Muslim Brotherhood

Muslim Brotherhood, religiopolitical organization founded in 1928 at Ismailia, Egypt, by Hassan al-Banna. Islamist in orientation, it advocates a return to the Qurʾān and the Hadith as guidelines for a healthy and thriving Islamic society in the modern era. The Brotherhood spread rapidly throughout Egypt, Sudan, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, and North Africa. In many Arab countries, the principal political faction in the opposition is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood has long held a contentious position in the Middle East region, owing to its frequent agitation for political and social reform as well as its early flirtation with militancy. The organization once included an armed branch that was active in Egypt in the 1940s, and for several decades it considered violent acts to be legitimate tools of resistance before ultimately renouncing violence in the 1970s. Nonetheless, the Brotherhood’s continued tendency toward political activism and its ability to mobilize popular opposition has stirred concerted efforts by Middle Eastern governments to suppress the organization in both its local and regional forms. Although a political party affiliated with the organization briefly ruled Egypt (2012–13) after the country’s 2011 revolution, the government designated the group a terrorist organization the year after it was ousted from power. The Brotherhood’s militant past in Egypt and the involvement of some branches and offshoots in armed conflicts, such as the Syrian branch during the Syrian Civil War (2011– ) and the Palestinian offshoot Hamas in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, have prompted many of its political opponents to contend that the organization and its ideology are inherently dangerous and destabilizing. It was first designated a terrorist organization by Russia in 2003 for its connections with separatists in the predominantly Muslim region of the northern Caucasus. After the Arab Spring uprisings that began in 2011, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates designated the group a terrorist organization. Meanwhile, organizations affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood have long received political backing from Turkey (Türkiye) and Qatar.

From social movement to political activism

Initially centered on religious and educational programs, the Muslim Brotherhood was seen as providing much-needed social services, and in the 1930s its membership grew swiftly. In the late 1930s the Brotherhood began to politicize its outlook, and, as an opponent of Egypt’s ruling Wafd party, during World War II it organized popular protests against the government. An armed branch organized in the early 1940s was subsequently linked to a number of violent acts, including bombings and political assassinations, and it appears that the armed element of the group began to escape Hassan al-Banna’s control. The Brotherhood responded to the government’s attempts to dissolve the group by assassinating Prime Minister Maḥmūd Fahmī al-Nuqrāshī in December 1948. Hassan al-Banna himself was assassinated shortly thereafter; many believe his death was at the behest of the government.

With the advent of the revolutionary regime in Egypt in 1952, the Brotherhood retreated underground. An attempt to assassinate Egyptian Pres. Gamal Abdel Nasser in Alexandria on October 26, 1954, led to the Muslim Brotherhood’s forcible suppression. Six of its leaders were tried and executed for treason, and many others were imprisoned. Among those imprisoned was writer Sayyid Qutb, who authored a number of books during the course of his imprisonment; among these works was Signposts in the Road, which would become a template for modern Sunni militancy. Although he was released from prison in 1964, he was arrested again the following year and executed shortly thereafter. In the 1960s and ’70s the Brotherhood’s activities remained largely clandestine; also in the 1970s the organization officially renounced violence.

Resurgence as mainstream opposition

In the 1980s the Muslim Brotherhood experienced a renewal as part of the general upsurge of religious activity in Islamic countries. The Brotherhood’s new adherents aimed to reorganize society and government according to Islamic doctrines, and they were vehemently opposed to Western social values. An uprising by the Brotherhood in the Syrian city of Hama in February 1982 was crushed by the government of Hafez al-Assad at a cost of perhaps 25,000 lives. The Brotherhood revived in Egypt and Jordan in the same period, and, beginning in the late 1980s, it emerged to compete in legislative elections in those countries.

In Egypt the participation of the Muslim Brotherhood in parliamentary elections there in the 1980s was followed by its boycott of the elections of 1990, when it joined most of the country’s opposition in protesting electoral strictures. Although the group itself remained formally banned, in the 2000 elections Brotherhood supporters running as independent candidates were able to win 17 seats, making it the largest opposition bloc in the parliament. In 2005, again running as independents, the Brotherhood and its supporters captured 88 seats in spite of efforts by Pres. Hosni Mubarak’s administration to restrict voting in the group’s strongholds. Its unexpected success in 2005 was met with additional restrictions and arrests, and the Brotherhood opted to boycott the 2008 local elections. In the 2010 parliamentary elections the Mubarak administration continued to restrict the Muslim Brotherhood by arresting members and barring voters in areas where the organization had strong support. After Mubarak’s National Democratic Party won 209 out of 211 seats in the first round of voting, effectively eliminating the Muslim Brotherhood from the parliament, the organization boycotted the second round.