Who are the Muslim Brotherhood?

The Society of the Muslim Brothers (often simply الإخوان Al-Ikhwān, The Brotherhood or MB) is an Islamist transnational movement and the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. The group is the world’s oldest and largest Islamic political group, and the “world’s most influential Islamist movement.” The Brotherhood has as its slogan Islam is the solution. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna.

I think they have the capacity to be dangerous to others but I’m only speculating on that. The Wikipedia article says they officially oppose violent means to achieve their goals. Whether this is altogether true or not, I have no idea.

Without them, and the late Sayyid Qutb, there probably would not be an Al Quaida today. If you are a Westerner, they are a problem.

They are analogous, parallel, and polarized to the Tea Party movement, only located primarily in the Middle East. They have similar goals to what one might call “radical Islam” but use democracy rather than terrorism to achieve their goals.

Egypt is a Muslim country, that is indisputable, if Egypt chooses the Muslim Brotherhood as their majority political representation, in open election, so be it, if the Muslim Brotherhood don’t act in the interests of the people, then they vote them out, they should at least be held accountable. The main thing is Democracy wins, not The Muslim Brotherhood or any other faction. But yes, they will strongly support the Palestinian people and yes they will promote Sharia. Will they conform to Western preconceptions and prejudices? who knows, but i’m guessing there’s a better than average possibility they will resort to desperate measures if they are denied their political rights by foreign subversive elements.

It is a worldwide movement to end the separation of “church” and state, and for that reason, very disturbing, considering the Muslim numbers worldwide.

Muslim Brotherhood in not a threat in Egypt. There is some hot air about them though.

The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamist organisation that wants to create a state governed by Islamic law. They reject the use of violence and support democratic principles. Six years ago independent candidates allied to the Muslim Brotherhood won 20% of the seats. Mubarak subsequently launched a crackdown detaining hundreds of members and introducing anti terrorism legislation that gave the security forces sweeping powers to detain suspects and restrict public gatherings. In the November 2010 parliamentary elections they failed to win a single seat. The repression of the opposition was one of the main reasons for the mass anti government protests that are continuing today.

The leadership want a civil state, based on Islamic principles. A democratic state, with a parliamentary system, with freedom to form parties, press freedom and an independent and fair judiciary and there is a lot of popular support for this.

@cockswain here’s some info if you have time.

http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/testimony/353.pdf

@cockswain Great question. Thanks for asking this, as I have been wondering the same thing. @everephebe I would love to believe you are right, as it looks as if they are positioned to win substantial influence in any upcoming elections in Egypt. Can you share where your trust in them comes from?

@bkcunningham I think that a good deal of what we know about the organization today comes from Mubarak and his security operation, which had the sole interest of keeping him and his descendants in perpetual power in Egypt, able to siphon off more and more wealth through their corruption. The Muslim Brotherhood was the most significant threat to his personal ambitions, and thus had to be demonized.

Because our knowledge of them is so polluted by suspect sources of intelligence, I have to agree with @mammal, It looks as if Egypt will become a democracy and the people will decide who will represent them. Since the group long since forswore violence as a means to achieving their ends, let’s see what they do. We haven’t many attractive alternatives. Imagine the hypocrisy of invading Egypt to overthrow a popularly elected Muslim Brotherhood under the pretext of bringing democracy to the people.

@ETpro my source is video from Egypt of women saying that they wanted to be doctors and scientists; and their general longstanding view of education is encouraging. Yeah 90%ish of Egypt is Muslim but, they’re pretty moderate it seems. I don’t know I watched a few minutes of news and relied on my spidey-sense. Visceral/gut reaction… it’s gonna be ok in Egypt.

@everephebe Thanks. I appreciate the added context.

Their moderates are radicals in disguise.

This organization is extremely dangerous. Their ideology can be summarized with one word: intolerance

It was mainly influenced by Sayyid Qutb who became an extremist when living in the United States from 1949 – 1951. He began to hate everything that differed from his ultraorthodox version of Islam. Bin Laden views himself as an intellectual descendant of Qutb.

The Brotherhood is popular in Egypt, not because of their ideology of hatred, but because of their social efforts which includes free treatment at their hospitals.

@mattbrowne that was when the Brotherhood fell victim to Soviet, European and US power struggles. Marginalized groups tend to react rather unseemly when under threat of extermination, especially when belonging to a globally established religious institution. You seem almost disappointed that they weren’t hunted to extinction like the Dodo. Perhaps they should abandon their core values and live as Muslims by name only, and prostitute their people and their country to Western Neo-liberalism.

There are all kinds of intolerance going on here, i’ll grant you that, specifically the intolerance to anything other than total Western Economic exploitation and Hegemony. That’s really where the lions share of the intolerance is.

@mammal Well said. That same thought had crossed my mind.

@flutherother a state that enforces sharia law will never be democratic.

@anartist All free states enforce laws according to the will of the majority. What else is democracy?

@flutherother that is why America isn’t a democracy.

@bkcunningham That’s not true the U.S.A. is a democracy, it enforces laws according to the will of the majority…. of course the majority we are talking about is who has the most cash. It’s a capitalist society the U.S.

@mammal: Mistakes and intolerance elsewhere in the world doesn’t make Islamist intolerance any better. All tolerant people in the world should unite to create a better world, a world without intolerance appreciating diversity. The majority of the Egyptian demonstrators are tolerant and I fully support their cause. Today, Mubarak fled Cairo and I hope he’ll never get back. Years ago my wife and I visited Egypt and we met wonderful people.

@everephebe we are a republic in America. We don’t have majority rule. We have a representative form of government.

@bkcunningham ”It is a constitutional republic and representative democracy.” This hair splitting is hurting my head, now I’m more confused. See also. You’re right and I’m right… I think.

@everephebe I meant no disrespect in correcting you. It isn’t hairsplitting. The definition of the word democracy is very important in this discussion. Egypt had a constitutional monarchy from 1922 until the Free Officers coup of 1952. It looked like a democracy. Landowners were disproportionately represented in the government.

Now surveys show that some 60 percent of the Egyptian population identify themselves with the religous right. Egyptian voters are many times controlled by clans or they are bought. What definition of democracy are Egyptians using? Will the Coptic Christian population and other minorities be represented? It is very complex.

One more thing about Egypt being a colony: A lot of bad things happened but some were also good. Napoleon introduced progress in 1798 when Egypt was still a 13th century level country. And so did the British who got there later. Hospitals. More efficient administration. Schools etc.

@bkcunningham I was referring to the definitions themselves as hairsplitting, not just to your comment. I think democracy works as a blanket term for many forms of government including republics. My first post was more humorous in tone then I am guessing read it as. I hope you went to the links in my previous post, all four of them.

@bkcunningham, Site your surveys. In the U.S. 76 – 78.4% of Americans are Christian. Now that’s only like 12–15% less than Egypt’s Muslim demographic. Why aren’t you more worried over your own domestic religious right? I don’t like seeing either country taken over by religious fanatics. The politics in Egypt are Egyptian, and while they have repercussions for the US and the rest of the world, that’s not what up here. People aren’t rioting so that the Muslim Brotherhood can take over and then start killing people who love “freedom”. They’re fighting for their right to choose crumby leaders. Amen. Maybe it won’t work, maybe they’ll get a shitty government that isn’t truly democratic, but this isn’t a conspiracy for the Muslim Brotherhood to start getting power and then kill Americans.

Now, @mattbrowne and I have disagreed tremendously regarding what I consider to be a damaging focus on “Islamism”. However, I think that the criticism of his comments here may be unwarranted. His comments have been directly related to individual actors and a specific group (the Muslim Brotherhood), and that can’t be extrapolated (or at least shouldn’t be) to a commentary on all Islam or even the extremist versions of it.

I was gonna ask this yesterday as well, thanks for doing it for me haha. I just heard the president resigned not long ago (not sure what time exactly), so who knows what the future for Egypt will entail. But a takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood sounds extremely disturbing.

@iamthemob – How about celebrating today, my friend?

http://www.fluther.com/112304/yay-we-are-witnessing-a-historic-moment-in-egypt-and/

To me what is happening right now almost feels like when people were dancing on the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 !

@everephebe I think you are misunderstanding the facts. Sixty percent of Egypt’s population isn’t members of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is their influence in the region. And I’m not worreid about America’s Christian right because they aren’t committed to a Holy War and striving for the will of Allah.

Survey from World Politics: http://www.stanford.edu/~blaydes/Women.pdf

Article discussing some of the findings in regard to Egypt:
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/february/egypt-experts-panel-020911.html

@bkcunningham When did I say 60% of Egypt’s population was Muslim Brotherhood????

@iamthemob – I think we both agree that we can’t tolerate intolerance, whether it’s the intolerant ultra-conservative Christian Right movement in the US or the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world.

“In a 2008 interview Muslim Brotherhood Executive Bureau member Mahmoud Ghozlan emphasized that homosexuality needed to be outlawed.

He also insisted that ‘women and non-Muslims don’t have the right to lead or govern Muslim states,’ echoing the sharia-based gender segregation in all sectors of life called for by Muslim Brotherhood founder al-Banna.”

http://www.progressivefix.com/nine-questions-about-the-muslim-brotherhood

@mattbrowne I think if they advance an agenda like that, they are going to find it difficult to draw wide support in Egypt.

I am intolerant of intolerance of intolerance.

I am keeping my attention focused on what is happening in Egypt now. It isn’t like everything is peaches and cream in Egypt just because Mubarak is gone. Egypt’s Armed Forces Supreme Council now includes a Muslim Brotherhood lawmaker who will assist in amending the constitution.

@flutherother – Huh?

@bkcunningham – A new constitution or a change to it must be supported by a majority of voters, typically 66% or even 75%. Which means that dark-ages sharia laws don’t have a chance of becoming part of it even if this Muslim Brotherhood lawmaker is in favor of it. For the same reason the Christian Right US can’t outlaw homosexuality in the US, right?

@mattbrowne There is tolerance and there is intolerance and I favour the former.

@flutherother – You tolerate Nazism?

@mattbrowne No, my family fought against the Nazis and so would I. Their actions and their conduct were criminal and had to be stopped. There are things that cannot be tolerated.

@flutherother – That’s what I meant when I talked about intolerance of intolerance.

Maybe we can use

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights

as the framework. Intolerance begins when some of these rights are being denied, for example no education for girls or prison sentences because of homosexuality.