The Muslim Brotherhood

by Alison Pargeter

  The Guidance Office in Cairo was also deeply troubled by the Iraqi Islamic Party’s willingness to take part in the political process in Iraq following the 2003 invasion. However, the Iraqis were not afforded the space given to the Syrian Ikhwani to forge their own path, because Iraq was a clear case of a foreign power occupying a Muslim land. The statements and pronouncements made by key Ikhwani leaders in relation to the situation in Iraq are completely at odds with the stance taken by their Iraqi brothers. According to the spokesman for the political arm of the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood, the Iraqi Islamic Party, when the party decided to take part in the Iraqi elections ‘the International tanzeem opposed it because they didn’t understand it’.81

  He also complained that there had been particular problems with some Ikhwani ‘of a more nationalistic outlook’.82

  According to Akef a group of Iraqi Islamists including Tariq al-Hashemi, the head of the political arm of the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood and the Iraqi Islamic Party, Harith al-Dari the head of the Iraqi Scholars Committee and Adnan Dulaimi, the head of the Sunni Al-Tawafaq Front, came to see him in Cairo. During the meeting al-Hashemi explained that his party believed that they should take part in the post-Saddam political process. Akef goes on:

  I told them literally, ‘Are all of you agreed that resistance is a must?’ They said yes. All of them. So I told them, ‘Okay, you agreed on resistance so let’s look at what methods we can use to achieve it, whether political or resistance.’ They all answered, ‘We agree on resistance and we will resist in the way we see fit.’ I told them, ‘You can agree on resisting through the media, writing, politics, but you mustn’t take part in ruling because the Iraqi rulers are traitors who were brought in by the occupiers and who are so keen on remaining there.’83

  The Iraqi Islamic Party determined to take part in the political process in spite of the Murshid’s objections. This angered Akef: ‘As for the Iraqi Islamic Party, it doesn’t represent the Muslim Brothers. They say they are Muslim Brothers but they are not. They are not Ikhwan and they don’t represent the Ikhwan in Iraq. I told them that clearly to their faces. What is happening in Iraq is a very dangerous situation. It is run by occupiers.’84 Akef also states that there was still a group of Muslim Brothers operating underground in Iraq who were not taking part in the ruling structures. In a scene reminiscent of the earlier days of the international tanzeem, the Guidance Office decided to back a group of Iraqi Ikhwani who were not taking part in the political process whilst marginalising those who disagreed with it. Cairo’s need to voice the sentiment of the street and to be seen to be standing up to the occupying power once again overrode its commitment to the political wishes of individual branches.

  That both the Syrians and the Iraqis chose to ignore Cairo’s objections is testimony to the fact that after all these years the international tanzeem had been reduced to little more than a talking shop. As Mohamed Habib explained, ‘As the international tanzeem, we discuss challenges facing Islam and nationalist causes.’85 However, for all that it might have had limited importance in recent years, contrary to the assertions of some brothers, the international tanzeem is most definitely a reality rather than a myth. Yet, the international tanzeem appears to have been primarily the romantic and unattainable dream of a group of Ikhwan led by Mustafa Mashour. The project was very much personality driven and it is no coincidence that the decline of the international organisation corresponded to the demise of Mashour. For a movement made up of so many different currents all facing different challenges the idea of pulling them together into a cohesive ideological and administrative unit was clearly over-ambitious and doomed to failure. The core concept of the international tanzeem went against the very characteristic of the Ikhwan that has enabled it to endure for so many years, namely its flexibility.

  Whether the Arab Spring will see a renewed push for this international body to be reinvigorated has yet to be seen. The Brotherhood’s emerging on to the political mainstream not only in Egypt, but also in Libya, has certainly opened up new possibilities for greater co-operation on the international level. Indeed, such co-operation is inevitable. Some elements within the Egyptian Brotherhood, however, have already taken to calling for the reactivation of the international tanzeem.86 Senior Egyptian Brotherhood member, Sofwat Hijazi, meanwhile, has called for the setting up of an alliance of ‘Ikhwani wilayas’ (governates). Hijazi has also spoken of his dream of establishing a new caliphate across the Islamic world.87 Whilst such talk of a new caliphate is clearly exaggerated, and whilst national priorities continue to dominate, not least because of the precariousness of the post-revolutionary climate, particularly in Egypt, there may well be a growing momentum among some parts of the movement to try to extend the Brotherhood’s international reach through the international tanzeem once again.

  4

  A School of Thought

  The Ikhwan in Europe

  Whilst the main focus of the Ikhwan’s activity has been the Middle East and the Islamic world, Europe has also provided an arena for this transnational movement. The Ikhwan put down roots in the continent in the 1950s and 1960s, through students who had come to Europe to study and figures such as Egyptian Ikhwani Said Ramadan, who sought to spread dawa. The Ikhwan’s numbers were bolstered too by those fleeing persecution from their own regimes who sought refuge in various European countries. Through the 1970s and 1980s, when the period of Islamic revivalism swept Islamic communities in Europe, just as it did the Arab world, the Ikhwan was able to capitalise on the renewed religious consciousness combined with increased politicisation. During the 1980s in particular, when the international tanzeem was at its peak, Europe became an important financial centre for the Ikhwan as well as a media centre that could assist in instrumentalising the struggle in the Middle East. The Brotherhood built up a network of mosques and Islamic centres, often with money from backers in the Gulf, and was able to spread its dawa among Islamic communities. By the end of the 1990s the Ikhwan had in many countries been able to establish itself as the primary Islamic organisation, quietly dominating religious institutions across the continent. As Dr Kamal Helbawy observed, ‘Wherever Muslim Brothers go they establish institutions. They don’t like to work individually.’1

  Whilst the Ikhwan had its differences with those of a more militant bent who were also active in the continent, the distinction between moderates and radicals was not so clear-cut at this time. The nature of the community was such that these groups orbited around each other, disagreeing bitterly with each other’s methods but ultimately feeling that they were part of the same Muslim minority. The events of 9/11 would change this situation: the Ikhwan suddenly found itself forced to take a very public stance on a range of issues from violence to terrorism to radicalisation.

  The Brotherhood has responded to these new challenges with characteristic pragmatism, seeking to posit itself as the main interlocutor between Muslim communities and governments in a bid to extend its political and educational influence. This in turn has given them a greater control over their own communities. In this way, they have almost become pillars of the establishment, part of the status quo; something that has brought them the ridicule of more hardline elements, who accuse them of selling out. Their willingness to work with the establishment is partly a continuation of the Ikhwan’s tradition of working within existing political frameworks, but it is also symptomatic of the limited appeal that they have among Muslim communities, leaving them desperately seeking a way to increase their own political leverage. Moreover, the Ikhwan has generally been considered as an elitist group within the Islamic milieu.

  Analysing the evolution of the Ikwhan in Europe is particularly challenging because in many cases its members are reticent about their links to the Brotherhood. Their desire to avoid such linkages is understandable in that many Ikhwani brought the mentality of their own countries to Europe, fearing that their own security services would target them even whilst they were there or, worse, that their families back home would be hara
ssed as a result of any open connections to the Ikwhan. Such concerns are not as far-fetched as they may appear. In 1981 Syrian Ikhwani Issam al-Attar was targeted by the Syrian security services in Germany in an attack that left his wife dead. The Libyan regime was also known for getting rid of troublesome opponents during the 1980s. However, the fear of being openly associated with the Ikhwan extends further. Many Ikhwani are wary of being associated with an organisation that has such a negative reputation in some Western circles and that – despite its pacific stance – has been involved in violence on occasion. Such concerns became all the more pressing after 9/11, when the Brotherhood feared that it might be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.

  Another reason that some Ikhwani in Europe have sought to conceal their links to the Brotherhood is their desire to reach beyond their natural constituencies to attract a wider support base. They have played on the idea that the Brotherhood is a school of thought rather than a movement. In some senses this is true; the reformist conservative Islam that they are promoting is the ideology followed by many communities across the Islamic world. As such they have tried to present their organisations as following the same broad philosophy as the Ikhwan but with no institutional linkage to the movement. However, the vast majority of those running these Islamic organisations in Europe are fully fledged members of the Brotherhood, in many cases tightly enmeshed into the Ikhwan’s international networks through family, marriage or personal ties.

  The bid to distance themselves from the Ikhwan is further driven by the fact that such linkages are a potential source of problems and embarrassment. Living as part of a minority community in Europe means that these Islamist leaders need to be able to dissociate themselves from some of the proclamations of key Ikhwani leaders over issues such as suicide bombing, the war in Iraq and Palestine, as well as over women’s rights and the treatment of religious minorities. Ironically, this sometimes puts the leaders at odds with their own constituencies; such proclamations may represent popular opinion, yet these organisations cannot afford to be seen to be supporting such ideas within the confines of their host countries. In addition, there has been a need since 9/11 to distance from Saudi Arabia and the financial flows from the Gulf that had so assisted them in the past.

  However, Ikhwani unwillingness to come forward and be frank about their origins and their relationships only serves to increase suspicions about the movement and its true objectives within Europe. Some commentators have even suggested that the Ikhwan seeks to extend Sharia law throughout Europe and the US.2 Such suggestions smack somewhat of scaremongering. In any case the Ikhwani are realistic enough to understand that this is far beyond their capabilities. They are more interested in furthering the rights of their own communities through the small steps that they can achieve. Moreover, due to the fact that many Ikhwan-oriented organisations are still dominated by first-generation immigrants, their preoccupations are in many cases still centred on the Arab world. Ikhwani organisations in Europe have remained mostly the domain of Arab communities; despite their desire to represent European Muslims, they are still unable to reach out beyond their own ethnic groups.

  Whilst it is incorrect to read the evolution of the various Ikhwani-oriented organisations in Europe as the evolution of the Ikhwan per se, the links between these groups and the Brotherhood are too strong to be ignored. Ikhwani in the Middle East, in Cairo especially, refer to these organisations as ‘our brothers in France’ or ‘our brothers in the UK’. Similarly, others within the Islamic community in Europe refer to them as the Ikhwani and are frustrated at their unwillingness to admit to their relationship to the movement. However, the Ikhwan’s main strategy in Europe appears to have been to find a way to make itself more acceptable to Western governments as a means of bolstering its political influence.

  France and the UOIF

  The main Islamic organisation in France is the Union des Organisations Islamiques de France (UOIF), widely regarded as the French branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, although the union itself rejects this affiliation. It is perhaps the most important and established national Islamic organisation in Europe. Although it was formally established in 1983, the history of Ikhwani activity in France goes back to the 1960s at least and the UOIF has its roots in other Islamic groups that were active at the time. These include the Association des Étudiants Islamiques en France (AEIF), a student body that was set up in 1963 by Indian Professor Muhammad Hamidullah who was linked to the Muslim Brotherhood through his ties to Said Ramadan and to Syrian Ikhwani Issam al-Attar, who was to have a major influence over the AEIF’s teachings and ideology. The AEIF was predominantly an elitist organisation composed mostly of activist students from the Arab world. It was small but managed to establish branches in the main French university cities. During the 1960s and 1970s it focused its efforts on encouraging the Islamic renaissance and fighting the left-wing currents of the day and became one of the most established Islamic organisations in France.

  The other key group that would go on to form the core of the UOIF was the Groupement Islamique de France (GIF), which was founded in 1979 in Valenciennes in northeast France, not far from the city of Lille. It was set up by a group of Tunisian students, led by Ahmed Jaballah, who were linked to the Tunisian opposition, Mouvement de la Tendance Islamique (MTI), which would later become An-Nahda. The MTI, led by Rashid al-Ghannouchi, was generally considered to be the Tunisian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. However, whilst al-Ghannouchi was heavily influenced by the Ikhwan and by key Ikhwani scholars, by the early 1980s the MTI had begun to move away from the rigidity of the Brotherhood’s approach. The GIF was intended to act as the French branch of this Tunisian opposition movement and as such much of its early activities were focused on the situation in Tunisia.3 Unlike the AEIF, the GIF sought to appeal more to workers and to the grass roots rather than just to the intellectual elite, so began giving Friday sermons at the hostels for foreign workers that housed many North African immigrants with the aim of re-Islamicising those who had deviated from the straight path. They also engaged in typical Ikhwani community work: running summer camps, organising pilgrimages, visiting hospitals and prisons, holding conferences and organising demonstrations about issues related to the Islamic world.4

  Although the GIF was the domain of the Tunisians, the driving force behind the organisation was actually Lebanese scholar Faisal al-Mawlawi, who the group chose as its spiritual guide. (Al-Mawlawi was a committed brother who was close to the Guidance Office in Cairo and who lived in France from 1980 to 1985.) This prompted a rather curious situation whereby whilst the vast majority of the Muslim population in France came from or had their origins in North Africa, it was left to the Lebanese al-Mawlawi and the Syrian al-Attar to lead and act as spiritual guides for these communities.

  By August 1983 these Islamist groups decided to pool their efforts and come together under a new umbrella group called the Union des Organisations Islamiques de France (UOIF). A number of issues had prompted the establishment of this new union in particular. Firstly, the election of the socialist Mitterand government in 1981 liberalised legislation on the establishment of foreign associations in France. More importantly, the early 1980s were a time of immense optimism among Muslim communities all over the world. The Iranian revolution of 1979 had brought new hope that an Islamic alternative was possible, and the spirit of brotherly support incited by the project to liberate Afghanistan from communist rule had ushered in a new Islamic awareness and consciousness that these organisations were keen to capitalise on. It was also a time when the Ikhwan itself had renewed vigour and when Mustafa Mashour was trying to activate his international tanzeem in Europe in particular.

  The main figures driving this new union in France were two students, the Tunisian Abdallah Ben Mansour and the Iraqi nuclear scientist Mahmoud Zouheir, who were both based in Meurthe-et-Moselle in northeast France. In spite of the Iraqi presence through Zouheir and the continued influence of al-Mawlawi, who remained the group’s spiritual guide
, the main group of activists in the new union were the Tunisians who had formed the core of the GIF. Their primary aim at this time was to forge an Islamic consciousness among Muslim communities in France. There was little real sense of the need to integrate into the host society at this point, and key figures within the Islamic movement were explicit in their aspirations to establish an Islamic state. In 1984 al-Mawlawi gave a lecture in a mosque on how to be a Muslim in France whilst at the same time pursuing one’s own jihad in order to bring down impious powers and establish an Islamic state.5

  There was also a distinct effort to encourage ‘wayward’ Muslims to turn away from the ‘dangers’ of corrupting French society and return to their faith. The association produced a magazine called Al-Haqq that carried articles and quizzes aimed at young Muslims in France. One such quiz, dated 2 April 1985, carried the question, ‘Define a kafir [heathen].’ The answer, which appeared in a later edition, was as follows: ‘There are three sorts of kafirs. 1. Those who are Christian, Jewish, Atheist, Buddhist. 2. Those who are part of an organisation other than Islam. 3. Those who do not accept Mohamed our Prophet as God’s messenger.’6 Clearly these Islamists were deeply anxious about their own communities being ‘corrupted’ by the hedonistic attractions of French life and they were content to promote a divisive message aimed at promoting separation from the host community.