Iraq War Blowback: The Islamist Muslim Brotherhood Gains Momentum

by Cam McGrath

"Since Sept. 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 Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS).

"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 U.S. and British governments are administrating their war in Iraq."

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.

Still respected for carrying out guerrilla activities that impelled British forces to leave 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 the country be governed according to shari'a (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 Al-Sadat during a military parade in 1981. 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.

It 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 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," Hazem Saghiyeh, said in an article published recently in Al-Hayat 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 all this, the Muslim Brotherhood is witnessing a revival. The Bush Administration's so-called War on Terror is alienating Arabs and Muslims, giving moderate Islamist 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 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-U.S. 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 U.S. 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 IPS.

"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, a 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 that have distorted its meaning," he says. "Jihad is an Islamic term that means to do your best effort to fulfil 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.

President Hosni Mubarak ordered mass arrests of Brotherhood members upon 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 the group's strict adherence to non-violent, 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."