40 Years After Mitchell: The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood
Panel 183, 2009 Annual Meeting
On Tuesday, November 24 at 8:00 am
Panel Description
It has been forty years since the publication of Richard P. Mitchell’s The Society of the Muslim Brothers, the seminal study of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and a groundbreaking work on modern Islamic movements. While commenting on Mitchell’s contributions to the field, this panel will also explore more recent studies of the Muslim Brotherhood. Panelists will pick up where Mitchell’s study leaves off, examining the movement from the 1950s to the present. Though Mitchell concludes with what appears to be the final blow to the organization in post-revolutionary Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood survived the period of repression in Gamal Abdel Nasser’s prisons. The first paper will describe the means by which the group’s leadership were not only able to communicate within the confines of prison networks, but also refine their message in keeping with the intellectual developments of the 1950s and 1960s. Influenced by the ideas of figures such as Sayyed Qutb and Hasan al-Hudaybi, the Muslim Brotherhood transformed its discourse in the face of new challenges. The second paper will explore the framing mechanisms employed in the Muslim Brotherhood’s literature following their release from prison and reconstitution in the 1970s. This period saw a reimagining of the recent past and a fresh outlook toward the future of Islamic activism. The third paper will focus on the concepts of “auto-critique” and “auto-reform” within the Muslim Brotherhood, dating back to the mid-1990s. Among the many questions to which these practices relate is the contemporary understanding of the early Muslim Brotherhood and the legacy of its founder, Hasan al-Banna. An interesting contrast emerges between Mitchell’s documentation of this figure and recent framings by the organization’s leaders. Finally, the fourth paper will examine the Muslim Brotherhood’s participation in the 2005 parliamentary elections, where it made surprising gains and its subsequent release of a party platform, sparking widespread debates over the future of the movement. From the organization examined by Mitchell, which attempted to negotiate a prominent role for itself in the age of liberal Egyptian politics, to the most recent election of the largest Brotherhood contingent in the movement’s history, the discussion comes full circle. In addition to owing much of their insights to Mitchell’s contribution four decades earlier, all of these papers have advanced the study of the Islamic movements generally and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in particular.
Current debates on the Muslim Brotherhood center on the question of whether the organization supports a radical ideology or whether there is a shift towards political moderation. Discussions on this issue often focus on Sayyid Qutb and his thought.
Sayyid Qutb is undoubtedly one of the most significant, yet controversial, writers of our time. His most important works were produced or revised during his imprisonment, between 1954- 1966. Looking at the volume of his work, his books are more widespread than those of any other Muslim Brother. It is a fact that his theories influenced generations of militant Islamists, who adapted his ideas to justify violence in the name of Islam. The fact that Qutb is still revered by the Muslim Brotherhood gives doubt to whether the Muslim Brotherhood indeed adopted a moderate political theology.
The purpose of the lecture is to show that Sayyid Qutb's radical ideas were subsequently clarified, one could say refuted, by the leadership of the Brotherhood. In the book 'Preachers not Judges', which is generally attributed to Murshid Hasan al-Hudaybi, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood takes a decisive step towards non-violent political engagement.
Since Richard Mitchell’s seminal study of the Society of the Muslim Brotherhood four decades ago, the group remains the most prominent opposition movement in Egypt today. As historical scholarship of the Muslim Brotherhood has been limited to the period of its founder, Hasan al-Banna, and the era of liberal politics in Egypt, there appears to be little connection between that period, the subsequent repression endured under the revolutionary government of Gamal Abdel Nasser, and the Brotherhood that today fields independent candidates in national elections and maintains the deepest social networks of any movement, religious or otherwise.
This paper focuses on a period of particular importance for the continuity of the movement, the 1970s, and the means by which the Muslim Brotherhood’s leaders balanced long-held principles with the challenges of the time. Through the utilization of a subset of social movement theory, cultural framings, I analyze the ways in which the Muslim Brotherhood packaged and marketed its platform to its audience through its 1970s publication, Da‘wa. This monthly magazine served as the chief vehicle of the organization, edited by the organization’s General Guide, Umar al-Tilmisani, and commanding a readership of over 100,000. Analyzing the entire six-year run of the magazine (1976-1981), this paper categorizes the major themes conveyed by the Muslim Brotherhood’s leading writers and the framing mechanisms they utilized in their endeavor to attract a wider following.
Among the major findings of this study is that the Muslim Brotherhood was under tremendous pressure to balance often conflicting objectives: maintaining authenticity in the eyes of the Egyptian people, allaying the concerns of the state, and preventing an emerging fringe movement from taking the mantel of the broader Islamic movement. It also sought to reach out to various audiences among Egyptians, ranging from urban to rural, and elite to base, and placed a renewed emphasis on students and young professionals. As is evident from published writings at the time, this period was critical to the development of a new generation of leaders who would go on to take the Muslim Brotherhood into the twenty-first century.
In tracing the evolution of the Muslim Brotherhood since its founding by Hassan al-Banna in
1928, a central question is how contemporary Brotherhood leaders interpret the legacy of the
movement’s past. The risa’il (tracts) of Hassan al-Banna; the writings of Sayyid Qutb and Hasan
al-Hudeibi; and the practices of the Brotherhood’s first-generation leaders all remain important sources
of guidance and foundations of ideological authority for the Brotherhood today. But these authoritative
sources are susceptible to multiple and conflicting interpretations. For example, the positions taken by
al-Banna and other early Brotherhood leaders on such key issues as the religious legitimacy of
democracy and political pluralism; the citizenship rights of women and religious minorities; the proper
targets and purposes of jihad; the relationship of Islamist groups with other forces in Egyptian society;
and the prospects for constructive engagement with the West, have in recent years become focal points of
intra-movement scrutiny and debate. Likewise, al-Banna’s claims that the Brotherhood represented all
Muslims, and spoke in the name of Islam itself, have become targets of sustained internal critique. My
presentation will trace the emergence of a new reformist cadre of Brotherhood leaders in Egypt in the
1980s and 1990s and demonstrate how their perspectives on the Brotherhood’s founding texts and
discourses constitute part of a broader critical re-assessment of the movement’s anti-system past. For
example, I will discuss how Hassan alBanna’s rejection of hizbiyya (partyism) has been interpreted by
contemporary Islamist “auto-reformers” as a reaction against the corrupt, elitist nature of the Egyptian
political system during the intra-war era, rather than as a principled rejection of party competition itself.
Likewise, I will highlight recent intra-movement criticism of such broad slogans as “Islam is the
Solution”; the trend toward a re-articulation of the movement’s world-views and goals in more
relativistic, more specific, and more humble terms; and calls for growing accommodation and tolerance
of other groups and viewpoints, as evidence of a qualitative break from Brotherhood rhetoric and
practice in the past.
