The Muslim Brotherhood E-Book

Alison Pargeter

• Herausgeber: Saqi Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 496

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

In this authoritative analysis, Alison Pargeter follows the twists and turns of the Muslim Brotherhood as it battled through the years of oppression under authoritarian regimes to finally become a key and legitimate political actor. Fully updated edition with new chapter covering the Arab Spring and the Parliamenatry and Presidential elections. From Egypt and Syria to Tunisia and Libya, the Brotherhood and its affiliates are now faced with the complex task of transforming themselves from semiclandestine opposition movements into legitimate political actors and, in some cases, into ruling powers.

Leseprobe

Alison Pargeter

THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

From Opposition To Power

SAQI

Alison Pargeter is a writer and analyst specialising in the Middle East and North Africa. She has held academic positions at the University of Cambridge and Kings College, London, and is a senior associate at Menas Associates, an international consultancy firm. Her other publications include Libya: The Rise and Fall of Qaddafi and The New Frontiers of Jihad: Radical Islam in Europe.

‘Alison Pargeter has established a reputation as one of the best current analysts of Islamic radicalism. This book – detailed, authoritative, sober, perceptive and meticulously researched – shows why. It is an important contribution to our understanding both of the Muslim Brotherhood itself, to the controversies that surround the movement and to the broader phenomenon of political Islam. A must read for scholars, students and anyone interested in the Middle East.’

Jason Burke, author of Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam

‘A tour de force … This well-written and much-needed book admirably traces the origins and development, internal debates and frictions, geographical spread – and abiding contradictions – of a movement that, despite its ambiguities and shortcomings, remains very much a force to be reckoned with.’

Alan George, University of Oxford

‘This highly lucid and approachable analysis of the Brotherhood offers a welcome degree of clarity. Alison Pargeter offers a global picture of the trajectories the movement has taken in the Arab world and in Europe. Based on important internal documents, and, crucially, a remarkable array of on-the-record interviews with senior Brotherhood personnel, Pargeter allows the Brothers to do much of the talking.’

Richard Phelps, Perspectives on Terrorism

‘Highly recommended, especially to those who see radical Islam, Jihadism, Wahhabism, Salafism and Islamism as one huge monolith and all equally to be feared.’ New Statesman

Contents

Introduction

1. Conflicting Currents: The Egyptian Ikhwan in Opposition

2. From Diplomacy to Arms and Back to Diplomacy:The Evolution of the Syrian Ikhwan

3. The International Tanzeem: Myth or Reality?

4. A School of Thought: The Ikhwan in Europe

5. The Ikhwan and Violence

6. The Arab Spring: From Opposition to Power

Conclusion: The Challenges Ahead

Acknowledgements

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Introduction

One of the unforeseen consequences of the Arab Spring has been the catapulting of the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen) – one of the longest surviving and most controversial of all political Islamist movements – from the underground to the forefront of the Middle Eastern political arena. Despite the fact that the popular uprisings that gripped parts of the Arab world in 2011 were largely non-ideological in nature, driven largely by youth who came together with no political agenda other than to oust the authoritarian regimes that had gripped the region more or less since independence, it was the Brotherhood that was to reap the advantages of the revolutions. In Egypt, the Brotherhood through its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, emerged triumphant in both parliamentary and presidential elections; in Tunisia, An-Nahda, which although not officially part of the Brotherhood follows its broad ideological orientation, won the largest majority in the elections to the constituent assembly and went on to lead the government; in Libya, the Brotherhood’s Justice and Construction Party may not have triumphed in the elections to the General National Congress but it still became part of the government as well as a key political player; in Syria, meanwhile, the Brotherhood is playing a major role in the opposition platforms that have sprung up and looks set to have a stake in the country’s future. The Arab Spring, therefore, turned out to be a triumph for the forces of reformist political Islam.

This turn of events is all the more paradoxical given that the Brotherhood has always been a movement that has shunned revolutions and that repeatedly declared itself not to be interested in taking power. It preferred to work from the bottom up, or so it proclaimed, educating society Islamically in order to prepare it for the eventual establishment of an Islamic state. Yet when it came to it, the Brotherhood rushed at the opportunity to get to power. The movement mobilised its resources on an unprecedented level to manoeuvre its way through the transition and to dominate the emergent political arena.

To those familiar with the Brotherhood, the movement’s behaviour during the Arab Spring was not all that surprising. The Brotherhood has always been a movement of controversy and contradiction that has proved near impossible to pin down. Indeed, it has always represented a conundrum to those trying to fathom it. It is a social movement that also functions as a political entity; it is a transnational organisation that emphasises the independence of its national branches; it projects itself as pacific yet some of its branches have been directly involved in violent action; it broadly rejects the West and Western values yet is increasingly anxious to be seen in Western eyes as a moderate organisation that upholds progressive inclusive values. It is also a movement that has been cloaked in ambiguity and that has comprised so many different strands and currents that it has struggled to articulate a single stance on many key issues including violence, the role of women and the role of non-Muslim minorities. It is easy to understand, therefore, why observers and policymakers have found it difficult to develop a coherent policy towards the movement. It is also easy to understand why the Brotherhood’s shift into the political mainstream following the Arab Spring has created such a challenge for policymakers, particularly those in the West.

Yet now, it seems, is the Brotherhood’s time. It has certainly been a long wait. The movement was first established in Egypt in 1928 where it emerged partly as a response to the colonialist presence in the country, but also to the end of the last caliphate, the Ottoman Empire. The Brotherhood came within the tradition of the reformist school that emerged in Egypt in the late nineteenth century through scholars such as Rashid Rida and Muhammad Abdu who believed that the only way the Islamic world could meet the challenges posed by Westernisation and modernisation was to return to the ‘uncorrupted’ values of the Islamic past. The movement soon gathered momentum and by the 1950s had also developed into a reaction against the modernising secular forces of Arab nationalism that threatened to unseat traditional conservative religious values. As a result, the Brotherhood drew much of its support from the classes that feared change, namely the petty bourgeoisie and the trading and artisan classes. Indeed, since its beginnings, it has been a largely reactionary movement, preoccupied by issues of public morality and the preservation of traditional values.

Although the Brotherhood originated in Egypt as a result of a specific set of social and political conditions, its ideology soon spread and branches began to spring up in other countries. Syria and Jordan were perhaps the most important branches in the early days but it was not long before most of the countries of the Middle East had their own branch or equivalent of the Brotherhood. It was able to spread in this way because it offered a simple ideology that corresponded with the mood of the time and that seemed to represent a reassuring beacon of constancy during a period of immense upheaval in the region. Indeed, its slogan said it all: ‘Islam is the solution.’

Whilst it had started out primarily as a social and cultural movement, the Brotherhood came to take on more of a direct political role and by the 1950s had evolved into one of the most powerful opposition currents in the region. Like many other groups operating at the time, its politics became increasingly radical in the 1960s and 1970s, largely as a response to repression by the regimes in the region, which viewed it as a potential challenge to their own hegemony. In the 1970s, caught up in the current of Islamic revivalism that swept the Islamic world, the Ikhwan came to articulate its demands ever more forcefully. Perhaps the most extreme example is that of the Syrian branch, which got involved in a bloody conflict with the Ba’athist regime culminating in the deaths of thousands of its members and supporters. As a result of this increasingly antagonistic relationship to the state, a number of Ikhwani were pushed out of their home countries. Some sought refuge in Saudi Arabia whilst others went to Europe.

The push into Europe broadened the scope of the Brotherhood setting in motion the beginnings of its transnational ambitions through its international organisation. However, as it became clearer that returning home would be impossible, Europe-based Ikhwani began to establish their own organisations in the continent. As a result, the Brotherhood succeeded in crafting a network of branches and organisations across Europe, the Middle East and beyond, becoming perhaps the most influential Islamist opposition movement in the world.1 From its various centres, it worked to further the cause of Islam in the hope that it would one day come to power and realise its dream of creating an Islamic state.

The events of 9/11 were to alter the Brotherhood’s situation dramatically. As the world woke up to the bombings in the United States, political Islamist groups suddenly came under the harsh glare of a new spotlight. Attention inevitably focused on the Ikhwan. In some quarters the movement was simply considered part and parcel of the al-Qa‘ida phenomenon, whilst others accused it of acting as an incubator for militancy on the grounds that some of those who formed part of the global jihadist network had spent their formative years with the movement. In the end, the Brotherhood escaped being branded as an international terrorist organisation. Nonetheless, the threat of being made a proscribed group continued to hang over the Ikhwan and its members found themselves in the position of having to prove their ‘moderate credentials’ to the world. However, the Brotherhood remained a potent force both in the Middle East and beyond, able to capture and articulate the forces of conservative Islam and to posit itself as a ‘pure’ and authentic alternative to the regimes in power.

Yet for all its strength, after almost eight decades in opposition, by the 2000s the Brotherhood was coming to resemble somewhat of a spent force. Bogged down in stasis and in-fighting, exhausted by the years of oppression and seemingly resigned to the unchanging nature of the political landscape of the Middle East, the Brotherhood looked to be resigned to its fate. In addition, it was finding itself increasingly challenged by the growing power of the Salafist currents that were expanding into its own constituencies and attracting the youth in particular. As such the Brotherhood was coming to look as much part of the creaking furniture of the Middle East as the very regimes it sought to challenge.

The Arab Spring was to change all that. The uprisings breathed new life into the Brotherhood that finally saw its chance to realise the ambitions that had eluded it for so long. Drawing on its years of experience and its organisational skills, as well as its trademark pragmatism, the Brotherhood (and its counterpart, An-Nahda) moved skilfully to outmanoeuvre the other players on the political scene. However, the Brotherhood’s coming to power was not solely down to the way in which it played the transition period. It was also because the movement succeeded in reaching out to the masses and offering them a credible alternative.

This book analyses the evolution of the Ikhwan from its inception in Egypt in 1928 to its emergence into the political mainstream. It examines the aims and strategies of the movement and assesses why, prior to the Arab Spring, the Brotherhood seemed to be stuck in a rut, unable to move beyond its own traditions and history or to engage in reform in any meaningful way. It also analyses how the movement responded to the uprisings of the Arab Spring and how, in the Egyptian case in particular, it manoeuvred itself into power. It looks, too, at the complex dynamics between national and international concerns as expressed through the relationship between the mother branch in Cairo and the rest of this transnational movement.

First published in 2010, much of the material in this book is based upon research conducted in 2007 and 2008 thanks to the generous support of the Smith Richardson Foundation. It includes material drawn from interviews with key members of the Brotherhood, past and present, and with those in the wider Islamist movement, as well as from literature produced by the Ikhwan itself. This updated edition includes a new chapter that deals with the Brotherhood and the Arab Spring, focusing in particular on the Egyptian Ikhwan. This edition also addresses some of the key challenges that the Brotherhood and its Tunisian counterpart, An-Nahda, are grappling with now that they are in power.

Chapter One deals with the Egyptian Ikhwan, the mother branch of the entire Muslim Brotherhood movement. Tracing its evolution from the days of its founder, the chapter explores how the Egyptian brothers became so hampered by their own traditions that they struggled to resolve their own internal contradictions. Chapter Two looks at what was in its heyday the other major Middle Eastern branch, the Syrian Ikhwan. This chapter examines the Syrian Brotherhood’s shift into violence in the 1980s and its subsequent return to diplomacy, something that makes it arguably one of the most progressive Ikhwani branches today. Chapter Three deals with the highly controversial subject of the Brotherhood’s international organisation. Whilst many Ikhwani deny it even exists, this mysterious body has played a major role in the Brotherhood’s evolution, especially during the 1980s. Its importance may have declined in recent years, but it still has a role to play within the Ikhwan’s international structures. Chapter Four examines the Brotherhood in Europe, looking specifically at the UK, French and German branches and at the various Ikhwani-oriented organisations and institutions that have been established there. It assesses the challenges facing these organisations given the fact that they are minority communities with limited influence living in a secular society. Chapter Five offers an assessment of the Ikhwan’s relationship to violence. It explores the attitudes within the movement towards the ideology of violence through key scholars such as Sayyid Qutb and to jihad, including examining the role that the Ikhwan played in the war in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Chapter Six offers an examination of the Brotherhood’s shift from opposition movement to mainstream political actor during the Arab Spring. Focusing primarily on Egypt, it looks at how the Brotherhood responded to the revolution and worked its way into power. Finally the conclusion addresses some of the key challenges facing the Brotherhood now that power has finally become a reality.

1

Conflicting Currents

The Egyptian Ikhwan in Opposition

The Egyptian Ikhwan has always been considered to be the heart and the soul of the entire Muslim Brotherhood. Not only is it the founding branch of the transnational movement – something that gives it a particular historical legitimacy – its Murshid (Supreme Guide) is spiritual guide to the Brotherhood as a whole. Decisions made in Cairo reverberate around the movement’s other branches with special significance and still carry a certain moral authority. Indeed, the Egyptian branch is considered to be the vanguard of the entire Brotherhood movement.

In many ways, the Egyptian brothers have lived up to this role. They weathered the storm of the many decades of sustained and brutal repression at the hands of the Egyptian state and despite being banned for almost a century, succeeded in maintaining a substantive grass roots following across the country. The Egyptian Ikhwan also succeeded in making its presence felt on the political scene, manoeuvring itself into parliament without even having a political party and dominating many of the country’s professional associations. The Brotherhood proved successful on the financial front too, creating its own Islamic financing networks that sustained the movement throughout the years of hardship. As such, the Egyptian Brotherhood had established itself to such an extent that by the time the Arab Spring reached Egypt, the Brotherhood was poised to step out of the wings and into power.

Yet despite all these achievements, in the years leading up to the 2011 revolution, the Egyptian Ikhwan looked to be a movement in stasis. It was utterly bogged down in introspection and indecision, unable to take a clear stance on many issues, not least the extent to which it should reform. Indeed, the Brotherhood seemed to have got itself caught between an awareness of the need to meet the challenges of a changing world and the need to remain true to its founding principles. Thus, whilst in the years before the revolution, it adopted a more reformist discourse that was fully in keeping with the spirit of the times, at the same time it seemed unwilling to move very far from the core principles established by the movement’s founder Hassan al-Banna in the 1920s.

This basic contradiction manifested itself in an often ambiguous discourse and a basic unwillingness to spell out policies on more controversial issues, something that brought charges from within Egypt and beyond that the movement was playing a political game in order to further its own interests. Indeed, the contradictory signals that have emerged from the Ikhwan’s executive body, the Guidance Office, meant that any gains the movement made were often reversed by its own undoing.

One of the reasons the Ikhwan was so unable to articulate a more cohesive strategy is that it was forced to operate under extremely difficult conditions. Any move they made had to be a careful calculation of risk, weighing up the potential cost not only to the movement as a whole but also to individual members, who have repeatedly found themselves in prison. However, whilst state repression was certainly a factor in the Ikhwan’s inability to reform, it cannot be considered the sole cause of this failing.

Internal wrangling within the movement between those of a conservative bent and those who wished to become more engaged in the political process also played its part. Commentators often portrayed this division as a clash of generations with the conservative old guard pitted against the younger reformist faction, themselves in late middle age. Whilst such a divide certainly existed and continues to exist, it is perhaps misleading to overplay the generational factor. The group known as the reformists, which comprised figures such as Issam al-Ariyan and Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh, was a specific set of individuals who came to the Brotherhood in the 1970s as students and who were more overtly political than their predecessors. Indeed, rather than a reformist current, it is perhaps more accurate to talk about reformist figures or individuals. Their bid to push the movement to take a more progressive stance came up against repeated resistance from the more conservative elements within the leadership. That this wrangling was at times played out in the public domain only served to strengthen the impression that the Ikhwan was lacking in direction.

However, this conflict of views is not sufficient to explain the dichotomy in which the Egyptian Ikhwani found themselves. The problem was always far more complex than a simple clash of views within the leadership. Rather it was a result of the Ikhwan’s need to play to several different constituencies simultaneously and its desire to be all things to all men. As a movement, the Egyptian Ikhwan always sought to appeal to as broad a base as possible in order to challenge the regime of the day, hence the all-encompassing slogan ‘Islam is the solution’. Whilst this wide popular base was always one of the Ikhwan’s key strengths, it restricted how far it could stray from the original ideology of its founder. Many of the movement’s supporters and sympathisers backed the Ikhwan precisely because they considered that it held on to traditions such as calling for the implementation of Sharia law. Moreover some of the movement’s supporters considered the Ikhwan to be representing Islam itself, a view that the Brotherhood was not averse to promoting over the years. It is this amalgamation of the political and the religious that has always given the Ikhwan its potency. As such the extent to which it was able to reform was always limited by the movement’s need to remain anchored in its own traditions.

However, like other Islamist groups, the Ikhwan was always anxious to demonstrate that it could be considered as a trusted political partner and that it was not seeking to overturn the state through revolution. Rather, the brothers asserted that they wanted whoever rules Egypt to do so in a proper Islamic manner, seemingly indicating that they would like to take the role of moral arbiters of the state.

Whilst the pressure to be seen as a moderate progressive organisation was exacerbated after 9/11, this tension between the need to reform and the need to hold fast to tradition was present from the very beginnings of the movement. Hassan al-Banna struggled to strike a balance between engaging with the country’s establishment and appeasing his followers, many of whom were anxious for the Ikhwan to take a more radical stance. This remained a constant pressure for the Brotherhood. Whilst other Ikhwani branches, such as the Syrians, were able to shake themselves up and put forward programmes that strayed further from the original tenets of the movement, the Egyptians repeatedly failed to break free of their own traditions.

Al-Banna: The Man and the Myth

If the Murshid is held up as the main spiritual reference for the Muslim Brotherhood worldwide, Hassan al-Banna is revered as the leader of all leaders and has attained near iconic status within the movement. Yet it is in Egypt that the figure of al-Banna looms largest and where his memory is ever present. This reverence for al-Banna is not only related to the fact that in 1928 he founded the Muslim Brotherhood; by extension, he sowed the seeds of the contemporary political Islamist movement that would play such a major role in the history of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Yet a kind of personality cult has evolved around the figure of al-Banna, wherein stories about his character seem to overshadow discussions of his ideas. The Ikhwan’s website, full of descriptions of al-Banna’s personal qualities and his dedication to the cause, is testimony to this. One article on the website cites the reason for the movement’s expansion as ‘the enthusiastic and marvellous nature of al-Banna’.1 It goes on to describe him as a man with an almost superhuman capacity for hard work, stating, ‘He visited every village in the Upper Egypt in twenty days, sometimes he would be in Bai-Swaif in the morning, have lunch in Beba, in al-Wasta in the evening and stay the night in al-Fayoom … he regarded the Call for Allah first and foremost.’2

There is a tendency within the Brotherhood if not to equate al-Banna with the Prophet, then at least to depict him as more than merely mortal. For example, one of the founding members of the Brotherhood, Mahmoud Abdelhalim, describes al-Banna as ‘less than the Prophet. Nevertheless al-Dawa preoccupied him … and the likes of Hassan al-Banna are the heirs of the Prophet’.3

There are several reasons why discussions of al-Banna tend to focus more on his personal attributes than his ideology. Firstly, such descriptions reflect the fact that he appears to have been blessed with a particularly forceful personality and a special charisma. He certainly had the personal touch and those who knew him relate that he made them feel as though he had an intimate connection to them. Farid Abdel Khaliq, who went on to become al-Banna’s personal secretary, has described meeting al-Banna for the first time. From that night, he followed him everywhere he went to preach, explaining: ‘The way he spoke allowed you to see the whole sky through a keyhole.’4 Similarly, former Murshid Omar al-Tilimsani used near metaphysical terms to describe al-Banna, noting, ‘In the presence of al-Banna I was like a dead man in the hands of someone washing my corpse.’5 Another Egyptian Ikhwani, Musa Ishaq Al-Husayni, has also commented, ‘His mastery over his followers was complete and inclusive, almost approaching sorcery.’6

Secondly, it is probably fair to say that al-Banna’s personal qualities were more impressive and left a greater impression than his ideology. Although he was able to tap into the grievances of a generation, he can hardly be considered to have been a major intellectual force or even a scholar. His ideology was drawn primarily from the great reformist Islamist thinkers of the nineteenth century such as Rashid Rida and Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, and as Egyptian philosopher Hassan Hanafi has argued, ‘he came to complete the project of al-Afghani’.7 As Hanafi goes on to comment, ‘To say the truth, the ideas of Hassan al-Banna probably may not amount to much: an Islam that is simple and clear … The Qur’an, The Hadiths etc … His ideas were very clear, very pure and there was no ideological complexity, but … as an organizing power … he was something else.’8

Hanafi’s comments are probably a little harsh: whilst al-Banna may not have been a scholar in the conventional sense, he did succeed in establishing a movement that was able to present itself as something progressive and modern despite upholding traditional values, and which clearly had a broad appeal. Through the simple message that Islam was a means of regulating every aspect of life, he skilfully tapped into people’s concerns about the eroding of tradition and the increasing Westernisation of the Egyptian elite, along with the seemingly quiescent attitude of the official religious establishment. (Some scholars at Al-Azhar University seemed almost willing to adopt the secularist ideas that were openly propagated by some of the intelligentsia. Ali Abd al-Raziq, for example, denied that Islam was in any way connected to politics.)

Al-Banna articulated the anxieties of a generation who were struggling to deal with the encroaching modernisation that had accompanied the colonial presence and which the Egyptian elite seemed more than willing to accept. Although al-Banna did not reject the West in itself, he certainly had major concerns about the impact of Western culture on his own society, asserting: ‘Western civilization has invaded us by force and with aggression on the level of science and money, of politics and luxury, of pleasures and negligence, and of various aspects of a life that are comfortable, exciting and seductive.’9 His assertion of the comprehensiveness of Islam seemed therefore to offer certainties in an increasingly uncertain world.

He also saw the Brotherhood as a champion of anti-imperialism, and his strong views about the British colonial presence certainly increased his movement’s appeal. Al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood came to present themselves as the guardians of the native popular culture against the distortions of foreign and secularist ideologies.10 Yet rather than retrenching himself in the traditions of the past, al-Banna was able to present his ideas and his desire for action as something new and exciting and it was for this reason that many of his adherents were drawn from the younger generations. As Brynjar Lia has argued in his excellent study The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt, the fundamental appeal of the Ikhwan was ‘its ability to link issues which were usually associated with reactionism and backwardness, such as Islamic laws and strict public morality, to the national issues of independence and development’.11

Yet, as Hanafi correctly identifies, it was al-Banna’s ability to mobilise and organise people that enabled him to turn his organisation into such a significant force. Farid Abdel Khaliq has argued that al-Banna ‘wasn’t about absolute ideas. He was an organisational thinker … He translated theoretical ideas into reality.’12 Even al-Banna himself seems to have concurred with this assessment of his qualities, once telling his followers, ‘I might have not left a lot of books with you but my job is to write men rather than to write books.’13 He also responded to one suggestion that he write a book thus: ‘In the time that I would waste in writing a book, I could write one hundred young Muslims. Every one of them would be a living, speaking influential book.’14

Another reason for this near mythical status is that no other leader within the movement has come close to having the calibre of its founder. It is striking that in spite of being at the forefront of such an important worldwide organisation, the Egyptian Ikhwan has failed to produce any Murshid, or, indeed, any thinker, who can match the talents and qualities of al-Banna. Although certainly well respected within Islamist circles, successive Murshids such as Omar al-Tilimsani or Hassan al-Hodeibi have left no real long-lasting impression beyond the confines of the movement. The only other Murshid or Egyptian Ikhwan who has come close to having the same aura or legacy as Hassan al-Banna was the more controversial figure Sayyid Qutb, although there is ongoing debate about the extent to which Qutb reflected the views of the Ikhwan. Qutb himself seems to have been as disappointed in this lack of intellectual ability within the Ikhwan’s leadership and is alleged to have complained to a fellow member of the Brotherhood that his experience in prison had revealed to him the shallowness of the thinking of the Ikhwan’s leaders.15

On account of these factors, al-Banna’s hold is such that his ideas, conceived over eight decades ago in response to a set of very specific conditions inside Egypt, have been almost untouchable. His legacy means that altering the fundamental principles of the movement that he established has been almost unthinkable for many of the Ikhwan – and he will be forever held up as an almost ‘divine’ leader.

Yet this image of the movement’s founder as a flawless leader is at odds with the true picture. In reality al-Banna was a shrewd political operator whose ultimate goal was the survival of his movement at what some would argue was almost any cost. In addition the Brotherhood under al-Banna was as riven with factions and rivalry as it is today. In spite of his best attempts to impose rigid obedience on his followers, al-Banna struggled for many years to appease the various competing factions within his support base, setting in motion the above cited contradiction within the Ikhwan between the political realities of the day and traditional Islamic principles.

The Roots of Pragmatism

Al-Banna’s image of devout purity and humility notwithstanding, what ensured the success and survival of his movement was his extreme pragmatism. He repeatedly proved his willingness to be flexible in his principles for the good of the greater cause. This flexibility held as true in his personal relations as it did in his political dealings. Farid Abdel Khaliq has related his shock at how, in the spirit of practicality, al-Banna once reassured a rich man that he did not need to perform his ablutions before praying after the man told him he bathed twice a day and considered himself to be clean enough.16 Within this ethos, al-Banna was acutely aware of how to project an image in order to win people over to his cause. Even his choice of clothes was a calculated decision designed to achieve maximum impact and he wore a different garb to fit each occasion, be it a suit, a jelaba or a fez.17

It was not only on the personal level that al-Banna displayed his willingness to demonstrate expediency. He also proved an adept and shrewd political operator, who was not averse to the idea of becoming part of the political establishment in order to further the goals of the Ikhwan – even though this directly contradicted his own teachings and ideology. Whilst he was explicit in his condemnation of political parties in Egypt, referring to those that existed as ‘the parasites of the people’ and the ‘greatest threat to our development’,18 at one point he proposed that the Ikhwan join Hizb al-Watani (the Nationalist Party). His motivations for doing so were because he believed the party’s immense popularity would assist his own movement.19 The proposal was ultimately rejected, yet al-Banna’s willingness to join forces with an established political party demonstrates just how far he was prepared to go in order to bolster his movement and gain political leverage. In spite of all the teachings advocating the need to educate the population from below, it sometimes seemed as though playing a part in the politics of the day was the ultimate and more pressing ambition.

Al-Banna was always aware that in order for his movement to survive, he needed to come to an understanding with the powers that be, even if he considered their rulings un-Islamic. A detailed account of the political ins and outs of the al-Banna period is outside the scope of this study and there are already a number of excellent works on the subject.20 However, it is clear that al-Banna was, in the words of Farid Abdel Khaliq, ‘very keen to have a kind of understanding between himself and the rulers’.21 He focused a great deal of energy avoiding antagonising the Palace and was also keen to come to an understanding with the government of the day. In March 1942, disregarding his condemnation of multiparty politics, al-Banna (with the support of the Guidance Office) decided to field seventeen candidates in the parliamentary elections. He put himself forward to stand for Ismailia and focused his election campaign around Islamic and moral issues. However, he came under intense pressure from the government to withdraw the Ikhwan’s candidacies and to make a written statement declaring his loyalty to the government and the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, which was the legal foundation for the British presence in Egypt. This was quite a demand given that in 1938–9 the Ikhwan, as part of its anti-imperialist stance, had demanded the amendment of this treaty. Nonetheless, even though the Ikhwan’s Guidance Office decided that he should reject these demands, al-Banna acted unilaterally and decided instead to cut his own deal with the government of the day. In return for publishing an open letter supporting the treaty and withdrawing from the elections, he extracted a promise from Prime Minister Mustafa Pasha al-Nahas that the government would allow the movement to operate freely and that it would take action against the sale of alcohol and prostitution. Clearly al-Banna was intent on doing his utmost to ensure the survival of the Brotherhood, even if that meant entering into deals with a regime that it considered un-Islamic.

Moreover, for all that al-Banna extolled the virtues of shura (consultation), he did not always live by its principles. As Dr Abdelaziz Kamel, a member of the Ikhwan, has commented, al-Banna didn’t believe in the principle of shura because for him shura wasn’t obligatory for the Murshid himself. Al-Banna repeatedly made unilateral decisions, completely bypassing the Guidance Office and infuriating many within it in the process. This held true when he was selecting candidates to high-ranking appointments or deciding where to channel funds. His insistence on total obedience resulted in his acquiring a reputation for being authoritarian.22 This judgement is probably a little unfair; rather than being dictatorial, al-Banna seems to have had his own vision of what he wanted his movement to be. To this end he pushed ahead with his own policies, unwilling to see this vision thwarted by others within the organisation, even if that alienated some of his followers.

Clearly the roots of the Ikhwan’s trademark pragmatism were established at the very beginnings of the movement through al-Banna’s personal style. However, such willingness to co-operate with the authorities, as well as al-Banna’s autocratic style, provoked intense criticism from inside the movement as more radical elements considered al-Banna’s stance to be too moderate and accommodationist. Resistance to his leadership really began to gather momentum in the late 1930s, when a group of Ikhwani became increasingly frustrated at al-Banna’s gradual and what they considered to be passive approach. This group appears to have been led at one point by Ahmed Rifat, who accused the Ikhwan of dealing with the government rather than confronting it for its failure to rule by the Qur’an. They also accused the Ikhwan of not doing enough to assist the Palestinians, who were rising up against the British and the Jews, and of not being forceful enough over the issue of women. At one point they even proposed that all Ikhwani should carry bottles of ink to throw at those women who did not wear correct Islamic attire.23

Although these more militant elements are often portrayed as nothing more than a handful of hot heads, there was quite a sizeable current within the Ikhwan who resented al-Banna’s non-confrontational approach and his willingness to co-operate with whatever political partners he deemed fit. According to Mahmoud Abdelhalim, who was a high-ranking member of the Brotherhood at this time, many senior Ikhwan actually supported Ahmed Rifat. Abdelhalim describes a meeting in which Rifat began verbally insulting al-Banna and explains that although many of the Ikhwani from Cairo were horrified at Rifat’s manner, by the end of the meeting he had succeeded in attracting even greater support among those brothers who came from outside Cairo.24 It seems that some parts of the Ikhwan were waiting for a man like Rifat to come along: ‘A large number of Ikhwani gave Ahmed Rifat’s call their full attention and they responded quickly. As soon as they heard Ahmed Rifat they found in his language echoes of what was going on inside themselves.’25

But in his bid for the movement to be all things to all men, rather than expelling this group al-Banna instead tried to convince and somehow accommodate them. Some of the other Ikhwani were furious that their leader chose to protect them.26 Yet al-Banna’s way of handling this group came to be symptomatic of the way in which he dealt with the more militant currents that continued to evolve inside his movement, especially among the youth. For him, containment was the most appropriate solution. Therefore whilst al-Banna continued to advocate a peaceful approach and continued dealing with the powers of the day, he also began adapting his leadership style to try to appease those who were calling for more direct action.

In May 1938 he adopted a more hawkish rhetoric, declaring that if the authorities failed to implement the Ikhwan’s programmes the movement would consider itself ‘at war with every leader, every party and every organisation that does not work for the victory of Islam!’27 However, he was still unwilling to actually put these words into action. As a result his attempts to contain these more militant elements failed and a group of them, which included a number of senior brothers and which by the late 1930s had formed their own group under the name ‘Mohamed’s Youth’, seceded from the Brotherhood.28 In 1942 Mohamed’s Youth issued a communiqué in which it accused al-Banna of deviating from true Islamic principles by declaring that the success of the Islamic mission was ‘dependent on pleasing the rulers and working under their party banner’.29

However, the secession of Mohamed’s Youth should not be read as a rejection by al-Banna of the principle of the use of military means to effect change. His reputation for moderation notwithstanding, in the late 1930s he set up a secret military unit known as the Nizam al-Khass under the leadership of Saleh Ashwami.30 Although the Brotherhood has argued that this military wing was set up in direct response to the situation in Palestine and that its main objective was to provide military assistance to the Palestinians, it was in line with al-Banna’s vision for the movement right from its inception. One of the founding members of the Nizam al-Khass explained:

The image that al-Ustath [the Master] had in his mind since he started his dawa in Ismailia about that [military] aspect of dawa activity was … of a military group that would encapsulate the idea of jihad in Islam … He was so keen to emphasise military activity in order to demonstrate the idea of jihad. But he was frightened that these kinds of things might be used against him.31

Al-Banna was so keen to set up some kind of military arm that he had established scout units to provide physical training for the young cadres in preparation for the later military phase without drawing suspicion on the part of the authorities. However, the creation of the Nizam al-Khass was also a useful way to relieve some of the pressure from the more ardent activists within his organisation. As Lia has argued, ‘There can be little doubt that strong internal pressure from radical members was the major factor behind the formation of the military wing.’32 Although this assertion may be a little overstated, such pressure certainly contributed to pushing al-Banna into setting up something that was already in his mind and the Palestinian cause provided him with the opportunity to kill several birds with one stone.

The Nizam al-Khass may have a troubled history, but like its founder it still has a special place in the hearts of many Ikhwani and is considered as something glorious. The former Supreme Guide Mehdi Akef still describes this group as ‘the pride of the Muslim Brotherhood’.33 Yet at the time its establishment sowed yet further dissent within the Ikhwan’s ranks. Whilst some were happy with the military dimension, others were less comfortable with it and found it to be outside of the movement’s traditional sphere of activity. Some brothers believed the whole project to be downright bizarre. Mahmoud A’asaf, one time Information Secretary of the Ikhwan, related how one day in 1944 he and another leading member of the Ikhwan Dr Abdelaziz Kamel were called to give baya (oath of allegiance) to the Nizam al-Khass in a house in the Al-Saliba district of Cairo:

… we entered a dark room and an unidentifiable person was there although his voice was very well known to us. It was the voice of Saleh Ashwami and in front of him was a low table at which he was sitting cross-legged. On the table there was a Qur’an and a pistol. He asked both of us to put our right hands on the Qur’an and the pistol and to give baya and obedience to the Nizam al-Khass and to work for the triumph of Islamic dawa. That was very strange and spread foreboding in us.34

Similarly, Farid Abdel Khaliq, one of the most devoted of al-Banna’s followers, described his displeasure at being called to join the Nizam al-Khass and at having to undergo a special test in which he was asked to take a bag to a certain address.35 Upon realising that the bag contained explosives, he refused to participate any further.

As well as alienating some of his more moderate followers by the establishment of the Nizam al-Khass, al-Banna struggled to contain his own creation. In the late 1940s, the Nizam al-Khass, by this point under the control of the ambitious Abdel Rahman al-Sanadi, was responsible for a series of acts of political violence including attacks on British forces. Of course such violence was in line with the times, as various groups including the nationalists began to adopt more militant tactics against their foes.36 In January 1948 Egyptian forces discovered caches of arms and explosives in the hills outside Cairo and clashes between the police and a number of young Ikhwani, led by a member of the Nizam al-Khass who had been training in the hills, ensued. Later in the same year the group was responsible for the killing of an Egyptian judge, Ahmed al-Khazindar Bey, who had handed down a prison sentence to a member of the Ikhwan for attacking British soldiers. It seems that after al-Banna had made a passing comment declaring that he wished to be rid of the judge, Abdel Rahman al-Sanadi took him at his word. Al-Sanadi explained, ‘When al-Ustath says that he wishes to get rid of al-Khazindar, his desire to get rid of him is an order.’37 However, in the row that ensued al-Banna refused point blank to take any responsibility for the killing.

The extent of al-Banna’s responsibility for the actions of the Nizam al-Khass is still a matter of debate given that as Murshid he was overall leader and insisted on obedience as one of the core principles of the secret apparatus. Regardless of whether he can be held responsible it is noteworthy that, after the assassination, al-Banna did not expel al-Sanadi. Instead he took steps to take further control of the Nizam al-Khass himself. Yet the Ikhwan’s growing militarisation along with the increasing tensions and popular unrest within Egypt in the run up to the 1952 nationalist revolution put the authorities on high alert, and they began to prepare the ground for the Brotherhood’s dissolution. The assassination of Prime Minister Nuqrashi in December 1948 by a young Ikhwani veterinary student and a bomb attack attempt on a Cairo courthouse by a member of the Nizam al-Khass were the last straw. Al-Banna, shaken by events, was by this point desperately trying to make his peace with the government and wrote a public letter declaring that those who had perpetrated the acts of violence were ‘neither brothers, nor are they Muslims’.38

Al-Banna’s willingness to distance himself from those within his movement who had taken action was a miscalculation on his part, for it prompted uproar and anger within the ranks of the Brotherhood. Moreover, it failed to win over the authorities; instead, al-Banna resorted to writing a pamphlet titled Qawl Fasl in which he asserted that all the charges against the brothers were fabrications or distortions, and that the only reason the movement possessed arms was in order to assist the Palestinians. To little avail: al-Banna’s assassination in February 1949 was followed by mass arrests and the military trials of scores of Ikhwani.

Therefore even though al-Banna has always been held up as a beacon of moderation and as the traditional face of the Brotherhood, he was always willing to accommodate more militant elements within his movement. Yet it appears that in trying to meet the demands of all the different constituencies he needed to keep on side, he ultimately lost control. One could argue that al-Banna was essentially a simple man with a belief that all answers lie in Islam and that in spite of all his pragmatism he had bitten off more than he could chew, getting himself caught up in a situation that was ultimately to prove too complex for him. It seems that he was never able to reconcile his desire to adopt a cautious approach with his bid to be seen as defending Islam and capable of mounting a challenge to established order. In the language of Mahmoud Abdelhalim, he did not want his dawa to become cold prey for his enemies.39 Al-Banna’s failure to balance these two conflicting requirements has not been unique to him; as discussed above, this problem is one of the core issues that has continued to characterise the Ikhwan and that remains unresolved today.

Internal Wrangling and the Triumph of the Nizam al-Khass

The death of al-Banna served to bring the various tensions that had been simmering for years well and truly to the fore. Whilst al-Banna had struggled to contain the different elements within the Ikhwan, his charisma, as well as his having founded the movement, had enabled him to have some sort of authority over the organisation. However, he left no natural heir to the Brotherhood, which meant that after his death competing factions sought to claim leadership of the Ikhwan. Two distinct camps emerged at this time. The first consisted of those who believed that a successor should be appointed from within al-Banna’s own family and the second comprised the Nizam al-Khass, who considered themselves to be the elite of the Ikhwan and as such the rightful successors to the top post. But this battle was about more than just who was to be leader; it was about charting the future course and character of the movement as a whole.

The division between these two competing camps over who should lead the Brotherhood was so intense that in the end the only solution was to bring in a compromise figure to take up the post. The choice was Hassan al-Hodeibi, who although not actually a member of the Ikhwan had been very close to al-Banna for many years. A judge, al-Hodeibi was well connected to the establishment, especially to the upper echelons of the Palace. Fathi al-Asal, who was the General Inspector of the Ikhwan’s Headquarters at the time, said of al-Hodeibi, ‘He was the Murshid of the Palace, not the Murshid of the Brotherhood.’40Al-Hodeibi himself, who appears to have been an organiser as much as anything else, was initially reluctant to take up the post on account of the bitter internal divisions within the Guidance Office.41

His appointment turned out to be a victory for the Nizam al-Khass. One of the reasons they accepted him was because he was weak and could therefore be subject to manipulation; furthermore, he could act as a useful more neutral figurehead for the movement given its own difficulties with the authorities. Indeed, the Nizam al-Khass made it clear to the new Murshid that they expected him to be little other than a front man and that they intended to be the real arbiters of power within the movement. Upon assuming the post al-Hodeibi is reported to have been told, ‘We want nothing from you; you need not even come to the headquarters. We will bring the papers for you to sign or reject as you will … We only want a leader who will be a symbol of cleanliness.’42

Despite al-Hodeibi’s best attempts to prevent the Nizam al-Khass from dominating the movement, he was, as they had predicted, no match for them. Part of his problem was that he was living in the shadow of al-Banna, who for all his faults was still hailed as the ultimate leader. As such, al-Hodeibi was never able to muster the same respect or loyalty as his predecessor. Moreover, al-Hodeibi’s open objections to both secrecy and violence – the two elements that distinguished the Nizam al-Khass from the rest of the movement – meant that from the beginning he was set on a path that would bring him into conflict with these powerful figures. More importantly, he condemned the violent acts that the Nizam al-Khass had been involved in, calling them acts of ‘extravagation … and deviation from the original duty of the Brotherhood organisation’.43 This not only infuriated the Nizam al-Khass, it also discredited the nobility of purpose with which these events were viewed and challenged some traditional views in the society on both means and ends.44 According to Maimoun al-Hodeibi, Hassan al-Hodeibi’s son, who was himself later to become the Murshid, his father ‘did not have al-Banna’s charisma. This created a sense of confusion within the group, especially when the paramilitary wing … did not accept his authority as leader, weakening the Brotherhood. As a result, there were only a few people within the movement that he really trusted, and he never had complete control over the paramilitary wing.’45

His lack of control was such that he even proved unable to discover exactly who all of the Nizam al-Khass’s members were. He made an attempt in 1953 to expel a number of key figures and to dissolve the unit but this proved fruitless, as for many the idea of the Ikhwan without the Nizam al-Khass was unthinkable, and he was pressurised into retracting. At this time he appointed his own man, Yousef Talat, to be the new head of the unit, hoping he would be able to bring it within the formal structures of the Brotherhood. However, even this was not sufficient to bring the unit under his true control.

Yet it was not just the Nizam al-Khass that al-Hodeibi struggled to direct. The new Murshid proved unable to harness the movement as a whole and as a result the Ikhwan became paralysed under his leadership. As its membership began to dwindle and dissent among the ranks increased, al-Hodeibi was accused of turning the Ikhwan into a movement of words not action.46 Yet while al-Hodeibi was weak, he cannot be blamed as entirely responsible for the movement’s demise. It was also a reflection of the changing political environment in Egypt.

Shortly after al-Hodeibi’s appointment as Murshid, President Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power in his nationalist revolution of 1952. Given that the Brotherhood had maintained good relations with the nationalists before they had come to power, the Ikhwani had high hopes for their future and expected to be given space in which to operate under the new regime. Some brothers were overjoyed at Nasser’s coming to power, as they believed that he would move to bring about Islamic rule. However, as it became increasingly apparent that Nasser had no intention of applying Islamic law, they became increasingly disillusioned and fierce disagreements occurred within the Guidance Office over the extent to which the movement should be prepared to work with the regime. Around the same time, Nasser began to view the Ikhwan as an irritant, not least because it was resisting some of his policies. In January 1954 the new cabinet plunged the Ikhwan into disaster by dissolving the Muslim Brotherhood.47 It also launched an aggressive press campaign against the movement and arrested scores of brothers, provoking yet further discord among the Ikhwan’s ranks.

It was in such extreme circumstances that the Nizam al-Khass seemed to come into their own, as if they had been given the opportunity to act and to assert their domination. They took it upon themselves to issue threatening letters to members of the Brotherhood who had escaped arrest, deeming their lack of persecution an indication that they had been colluding with the regime.48 They also began to push for the Ikhwan to take some sort of public action against the government. Al-Hodeibi’s attempts to act as peacemaker fell on deaf ears and his unwillingness to act – especially in the face of Nasser’s signing an evacuation treaty with the British that many Ikhwani considered to be tantamount to ‘giving away the nation’ – prompted some elements within the Nizam al-Khass to initiate a more radical plan.

On 26 October 1954 as Nasser gave a speech in Cairo to celebrate the British evacuation treaty, he was shot at eight times, but escaped unharmed. The truth of who exactly was involved in this plot aside from the supposed assassin, Mahmoud Abdel Latif, a tinsmith from Imbaba, and how much the Ikhwan’s leadership knew about it, is still not clear. However, the consequences for the Brotherhood were severe: the regime retaliated by hanging six men and arresting thousands of Ikhwani, essentially crushing the organisation.

Thus al-Hodeibi had proved even more inept than his predecessor at managing the different strands within the Ikhwan. His failure to rein the more activist elements in resulted in a fallow period for the Brotherhood and the movement was effectively stymied during the second half of the 1950s and throughout the 1960s due to the fact that so many Ikhwani had been imprisoned. However, rather than diminishing these more militant elements’ appetite for action, their spell in prison only hardened them and made them even more determined to challenge the Nasser regime. Despite the organisational stasis, there were a number of ideological developments during this time that served to bolster these more hardline elements. These developments, arguably the first since the movement’s inception, came through the figure of Sayyid Qutb, whose more radical ideas began to take hold and gather a momentum of their own. As has been well documented by numerous scholars, Qutb came to advocate that the leaders of Egypt and Egyptian society could be considered as part of jahiliya (pre-Islamic ignorance) and were therefore legitimate targets in the struggle to create an Islamic order. In a movement so dominated by organisers and so parched of thinkers, Qutb’s ideas came to breathe new life into the organisation. For those of a more militant persuasion it would seem that it was in Qutb that they found a real successor to al-Banna, a man whose ideas could provide the intellectual justifications for the action they so craved.

By the mid-1960s, the Qutbists had formed their own movement within the Ikhwan, which became known as Organisation 1965. It is not clear how much support this group had from al-Hodeibi, who was under house arrest at this time. He seems to have accepted the development, perhaps aware that he could not stop such a powerful current. One analyst argues:

Because Qutb’s ideological development was not a secret, we can also conclude that al-Hodeibi was aware of the ideological foundation of Organisation 1965. In any case, al-Hodeibi made no effort to object to the group or Qutb’s theories, and it can be assumed that he chose to tacitly accept, if not support the activities of Organisation 1965.49

However, once the regime began to clamp down on this group, accusing it of plotting to overthrow the state and executing a number of those involved – including Qutb himself, who was hanged in 1966 – as well as arresting many brothers, al-Hodeibi moved quickly to distance himself from the group.

This provoked yet another internal crisis within the movement, with different strands in the Ikhwan unable to agree on what their stance towards the state should be. Many of those who had followed Qutb, including Mustafa Shukri who went on to establish the militant Takfir wal Hijra group, could not stomach the idea of taking a conciliatory approach towards the state and split off from the Brotherhood to follow an ultimately self-destructive path. Meanwhile, al-Hodeibi tried to set the Ikhwan back on a course of moderation. As part of this process, he published his famous text, Preachers Not Judges, which is widely regarded as an indirect refutation of Qutb’s ideas, although it was as much a rejection of the ideas of Indian theologian Abu Ala Maududi as it was of Qutb’s. Indeed, the text is broadly a dismissal of extremist thought and the concept of pronouncing others as kufar (apostate). Although serious questions have been raised as to whether al-Hodeibi was pressurised into writing the book by the regime, or whether he wrote it at all, it is used by the Ikhwan today as evidence of his peaceful stance and his re-channelling the movement back to its original moderate direction as conceived by al-Banna.

The breakaway by the more militant Qutbist elements within the Ikhwan and al-Hodeibi’s reassertion of the Ikhwan’s non-confrontational stance did not bring an end to the divisions. The 1970s were to lay the foundations for another major split that would occur later on, which symbolised the Ikhwan’s never-ending conundrum over how to place themselves vis-à-vis the rulers of the day. The whole conflictual scenario was beginning to seem like a perpetual cycle of indecision and disagreement that increasingly came to paralyse the Ikhwan.

The Dilemma of the New Generation

The 1970s began with the promise of an era of golden opportunity for the Ikhwan. Shortly after coming to power in October 1970, President Sadat sought to reconcile with the Islamists and set about releasing members of the Brotherhood. Among those released were a group of hawkish members of the Nizam al-Khass including Mustafa Mashour, Ahmed al-Malat, Kamel Sananiri, Ahmed Hassanein and Hosni Abdelbaqi. They took it upon themselves to wrestle control of the Ikhwan away from Hassan al-Hodeibi once and for all. These figures soon gained a reputation for being tough; one former Ikhwani has described them as being ‘like steel’.50 Another observed, ‘When they left prison they were very young and they were very practical and the most activist. They took control of the movement in Egypt.’51 They appointed themselves as members of the Guidance Office at this time, giving themselves the reins of power.