Sufi-influenced, devotional Islam with reformist and Salafi currents that reject local customs and push a literalist return to founding texts. After mid-20th century upheavals (the abolition of the caliphate, anti-colonial struggles) and the Afghan jihad against the Soviets, these reformist currents coalesced into powerful transnational networks that export ideology, recruit followers, and provide a template for both political activism and violent jihad.

The report shows how state and private patrons—most notably Saudi funding and Pakistan’s ISI—helped institutionalize these networks by financing seminaries, mosques, charities, and militant proxies, while the Afghan conflict created practical linkages, training grounds, and a global cadre of fighters. Today the movement spans distinct but overlapping spheres—the Arab Muslim Brotherhood milieu, South Asian Jamaat groups and jihadi outfits, and Iran-aligned Shia movements—united by shared goals (enforcing Sharia, anti-Western/anti-Israeli politics, and anti-colonial rhetoric). The result is a resilient, transnational ecosystem in which ideology, funding, and local grievances fuse to sustain recruitment, sectarian violence, and regional instability.