Conflict between Islamist movements

Translation provided by Arabist.net:

War against the Muslim Brotherhood Divides the Gulf

Abdel Bari Atwan, al-Quds al-Arabi,

11 January 2013

 Whoever has been following the media in the Gulf – and the Saudi media in particular – has probably gotten a sense of the fierce campaign being waged against the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist currents more broadly, as well as the major preachers in the Gulf. Their influence has been on the rise recently thanks to social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and yet the dedicated security apparatuses of the various countries in the region have had a harder time controlling and blocking these outlets than they did with newspapers and websites. Dubai’s chief of police Lieut. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim pioneered this campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood and was one of the first to issue vehement warnings about the danger they represented, but many articles appearing in the Saudi and Emirati press have begun to follow in his wake. This is happening in such a way as to suggest that there are bodies high up in the state that would like to open up a front against them, whether in Egypt – where they are sitting at the threshold of power – or within the Gulf itself.

 This war against the Brotherhood, and perhaps later upon the Salafi currents, represents a break with the historical alliance that has existed between conservative Gulf regimes and these figures. This alliance ensured the stability of these regimes and helped combat all the leftist and nationalist ideas that constituted a threat to this stability in the eyes of the rulers. The question that is now on everyone’s mind is why has there been a sudden reversal of opinion in the Gulf against the Muslim Brotherhood ideology, when this ideology was embraced and supported over the past 80 years. In the aim of helping control Gulf youth, Muslim Brotherhood intellectuals and professors were even allowed take over the education sector, set curricula, and establish proselytizing and charitable associations, not just within Gulf countries but throughout the entire world.

 How did this relationship of warm, strategic friendship morph into a bitter fight – at least on one side, for now — between the ruling regimes in the Gulf and the Muslim Brotherhood? The response to these questions can be summed up in the following points:

• Governments in the Gulf have realized that the Muslim Brotherhood is a “global” movement governed by an international organization. This means that the loyalty of the organization is to the Supreme Guide in Egypt, and not to local authorities, not even to the head of the group in these countries.

• The Islamist Muslim Brotherhood has taken control of the process of forming the next generations by setting local curricula. This has led it to dominate the armies and security services, which has left it more prepared than ever to overthrow the ruling regimes and seize power. This is the main fear of the Gulf regimes

• With the liberal and leftist currents in Gulf countries weakened by decades of repression and persecution, the organized Islamist currents have become the leading candidates to launch Arab Spring revolutions for change in the countries of the Gulf.

• Religious and Brotherhood currents in particular enjoy a financial independence that sets them apart from the other currents, due to their intricate organizational networks and the fact that their backers possess considerable financial resources due to their control of large companies and financial institutions in Gulf countries especially. This has allowed them to combine political and economic power.

• Islamist movements enjoy significant support in popular milieus because their ideology centers on the Islamic faith. Their control over mosques — whether directly or indirectly — translates into five miniature daily meetings and one large weekly meeting every Friday.

• Non-jihadist Islamist movements – and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular – practice self-control and avoid any collision with the state. This explains the Brotherhood’s silence in Egypt concerning the attacks in which it has been targeted. It has kept calm and sent delegations to the Emirates to solve the arrests crisis through diplomatic means.It was no surprise that Saudi writers accused the Muslim Brotherhood of employing the "principle of taqiyya”[1] among its organizational practices.

  
  

  Gulf countries – to put it briefly – are worried about the MB’s control of Egypt, Tunisia and Sudan, and its attempts to gain power in Jordan, Yemen and Syria. This would leave the countries of the Gulf surrounded on all sides, and at risk of falling into the new orbit of the Muslim Brotherhood, in a sort of political “domino” effect.

More here.

Egypt: the role of the Muslim Brotherhood

This is too good not to cite.

From Brian's Coffeehouse:

The Muslim Brotherhood's support for democracy is not a momentary tactic, but has roots in its theological foundations. The group draws on the traditional of Islamic reformism associated with Jamal al-Din al-Afghani in the 19th century, which taught that instead of traditional Islamic jurisprudence, Muslims should rely on contemporary interpretation of the Qur'an and hadith. These modern interpretations can be harsh and puritanical, as well as liberal, and the Muslim Brotherhood has interpreted criminal law, for example, fairly literally. Politically, however, a key principle is "shura," or consultation, which at least since the Young Ottomans opposed to the Tanzimat reforms of the mid-1800's has for many carried connotations of democracy. Richard Mitchell, whose 1969 book on the Muslim Brotherhood remains a standard, explained it thus:

"'The nation,' 'the people,' in fact, are the source of all the ruler's authority: 'The nation alone is the source of power; bowing to its will is a religious obligation.' The ruler has no legal existence and deserves no loyalty except as 'he reflects the spirit of the society and is in harmony with its goals.' Banna described the relationship of ruler and ruled as a 'social contract' in which the ruler is defined as a 'trustee' and 'agent'...Since the ruler is the 'agent contracted for' by the nation, he is 'elected' by it."

Not all or even most of the specific systems of government proposed under this framework could be called "democratic," as many involve religious tests for office, limited electorates, and clerical councils with important powers, but the point I make is that for the Brotherhood, there is no break between advocating democracy and core political theory.

In the present context, I'm not even convinced that the Muslim Brotherhood wants to exercise power....

If there is a related concern going forward in Egypt, it does not involve the Muslim Brotherhood as an organization, but rather the generally illiberal impulses of Egyptian society. The specific form of Islamic Revivalism involving puritanical intolerant religious ideas has been growing steadily in Egypt for many years.... One factor seems to be returning guest workers from Wahhabi Saudi Arabia. Migration from conservative rural areas to the cities is also spreading that conservatism through urban society. ...

Most important, however, is the sudden upsurge of new, competing ideologies and paths to dignity and meaning in life. I don't have the materials at hand to provide concrete examples, but I was struck by the way in which the reasons many protesters gave for wanting to participate in the uprising paralleled those of people attending conservative shari'a classes at their local mosque. This passage by Mohammed Bamyeh is kind of what I mean:

"Third, remarkable was the virtual replacement of religious references by civic ethics that were presumed to be universal and self-evident. This development appears more surprising than in the case of Tunisia, since in Egypt the religious opposition had always been strong and reached virtually all sectors of life. The Muslim Brotherhood itself joined after the beginning of the protests, and like all other organized political forces in the country seemed taken aback by the developments and unable to direct them, as much as the government (along with its regional allies) sought to magnify its role.

"This, I think, is substantially connected to the two elements mentioned previously, spontaneity and marginality. Both of those processes entailed the politicization of otherwise unengaged segments, and also corresponded to broad demands that required no religious language in particular. In fact, religion appeared as an obstacle, especially in light of the recent sectarian tensions in Egypt, and it contradicted the emergent character of the Revolution as being above all dividing lines in society, including one’s religion or religiosity. Many people prayed in public, of course, but I never saw anyone being pressured or even asked to join them, in spite of the high spiritual overtones of an atmosphere saturated with high emotions and constantly supplied by stories of martyrdom, injustice, and violence.

"Like in the Tunisian Revolution, in Egypt the rebellion erupted as a sort of a collective moral earthquake—where the central demands were very basic, and clustered around the respect for the citizen, dignity, and the natural right to participate in the making of the system that ruled over the person. If those same principles had been expressed in religious language before, now they were expressed as is and without any mystification or need for divine authority to justify them. I saw the significance of this transformation when even Muslim Brotherhood participants chanted at some point with everyone else for a 'civic' (madaniyya) state—explicitly distinguished from two other possible alternatives: religious (diniyya) or military (askariyya) state."