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July 14, 2006

Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Members Arrested

News from AKI states that police in Egypt have arrested eight members of the officially banned but practically tolerated group, the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwanu I-Muslimin or Hizb al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimoon).

The arrests came following a raid on a building in the suburbs of Cairo yesterday. Egyptian news agency Mena claims that the members were involved in the economic management of cells of the Muslim Brotherhood. When arrested, they had been having a meeting to discuss funding. The head administrator of the Brotherhood's financial resources was amongst the eight arrested.

Though banned as a political party, and prevented from fielding any official candidates in last year's elections, the Islamist group nonetheless claims 88 members of parliament. These had stood in the September elections as "independents".

Curently there are more than 500 Muslim Brotherhood members in Egyptian prisons. Few of these ever receive a trial.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded by a young schoolteacher, Hassan al-Banna, the grandfather of Tariq Ramadan. When the group was started in 1928, it was more of a youth organisation, giving Islamic encouragement to the young in Egypt. The message of al-Banna was based on the uncompromising tenets of Wahhabism. Later, the group became more political.

But Hassan al-Banna was never a "moderate" in the sense we like to imagine. He stated: "It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated; to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet."

Hassan Al-Banna was killed by Egyptian government agents in Cairo in February, 1949

Under the policies and ideologies of Sayyid Qutb (1906 to 1966), it began to advocate armed terrorism from the late 1950s to 1960s. Qutb (pictured behind bars) had worked in Egypt's Education Ministry. He had been a supporter of the US, but after visiting from 1948 to 1951, he was shocked. It is said that he gained his epiphany while being horrified to see men and women dancing together.
"They danced to the tunes of the gramophone, and the dance floor was replete with tapping feet, enticing legs, arms wrapped around waists, lips pressed to lips, and chests pressed to chests. The atmosphere was full of desire..."

His derogatory views on the American woman were scandalous in their barely disguised lust: "The American girl is well acquainted with her body's seductive capacity. She knows it lies in the face, and in expressive eyes, and thirsty lips. She knows seductiveness lies in the round breasts, the full buttocks, and in the shapely thighs, sleek legs - and she shows all this and does not hide it."

He viewed America as governed by primitivism and greed, even seeing green lawns as a sign of greed. In his book, "The America I have Seen", he later wrote: "This primitiveness can be seen in the spectacle of the fans as they follow a game of football... or watch boxing matches or bloody, monstrous wrestling matches... This spectacle leaves no room for doubt as to the primitiveness of the feelings of those who are enamored with muscular strength and desire it."

Upon his return from America, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood and within a year headed its propaganda department. Qutb was an ardent Salafist, and had many periods in prison in Egypt under the dictator Nasser, where he was apparently tortured. He was executed in 1966.

Qutb's final book, Milestones on the Road (Ma'alim fi'l-Tariq), is seen still as a guidebook to political jihad, as it views the Koran as a manual for revolution. His influence has spread far beyond Egypt and influences Salafists and jihadists today.

The Muslim Brotherhood had been banned and unbanned in Egypt on several occasions. It was made legal in 1948, but banned again in 1954 when it insisted that Egypt should be governed by Sharia law.

In 1954, an activist from the group, Abdul Munim Abdul Rauf, tried to assassinate Nasser, and was executed. Thousands of Brotherhood members were imprisoned, and many fled to neighbouring countries, taking their ideology with them. In 1966, Nasser granted an amnesty to the Brotherhood, and most were freed from jail. There followed three more assassination attempts on his life, and the leaders of the group, including Sayyid Qutb, were hanged.

The group has been active in other countries, particularly Sudan, where Hassan al-Turabi was a former leader, and it has even tried to gain a foothold in Europe.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at July 14, 2006 8:30 AM

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