*This article was published in the Trending Events periodical, issued by Future for Advanced Research & Studies - Issue 5, Dec 2014.

A host of questions are being asked about the Muslim Brotherhood's mindset, self-awareness, collective consciousness, historical awareness, as well as its current reality. When one stumbles upon the rampant rhetoric of violence, justifications and practices, one will also come across the following revealing statements made by the Muslim Brotherhood's leaders:

• "Mohammed Morsi will return to power this year, or no later than next year."
• "Morsi has given his life to achieve the triumph of rightness, and has put Egypt on the track of democracy."
• "We owe him allegiance and that means we must release him from prison and reinstate him as president at any cost, even if that means we sacrifice our lives for the sake of this allegiance."

Deputy Supreme Guide of Muslim Brotherhood, Khairat el-Shater during his trial, also broke his silence and said, "The Muslim Brotherhood will soon meet their president Mohammed Morsi at Tahrir Square." One will even be shocked to hear a Brotherhood preacher recalling the Rabea al-Adaweya Square sit-in and saying that Morsi, according to what a pious man saw in his dream is backed by Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) to lead a group prayer at Rabea al-Adaweya Mosque. In a statement released by the Brotherhood went on to say, that "Morsi is no longer an ordinary man. Rather he became a symbol of the noble principles and values which the successive generations of humanity have been struggling for." This was not even the end of it, when Brotherhood figurehead Jamal Abdul Sattar, said, "We do not need to theorize or give justifications, and with one year behind us, we have grown more convinced of our positions, happier with our choices, more aware of the justice of our cause. And even if we are to go back in time, we will again choose this path that we are on now."

Since the July 30 Revolution, the Muslim Brotherhood has been incessantly trying to absorb the shock of what had happened in Egypt in a bid to avert the collapse and disintegration of its organization and to prevent their opponents from exposing its members. For its leaders, the rapid downfall of the Brotherhood only a year after taking power in Egypt was the result of others' plots against the organization. The ultimate goal of is to keep the Muslim Brotherhood's mindset alive and maintain this mindset as the core of the organization. The skill and workmanship of the Brotherhood mindset is manifested in the organization's process of reincarnating the past which was the only thing that it has embraced since its establishment. A couple of explanations can be presented here for the sake of analyzing the Brotherhood's non-realistic state of being, reasoning, mindset and self-perceived imaginary state of being that is remote from reality.

First: The Beast of Ideology

Reason can easily be transformed into myth when it loses independence and becomes eclipsed by what German sociologist Max Horkheimer describes as an ideological beast, when reason is abused and captivated by ideology, whereby one’s reason falls prey to ideological manipulations and doctrinaires. Those working behind the guise of religion, utopian promises and rosy dreams all serve as mythical attire for most of man's beliefs, and also as a guise that conceals visions and conceptions meant to look like sacred, infallible, impeccable and beyond criticism.

The Muslim Brotherhood's literature, from the days of its founder Hassan al-Banna, reveals the fact that the organization's mindset was created and nurtured on a self-made myth that the organization is the link between heavens and earth, between the heavenly and the mundane, and that it was chosen and tasked by Heavens with the mission of carrying the message of the Divine Revelation to human beings and jinn.

Because myths can control minds for long periods of time due to the fact that religion and myth are in harmony, and that, according to history, non-realism prevails over realism - the mindset of the Muslim Brotherhood, branded as terrorist organization with its leaders either in jail or abroad, realized that the past and current happenings do threaten their very existence and destiny. Therefore, survival of the organization required the re-production of the myth of this mindset in a favorable environment that, historically, was not alien, and even was the only one the organization knew except until shortly after the Arab revolutions broke out.

That is why this "mythical rhetoric" is used massively and in an unprecedented manner. This rhetoric is revealed when a Muslim Brotherhood leader says, for instance, "If it closes its ranks again, the Muslim Brotherhood, using its massive power and capabilities, will not only invalidate the coup d’état, but will also possess weapons of mass destruction and become an organization that is able to frighten rulers in all capital cities." In this context, this organization is willing to mythicize the deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, and incessantly and repeatedly suggest that he will come back because he is part of the myth of survival and endurance of the Brotherhood's mindset, in terms of structure and organization.

Second: Discourse of Crisis and Triumph

The mindset of the Brotherhood calls to mind the discourse of crisis and triumph, and invokes vocabulary that urge patience and steadfastness from the ideologically-laden memory in order to stay connected to the whole entity of the organization. Instances of this discourse include: "O true believers, keep steadfast in defense of rightness as Allah designated you as its guardians"; “It is but the crisis that usually precedes the Divine triumph and conclusiveness"; "This is but the crisis created by criminals as they imagine that they decided people's fate, but eventually the crisis turns into overwhelming triumph."

Sayyid Qutb's ideology and ideas about victory and triumph in particular, has a strong presence in and influence on the Brotherhood's mindset.  The achievement of triumph, Qutb maintains, may be delayed because the falsehood that the true believers are fighting is not totally exposed for people to see, or because the environment is not yet capable of embracing the rightness and truth. In this case, if they triumph, they will face opposition. And, according to Qutb, the achievement of triumph may be postponed, for God knows whatever reason, and the sacrifices and suffering double. This is an attempt to justify and cover up the failures of the Brotherhood.

Third: Show of Power

When this mindset is driven by reason that is abused by ideology, and by a passion that can transform into a myth in the hope of achieving survival and endurance, it will also seek to put up a show of power in a bid to assert its existence and its capabilities. In doing so, the Brotherhood's mindset takes advantage of the rightness and truth for the sake of survival. However, it is interested in embracing truth only when truth is on its side, but can hardly see truth or even recognize it when it is on the side of adversaries that threaten its very existence, and would even disclaim truth using all legitimate and illegitimate means.

The two approaches pursued by the Brotherhood in this respect can be outlined as follows:

1. Claiming that all people, including friends and enemies, passionately seek to reconcile with the Brotherhood. Then one of its members puts forth initiatives only to find the Brotherhood itself harshly criticizing the concerned initiative as "heresy" and then categorically and collectively declaring that "no initiatives" will be accepted and that they will continue their escalating revolutionary action until they achieve triumph. However, the real goal is to make all people, their enemies in particular, feel that the Brotherhood is alive.
2. Incitement and perpetration of violence, where the Brotherhood's mindset seeks to revive and recover its legend and past that is laden with crises, as an attempt to survive. This revival is completely detached from reality,  and is unable to come up with a way to disengage and escape stigmas associated with the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood's literature is seen by others as always being confused, disarranged, corrupt, and in crisis. Hence incitement of and intrinsic use of violence becomes another approach to make others think that the Brotherhood's mindset is still alive, at a time when religion appears as if it is impacting and rearranging identities in the whole region.

In this respect, the message that the Brotherhood's mindset wants to send across is what it always used to be during the historical crises it went through. This message is that if this mindset is not recognized once again, then "there will be Fitnah and great mischief and corruption."  This is what the third Murshid (Supreme Leader) of the Brotherhood; Omar Telmesani said when the late former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in the 1981 mass roundup imprisoned all the leaders of opposition, including the Muslim Brotherhood. Telmesani's message was in fact that "If you do not recognize (our organization), then there will be Fitnah (i.e. disagreement and division among people, chaos, disorder, and social anarchy), because you left the country without the sincere and loyal guardians. It is up to the officials, and history has no mercy, and even what is far more important than history is that Allah records all their deeds and leaves neither a small thing nor a big thing but has recorded it with numbers. So, what is the opinion of the officials?"

In conclusion, the Muslim Brotherhood's mindset has always acted on the logic established by the founder of Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood, Mustafa al-Sibai, who once said, "Oh old-aged politicians, give way and let us pass because we want to walk ahead." Or it might work on "mythicizing" itself embracing repetition, i.e. repetition versus growth, which is the main characteristic of death where a dead thing ceases to grow and eventually decomposes, or will be stuck in repeating itself forever.