brotherhood – Hybrid Learning

Muslim Brotherhood in the Sudan

Batoota — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 17:03:29 +0000

Muslim Brotherhood in the Sudan
The Muslim Brothers originated among Sudanese students in Cairo in the 1940s. Jamal al-Din al-Sanhuri and Sadiq `Abdallah `Abd al-Majid were among its earliest propagators; in 1946 they were sent by the Egyptian movement to recruit members in the Sudan. They succeeded in setting up branches in several small towns in 1947-1949 but were barred from acting openly unless they declared their independence from the Egyptian Brothers, who were at the time illegal.
Another early recruit was al-Swim Muhammad Ibrahim, a former teacher at Hantub secondary school, who founded the Islamic Liberation Movement (ILM or Harakat al-Tahrir al-Islami) at Gordon College in 1947 in order to combat communism. Its leaders, Babikr Karrar and Muhammad Yusuf, called for the establishment of a socialist Islamic state. Early adherents came primarily from the rural areas of the northern Sudan and were deeply committed to Sufi Islam and opposed to communism. The ILM enabled them to adopt a modern Islamic ideology without cutting their ties with their families, who were mostly Khatmiyah adherents. This dual loyalty did not disturb the Khatmiyah because it did not regard the Muslim Brothers as political rivals.
The Sudanese Muslim Brothers were officially founded at the `Id Conference on 21 August 1954. AlRashid al-Tahir, one of the Brothers’ most prominent student leaders, later became the movement’s murdqib al-‘am (general supervisor). A politician and lawyer, alTahir established close relations with the Free Officers, especially with Salah Salim, their coordinator with the Sudan, and supported the pro-unionist camp. This changed following Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser’s attempted assassination in October 1954, when Egypt turned against the Muslim Brothers. The Sudanese Brothers forsook union with Egypt and joined forces with the Ansar-Ummah bloc, advocating the Sudan’s independence.
After the 1958 military takeover led by General Ibrahim `Abbud, the Muslim Brothers were at first allowed to continue their activities as a religious movement. On 9 November 1959 al-Tahir attempted to overthrow the regime, aided by an illegal cell of Muslim Brothers, communists, and others within the army. The plotters were arrested, and the Muslim Brothers lost their cadres in the army as well as their freedom to act.
The next important stage in their history began in 1964 when Hasan al-Turabi and several leading brothers returned from their studies abroad. Turabi, who had joined the brothers while an undergraduate at Khartoum University College in 1954, emerged as their most effective university spokesman and started promoting a peaceful settlement in the south. Most of the mass gatherings in October 1964, which ultimately led to the civilian revolution and the downfall of `Abbud, were led by the Muslim Brothers in the university.
In October 1964 the Muslim Brothers founded the Islamic Charter Front (ICF) with Turabi as secretary general. Concerned that they would remain a small elitist group lacking the broader support enjoyed by the communists, they decided that a front organization advocating an Islamic constitution was likely to gain support among Sufis and Ansar. Moreover, Turabi was a pragmatist whose prime concern was political rather than ideological, so the purist tendencies of the older Muslim Brothers were overshadowed. The ICF provided an ideal platform for his dynamic leadership. In the years 1965-1968 the ICF cooperated with Sadiq al-Mahdi’s wing of the Ummah party in its anticommunist drive and in promoting an Islamic constitution. The battle was waged first on university campuses, contesting student elections against the communists. Campus politics provided the launching pad for broader political action; the ICF-allied with the Ansar, the Khatmiyah, and others-succeeded in having the Communist Party of the Sudan outlawed in 1965. The ICF also succeeded in formulating an Islamic constitution, in alliance with the Ansar, but it was not implemented because of the May 1969 coup led by Ja’far al-Nimeiri (al-NumayC) and his Communist allies.
Following the coup some of the brothers’ leaders, including Turabi, were arrested. Others escaped to Aba Island, where some died in the uprising of the Ansar in March 1970; a few made their way to Egypt or other countries. `Uthman Khalid represented the Muslim Brothers as secretary general of the National Front (NF) of Opposition Parties, founded in London in 1970 under the leadership of the DUP and Ummah parties. Turabi, who was not exiled, met President Nimeiri following the abortive procommunist coup of July 1971 and asked for permission to resume the brothers’ activities. In 1972 their new campus organization, the Students Unity Front, gained control of the Khartoum University Students’ Union.
Although the NF, including some of the brothers’ leaders, continued to advocate armed struggle from exile, the majority of the brothers, led by Turabi, preferred pragmatism. He concentrated his efforts on restructuring the party in such a way that the old guard of brothers lost what influence they still had while his followers, who had joined in the 1960s, assumed the top positions. Turabi and the brothers who remained in Sudan were thus well prepared for Nimeiri’s move toward an “Islamic path” in the mid-1970s. Lack of democracy did not trouble Turabi and his colleagues because they realized that they could not rely on the traditionalist parties, the Ummah and DUP, in their fight for an Islamic state. It seemed reasonable to cooperate with Nimeiri, who was seeking their support, influenced by President Anwar el-Sadat’s accommodation with the Egyptian Brothers in the early 1970s.
The Sudanese Brothers decided to join forces with the regime following the failure of an anti-Nimeiri coup led by the Ansar in July 1976. The appointment of Rashid al-Tahir, a former leader of the Muslim Brothers, as deputy president and prime minister in that year was also an indication of change. Al-Tahir, though no longer a member, was popularly identified with the brothers. Once national reconciliation became official policy in July 1977, the brothers were well prepared and grasped whatever positions the government offered. Turabi himself was appointed attorney general in 1979, and many of his colleagues accepted positions in the judiciary, the educational and financial systems, and the Sudan Socialist Union (SSU). The brothers also managed to infiltrate the Ansar-dominated western regions, helped by Muslim Brothers who had become teachers in Kordofan and Darfur.
A noteworthy outcome of the brothers’ close collaboration with Nimeiri was their improved organization and finances, which partly explains their success in the 1986 elections. The National Islamic Front (NIF) was founded in April 1985 and came in a close third after the Ummah and the DUP. The NIF’s financial supremacy can be attributed to the fact that beginning in the early 1970s it had taken control of the Islamic banking system, first through its connections in Saudi Arabia and later through collaboration with Nimeiri. The establishment of the Faysal Islamic bank in 1978 enabled the Muslim Brothers to infiltrate the new system as employees and investors and gain access to credit and to a share in profits. The bank also opened doors to economic and social advancement for the movement’s young adherents and enabled the NIF to establish international financial contacts, primarily in the Arabian Peninsula. Following a June 1989 coup the NIF enhanced its domination of the banks, the building industry, transport, and the media. Since roughly 90 percent of the banks’ income was invested in import-export ventures, the NIF has dominated that field at the expense of the Khatmiyah supporters who had controlled it in the past. The appointment of `Abd al-Rahin Hamid, a prominent NIF member, as minister of finance and economy leaves little doubt as to the NIF’s overwhelming dominance of the state’s chief financial institutions.
Another factor in the NIF’s success in the 1986 elections was its supremacy among the Graduates’ constituencies. Sudanese university graduates living abroad were allowed, for the first time, to vote for any constituency they chose. The NIF exploited this departure by instructing its supporters to vote en bloc for candidates in marginal seats, capturing 23 out of 28 Graduates’ seats. This victory, however, emphasized an inherent weakness of the NIF: its main support even at this stage was among university students and graduates. Since the June 1989 fundamentalist coup the NIF has further strengthened its hold over all institutes of learning. Ibrahim Ahmad `Umar, an NIF member, became minister of higher education. He dismissed the university’s president and deans and reorganized higher learning in the five public and private universities, doubling the number of students. This enabled NIF members, who were mostly graduates, to benefit from the increased employment opportunities, which included senior academic posts as well as diplomatic, economic, and political positions abroad.
The Muslim Brothers first attempted to infiltrate the Military College in 1955, helped by Abu al-Makarim `Abd al-Hayy, an Egyptian army officer who had commanded the Muslim Brothers’ Special Apparatus. He had escaped to Sudan following the attempt on President Nasser’s life in October 1954. The abortive coup of 9 November 1959, initiated by Rashid al-Tahir with the participation of both Muslim Brothers and other supporters within the army, was a clear indication of future intentions. The next stage started in the military camps in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Libya in the early 1970s, where young Sudanese Muslim Brothers were trained by Egyptian officers, under the command of Salah Hasan, an Egyptian Muslim Brother. Following national reconciliation, in July 1977, many of them joined the Sudanese army. Its members were put in charge of courses in “Islamic ideology and instruction” for senior army officers, enabling them to infiltrate the officer corps. Four members of the military council that has ruled the Sudan since the June 1989 coup, including its leader `Umar Hasan al-Bashir, attended these courses. Following Nimeiri’s deposition the NIF further strengthened its support within the army by openly supporting the army’s demands for better pay and equipment, while the Ummah and the DUP remained hesitant. The post-1989 regime is an indication that the NIF’s infiltration of the army has paid the expected dividends.
The Muslim Brothers’ policy on the “southern question” changed in the 1970s. Rejecting the liberal attitude of Turabi and his followers in 1964/1965, some now advocated partition, claiming that as long as the Sudan remained united an Islamic state would be impossible. The majority continued to insist on an Islamic state within a united Sudan, which would become the bastion of Islam in Africa. The NIF founded the African Islamic Center to undertake its missionary work among the non-Islamic majority in the south; in 1982 the Association of Southern Muslims was set up to establish Islamic schools and villages there, funded by Kuwait and the Gulf Emirates and stimulated by a mass influx of Muslim refugees from Uganda following Idi Amin’s defeat in 1979. The close relations between the NIF and southern Muslims helped the party in the 1986 elections in the south and explain the importance of this issue in the NIF’s election campaign.
In January 1987 the NIF published its National Charter, in which it elaborated on its special relation with the south and explained its program of islamizing it. Turabi proposed that the Muslim Brothers act as the Islamic vanguard in the south, with the traditionalists forced to follow suit. A major concession was the NIF’s acceptance of the right of all citizens, regardless of religion, to hold any public office. The charter promised freedom of conscience and equality before the law, stating that in a federal state, non-Muslim regions would be allowed to opt out of the Islamic legal system based on the shari’ah. However, the NIF consistently rejected any compromise entailing secularism, and the June 1989 coup can be partly attributed to the NIF’s adamant opposition to accommodating the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement.
The Sudanese Muslim Brothers remained independent of their Egyptian namesakes and offered a unique Sudanese version of the brothers’ ideology. They compared their relationship to that between the Sudanese Ashiqqa’ and the Egyptian Wafd; both propagated unity of the Nile Valley, but under separate identities. An additional reason for their insistence on their own identity was their fear that a united front with the Egyptian Brothers would alienate the anti-Egyptian Ansar, their most cherished allies. The brothers’ attempt to exploit front organizations that were less suspect to moderate Sudanese was regarded as a way to reach broader circles, especially among Khatmiyah supporters, and is reminiscent of communist practices. Similarly, the brothers tried to infiltrate other parties. Rashid al-Their attempted to become an Ummah candidate in the 1957 elections; Muddaththir `Abd al-Rahim and `Uthman Jaddallah managed to join the editorial board of Aljihad, the Khatmiyah newspaper. The rift between those declaring their affinity with the Egyptian Brothers and those opposing it was never really healed. Some of the older leaders, such as al-Sadiq `Abdallah al-Majid and Ja’far Shaykh Idris, continued to attack Turabi’s strategy from their exile in the Gulf states throughout the Nimeiri years. They were closely associated with the Egyptian Muslim Brothers, and after Hasan alHudaybi’s release from prison, in 1973, they suggested joining the world organization of Muslim Brothers under his leadership. Politically they criticized Turabi’s un-Islamic views with regard to the role of women in society and censured his intimacy with Nimeiri and his regime. Their proposals were defeated in the shura council; although `Abd al-Majid was offered the deputy leadership upon his return to the Sudan in the late 1970s, he declined and formed an independent movement of Muslim Brothers that challenged the NIF unsuccessfully in the 1986 elections.
The Islamic constitution proposed by the Muslim Brothers in 1956 sought the establishment of an Islamic republic with a Muslim head of state and a parliamentary democracy based on Islamic law and legislating in accordance with the shari`ah. Its Muslim citizens would be able to shape their lives in accordance with the dictates of their religion and to uproot social evils and corruption. Discrimination on the basis of race or religion would be forbidden, and non-Muslim citizens would enjoy all rights granted under Muslim law.
A more pragmatic approach developed following the October 1964 revolution and al-Turabi’s rise to prominence. The newly formulated Islamic Charter proposed a presidential rather than a parliamentary system for the sake of greater stability and put greater emphasis on minority and regional rights. It undertook a complete revision of personal law in order to grant equal rights to women. The religion of the head of state was not mentioned in the Charter, a clear gesture to non-Muslims. The Charter proclaimed that even though all Muslims constituted one community, this Muslim state would encompass only Sudanese. Resident non-Muslims would be citizens with equal standing, guaranteed freedom of religion, decentralization, and public rights, namely, the right to determine their own way of life in the regions in which they constituted the majority, as well as the right to establish their own public institutions, be they traditional or modern.
Turabi advocated a gradual, nonviolent approach based on education and opposed the implementation of the hudud (mandatory punishments) at this stage, claiming that they should be applied only in an ideal Muslim society. The NIF’s later support of the hudud imposed in September 1983 by Nimeiri was justified on the ground that the hudud were part of an educational process whereby the state hoped to improve the morals of its citizens. The NIF continued to support the implementation of these laws after Nimeiri’s removal and the military coup of June 1989. Al-Mikashfi TAM al-Kabbashi, a leading NIF jurist, was a member of the committee assigned to revise the laws in accordance with the shari`ah and has headed the Supreme Court of Appeal in Khartoum since 1984. In a book on the implementation of the shari’ah in the Sudan Kabbashi justified the implementation of these Islamic laws, including the January 1985 execution of Mahmud Muhammad Taha, leader of the Republican Brothers, for apostasy, in which he was personally involved as president of the Court of Appeal. For Kabbashi and others in the NIF there was never any doubt as to the Sudan’s Islamic identity, which implied the Jahili status of all non-Muslims. The Sudan’s Islamic army would fight the enemies of Islam, “Communists, Crusaders, Zionists, Free Masons” or their Sudanese supporters, under the banner of Islam. However, regions in which non-Muslims were in the majority would be allowed to opt out of the Islamic legal system, provided the Sudan became a federation.
The brothers’ attitude toward democracy, as formulated by Turabi, was based on both pragmatic and ideological considerations. Since the establishment of an Islamic state was the primary aim, the means of achieving it became secondary. Ideologically, there were several differences between Western democracy and Islamic shura. First, the West separates democracy from religion, which contradicts the shura. Second, the shura provides a system whereby the life of all believers is fully coordinated, whereas Western democracy is limited to politics. Third, shura grants democratic rights only insofar as these agree with the shari `ah, whereas in Western democracy human rights are not limited by religious considerations. Fourth, Western democracy distinguishes between political passions and human morals; in Islam the two are inseparable. Finally, the shura provides greater guarantees for the unity of believers than does Western democracy. The shura accordingly can become a popular process based, unlike secular democracy, on the sovereignty of God and Islamic morality and free from secular distortions and manipulations. Shura can be applied by any group of people and is not limited by constitutional considerations. Military regimes can therefore apply the shura as well as elected parliaments as long as they fully implement the shari`ah. [See Democracy.]
Renewal and revival (tajdid) are among Turabi’s most cherished ideas. He believed that Islam had to be rethought constantly and was open to radical change by the Muslim community-not necessarily by learned reformers. There were indeed eternal principles in Islam, but fiqh, the classical exposition of Islamic law, was a mere human endeavor which might be reevaluated in accordance with present requirements. For many generations fuqaha’ (jurists) had neglected to rethink and redefine the role of the state and of the public in the formulation of Islamic law. Modern fiqh should concentrate on social rather than individual issues, since the former were hardly tackled in a largely individualistic society. The reopening of the doors of ijtihad was also advocated by the Muslim Brothers. With a few exceptions regarding the eternal components of divinity, everything was open to review and reinterpretation. The methodology suggested by Turabi was based on his formulation of tawhid, which involved a union of the eternal divine commands with the changing conditions of human life and a demand for harmony between reason and revelation. Tawhid should therefore lead to a single comprehensive methodology of reinterpretation, embracing all human knowledge-religious, natural, and social-absorbed through the filter of Islamic understanding.
[See also Ansar; Khatmiyah; Revival and Renewal; Sudan; Ummah-Ansar; and the biography of Turabi.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ahmad, Hasan Makki Muhammad. Harakat al-Ikhwan al Muslimin fi al-Sudan, 1944-1969. Khartoum, 1982.
`Ali, Haydar Ibrahim. Azmat al-Islam al-siydsi: Al jabhah al-Islamiyah al-qawmiyah ft al-Sudan namadhaian. Rabat, 1991.
EI-Effendi, Abdelwahab. Turabi’s Revolution: Islam and Power in Sudan. London, 1991.
Kabbashl, Al-Mukashifi Taha al-. Tatbiq al-shari ah ft al-Sudan bayna al-haqiqah wa-al-`itharah. Cairo, 1986.
Kondgen, Olaf. Das Islamisierte Strafrecht des Sudan: Von seiner Einfuhrung 1983 bis juli 1992. Hamburg, 1992.
Taha, Haydar. Al-ikhwdn wa-al-`askar, Qissat al jabhah al-Islamiyah wa-al-sultah ft al-Sudan. Cairo, 1993
Turabi, Hasan al-. “The Islamic State.” In Voices of Resurgent Islam, edited by John L. Esposito, pp. 241-251. New York and Oxford, 1983.
Turabi, Hasan al-. “Al-shura wa-al-dimuqratiyah: Ishkalat almustalah wa-al-mafhum.” Al-Mustaqbal al-`Arabi 8.’75 (May 1985): 13-20.
Wolf, Susanne. “The Muslim Brotherhood in the Sudan.” Master’s thesis, University of Hamburg, 1990.
GABRIEL R. WARBURG

Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan

Batoota — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 16:06:01 +0000

Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan
An enduring feature of Jordanian political life for more than fifty years, the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan was created as part of an effort by the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hasan al-Banna’ (1906-1949) to form additional bases of support for his movement. In the early 1940s, members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood were sent to both Palestine and Jordan to establish new branches.
In 1946, the first Jordanian branch was founded in the town of Salt; further centers were then established in the capital, Amman, and the towns of Irbid and Kayak. The leaders of the new movement registered the organization under the Jordanian Charity Societies and Clubs Law. The leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood was indigenous, and the first head of the organization was a prominent cleric, Hajj `Abd al-Latif al-Qurah (d. 1953) Hajj al-Qurah led an eight-member majlis (ruling council), which directed organizational aspects of the new movement. This leadership structure mirrored that of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
In addition to legal registration, Hajj al-Qurah sought official approval from the Jordanian monarch for his fledgling organization. King Abdullah (r. 1946-1951) extended tacit approval to the organization but warned that benefaction would be rescinded if the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood strayed from the spiritual and became identifiable with Jordanian political affairs. At this point, the Muslim Brotherhood was essentially a religious organization. The steady politicization of Islamic clerics, which began in Egypt in the nineteenth century, was barely discernible in Jordan in the 1940s. Nevertheless, the very founding of the Muslim Brotherhood at this time indicated that a new generation of politically active Muslim clergy was ascendant.
The Islamic Message. The functional religious role of the Muslim Brotherhood permitted the movement to promote its ideology to all sectors of Jordanian society. Through its charitable activities, including the provision of health and welfare facilities in the kingdom, the new movement was able to disseminate its Islamic message. The Muslim Brotherhood’s message was a direct reflection of the prevailing philosophy it had embraced. Members should strive to educate society and encourage a return to Islamic values.
From 1946 until the outbreak of the war between the Arabs and Israel in 1948, the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan remained essentially unchanged. Following the war and the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank area of Palestine in 1950, the number of branches of the Muslim Brotherhood increased, as existing Islamic organizations active in the West Bank, including Ansar alFadil and al-I’tisam, were absorbed. As a result of this new, expanded base of support in the West Bank, the leadership and cadres of the Muslim Brotherhood became increasingly politicized.
Political Consolidation. Following the death of Hajj al-Qurah in 1953, a new leader was appointed for the movement. On assuming his new post, `Abd al-Rahman al-Khalifah (an attorney) approached the Jordanian prime minister, Tawfiq Pasha Abu al-Huda, with an application for an expansion of the mandate regarding the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood to facilitate the political and cultural propagation of the movement’s Islamic message. The license permitting the Muslim Brotherhood to be a general and comprehensive Islamic grouping was subsequently granted by the authorities.
What was most striking about the development of the Muslim Brotherhood under al-Khalifah was its relatively close relations with the ruling regime and the monarchy. During the period when the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was being repressed by the state, the conservative Jordanian regime found in its own branch of the Muslim Brotherhood a useful ally against the leftist movements sweeping through the region. However, the relationship between monarch and movement has been characterized by peaks and troughs and is for the most part motivated by political pragmatism rather than Islamic idealism.
The attitude of the regime toward the Muslim Brotherhood was further emphasized in 1957 when King Hussein issued a decree proscribing all political parties. The Muslim Brotherhood was exempted because the organization was officially registered as a charity, although in practice its activities were indistinguishable from those of any political party. Thus, the Muslim Brotherhood was free to continue with its own political agenda. Throughout this period it fielded individual candidates in elections to the bicameral legislative assembly. In 1962, the Muslim Brotherhood was the only organization to defy a West Bank boycott of the general election.
By 1964 the Muslim Brotherhood had also formed an umbrella organization called the Islamic Charitable Society, described by al-Khalifah as a charity rather than a political party. Nonetheless, the activities of the charity included the dissemination of Muslim Brotherhood ideology. By this time, the program of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan was almost identical to that of the organization in Egypt.
Pawns and Politics. Following the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, in which Jordan lost the West Bank and the Palestine Liberation Organization established strongholds among the refugee community of the East Bank, the relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and the monarchy was strengthened. A relationship of de- of eighty seats in the parliament and that its Islamist counterparts had won an additional twelve; this total of thirty-four seats comprised the largest parliamentary bloc. The king’s policy of political cooptation had thus resulted in an Islamic majority in the country’s legislative assembly. The future stability of the regime was called into question, yet many failed to take into account the fact that the king still possessed the ultimate authority over the legislature (and therefore the Muslim Brotherhood): he could dissolve parliament at any time.
The Muslim Brothers greeted their election success with characteristic zeal. They set about forcing their political agenda through the legislature and into the statute books. Large amounts of parliamentary time were devoted to specifically Islamic issues, such as the banning of the production of alcohol. In essence it appeared that the Muslim Brotherhood’s response to the opportunities presented by its new political power was to concentrate on the areas of policy making that it knew best; thus, the Muslim Brotherhood lobbied for cabinet posts covering social, educational, and religious affairs. There did not appear to be any concerted attempt to tackle such issues as the economy, defense, or foreign affairs.
The outbreak of the Gulf War in 1990 signaled historic changes and challenges for the Muslim Brotherhood. The conflict presented the organization with the most difficult political dilemma in its history centering around the conflicting pressures from local constituents and financial backers in the conservative Gulf regimes. The Muslim Brotherhood initially condemned Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, but popular Islamic sentiment expressed in the streets of Amman soon persuaded the movement to alter its policy and support the Iraqi leader. This policy jeopardized the Muslim Brotherhood’s relationship with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which had provided the bulk of its funding.
The fact that the king and the “loyal opposition” in the Muslim Brotherhood were on the losing side in the war has altered only regional rather than domestic political arrangements. The Muslim Brotherhood preserved and further legitimated its popular support. The Islamic message remains a broadly popular one and ensures an enduring future for the organization. However, in the final analysis, such endurance will always be dependent on King Hussein, and this factor makes the Jordanian movement unique with respect to any other branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
[See also Jordan.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abidi, Aqil H. H. Jordan: A Political Study, 1948-1957. London, 1965. Dated but worthwhile account of Jordan in the 1950s. Aruri, Nasser Hasan. Jordan: A Study in Political Development, 19211957. The Hague, 1972. Introduction to the Jordanian political system.
Bailey, Clinton. Jordan’s Palestinian Challenge, 1948-1983. Boulder, 1984. Perceptive book addressing the issue of Jordanian Palestinians, who account for 50 percent of the kingdom’s population. Gubser, Peter. Jordan: Crossroads of Middle Eastern Events. Boulder, 1984. Interesting account of Jordan’s regional role.
Kilani, Musa Zayd al-. Al-Harakat al-Islamiyah fi al-Urdun (The Islamic Movements in Jordan). Amman, 1990.
Milton-Edwards, Beverley. “A Temporary Alliance with the Crown: The Islamic Response in Jordan.” In Islamic Fundamentalism and the Gulf Crisis, edited by J. P. Piscatori, pp. 88-108. Chicago, 1991. Insight on Jordan during the Gulf crisis.
Wilson, Rodney, ed. Politics and the Economy in Jordan. London, 1991. Collection of essays on the inextricable relation between political and economic development in the Hashemite kingdom.
BEVERLEY MILTON-EDWARDS
next: Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan

Muslim Brotherhood in Syria

Batoota — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 15:57:15 +0000

Muslim Brotherhood in Syria
Throughout its fifty years of activity in Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood has been principally an opposition movement that has never held political power. The brotherhood traces its origins to the 1930s, when the Syrian people were engaged in their struggle to achieve national independence from French rule. The structural changes that Syria experienced during the interwar years were especially disruptive in the town quarters. Small merchants and artisans suffered under the weight of expanding European trade. The laboring classes found it increasingly difficult to feed their families because of the high inflation rates of the period. Uprooted rural dwellers in growing numbers entered the peripheral quarters of the towns, having been pushed off the land by drought or, more commonly, by indebtedness to absentee landowners and moneylenders. All sought the support of local leaders who could help them articulate their grievances and meet their needs. By this time, the leaders of the national independence movement had become increasingly distant from their urban constituencies, owing to their preoccupation with negotiations with the French Mandate authorities. This distance enabled newer, more radicalized groups to begin to challenge the leadership of the veteran nationalists.
To address the pressing social and psychological needs of the urban masses, the vast majority of whom belonged to the Sunni Muslim rite, there arose in the towns a variety of socially and politically active organizations, some of which were religious beneficent societies (jam’iyat) headed by men who had received formal religious training in Islamic law. The House of alArqam in Aleppo was one of these societies. On the eve of Syria’s independence, the House of al-Arqam moved its headquarters to Damascus, the Syrian capital, where it became known in 1944 as the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ihkwan al-Muslimun). It is generally thought that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which had been established in 1928, influenced the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. Some Syrian students who had studied in Cairo became familiar with the ideas of Hasan al-Banna’, the Egyptian organization’s founder. One was Mustafa al-Siba’i, the Syrian brotherhood’s first general supervisor (al-muraqib al-`amm), who became acquainted with al-Banna’ in Cairo. Others were inspired by a tour of Syria made by members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the mid-1930s.
The earliest goals of the Muslim Brotherhood were to spread Muslim education and ethics and to inculcate anti-imperialist feelings among the urban populace. It was through schools and magazines associated with the brotherhood that such ideas were disseminated. Its first published program in 1954 failed to offer a detailed strategic plan, dwelling instead on the goals of combating ignorance and deprivation and establishing a political regime based on Islamic law. For a period after Syria gained independence, the brotherhood put forward a vague notion of Islamic socialism but eventually abandoned it. Unlike the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Syrian organization has never produced a systematically articulated set of principles and program of action. The closest it came to this achievement was the 1980 proclamation of the Syrian Islamic Front to which the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood belonged.
The Arab military defeat in Palestine in 1948 enabled the brotherhood to expand its following in the Syrian towns, especially in Damascus where its members controlled roughly a fifth of the parliamentary seats allotted to the capital and its environs in the 1950s. In this period, the brotherhood competed with Communists, Ba’thists, Nasserists, and other opponents of the veteran nationalists who had governed Syria since independence in 1946. The challenge posed by the Nasserist movement to the brotherhood was particularly effective because the two movements shared the same political constituency, the Sunni Muslim urban trading classes. Not surprisingly, the brotherhood supported Syria’s secession in 1961 from the Egyptian-dominated United Arab Republic, established in 1958. [See also Nasserism. ]
The Bath Party’s seizure of power in 1963 focused the Muslim Brotherhood’s opposition squarely on the radical, secular, nationalist regime’s socialist policies and its introduction of large numbers of rural peoples into the state bureaucracy. These measures not only upset the interests of urban absentee landowners, merchants and industrialists, middle-level bureaucrats, and the liberal professions, but also threatened the positions of the urban artisan and small trading classes that formed the main constituency of the Muslim Brotherhood. Religious leaders associated with the brotherhood promoted civil disobedience against the Ba’thist regime’s secular policies. But in the aftermath of Syria’s military defeat in the 1967 war with Israel and the establishment of Hafez al-Assad’s Ba’thist government in 1970, a schism developed within the brotherhood. Militants in Aleppo and Hama pressed for a policy of armed struggle against the Assad regime but they were countered by the Damascus followers of `Isam al-`Attar, a religious shaykh in the Syrian capital who had replaced Mustafa al-Siba`i in 1961 as general supervisor of the brotherhood. The `Attar wing of the organization had identified a certain convergence of interests between the urban artisan and trading classes that supported the brotherhood in Damascus and the Assad regime’s gradual adoption of economic liberalization and its willingness to attract to Syria investments from the Arab oilproducing states of the Persian Gulf.
The Syrian regime’s honeymoon with the Damascus branch of the Muslim Brotherhood did not last long. President Assad’s secular constitution of 1973 provoked widespread protests in the Syrian towns led by the brotherhood and forced him to amend the constitution to require that the president had to be Muslim. By the mid-1970s, the northern militants in the brotherhood had gained the upper hand over the Damascus branch; during the next seven years they escalated the level of violence against the Assad regime. This phase in the Muslim Brotherhood’s struggle against the Syrian government was closely identified with the leadership of `Adnan Sa’d al-Din, a teacher and writer from the central Syrian town of Hama, who had become the brotherhood’s newest general supervisor. Several factors prompted the brotherhood to adopt a strategy of armed struggle (jihdd): the Syrian government’s intervention in 1976 in the Lebanese civil war against the Palestinians and their Lebanese Muslim allies; growing corruption stemming from the government’s economic liberalization policies; and, above all, the increased power that the president’s own rural-based community of `Alawis, a religious minority who constituted only io percent of the Syrian population, had achieved at the expense of the country’s Sunni majority, and especially the Sunnis of the towns. From this time onward, the brotherhood’s opposition was defined as one of Sunni majority against `Alawi minority and of town against countryside.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s tactics at first focused on assassinating `Alawi officials but soon expanded into armed attacks on prominent institutional symbols of the Assad regime including Bath Party offices, police stations, and army units. Most notable were the June 1979 killing of eighty-three `Alawi artillery cadets in Aleppo, large-scale demonstrations and boycotts in Aleppo, Hama, and Homs in March 1980 and an attempt to assassinate Assad himself later that year. Those who carried out the violence against the regime and its supporters tended to be university students, school teachers, and members of the liberal professions. Their leaders were also engineers, dentists, and teachers who came from small trading families and the middle levels of the Muslim religious establishment.
To counter this violent opposition, the Syrian government decreed in July 198o that any association with the Muslim Brotherhood was punishable by death. It began to crack down on the brotherhood with its formidable military resources, in particular its dreaded security forces composed almost exclusively of `Alawis. Under this pressure, the Muslim Brotherhood regrouped under the banner of the Syrian Islamic Front (al-Jabhah alIslamiyah fi Suriyah), a broad-based alliance of Islamic opposition groups established in October 198o and headed by the brotherhood. Shaykh Muhammad alBayanuni, a member of the religious establishment in Aleppo, became the Islamic Front’s secretary-general, but its strongman was `Adnan Sa`d al-Din, the brotherhood’s general supervisor. The front’s chief ideologue was Said Hawwa, a religious figure from Hama who, with Sa’d al-Din, had been a leader of the northern militant faction that had taken control of the brotherhood in the mid-1970s.
The culmination of five years of terror and counterterror was a showdown between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Syrian regime in February 1982 in the socially conservative Sunni stronghold of Hama. There the brotherhood sparked an armed uprising and seized control of the town in its strongest bid ever to challenge the Assad regime’s legitimacy. Within two weeks, the regime had restored its authority over Hama, but not before its military forces killed between five thousand and twenty thousand inhabitants of Hama and razed large sections of this ancient town. Assad’s regime had dealt a devastating blow to the brotherhood and in so doing put all its political opponents on notice that it would not countenance any challenges to its rule. The lesson of Hama appears to have been taken to heart for little has since been heard from the Muslim Brotherhood.
Unlike the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt that struck roots in both town and countryside, in Syria the brotherhood was exclusively urban based. This can be explained in part by the fact that the Syrian countryside was to a large extent populated by heterodox sects such as the `Alawis, Druze, and Isma’ilis. The Syrian brotherhood specifically appealed to townsmen from the class of small tradesmen and artisans. This class has long been closely intertwined with the Sunni religious shaykhs attached to the neighborhood mosques that are located in the heart of the local suqs or bazaars where small tradesmen and artisans work and live. The religious shaykhs provided the brotherhood with many of its leaders over the years and with the strong religious values to which its membership subscribed. Because many shaykhs from the middle rungs of the religious establishment also earned their livings as traders, they, like their followers, supported free enterprise and thus stood in opposition to the socialist and quasi-socialist reformism of the Ba’thist governments that have ruled Syria since 1963.
In the 1970s, when the Muslim Brotherhood became the most visible and powerful opponent of the Assad regime, it attracted to its ranks large numbers of students, school teachers, engineers, and other members of the liberal professions, many of whom came from small urban trading families. These elements contributed to the organization’s increased militancy in this period and to a noticeable generation gap between its younger, better educated militant youth and their elders. Only rough estimates exist for the size of the Muslim Brotherhood. Although its numbers have fluctuated widely over the decades, it probably reached its maximum size of around ten thousand during the late 1970s. The Syrian government’s efforts to destroy the organization by military and legal means reduced its ranks to fewer than five thousand on the eve of the Hama uprising in 1982 and to far fewer afterward. Since then the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood has been in exile and its rank and file underground in Syria.
The ideological orientation of the Muslim Brotherhood is best summed up in the Islamic Front’s proclamation of November 198o. Although it was designed to appeal to all political opponents of the Assad regime, the proclamation nonetheless pointed to several specific positions that the brotherhood had adopted over the years. It raised the prospects of civil war along Sunni`Alawi lines unless the leaders of the `Alawi community rejected Hafez al-Assad’s political leadership. It emphasized the Syrian people’s right to regain their basic political and civil liberties, which were described as being as important as the people’s right to basic economic security, of which they had also been stripped. It called for an independent judiciary and for a government based on the rule of law and on the Islamic principle of mutual consultation (shura). And it emphasized the importance of jihad (struggle in the name of Islam) as a means for ending sectarianism and establishing an Islamic state in Syria. Many of the values and directions highlighted in the proclamation were not exclusively Islamic in character, particularly those that emphasized natural rights and liberties. In this sense, the brotherhood was in step with a wide variety of opposition groups throughout the Middle East that had already made individual freedoms their highest political priority as they struggled against the authoritarian governments that dominated the region.
Economic policies were also stressed in the proclamation. It insisted on the reintroduction of the ownership of private land and on giving workers ownership rights of public industries. The emphasis was clearly on buttressing private enterprise and reducing state controls over the movement of capital and the running of industry. The Islamic Front’s economic orientation closely corresponded to the defined interests of the Sunni trading and manufacturing classes in the Syrian towns, major contributors to the membership and coffers of the Muslim Brotherhood. They strongly opposed the government’s economic favoritism toward the military, workers in modern industries, and rural minorities, especially the `Alawis.
Since the Muslim Brotherhood’s crushing defeat in Hama in 1982, its political prospects have not been promising. The strategy of armed struggle proved to be a major blunder from which the organization has yet to recover. Divisions within its leadership over whether to continue or abandon its militant tactics and over the Islamic Front’s relations with neighboring states also contributed to its fragility. Outside support has not been forthcoming. Soon after coming to power in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini disappointed the brotherhood when he made it clear that his government supported the Syrian regime because it was the only major Arab state to side with Iran in its war with Iraq that began in 198o. Iraq’s victory over Iran in 1988 briefly freed the rival Ba’thist regime of Saddam Hussein to resume its efforts to destabilize the Assad regime, but Iraq’s defeat in the Persian Gulf war in early 1991 has, for the time being, drastically reduced its threat to Syria. The best prospects for external support have come in recent years from Jordan where Islamic movements have expanded their political influence.
Ultimately, the Muslim Brotherhood’s ability to resume its leadership of the Syrian opposition will depend on how successfully President Assad and his `Alawi supporters continue to wield the carrot and the stick. In the new post-cold war era, the Syrian regime no longer enjoys the patronage and protection of the former Soviet Union. American pressures on Syria to negotiate a less than advantageous settlement with Israel, especially in the aftermath of the Palestinian-Israeli peace initiative of 1993, and the continued fragility of the Syrian economy may well reduce the Assad regime’s already narrow base of support, encouraging its opponents to resume their struggle. The visible but limited political successes registered by Islamic movements in other Arab countries offer Assad’s opponents some hope. These are the kinds of conditions that may enable the Muslim Brotherhood to reemerge in Syria.
[See also Syria and the biography of Siba`i.]
Carre, Olivier. Les freres musulmans: Egypte et Syrie, 1928-1982. Paris, 1983. Comparative study of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria over a fifty-year span.
Commins, David D. Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in Late Ottoman Syria. New York, 1990. Informative study of the Islamic societies and movements that were precursors of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Dam, Nikolaos van. The Struggle for Power in Syria: Sectarianism, Regionalism, and Tribalism in Politics, 1961-1978. London, 1979. Dekmejian, R. Hrair. “Syria: Sunni Fundamentalism against Baathi Rule.” In Islam in Revolution: Fundamentalism in the Arab World, pp. 109-125. Syracuse, N.Y., 1985. Insightful analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood’s struggle for power and the nature of its leadership.
Hinnebusch, Raymond A. “The Islamic Movement in Syria: Sectarian Conflict and Urban Rebellion in an Authoritarian-Populist Regime.” In Islamic Resurgence in the Arab World, edited by Ali E. Hillal Dessouki, pp. 138-169. New York, 1982. Excellent overview of the place of Islamic movements during the past three decades. Kelidar, Abbas. “Religion and State in Syria.” Asian Affairs 61 (February 1974): 16-22. Useful account of the conflict of religion and state at the time of the Syrian constitutional crisis in 1973. Khoury, Philip S. Syria and the French Mandate: The Politics of Arab Nationalism, 1920-1945. Princeton, 1987. Comprehensive study of interwar politics and society in the period when the Muslim Brotherhood first emerged.
Mayer, Thomas. “The Islamic Opposition in Syria, 1961-1982.” Orient 24 (December 1983): 589-609. Useful examination of the conflict between the Ba’thist regime and the Muslim Brotherhood over a twenty-year span.
Mitchell, Richard P. The Society of the Muslim Brothers London, 1969. Remains the best study of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Perera, Judith. “The Shifting Fortunes of Syria’s Muslim Brothers.” Middle East (London) (May 1985): 25-28.
Reissner, Johannes. Ideologie and Politik der Muslimbriider Syriens. Freiburg, 198o. Unique study of the intellectual origins and ideological development of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria in the 1940s and 1950s.
Seale, Patrick. Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East. Berkeley, 1988. Fascinating biography of Syrian president Hafez al-Assad based on a wide variety of sources, including extensive interviews with the subject.
Seale, Patrick. The Struggle for Syria: A Study of Post-War Arab Politics, 1945-1958. London and New York, 1965. Remains the most perceptive account of Syrian politics in the postindependence period.
PHILIP S. KHouRY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abd-Allah, Umar F. The Islamic Struggle in Syria. Berkeley, 1983. The most comprehensive study of modern Syrian Islamic movements available in the English language.
Batatu, Hanna. “Syria’s Muslim Brethren.” MERIP Reports 12.9 (November-December 1982): 12-20, 34, 36. Penetrating social analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria.
Next:
Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan

Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt

Batoota — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 15:51:12 +0000

Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
Contemporary Islamic social and political activism in Egypt is rooted in the founding in 1928 by Hasan alBanna’ of Jam’iyat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun (Society of Muslim Brothers; also known as the Muslim Brotherhood or the Ikhwan). From the beginning, the Ikhwan’s goals were both social and political, promoting the causes of benevolence, charity, and development, on the one hand, and nationalism, independence, and Islamism, on the other. Throughout the Ikhwan’s nearly seventy-year history, “Islamism” has consistently meant the reform of society. More recently, this goal has been expanded to include the full establishment of shad ah (Islamic law). To achieve such goals, the tactics used by various groupings within the Ikhwan have ranged from activism and proregime political accommodation to militancy and antiregime assassinations and violence; from philanthropy and economic institution building to accommodation with opposition political parties.
Although Islamism and nationalism theoretically should be seen as mutually exclusive, in fact the Ikhwan has pursued both simultaneously. According to the Ikhwan, Egypt is “a part of the general Arab nation [watan], and when we act for Egypt, we act for Arabism, the East, and for Islam” (Mitchell, 1969, p. 264).
Hasan al-Banna’ and the Founding of the Ikhwan. Hasan al-Banna’ was born in October 1906 in Buhayrah Province, northeast of Cairo. His father was imam and teacher at the local mosque. By his early teen years, alBanna’ was committed to Sufism, teaching, organizing for the cause of Islam, nationalism, and activism. As an organizer, he worked with various societies. At the age of twelve, in his hometown of Mahmudiyah, he became the leader of the Society for Moral Behavior and soon thereafter, a member of the Hasafiyah Sufi order. At age thirteen, he was named secretary of the Hasafiyah
Society for Charity, whose goals were to preserve Islamic morality and resist Christian missionaries. Ahmad al-Sukkari, head of the order, later helped al-Banna’ develop the idea of the Ikhwan.
Al-Banna’ came of age as Sa’d Zaghlul and his Wafd Party agitated for independence from Great Britain and for a liberal political experiment. He entered Dar al’Ulum (Teacher’s College) in Cairo in 1923 and graduated in 1927 at the age of twenty-one. He received a modern education in the sciences, as well as a continuation of his classical Islamic learning. Combined with the extracurricular influences of Sufism, the thought of Muhammad Rashid Rida and the Salafiyah movement, nationalism, and his father’s instruction, al-Banna’ developed a diverse intellectual basis for his own mission. This development continued with his first job, teaching Arabic in a primary school in Isma’iliyah, the heart of the British-occupied Suez Canal Zone.
A teacher by day to schoolchildren, al-Banna’ was active at night instructing the parents and elders of Isma’iliyah, especially laborers, small merchants, and civil servants. Beyond the school and mosque, al-Banna’ held discussion groups in coffeehouses and other popular meeting places. He was equally active in lobbying the power brokers of his new community, the `ulama’) shaykhs of Sufi orders, leading families, and social and religious organizations or clubs.
Al-Banna’ was deeply troubled by the foreign presence in Isma`iliyah. His nationalist sentiments were merged with anticolonialism, as he spoke against British military occupation, the Suez Canal Company, foreign control of public utilities, and the extreme gap between the luxurious lifestyles of foreign owners and managers and the miserable conditions of Egyptian employees and servants.
But it was in the capital where al-Banna’s service to the message of Islam would be most needed and where it had its greatest chance for success. In 1927, he supported the creation in Cairo of the Young Men’s Muslim Association. In March 1928, in Isma`illyah, he founded his own Society of Muslim Brothers.
The first four years of the organization’s existence were used to solidify support in and around Isma`iliyah. Al-Banna’ and fellow members toured the countryside preaching the message of Islam in mosques, homes, the workplace, clubs and coffeehouses. Branches were established in Port Said and Suez City, and other contacts were made in Cairo and parts of the Nile Delta. A headquarters was established, and separate schools for boys and for girls were built, along with mosques, clubs, and small home industries.
Al-Banna’ was denounced by various groups as a communist, a Wafdist, an antimonarchist republican, and a criminal violating civil-service regulations governing the collection of money. However, he was consistently cleared of the allegations of criminal misconduct leveled against him, some by dissidents in his own organization. In 1932, he was transferred to Cairo, where he joined his brother, `Abd al-Rahman al-Banna’, and his Society for Islamic Culture. The two brothers merged their operations to form the first branch of the Ikhwan in Cairo.
The 1930s was a time for organization building, honing the message of the Ikhwan, and developing print media to spread the message throughout and beyond the membership. It was also a time of political activism, as al-Banna’ began to communicate directly with kings (Fu’ad and Farouk [Faruq]), prime ministers (particularly Mustafa al-Nahhas Pasha), and heads of all Arab governments. The message was one of reforming government and society in the spirit and letter of Islam. The Ikhwan also became active in raising funds to aid Palestinian Arabs in their resistance to Zionism, in particular to maintain the Arab Strike of 1936-1939
In the 1940s, the Ikhwan was the most popular and respected of the nationalist forces in fighting against British imperialism and military occupation and in the growing struggle against Zionism in Palestine. The Wafd and the palace, having been too closely associated with the British, were by now discredited as nationalist forces.
Beyond al-Banna’. The leaders and theoreticians of the Ikhwan are among the most influential of Egypt’s twentieth-century political figures. After his assassination by police on 12 February 1949, Hasan al-Banna’ was succeeded as general guide (murshid `amm) by Hasan al-Hudaybi (1949-1972) a judge and an outsider to the Muslim Brotherhood. His son, Ma’mun alHudaybi, has been the official spokesperson of the Ikhwan since the mid-1980s, although the supreme leadership remained with `Umar al-Tilimsani (1972-1986), the third general guide, and Hamid Abu al-Nasr, his successor.
The most famous theoretician of the brotherhood is Sayyid Qutb, who joined the Ikhwan after al-Banna’s assassination in 1949, was chief spokesman for the brotherhood after its second dissolution in 1954, and was himself executed by the regime of President Gamal
Abdel Nasser in 1966. Qutb was influenced by the Pakistani theologian, Sayyid Abu al-A’la Mawdudi, and in turn influenced the thoughts of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran, as well as such Egyptian militant groups as al-Takfir wa al-Hijrah and al-Jihad, the latter responsible for the assassination of Anwar el-Sadat in 1981. Qutb’s principal concern was for the use of jihad (struggle), against Jahili (ignorant or pagan) societies, both Western and so-called Islamic ones, that were in need of radical transformation. Having lived in the United States for two years in the late 1940s, he had become disenchanted with what he saw as the moral decadence of Western civilization and its anti-Arab bias. He moved into a leadership role in the Ikhwan and paved the way for confrontation with the Nasser regime.
The Free Officers and other army officials had strong contacts with the Ikhwan well before the 1952 coup. Sadat had been the principal liaison between the two groups until the early 1940s and was replaced in 1942 by `Abd al-Mun’im `Abd al-Ra’uf, who was both a dedicated member of the Ikhwan and a Free Officer. The 1954 assassination attempt against Nasser, purportedly by a member of the Ikhwan, put a quick and final end to the accommodation between the two groups. It also allowed Nasser to displace General Muhammad Neguib, titular head of the Free Officers, whose name was linked with the Ikhwan. The brotherhood was disbanded and its activities prohibited by Nasser. Thousands of brothers were imprisoned. Several were hanged in 1954, and several more in the 1960s Many remained in prison for seventeen years.
Sadat, after succeeding Nasser in 197o and in need of support against leftists in his government, rehabilitated the Ikhwan and sought its support. He released members of the brotherhood in 1971, including al-Tilimsani, whom Nasser had imprisoned. Yet Sadat refused to grant the Ikhwan unconditional legal status as a political party or as a jam`iyah (private voluntary organization [PVO]) registered with the Ministry of Social Affairs. In 1979, in the midst of increasing criticism by the brotherhood of his peace initiative with Israel, Sadat offered to confer PVO status on the Ikhwan, as well as to appoint al-Tilimsani to the Shura Council (upper chamber of parliament), on condition that the brothers moderate their criticism of his policies. Al-Tilimsani rejected this overture, as it would have placed his society under direct governmental control and given the Ministry of Social Affairs the ability to dissolve the organization at will, confiscate its properties, and change its board of directors. Al-Tilimsani would also have been beholden to the president rather than a voting membership or public.
Al-Tilimsani and the other top leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood were among the approximately 1,500 arrested by Sadat in September 1981. Two-thirds of this total were from the brotherhood and other Islamic groups. The leadership was released after Sadat’s assassination on 6 October. The Ikhwdn was not implicated in that violence and had by this time established itself as a nonviolent opposition movement. With this new image and reality, al-Tilimsani made a concerted effort to move the organization into the mainstream of political and social life in Egypt. Under his leadership, the brotherhood accepted political pluralism and parliamentary democracy. Unable to form its own party because of Egypt’s party law, the Ikhwdn formed an alliance with the Wafd Party in the 1984 parliamentary elections. This alliance gained 65 seats (out of 450), seven of which were earmarked for Muslim Brothers. This victory made these often uncomfortable allies the primary opposition group against the ruling party, President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP).
By 1987, the coalition collapsed and the Muslim Brotherhood formed a new Islamic Alliance with the Socialist Labor Party and the Liberal Party to contest that year’s parliamentary elections. The brotherhood had the dominant position in this alliance. The first priority in the Ikhwan’s ten-point platform was the implementation of shard `ah (divine law). The only campaign slogan for the alliance was “al-Islam huwa al-hall” (“Islam is the solution”). The brothers also reached out to Egypt’s Coptic Christian community. The second of their ten points called for “full equal rights and obligations between Muslims and their Coptic brothers.” Moreover, the only Copt at the top of any party list and elected in 1987 was on the Islamic Alliance list. (The Ikhwdn joined with most of the other opposition parties in boycotting the 1990 elections.) This political moderation and willingness to approach constitutional reform through gradual means have placed the Ikhwdn in the forefront of public debate over the most crucial issues in Egypt, especially the question of the appropriate role of religion in politics and society.
The publications of the Ikhwan over the years have also had a significant impact on the course of public debate. Hasan al-Bannd’ knew the importance of communication, both to spread his message and to refute official or other adversarial reports about him and his organization. Since 1933 and the publication of Majallat al-Ikhwdn al-Muslimun (Magazine of the Muslim Brothers), the society has struggled against government censorship and internal divisions to produce a host of newsletters, magazines, and journals. These include: Al-nadhir (The Warner; 1938-1939) Al-manar (The Lighthouse; 1939-1941), previously the organ of the Salafiyah movement and Muhammad Rashid Ridd; AlIkhwan al-Muslimun (The Muslim Brothers; 19421948), first a biweekly then a daily newspaper; and Alshihab (The Meteor; 1946-1948), a research journal. The last two were suspended in 1948 when the Muslim Brotherhood was dissolved for the first time.
Al-da’wah (The Call) appeared from 1951 to 1956, struggling in the last two years in an atmosphere of government censorship and, finally, the official disbanding of the Ikhwdn. In 1976, Al-da’wah, along with other religious and oppositional publications, were allowed to publish again, as Sadat sought to demonstrate to Western supporters his commitment to political as well as economic liberalization. In addition to a campaign against the Camp David peace process, which was portrayed as humiliating and degrading to Egypt, and against Sadat’s reform of family law and women’s rights, Al-da`wah kept up a steady campaign for the more general goals of Islamic renewal of society and full implementation of shard `ah. Sadat banned this publication in September 1981 during his infamous crackdown on opposition leaders and others. In the mid-1980s, the Ikhwdn launched another effort, Liwa’ al-Islam (The Banner of Islam), a weekly publication. This would-be successor to Al-da’wah was also banned (temporarily) during the 1990-1991 Gulf War, owing in part to its criticism of Egypt’s participation in the U.S.-led coalition against Iraq.
Connections with Other Groups. The Muslim Brotherhood has had its share of internal disputes, some of which have resulted in the branching off of some members to form other Islamic groups. The only such split (though there were several disputes) in al-Banna’s time was the founding, in 1939, of Jam’iyat Shabab Sayyidind Muhammad (Society of Muhammad’s Youth). In 1945, after the passage of Law 49 governing PVOs, the society divided itself into two parts: the politically active section that continued under al-Banna’s leadership and a section concerned with welfare and social services that had its own leadership and structure. This charitable section continued to receive governmental assistance for its efforts in running schools, technical institutes, small industries, social work, hospitals, clinics, and dispensaries. Earlier, in 1942-1943, al-Banna’ had established alnizam al-khdss (“special section”), a secret apparatus inspired by the notion of jihdd and used as an instrument for the defense of Islam and of the society itself against police and various governments.
Other Islamist groups in Egypt either are offshoots of the Ikhwan or share its general goals of Islamic reform and implementation of shari`ah. Whether these groups are direct descendants of the Muslim Brotherhood, as some argue, or are independently founded and administered, most would agree that the Society of Muslim Brothers is the theological, if not political, grandparent of the numerous Islamist groupings in Egypt. They differ mainly in tactics, not goals. Many advocate violence and militancy, although the Ikhwan, since the 1970s, has advocated gradualism and working within the system in order to change it. (Still, there are divisions within the society over this issue.) The various Islamist groups include: al-Jihad (Holy Struggle), Jund Allah (God’s Troops), Jaysh al-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Liberation Army), Jam`iyat al-Tabligh (Society of Islamic Propagation), al-Takfir wa al-Hijrah (former Ikhwanmember Shukri Mustafa’s Society of Muslims), and al-Jama’at al-Islamiyah (Islamic Groups), among others. [See also Takfir wa al-Hijrah, Jama`at al-; -Jama’at alIslamiyah, al-.]
Many Egyptians claim to have no formal relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood yet support their goals and ideals. One of the more prominent of these is the popular religious leader Shaykh `Abd al-Hamid Kishk (b. 1933), who was a strong critic of Sadat’s government, its dependence on the United States, and its peace with Israel. His Friday sermons have been widely attended and distributed through tape recordings. As critical as he is of the government, he is equally supportive of the Ikhwan and other Islamic PVOs that provide affordable health care, day care, education, job training, development projects, access to credit, and other programs to help Egyptians. Kishk praises these efforts as he criticizes the government for its inability to provide for the needs of the vast majority of the Egyptian people. [See the biography of Kishk.]
Zaynab al-Ghazali (b. 1917), the most prominent woman associated with the Ikhwan and a regular contributor to Al-da’wah, is a fierce opponent of the feminist movement and a promoter of traditional Islamic values for women and men. She maintains that women can have an important public role as long as it is in the defense of Islam and traditional Islamic values. [See the biography of Ghazali]
The Muslim Brotherhood has mass appeal. Students, professors, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals have demonstrated their support for the organization in numerous elections on campuses and especially in syndicate and union elections.
The Ikhwan has had considerable influence beyond the borders of Egypt as well. There are or were strong branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine (founded in 1946), Jordan (licensed in 1953), Syria (c. 1935) Sudan, and Iraq. Egypt’s Ikhwan also had significant influence on other Islamist organizations not formally known as Muslim Brotherhood groups, most notably the Islami Jami’at-i Tulaba (Islamic Society of Students), a wing of the Jama’at-i Islam! (Islamic Party) of Pakistan.
Although various governments-monarchical and republican-have outlawed and restricted its activities, the very success and continuing popularity of the Ikhwan demonstrates to Egyptians and their government that Islamic groups in general can derive legitimacy from the positive influence they exert on the daily lives of the population. The government has thus resolved to deny legal recognition to the Ikhwan as either a political party or a Jam’iyah, but its de facto existence is accepted. The Ikhwan works within the present political and economic systems but must still work through other legal organizations-whether political parties or oncelegal economic enterprises, such as al-Rayan Investment Company-to pursue its dual goals of socioeconomic development and political influence.
[See also Egypt and the biographies of Banna’ and Qutb]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ayubi, Nazih N. Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World. London, 1991. In its numerous case studies of Islamic movements, this book provides analysis of the Brotherhood in Egypt, Syria, Sudan, Jordan, Palestine, and Arabia.
Baker, Raymond William. Sadat and After: Struggles for Egypt’s Political Soul. Cambridge, Mass., 1990 Chapter 8 deals with the Muslim Brothers in the 1970s and 1980s.
Banna’, Hasan al-. Mudhakkarat al-da’wah wa-al-da’iyah. N.p., c. 1951.
Esposito, John L. Islam and Politics. 3d ed. Syracuse, N.Y., 1991. Extensive analysis of the development of the Brotherhood as an alternative to secular nationalism in Egypt and beyond.
Hoffman, Valerie J. “An Islamic Activist: Zaynab al-Ghazali.” In Women and the Family in the Middle East, edited by Elizabeth W. Fernea, pp. 233-254. Austin, 1985.
pendency was forming, and during times of crisis, such as Black September in 1970, when the Jordanian army fought Palestinian guerrillas, the king was able to rely on the Muslim Brotherhood to be among his staunchest allies. However, by the end of the decade, the king was using the Muslim Brotherhood as a pawn in his foreign policy.
In 1980, as part of a continuing dispute between Jordan and Syria, the king encouraged al-Khallfah to establish paramilitary bases in the north of Jordan for the purpose of training members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in a campaign to undermine the rule of President Hafez al-Assad. By allowing this training to occur on Jordanian soil, the king increased diplomatic and military tensions with Syria, resulting in a state of near-war, as Syrian and Jordanian troops were moved to the common border between the two countries.
The role of the Muslim Brotherhood during the crisis with Syria served to increase the political profile and legitimacy of the movement domestically. Support from local and foreign sponsors-including the Gulf statesfor the organization’s charitable activities, such as the building of an Islamic hospital in Amman, increased. In the sphere of political activities, the Muslim Brotherhood began to criticize openly aspects of the regime; corruption within the ruling elite, public immorality, and insensitivity to religious life were the main issues around which the Muslim Brotherhood organized its protest. However, the movement miscalculated the king’s response to this critique.
In 1985 the king publicly distanced himself from the Muslim Brotherhood in response to indirect attacks on his legitimacy as monarch and (more important) as political ruler. In a political climate of improved relations with Syria, King Hussein identified “Islamic elements” as responsible for the crisis in relations in 198o. He alleged that he had been misled by the Muslim Brothers and that their activities had been guided by foreign and hostile influences. He issued orders against the Muslim Brotherhood as a show of political strength. Muslim Brothers found themselves targeted by the Jordanian intelligence services as potential threats to the stability of the regime and witnessed government action against leaders of the movement; members of the movement were arrested, lost their jobs, or had their passports confiscated by the Jordanian intelligence services. It was the intention of the king to send a very clear message to the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood: he was willing to permit and even tacitly encourage a legitimate Islamic presence within the kingdom, but he was not willing to tolerate the Muslim Brotherhood if it sought to undermine the legitimacy of his rule in any way.
Democratization and Political Pluralism. The deterioration of relations between the regime and the Muslim Brotherhood was resolved by the end of the 1980s, followed by a discernible improvement in relations. It became apparent that rather than isolate the movement the king had decided on a policy which would ultimately coopt the Muslim Brotherhood into the ruling strata of the regime. This policy was facilitated by the king’s decision in 1989 to hold the first full elections in over twenty-two years.
The call for the election was precipitated by a severe economic crisis within the kingdom which culminated in riots against government-imposed price rises on basic foodstuffs. The crisis was the result of decades of economic mismanagement within Jordan, and genuine hardships were thrust on the poorer sections of society. The Muslim Brotherhood’s critique of the early 1980s proved justified, a matter which took on added significance in view of the fact that its base of support was among the rural and urban poor, who were being asked to pay for the economic incompetence of the ruling oligarchy.
The king’s decision to hold elections as a response to the riots came as a surprise. It indicated that the Jordanian monarch was willing to institute democratization and political pluralism. It also meant that the king was, at least publicly, willing to surrender his monopoly of control over political life.
The Muslim Brothers perceived the general election as an opportunity to increase their political stake in the regime. The organization mounted a comprehensive election campaign under the slogan, “Islam is the solution.” The Muslim Brotherhood started the campaign with advantages over its political rivals. It had a constituency of support among the urban and rural poor. The brotherhood also appealed to the religiously conservative educated class, which was frustrated because of a lack of job opportunities and real prospects for social advancement. Furthermore, the Muslim Brotherhood had been politically active for decades, while its adversaries in the elections remained proscribed and repressed.
The results of the election, therefore, should not have been surprising. Nevertheless, there was consternation in the kingdom when it was announced that the Muslim Brotherhood had won enough votes for twenty-two out industries, social work, hospitals, clinics, and dispensaries. Earlier, in 1942-1943, al-Banna’ had established alnizam al-khass (“special section”), a secret apparatus inspired by the notion of jihad and used as an instrument for the defense of Islam and of the society itself against police and various governments.
Other Islamist groups in Egypt either are offshoots of the Ikhwan or share its general goals of Islamic reform and implementation of shari’ah. Whether these groups are direct descendants of the Muslim Brotherhood, as some argue, or are independently founded and administered, most would agree that the Society of Muslim Brothers is the theological, if not political, grandparent of the numerous Islamist groupings in Egypt. They differ mainly in tactics, not goals. Many advocate violence and militancy, although the Ikhwan, since the 1970s, has advocated gradualism and working within the system in order to change it. (Still, there are divisions within the society over this issue.) The various Islamist groups include: al-Jihad (Holy Struggle), Jund Allah (God’s Troops), Jaysh al-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Liberation Army), Jam’iyat al-Tabligh (Society of Islamic Propagation), al-Takfir wa al-Hijrah (former Ikhwanmember Shukri Mustafa’s Society of Muslims), and alJama’at al-Islamlyah (Islamic Groups), among others. [See also Takfir wa al-Hijrah, Jama’at al-; Jama’at alIslamlyah, al-.]
Many Egyptians claim to have no formal relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood yet support their goals and ideals. One of the more prominent of these is the popular religious leader Shaykh `Abd al-Hamid Kishk (b. 1933), who was a strong critic of Sadat’s government, its dependence on the United States, and its peace with Israel. His Friday sermons have been widely attended and distributed through tape recordings. As critical as he is of the government, he is equally supportive of the Ikhwan and other Islamic PVOs that provide affordable health care, day care, education, job training, development projects, access to credit, and other programs to help Egyptians. Kishk praises these efforts as he criticizes the government for its inability to provide for the needs of the vast majority of the Egyptian people. [See the biography of Kishk.]
Zaynab al-Ghazali (b. 1917), the most prominent woman associated with the Ikhwan and a regular contributor to Al-da`wah, is a fierce opponent of the feminist movement and a promoter of traditional Islamic values for women and men. She maintains that women can have an important public role as long as it is in the defense of Islam and traditional Islamic values. [See the biography of Ghazah.]
The Muslim Brotherhood has mass appeal. Students, professors, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals have demonstrated their support for the organization in numerous elections on campuses and especially in syndicate and union elections.
The Ikhwan has had considerable influence beyond the borders of Egypt as well. There are or were strong branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine (founded in 1946), Jordan (licensed in 1953), Syria (c. 1935) Sudan, and Iraq. Egypt’s Ikhwan also had significant influence on other Islamist organizations not formally known as Muslim Brotherhood groups, most notably the Islami Jami’at-i Tulaba (Islamic Society of Students), a wing of the Jama`at-i Islami (Islamic Party) of Pakistan.
Although various governments-monarchical and republican-have outlawed and restricted its activities, the very success and continuing popularity of the Ikhwan demonstrates to Egyptians and their government that Islamic groups in general can derive legitimacy from the positive influence they exert on the daily lives of the population. The government has thus resolved to deny legal recognition to the Ikhwan as either a political party or a jam’iyah, but its de facto existence is accepted. The Ikhwan works within the present political and economic systems but must still work through other legal organizations-whether political parties or oncelegal economic enterprises, such as al-Rayan Investment Company-to pursue its dual goals of socioeconomic development and political influence.
[See also Egypt and the biographies of Bannd’ and Qutb.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ayubi, Nazih N. Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World. London, 1991. In its numerous case studies of Islamic movements, this book provides analysis of the Brotherhood in Egypt, Syria, Sudan, Jordan, Palestine, and Arabia.
Baker, Raymond William. Sadat and After: Struggles for Egypt’s Political Soul. Cambridge, Mass., 1990. Chapter 8 deals with the Muslim Brothers in the 1970s and 1980s.
Banna’, Hasan al-. Mudhakkarat al-da’wah wa-al-da’iyah. N.p., c. 1951.
Esposito, John L. Islam and Politics. 3d ed. Syracuse, N.Y., 1991. Extensive analysis of the development of the Brotherhood as an alternative to secular nationalism in Egypt and beyond.
Hoffman, Valerie J. “An Islamic Activist: Zaynab al-Ghazali.” In Women and the Family in the Middle East, edited by Elizabeth W. Fernea, pp. 233-254. Austin, 1985.
Husayni, Musd Ishaq al-. Al-Ikhwdn al-Muslimun: Kubrd al-harakdt al-Islamiyah al-hadithah. Beirut, 1952. Translated by John F. Brown et al., The Moslem Brethren. Beirut, 1956.
Ibrahim, Saad Eddin. “Egypt’s Islamic Activism in the 1980s.” Third World Quarterly 10.2 (April 1988): 632-657.
Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt. Berkeley, 1985. Compares the neo-Muslim Brotherhood with the original leadership of the Ikhwdn and with leaders of other contemporary Islamic organizations in Egypt.
Mitchell, Richard P. The Society of the Muslim Brothers. London, 1969. The most detailed and authoritative account of the founding, development, and program of the Ikhwdn.
Qutb, Sayyid. Al-`adala al-ijtima`iyah fi al-Islam. 3d ed. N.p., n.d. Translated by John B. Hardie as Social justice in Islam. Washington, D.C., 1955.
Ramadan, Abdel Aziz. “Fundamentalist Influence in Egypt: The Strategies of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Takfir Groups.” In Fundamentalisms and the State, edited by Martin Marty and R. Scott Appleby. Chicago, 1993
Sivan, Emmanuel. Radical Islam. New Haven, 1985. General comparison between the Egyptian and Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Springborg, Robert. Mubarak’s Egypt: Fragmentation of the Political Order. Boulder, 1989. Section on Islamicist opposition analyzes its strengths and weaknesses, generally, and the factionalization of the Brotherhood, in particular.
Zuhur, Sherifa. Revealing Reveiling: Islamist Gender Ideology in Contemporary Egypt. Albany, N.Y., 1992. Important discussion of the Ikhwan’s attitudes toward a host of gender-specific issues, such as birth control, polygamy, divorce, female education, veiling, and associational activity.
DENIS J. SULLIVAN

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

Batoota — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 15:43:31 +0000

[This entry comprises five articles:
An Overview
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
Muslim Brotherhood in Syria
Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan
Muslim Brotherhood in the Sudan
The introductory article provides an overview of the origin, ideological development, and geographical spread of the movement; the companion articles focus on four countries where the Muslim Brotherhood has played an active role in religious, social, and political life.]
An Overview
Founded in Isma’iliyah, Egypt, in 1928 by Hasan alBanna’ (1906-1949), the Muslim Brotherhood (alIkhwan al-Muslimun) is the parent body and the main source of inspriation for many Islamist organizations in Egypt and several other Arab countries, including Syria, Sudan, Jordan, Kuwait, Yemen, and some North African states. The movement was initially announced as a purely religious and philanthropic society that aimed to spread Islamic morals and good works. Its emergence, however, was part of a widespread reaction to various alarming developments that were sweeping through the Muslim world. The Arabs had been divided into spheres of influence by the European powers, and the attempted restoration of the caliphate, abolished in Turkey in 1924, failed in 1926. Western influence also appeared to be making serious inroads into the Islamic culture of the region. Not only did writers such as Salamah Musa and Taha Husayn propagate openly secularist ideas, but even some al-Azhar scholars adopted apparently Western approaches in analyzing “Islamic” issues, a trend that reached its most disconcerting point with the publication in 1925 of `All `Abd al-Raziq’s book on Islam and government in which he denied that Islam was in any way concerned with politics. [See the biographies of Husayn and `Abd al-Rdziq.]
As a teacher and gifted orator, al-Banna’ was able to attract to his movement various members of the local intelligentsia, as well as some artisans and a few workers. The Ikhwan became increasingly interested in public affairs, developing a distinctive conception of the comprehensiveness of Islam, which contrasted with that of both the established clergy and the existing conventional philanthropic charities. Al-Banna’ called for a total and activist Islam. He perceived the Islamic state as a significant ingredient of the desired Islamic order, but the Ikhwan leaders probably did not consider the assumption of political power an imminent possibility at the time. At such an early stage in the group’s formation and development, the tasks of moral reform (isldh alnufus) and of agreeing on an Islamic approach and “methodology” (minhdj Islami) must have appeared more appropriate for the requirements of that phase. Too much emphasis on government might also have subjected the society to even more official suspicion.
The Ikhwan did not identify itself as a political party, although it acted very much as if it were. Its activities began to acquire a distinct political character around 1938. The weekly Al-nadhir (The Warning) was started, and occasionally threatened to “fight any politician or organization that did not work for the support of Islam and the restoration of its glory.” Its concept of absolute obedience (al-ta’ah) to the leader and its tight organizational pattern, which linked the highest level of the Guidance Council to the most basic level of the usrah (“family” or cell) and included all the technical sections and committees as well as the consultative council, have been likened by some observers to those of fascist organizations.
By now the Ikhwan had more than three hundred branches advocating its ideas, although it had been careful so far not to antagonize the Palace, and to avoid confrontation with the British at any price, while building up its own organizational and paramilitary capacity. A special “secret apparatus” was established within the movement (its membership is believed to have reached 75,000 by 1947), and special “phalanges” were formed, sometimes under the guise of ranger scouts (jawwdlah). The Ikhwan also built its own companies, factories, schools, and hospitals, and infiltrated various organizations, including the trade unions and the armed forces, to such a degree that by the end of the 1940s it almost represented “a state within the State.” By this time it also had escalated terrorist attacks on British and Jewish interests in Egypt, in which many Egyptians were inevitably killed or injured. The government was forced to respond by dissolving the brotherhood; the confrontation between the two reached its peak late in 1948 and early in 1949 with the Ikhwan’s assassination of Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi al-Nuqrashi and the government’s assassination of the leader of the Ikhwan, alBanna’ himself. Membership of the brotherhood had by now reached its peak, including nearly a half million active members (`udw `amil) and another half million sympathizers, spread among some 200,000 branches throughout Egypt.
New Political Emphasis. The disappearance of the charismatic leadership of al-Banna’ in 1949 and, more specifically, the confrontation between the Ikhwan and the new revolutionary regime in Egypt in the 1950s caused it to raise the “political” to a much higher rank within its order of concerns. It should be noted that the Muslim Brothers were no strangers to the Free Officers who launched the 1952 revolution. Their various contacts with the officers enabled them to escape the fate of dissolution after the coup, since they were classified as a “movement” or a “society,” not as a political party. Many brothers, including the new “general guide” (almurshid al-`amm) Hasan al-Hudaybi, seem to have hoped that given the affinity between the two movements, the Free Officers would be prepared to allow the Ikhwan direct participation in government after the revolution. When this hope was frustrated, relations between them deteriorated, resulting in two bloody confrontations (in 1954 and 1965), repeated imprisonment, and severe torture. It was this confrontational atmosphere that eventually effected a shift in the thinking of the Ikhwan associate Sayyid Qutb, a shift that subsequently colored the ideas of most of the regiments of radical political Islam in Egypt and the Arab world.
On a general ideological level, the detention of Qutb and his colleagues led to an overall revision of the movement’s thought, the major part of which now was affected by a hatred for the state and the regime. The Qutbian ideas that have come to influence most of the contemporary movements of political Islam are mainly the ones to be found in the writings he produced between his two periods of imprisonment. The key concept in this later Qutbian discourse is undoubtedly jahiliyah (total pagan ignorance). Inspired partly by Ibn Taymiyah but most specifically by Sayyid Abu al-A’la Mawdudi, and influenced by the fascist ideas of Alexis Carrel, Sayyid Qutb extracted this concept from any historical or geographical context, giving it a universal validity that covers all contemporary societies, Muslim ones included. The way out of such jahiliyah, as prescribed by Qutb, is also simple: a declaration of the total sovereignty and rulership of God (al-hakimiyah). Strongly affected by such ideas, the imprisoned brothers in their anguish and isolation and with the ever-present memory of their martyrs, were to create an alternative to Nasserism, a “counterproject” that reflected the maturation of the contradictions between the brotherhood and the Nasserist state (and, indeed, between Islamists and all similar “modernizing” projects such as Ba’thism and Bourguibism). This contradiction in fact has become, since the late 1970s, the main ideological confrontation in the Arab world. [See Nasserism and the biography of Qutb.]
From its inception, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt attracted a membership drawn principally from among the urban and recently urbanized afendiyah strata of lower- and middle-level officials, clerks and school teachers and from among the “traditional” artisans and merchants; from its beginning, too, it has had a fringe of professionals (lawyers, accountants, and doctors). In the 1940s, it managed to make serious inroads into the industrial proletariat. The splinter groups that have broken away from the brotherhood since the 1960s are characterized by their radicalism, their generally younger age, and a more scientific and technical slant in their educational backgrounds. A similar membership profile seems to characterize the brotherhood in other countries, although the relative importance of various social groups differs from one country to another, with, for example, the intelligentsia more heavily represented in a country like Jordan, the merchants and artisans in a country like Syria, and the students and professionals in a country like Sudan. However, the exact relationships, in terms of personnel, organization, and strategy, among the older Muslim Brotherhoods and the newer militant groups (often functioning under such names as Tanzim al-Jihad (The Jihad Organization) or Al-Jama’at al-Islamiyah (The Islamic Group) are far from entirely clear. [See Jama’at al-Islamiyah, al-.]
Pan-Arab Activities. Soon after its founding, the Muslim Brotherhood movement spread into the countries adjacent to Egypt; today it remains the main PanArab Islamic movement. Its basic charter stipulates that it is a “universal Islamic assembly” (hay’ah islamiyah jami`ah) rather than an Egyptian or even an Arab organization. It actively established branches from the mid1930S onward, following a number of working visits to Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere, and set up special tents in Mecca during the pilgrimage seasons in the 1940s and 1950s to greet, entertain, and convert pilgrim delegates from all over the Muslim world. Several Sudanese and other Arab students, attracted to the movement while studying in Egypt, carried their ideas back to their countries. A number of fellow associations were also established, initially not always under the same title of the Muslim Brothers. The Pan-Arab activities of the Ikhwan were stepped up during the Palestine War of 1948, to which it contributed with voluntary personnel. From that time onward, the Ikhwan did its best to give support to its fellow movements from other Arab countries when they came under persecution, an activity that was soon caught up in the dynamics of inter-Arab politics. For example, the Syrian brothers gave support to their Egyptian colleagues (and perhaps even acted as the main regional headquarters, under the leadership of Mustafa al-Siba`i) following the ordeal of the Egyptian Ikhwan in 1954. The Syrian brothers in turn received support from their Jordanian colleagues (and some say from the regime as well) after their ordeal at the hands of the Syrian government in 1981. The movement also had some appeal in North Africa, especially in Morocco (where it had close relations with the Istiqlal Party and with Muhammad `Allal al-Fasi), and was not completely unknown in Tunisia, Algeria (where it maintained cordial relations with the `ulama’) and in some regions of Sudan, Jordan, Kuwait, Yemen, and some North African states. The movement was initially announced as a purely religious and philanthropic society that aimed to spread Islamic morals and good works. Its emergence, however, was part of a widespread reaction to various alarming developments that were sweeping through the Muslim world. The Arabs had been divided into spheres of influence by the European powers, and the attempted restoration of the caliphate, abolished in Turkey in 1924, failed in 1926. Western influence also appeared to be making serious inroads into the Islamic culture of the region. Not only did writers such as Salamah Musa and Taha Husayn propagate openly secularist ideas, but even some al-Azhar scholars adopted apparently Western approaches in analyzing “Islamic” issues, a trend that reached its most disconcerting point with the publication in 1925, Of ‘Ali `Abd al-Raziq’s book on Islam and government in which he denied that Islam was in any way concerned with politics. [See the biographies of Husayn and `Abd al-Rdziq]
As a teacher and gifted orator, al-Banna’ was able to attract to his movement various members of the local intelligentsia, as well as some artisans and a few workers. The Ikhwan became increasingly interested in public affairs, developing a distinctive conception of the comprehensiveness of Islam, which contrasted with that of both the established clergy and the existing conventional philanthropic charities. Al-Banna’ called for a total and activist Islam. He perceived the Islamic state as a significant ingredient of the desired Islamic order, but the Ikhwan leaders probably did not consider the assumption of political power an imminent possibility at the time. At such an early stage in the group’s formation and development, the tasks of moral reform (isldh alnufus) and of agreeing on an Islamic approach and “methodology” (minhdj Islami) must have appeared more appropriate for the requirements of that phase. Too much emphasis on government might also have subjected the society to even more official suspicion.
The Ikhwan did not identify itself as a political party, although it acted very much as if it were. Its activities began to acquire a distinct political character around 1938. The weekly Al-nadhir (The Warning) was started, and occasionally threatened to “fight any politician or organization that did not work for the support of Islam and the restoration of its glory.” Its concept of absolute obedience (al-ta’ah) to the leader and its tight organizational pattern, which linked the highest level of the Guidance Council to the most basic level of the usrah (“family” or cell) and included all the technical sections and committees as well as the consultative council, have been likened by some observers to those of fascist organizations.
By now the Ikhwan had more than three hundred branches advocating its ideas, although it had been careful so far not to antagonize the Palace, and to avoid confrontation with the British at any price, while building up its own organizational and paramilitary capacity. A special “secret apparatus” was established within the movement (its membership is believed to have reached 75,000 by 1947), and special “phalanges” were formed, sometimes under the guise of ranger scouts (jawwalah). The Ikhwan also built its own companies, factories, schools, and hospitals, and infiltrated various organizations, including the trade unions and the armed forces, to such a degree that by the end of the 1940s it almost represented “a state within the State.” By this time it also had escalated terrorist attacks on British and Jewish interests in Egypt, in which many Egyptians were inevitably killed or injured. The government was forced to respond by dissolving the brotherhood; the confrontation between the two reached its peak late in 1948 and early in 1949 with the Ikhwan’s assassination of Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi al-Nuqrashi and the government’s assassination of the leader of the Ikhwan, alBanna’ himself. Membership of the brotherhood had by now reached its peak, including nearly a half million active members (`udw `amil) and another half million sympathizers, spread among some 200,000 branches throughout Egypt.
New Political Emphasis. The disappearance of the charismatic leadership of al-Banna’ in 1949 and, more specifically, the confrontation between the Ikhwan and the new revolutionary regime in Egypt in the 1950s caused it to raise the “political” to a much higher rank within its order of concerns. It should be noted that the Muslim Brothers were no strangers to the Free Officers who launched the 1952 revolution. Their various contacts with the officers enabled them to escape the fate of dissolution after the coup, since they were classified as a “movement” or a “society,” not as a political party. Many brothers, including the new “general guide” (almurshid al-`amm) Hasan al-Hudaybi, seem to have hoped that given the affinity between the two movements, the Free Officers would be prepared to allow the Ikhwan direct participation in government after the revolution. When this hope was frustrated, relations between them deteriorated, resulting in two bloody confrontations (in 1954 and 1965), repeated imprisonment, and severe torture. It was this confrontational atmosphere that eventually effected a shift in the thinking of the Ikhwan associate Sayyid Qutb, a shift that subsequently colored the ideas of most of the regiments of radical political Islam in Egypt and the Arab world.
On a general ideological level, the detention of Qutb and his colleagues led to an overall revision of the movement’s thought, the major part of which now was affected by a hatred for the state and the regime. The Qutbian ideas that have come to influence most of the contemporary movements of political Islam are mainly the ones to be found in the writings he produced between his two periods of imprisonment. The key concept in this later Qutbian discourse is undoubtedly jdhihyah (total pagan ignorance). Inspired partly by Ibn Taymiyah but most specifically by Sayyid Abu al-A’la Mawdudi, and influenced by the fascist ideas of Alexis Carrel, Sayyid Qutb extracted this concept from any historical or geographical context, giving it a universal validity that covers all contemporary societies, Muslim ones included. The way out of such jahiliyah, as prescribed by Qutb, is also simple: a declaration of the total sovereignty and rulership of God (al-hakimiyah). Strongly affected by such ideas, the imprisoned brothers in their anguish and isolation and with the ever-present memory of their martyrs, were to create an alternative to Nasserism, a “counterproject” that reflected the maturation of the contradictions between the brotherhood and the Nasserist state (and, indeed, between Islamists and all similar “modernizing” projects such as Ba’thism and Bourguibism). This contradiction in fact has become, since the late 1970s, the main ideological confrontation in the Arab world. [See Nasserism and the biography of Qutb.]
From its inception, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt attracted a membership drawn principally from among the urban and recently urbanized afendiyah strata of lower- and middle-level officials, clerks and school teachers and from among the “traditional” artisans and merchants; from its beginning, too, it has had a fringe of professionals (lawyers, accountants, and doctors). In the 1940s, it managed to make serious inroads into the industrial proletariat. The splinter groups that have broken away from the brotherhood since the 1960s are characterized by their radicalism, their generally younger age, and a more scientific and technical slant in their educational backgrounds. A similar membership profile seems to characterize the brotherhood in other countries, although the relative importance of various social groups differs from one country to another, with, for example, the intelligentsia more heavily represented in a country like Jordan, the merchants and artisans in a country like Syria, and the students and professionals in a country like Sudan. However, the exact relationships, in terms of personnel, organization, and strategy, among the older Muslim Brotherhoods and the newer militant groups (often functioning under such names as Tanzim al-Jihad (The Jihad Organization) or Al-Jama’at al-Islamiyah (The Islamic Group) are far from entirely clear. [See Jama’at al-Islamiyah, al-.]
Pan-Arab Activities. Soon after its founding, the Muslim Brotherhood movement spread into the countries adjacent to Egypt; today it remains the main PanArab Islamic movement. Its basic charter stipulates that it is a “universal Islamic assembly” (hay’ah islamiyah jami’ah) rather than an Egyptian or even an Arab organization. It actively established branches from the mid1930s onward, following a number of working visits to Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere, and set up special tents in Mecca during the pilgrimage seasons in the 1940s and 1950s to greet, entertain, and convert pilgrim delegates from all over the Muslim world. Several Sudanese and other Arab students, attracted to the movement while studying in Egypt, carried their ideas back to their countries. A number of fellow associations were also established, initially not always under the same title of the Muslim Brothers. The Pan-Arab activities of the Ikhwan were stepped up during the Palestine War of 1948, to which it contributed with voluntary personnel. From that time onward, the Ikhwan did its best to give support to its fellow movements from other Arab countries when they came under persecution, an activity that was soon caught up in the dynamics of inter-Arab politics. For example, the Syrian brothers gave support to their Egyptian colleagues (and perhaps even acted as the main regional headquarters, under the leadership of Mustafa al-Siba’i) following the ordeal of the Egyptian Ikhwan in 1954 The Syrian brothers in turn received support from their Jordanian colleagues (and some say from the regime as well) after their ordeal at the hands of the Syrian government in 1981. The movement also had some appeal in North Africa, especially in Morocco (where it had close relations with the Istiqlal Party and with Muhammad `Allal al-Fasi), and was not completely unknown in Tunisia, Algeria (where it maintained cordial relations with the `ulama’) and in some regions of the Horn of Africa, such as Eritrea and Somalia. Sympathetic groups, with somewhat similar orientations, have also existed in places as far away as India, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and of course Pakistan where the Jama’at-i Islami shares the Ikhwan ideology. In cooperation with such organizations the Muslim Brothers are believed to exercise a certain degree of influence over the Islamic World Congress (Mu’tamar al`Alam al-Islami). [See Istiqlal; Jama’at-i Islami; and the biographies of Siba’i and Fasi.]
Government circles in several Arab countries believe that there exists at present a “Muslim Brotherhood International” that coordinates activities and finances among the various countries’ branches. According to unconfirmed reports, this organization’s structure includes, in addition to the highly authoritative position of the General Guide, a General Guidance Bureau (GGB, Maktab al-Irshad al-`Amm) and a General Consultative Council (GCC, Majlis al-Shura al-`Amm), both of which provide a distinct advantage to the Egyptian brothers. The members of the GGB are the Egyptian General Guide, eight more Egyptians, and one representative each from Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Algeria, and Kuwait, guaranteeing the Egyptian brothers an automatic majority. A similar pattern obtains in the GCC, the legislative branch of the organization, which has a minimum required membership of thirty: thirteen members from the personnel of the GGB, the guide himself and three persons appointed by him; three members from Syria, and two each from Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen; and one each from Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Tunisia, Algeria, Europe, and the United States. In 1989 the GCC had thirty-eight members including twelve Egyptians and nine from the Gulf region; the Egyptians and the Gulf members (representing numerical weight and financial means) had an automatic majority within the Council.
Although meetings and exchanges among Ikhwan leaders from various countries certainly occur, and some transfer of funds likely takes place, the coordination of activities and finances is probably not as well planned and tightly executed as the authorities sometimes imply. For one thing, some of these movements (for example, in Sudan, Tunisia, and the Gaza Strip) have acquired a certain degree of autonomy in their intellectual and political outlook that noticeably distinguishes them from the conventional Muslim brothers’ position. Most of them (with the partial exception of Sudan) are underground or opposition movements that have sufficient problems of their own in their own territory. And though the possibility of some Saudi Arabian financing is sometimes mentioned, many of the brothers have acquired part of their financial resources through working personally in the Arabian oil-exporting countries. Furthermore, the Gulf crisis of 1990-1991 reportedly has led to further divisions, not only among the brotherhoods from various countries but sometimes within the Muslim Brotherhood movement of one country.
A relatively recent development has been the electoral success and the participation in government by Muslim Brother elements in a number of Arab countries (notably Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, and Kuwait). The main question that follows from this is: will such a measure of success turn the Muslim Brothers into a milder, “legal” political force that accepts the rules of the game within their specific countries, or will it prompt them into a more radical, Pan-Islamist line in the belief that the universal triumph of political Islam lies virtually at hand? [See also Pan-Islam and the biography of Banna’.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
`Abd al-Halim, Mahmud. Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun. 3 vols. Alexandria, 1979-1985. Very detailed account (including testimony) of the history of the brotherhood from 1928 to 1971, by a member of its Constitutive Body.
Ayubi, Nazih N. Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World. London and New York, 1991. Includes reviews of the political thought of al-Banna’, Qutb, and the Jihadists, and studies on the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Syria, the Sudan, Jordan, and other Arab countries.
Bayyumli, Zakanya S. Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun wa al -Jama’at alIsldmiyah (The Muslim Brothers and the Islamic Groupings). Cairo, 1974. Good study, especially on the shades and multiplicity within the Brotherhood and its relations with other Islamic groups. Carre, Olivier, and Gerard Michaud. Les Freres Musulmans, 19281982. Paris, 1983. Good account of the brotherhood in Egypt and Syria.
Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. Al-Taqrir al-Istratiji al’Arabi (The Arab Strategic Report). Cairo, 1991. Part 2, section i.ii, includes a detailed account of the “Muslim Brotherhood International.”
Harris, Christina. Nationalism and Revolution in Egypt: The Role of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Hague, 1964. Useful study of the interplay between religious and secular influences in the development of Egyptian nationalism.
Husayni, Ishaq Musa al-. The Moslem Brethren. Translated by John F. Brown et al. Beirut, 1956. Useful, detailed study, although now somewhat dated.
Mitchell, Richard P. The Society of the Muslim Brothers. London,1969. Still the best account of the brotherhood in Egypt to the mid-1950S.
Naftsi, `Abd Allah F. al-. Al-harakah al-Islamiyah (The Islamic Movement). Cairo, 1989. Analysis and self-critique by a Kuwaiti Islamist of the aspects of unity and division within the Islamic movement in the Arab world.
Zahmul, Ibrahim. Al-Ikhwdn al-Muslimun: Awraq tarikhiyah (The Muslim Brotherhood: Historical Papers). N.p., 1985. Sympathetic account with useful material and some information on the brotherhood outside Egypt.
NAZIH N. AYUBI
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