The Muslim Brotherhood is an important tool for Erdogan, who is using his status as an influential world leader to further his aim of drawing the Islamic ummah together. According to the Cairo Review:
Turkey has promoted close cooperation with non-governmental organizations from the Muslim world, worked to revitalize the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, hosted dozens of international conferences attended by prominent religious figures as well as secular intellectuals/academics from the Middle East and Southeast Asia, undertaken numerous renovation projects of Ottoman heritage, and delivered various forms of international humanitarian aid—primarily to Muslims in need.
Through the AKP’s and Erdogan’s efforts to strengthen their historical ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic religious movements, Turkey has become a hub where transnational Islamic religious opinion makers can meet and discuss common problems.
Erdogan’s commitment to and support of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is well established, as is that of Qatar. Using the MB as a vehicle, Erdogan’s goal of a revived Ottoman Empire is further in reach, since the MB is a global Islamic movement, with a specialty in infiltration.
The MB is far more sophisticated than the crude jihadist foot soldiers of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS and the like, but its aim is the same: to establish the Sharia within its own territory of operation, and to expand it throughout the world. It is a highly deceptive movement, rooted in jihad, despite how its operatives may appear to outsiders.
The MB becomes emboldened depending on the situation. Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt are examples of the group’s readiness and ability to wage armed jihad. “Jihad is the way” is the fundamental concept of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology, and its ultimate goal is the establishing “an Islamic state, world domination under Islam, the public and personal religious duty of military Jihad, and the warning not to rush to Jihad until it is prepared and timed for maximum benefit.”