Societal challenges to the state

1
Societal challenges to the state

• Part I Islamic Organizations in Egypt Muslim
  Brotherhood

2
Important points

• Diversity of Islamic scene
• Some accommodationist (Muslim Brotherhood), some
  radical (Jamaa al-Islamiyyah)
  
• Estimated 45 militant Islamic organizations in
  Egypt that call for the overthrow of the Egyptian
  state
  
• neofundamentalist?
• look to the sources of Islam not simply to
  replicate the past but to respond to a new age
  

3
Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt)

• one of original and most important Islamic
  activist organizations in the Muslim world
  
• worldwide spiritual movement
• main goal is to build Islamic individuals who
  will then build an Islamic state
  
• Organizational and ideological model for both
  moderate and radical Islamic organizations today

4
Origins

• Founded 1928 by Hasan al Banna (1906-1949)
• school teacher
• Popular reaction against foreign-inspired
  parliamentary regime.
  
• Grew dramatically in 1930s by 1940 had more than
  500 branches throughout Egypt and tens of
  thousands of members. Supported across classes.

Hasan al-Banna
5
What MB Program

• Re-implementation (and re-interpretation) of
  Sharia and Quran
  
• More radical interpretations of Jihad
• Merging of Quranic definitions of fighting
  (qital) and the inner spiritual struggle against
  evil (jihad)
  
• call to engage in holy war against infidels,
  Christians, and Jews.
  
• Advocated social welfare programs and land
  reform. Strong supporters of social reform and
  social responsibility
  

• Program traditional and innovative
• social and political regeneration of Egypt tied
  to restoration of Islam as guiding force in
  national life
  
• anti-imperialist
• West as political, economic, cultural threat
• Hostile to westernization but NOT modernization
• used modern institution building, promoted
  health, used technology and modern communication
  to promote message.
  

6

• In this Tradition, there is a clear indication of
  the obligation to fight the People of the Book,
  and of the fact that God doubles the reward of
  those who fight them. Jihad is not against
  polytheists alone, but against all who do not
  embrace Islam...
• Today the Muslims, as you know, are compelled to
  humble themselves before non-Muslims, and are
  ruled by unbelievers. Their lands have been
  trampled over, and their honor besmirched. Their
  adversaries are in charge of their affairs, and
  the rites of their religion have fallen into
  abeyance within their own domains, to say nothing
  of their impotence to broadcast the summons to
  embrace Islam.
• Hence it has become an individual obligation,
  which there is no evading, on every Muslim to
  prepare his equipment, to make up his mind to
  engage in jihad, and to get ready for it until
  the opportunity is ripe and God decrees a matter
  which is sure to be accomplished...
• Know then that death is inevitable, and that it
  can only happen once. If you suffer it in the way
  of God, it will be your profit in this world, and
  your reward in the next.
• - Hasan al-Banna, On Jihad, in Five Tracts
  of Hasan al-Banna, trans. by Charles Wendell
  (Berkeley, 1978)

7
How Three Phases

• Phase One1928-1939
• Membership mostly youth organization
• Methods Charitable works, education, information
  and propaganda
  
• State-Society relationship adversarial but
  legal
  
• Phase Two 1939-1960s
• Membership broad-based
• Methods political party, violent action,
  assassinations, social welfare (continues)
  
• State-Society relationship
• 1948-1954 cooperated with the Young Officers and
  Nasserist revolutionaries
  
• 1954-1971 illegal, massive suppression by Nasser

8
Phase 2 cont.

• New Inspiration Sayyid Qutb
• Qutb societies of God and societies of Satan (no
  one in middle)
  
• Urged creation of a "vanguard" (Tali'ah) of
  believers who would lead the way in the war on
  jahiliyya (pagan ignorance of divine guidance)
  
• Argued that because of authoritarian nature of
  most Muslim regimes, armed struggle necessary.
  

9
Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966)

• Mankind today is on the brink of a precipice,
  not because of the danger of complete
  annihilation which is hanging over its head -
  this being just a symptom and not the real
  disease - but because humanity is devoid of those
  vital values which are necessary not only for its
  healthy development but also for its real
  progress.
• Even the Western world realizes that Western
  civilization is unable to present any healthy
  values for the guidance of mankind. It knows that
  it does not possess anything which will satisfy
  its own conscience and justify its existence...
• It is essential for mankind to have a new
  leadership...
  
• It is necessary for the new leadership to
  preserve and develop the material fruits of the
  creative genius of Europe, and also to provide
  mankind with such high ideals and values as have
  so far remained undiscovered by mankind, and
  which will also acquaint humanity with a way of
  life which is harmonious with human nature, which
  positive and constructive, and which is
  practicable.
• Islam is the only system which possesses these
  values and this way of life.
  
• - From Sayyid Qutb, Milestones (Beirut 1980)

10
How (cont) Phase Three

• Phase 3 1971 to present
• Membership
• Leadership- educated upper middle class
• Membership- diverse, mass support
• Stronger opposition party in Egypt
• Methods commitment to nonviolence and Islamist
  reformism
  
• Political activism
• Huge network of charitable institutions and
  social welfare programs, dominance of
  professional syndicates
  
• State-Society Relations dualism
• Accommodation (MB illegal as a political party
  but tolerated, incorporated into political
  system)
  
• Persecution (leaders detained, etc.)