| |
Springtime for the Muslim
Brotherhood
By Cam McGrath
CAIRO - Western "military adventurism" and the
inability or unwillingness of Arab regimes to face
perceived threats to Islam are giving a new lease on
life to the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest Islamic
fundamentalist group.
"Since September 11 we
have seen an increasing popularity of all Islamic
movements and ideas around the world," says Diaa
Rashwan, a specialist on Islamist groups at the al-Ahram
Center for Political and Strategic Studies. "In Egypt,
the Muslim Brotherhood is the leading Islamic movement
and its ideas have been redistributed among the Egyptian
people. This will continue to increase because of the
way in which the US and British governments are
administrating their war in Iraq," says Rashwan.
Founded in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood once
employed terrorism as a means to achieve its goal of
turning Egypt into an Islamic theocracy. The group
renounced violence in the 1980s, opting instead for
peaceful democratic methods to achieve moral and social
reform. Outlawed since 1954, but generally tolerated by
the government, the party now issues statements,
organizes events and fields political candidates in
local and national elections.
The Muslim
Brotherhood and its sister concerns in other countries
exist largely as clandestine but militant groups marked
by their rejection of Western influences. In Jordan, the
Islamic Action Front is the political arm of the Muslim
Brotherhood.
The Brotherhood holds 16 seats in
Egypt's parliament, making it the largest opposition
group in the 454-member legislature. Leading members
hold respected positions in professional syndicates and
its followers number in the millions. "For the
government, the Muslim Brotherhood is a political enemy,
not a terrorist group," explains Rashwan, adding that
the government of President Hosni Mubarak continues to
ban the organization as a measure to limit its political
power.
The Brotherhood has faced many challenges
in recent years, including frequent police roundups of
its members and the recent death of the group's "supreme
guide" Moustafa Mashhour. Led now by 81-year-old Ma'moun
al-Hodeiby and an inner circle of aging leaders,
analysts say that the group's static theories on Islamic
law, women, freedom of expression and inter-faith unity
have made it a political dinosaur.
"The present,
never mind the future, is the enemy of the Brotherhood,
which has not adapted to the modern age," said an
article published recently in al-Hayat, a pan-Arab
daily. "The Brotherhood does not possess the tools to
understand modernity and doesn't dare contradict the
ideologies and struggles of its great past, which it
values at the expense of reality."
Yet despite
this, the Muslim Brotherhood is witnessing a revival.
President George W Bush administration's "war on terror"
is alienating Arabs and Muslims, giving movements like
the Brotherhood a newfound popularity. "We used to think
of the Brotherhood as anachronistic," says civil servant
Mahmoud Abdel Raouf. "Now people who were never
religious are joining the Brotherhood. Bush is pushing
us in this direction."
Egyptians in general
loathe the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, but every bomb on
an Afghan or Iraqi civilian further cements their
rejection of America. As the largest opposition group to
the pro-US Egyptian government, and one espousing moral
and religious ideas that most Egyptians can relate to,
it is only natural that the Muslim Brotherhood grows
stronger.
"The failure of Arab regimes to solve
the problems and conflicts, especially the US war
against Iraq ... gives the Muslim Brotherhood more
credibility in the street and gives us more [resolve] to
handle this conflict," Essam el-Erian, a prominent
Muslim Brotherhood member told Inter Press Service. "We
are furious and sad about what is happening now, and we
are seeking to open any portal to join the Iraqi people
to defend Islam because we know it is our duty."
Al-Azhar, Egypt's most prestigious Islamic
institution, issued a fatwa (religious decree)
this month that it is the duty of all Muslims to defend
Iraq against foreign invasion. "If the enemy descends on
the land of Muslims, jihad becomes an Islamic obligation
... because our Arab and Islamic community will be
facing a new Crusade targeting our land, honor, faith
and nation," it declared. El-Erian is at pains to
clarify that jihad does not mean an all-out religious
war against Western Christendom.
"Jihad is
misunderstood in the West because of the high slogans of
al-Qaeda and violent groups who have distorted its
meaning," he says. "Jihad is an Islamic term that means
to do your best effort to fulfill your goal by peaceful
means or by defending against an enemy." He condemns the
actions of al-Qaeda and other violent Islamist groups,
which he says have seriously undermined Islam's image.
There is, however, no denying the Brotherhood's violent
past.
Still respected for carrying out guerrilla
activities that drove British forces out of Egypt in
1952, the Muslim Brotherhood soon fell out with the
nationalist government it helped form. The group was
banned after sharp differences emerged over how Egypt
should be governed. It rejected the idea of a secular
state, demanding that the country be governed according
to Sharia - Islamic law.
Thousands of
Brotherhood members were arrested following the group's
failed attempt to assassinate President Gamal Abdel
Nasser in 1954. Three more attempts were made on
Nasser's life, but he died of heart failure in 1970.
Angered by his successor's peace treaty with Israel,
four Brotherhood members gunned down President Anwar
Sadat during a military parade in 1981.
President Hosni Mubarak ordered mass arrests of
Brotherhood members on taking office in 1981, but eased
up as the group made good on its promise to renounce
violence. Al-Qaeda mastermind Ayman al-Zawahiri is one
of many former Brotherhood members who either left or
were booted out of the group because they were unwilling
to accept its strict adherence to nonviolent, domestic
political reform. "We are against our regime, but by
peaceful means and not by terrorist edicts," says
el-Erian. "The world is large enough for all of us. All
of us have a role in this world and no one can eradicate
the other."
(Inter Press Service)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
