Talk:Muslim Brotherhood

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This is a controversial topic, which may be under dispute. Please read this talk page and discuss substantial changes here before making them. Make sure you supply full citations when adding information to highly controversial articles.

This page has been cited as a source by a media organization. See the 2005 press source article for details. The citation is in: Bob Rinearson. "We need not welcome an apologist for terror.", Fort Wayne News Sentinel (IN), January 13, 2005.

Contents 1 Corrections 1.1 Egypt 1.2 Update since 2005 elections 1.3 Typo 1.4 Sufi? 1.5 "Sanctioning" 2 Disputes 2.1 Inconsistent attempt to appease everyone? 2.2 Terrorist organization? 2.3 Biased and Misleading 3 Research in Progress 4 Rewrite Using Scholarly Sources 5 More references 6 POV check 7 Don't be afraid to contribute to this article 8 MEMRI 9 History 10 Iraq 11 Redundancy? 12 Other Country or Region? Turkey? Indonesia? 13 Lebanon 14 Biased how so? 15 The Project 16 "Signposts on the road" 17 References 18 POV check and accuracy 19 Logo Deleted From Article

[edit] Corrections

Great Effort for whoever collated these facts, but I have a question regarding dropping out Ahmed Maher Pasha's assasination. He was the Prime minister at that time and scholars unanimously agree that he was assassinated by a member of the MB.

[edit] Egypt

Several problems with this article: 1. although the best-known group by the name 'Muslim Brotherhood' is Egyptian, there are many nominally independent groups with the same name in other countries. Experts differ about the degree to which the groups coordinate, or take orders from the Egyptian branch, etc... this article says nothing about these other national groups. 2. the word 'Moslem' does not exist. It is a Britishism that many Muslims find insulting. 3. it's too short, and makes no note of the difference between groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, which are quasi-religious associations of a type common in the Muslim world (albeit much more politically active and militant than most), the ulema from whom most members are drawn, and terrorist groups that have some intersection of membership. Someone who knows more about this subject ought to edit this article. --142.177.104.87 7 Jan 2003, 23:15

yes, you are right. I tried to correct some parts (including the wrong piece of information that the brotherhood was founded by Qutb in the 50s), but a lot more needs to be written... --Elian 8 Jan 2003, 00:33

The Muslim Brotherhood article has changed considerably since 142.177.104.87's comments.
* 1. The Egyptian branch of the brotherhood is not portrayed as the organization's headquarters.
* 2. The word "Moslem" does not appear even once.
* 3. The article is not short and explains some differences between the different branches of the Brotherhood.
* 4. And it no longer says that the brotherhood was founded by Qutb in the 50s.
--AI 18:41, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

there are alot of wrong things here make any one from egypt laughing like : they support abd elnaseer and killed noqrashi noqrashi was the king prime minister that means before abd el naser comes i suggest to go and read more about them because ther are alot of mistakes here you can see information from there site [ www.ikhwanonline.com --81.10.3.209 1 Oct 2004 , 17:02

[[ikhwanonline.com] --AI 18:41, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)]

The Muslim Brotherhood article no longer contains the comments referred to by 81.10.3.209.
--AI 18:41, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Members: Ayman Elzawahry is not part of this organization, but was part of a different one (Jamaa Islameya). The brotherhood is strictly against Alqaeda's terrorism and have denounced violence alltogether. This article needs a lot of work!

There is no talk here of the Muslim Brotherhood's support for Hitler and the Nazi's in WWII, or of their strict opposition to the Zionist movement and their approval of the persecution ofJews, even the Holocaust?!?!?!?!?!

That's not correct; the main articles discuss the Brotherhood's opposition to Zionism at length. As for their alleged support for Nazism, the main articles specifically refute this claim, citing authoritative academic sources: the Brotherhood were against Nazism. --Beroul 10:23, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Just thought i would suggest people take a look at Mona El Ghobashy's (I believe she's a professor at NYU. Her knowledge of Egyptian - and regional - politics is very impressive) article on the MB's evolution over the years in the International Journal of Middle East Studies. You can get a scanned pdf copy off felow Arabist's blog at The Metamorphosis of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. There's also an article in the Middle East Report on the MB's performance in parliament since they snatched a shocking 88 seats of parliament in November 2005, against all the odds of rigging, voter intimidation, vote-buying and violence set up by the Mubarak regime. Check it out at The Brotherhood Goes to Parliament. I think that's all i have for now. Bassemkhalifa 12:03, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Update since 2005 elections

I'd like to propose the following addition to the text about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. It picks up from the winter 2005 elections and would follow what is currently the penultimate paragraph of that section:

In Parliamentary elections held in November 2005, Brotherhood candidates, standing as independents to circumvent a formal ban on the movement’s participation in politics, won 88 of 454 seats, becoming the largest opposition bloc. This came despite an election campaign marred by many irregularities (including allegations of vote rigging) and the arrest of hundreds of Brotherhood members. Approved opposition parties, meanwhile, won just 14 seats.

This success was a vindication of a strategy of political participation begun as far back as 1984. At the same time, the Brotherhood found itself under more scrutiny than it had ever faced before.^[1] While secular elites feared that a resurgent Brotherhood would feel emboldened to impose their version of Islam on Egypt, debate within the political elite was renewed about whether the organization should remain banned. The continued arbitrary arrest of Brotherhood members – the organization claimed over 700 hundred were detained between Spring and Autumn 2006 – strongly suggests the authorities have been “unnerved” by their success.^[1]

The linked questions of “allegiance” and “ideology” remain at the centre of the debate over the Brotherhood’s role in Egyptian politics. Critics have argued that the strategy of political participation is purely tactical, allowing the organization to put itself in a position whereby it can start to introduce sharia law. ‘Adil Hammouda, editor-in-chief of al-Fajr, even went so far as to suggest that “the next steps after the Brothers reach Parliament is the cancellation of democracy.”^[1] Others point to an ambiguous relationship between the Parliamentary Bloc and the organization’s Guidance Council, suggesting that MPs will simply follow instructions from the centre. An examination of the Brotherhood’s record in Parliament suggests that such fears are unfounded. Indeed, it is their professionalism and action on important issues that has been most noteworthy – in particular a nationwide information campaign to calm fears following an outbreak of the H5N1 “Bird Flu” virus in February 2006, and their opposition to the renewal of Egypt’s Emergency Law in April.^[1]

Between December 2005 and July 2006, 80% of parliamentary activity was initiated by members of the Bloc.^[1] This activity has taken the form of requests for information, proposing legislation and responding to the Government’s budget. When the budget was presented in February 2006, rather than be restricted by the traditional 5 minutes allotted to each MP to discuss it, they published a detailed, 300-page response. Given the government’s majority, it was unsurprising that the budget was passed. Significantly, however, a number of MPs from the government side voted with the opposition.^[1]

Far from being merely the mouthpiece of the organisation’s Cairo HQ, the Brotherhood’s MPs have repeatedly stressed their desire to reform Parliament as the basis for wider reform. Husayn Muhammad Ibrahim, the bloc’s vice-chairman stated in an interview: “We want people to see Parliament as a place were steps can happen…”^[1] Perhaps most importantly they have worked hard to answer critics of their democratic credentials by demonstrating that they take Parliament seriously – not least by an unmatched record of attendance.^[1]

Working to ensure the Parliament ceases to be merely a rubber stamp and holding the government to account are clearly worthy goals. However, questions – and perhaps doubts – regarding the Brotherhood’s commitment to democracy will remain as long as there is a perceived lack of transparency within the organisation’s wider structures. It is also clear that the government will not willingly surrender its current ascendancy. 2007 has seen a further crackdown on the Brotherhood. Warnings from President Mubarak that the organization was a threat to Egyptian national security were followed up by arrests that have targeted its financial infrastructure. ^[2] The Brotherhood were also forced to deny that they were accusations by state-controlled media that they were forming a militia after Islamist students attending a protest march at al-Azhar University wore military-style uniforms and balaclavas.^[2] Some observers have predicted a wider assault on opposition parties in general, along with the media, ahead of elections timetabled for later this year. ^[3][1] Nicholas wright 22:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Typo

"They have not supported movements like al-Jihad and al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya in Egypt and mujahedeen ment of Muslim communities in Europe and the United States." That "ment" must be a typo, but I cannot guess what it was meant to say. Jogback 19:20, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"Ment" was probably "movement" Alberuni 20:18, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Probably, I changed it to "movement."
--AI 18:41, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sufi?

It is said in the article that Muslim Brotherhood rejects Sufi. But in Hassan Al-Banna's Book Majmu'ar-Rosa'il (Indonesian Version) it is stated that Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimun is thariqah sufiyyah and also sports club, social organizatioan, and ofcourse dakwah salafiyyah. Maybe what the writer meant is extreme sufism.Fauzan sa 29 Nov 2004, 09:56

[edit] "Sanctioning"

This line, "An important aspect of the Muslim Brotherhood ideology is the sanctioning of Jihad such as the 2004 fatwa issued by Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi making it a religious obligation of Muslims to abduct and kill USA citizens in Iraq," is unclear. To sanction can mean to condone/approve of, but it can also mean to penalize. In other words, it can have opposite meanings, so I would appreciate if someone clarified the intended meaning here. --137.165.195.172 15 Dec 2004, 19:53

That line is no longer in the article.
--AI 18:41, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Disputes

[edit] Inconsistent attempt to appease everyone?

The article currently says "Inconsistent with popular belief in the West, the Muslim Brotherhood normally does not pursue its goals through acts of terror. For the situations of military occupation, and its Palestinian branch, Hamas, it pursues a struggle against Israel, in which it has frequently used bombs and other methods that specifically target Israeli military and civilians".
Am I the only one getting confused reading this?

• is there an implicit statement made here that bombing Israeli civilians is not an act of terror?
• or has the Muslim Brotherhood distanced itself from Hamas in the process of legitimizing itself?
• or something else? Obviously something is false or missing here.

24.23.137.188 02:42, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Terrorist organization?

GCarty removed [Category:Islamic terrorist organizations] without an explanation. Is it a terrorist organization or not?
--AI 17:57, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Biased and Misleading

This article suffers from a strong bias against the Muslim Brotherhood, and contains misleading statements.

The article should note that the Brotherhood's political positions have evolved considerably in the past few decades. It renounced violence in the 1970s, advocates free elections, majority rule, freedom of thought and expression, has declared its desire for dialogue with "parties opposed to violence, terrorism, and extremism", and has been participating with secular activists in the recent pro-democracy "kifaya" movement in Egypt. A Muslim Brotherhood statement reads:

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.

As the International Crisis Group points out (in the same report):

Ever since its rapprochement with the Sadat regime, the Society has pursued a non-violent strategy of expanding its social and political presence through an approach that recalls that of European social democracy....

The specific measure the Society calls for are free and fair elections; the amendment of the laws on political parties and on professional syndicates; the right to demonstrate, hold meetings and publish newspapers; and, above all, lifting the Emergency Law in force since 1981.

Anwar_Sadat was not assassinated by the Muslim Brotherhood, but by another group, called Islamic Jihad. (It is also worth noting that this followed a period during which Sadat exercised massive, brutal repression against Islamists and students in Egypt.) In fact, the Brotherhood had good relations with Sadat, even after the Camp David agreement in 1979.

The article should mention that the Brotherhood is the most popular political organisation in Egypt, but remains illegal, because the Egyptian government knows very well that if the Brotherhood were allowed to participate in fair elections (which in any case do not exist in Egypt), it would probably win:

Many political scientists say that truly free elections might take the Brotherhood to victory.

Even the state-run Al Ahram Weekly acknolwedges that the Brotherhood has more popular support than any other Egyptian opposition party:

"Except for the Muslim Brotherhood," said Bahieddin Hassan, who heads the Cairo Centre for Human Rights, "none of the existing political forces could be considered a threat to Mubarak's regime."

Brotherhood members are often arrested and imprisoned without trial in Egypt.

The Brotherhood are themselves rather modest about the broad popular support they enjoy:

Muslim Brotherhood member Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh dismissed predictions that the choices were limited to the National Democratic Party (NDP) or the Muslim Brotherhood. "We cannot reduce all political forces on the scene to just the NDP or the Brotherhood. There are other forces at play. Let the democratic process and the ballot box be the alternative," Abul-Fotouh said. "We should not expropriate the public's right to choose their own rulers. Let the Islamists, the Nasserists and the liberals run for office, and show their respect for the will of the electorate." -- Beroul

* Beroul, you are quoting from the PR voice of the Muslim Brotherhood which states its desire for dialogue with "parties opposed to violence, terrorism, and extremism."
How credible is the Muslim Brotherhood when it's motto states: "Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."
--AI 19:32, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

First of all, what is your source for that motto? Secondly, perhaps you don't know that the word "jihad" in Arabic refers to any effort made for the good of Islam; war is only one possible form of "jihad". "Dying in the way of Allah" could simply mean being a good Muslim throughout one's life until death, and isn't necessarily a reference to war. Even if military jihad was the intended meaning, you would have to put it in historical context. Many of Hassan Al-Banna's political views have been gradually abandoned by the Brotherhood over the years, and contradicted by its more recent commitments, but because of respect for their founder, the Brothers have been slow to acknowledge this contradiction officially. However, their actions over the past thirty years speak for themselves and have been consistent with their statements during this period: abjuring violent struggle, providing social and educational services to the poor and attempting to participate in the Egyptian political process (via several members of the Egyptian parliament who stand as independent candidates). Their steadfast non-violence is all the more remarkable given the Egyptian government's relentless campaign of arbitrary arrest and torture of Brotherhood members; unlike some other Egyptian opposition groups that became radicalised when subjected to similar repression, the Brotherhood has not sought vengeance against the government. This is undoubtedly a sign of political maturity. Nowadays, a charge more often levelled at the Muslim Brothers is that they're too timid, that they don't stand up to the regime enough. The slogan you're quoting, if indeed it is real and can be interpreted in the way you seem to think, reflects at most the organisation's distant past (perhaps especially its origins as a movement against British domination of Egypt, another point this Wikipedia article misses), not its present or recent past. Read the International Crisis Group's report for an in-depth examination of the reality of the Brotherhood. The Crisis Group is a staunchly pro-Western research organisation whose board reads like a Who's Who of powerful, centrist Western political figures; they can hardly be accused of lacking scepticism towards Islamic political groups. Or read François Burgat's excellent book on political Islam, based on nearly 20 years of research in the region. (Burgat, who is based in Yemen, is a political scientist at the CNRS, one of the most prestigious French public research institutes.) I'm not saying the Brotherhood are the most progressive organisation in the world; they're not. But they're not at all what this Wikipedia article makes them out to be. --Beroul 15:47, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

* I am doing my best to remain neutral. I could be a lot harsher on the Muslim Brotherhood based on exhaustive research by others. I did not write this article. If you look at the article history you can see what I and others have contributed. Source(s) can be found at the bottom of the spread. Your claims and references do not precisely correspond. Your citation of the International Crisis Group's report [2] contains no mention of the The Muslim Brotherhood but rather Islamism. The two are not the same. The "Brotherhood" does not fully renounce violence as you profess. Here is a more recent quote by a "Brotherhood" leader:
... "all of the Americans in Iraq are combatants, there is no difference between civilians and soldiers, and one should fight them, since the American civilians came to Iraq in order to serve the occupation. The abduction and killing of Americans in Iraq is a obligation so as to cause them to leave Iraq immediately. The mutilation of corpses is forbidden in Islam."--Sheikh Dr. Yousef Al-Qaradhawi at the Egyptian Journalists' Union in Cairo, August 2004
Please contribute to the article and site your sources.
--AI 22:09, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I will edit the article. I don't see any sign of "exhaustive research" here. The references are very short on scholarly research. The Federation of American Scientists article is of very poor quality (it incorrectly states that the Brothers assassinated Sadat). As for Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, he is described here (in a scholarly article by a specialist on Al-Qaradhawi) as a "former member of the Muslim Brotherhood", not a current member, still less a "leader". Moreover, the Middle East Media Research Institute article is just about Al-Qaradhawi, and says nothing about the history or current activities of the Brotherhood. (The Middle East Media Research Institute also seems to be very biased against political Islam in general; its article contains highly inflammatory rhetoric, e.g. words such as "bloodthirsty", that have no place in serious scholarship.) In any case, the views of a single person, on a very specific subject, at a single point in time, can't be used to characterise the objectives, strategies and actions of a large, heterogeneous, international group that has existed for some eighty years. Instead, you need to look at the overall patterns of the group's activities over time. Gilles Kepel is indeed a distinguished expert, but his name is misspelt and the reference to his book gives no page numbers, so it's not clear whether that reference was added as an afterthought, or whether anything in this article was based on his book. Moreover, he has a particular take on Islamism that is not shared by some of his peers; a greater diversity of academic points of view is needed for an encyclopedia article. The other references are journalistic. It seems to me that an encyclopedia article, especially one on a controversial and complex topic such as this, should rely on serious scholarship, rather than on journalistic sources, which are likely to be highly biased and based on sloppy research. Overall, this Wikipedia article seems to be based mainly on hearsay.
More generally, I don't think this is a subject that can be adequately researched on the Internet; you need to use the standard academic texts on this subject, such as Richard P. Mitchell's The Society of the Muslim Brothers, as well as more recent academic work of a similar calibre.
The International Crisis Group's report does indeed contain a section on the Brotherhood (section IV, pp. 9-16); you seem to have read only the Executive Summary, not the full report (i.e. the PDF file that can be downloaded from the link given above). Please read the full report; it's not a complete picture, but it's a beginning, and a useful antidote to the inaccuracy of this Wikipedia article. --Beroul 17:22, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Beroul, I agree with you that the Muslim Brotherhood article plausibly contains innacuracies because most of the exemplifications of the movement seem to be biased one way or another. Last year, when I began learning about the MB as a result of research into an insular topic, the picture I surveyed was eminently presumable yet slanderous to the organization. As I do not have adequate access to material on the subject and my target of research is not the MB, I am not an expert on the subject. I believe with your contribution, Wikipedia's article on the Muslim Brotherhood can be a source of information rather than propaganda.--AI 18:42, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Many thanks for your confidence; I'm going to try to research this properly. I'm not an expert on the Brotherhood either; most of what I know about them comes from more general reading on Middle Eastern history and Islamist movements. Also, my Arabic isn't yet good enough to handle primary sources. However, I have some time to spend on this at the moment and I have access to good scholarship in English and French. Starting from the bibliographies of more general texts that I trust, I've been to the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and borrowed a stack of books on the Brotherhood, and I've started going through them and making notes. Give me a few weeks to try to synthesise this material; if it takes longer than that, I'll make another note here to report on my progress. --Beroul 12:06, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Research in Progress

I'm working my way through several books:

• Mitchell, Richard P., The Society of the Muslim Brothers (London: Oxford University Press, 1969).
• Lia, Brynjar, The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement 1928-1942 (Reading, UK: Garnet, 1998)
• Carré, Olivier and Gérard Michaud, Les Frères musulmans : Egypte et Syrie (1928-1982) (Paris: Gallimard, 1983)
• Kepel, Gilles, Le Prophète et le pharaon : Les mouvements islamistes dans l'Egypte contemporaine (Paris: La Découverte, 1984)
• Wickham, Carrie Rosefsky, Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism and Political Change in Egypt (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002)

Some inaccuracies in the Wikipedia article:

• "wants... the rejection of Western influences" -- Lia debunks this as far as the Brotherhood's early period is concerned, and their recent statements (e.g. as quoted in the Crisis Group report) seem to indicate an ever greater openness to Western political philosophy. What Lia makes clear is that Banna didn't reject Western influences; he rejected Western domination.
• "the group has fomented Islamic revolution" -- this obscures historical events because it fails to define what is meant by "Islamic revolution", and to distinguish between the group's policies and the actions of its members.
• "the 1924 abolition of the caliphate" -- this does not seem to have been particularly important to Banna. According to Mitchell, "talk of the institution of the caliphate was so nebulous and far

in the future as to be without meaning".

Some major omissions:

• The Brotherhood was founded largely in order to resist foreign political and economic domination of Arab and Muslim countries, and in the first instance the British occupation of Egypt. It was a major part of the broader historical process of nationalist independence movements.
• It has also been, to some extent, a labour movement. It has encouraged workers to strike for better working conditions, and farmers to strike for land reform.
• When it has been allowed to operate legally, the Brotherhood's activities have often included building schools and hospitals and providing similar social services.
• Sufism was an important ingredient in the Brotherhood's early development.
• The consistent persecution of the Brotherhood by secular governments (mass arrests and imprisonment without trial, torture, suppression of the movement's legitimate activities) have mainly been a way for existing regimes to eliminate a rival political party that enjoys broad popular support. This persecution also accounts, to an extent, for escalations of violence.

What bothers me most about this article is that it doesn't attempt to say anything about the Brotherhood beyond the question of whether it can be considered a terrorist group. The article is little more than a laundry list of assassination attempts and other news items. There is no attempt to understand the values and motivations of the Brothers, to consider the reasons for their widespread popular support or to situate the organisation in its social and historical context.

Once I've gone through these books, I'd like to condense my notes down to the length of an encyclopedia article, essentially a substantial rewrite of the existing article. This is going to take me several more weeks, though. Please bear with me. --Beroul 00:16, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Beroul, you might want to make sure you do not delete information without discussing it or others may just revert your rewrite.--AI 02:52, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

I wrote a month ago, in a comment above, that it is not clear what, if anything, in this article is supported by reputable academic sources; since then, no one has come to the defence of any of the statements made in the existing text. Therefore I see no reason not to delete the entire article and replace it with properly researched material, based on serious scholarship written by experts in the field. The present article is about 1800 words long. So far I've written nearly 6000 words carefully summarising much of Mitchell's and Brynjar's books listed above, covering the history of the Brotherhood until 1950, including the development of its ideology, the reasons for its expansion, its internal structure and its relations with governments. I intend to continue summarising the academic texts I've listed above, and others if necessary, until this history reaches the present day. At that point I'd like to add a separate "History of the Muslim Brotherhood" article, and replace the current article with a new one including the main points from the "History" article, but focusing more on the present day. If necessary I'll split these up into more articles. I also intend to revise the Hassan al Banna article. My aim is to provide an introductory text on the Brotherhood that will enable someone unfamiliar with political Islam to understand what has been at stake, politically, socially and economically, in the development of one of the largest and most influential such movements over the past century, and to have some basis for opinions about which aspects of it have been positive as well as about its mistakes, rather than see it as something monolithic, to be accepted or rejected as a whole. My hope is that such a treatment would, for example, help the reader make sense of articles in the press about the current political conflicts taking place in Egypt. Then I hope that anyone who feels additional material is needed will proceed in the same way, carefully citing reputable academic texts as they go along. --Beroul 11:40, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You're already far more well-read on the subject than me, and I applaud your efforts. But I'd caution you to make sure you distinguish between what the Brotherhood WAS and what it has become today. Hassan al-Banna was not its only philosopher. Graft 14:39, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I know. During Banna's lifetime there were major conflicts within the organisation about its fundamental purpose and the methods it should use, and these only became more acute after his death. And of course the Brotherhood has changed a great deal over the years. This is why I think a comprehensive historical treatment is needed, at least as a starting point. Anyway let's wait until I actually have some presentable text to contribute, and carry on the discussion then. I'm still progressing steadily, writing something that I hope is not too far from encyclopedia-style prose as I go along, but to avoid embarrassment, because I don't know this subject very well, I want to finish this set of books before publishing any of it here. For example, Mitchell's study seems to be widely respected, but it was published in 1969, and Lia, who had access to additional primary source materials, corrects him on several points. Once I have some text to publish here, we'll have something more concrete to discuss, and I'm confident that we can arrive at a result that all will agree is fair, balanced and useful. In the meantime, please be patient with me for a little while longer. --Beroul 00:16, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Progress report: I've worked my way up to Mubarak's presidency and Carrie Wickham's fascinating book Mobilizing Islam, and expect to have text to contribute within the next two weeks. --Beroul 5 July 2005 10:57 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite Using Scholarly Sources

I have posted an entirely new text for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hassan al Banna articles, as well as several new articles:

• History of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
  • History of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (1928-1938)
  • History of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (1939-1954)
  • History of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (1954-present)
• History of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria

This amounts to over 12,000 words of text, and is the result of months of research, discussed above, using reputable scholarly texts found at the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Every paragraph in the main articles is marked with page-number references to the work it is based on.

I am not an expert on this subject, and nothing in these articles is original; I have simply summarised the material in the sources listed. Some of the sources are more favourable to the Muslim Brotherhood; others are more critical. By attempting to represent accurately the accounts given in these sources, I hope to have produced a set of articles that members of the Brotherhood, as well as well-informed critics of the organisation, could see as fair and balanced. However, these articles may well contain errors; if you believe that anything in the text is inaccurate, please correct it, referencing your sources, and leave a note here about the change.

If you are new to this subject, as I was when I began this process, please be aware that a great deal of misinformation can be found on the Internet, and in the press, about the Muslim Brotherhood. In order to keep these articles reliable and neutral, I suggest that, as far as possible, like my humble contributions, all contributions should be based on reputable academic texts by specialists in the field; journalistic sources should only be used for current events, and only if they appear in major national or international news outlets, preferably when the same information is reported by several sources. It is my hope that this policy will enable Wikipedia to be a more reliable source of information about the Muslim Brotherhood than much of what can be found on the Internet.

A few words about my own motivations for doing this: I am not a Muslim, but I respect Islam and I am opposed to imperialism. Although I am certainly not very knowledgeable about Islam, it seems to me that Western misunderstandings about Islam and the Muslim world are contributing to tragic conflicts, and that people need knowledge and understanding of one another in order to live in harmony. I hope that Wikipedia can be a small contribution to that goal, and that people who know more about this subject than I do will improve on this work.

--Beroul 21:06, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

My friend. I am truly impressed. I'm giving you a barnstar for this. Graft 21:24, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Thank you! --Beroul 07:29, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I quite liked this interview with Emory University political science professor Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, whose book Mobilizing Islam, published in 2002 and based on three years of research in Egypt, was an invaluable source of information on the Brotherhood in the 1980s and 1990s. --Beroul 19:32, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

AI, I have reverted your addition of "Prominent Muslim Brothers", for these reasons:

• All of the people you listed are, at most, former Brothers, whose involvement in the Brotherhood varied greatly. The title "Prominent Muslim Brothers" implies that they were all prominent within the Brotherhood, which is not accurate. In an article about the Brotherhood, it seems to me that it is only relevant to mention members who had a particularly significant impact on the group's history. If Ayman al-Zawahiri was indeed briefly a member of the Brotherhood in his youth, it may well be relevant to mention that in an article about him, if only because his rejection of the Brotherhood's objectives and methods relates to his own development. But since he had no significant effect on the Brotherhood itself, it is not relevant to mention him here. In an organisation whose membership has at times numbered in the millions, there have no doubt been many people who, perhaps after leaving the Brotherhood, went on to become well-known in some other context. It cannot be the job of an article about the Brotherhod to list all such people; this would be an impossibly large task, nor do I see how it would be useful to someone attempting to learn about the Brotherhood.
• At the same time, if an individual did have a major impact on the Brotherhood itself, that person should be discussed within the text of the articles about the Brotherhood's history (with academic sources cited), in order to situate each individual's influence in its proper context. Adding a laundry list of people who, at some unspecified point in history, had some unspecified involvement in the Brotherhood strikes me as unhelpful at best and highly misleading at worst, because it implies that all those people are, or were, representative of the group as a whole. --Beroul 13:01, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Beroul, there are some things you have overlooked or ignored. I will gather references and make a presentation later. --AI 00:18, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Berouls dictatorial ownership of this Wikipedia article goes against the Wiki grain. There are many fine examples of neutral analysis of hot controversial topics in Wikipedia. This article, however, is an example of why not let one individual have any editorial power over others. There is plenty of evidence that the Muslim Brotherhood has backed terrorist activities, and so the reading Beroul's portrayal of the MB as a mild political organization is beyond credulity.

He states a political bias in a discussion note, where he says he is 'opposed to imperialisim'. One presumes that is an opposition to the West in general, and so he blocks any posts that are negative wrt the MB, however factual, because he draws some cliche connection between the West and negative attacks on Islam.

The right policy, proven to be a stable solution in Wiki-land, is to let the two sides of the debate forge an article showing the core facts, and sections showing the disputed points on either side. But no... we only get a very watered down two paragraphs by Geer. As if the Internet and the many other viewpoints on the MB didn't exist one click away to completely contradict him.

It's too bad the people like Beroul diminish the credibility of Wikipedia, especially with so many other fine demonstrations of objectivity on display.

I can tell Beroul that his spin factory won't stand the test of DHCP. He can continue to block IP's until the whole Internet is blocked, but we will continue to tell other sides of the story. I will file whatever complaints I can with Wikipedia to stop his politically motivated hijacking and let the full story be told. - Anonymous User

As for the idea that I've only written "a very watered down two paragraphs" here, perhaps you haven't clicked on the links in this article to read the main articles, which I also wrote, and which, as I pointed out above, amount to over 12,000 words. The Muslim Brotherhood page itself is just a brief summary of the main articles. It is common on Wikipedia to split up long articles into several shorter ones, and to provide a summary page; this is the approach taken, for example, in History of the United States. Far from blocking any material that's negative about the Muslim Brotherhood, in the articles I've written here I've included quite a few historical facts, such as terrorist activities, that many people (including me) see as negative. However, I cited reputable academic sources and carefully situated each of these events in its historical context, whereas you simply copied and pasted an entire page, full of serious factual errors, from a dodgy web site. There are certainly valid academic disagreements about the Muslim Brotherhood, and I have tried to reflect these in the main articles, by citing authors on different sides of the debate. Brynjar Lia and Carrie Wickham, for example, seem rather sympathetic to the Brotherhood, while Richard Mitchell was more critical of them, and Gilles Kepel is extremely critical of them. Yet all these authors are recognised authorities on political Islam, they have all made extensive use of primary sources in Arabic, and they all did substantial research in Egypt. None of them can be accused of being anti-Western. Richard Mitchell was Professor of Near Eastern History at the University of Michigan, Olivier Carré is a sociologist and is director of research at the Centre d'études et de recherches internationales of the Fondation nationale des sciences politiques in Paris, Gilles Kepel heads the post-graduate programme on the Arab and Muslim worlds at the Institut d'Études Politiques in Paris, Carrie Wickham is associate professor of political science at Emory University and Brynjar Lia is a senior scientist at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment. What I've tried to do here is present a synthesis of these accounts. If you compare my work here to the relevant sections of a standard history textbook such as William M. Cleveland's A History of the Modern Middle East (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000, ISBN 0813340489), you'll find it's very similar: the facts match up, and the same points stand out as most relevant. This is because, as far I can tell, there is little disagreement among specialists on these points. When they disagree, it is generally more about interpretations of the wider influence of ideas emanating from the Brotherhood on the broader world of political Islam, and opinions of the Brotherhood's future potential as a reform movement or political party, rather than about the history of the Brotherhood itself. However, if you feel that the articles I've written here depart significantly from the consensus of recognised authorities on the subject, or that I have not given sufficient space to some controversial point, I would welcome serious contributions, backed up with citations from these recognised authorities or others of the same calibre. I suggest you start by reading the books I've cited; in academic texts that mention the Brotherhood, you will find these books (particularly Mitchell's and Carré's) cited as authoritative again and again. As for your comment about imperialism, I would have thought it goes without saying that one can be anti-imperialist without being anti-Western. (Indeed, one of Brynjar Lia's main arguments is that Hassan al-Banna was anti-imperialist without being anti-Western.) Moreover, all the sources I've cited are Western academics writing in European languages. In fact, I was rather expecting someone to tell me that these articles have a Western bias, since I haven't cited any Middle Eastern historians. I think that would be a valid criticism, because there seems to be a great deal more published about the Brotherhood in Arabic (both by its defenders and by its critics) than in any European language; these articles would surely be strengthened by drawing on those sources as well. --Beroul 23:28, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

AI, I removed the link you added to the so-called "Muslim Brotherhood Movement Homepage", because (as it says on that page) it's not maintained by the Brotherhood, so its title is misleading; most of it (i.e. the FAQ) isn't supported by cited sources, and there's no indication that the author is any kind of authority on the Brotherhood; and it's marred by poor English (some of it incomprehensible to me). My feeling is that, rather than give out information of dubious reliability, it would be better to use reputable academic sources to improve the articles we have here. If you feel strongly about this, let's discuss it further. --Beroul 23:58, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

AnonymousUser: Beroul, if you would be honest to yourself and Wikipedia, you will come clean with your political bias. Anti-imperialism is a politically correct expression of sympathy with Anti-west ideology. You're implying a classic syllogism of the left: West's foreign policy can be (mis)construed as imperialism, Imperialism is evil, hence the West is evil. Your subtle bias is easily discovered, and here are two examples that pop up in a cursory read. Reading through your article, one gets an initial impression that it's well cited; upon inspection however, from a very narrow selection of Islam sympathetic (nothing inherently wrong with that, but bias is nonetheless injected) authors, whose writings support your rather sympathetic and rosy depiction of the MB. Who, but you, has decided that these authors represent an objective 'scholarly' look at the topic? Another fine example, complete removal of mention of famous alumni AlZawahari. You even mention something like: 'if he was indeed ever a member of the MB'. Do you really dispute this? You don't find it important to mention, that the number 2 man of Al Qaeda was a prominent and long time member of the MB? Is there possible a more dramatic example of whitewashing? This article and your filtering of the facts, if unchecked, threatens to create precedent for Wikipedia to turn into another ideological front. If the world is survive the fundamentalist Islam movement, what readers need is a truthful depiction of all the facts, however positive or negative the implication to Islam is, and mention of both sides of disputed topics.

If you feel that my selection of sources is not representative of authoritative scholarship on this issue, please let us know which reputable academic sources we should be reading instead. Similarly, if you are sure that Ayman al-Zawahiri (I assume that's who you mean, since you misspelt his name) was ever even briefly a member of the Muslim Brotherhood (never mind a "long-time member"), please cite an authoritative academic source that backs up your claim. Gilles Kepel's book Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (ISBN 185043722X), which is extremely unsympathetic to Islamic political movements, repeatedly refers to Zawahiri as a former member of the group al-Jihad, but never as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. I'm sure that if Kepel (who is probably the most widely cited Western academic specialist on Islamic political movements) had any evidence that Zawahiri had been involved in the Brotherhood, he wouldn't have hesitated to say so. As for my personal bias, everyone has a bias. (Mine isn't at all what you think it is, but that's irrelevant here.) Wikipedia is based on the idea that even with their personal biases, people can write NPOV text. If you feel that I haven't succeded in doing so, the burden of proof is on you to provide reputable academic sources. Otherwise, you are simply wasting our time. --Beroul 23:24, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

And just who is the judge for 'reputable academic sources'? You, Beroul? BTW, you better start hijacking the article on Ayman al-Zawahiri as well, for there, you can find he joined the MB at the ripe age of 14 and stayed on for more than a decade it seems. I'd like to return the favor on typos... succeeded vs succeded. I thought you said your English was better than your Arabic.

Reputable academic sources are ones that have the qualities I described above: they are professors or researchers, specialised in this subject, at established universities or major research institutions, they have made extensive use of primary sources in Arabic, and they have done substantial research in the Middle East. I think you'll find that if you ask a few university professors specialised in Middle Eastern politics, they'll all agree with that list of requirements. As for the Ayman al-Zawahiri article, I note that it is sadly lacking in academic sources. Unfortunately, many articles on Wikipedia contain unsubstantiated claims and, no doubt, misinformation. Wait, wasn't that your point? --Beroul 00:54, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Actually that was not my point at all. It's clear you don't care to understand the other side of the debate. My point was the majority of Wikipedia articles covering sensitive topics seem to be well written and appear to address both sides of a controversy. These articles seem to be written by a true objective party, bringing to light positions by various constituents and clearly fleshing them out. Your article consistently and thoroughly exudes a decidedly sympathetic point of view, never hesitating to examine or casually mention any of the myriad of accusations against the MB, as such charges were only seen in the National Enquirer. Drilling down to your bottom level articles, the reader is quick to see the same 2 to 3 source are cited in every paragraph. Hardly exhaustive. Look Beroul, it's clear you're asserting that your unusual portrayal of the MB is the factual result of complete and exhaustive research. You'll never concede one iota, allow any edit of the article, validate any other source than the fab four, that's clear in this discussion. See, on this premise, it's futile to attempt debate, as you've unilaterally set the terms of the discussion, with you self appointed as both debator and arbitor.

Once again, if you have any reputable academic sources to cite, please let us know what they are. Otherwise, go away, and come back when you have something to offer other than hearsay. Anyone can make wild accusations, but not everyone can back them up. --Beroul 02:15, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] More references

Ok, that is fair. What about these:

• [3] "In Search of Friends Among the Foes" by John Mintz and Douglas Farah. The Washington Post, September 11, 2004, page A01
• [4] "Islamism, fascism and terrorism (Part 1)" by Marc Erikson. Asia Times Online, November 5, 2002.
• [5] "Islamism, fascism and terrorism (Part 2)" by Marc Erikson. Asia Times Online, November 8, 2002.
• [6] "Islamism, fascism and terrorism (Part 3)" by Marc Erikson. Asia Times Online, December 4, 2002.
• [7] "Islamism, fascism and terrorism (Part 4)" by Marc Erikson. Asia Times Online, December 5, 2002.
• [8] "Russia Links Arab Millitants to Bombing in Chechnya" by Michael Wines. The New York Times, December 28, 2002
• [9] "Reactions to Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi's Fatwa Calling for the Abduction and Killing of American Civilians in Iraq" by the Jihad and Terrorism Studies Project. The Middle East Media Research Institute, Special Dispatch Series - No. 794, October 6, 2004
• [10] "Banned Group Leads Dissent in Egypt" By Daniel Williams. Washington Post Foreign Service, May 23, 2005

Do you consider these dubious? --AI 01:36, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, as I explained above, I consider journalism to be an unreliable source of historical information on this subject. Journalists are generally not historians. Some articles, of course, are worse than others. The Asia Times article is so full of serious inaccuracies (as you can see by comparing it to the academic sources I have cited) as to have practically no basis in historical fact. And of course, its author has not cited any sources at all. I am left to conclude that his account of history is mostly his own invention. As I explained above, I think we can safely use journalistic sources only for very recent events (i.e. of the past year or two, about which academic books haven't yet been published), only if those events are easily verified (e.g. demonstrations or public statements), and only if the articles are published in reputable major national or international news outlets (which Asia Times Online is not), and preferably if several different such sources back up the information. The Washington Post article by John Mintz and Douglas Farah attempts to do quite a bit of sociology and political science as well as provide a historical account; it seems to me that, as journalists, the authors are far out of their depth; that's a job for sociologists, political scientists and historians, i.e. people like the authors I've cited. The other Washington Post article, by Daniel Williams, seems fine as a report of recent demonstrations and public statements in Egypt; leaving aside its small attempt at historical background, it basically provides information we have here already. As for the MEMRI article, I already discussed it above, several months ago; regardless of whether it is accurate in other respects, it is not an article about the Brotherhood. In any case, MEMRI seems to be a partisan pressure group; see MEMRI. I think relying exclusively on authoritative academic sources, as much as possible, is the safest approach we can adopt. --Beroul 11:41, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

hi all, i dispute credibility of journalist Douglas Farah. According to this account and its sources, http://beirut.indymedia.org/ar/2004/01/901.shtml he acted as propagandist in the USA government War_on_Terrorism, contributing to destruction of people's lifes for the benefit of USA foreign policy goals. WhatFacts 12:11, 16 July 2005 (UTC) After little bit of research i did, i dispute neutrality of The_Washington_Post#Political leanings on this subject and ask for the above article to be rejected as credible source until proven otherwise. -- WhatFacts 12:53, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

You could have been hypnotized to be a terrorist without your knowledge. --AI 17:32, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

"I can hypnotize a man — without his knowledge or consent — into committing treason against the United States" - George Estabrooks

[edit] POV check

Beroul is limiting the articles information to sources he has studied:

1.The Society of the Muslim Brothers by Richard Mitchell, 1969
2.Les Frères musulmans : Egypte et Syrie (1928-1982), by Olivier Carré and Gérard Michaud, 1983
3.Le Prophète et le pharaon : Les mouvements islamistes dans l'Egypte contemporaine, by Gilles Kepel, 1984
4.The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement 1928-1942, by Brynjar Lia, 1998
5.Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism and Political Change in Egypt, by Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, 2002

There are numerous articles written by others which Beroul seems to ignore as not credible. All references and mention of those have been removed by Beroul's rewrite and therefore I am putting the POV check tag onto the article. --AI 01:29, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

It's wonderful to see some careful fact-checking and source weighing going on for once. If Beroul is trying to avoid using any web source (especially on politically controversial topics) unless it can be backed up by something authoritative by an academic source, I for one unreservedly congratulate him. Excellent work. - Mustafaa 01:44, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Mustafaa. I also have congratulated him on the re-write of the Muslim Brotherhood article. Now we will scrutinize the opposing POV that constantly tries to tie the MB with fascism and terrorism. I am neutral and want to make sure the exclusion of "fascism and terrorism" isn't whitewashing. --AI 02:57, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

AI, to do so, you need to define what do you mean by Fascism and Terrorism, and what particular attributes of those two terms are you worried about in relation to MB. WhatFacts 12:17, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Sure, but I am not worried about their relation to MB, I am seeking verification of media articles which have claimed the connections. See above. --AI 12:32, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Why not just refuse any work without references as credible source, which would cover vast majority of journalism? And embrace instead academic style of writting. Journalism has been historically a tool in the hands of political and economic forces and its contribution to the production of knowledge should be seen, by default, as unreliable i.e. not good enough, until proven otherwise. If anything, journalism, and mass media through which it reaches us, is the most powerfull propaganda machine human kind has known. Should it not be the task of wikipedia to reject known mechnisms of propaganda to start with and embrace more reliable knowledge production systems. Academia is far from perfect, but in comparison with journalism it stands as a credible source. These are probaly questions for wikipedia in general, but, as a new contributor, it shocks me that journalism is used at all in wikipedia, unless well referenced - which is not the case with the above articles. -- WhatFacts 13:07, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Relying on journalists to investigate Islamic political movements makes as much sense as relying on pastry chefs to perform open heart surgery. --Beroul 23:24, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Preposterous position by WhatFacts and Beroul. I agree wholeheartedly that journalism largely shoots on the left or right of the truth, but nary strikes bullseye. However, I see no rationale a priori that academics are to be pre-certified neutral parties. In this contested topic, everyones position must be cross referenced with their political background and beliefs. How many examples of 'professors' who put forth 'academic' positions with truckloads of bias. Chomsky at one end, Ward Churchill at the other end of a long lineup of academics who have failed to control the temptation to insert their emotions into their analysis. It's also interesting that the journalism checks agree almost 100% on connections explicit and implicit between MB and terrorism (do really need to define which types of homicide and suicide are terrorism?!?!) BTW, who is to decide what reference is 'credible'? Why, for example, is the FAS article a "very poorly written article"? Just because it would make Berould look naive in his analysis? Everytime I read thru Berouls article, it looks even more fantastic. He cites "With few exceptions (and none since the 1970s), its leaders and members have demonstrated a commitment to a nonviolent, reformist approach to political Islam". Let's assume that the statement was factually true... to be fair to the massive opposing and prevailing opinion all of the West, at least he would link to mention of the 'few exceptions'. But with a wave of the hand, he whitewashes out all the violence, attempting to leave the impression that the MB is no less innocuous than the Little Sisters of Mary. Google for Muslim Brotherhood to get the other points of view, and you can choose which are and are not valid. Certainly don't let Berouls glossy cake icing fool you.

The exceptions are discussed in the main articles. In my view, any source that contradicts reputable academic sources, which are the most reliable sources available, is by definition a poor-quality source. Academics are fallible, but unlike journalists, they are trained to study the subjects that they write about, and are subjected to peer review. As I pointed out above, the sources I chose already represent diverse academic opinions, and yet their authors agree on nearly all questions of historical fact. As for Google, it may come as a surprise to you that there is a great deal of misinformation and lies on the Internet, about all sorts of subjects. And as for you, you seem to have nothing to offer here but unsubstantiated accusations. In short, you are a troll. --Beroul 00:11, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Well Beroul, you can sit there and claim your analysis is the unvarnished truth and the content in the Internet known as everything_but_Beroul is lies and more damned lies. In the end, the reader will be the judge of what they read on the Internet about the MB, and I don't think they are quite as naive and gullible as you would dare to propose with the taint of your article. That will be your peer review, and I suspect you will become to be seen as someone who has worked very hard on this topic only to look naive in retrospect.

AI, I don't see any reason to "scrutinize the opposing POV that constantly tries to tie the MB with fascism and terrorism". So far, that POV has been represented in this debate only by newspaper articles and web sources. Mustafaa's argument above seems entirely valid to me: we should simply ignore anything that's not backed up by authoritative academic sources. (And if it comes to that, I'm happy to remove the one or two references I've made to recent, and I think uncontroversial, articles in the press.) Once that's done, it seems to me that the POV you're referring to disappears from this discussion. Am I missing something? The web is full of nutty theories and misinformation, and I'm sure there are many interesting reasons for that, but our task here isn't to examine and critique every web page on the Internet; we're just here to produce a reliable article about the Muslim Brotherhood, and the reputable academic sources, which can be found in any good university library, are more than adequate for that purpose. I don't mind waiting a week or so to see if anyone comes up with any authoritative academic sources that disagree with what I've written here, but if no one does, it seems to me there's no reason to maintain the POV check tag here, any more than on any other article on Wikipedia. --Beroul 03:10, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

I disagree that only "academic" sources be used in wikipedia. There are authoritative sources which are not "academic." --AI 01:58, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Beroul have you ever heard of John Loftus, former U.S. Federal prosecutor? You should read what he knows about the Muslim Brotherhood. --AI 02:32, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I accept that non-academic sources have their place on Wikipedia, but not when controversial subjects are concerned. The risk of falling prey to hearsay and propaganda is too great. See Heliocentrism and Salem witch trials. Nowadays, the media are full of self-proclaimed experts with very dubious expertise; it seems that many people increasingly think that anyone is qualified to have an opinion on anything. When an issue is controversial, it's reasonable to be extra careful to make sure your sources know what they're talking about. That means considering the kind of training they've received and the way they've done their research. There is no reason to believe that journalists, former U.S. prosecutors, and authors of conspiracy-theory web sites have adequate training for studying any given subject, or have used rigorous research methods. There are very good reasons to believe that academics specialised in a particular field, who occupy positions of high responsibility in major research institutions, are adequately trained and have done their research properly. When you need to be sure you have accurate information, those are the people to ask. If you need to learn to practice medicine, go to medical school. If you want to learn how the US legal system works, you might read something written by a prosecutor, but I think you'd be better off reading books written by law professors. If you want to learn about an Islamic political movement in the Middle East, read books by political scientists who are specialised in Islamic political movements in the Middle East. This is called reducing the risk of error. --Beroul 19:47, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

According to John Loftus, CIA files are full of information demonstrating the Muslim Brotherhood's connection with fascism, particulary the Nazis. Could it be the CIA files were infiltrated by propagandists? I think there is a high possibility. We would have to discuss it with John... --AI 20:23, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

That would be original research, so I don't think we're allowed to go down that route. Specialists can use intelligence reports in their research (and Brynjar Lia made abundant use of British intelligence reports in the book of his that I've cited here), because they know what they're doing: they know how to interpret what they're reading and what sorts of conclusions they can safely draw from it. Of course, they can only do that when those reports are publicly available, which intelligence reports generally are not. It seems to me that statements about classified reports are in any case not admissible on Wikipedia, since they're not verifiable. --Beroul 20:43, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Non-academic sources are used all over Wikipedia. I don't see why this article should be treated differently. Either non-academic sources be allowed here, or we use your suggestion to apply to all the other controversial articles in Wikipedia. --AI 22:48, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree that avoidance of non-academic sources in controversial articles should be a policy for all of Wikipedia. I think this would be consistent with Wikipedia:Reliable_sources, which, it seems to me, suggests using largely the same criteria I am advocating here in choosing sources. However, even in the absence of such a policy, I believe my arguments here stand. The official policy in Wikipedia:Verifiability says, "For an encyclopedia, sources should be unimpeachable." No one has suggested that the sources I've used are anything but unimpeachable and authoritative. When other sources of similar quality have been used here, I've raised no objections. When sources that don't meet this standard have been suggested, I've explained why I don't accept them; no one has offered any counter-arguments. Therefore it seems to me that this is a non-debate. I am therefore removing the POV tag. If you wish to argue seriously that web sources are more reliable than authoritative academic texts, and are prepared to support your position, we will have to seek mediation for this issue. Otherwise, I suggest you concede that you have no good reason to think that these articles aren't NPOV, and let the matter drop. --Beroul 08:56, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

AI, you've reverted my edits without explaining why. I'm not going to give you a hard time for this; instead let's try to agree on a solution to this disagreement. Clearly the NPOV tag shouldn't stay on an article forever; if the article isn't NPOV, this should be fixed and the tag should be removed. Let's see if we can agree on specific edits that would satisfy both of us, such that the result is that we both feel the article is reliable and NPOV. I think the Martin Kramer article is very biased; moreover, it is basically an opinion piece about American foreign policy, and has little to say on factual matters concerning the Muslim Brotherhood. It's as if Kramer thinks that the Brotherhood can only be significant if it's useful to the US government; he manages to leave Egyptians and their interests out of the picture altogether. Kramer also makes the extraordinary claim that the Brotherhood's Supreme Guide is not Mohammad Mahdi Akef but Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but Kramer gives none. Even stranger, Kramer claims that the Brotherhood offer the US "the implicit promise that once the United States throws open its doors to Islamist activism, it will be accorded immunity from further attacks." If Kramer believes that the Brotherhood are in control of al-Qaida, that is a very extraordinary claim, which as far as I can tell flatly contradicts all other scholarly opinion, and ought to be backed up by very strong evidence. Kramer doesn't offer any such evidence.

Joel Beinin, Professor of Middle East History at Stanford University, describes Kramer as a neoconservative who has been lobbying the US Congress to place restrictions on the content of Middle East studies. It seems plausible to me that what Kramer, an Israeli, is mainly concerned about is the economic and political cooperation between Israel and Egypt; should the Muslim Brotherhood win elections in Egypt, their government might well be less interested in cooperation with Israel. I suggest that Kramer's article can best be seen as an attempt to lobby the US government to protect Mubarak's undemocratic rule in Egypt, and hence to protect that cooperation.

However, as far as I can tell, Kramer has good academic credentials, so I'm not going to oppose outright the inclusion of this link. Instead, I suggest a compromise: if we keep the link to Kramer's article, would you agree to removing the POV check tag? --Beroul 09:46, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

I only think the tag should stay because I view your contribution as mostly pro- rather than neutral and it seems everyone else is AFRAID to touch this article. Do as you wish, I will only involve myself if there are any disputes of which I will have no part of other than volunterring as a neutral "mediator." --AI 19:57, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

That's a fair point. I'm adding a section below to encourage contributions. --Beroul 11:59, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Although the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is not connected to terrorism, its members are. Removed that 1970 remark since both Hamas and Brotherhood members have been involved in terrorism since 1970, making this statement inaccurate. It is however accurate to say the organization is not a terrorist organization as no law enforcement agency in the west recognizes it as such.

[edit] Don't be afraid to contribute to this article

If anyone would like to contribute to this article, and is prepared to do even a small amount of serious research using reputable academic sources (or has already done so), please don't hesitate to do so, whatever your feelings are about the Muslim Brotherhood. --Beroul 11:52, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Don't be afraid to contribute to this article if you don't mind seeing your work deleted by an apologist for the Muslim Brotherhood who deletes legitimate commentary from people in the region who regard the group as a catastrophe to civil society. If you've got a problem with this, well then, tough luck.

Commentary has no place in an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is not a radio call-in show, where anyone can assert anything at all. Rather, it should be a repository of knowledge based on solid research. (See this humorous illustration of what happens when commentary and research are placed on an equal footing.) --Beroul 22:04, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

You forgot to add that while additional contributions are welcome, from your reversion history one can only conclude that you won't hesitate to revert any edits that imply that the Muslim Brotherhood is anything other than a "charitable and educational organisation" that is committed to a "non-violent, reformist" approach. I came to this article looking for information about why it raises controvery if someone is shown to be linked with the Muslim Brotherhood, but was sorely disappointed at the lack of explanatory information since this article suggests this organization is no more controversial than the Salvation Army, just more persecuted. Of course, this controversy exists in news wires and media reports, which you reject as a valid source, so perhaps there truly is no controversy! But even if that's the case, there is a link to this page from the "Al-Qaeda" page: "Al-Qaeda's philosophical inspiration comes from the writings of Sayed Qutb, a prominent thinker from the Muslim Brotherhood." I knew nothing about the Muslim Brotherhood but as soon as I saw this article it was obvious that a propagandist had whitewashed the article. Looking at the Talk pages I saw that that would be you, Beroul.Bdell555 17:58, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

If you had a bit more patience and read the full text of the main articles here, you would find that there's plenty of explanatory information there about Sayyid Qutb, his writings and his influence. You would also learn that Qutb was executed in 1966, and that the Brotherhood rejected his ideas shortly after his death. On that subject, I haven't found any controversy among reputable academic sources. There is of course plenty of propaganda concerning the Muslim Brotherhood, but propaganda is not the same thing as well-informed controversy. --Beroul 11:01, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

The material on Qutb merely proves the point, which is that at every possible point that a connection between violence and the Muslim Brotherhood of today might be drawn, you take pains to dismiss or downplay the connection. You go further by taking every possible opportunity to highlight a situation when one of them might have been oppressed. Your inability to resist a reference to Qutb's martydom (what is the relevance of that here?) is really a classic example of that.Bdell555 01:34, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Certainly many groups, including violent ones, have found inspiration in Sayyid Qutb's writings. But this is an article about the Muslim Brotherhood, which has rejected Qutb's ideas and remained non-violent for 40 years, not about those other groups. Therefore it seems to me that a discussion of Qutb's influence on violent organisations ought to be included in other articles (e.g. the article on Qutb himself) rather than here. As for Qutb's torture and death, it is important to include it here because it is part of the history of the relationship between the Egyptian state and the Brotherhood. --Beroul 11:14, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Beroul's septic treatment doesn't wash with today's CNN report that the Muslim Brotherhood's chief Mohammed Mahdi Akef has joined Iran's Ahmadinejad in calling the Holocaust a myth. Yes, the MB may have temporarily suspended violence while they have lost the initiative, but just wait if they come into power in Egypt. Supporters like Beroul are going to have alot of explaining to do.

Calling the holocaust a myth makes you stupid- not violent. I doubt Beroul is a supporter of MB just because he refuses to acknowledge what the MB will do and simply cites what they have done. On the other hand any number of people in Egypt accept the idea that "Islam is the answer", does this make them violent? The presence of the swords on their logo might indicate violence- but really, symbols mean nothing without actions. Besides nowadays it has become fashionable for people who know better to deny the holocaust, it's a political circus act- not anything with substance. Angrynight 19:18, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MEMRI

To the anon who keeps deleting material, MEMRI is the type of source Wikipedia uses, and the comment was made by an academic, so your objections don't seem to be valid. What is your objection exactly? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:18, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

The fact that web sources like MEMRI are widely used on Wikipedia is one of the reasons why Wikipedia is not known for its reliability. MEMRI is not an academic institution. There is no information on its web site about who works there or what their credentials might be. Therefore I see no reason to consider MEMRI any more reliable than, say, someone's blog. See Reliable Sources; when using online sources, we are advised: "Don't drop your guard." MEMRI doesn't meet any of the criteria given there for a reliable online source. It may well have been created to spread propaganda or misinformation, and indeed that is the accusation that RightWeb levels at it.

The text you are trying to include begins, "Others do not trust...", which is a classic example of weasel words. As for the quote itself, it doesn't attempt to offer any factual information; it merely expresses an explicit political agenda, based purely on speculation about the future. It is therefore propaganda. It seems to me that NPOV doesn't require us to spread propaganda, but rather only to include different interpretations of factual information from reliable sources. Moreover, Ahmad Al-Baghdadi doesn't specifically mention the Muslim Brotherhood, so I'm not convinced he was actually talking about them. And even if he was, he doesn't appear to have been doing so in the context of an academic text; perhaps he was just speaking off-the-cuff in an interview. Scholars are held to much higher standards in academic publications than in interviews with the media.

If you are determined to include propaganda in this article, I suggest we create a separate section, "Propaganda about the Muslim Brotherhood", so that it can clearly be separated from the factual information that the article currently consists of. --Beroul 09:27, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Looks to me like the apologists have taken over this page. And we wonder why dhimmis suffer from amnesia.66.166.12.130 (talk • contribs)

It seems to be a law of volunteer projects, Wikipedia included, that the number of people who make snide comments is always far greater than the number of people who are willing to do serious work to make a real contribution. (Which doesn't mean copying and pasting rants and hearsay from web sites. It means summarising authoritative academic books by reputable scholars.) --Beroul 22:04, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

And Beroul gets to define 'academic books' by 'reputable scholars'. In other words, only those books that suggest the MB is a benign, benevolent, charitable, educational instituition. It's so laughable to the average person, that no end of Beroul faux articles will do anything but make him out to be a puppet sock apologist. It must have taken alot of painstaking work for Beroul to carve out material from specially selected 'academic books by reputable scholars' so as to whitewash the MB. What does he hope to accomplish? Does he think he will change any perceptions, however held, by anyone at all with his article? Not likely. Too bad, I think garbage like this brings down the overall image and quality of the Wikipedia. Well, fortunately, one can immediately get a flavor of the spin job going on in this article... I think Wikipedia will survive this churlish piece of work. 68.122.40.173 (talk • contribs)

Actually, as far as I can tell, the books I've used are very representative of academic writing on this subject, and I think the text I've written is very representative of the content of those books. If you disagree, you have only to do what I did: read some academic books by scholars who you think are reputable authorities on the subject, and contribute a synthesis of what they say. --Beroul 09:07, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

68.122.40.173 (adsl-68-122-40-173.dsl.pltn13.pacbell.net), can you please discuss things without making personal comments? I disagree with your opinion about what brings down the overall image and quality of Wikipedia, that has already been established. --AI 06:36, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Al, you are right. Personal attacks are not appropriate; however, Beroul clearly brings a personal agenda which is exhibited by his careful spinning of this topic. To Beroul: we've already established that you will contest any position opposing yours. Indeed, any opposing position, whether supported by scholar or professional, will be attacked by you as hearsay or political concoction. Answer this question: who is to decide whether the sources, yours included, are objective and factual? It seems that you have elected yourself editor-in-chief.

I can totally agree with your theory about volunteer projects, Beroul. Which is why I think Wikipedia's consensus policy doesn't really work in all cases. 3 goons can outnumber 1 scholar and ensure the article is written how they want it written. --AI 06:27, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

However, here we see one goon ensuring the article is written the way he wants it written.

All I'm asking for is for sources to be cited, and for the sources to be from reputable academic publications, not web sources.

In accordance with Wikipedia policy, I've removed the following text for which no sources were cited:

The motto of the Muslim Brotherhood is: Allah is our goal. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Struggle is our way. To die for Allah is our highest expectation.... It was known to have close ties with the German Nazi Party during World War II.... The militant movement Hamas is the name of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine since its establishment in 1987.... The Muslim Brotherhood Branch in Iraq established after The American invasion in a few days (April 2003). It's called (Hay'at Olama'a Al Muslimeen) in arabic:هيئة علماء المسلمين.... There are other Parties and orginaizations which represnt Muslims (Sunni) like The Iraqi Islamic Party and (established in 1960s) and The National Conversation Council.... The Islamic movement and Islamic union of Kurdistan are the organizations the Muslim brother shank are close in Kurdistan Iraq, establishment 1980 and 1994.... The Muslim Brotherhood office in Jordan established in 1945 .

I've also removed the logo, for the same reason. (It's worth noting that the logo on ikhwanonline.org is different.) And I've removed the factual dispute tag because there hasn't been any discussion about facts here for a long time. --Beroul 08:41, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] History

What happened to all of the history about the Muslim Brotherhood. For an article that has been around since 2002, it seems short. The article has a disputed flag, but actually doesn't contain enough information for it to be disputed. Every political group has a platform, idea, message, something...--Alpharigel 18:05, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps you didn't notice the links to the main articles (History of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt), etc. There's plenty of history there. --Beroul 08:41, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

refer to http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15344

[edit] Iraq

Someone deleted the Iraq section .. can I know why? I will restore it.

[edit] Redundancy?

The text appearing in the Syria section on "Brotherhood formally renounces violence in Egypt" seems redundant with the text in Egypt? It should be removed, right?

[edit] Other Country or Region? Turkey? Indonesia?

What about MB influence in another country? I think there will be significant number of people who influenced by MB. Even in Indonesia Prosperous Justice Party is a party that highly use MB literature as reference.

What are the connections between the Muslim Brotherhood ideas in the Arab World and Islamic politics in Turkey?

[edit] Lebanon

I have deleted this bizarre paragraph:

A Lebanese Brotherhood was formed in 1987 by 'Imad Mugniyah and several Hamas members. This Brotherhood has been officially rejected by the others, and is currently a very dangerous group. They were responsible for the bombings of both the Marine barracks and The Beirut embassy in 1989.

...for these reasons:

• a) it seems to be wrong ('Imad Mughniyah is Shi'a, Hizbullah is rather suspected for both attacks)
• b) it is POV, "very dangerous", etc.
• c) despite its controversial content, it provides no sources.
• d) it is poorly written (what Marines? what bombings? whose embassy?)

Feel free to challenge this by providing sources. I would be most happy to have something on the MB in Lebanon - including the above, in the unlikely event that it is true. Arre 01:22, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biased how so?

The "muslim brotherhood" organisation renounced violence in the 1970's so automatically they should become legal, they should have never resorted to violence in the first place and that is why they remain illegal. It is true however that they have gained popularity amongst poor Egyptians by supplying services which the current autocratic government has failed to do. However because they are funded by foreigners from Saudi and such, how can such a group heavily relying on foreign aid be the "solution" to the Egyptian problems, and be in the countries best interest. Our current government has shown that relying on Foreign aid from the U.S. is a major source of our problems. Zakaria mohyeldin 17:00, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

This is your POV.

[edit] The Project

Can anyone add information regarding the 12 point plan outlined by the brotherhood known as "The Project?" It used to be a seperate article but now it is missing.

[edit] "Signposts on the road"

I know that "Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq" translates as "Signposts/Milestones on the road" but the most common translation of the title is simply Milestones. I've changed the name to "Milestones" with a link to the relevant page. If there are any serious objections, raise them here.Jwwil 10:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Shehata, Samer & Stacher, Joshua, "The Brotherhood goes to Parliament," Middle East Report, Fall 2006
2. ^ ^{a b} al-Jazeera, "Egypt cracks down on Islamists," 20 January 2007
3. ^ BBC News Online, "More Brotherhood arrests in Egypt," 17 January 2007

Nicholas wright 12:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV check and accuracy

I think this article makes some overarching connections and dubious claims concerning how active the Muslim Brotherhood is in the Muslim world. The article currently makes it seem as if the organization is active everywhere, even in non-Sunni majority countries. Further, it is listed in the categories Category:Designated terrorist organizations and Category:Terrorism in Central Asia, even though the article shows not show any evidence to justify such categories. Also, listing it as a Category:Jihadist organizations is unusual since the organization officially opposes violence and is active in countries like the United States and India, which would never tolerate "jihadist" groups operating on their soil. Khanagan 22:03, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Logo Deleted From Article

The logo of the MB was deleted from the article for reasons unspecified. As far as I know it was legitimate image in terms of copyright and encyclopedic value. If the removal is not justified here I will assume vandalism or somesuch and restore the image. Thanks. Angrynight 23:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)