Muslim Brotherhood

Even after extensive research, Carrie Rosefsky Wickham hasn’t quite cracked Egypt’s secretive Muslim Brotherhood . But the TLS reviewer gives enough to leave us worried.

The Brotherhood’s emphasis on the status and dignity of Muslims alone was a break with Egyptian nationalism’s pluralist tradition: other parties had prominent Christian and Jewish members. The Brotherhood was also different because it sought not Egyptian independence but the restoration of the Islamic caliphate over all land historically ruled by Muslims, including parts of Italy and Spain; Egypt would be only a province of this great empire.”

Coptic Christians are a particular target:

The review cites Michael Burleigh, who recently “described Brotherhood members as ‘adepts of a totalitarian sect’ who have poured out hatred against Christians, Jews and Shi’a Muslims, and during their period in power dismissed fifty newspaper editors and 3,500 judges in an effort to build a tyranny made all the more fearsome by their claim to religious, as well as secular, authority. Their earlier periods in the sun – under Anwar al-Sadat in the 1970s, for instance – spelt bad news for liberals and minorities.” One of the earlier “Supreme Guides” of the Brotherhood said that “Coptic citizens should be barred from top positions in the army to ensure complete loyalty in confronting hostile Christian states.”

And the fact that the Brotherhood has lost power in Egypt doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant: “its affiliates have run Sudan for over twenty years, are in the governing coalition of Tunisia, rule Gaza, form the second largest party in Libya’s Parliament, are a major player in the Syrian rebellion and pose more or less of a challenge to a number of other Arab governments.”