History of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (1954-present)
Encyclopedia
The History of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (1954–present) encompasses the History of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
from its suppression under Nasser to its formation into the largest opposition bloc in the Egyptian parliament. The Brotherhood
operates under the slogan "Islam Is the Solution," and aims to establish an Islamic state governed by religious law. Though officially illegal in Egypt, it operates "more or less in the open." It has been described as "a deeply entrenched force, with hundreds of thousands of members and affiliates across the Middle East".
in Egypt
, many members of the Muslim Brotherhood
were held in concentration camps, where they were torture
d. Some died in custody, including 21 Brothers killed in their cells in June 1957. Those who
escaped arrest went into hiding, both in Egypt and in other countries. One of those tortured was Sayyid Qutb
, former editor of the Society's newspaper, a prolific writer of fiction, literary criticism and articles on political and social issues, and author of the bestseller Social Justice in Islam, which set out the principles of an Islamic
socialism
. He became the Brotherhood's most influential thinker for a time, and in 1959 the organisation's General Guide, Hassan Isam'il
al-Hudaybi, gave him responsibility for the Brothers detained in prisons and concentration camps. Qutb attempted to interpret the situation in the camps in Islamic terms; these reflections, which he circulated as commentaries on passages from the Qur'an
, came to encompass an analysis of the regime that meted out such barbarous treatment to its prisoners.
Outside the prisons, those Brothers who had gone underground began to reorganise. In 1956, those who had been imprisoned but not judged were released. Zaynab al-Ghazali, head of the Association of Muslim Women, organised charitable work to meet the basic needs of these now-impoverished Brothers. Along with Brotherhood leader 'Abd al Fattah Isma'il, she went on to play a key role in rebuilding the organisation. While Al-Ghazali's
focus was on Islamic education, other autonomous groups of Brothers also appeared, who were impatient to avenge the suppression of the Brotherhood in 1954. They found the analytical framework and political programme they were looking for in Qutb's writings, which were circulated by Al-Ghazali and in which his assessment of the Nasser regime, and of the way in which it could be overcome, was gradually taking shape.
In 1964, Qutb was released for several months, and his book Milestones was published; it was reprinted five times in six months. In it, Qutb argued that humanity was in the midst of a profound crisis caused by the failure to adopt a value system that could allow human beings to live in harmony; the threat of nuclear war was a symptom of this ailment. The value systems that dominated the world had failed to live up to their promises. The Western world
's concept of democracy
, based on an individualistic
ideology, had led to vast social injustice, colonialism
and the domination of human beings by capital
. In the Eastern bloc
, collectivist
ideology had failed as well: Marxism
had lost touch with its original principles, and had become the ideology of oppressive states. Qutb saw Islam as the solution to humanity's predicament: the entire world (including Egypt) was living in a state of jahiliyya, which can be roughly translated as a way of life characterised by ignorant hostility towards god's will. In particular, human beings erred in allowing themselves to establish their own value systems, instead of accepting god's sovereignty.
Although the theme of the failure of both capitalism and socialism was not new in the Brotherhood's discourse, the application of the concept of jahiliyya to Egyptian society represented an innovation, motivated in part by Qutb's personal experience of the brutality of what had become a
totalitarian
state.
In order to play its proper role, Islam needed to find tangible
expression in an Ummah
, a society of people whose lives
were fully in accord with Islamic ethics
. A vanguard of
believers was needed to begin creating the Ummah, which would
then grow until it encompassed the entire world. Qutb meant for
his book to provide "milestones" tracing the path that this
vanguard should follow. Faced with a totalitarian state, he
advised them to prepare a jihad
whose military aspect
went beyond self-defence, and aimed to overthrow those who had
usurped the sovereignty
that should be God's alone. Qutb's
view was that this preparation would take up to fifteen
years.
Milestones gave rise to debates within the Brotherhood
between young activists who favoured an immediate coup, and more
experienced members such as Zaynab al-Ghazali, who took the view
that the organisation should limit itself, for decades if need
be, to educational work until it had 75% of the population on its
side. In August 1965, the government claimed to have
discovered that the Brotherhood was organising a huge
revolution
ary plot. About 18,000 people were
arrested, 100–200 were imprisoned, and 38 of these were killed in
custody during the investigation. The police made systematic use
of torture during interrogations; many, including Sayyid Qutb and
Zaynab al-Ghazali, were tortured for months. The police
destroyed the village of Kardasa, where the police believed a
suspect was hiding, and arrested and tortured its entire
population. Raids throughout Egypt were accompanied by an
intense media campaign against the Brotherhood. On the basis of
confessions obtained under torture, Qutb and two other Brothers
were hanged in August 1966. In the 1970s, it emerged that the plot
had probably been fabricated by the security services as part of
a conflict between different factions within the regime.
After Qutb's death, his ideas remained influential but
controversial within the Brotherhood. Some of the younger
Brothers interpreted Qutb's analysis to mean that anyone who
failed to revolt against a tyrannical regime, or whose government
was not based on Islamic law, should be regarded as
excommunicated
; they saw this as a justification of a
revolutionary strategy. The Brotherhood's leadership, which
favoured a reformist
approach, disagreed, pointing
out that it is sufficient to utter a
profession of faith twice in order to become a
Muslim
, and that though there are Muslims who sin, this is
not considered grounds for excommunication. In contrast to those
young Brothers who advocated revolution, the leadership
maintained the view that the organisation should rely on
educational work in order to reform Egyptian society. This
policy, which has characterised the Brotherhood ever since,
earned it the scorn of revolutionary Islamic militant groups.
, introduced a
policy of economic liberalisation
and, to a much
lesser extent, political liberalisation
. In
1971 the concentration camps were closed, and the regime
began to gradually release the imprisoned Brothers, though the
organisation itself remained illegal; the last of those still
behind bars regained their freedom in the general amnesty of
1975. The Brotherhood did not officially designate a new
General Guide after Hudaybi's death in 1973; Umar Talmasani
became its most prominent spokesperson. Although the
organisation refused to give its allegiance to Sadat, its critics
on the Egyptian left
chastised it for not
taking a clear stand against the regime and against economic
inequality. Its members came to include many successful
businessmen who had profited from Sadat's free-market economic
policies (infitah).
The Brotherhood's main political demand during this period was
the application of shari'a
law; the government
responded by initiating a lengthy review of all Egyptian law to
determine how best to harmonise it with shari'a. In 1980,
the constitution was amended to state that shari'a "is the
main source of all legislation".
Another important objective for the Brotherhood was to persuade
the government to allow it to operate legally and to act as a
political party, whose representatives would stand for office in
Parliament. This request was not granted, and the Political
Parties Law of 1977 specifically prohibited parties based on
religious affiliation. However, the Brotherhood was tolerated to
an extent, and in 1976 it was allowed to publish its monthly
newspaper, Al-Da'wa
("The Invitation to Islam"), whose circulation
is estimated to have reached 100,000 before it was shut down in
1981.
Al-Da'wa often focused on the problem of
Palestine; its editors disapproved of the
Camp David accords of 1978 and the
peace treaty
signed by Egypt and
Israel in 1979, arguing that Israel would never accept a peaceful
and just solution to the conflict. Articles in Al-Da'wa
tended to portray all Jews, whether Israel
i
or not, as inherently untrustworthy and guilty of the injustice
endured by the Palestinians, and repeated myths
typical of anti-Semitic
texts. At the same
time, and often in the same articles, the paper continued to
reject Arab nationalism
. The editors also condemned
Christian evangelism
, communism
and
secularism
.
Scholars differ on the Brotherhood's influence on Egyptian
politics in the 1970s, but it seems clear that other
Islamic political movements
came to play a more important role. After Egypt's defeat in the
1967 war with Israel
, students and workers had
protested against the regime's failure to take responsibility for
the defeat, and began to call for a more democratic political
system. The broad student movement which took shape was at first
mainly secular in nature, but student Islamic groups gradually
came to the fore, thanks to their ability to implement practical
solutions to problems faced by students in their daily life (such
as severe overcrowding), by means of the national student union
in which they were increasingly elected to positions of responsibility. When Sadat's
economic policies caused severe price increases for basic
necessities and appalling degradations in public services
(leading to huge riots in January 1977), these groups gained
influence outside universities as well. Al-Da'wa supported
the student Islamic movement, and leaders of the Muslim
Brotherhood were invited to speak at large, festive gatherings
organised by student groups on Islamic holidays. When the
government began to obstruct the student movement, and then to
attack it using riot police, the Brotherhood's relations with the
government soured as well.
The Brotherhood's spokespeople consistently rejected the revolutionary and terrorist
violence of the militant Islamic groups that appeared in Egypt during the 1970s (such as Al-Jihad, which assassinated Sadat in October 1981). At the same time, they argued that increasingly brutal police persecution was largely to blame for this
radicalisation, and that if the Brotherhood were legalised, it would be able to help prevent extremism by providing Islamic education to young people. These arguments fell on deaf ears; in
the months before his assassination, while his popularity was plummeting, Sadat ordered massive arrests among all opposition forces, including the Brotherhood. The arrested Brothers were
released in January 1982, having been cleared of any wrongdoing.
, who succeeded Sadat in 1981 and has remained in power until 2011, the Brotherhood's relations with the government are still essentially what they were under Sadat: the Brotherhood is tolerated to a degree, but is officially illegal, is not allowed to distribute literature or assemble in public, and is subject to periodic arrests. It has nevertheless published two newspapers (Liwa' al-islam, "The Banner of Islam", and al-I'tisam, "Adherence"), maintained regional and national offices and made public statements, and
books by prominent Brothers are sold in bookshops. The Brotherhood has held to its reformist outlook, pursuing a long-term, gradualist approach to the establishment of an Islamic state with popular consent, by reforming society from the bottom up, using persuasion and other nonviolent
means.
Despite being outlawed, the Brotherhood has been able to take advantage of political and social developments in Egypt to increase its membership and influence. Egypt's emergency law
imposes drastic limits on legal political opposition, and it is widely believed that elections are routinely rigged in favour of the government. However, Islamic charitable organisations and private mosque
s have flourished; though many of these organisations are apolitical, it is largely within this decentralised network of associations, which pursue different agendas and enjoy different degrees of autonomy from the state, that dissent has found expression. There is also anecdotal evidence that Islamic activists have gained some influence within the state bureaucracy, and that their supporters include many doctors, teachers and administrators. The Muslim Brotherhood has benefited from these developments more than any other Islamic political group, thanks in part to the energetic efforts of a cadre of experienced activists in their thirties and forties, who had honed their skills in the student movement under Sadat and joined the Brotherhood after graduation.
The Brotherhood has been particularly successful at recruiting young people, including university students and recent graduates. Jobs, material goods, and the money needed for a conventional wedding have been increasingly out of reach for young Egyptians, and rampant corruption and a closed, authoritarian
political system have bred alienation
(ightirab) and despair. The Islamic revival offers a way of life in which young people can be respected for their piety and Islamic learning rather than for their titles or wealth, and in which it is considered admirable to live simply. The view that it is the duty of every Muslim to be involved in political and social reform (which the Brotherhood particularly emphasises) acts as an antidote to political alienation and defeatism, enabling young people to feel more optimistic about the future. Women from lower-middle-class backgrounds have found that stricter religious observance gives them increased respectability, enabling them to disregard other social codes that would otherwise limit their options in areas such as education, career and marriage. Young people's work in the Brotherhood includes organising Islamic seminars and plays, supporting Brotherhood candidates in elections in student unions, professional associations and parliament, and participating in demonstrations
.
Parliamentary elections, though largely closed to opposition, give some indication of the Brotherhood's popularity under Mubarak. In the 1984 elections, the Brotherhood was allowed to run candidates for the Wafd party. In 1987 it was permitted to repeat the experiment, this time switching to the Labour Party. In both cases, the party aligned with the Brotherhood received more votes than all the other opposition parties combined.
Increased government repression led to a conflict between the Brotherhood's "old guard", which dominated its Guidance Bureau, and its middle generation of leaders, who favoured cooperation with other political trends, a more open internal debate on political issues, a more concerted effort to gain legality for the organisation and a more liberal interpretation of Islam
.
On 20 January 1996, Hamid Abu an-Nasr, the General Leader of Egypt's MB died. His successor was MB first deputy, Mustafa Mashhur, who had been "an active member of the underground secret apparatus (al-Jihaz al-Sirri)" as a youth. He had spent a total of 16 years in prison and was considered a hard liner. The Egyptian interior minister, Hasan al-Alfi, responded with a threateing speech and shortly after a raid on the MB central offices and the arrest of 46 members.
Also that year, to the dismay of the Brotherhood's senior leadership, a group of prominent middle-generation leaders left the Brotherhood and joined with several Copt
s to form a new political party, called Wasat
("Centre"), intended to represent "a civic platform based on the Islamic faith, which believes in pluralism and the alternation of power". The Wasat Party has won the support of some well-known secular intellectuals, but its repeated requests to become a legal political party have been denied.
In its public statements, the Brotherhood has shed the religious intolerance and anti-Semitism
expressed in its newspaper in the 1970s. In recent years its spokespeople have said that Copts are welcome to join the organisation (noting that Hassan al-Banna
had two Copts as his assistants, and was known for his lack of prejudice towards Copts); Mohammad Mahdi Akef, who became the Brotherhood's General Guide in 2004 at the age of 75 told Al-Jazeera in 2005:
In recent years, the Brotherhood has frequently called for greater democracy in the Middle East
. 'Abd al-Mun'im Abu-l-Futuh, one of the middle-generation leaders who is respected both in the Brotherhood and in the Wasat Party
, told the International Crisis Group in 2004:
, "enough"), and many of the Brotherhood's members were arrested, over 700 in May 2005 alone.
In the 2005 parliamentary elections, the Brotherhood's candidates, who stood as independents, won 88 seats (20% of the total) to form the largest opposition bloc, despite many violations of the electoral process, including the arrest of hundreds of Brotherhood members. Meanwhile, the legal opposition parties won only 14 seats; this revived the debate among secularists and Coptics about whether is cause for worry over the rise of the Brotherhood.
movement in 2005. Since 2005 Muslim Brotherhood members in Egypt have also become a significant movement online. In 2006 Abdel Menem Mahmoud created the first publicly identified Brotherhood blog, Ana Ikhwan (http://ana-ikhwan.blogspot.com). In an article for Arab Media & Society (http://www.arabmediasociety.com), Courtney C. Radsch of American University
explores how the Egyptian blogosphere expanded as many younger members followed suit, especially the activists who were sympathetic to Kefaya and members who wanted to be part of the discussion about the draft party platform. These "cyberactivists" are often critical of the organization, such as its rejection of women and Copts as being permitted to hold the presidency, and more liberal than their offline counterparts.
Its 2005 success provoked "a government counterattack" against the Brotherhood. Egypt's constitution was amended in 2007 in favor of registered parties and against independents, to the disadvantage of the officially outlawed Brethren which can only field candidates as independents. In 2008 the state disqualified most Brotherhood candidates in the local council elections. The Mubarak regime also launched a wave of arrests and military trials against the Brethren, "ensnared thousands of rank-and-file members," but also important leaders "who ran the financial apparatus that funnels millions of dollars in donations and investment proceeds into campaigning and social outreach." This has weakened the movement, as have some recent controversial positions of the Brotherhood. In 2007 it distributed a draft program for its proposed political party which called for a ban on women
or Christians
as Egypt's president
, and for a special council of Islamic clerics to vet parliamentary legislation. During the 2008-9 Gaza War, some Brotherhood leaders called for Egyptians to go to Gaza
and fight Israel, notwithstanding Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel.
History of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Ismailia, Egypt by Hassan al-Banna in March 1928 as an Islamist religious, political, and social movement...
from its suppression under Nasser to its formation into the largest opposition bloc in the Egyptian parliament. The Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is an Islamist religious, political, and social movement. Following the 2011 Revolution the group was legalized, and with an estimated 600,000 members or supporters it's considered the largest, best-organized political force in Egypt...
operates under the slogan "Islam Is the Solution," and aims to establish an Islamic state governed by religious law. Though officially illegal in Egypt, it operates "more or less in the open." It has been described as "a deeply entrenched force, with hundreds of thousands of members and affiliates across the Middle East".
The Brotherhood under Nasser, 1954–1970
Throughout the rule of Gamal 'Abd al-NasserGamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of...
in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, many members of the Muslim Brotherhood
History of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Ismailia, Egypt by Hassan al-Banna in March 1928 as an Islamist religious, political, and social movement...
were held in concentration camps, where they were torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
d. Some died in custody, including 21 Brothers killed in their cells in June 1957. Those who
escaped arrest went into hiding, both in Egypt and in other countries. One of those tortured was Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid Qutb was an Egyptian author, educator, Islamist theorist, poet, and the leading member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and '60s....
, former editor of the Society's newspaper, a prolific writer of fiction, literary criticism and articles on political and social issues, and author of the bestseller Social Justice in Islam, which set out the principles of an Islamic
Islamic socialism
Islamic socialism is a term coined by various Muslim leaders to describe a more spiritual form of socialism. Muslim socialists believe that the teachings of the Qur'an and Muhammad are compatible with principles of equality and the redistribution of wealth....
socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. He became the Brotherhood's most influential thinker for a time, and in 1959 the organisation's General Guide, Hassan Isam'il
al-Hudaybi, gave him responsibility for the Brothers detained in prisons and concentration camps. Qutb attempted to interpret the situation in the camps in Islamic terms; these reflections, which he circulated as commentaries on passages from the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
, came to encompass an analysis of the regime that meted out such barbarous treatment to its prisoners.
Outside the prisons, those Brothers who had gone underground began to reorganise. In 1956, those who had been imprisoned but not judged were released. Zaynab al-Ghazali, head of the Association of Muslim Women, organised charitable work to meet the basic needs of these now-impoverished Brothers. Along with Brotherhood leader 'Abd al Fattah Isma'il, she went on to play a key role in rebuilding the organisation. While Al-Ghazali's
focus was on Islamic education, other autonomous groups of Brothers also appeared, who were impatient to avenge the suppression of the Brotherhood in 1954. They found the analytical framework and political programme they were looking for in Qutb's writings, which were circulated by Al-Ghazali and in which his assessment of the Nasser regime, and of the way in which it could be overcome, was gradually taking shape.
In 1964, Qutb was released for several months, and his book Milestones was published; it was reprinted five times in six months. In it, Qutb argued that humanity was in the midst of a profound crisis caused by the failure to adopt a value system that could allow human beings to live in harmony; the threat of nuclear war was a symptom of this ailment. The value systems that dominated the world had failed to live up to their promises. The Western world
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
's concept of democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
, based on an individualistic
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
ideology, had led to vast social injustice, colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
and the domination of human beings by capital
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
. In the Eastern bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
, collectivist
Collectivism
Collectivism is any philosophic, political, economic, mystical or social outlook that emphasizes the interdependence of every human in some collective group and the priority of group goals over individual goals. Collectivists usually focus on community, society, or nation...
ideology had failed as well: Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
had lost touch with its original principles, and had become the ideology of oppressive states. Qutb saw Islam as the solution to humanity's predicament: the entire world (including Egypt) was living in a state of jahiliyya, which can be roughly translated as a way of life characterised by ignorant hostility towards god's will. In particular, human beings erred in allowing themselves to establish their own value systems, instead of accepting god's sovereignty.
Although the theme of the failure of both capitalism and socialism was not new in the Brotherhood's discourse, the application of the concept of jahiliyya to Egyptian society represented an innovation, motivated in part by Qutb's personal experience of the brutality of what had become a
totalitarian
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
state.
In order to play its proper role, Islam needed to find tangible
expression in an Ummah
Ummah
Ummah is an Arabic word meaning "community" or "nation." It is commonly used to mean either the collective nation of states, or the whole Arab world...
, a society of people whose lives
were fully in accord with Islamic ethics
Islamic ethics
Islamic ethics , defined as "good character," historically took shape gradually from the 7th century and was finally established by the 11th century...
. A vanguard of
believers was needed to begin creating the Ummah, which would
then grow until it encompassed the entire world. Qutb meant for
his book to provide "milestones" tracing the path that this
vanguard should follow. Faced with a totalitarian state, he
advised them to prepare a jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
whose military aspect
went beyond self-defence, and aimed to overthrow those who had
usurped the sovereignty
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...
that should be God's alone. Qutb's
view was that this preparation would take up to fifteen
years.
Milestones gave rise to debates within the Brotherhood
between young activists who favoured an immediate coup, and more
experienced members such as Zaynab al-Ghazali, who took the view
that the organisation should limit itself, for decades if need
be, to educational work until it had 75% of the population on its
side. In August 1965, the government claimed to have
discovered that the Brotherhood was organising a huge
revolution
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
ary plot. About 18,000 people were
arrested, 100–200 were imprisoned, and 38 of these were killed in
custody during the investigation. The police made systematic use
of torture during interrogations; many, including Sayyid Qutb and
Zaynab al-Ghazali, were tortured for months. The police
destroyed the village of Kardasa, where the police believed a
suspect was hiding, and arrested and tortured its entire
population. Raids throughout Egypt were accompanied by an
intense media campaign against the Brotherhood. On the basis of
confessions obtained under torture, Qutb and two other Brothers
were hanged in August 1966. In the 1970s, it emerged that the plot
had probably been fabricated by the security services as part of
a conflict between different factions within the regime.
After Qutb's death, his ideas remained influential but
controversial within the Brotherhood. Some of the younger
Brothers interpreted Qutb's analysis to mean that anyone who
failed to revolt against a tyrannical regime, or whose government
was not based on Islamic law, should be regarded as
excommunicated
Takfir
In Islamic law, takfir or takfeer refers to the practice of one Muslim declaring another Muslim an unbeliever or kafir...
; they saw this as a justification of a
revolutionary strategy. The Brotherhood's leadership, which
favoured a reformist
Reformism
Reformism is the belief that gradual democratic changes in a society can ultimately change a society's fundamental economic relations and political structures...
approach, disagreed, pointing
out that it is sufficient to utter a
profession of faith twice in order to become a
Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
, and that though there are Muslims who sin, this is
not considered grounds for excommunication. In contrast to those
young Brothers who advocated revolution, the leadership
maintained the view that the organisation should rely on
educational work in order to reform Egyptian society. This
policy, which has characterised the Brotherhood ever since,
earned it the scorn of revolutionary Islamic militant groups.
The Brotherhood Under Sadat, 1970–1981
Nasser's successor, Anwar al-SadatAnwar Sadat
Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October 1981...
, introduced a
policy of economic liberalisation
Free trade
Under a free trade policy, prices emerge from supply and demand, and are the sole determinant of resource allocation. 'Free' trade differs from other forms of trade policy where the allocation of goods and services among trading countries are determined by price strategies that may differ from...
and, to a much
lesser extent, political liberalisation
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
. In
1971 the concentration camps were closed, and the regime
began to gradually release the imprisoned Brothers, though the
organisation itself remained illegal; the last of those still
behind bars regained their freedom in the general amnesty of
1975. The Brotherhood did not officially designate a new
General Guide after Hudaybi's death in 1973; Umar Talmasani
became its most prominent spokesperson. Although the
organisation refused to give its allegiance to Sadat, its critics
on the Egyptian left
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
chastised it for not
taking a clear stand against the regime and against economic
inequality. Its members came to include many successful
businessmen who had profited from Sadat's free-market economic
policies (infitah).
The Brotherhood's main political demand during this period was
the application of shari'a
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
law; the government
responded by initiating a lengthy review of all Egyptian law to
determine how best to harmonise it with shari'a. In 1980,
the constitution was amended to state that shari'a "is the
main source of all legislation".
Another important objective for the Brotherhood was to persuade
the government to allow it to operate legally and to act as a
political party, whose representatives would stand for office in
Parliament. This request was not granted, and the Political
Parties Law of 1977 specifically prohibited parties based on
religious affiliation. However, the Brotherhood was tolerated to
an extent, and in 1976 it was allowed to publish its monthly
newspaper, Al-Da'wa
("The Invitation to Islam"), whose circulation
is estimated to have reached 100,000 before it was shut down in
1981.
Al-Da'wa often focused on the problem of
Palestine; its editors disapproved of the
Camp David accords of 1978 and the
peace treaty
Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty
The 1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty was signed in Washington, D.C. on the 26th of March 1979, following the 1978 Camp David Accords, which were signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and were witnessed by United States President Jimmy Carter.The peace...
signed by Egypt and
Israel in 1979, arguing that Israel would never accept a peaceful
and just solution to the conflict. Articles in Al-Da'wa
tended to portray all Jews, whether Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i
or not, as inherently untrustworthy and guilty of the injustice
endured by the Palestinians, and repeated myths
typical of anti-Semitic
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
texts. At the same
time, and often in the same articles, the paper continued to
reject Arab nationalism
Arab nationalism
Arab nationalism is a nationalist ideology celebrating the glories of Arab civilization, the language and literature of the Arabs, calling for rejuvenation and political union in the Arab world...
. The editors also condemned
Christian evangelism
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
, communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
and
secularism
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
.
Scholars differ on the Brotherhood's influence on Egyptian
politics in the 1970s, but it seems clear that other
Islamic political movements
came to play a more important role. After Egypt's defeat in the
1967 war with Israel
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
, students and workers had
protested against the regime's failure to take responsibility for
the defeat, and began to call for a more democratic political
system. The broad student movement which took shape was at first
mainly secular in nature, but student Islamic groups gradually
came to the fore, thanks to their ability to implement practical
solutions to problems faced by students in their daily life (such
as severe overcrowding), by means of the national student union
Students' union
A students' union, student government, student senate, students' association, guild of students or government of student body is a student organization present in many colleges and universities, and has started appearing in some high schools...
in which they were increasingly elected to positions of responsibility. When Sadat's
economic policies caused severe price increases for basic
necessities and appalling degradations in public services
(leading to huge riots in January 1977), these groups gained
influence outside universities as well. Al-Da'wa supported
the student Islamic movement, and leaders of the Muslim
Brotherhood were invited to speak at large, festive gatherings
organised by student groups on Islamic holidays. When the
government began to obstruct the student movement, and then to
attack it using riot police, the Brotherhood's relations with the
government soured as well.
The Brotherhood's spokespeople consistently rejected the revolutionary and terrorist
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
violence of the militant Islamic groups that appeared in Egypt during the 1970s (such as Al-Jihad, which assassinated Sadat in October 1981). At the same time, they argued that increasingly brutal police persecution was largely to blame for this
radicalisation, and that if the Brotherhood were legalised, it would be able to help prevent extremism by providing Islamic education to young people. These arguments fell on deaf ears; in
the months before his assassination, while his popularity was plummeting, Sadat ordered massive arrests among all opposition forces, including the Brotherhood. The arrested Brothers were
released in January 1982, having been cleared of any wrongdoing.
The Brotherhood Under Mubarak, 1981–present
During the presidency of Hosni MubarakHosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak is a former Egyptian politician and military commander. He served as the fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011....
, who succeeded Sadat in 1981 and has remained in power until 2011, the Brotherhood's relations with the government are still essentially what they were under Sadat: the Brotherhood is tolerated to a degree, but is officially illegal, is not allowed to distribute literature or assemble in public, and is subject to periodic arrests. It has nevertheless published two newspapers (Liwa' al-islam, "The Banner of Islam", and al-I'tisam, "Adherence"), maintained regional and national offices and made public statements, and
books by prominent Brothers are sold in bookshops. The Brotherhood has held to its reformist outlook, pursuing a long-term, gradualist approach to the establishment of an Islamic state with popular consent, by reforming society from the bottom up, using persuasion and other nonviolent
Nonviolence
Nonviolence has two meanings. It can refer, first, to a general philosophy of abstention from violence because of moral or religious principle It can refer to the behaviour of people using nonviolent action Nonviolence has two (closely related) meanings. (1) It can refer, first, to a general...
means.
Despite being outlawed, the Brotherhood has been able to take advantage of political and social developments in Egypt to increase its membership and influence. Egypt's emergency law
State of emergency
A state of emergency is a governmental declaration that may suspend some normal functions of the executive, legislative and judicial powers, alert citizens to change their normal behaviours, or order government agencies to implement emergency preparedness plans. It can also be used as a rationale...
imposes drastic limits on legal political opposition, and it is widely believed that elections are routinely rigged in favour of the government. However, Islamic charitable organisations and private mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
s have flourished; though many of these organisations are apolitical, it is largely within this decentralised network of associations, which pursue different agendas and enjoy different degrees of autonomy from the state, that dissent has found expression. There is also anecdotal evidence that Islamic activists have gained some influence within the state bureaucracy, and that their supporters include many doctors, teachers and administrators. The Muslim Brotherhood has benefited from these developments more than any other Islamic political group, thanks in part to the energetic efforts of a cadre of experienced activists in their thirties and forties, who had honed their skills in the student movement under Sadat and joined the Brotherhood after graduation.
The Brotherhood has been particularly successful at recruiting young people, including university students and recent graduates. Jobs, material goods, and the money needed for a conventional wedding have been increasingly out of reach for young Egyptians, and rampant corruption and a closed, authoritarian
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
political system have bred alienation
Social alienation
The term social alienation has many discipline-specific uses; Roberts notes how even within the social sciences, it “is used to refer both to a personal psychological state and to a type of social relationship”...
(ightirab) and despair. The Islamic revival offers a way of life in which young people can be respected for their piety and Islamic learning rather than for their titles or wealth, and in which it is considered admirable to live simply. The view that it is the duty of every Muslim to be involved in political and social reform (which the Brotherhood particularly emphasises) acts as an antidote to political alienation and defeatism, enabling young people to feel more optimistic about the future. Women from lower-middle-class backgrounds have found that stricter religious observance gives them increased respectability, enabling them to disregard other social codes that would otherwise limit their options in areas such as education, career and marriage. Young people's work in the Brotherhood includes organising Islamic seminars and plays, supporting Brotherhood candidates in elections in student unions, professional associations and parliament, and participating in demonstrations
Demonstration (people)
A demonstration or street protest is action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause; it normally consists of walking in a mass march formation and either beginning with or meeting at a designated endpoint, or rally, to hear speakers.Actions such as...
.
1980s
In the 1980s and early 1990s, more and more of the members of Egypt's leading professional associations were economically disadvantaged university graduates; their votes helped Brotherhood candidates gain large majorities on the executive boards of several of these associations, such as those representing lawyers, doctors, pharmacists, scientists and engineers, defeating government, secular, and militant Islamic candidates in open, competitive elections. Under Brotherhood leadership, several professional associations set up programmes to help remedy practical difficulties faced by young graduates, offering health insurance, low-interest loans and training to fill in the gaps left by inadequate university courses. However, the limited resources available to professional associations did not enable these programmes to have a significant effect, and the Brotherhood's success in this arena was due more to voters' perception of its candidates as honest and motivated by a sense of civic duty, in contrast to the corruption that has often characterised professional associations. These associations gave the Brotherhood a platform from which to criticise Egypt's lack of free parliamentary and presidential elections and the use of torture in prisons, and to call for the repeal of the emergency law.Parliamentary elections, though largely closed to opposition, give some indication of the Brotherhood's popularity under Mubarak. In the 1984 elections, the Brotherhood was allowed to run candidates for the Wafd party. In 1987 it was permitted to repeat the experiment, this time switching to the Labour Party. In both cases, the party aligned with the Brotherhood received more votes than all the other opposition parties combined.
1990s
Starting in about 1992, the government again resorted to repressive measures to stem the Brotherhood's increasing influence. In 1993, professional associations were placed under direct state control. In 1995 and 1996, over a thousand Brothers were arrested. Several were convicted by military tribunals to several years of hard labour; the main charge was that the accused were members of an illegal organisation that planned to overthrow the government. At the same time, the government directed a huge media campaign against the Brotherhood, accusing it of being a terrorist group. This reaction can best be explained as an effort to stave off a nonviolent, popular challenge to the regime's power, by preventing the Brotherhood from participating in elections. Similarly, in 1998, hundreds of student Islamic activists were arrested just before student union elections. The Brotherhood was particularly vulnerable to this crackdown because of its lack of support among the upper middle classes, industrial workers, and the poorest and least educated segments of Egyptian society.Increased government repression led to a conflict between the Brotherhood's "old guard", which dominated its Guidance Bureau, and its middle generation of leaders, who favoured cooperation with other political trends, a more open internal debate on political issues, a more concerted effort to gain legality for the organisation and a more liberal interpretation of Islam
Liberal movements within Islam
Progressive Muslims have produced a considerable body of liberal thought within Islam or "progressive Islam" ; but some consider progressive Islam and liberal Islam as two distinct movements)...
.
On 20 January 1996, Hamid Abu an-Nasr, the General Leader of Egypt's MB died. His successor was MB first deputy, Mustafa Mashhur, who had been "an active member of the underground secret apparatus (al-Jihaz al-Sirri)" as a youth. He had spent a total of 16 years in prison and was considered a hard liner. The Egyptian interior minister, Hasan al-Alfi, responded with a threateing speech and shortly after a raid on the MB central offices and the arrest of 46 members.
Also that year, to the dismay of the Brotherhood's senior leadership, a group of prominent middle-generation leaders left the Brotherhood and joined with several Copt
Copt
The Copts are the native Egyptian Christians , a major ethnoreligious group in Egypt....
s to form a new political party, called Wasat
Al-Wasat Party
Hizb al-Wasat al-Jadid , translated in English as the New Center Party but more commonly known as al-Wasat Party, is a moderate Islamic political party in Egypt.- Foundation :...
("Centre"), intended to represent "a civic platform based on the Islamic faith, which believes in pluralism and the alternation of power". The Wasat Party has won the support of some well-known secular intellectuals, but its repeated requests to become a legal political party have been denied.
2000 elections
After a period of soul-searching and retrenchment, the Brotherhood has made a comeback in recent years, as its middle-generation leaders have become more influential within the organisation. In 2000, the Brotherhood ran 76 parliamentary candidates as independents (including one woman, Gihan al-Halafawi, whose victory in her district was disqualified when the government cancelled the election there), and won 17 seats (as many as all the other opposition parties combined), despite the government's strenuous media campaign against it and the arrest of several of its candidates shortly before the vote. In 2001, the Lawyers' Association held open elections for its executive board for the first time in five years; in order to avoid embarrassing the regime, the Brotherhood chose to contest only a third of the seats, and won all of those.In its public statements, the Brotherhood has shed the religious intolerance and anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
expressed in its newspaper in the 1970s. In recent years its spokespeople have said that Copts are welcome to join the organisation (noting that Hassan al-Banna
Hassan al-Banna
Sheikh Hasan Ahmed Abdel Rahman Muhammed al-Banna known as Hasan al-Banna was a schoolteacher and imam, best known for founding the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the largest and most influential 20th century Muslim revivalist organizations.-Early life:Banna was born in 1906 in Mahmoudiyah, Egypt...
had two Copts as his assistants, and was known for his lack of prejudice towards Copts); Mohammad Mahdi Akef, who became the Brotherhood's General Guide in 2004 at the age of 75 told Al-Jazeera in 2005:
Islam dignifies Christians and Jews and we hope they treat us the same way. The ignorance of people is what is causing a grudge among them and not their religion.
In recent years, the Brotherhood has frequently called for greater democracy in the Middle East
Democracy in the Middle East
According to the "Democracy Index" , the country in the Middle East with the highest Democracy Index score is Israel, with a score of 7.48, corresponding to the status of "flawed democracy"; the only one in the region.The next highest scores of countries of in the region are held by Lebanon and...
. 'Abd al-Mun'im Abu-l-Futuh, one of the middle-generation leaders who is respected both in the Brotherhood and in the Wasat Party
Al-Wasat Party
Hizb al-Wasat al-Jadid , translated in English as the New Center Party but more commonly known as al-Wasat Party, is a moderate Islamic political party in Egypt.- Foundation :...
, told the International Crisis Group in 2004:
The absence of democracy is one of the main reasons for the crisis here, in Egypt and the Middle East. The Muslim Brothers believe that the Western governments are one of the main reasons for the lack of democracy in the region because they are supporting dictatorships in the Arab and Islamic region in general, despite the fact that it has been proved that the absence of democracy and freedom is the reason for terrorism and violence.
2005 election
In 2005, the Brotherhood began participating in pro-democracy demonstrations with the Egyptian Movement for Change (also known as KifayaKifaya
Kefaya is the unofficial moniker of the Egyptian Movement for Change , a grassroots coalition which prior to the 2011 revolution drew its support from across Egypt’s political spectrum...
, "enough"), and many of the Brotherhood's members were arrested, over 700 in May 2005 alone.
In the 2005 parliamentary elections, the Brotherhood's candidates, who stood as independents, won 88 seats (20% of the total) to form the largest opposition bloc, despite many violations of the electoral process, including the arrest of hundreds of Brotherhood members. Meanwhile, the legal opposition parties won only 14 seats; this revived the debate among secularists and Coptics about whether is cause for worry over the rise of the Brotherhood.
Post-2005 election events
The Brotherhood made repeated calls for a more democratic political system in Egypt and participated in pro-democracy demonstrations with the KifayaKifaya
Kefaya is the unofficial moniker of the Egyptian Movement for Change , a grassroots coalition which prior to the 2011 revolution drew its support from across Egypt’s political spectrum...
movement in 2005. Since 2005 Muslim Brotherhood members in Egypt have also become a significant movement online. In 2006 Abdel Menem Mahmoud created the first publicly identified Brotherhood blog, Ana Ikhwan (http://ana-ikhwan.blogspot.com). In an article for Arab Media & Society (http://www.arabmediasociety.com), Courtney C. Radsch of American University
American University
American University is a private, Methodist, liberal arts, and research university in Washington, D.C. The university was chartered by an Act of Congress on December 5, 1892 as "The American University", which was approved by President Benjamin Harrison on February 24, 1893...
explores how the Egyptian blogosphere expanded as many younger members followed suit, especially the activists who were sympathetic to Kefaya and members who wanted to be part of the discussion about the draft party platform. These "cyberactivists" are often critical of the organization, such as its rejection of women and Copts as being permitted to hold the presidency, and more liberal than their offline counterparts.
Its 2005 success provoked "a government counterattack" against the Brotherhood. Egypt's constitution was amended in 2007 in favor of registered parties and against independents, to the disadvantage of the officially outlawed Brethren which can only field candidates as independents. In 2008 the state disqualified most Brotherhood candidates in the local council elections. The Mubarak regime also launched a wave of arrests and military trials against the Brethren, "ensnared thousands of rank-and-file members," but also important leaders "who ran the financial apparatus that funnels millions of dollars in donations and investment proceeds into campaigning and social outreach." This has weakened the movement, as have some recent controversial positions of the Brotherhood. In 2007 it distributed a draft program for its proposed political party which called for a ban on women
Women in Egypt
-Women in Ancient Egypt:From the earliest preserved archaeological records, women in Egypt have been thought to be considered nearly equal to men in Egyptian society, regardless of marital status. Women were stated lower than men when it came to a higher leader in the Egyptian hierarchy counting...
or Christians
Copt
The Copts are the native Egyptian Christians , a major ethnoreligious group in Egypt....
as Egypt's president
President of Egypt
The President of the Arab Republic of Egypt is the head of state of Egypt.Under the Constitution of Egypt, the president is also the supreme commander of the armed forces and head of the executive branch of the Egyptian government....
, and for a special council of Islamic clerics to vet parliamentary legislation. During the 2008-9 Gaza War, some Brotherhood leaders called for Egyptians to go to Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
and fight Israel, notwithstanding Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel.
See also
- History of the Muslim Brotherhood in EgyptHistory of the Muslim Brotherhood in EgyptThe Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Ismailia, Egypt by Hassan al-Banna in March 1928 as an Islamist religious, political, and social movement...
- Muslim Brotherhood in EgyptMuslim Brotherhood in EgyptThe Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is an Islamist religious, political, and social movement. Following the 2011 Revolution the group was legalized, and with an estimated 600,000 members or supporters it's considered the largest, best-organized political force in Egypt...
- History of the Republic of EgyptHistory of the Republic of EgyptHistory of the Republic of Egypt refers to the history of Egypt following the 1952 Egyptian revolution up to the present day. The revolution replacing the Turco-Circassian monarchy was the first time in over 2000 years Egypt was ruled by an Egyptian...