The Muslim Brotherhood (6 page)

It is perhaps because of the fact that they were already leaders in their own right and because they had built up such a large populist movement – which essentially saved the Ikhwan – that this group somehow retained a sense of their own importance and a belief that they had a major stake in deciding the Ikhwan’s future. As Abu Ala Madhi declares: ‘Our generation did a big favour to the Brotherhood and without us it would have died.’
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As a result this group had a sense of their own importance and it made them less willing to adopt the blind obedience that had so characterised the Brotherhood under al-Banna.

In addition, this group were far more politicised than the former cadres of the Ikhwan and they gave the Brotherhood a new sense of urgency. This urgency was of course fuelled by the 1979 Iranian revolution, which had proved that an Islamic state was possible, and by the growing tide of Islamic consciousness that was sweeping the Islamic world. Furthermore, this generation was used to working openly and was unconstrained by the same sense of secrecy and fear that characterised those leaders who had spent so many years in prison. As one analyst describes: ‘Their experience was different from that of the sheikhs of the Nizam al-Khass who had grown up in hiding, in the ritual of secrecy and in detention.’
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They also differed from their predecessors in that they sought to take the Ikhwan in a new direction, moving away somewhat from ideological and theological issues to focus more on practical socio-economic challenges such as poverty or corruption. Aboul Fotouh became an ardent critic of the Sadat regime publishing outspoken criticisms not only of its lack of Islamic values
but also of its corruption and its inability to meet the everyday needs of the population. This group were essentially political players for whom the excitement of the political scene appears to have been as important as the religious dimension.

Having gained direct political experience through their involvement in student unions, this group saw an opportunity in the unions and professional syndicates. Aboul Fotouh, Abu Ala Madhi and al-Ariyan all became well-known activists in the professional syndicates during the 1980s. This highly pragmatic group proved willing to enter what were ostensibly secular organisations through elections in order to consolidate their influence. Their dominance of these institutions enabled the Ikhwan to address the concerns of the middle classes more directly, attracting greater numbers to the cause.
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They also began reaching out to people more directly by offering welfare services such as setting up free clinics to provide medical treatment to students plugging the gaps where the state was so woefully inadequate.

As the 1980s progressed this group began pushing for more direct participation in the political system. Although they had started out sharing the more hawkish ideology of the Nizam al-Khass, by the early 1980s it seems that they had become convinced by the arguments of Omar al-Tilimsani. Although al-Tilimsani, appointed as Murshid in 1977, was originally conceived as a front man for the Ikhwan behind whom the Nizam al-Khass would pull the strings, it appears that he was able to impose himself on the organisation more than Hassan al-Hodeibi was ever able to do. Al-Tilimsani brought back more traditionalist figures such as Farid Abdel Khaliq into the Guidance Office, where they acted as a counterweight to figures such as Mustafa Mashour. The Murshid also seems to have been able to bring people around to his way of thinking and his belief that the best means of achieving the movement’s goals was through participating in the political arena. According to Barot, ‘He attracted a great number of those who are now in the reformist current of the group including …
Abu Ala Madhi and Aboul Fotouh. This generation brought the group [Brotherhood] to the core of Egyptian political life despite the fact that it was still illegal.’
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A similar view was expressed by Egyptian brother and former head of the Al-Taqwa bank, Youssef Nada, who remarked, ‘Omar al-Tilimsani brought the Ikhwan back to life.’
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Ironically the Murshid’s task of steering the movement down a more moderate path was made easier by the fact that after President Mubarak came to power in 1981 following Sadat’s assassination, the regime carried out a major clampdown of the Ikhwan, resulting in a number of key figures from the Nizam al-Khass (including Mustafa Mashour) fleeing abroad. The removal of this more militant group from the scene enabled these reformist characters to seek a greater and more direct engagement with the practical issues of politics. As one member of the Ikhwan recalls, ‘By the 1980s the demand for Sharia had receded and was replaced by calls for freedom to establish political parties and join elections and have newspapers etc.’
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Of course these calls were in part a response to the prevailing political conditions of the day and the fact that the new President made it clear that the only way to play a part in the country’s political life would be to join in the system of political parties. Mubarak’s Electoral Law of 1983, which ruled that political activism would be restricted to the realms of political parties that had been sanctioned by the Parties’ Committee, forced the Ikhwan to think in a different way. This posed a serious dilemma for the Brotherhood. In line with the ideology of al-Banna, they were essentially averse to the idea of party politics. Moreover, they were all too aware that their strength on the popular level at least had always derived from the fact that they were about more than just politics. Indeed, they were so successful because they were a
jama’a
(group) that blended politics with being a religious and cultural social movement. The leadership had further to consider the repercussions of such a move outside of Egypt, given that they were leading an international organisation that looked to them for guidance and
example. Local concerns could never be entirely disassociated from the restraints of the international arena. Perhaps even more importantly, the Ikhwan knew that it was highly unlikely that the powers would countenance the establishment of such a party.

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.’
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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.
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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 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.’
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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’.
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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.
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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.’
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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.
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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.’
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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.’
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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.
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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 ].’
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Clearly such 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.