The Muslim Brotherhood (Arabic: جماعة الاخوان المسلمين gammāʿat al-ʾiḫwān/al-ikhwan/el-ekhwan al-muslimūn, IPA: [elʔexˈwæːn]) in Egypt is an Islamist religious, political, and social movement. Following the 2011 Revolution the group was legalized,[1] and with an estimated 600,000 members or supporters[2][3] it's considered the largest, best-organized political force in Egypt.[2] Its credo is, "God is our objective; the Quran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations."[4][5] Founded in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna in March 1928, the group spread to other Muslim countries but has its largest, or one of its largest, organizations in Egypt despite a succession of government crackdowns in 1948, 1954, 1965 after plots, or alleged plots, of assassination and overthrow were uncovered.[6][7][1] In April 2011 it launched a civic political party called the Freedom and Justice Party to contest elections, described as having "the same mission and goals, but different roles" than the Brotherhood.[8]According to the party platform, it intends to honor all Egypt's international agreements.[9]
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The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, an Egyptian schoolteacher, who preached implementing traditional Islamic Sharia law in all aspects of life, from everyday problems to the organization of the government.[10] Inspired by Islamic reformers Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida, he believed that Islam had lost its social dominance to corrupt Western influences and British imperial rule.
The organisation initially focused on educational and charitable work, but quickly grew to become a major political force as well. (Sources disagree as to whether the Brotherhood was hostile to independent working-class and popular organisations,[10] or supported efforts to create trades unions and unemployment benefits.[11]) It championed the cause of poor Muslims, and played a prominent role in the Egyptian nationalist movement, fighting the British, Egypt's occupier/dominator. It engaged in espionage and sabotage, as well as support for terrorist activities orchestrated by Haj Amin al-Husseini in British Mandate Palestine, and up to and during World War II some association with Britain's enemy, the German Nazis,[12] dissemination of anti-Jewish, and anti-Western propaganda.[13]
In November 1948, following several bombings and assassination attempts, the government arrested 32 leaders of the Brotherhood's "secret apparatus" and banned the Brotherhood.[14] At this time the Brotherhood was estimated to have 2000 branches and 500,000 members or sympathizers.[15] In succeeding months Egypt's prime minister was assassinated by Brotherhood member, and following that Al-Banna himself was assassinated in what is thought to be a cycle of retaliation.
In 1952 members of the Muslim Brotherhood are accused of taking part in an event that marked the end of Egypt's "liberal, progressive, cosmopolitan" era — an arson fire that destroyed some "750 buildings" in downtown Cairo — mainly night clubs, theatres, hotels, and restaurants frequented by British and other foreigners.[16]
In 1952 the monarchy was overthrown by nationalist military officers. While the Brotherhood supported the coup it vigorously opposed the secularist constitution that the coup leaders were developing. In 1954 another assassination was attempted against Egypt's prime minister (Gamal Abdel Nasser), and blamed on the "secret apparatus" of the Brotherhood (this attempt was unsuccessful). The Brotherhood was again banned and this time thousands of its members were imprisoned, many of them held for years in prisons and concentration camps, and sometimes tortured.
One of them was the very influential theorist, Sayyid Qutb, who before being executed in 1966, issued a manifesto proclaiming that Muslim society had become jahiliyya (no longer Islamic) and that Islam must be restored by the overthrow of Muslim states by an Islamic vanguard. Qutb's ideology became very influential outside of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, but the Brotherhood's leadership distanced itself from Qutb, adhered to nonviolent reformist posture.
Imprisoned Brothers were gradually released after Anwar Sadat became president of Egypt in 1970, and were sometimes enlisted to help fight Sadat's leftist opposition. Brethern were allowed to publish the magazine Da'wa, though the organization remained illegal. During this time, more radical Qutb-inspired Islamist groups blossomed, and after he signing a peace agreement with Israel in 1979, became confirmed enemies of Sadat. Sadat was assassinated by a violent Islamist group Tanzim al-Jihad on October 6, 1981, shortly before he had Brotherhood leaders (and many other opposition leaders) arrested.
Again with a new president, (Hosni Mubarak), Brotherhood leaders (Supreme Guide Umar al-Tilmisani and others) were released from prison. Mubarak cracked down hard against radical Islamists but offered a "olive branch" to the more moderate Brethren. The brethren reciprocated, going so far as to endorse Mubarak’s candidacy for president in 1988.[17]
The Brotherhood dominated the professional and student associations of Egypt and was famous for its network of social services in neighborhoods and villages.[17] However, the government did not approve of the Brotherhood's renewed influence (it was still technically illegal), and resorted to repressive measures starting in 1992.[18]
In the 2000 parliamentary elections, the Muslim Brotherhood won 17 parliamentary seats.[19] In 2005, it won 88 seats (20% of the total compared to 14 seats for the legally approved opposition parties) to form the largest opposition bloc, despite the arrest of hundreds of Brotherhood members. It lost almost all but one of these seats in the much-less-free 2010 election, which was marred by massive arrests of both Brethren and polling place observers.[20] Under Egypt's emergency law Brethren could only stand as independents, but were easily identified since they campaigned under the slogan - 'Islam Is the Solution'.[21]
During and after the 2005 election the Brethren launched what some have called a "charm offensive." Its leadership talked about its `responsibility to lead reform and change in Egypt.` It addressed the `Coptic issue`, insinuating that the Brethren would do away with Egypt's decade's old church building-permit system that Coptic Christians felt was discriminatory.[22] Internationally the Brethren launched an English-language website and some of the Muslim Brotherhood's leaders participated in an Initiative to `Re-Introduc[e] the Brotherhood to the West`, "listing and addressing many `Western misconceptions about the Brotherhood.`"[22]
Seeing this campaign as a direct threat to its position as an indispensible ally of the west against radical Islamism, the Egyptian government introduced an amendment to the constitution that removed the reference to Islam as `the religion of the state,` and would have allowed women and Christians to run for the presidency. Brotherhood MPs responded by walking out of parliament rather than voting on the bill.[23] In addition, the movement has also reportedly played into the government's hands provoking non-Islamist Egyptians by staging a militia-style march by masked Brotherhood students at Cairo's Al Azhar University,[24][25] complete with uniforms and martial arts drills, reminding many of the Brotherhood's era of 'secret cells'.[26]
According to another observor:
"after a number of conciliatory engagements and interactions with the West", the Brotherhood retreated into its comfort zone of inflammatory rhetoric intended for local consumption: all suicide bombers are `martyrs`; `Israel` regularly became the Jews`; even its theological discourse became more confrontational and oriented to social conservatism.[27]
Two years later the Egyptian government amended the constitution, skewing future representation against independent candidates for parliament, which are the only candidates the Brotherhood can field. The state delayed local council elections from 2006 to 2008, disqualifying most Muslim Brotherhood candidates. The Muslim Brotherhood boycotted the election. The government incarcerated thousands of rank-and-file Muslim Brotherhood members in a wave of arrests and military trials, the harshest such security clampdown on the Brotherhood "in decades." [24]
The Brotherhood has been criticized (or noted) for being "on the sidelines" early in the January-February 2011 uprising that overthrew Hosni Mubarak, despite having much to gain from a freer political environment.[28] (Reportedly the Brotherhood were told that the state security agency would arrest supreme guide Mohammed Badie if any Brethren participated.[2]) However, the revolution legalized the Brotherhood[1] and it has "emerged as the most powerful group" in Egypt.[29]
In 30 April 2011 it launched a new party called the Freedom and Justice Party, which reportedly plans to "contest up to half the seats" in the Egyptian parliamentary election scheduled for September 2011.[30] The party "rejects the candidacy of women or Copts for Egypt's presidency", but not for cabinet positions.[31] Some splinter groups have appeared in the wake of the revolution.[32] In September, the Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie announced that the Muslim Brotherhood would not "field a candidate for presidency" as a member of the Brotherhood "at the helm of power” might give a foreign power (Israel or the US) a pretext to attack Egypt. The Brotherhood supported the constitutional referendum in March which was also supported by the Egyptian army and opposed by Egyptian liberals.[33] Some Egyptians have speculated about deal between the military and the MB[34], however the Muslim Brotherhood has denied reports of secret meetings with the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces as "pure lies and imagination."[29][35]
Murshid ("supreme guide" or "General leaders" (G.L.)) of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (المرشد العام لجماعة الإخوان المسلمون) are/have been
The Brotherhood itself describes the "principles of the Muslim Brotherhood" as including firstly the introduction of the Islamic Shari`ah as "the basis controlling the affairs of state and society;" and secondly work to unify "Islamic countries and states, mainly among the Arab states, and liberating them from foreign imperialism". It denounces the "catchy and effective terms and phrases" like "fundamentalist" and "political Islam" which it claims are used by "Western Media" to pigeonhole the group, and points to its "15 Principles" for an Egyptian National Charter, including "freedom of personal conviction... opinion... forming political parties... public gatherings... free and fair elections..."[36]
In October 2007, the Muslim Brotherhood issued a detailed political platform. Amongst other things it called for a board of Muslim clerics to oversee the government, and for limiting the office of the presidency to Muslim men. In the `Issues and Problems` chapter of the platform, it declared that a woman was not suited to be president because the post's religious and military duties `conflict with her nature, social and other humanitarian roles.` While underlining `equality between men and women in terms of their human dignity,` the document warned against `burdening women with duties against their nature or role in the family.`[37]
The Brotherhood's self-description as moderate and rejecting violence as created disagreement among observers.[38] A Western author, (Eric Thrager), interviewing 30 current and former members of the Brotherhood in 2011 and found that the Brethren he talked to emphasised "important exceptions" to the position of non-violence, namely conflicts in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Iraq, and Palestine.[2] Thrager quotes the former Supreme Guide Mohammed Mahdi Akef as telling him
We believe that Zionism, the United States, and England are gangs that kill children and women and men and destroy houses and fields. .... Zionism is a gang, not a country. So we will resist them until they don't have a country.[2]
Thrager and other have also noted the MB's use of the honorific "sheikh" to refer to Osama bin Laden. [2][39] While the Brotherhood differs with bin Laden and al-Qaeda, it has not condemned them for the 9-11 attacks because it does not believe they were responsible. A recent statement by the Brotherhood on the issue of violence and assassinations condemned the killing of "Sheikh Osama bin Laden" by the United States, saying: "The whole world, and especially the Muslims, have lived with a fierce media campaign to brand Islam as terrorism and describe the Muslims as violent by blaming the September 11th incident on al-Qaeda."[40]
However, according to authors writing in the Council on Foreign Relations magazine Foreign Affairs: "At various times in its history, the group has used or supported violence and has been repeatedly banned in Egypt for attempting to overthrow Cairo's secular government. Since the 1970s, however, the Egyptian Brotherhood has disavowed violence and sought to participate in Egyptian politics."[41] Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East editor, calls the Brotherhood "conservative and non-violent".[42]
In his writing, Hassan Al-Banna outlined a strategy for achieving power of three stages:
The Brotherhood applies a highly selective membership process which gives its "internal cohesiveness and ideological rigidity" and is unique among Egyptian political/social organizations in its "breath" and "depth" of networks.[2] The long (typically at least four and a half years) and closely monitored membership process is thought to have prevented infiltration by state security during the presidencies of Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak.[2] Its structure bears some similarity to a similar Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, in having a hierarchical organization where many supporters do not reach the level of full members. Potential members are recruited by recruiters who do not at first identifying themselves as Brothers to prospective members.
Estimates of the Brotherhood's membership and supporters vary between 600,000 and 100,000. According to anthropologist Scott Atran, while the Brotherhood has 600,000 dues paying members in Egypt it can count on only 100,000 militants in a population of more than 80 million Egyptians.[44]
How unified and powerful the Brotherhood is, is disputed. Former deputy chairman, Muhammad Habib has said, “there are fissures" in the Brotherhood, "and they may be to the very core. There is concern among the younger members that the leadership does not understand what’s going on around it."[45] Another high ranking member, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, who was recently expelled from the Brotherhood, warned of the possibility of "an explosion.”[46] Other observers (Eric Trager) have described the Brotherhood as "Egypt's most cohesive political movement, with an unparalleled ability to mobilize its followers ..."[2]
The brotherhood operates 21 hospitals throughout Egypt, providing modern medical care at subsidized prices. [47] It also operates job-training programmes.[48], schools in every governorate in the country[48] and programs to support widows and orphans.[49]
An estimated 1,000 of the roughly 5,000 legally registered NGOs and associations in Egypt are run by the Brotherhood according to Abul Futouh, a leading brotherhood member.[48] Its clinics are reputed to have more available basic supplies and more up-to-date equipment[49]. However, the Brotherhood's network of organizations is complex, sometimes operate under different names, and is difficult to track.[49]
The Brotherhood's response to the 1992 earthquake in Cairo, where 50,000 people were made homeless, was an example of the group's effectiveness, compared to that of the Egyptian government. It quickly mobilized to provide victims with food and blankets and setting up makeshift medical clinics and tents for shelter.[49]
The Muslim Sisterhood is the female division of the Muslim Brotherhood. The members of the Muslim Sisterhood have been traditionally more involved in charitable activities than other members of Muslim Brotherhood. The work of the Muslim Sisterhood has help to attract new members to the Muslim Brotherhood. Many of these members come from university campuses, mosques and trade unions. During the Egyptian revolution of 2011, members of the Muslim Sisterhood have become more politically active, and they participated in the founding of the Freedom and Justice Party by the Muslim Brotherhood in April 2011.[50]