The Muslim Brotherhood

by Alison Pargeter

  However, in spite of all its efforts to bring Muslims back to the straight path, until the end of the 1980s the UOIF was relatively marginal in the field of French Islam and had a very limited public voice. In particular it struggled to compete with the official Paris mosque, which was linked to the Algerian state and that dominated all alliances with the French government. However, one affair was to catapult the UOIF into the French limelight and allow it to garner grass roots support while the Paris mosque came to look like the staid voice of the establishment. This was the hijab (veil) affair of 1989.

  In October 1989 three schoolgirls were refused entry to their secondary school in Creil because they were wearing the hijab. The issue was soon settled when a local Tunisian association leader stepped in to mediate: it was agreed that the girls could wear the hijab in the corridors and during playtime but that they would have to remove their veils during lessons. Yet by this time the increasingly assertive UOIF had seen a golden opportunity to raise its profile and it waded into the debate. Abdallah Ben Mansour and Mokhtar Jaballah, a leader of the UOIF’s Paris branch, made a very public visit to the school to explain that Islam stipulated that women should be veiled. After this visit the girls broke their previous agreement and continued wearing the hijab in school, which prompted them to be excluded again. The UOIF’s intervention had essentially radicalised the whole affair; it was not long before demonstrations were taking place in the streets of Paris. In the eyes of many within the Muslim community, the UOIF with its public activism had outshone the mosque of Paris, which had deplored the demonstrations. On 21 November the temperature was raised even higher when the UOIF’s President, Ahmed Jaballah, wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister challenging the state and declaring that the Qur’an was explicit that it was the duty of all women to wear the veil.7

  The affair had allowed the UOIF to act as the defenders of the Muslim community on an issue that touched many immigrants and families of North African descent, who were struggling to come to terms with their identities as a minority community in an avowedly secular state. Indeed, the UOIF’s siding with the girls meant that ‘the organisation won both in terms of its social and media visibility. From this event the union experienced an exceptional growth.’8

  The veil affair marked a new consciousness in the UOIF of the role that they could play in shaping Islam within the French context rather than focusing their energies on struggles in their home countries. This was partly driven by the failure of the Tunisian Islamist opposition, which by the end of the 1990s had been stamped out by the Tunisian regime. Those running the UOIF were coming to understand that their main constituency was the young second- and third-generation immigrants, who required a different approach from the first-generation migrants who were less rooted in French society.

  At the annual UOIF congress in 1989 Sheikh Rashid al-Ghannouchi declared that France should no longer be considered as Dar al-Ahd (land of covenant) but instead as Dar al-Islam (land of Islam).9 This was a clear recognition of the fact that France was home to Muslims who were fully settled on French soil. These ideas had already been mooted by Faisal al-Mawlawi, who told a UOIF conference in 1986 that Western territories should be considered as Dar al-Dawa (land of dawa) and that the divisions between Dar al-Harb (land of war) and Dar al-Islam had no canonical basis but were simply an interpretation by Islamic scholars.10 However, al-Ghannouchi’s comments encapsulated a new way of thinking that asserted that Muslims must ‘overcome prejudices whilst maintaining the principles of Islam and trying to establish a sincere dialogue in order to achieve a sincere integration’.11 Within this same vein, in 1990 the UOIF changed its name to better reflect this reality, becoming the Union of Islamic Organisations of France rather than the Union of Islamic Organisations in France. In the same year they focused their annual Le Bourget gathering on ‘Muslims and Integration’.

  The UOIF began to focus its attentions on the student population and on the elite who could raise the banner of Islam inside France. This bid to appeal to the middle classes was typical of the Brotherhood, which had always drawn most of its support from this sector of society. Shortly afterwards the movement underwent another shift, as the more militant Tunisian leadership was edged out and a group of Moroccans took over stewardship of the organisation.

  The new leaders were Lhaj Thami Breeze, who became the President, and Fouad Alaoui, who became Secretary General. Both men had studied at Bordeaux, Breeze reading political science and Alaoui neuropsychology, and neither had any theological training. These two men, who still run the organisation today, took the UOIF down a decidedly moderate path, giving it a softer, more accommodationist image.

  According to some accounts, one of the reasons for this change in leadership was that at the time Tunisians involved in Islamist activism found it more difficult to obtain French nationality than their Moroccan counterparts.12 Yet whilst this factor may have played into the change of leadership, the takeover by the Moroccan group was more likely to be a reflection of the nationalistic in-fighting that has traditionally characterised such organisations.

  It is interesting to note that the UOIF has always been dominated by Tunisians and Moroccans despite the fact that the Algerians represent the most populous Muslim community in France. That is not to say that Algerians have not been involved in the UOIF or made up some of its grass roots organisations, but they have always had a limited impact on the organisation’s leadership. It is not entirely clear why this is the case, but it would seem to be linked to the fact that the Algerians became increasingly tied into the unfolding civil war inside Algeria during the 1990s. As such the Algerians were attracted to organisations such as the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) and the Fraternité Algérienne en France (FAF), which was essentially the French branch of the FIS who were fully engaged in events in the homeland. As UOIF representative in Marseille Mohsen N’Gazou explained, ‘The Algerian community saw some kind of hope in the FIS. We saw the opposite … The Algerians tried to build up a good picture of the FIS in the Union.’13 Indeed, as the 1990s developed and parts of the FIS became involved in violence against the Algerian state, there was a fear within the UOIF that it might be accused of supporting the FIS or of being linked to it in some way. However, in its bid to present itself as a broad-based movement the UOIF has had to make it look as though it is not purposefully excluding the Algerians. As a former French Interior Ministry official noted, ‘It is important for the UOIF to say there are Algerians in the organisation. So they put some Algerians in the office.’14

  The UOIF and the Ikhwan

  Unsurprisingly, the issue of the connections between the Ikhwan and the UOIF is a highly controversial one that tends to irritate the UOIF immensely. It seems to see its connection to the Brotherhood as some sort of unshakeable albatross. The UOIF leadership has repeatedly denied any formal association with the Ikhwan. Sheikh Ahmed Jaballah has categorically stated, ‘We have no formal relationship to the Ikhwan in Egypt.’15 Fouad Alaoui says: ‘We don’t have any organic link with this organisation [MB] … It is a movement among others. We respect it in the sense that it advocates a renewal and a modernist reading of Islam.’16 He also stated: ‘The UOIF has nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood.’17 The UOIF has taken the line that it falls broadly within the same reformist school as the Ikhwan and relies upon texts of key Ikhwani figures as Islamic references but it has no institutional linkage to the movement.

  This is not to say that the UOIF does not acknowledge its earlier links to the Brotherhood or the fact that it sought to model itself on the Egyptian branch. Breeze explained that at the time when the UOIF was set up: ‘We were students and we looked to Egypt at that time including for our understanding of how to apply the Ikhwan project in Europe and how to apply concepts.’18 French Islamic scholar Tareq Oubrou also explained that at that time ‘the books of Mohamed Ghazali, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and Sayyid Qutb were circulating on university campuses … The reading that for us most reconciled modernity and tradit
ion was that of the Muslim Brothers.’19 Mohsen N’Gazou, meanwhile, has stated, ‘We are ideologically Muslim Brothers.’20

  Following the same ideological path as the Ikhwan does not of course equate to being formally linked to the Brotherhood. However, the informal ties are apparent and many figures who have played a key role within the UOIF have been closely connected to or members of the Ikhwan. This includes not only Faisal al-Mawlawi, but also Rashid al-Ghannouchi and Mahfoud Nahnah. According to Moulay Abderrahmane Ghoul, the President of the Conseil Régional du Culte Musulman in Marseille, ‘Mahfoud Nahnah was very influential. He used to have a major influence and the UOIF had to consult with him.’21 This was reiterated by the former Mufti of Marseille, Soheib Bensheikh, who observed: ‘The UOIF has a connection with the Algerian Hamas. Sheikh Nahnah used to support the UOIF financially on very low levels.’22 Nahnah was also a member of the orientation council of Château-Chinon. According to Ghoul, Sheikh Abu Jarrah Sultani, Nahnah’s successor, also has close links to the UOIF: ‘When they decide on who is in their councils, Sultani has the final say in the union and they have to consult with him.’ Given that Ghoul is generally considered to be a representative of the Algerian state, this may be exaggerated. However, there are clearly very close links between the Algerian Ikhwani leaders and the UOIF. In addition, Ahmed Nachatt, one of the early leaders of the Union, was married to the daughter of Mustafa Mashour. Yusuf al-Qaradawi has also been closely linked to the UOIF. Although al-Qaradawi is not part of the Brotherhood, he is generally considered to be the most influential proponent of the Ikhwani way of thinking. All of these figures have been in regular attendance at the UOIF’s annual Le Bourget gathering over many years.

  As such, the UOIF is totally rooted in the Ikhwan tradition. However, figures such as Breeze have asserted that whilst the UOIF looked to the Brotherhood for inspiration in the early days, it soon came to realise that it needed a different kind of approach in order to survive in the French context. Breeze pinpoints this new understanding to the time when it renamed the UOIF, explaining, ‘The Brotherhood and the community started looking at things differently. We realised that we couldn’t just bring ideas and thoughts to Europe.’23 He also stated that whilst the UOIF agreed with the Ikhwan’s general approach, it disagreed with some of the Brotherhood’s basic goals and objectives. ‘We are not thinking of setting up an Islamic society, we are not thinking of an Islamic government … We think as individuals, not as a collective. We cannot be an alternative to the state.’24 As Breeze also described, ‘The doctrine of the Muslim Brothers is certainly valuable in the field of Islam.’

  He went on to explain that they didn’t want to ‘reproduce their objectives or their methods here without reflecting a different reality’.25 Sheikh Ahmed Jaballah also supported this stance, noting, ‘We don’t want to be under the influence of Arab countries.’26 However, he is famously alleged to have declared, ‘The Qur’an is our constitution’ during the UOIF’s annual Le Bourget meeting of 2002.27

  As such the UOIF represents perhaps the first evolution of the Ikhwan into an organisation that could sit relatively comfortably within Western society. However, the organisation faces the same problem as all Islamist organisations operating in the West, namely how to deal with being a minority community in a secular state. The UOIF is fully aware, for example, that it cannot maintain the same platform as its Middle Eastern counterparts if it is to play a political role in European countries. For this reason, the UOIF insisted that its members could not also be members of other political organisations at the same time. The UOIF reportedly told Tunisians from An-Nahda (formerly MTI), that they had to choose ‘whether to focus on Tunisian politics or whether to move on’.28 Likewise, the UOIF is alleged to have made it clear that if al-Mawlawi was to be their leader, he would need to cut his relations with the Ikhwan.29

  However, others within the Islamic community in France remained less convinced by this separation. Former UOIF member Dhaou Meskine declared to the French media, ‘The UOIF is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Why are those in charge ashamed of saying so?’30 He has also argued that in its quest for respectability the UOIF has masked its true identity. Similarly Sheikh Abdelhadi, a prominent Salafist imam at the Sunna mosque in Marseille, has roundly condemned the UOIF, stating, ‘They are hypocrites. In front of the government they pretend they are not brothers but in the mosques they call upon the Ikhwan in their methods.’31 He also asserts that they ‘use these methods to gain power’.32 Abdelhadi categorically states, ‘Jaballah is a Muslim Brother. He goes to Saudi Arabia to get money.’33 Clearly this is the view of someone who considers the Ikhwan as competition, yet there is much suspicion about the UOIF’s links to the Brotherhood within the Islamist community at large. One former UOIF member also complained that having publicly linked the UOIF and the Brotherhood he paid a heavy price, suffering attacks in the media and having his financial flows cut.34

  In some cases, the UOIF’s policies have seemingly been very much influenced by Cairo. One former senior French Interior Ministry official recounted how the UOIF sought at one point to withdraw from the Conseil Français du Culte Musulman (CFCM), a consultation body set up in 2003 and tasked with defending the dignity and interests of the Muslim faith in France.35 Alarmed at the UOIF’s threat to pull out of the consultation process, the frustrated official allegedly complained to the then Murshid Maimoun al-Hodeibi. Al-Hodeibi reportedly told the official that the UOIF was free to do what it pleased, but mentioned that he would speak to Breeze. Shortly afterwards, the UOIF announced that it would be staying in the consultation process after all. This anecdote is clearly not sufficient basis upon which to claim that the UOIF is steered in some way by the Ikhwan in Cairo. However, it does reveal the importance of personal contacts and informal hierarchy in its relationship to the Brotherhood. Fouad Alaoui has admitted that he met regularly with the late Dr Hassan al-Huwaidi, the Deputy to the Murshid. Another UOIF member has also admitted, ‘Once or twice a year we have meetings with the international tanzeem – with Islamists from Turkey, Pakistan, with Sufists in West Africa.’36

  In spite of its initial threat to withdraw, the UOIF’s membership of the CFCM became an important opportunity for it to make contacts with the French state and to act as stakeholders and representatives of the Muslim community in France. Yet this reconciliatory stance had the drawback of alienating the UOIF somewhat from its own constituencies. It was heavily criticised by other Islamic groups for selling out and forgetting the interests of Muslims. Perhaps no affair illustrated this more than the renewed saga of the hijab, which flared up again in 2004 when French MPs voted to ban all overt religious symbols, including the Islamic veil, from state schools. Unlike in 1989 when the UOIF jumped in and stoked up the situation, this time the leadership took a far more subtle approach, aware that its image was at stake and that its response would be heavily scrutinised in the post 9/11 Western obsession with ‘moderate Islam’. As Breeze noted at the time, ‘We do not want to provoke the French government so as not to lose the gains we made over the past few years.’37

  Although the UOIF leadership initially encouraged street demonstrations, they made it clear that they did not want to create any trouble for the French state. They urged people not to engage in violence and made a series of accommodationist statements. Breeze said: ‘We just do not want protestors to use slogans that are antagonistic to France, a country where Muslims also have the liberty to perform their prayers in mosques. The veil ban, after all, is only restricted to state schools and Muslim women are still free to wear it in public.’38 He also explained, ‘We are not telling Muslim girls to take off the hijab. We are saying they should go to school and not wear a veil which is a distinctive sign of their religion.’39 Fouad Alaoui also made an appeal to young French women, declaring, ‘They should make their schooling a priority.’40 Yet in spite of all its efforts the UOIF had the rug pulled from under its feet by the French government. In 2003 whilst all the public debates were
raging, the then Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy travelled to Cairo to meet with Sheikh Tantawi of Al-Azhar. He obtained a fatwa which ruled that Islamic headscarves were not obligatory if prohibited by a national law. Clearly this move left the UOIF and other Islamic organisations in France feeling as though they had been completely bypassed and snubbed by the same government that had courted them for membership of its CFCM.

  For an issue that had provoked so much anger and frustration, not only in France but among Muslims the world over, the UOIF’s approach was extraordinarily low key. Many believed that this should be its time to lead the way in fighting what was widely considered in Islamic circles to be an alarmist and Islamophobic gesture. Yamin Makri, the head of the more radical Collectif des Musulmans de France, criticised the UOIF for compromising and thereby losing legitimacy among young Muslims.41 Makri also laid into the UOIF for betting its hopes on institutional acknowledgement and for becoming conservative and biased.42 Yet the UOIF was clear that it did not want to lose the gains it had made in the French political sphere. As Breeze explained, ‘We are willing to lose the battle of the hijab but not France.’43

  As such, it would appear that the UOIF has prioritised politics over core religious values as a means of maintaining international respectability – arguably a risky strategy that has the potential to alienate key elements within its support base. This is an issue that many parts of the Brotherhood have struggled with over recent years, from the Syrians to the Egyptians to those in Europe. However, the Ikhwani in Europe are in a somewhat easier position than their counterparts in the Arab world in this respect. This is because their constituencies are very small and they are aware that they are in no position to become an alternative to the state. As such they have much less to lose.