Once considered an institution of excellence in higher learning, Yale Law School is exhibiting a high degree of empty-headedness by welcoming a foreign Muslim Brotherhood leader to head a lecture there. His name is Rachid al-Ghannouchi and like other Brotherhood figures, he benefited greatly from the ‘Arab Spring’ and he heads the Ennahda Party in Tunisia.

al-Ghannouchi

Another common thread that runs through Muslim Brotherhood leaders and loyalists is deference toward Turkey. Ghannouchi is no exception and while his bonafides with the Brotherhood are cause for concern, his desire for a resurrected Ottoman caliphate based in Turkey is practically a foregone conclusion.

In 2011, al-Ghannouchi traveled to Turkey for the funeral of that country’s first Islamic fundamentalist prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan. While there, al-Ghannouchi gave a press conference at the headquarters of the IHH, which is the same group that led the notorious Gaza flotilla less than one year earlier.

Necmettin Erbakan

A Turkish newspaper relayed al-Ghannouchi’s comments about Erbakan thusly:

Describing Erbakan as “not only a friend, but a big brother,” Ghannouchi said he heard of the Turkish politician’s death while he was in Tunis.

“This was a very tragic event,” he said. “The elaborate funeral that Erbakan received, those who attended and those who watched extended between 1.5 million and 2 million… the feelings evoked from the Turkish people showed how much respect and love they have for this leader”

Ghannouchi compared Erbakan to the intellectual forefathers and founders of the Muslim Brotherhood. “In the Arab world in my generation, when [people] talked about the Islamic movement, they talked about Erbakan. When they talked about Erbakan, it is comparable to the way they talked about [Brotherhood founders] Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb,” he said.

Ghannouchi was being truthful in this instance. In a video posted by Shoebat.com previously, Erbakan can be seen seated next to current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan front and center, during a speech given by Sufi Sheikh Nazeem Kibrisi; it took place in Belgium in 1994. In his speech, Kibrisi called for the return of the Ottoman empire and insisted that the youth in the audience would help make it happen.

Just a few months after Erbakan’s funeral, al-Ghannouchi boasted that his Ennahda Party and Erdogan’s AKP Party are closely aligned:

When defining his party to the Algerian newspaper, al-Ghannouchi said that he compares his party to the leading Islamic party in Turkey AKP (Justice and Development Party) and that he, personally has a great relationship with the Turkish Prime Minister and AKP leader Mr. Erdogan.

That puts al-Ghannouchi on the side of two men in the front row of an adoring crowd in 1994 that cheered a Sheikh who called for a rebirth of the Ottoman empire.

Another figure who has called for a Caliphate to be based in Turkey is Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, with whom al-Ghannouchi is also affiliated. As Shoebat.com reported, he traveled to Istanbul recently to declare it. The timing of al-Qaradawi’s trip and declaration came with an effort to undercut ISIS, which had declared a caliphate itself. In traveling to Turkey to reveal his thoughts, al-Qaradawi was letting ISIS know it was playing small ball and was out of its league.

In addition to being a founding member of the World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group, al-Ghannouchi has enjoyed a membership with the European Council for Fatwa and Research; al-Qaradawi leads that organization.

Prior to the fall of Tunisia during the Arab Spring, al-Ghannouchi had been banned from that country for years. Unfortunately for western civilization, he took up residence in London during his exile.

As other reports convey shock and outrage that Yale would welcome al-Ghannouchi to lead a lecture when he’s got a past that includes support for Hamas and calls for “unceasing war against the Americans”, the much greater concerns are missed.

Those concerns indicate that al-Ghannouchi desires a Caliphate that will dwarf ISIS.