The Muslim Brotherhood Page 5
Yet the Ikhwan felt that somehow it was time to enter the political arena that was opening up. As a result, in 1983 at a large meeting in Cairo, Omar al-Tilimsani mooted the idea of establishing a political party that would not eclipse the jama’a but that would work alongside it. However, his suggestion was roundly rejected. Mehdi Akef recounts: ‘I told al-Tilimsani that my understanding of the Brotherhood was that it was a comprehensive organisation … and therefore would not accept or agree to its abolition or replacement by a political party regulated by the Parties Law.’69 In spite of this rejection al-Tilimsani pushed ahead and established a special committee to draw up drafts for a party manifesto. At the same time the leadership looked for an alternative way to enter the political system.
Proving just how pragmatic it could be, in 1984 the Ikhwan decided to take part in the parliamentary elections by allying itself with the al-Wafd party – a secular nationalist party – and gaining eight seats. It also used the same approach in the 1987 elections, this time allying with Amal and Ahrar parties and winning thirty-six seats, which made it the largest opposition group in parliament. Although it boycotted the elections of 1990, the Ikhwan contested them again in 1995, putting forward 170 candidates as independents and also fielding a few others with the al-Wafd. But whilst this course of action brought the Ikhwan some degree of political leverage, it also left it open to accusations of having taken a contradictory and vague stance.
This willingness to engage in such partnerships certainly drew disapproval from some of the hardliners within the Ikhwan. Mustafa Mashour, who was outside of the country at the time, is reported to have criticised the 1984 alliance:
The aim of the Brotherhood is not to gain the support of he who votes for us on the ballot, but of he who enlists himself and his assets for Allah … We are asking for the student of the next world rather than government and earthly posts as they exist in political parties. We are asking for those who work in the field of dawa with the fear of Allah, piety, and loyalty to the goal of establishing the Islamic government. This does not mean that we reject politics. We are aware of its role and importance, but allocate it the proper weight without overshadowing other activities.70
Nonetheless, the pull of politics proved stronger for this reformist generation and they sought to capitalise on the advances they had made. But in the perpetual cycle of push and pull between the different currents within the Ikhwan, their bid to travel further down the line of political participation was brought to an abrupt halt.
The al-Wasat Affair
The death of Omar al-Tilimsani in May 1986 was to mark yet another watershed moment for the Ikhwan. Al-Tilimsani had somehow championed the reformist current, working closely with them to try to achieve change through a more open approach, and his death came as a major blow. As Abu Ala Madhi describes, ‘We tried to reform the Ikhwan from the inside but the death of al-Tilimsani killed all types of internal reform.’71 Similarly Issam Sultan, another reformist figure, described how when Omar al-Tilimsani died it wasn’t only his person that disappeared, but also ‘his mentality, his culture and his openness’.72 These comments may reflect a tendency within the Ikhwan to overemphasise al-Tilimsani’s role, for in spite of his obvious ability to win over those within the reformist current, the movement was still essentially in the grip of the Nizam al-Khass group, who acted like back room operators. This was the view of Egyptian al-Qa‘ida ideologue Ayman al-Zawahiri:
The Muslim Brotherhood had a peculiar organisational structure. The overt leadership was represented by General Guide Omar al-Tilimsani, who was the leader in the eyes of the population and the regime. Actually the real leadership was in the hands of the Special Order Group [Nizam al-Khass] that included Mustafa Mashour, Dr Ahmad al-Malat, may he rest in peace, and Kemal Sananiri, may he rest in peace.73
Indeed, one of the reasons al-Tilimsani had been able to achieve such success during his time as Murshid was because so many of the Nizam al-Khass were forced abroad at the time, weakening their control of the day-to-day running of the movement. However, his death coincided with the return to Egypt of a number of key members of the old guard who during their time away had been busy building up the Ikhwan’s international networks. These figures included Mustafa Mashour who returned from Germany, Maimoun al-Hodeibi from Saudi Arabia, Mahmoud Izzat from Yemen and Khairet al-Shater from Yemen and London. Their reappearance on the scene was to herald a new era of rigidity within the movement. Whilst Mashour had long been a key figure, it was Maimoun al-Hodeibi who really came to dominate the Ikhwan during this period. Many have argued that al-Hodeibi, who unlike his father was a real hardliner, came to be the de facto leader of the Brotherhood at this time.
Just as they had done with Hassan al-Hodeibi, this group engineered the appointment of a successor to al-Tilimsani who would act as a front man whilst they held on to the reins of power. The new appointee was Mohamed Hamed Abu Nasser, a man who had not even finished secondary school. Of all the Ikhwan’s leaders, he left perhaps the least impression of all. Yet he served the purpose of the Nizam al-Khass group who immediately took steps to curb the activities of the younger reformists within the organisation. According to Abu Ala Madhi, ‘After the return of this group we saw there was an attempt by them to restrict this generation that was leading the real work inside the Ikhwan.’74
This old guard were so entrenched in their own ideology that they could not accept the reformists’ willingness to engage with other parts of the Egyptian opposition. In 1992 some of the Ikhwan ran a forum to which they invited a number of influential Egyptian figures and intellectuals from outside of the Brotherhood. During the meeting Maimoun al-Hodeibi, displaying an extraordinary arrogance and lack of understanding about the nature of open political debate, began questioning whether these guests were qualified to speak given that they were individuals and unlike him did not have movements behind them.75 Al-Hodeibi’s intervention prompted many of these influential individuals to leave the meeting, provoking an extreme embarrassment among the reformist Ikhwani who were hosting the forum. The following year the reformist current were chastised by al-Hodeibi for holding a forum in the Ramses Hilton in Cairo that brought together the various strands of the opposition ranging from communists to Nasserists and to jihadists. They were also admonished for supporting the National Pact which had been agreed upon by the opposition and that the Ikhwan’s leadership refused to sign. Such opposition to engaging in the politics of the day led one member of the reformist current to bemoan, ‘They simply are not politicians, they are spiritual leaders.’76
At the same time, this reformist group were getting increasingly frustrated that in spite of all the years they had been part of the Ikhwan they were repeatedly prevented from taking up senior positions within the movement. One reformist explained, ‘The Brotherhood taught us that the government was corrupt and needed to be brought down, but we found through our experience that decisions were taken by a small group of people in the Brotherhood … it was something that made us very uneasy.’77 The group were crushingly disappointed in 1995 when the Ikhwan’s internal elections resulted in no change at all to the membership of the Guidance Office, a result that according to Issam Sultan the core of the movement had paved the way for.78
They were even more outraged in January 1996 when during the burial of Mohamed Hamed Abu Nasser, rather than follow the Brotherhood’s correct procedure for electing a new leader, Maimoun al-Hodeibi simply appointed Mustafa Mashour as the new Murshid to whom all those present gave their baya (oath of allegiance). This incident, which became known as the graveside pledge, was to sow further resentment among the young activists. Afterwards Sultan went to Mashour and asked him why he had been chosen in this unorthodox manner. Mashour, who claimed he had been surprised by al-Hodeibi’s choosing him, told Sultan: ‘Allah has chosen for al-Jama’a. Allah chose Hassan al-Banna and then Allah chose Hassan al-Hodeibi and then Omar al-Tilimsani, then Hamed Abu Nasser and then the poor slave [i.e. himself ].’79 Clearly s
uch sentiments did not wash with the likes of the reformist current, who could only see a leadership that was blocking all possibility of reform and that was entrenched in the mentality of the 1950s.
As their frustration grew, this group became more overt about their disappointment with the leadership, bringing the disunity into the public sphere. In January 1995 Salah Abd al-Karim, the editor of the Engineers Union magazine, wrote an article criticising the domination of the old guard within the Ikhwan and calling on party elders to restrict themselves to the role of advisers.80 Similarly, at a meeting of brothers in the unions one of the Ikhwan gave a speech in which he criticised the old guard for being too narrow-minded and inward-looking and insufficiently open to other political and social forces outside the movement.81 By the mid-1990s the reformist current had come to the conclusion that, in the words of one of them, ‘We are something and they are something else and it is impossible for these two seas to meet. One of them was fresh water and the other salty.’82
After concluding that there was no scope to change the Ikhwan from inside, one group of reformists decided to push ahead with their own project to establish a political party. This group was led by Abu Ala Madhi with the support of around seventy young reformists including Issam Sultan and the journalist and member of the Engineers Syndicate Council, Salah Abd al-Maqsud. A striking number of those involved were from the engineering sector including Abu Ala Madhi himself.83 Notably, this group also included two Copts, one Anglican and a number of women, presumably as a means of demonstrating the group’s commitment to the rights of non-Muslims and women. The former was a particularly controversial subject within the Ikhwan, not least because of Mustafa Mashour’s comments in 1996 that Christians should not be permitted to join the armed forces and that they should pay a jiziya (tax), something that he later retracted.
In January 1996 this group bypassed the Ikhwan machine and submitted their proposal to set up the party, Hizb al-Wasat, to the Parties Committee for approval. Although they had decided to act alone, they did have the support of key figures on the international Islamist scene including Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Moreover, in a concession to the leadership they did inform Mehdi Akef, less hawkish than many of the others, of their plans. According to them, Akef supported them although he was not informed about the details of the new party. Akef, however, asserts that the whole al-Wasat project was his idea and said: ‘I am the one who came with the idea of Hizb al-Wasat. We came with it in order to embarrass the government. Some of the Ikhwan set this party up and since 1996 the government has refused to accept it.’84
Regardless of Akef’s role, the al-Wasat affair was clearly a shocking challenge to the Brotherhood leadership. It certainly met with the wrath of the leadership, who could not believe that such disobedience and rebelliousness that went so against the whole spirit of the Brotherhood had come from within its own ranks. In reality, the al-Wasat platform was not essentially very different from much of the thinking within the Ikhwan at that time and there was nothing especially controversial in their party programme. Rather, the young brothers had crossed the line of acting without permission. According to Abu Ala Madhi, al-Hodeibi and Mashour led a major campaign against the al-Wasat group. Al-Hodeibi summoned Issam Sultan to his house and their meeting was ‘violent and crushing’.85 As a result those involved in the al-Wasat affair resigned from the Ikhwan although there was an equal push from the leadership to get them out, as ‘when Mashour discovered a new mentality that did not listen and obey in the traditional sense, he took a rigid decision against them and expelled them’.86
Needless to say, their application to become a political party was turned down by the Parties Committee and many of those involved, including Abu Ala Madhi, were arrested, prompting the vast majority who had signed the al-Wasat application to back down and rejoin the Brotherhood. Yet this al-Wasat group were to pay an even greater price for having dared to disobey the party line. When they went to appeal against the decision, the Ikhwan’s leadership attended the court session and demanded that their appeal be turned down. Ironically, the al-Wasat group’s bid to take political engagement to a new level was sufficient to make the Ikhwan’s leadership close ranks with the regime against them.
What was notable about the affair was that other figures within the reformist current, who clearly supported a more open approach, did not join the initiative. This included Aboul Fotouh and al-Ariyan, who decided to remain within the ranks of the Brotherhood despite their closeness to Abu Ala Madhi. According to Sultan, whilst many of this group were ideologically with the al-Wasat current, they did not take the step of actually joining them because of ‘practical and administrative considerations that made them stay within the Brotherhood’.87 Aboul Fotouh described his differences with the al-Wasat current as being organisational in nature and as a split between those who wanted to see reform inside the jama’a rather than outside it. Yet the refusal of these individuals to join the al-Wasat group led some to assert that the true reformists within the Ikhwan left the movement at this time.88
However, it could be argued that the likes of Aboul Fotouh and al-Ariyan ultimately proved themselves to be shrewder: not only was the al-Wasat project rejected by the government; it was never going to gain any real public support. Such a project could never have any real populist appeal, given that in Egypt politics is still very much the domain of the urban elite and any party that is willing to work within the established system is likely to draw charges of having been co-opted by the regime. As Amr Shobaki has argued, Aboul Fotouh and al-Ariyan were all too well aware that their political ideas would have no real future outside the movement.89 It is this very point that the old guard perhaps understood better than the reformist generation – to become a political party would bring charges of being compromised, leaving the Ikhwan as just one party among a number of others operating within the system.
Yet the al-Wasat affair did spark further internal debate within the Ikhwan. It caused figures such as Aboul Fotouh to begin questioning whether internal reform was possible whilst the Nizam al-Khass were in control. He allegedly began voicing his view that a jama’a that doesn’t know democracy in its internal life is incapable of guaranteeing democracy outside of itself.90 Over twenty years later, Aboul Fotouh, along with others of his generation such as Issam al-Ariyan, were still struggling with the same questions and challenges that the movement has been grappling with since the 1920s.
Post 9/11
The years after the al-Wasat affair saw a continuation of the reform debate within the Ikhwan and of the seemingly endless questions about how best to engage in the political process without selling out on the movement’s core Islamic principles. This debate came into sharper relief following the 9/11 attacks on the US. Suddenly the world began to focus its attentions on the various Islamist movements, and what had until then been considered as domestic opposition groups now came to be viewed by some as part of a global Islamist network that threatened the whole of Western civilisation. Regimes were quick to pick up on this sea change of sentiment and sought to use the 9/11 attacks as evidence that they had been right to clamp down so hard on their Islamist opponents. The Egyptian regime was no exception. For the Brotherhood, with its somewhat questionable past, its role in the Afghanistan conflict of the 1970s and its aspiration to create a society ruled by Sharia, the imperative to demonstrate its commitment to moderation and to playing by the political rules was all too obvious. The fear of being labelled as a terrorist organisation prompted a greater urgency to be seen as willing to work within the political framework of the state.
In spite of the Ikhwan’s deep reservations about the War on Terror and the role of the West in the Islamic world, it seems that the reformist current within the Egyptian Ikhwan somehow received a boost from this new international climate. It was as if now the world was watching they could come into their own and find a truly appreciative audience. The reformists, many of whom speak English, took advantage of renewed interest by s
cholars and journalists and were keen to engage in interviews and debates as a means of demonstrating their commitment to reform. In line with the globalised age they also began promoting themselves through the Internet, setting up their own English language website. In doing so these figures started to become personalities beyond the confines of their own environment and were able to project a new image of the Brotherhood that contradicted the picture of them as secretive, autocratic and aggressive that was doing the rounds in some Western circles. The group was given a further boost in 2004 when after the death of Maimoun al-Hodeibi, Mehdi Akef was appointed to the post of Murshid. Although Akef was a member of the Nizam al-Khass and part of the older generation of leaders, he had a reputation for being more tolerant and sympathetic to the reformist wing. As such he was widely considered to be a compromise figure who could bridge the gap between the old guard and the reformists. He was certainly a more acceptable choice for figures such as Aboul Fotouh who had huge personal antagonism with Akef’s hardline predecessor.