History Of The Muslim Brotherhood In Egypt

From the establishment in 1928, Muslim Brotherhood has been up and down for many times, and its’relations with Egyptian government also undergone with so much difficulty and complexity. The Brotherhood has suffered more than 5 huge repressions from Farouk, Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak, but still stand up in the land of Egypt till now. After the Arab Spring sweeping the Middle East and Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood moved towards the position of the ruling party, by democratic elections. But just one year after, in July 32013, Egypt military under the leadership of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi staged a coup to overthrow the Morsi government, which been regarded as Brotherhood’s government. And thereby, new round of repression has come down to Muslim brothers. Why did Muslim Brotherhood so suddenly up and fall down? what were the key factors concerned to its success and following failure? Furthermore, how did Muslim Brotherhood act in the politics and society of Egypt in his 87 years history? And what’s the appearance of its character, position and affection?This research is based on the Muslim Brotherhood’s own logic of historical development, and give a glance on its relationship between Egyptian politics and society. With the analyzing of its organization, political behavior, ideology and political status, we will recognize the role, character, position and affection of Muslim brotherhood involved in Egypt’s politics and society.From the historical logic of Muslim Brotherhood itself, its 87-year history can be divided into four periods:Hassan Banna period from 1928 to 1949, The transition period and Hansan al-Hudaybi period from 1949 to 1973, "Prison generation" period (transition period) from 1973 to 2004, and the fourth period from 2004 till now.Different periods, Muslim Brotherhood’s forms of organization, political thought and ideology vary greatly. Before 1938, Muslim Brotherhood is totally a social organization whose goal is not to participate in politics, but rather to focus on the social rehabilitation of Islam. Since 1938, the Brothers began to aggressively get involved in Egyptian politics, anti-British struggle and the Palestinian cause. The next ten years, Muslim Brotherhood obtained a tripartite balance with Egypt feudal forces and the Waft Party which be viewed as the representative of nationalist forces. Mainly because the expanding of social basis, Muslim Brotherhood could be able to have a foothold in the Egyptian politics, and its ideology, such as anti-Western cultural hegemony, reviving Islamic values and transforming Islamic society, attracted waves of Muslim believers.The rapid expansion of Muslim Brotherhood’s organization, also thanks to its lean and efficient organization system, in which the General Council and Consultative Assembly overall planning the whole Egypt affairs, the Technical Operation and Field Apparatus treat technical and regional affairs, and at the grassroots level the "family" has made place for brothers to gathering, learning ideology, and organizing activities. Affected by the personal authority of Hassan al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood’s early ideology acted as between nonviolence and violence.Violence was considered to be one of the reasonable means to against the British colonialists, Israel and the Government of Egypt, and the violence section Special Affairs Department (SAD) is responsible directly to the General Guide.At the end of 1948, Muslim Brotherhood involved in a violent struggle with the government, creating a prime minister’s assassination, "Nuqrashi case". Subsequently, Hassan al-Banna was assassinated by government agents. His death, made Brotherhood fall into the transition period, and must to deal with all sorts of problems from inside and outside. However, with Nahas and the Waft party came to power again, the Muslim brothers fortunately ride out of the political whirlpool. Subsequently, Hansan al-Hudaybi been elected as the second General Guide. He was committed to changing the face of violence of the organization, but just started with little success. After the Egyptian revolution of 1952 by the Free Officers Movement, Muslim brotherhood first collaborate with the revolutionary government, but finally to fight. October 26,1954, an assassination of Nasser happened in Alexandria, then the government launched a large-scale crackdown towards Muslim brotherhood, which to be a turning point for the relations between Muslim brothers and the government. Hudaybi period, Muslim Brothers spent most of the time in prison, their organizational activities stagnated. In Liman al-Turra Prison, Muslim brothers split because of ideology, a group of people who believe Sayyid Qutb’s radicalism and jihadist ideology detached out from the main body of Muslim Brotherhood, evolved into extremist fundamentalist forces. At the same time, the main body began to move forward in big strides towards moderation in Hudaybi’s lead.After Sadat amnesty in 1971 to 1973, Muslim Brotherhood began to fully recover, the relationship with the government basically followed the "competitive cooperation" mode. For the purpose to against Nasserism, Sadat allowed Muslim Brotherhood to restricted participate in politics. In this Period, the ideology and political thought became almost completely moderated. The "Prison generation" period gone through four General Guide, all of them were jailed in prison in 1950’s and 1960’s. From 1970’s, a large number of Islamic student organizations members (Jama’at) have been absorbed into the Muslim Brotherhood, forming a unique "middle generation". Meanwhile, the Muslim brothers began to foray into the electoral politics and the professional Associations in Egypt, got a big success, made Muslim Brotherhood became the strongest organizations in the Egyptian society and the largest political opposition. With the 1980’s and 1990’s popular Islamic ideological trend "Wasatiyya", Muslim Brotherhood began to focus on the adaptability of Islam, Sharia and democracy, which led to the al-Wasat party crisis in 1996. With Mamun al-Hudaybi’s death in 2004, the old "Prison generation" leaders died out, and internal divisions and power struggles began to appear.Since 2000, with Hosni Mubarak’s son, Gamal Mubarak, jumped into the political arena and quickly promotion, Mubarak’s regime fallen into an internal "power succession crisis" quagmire. Power succession crisis had shaken the Mubarak regime’s corporatism-pluralism strategy, which led to the defection of the military in the Egyptian revolution of 2011, and ultimately led to the collapse of the Mubarak regime. In the power succession crisis and January 25 revolution, Muslim Brotherhood even participated, but remained self-restraint, until the Egyptian People’s Assembly elections form November 2011 to January 2012. Great success in the parliamentary elections prompted Muslim brothers to adopt a more proactive approach, which means choosing a candidate to attend the presidential election, and finally Morsi successfully been elected as new president of Egypt. Seized the opportunity, step by step toward power, Muslim Brotherhood completed the transition from opposition to the ruling party. The solid social foundation and flexible political participation strategy is the key to the success of Muslim Brotherhood.From July 2012 to July 2013, Morsi just ruled only one year, then suffered a large-scale public protests, and deposed by the military three days later. The reason was complicated. Overall, the political culture in Egypt that military elites take control of the country, cognitive differences between Islamist and Secularist, power disputes between various parties, difficult to alleviate the economic plight, were main reasons that caused another "revolution".After the fall of Morsi, Muslim brothers faced another round of government repression. But viewed the historical experience, repression can not completely eliminate Muslim Brotherhood’s social basis and political influence. Furthermore, the Government’s aim does not seem to completely shattered Muslim brotherhood’s organization, but to limit the political ambitions of them. The future prospects and political status of Muslim Brotherhood will depend on the attitude of the Egyptian government and the regional environment.