Inside the Brotherhood

Hazem Kandil

• Editorial: Polity
• Año: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780745682952
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Sozialwissenschaften
• Categoría: Soziologie

This is the first in-depth study of the relationship between the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and its own members. Drawing on years of participant observation, extensive interviews, previously inaccessible organizational documents, and dozens of memoirs and writings, the book provides an intimate portrayal of the recruitment and socialization of Brothers, the evolution of their intricate social networks, and the construction of the peculiar ideology that shapes their everyday practices. Drawing on his original research, Kandil reinterprets the Brotherhood's slow rise and rapid downfall from power in Egypt, and compares it to the Islamist subsidiaries it created and the varieties it inspired around the world.

This timely book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the politics of the Middle East and to anyone who wants to understand the dramatic events unfolding in Egypt and elsewhere in the wake of the Arab uprisings.

1
Cultivating the Brother

One cannot choose to join the Muslim Brotherhood; one has to be chosen. Fayez, a lawyer who was recruited in his village mosque when he was only 11, said he did not remember embracing the Brotherhood like one would embrace an intellectual faction or a political party. It was the movement that decided (2013: 12). Mahmoud (2013), a hot-blooded Alexandrian journalist who had dwelt in Brotherhood circles since he was five, remarked with some amusement: “I was actually born to find myself a Brother.” And even though Rida (2013), a shopkeeper and lifelong Cairo resident, made it to the ranks a bit later (at elementary school), he did not remember making a conscious decision to join: “You simply slid in.”

Brothers constantly vet relatives, neighbors, colleagues, and – the most yielding pool – mosque attendees¹ for potential recruits. Candidates pass through an average three-year probation period, typically without their knowledge, before being invited to join. They are encouraged to pray regularly at the mosque and participate in its activities, especially Qur'an-reading groups (maqari'). They are also advised to limit their interaction to pious individuals of their own age and gender. After this exceptionally long screening period, nominees are finally informed that they are being considered for Brotherhood membership. Only a tiny fraction refuses to play along after this extended courtship. And in that case, they are asked to support the cause without official membership. As for the willing majority, the recruitment process concludes with invitations to Brotherhood day-trips and informal gatherings for inspection by more experienced eyes. Those who receive the stamp of approval are designated as devotees (muhibin) and assigned to apprentice groups to test their diligence and familiarize them with the organization. Successful devotees are next enrolled on a grueling three-month induction course (dawrat tas'id), which provides a brief introduction to the founding history of Islam and Islamism, followed by qualifying exams (mostly in the form of questionnaires). If all goes well, devotees are asked to swear an oath of allegiance (bai'a) to the general guide (al-Murshid al-‘Am) – an oath historically reserved for caliphs, but temporarily appropriated by Brothers as the provisional leaders of the community of the faithful until a new caliphate is established. This intensely ritualized oath transforms a devotee into a Brother.

Still, elevation to entry-level membership is only the first step in another long journey through the five ranks of membership.² Promotion from novice to full member is subject to a complicated set of monitoring mechanisms centered on the process referred to as cultivation (tarbiya). When ‘Umar al-Telmesani, the third general guide (1974–86), was invited to join the organization in 1933, his recruiters were curious to know how he spent his spare time. “I breed chicks,” he replied. His recruiters smiled knowingly and retorted: “There are creatures more in need of breeding than chicks … There are Muslims who have turned away from their religion” (Telmesani 2008: 56). One of the first lessons imprinted on the mind of Muhammad Habib, who joined in 1969 and rose to become the general guide's first deputy (until 2009), was that cultivating the right type of Muslim is what will eventually bring Brothers to power (2012: 115). It is no coincidence that the Brotherhood's first and second founders, Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb, were educated at the Cairo Teachers' College and graduated as primary schoolteachers. In their writings, cultivation is treated more meticulously than anything else. For while this process might strike the casual observer as simple indoctrination with a religious flavor, it is actually an elaborate activity that borrows from at least four different schools: it instills a transformative worldview in the minds of members, as communists do; it claims that converting into this worldview is contingent upon a spiritual conversion, as in mystic orders; it presents this worldview as simple, uncorrupted religion, as in puritan movements; and it insists that this worldview cannot be readily communicated to society because it is not yet ready to handle the truth of the human condition, as in Masonic lodges. The ultimate aim, therefore, is not to win over more believers, but to produce a new kind of person: the Muslim Brother. This is a person striving for a new world through a spiritual struggle that reproduces the experience of early Muslims.

Practically speaking, cultivating requires frequent group meetings in which an experienced prefect (naqib) guides members through a detailed cultivation curriculum (manhaj tarbiya) under the careful gaze of the cultivation committee, and with regular intervention from higher administrative circles. Initially, Brothers attended a cultivating school, which opened its doors in 1928 with 70 students. As members multiplied, Banna organized them into small study groups. Brothers were now expected to meet on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and biannual basis – though security restrictions sometimes disrupted this ambitious schedule. The nuclear group, the family (usra),ⁱ is composed of five to ten Brothers who meet every week (usually on Tuesdays) in the house of one of the members. With the prefect acting as moderator, Brothers share personal and professional concerns, worship and dine together, recite and comment on devotional readings from Qur'an and Prophetic pronouncements (hadith), and discuss the writings of the movement's founders, and, less frequently, other Islamist authors. At the end of the meeting, leadership instructions are circulated and organizational tasks allotted. Every few meetings, the prefect administers a questionnaire designed to measure the spiritual condition and religious performance of family members, with questions varying from how many times a Brother missed dawn prayers at the mosque, to how he negotiated his way through various moral dilemmas.

The family is considered the Brotherhood's “cultivation uterus” and canonized by members as “the brilliant method that God has guided Banna towards” (Habib 2012: 117). In the “Order of Families” (“Nizam al-Usar”), the founder has in fact expounded at length the practical steps needed for Brothers to become familiar with one another (ta'aruf); come to understand each other (tafahum); and support one another (takaful). For example, he ordered Brothers to confess their sins to one another, so they could encourage each other to repent – an interesting combination of Catholicism and psychoanalytic therapy – and decreed that those who persist in their sinful ways for a whole month must be reported to the prefect (Banna [1949] 1993: 324). That being said, intimate family bonds are prevented from solidifying into narrow, clique-like attachments by the annual redistribution of members. So, while families remain essentially divided according to residence or occupation, members are reshuffled, making sure that a Brother does not report to the same prefect for more than four years in his organizational career (‘Eid 2013: 48).

At the same time, family members are incorporated into broader organizational networks. A cluster of families (varying in number according to region) forms a branch (shu'ba).³ Once a month (preferably on a Thursday), branch members (40 on average) participate in a ‘battalion training’ (katiba), which involves fasting until sunset; breaking fast over a communal banquet; attending inspirational lectures by movement doctrinaires throughout the evening; praying together until daybreak, before heading home. Banna described these larger meetings as the Brotherhood's “spiritual cultivation academies,” which synergize group energy to enhance each Brother's inner strength ([1949] 1993: 189). Every quarter, several branches come together in a weeklong camp (mu'askar) in some isolated location, where they add martial arts and athletic training to lectures and worship. Camps can take place anywhere from Brotherhood-owned apartment buildings to deserted public beaches. The important thing is that they must allow Brothers to simulate the harsh experience of military barracks. Brothers are instructed to refrain from joking or idle chat, and try to recreate the spirit of jihad. Finally, there is a biannual fieldtrip (rihla) for recreation, to which Brothers are asked to bring along their wives and children to socialize (“Turuq” 2002: vol. I, 472; vol. II, 336). Rida (2013), a seasoned Brotherhood cultivator, summarized the value of these multilayered meetings as follows: the family deepens personal relations; the battalion elevates spirituality; the camp fosters teamwork and a martial attitude; and the fieldtrip creates a sense of community. In addition, these overlapping activities enable senior leaders to interact with members from all levels, rather than relying exclusively on prefect reports (‘Eid 2013: 35).

Female members are enrolled in a parallel structure, the Muslim Sisterhood, often described as ‘an order not an organization’ (nizam la tanzim), to keep them out of harm's way, since membership in an illegal organization warrants arrest. They do not perform the oath of allegiance or participate in battalion trainings and camps, but they do meet on the level of family and fieldtrips, and devote the rest of their time to mosque activities (recruiting women and indoctrinating children) and charity work. And a similar hierarchy, grounded in weekly family meetings, characterizes Brotherhood affiliates around the world.⁴

The guiding light for all these meetings emanates from the cultivation curriculum, which is composed of several edited volumes, running from basic to advanced levels. Each volume contains lessons tailored to weekly family meetings. A typical lesson comprises carefully selected extracts from the Qur'an, hadith, and the life of the Prophet and his Companions, followed by excerpts from the writings of Banna, and sometimes Qutb. This deliberate pairing of revelation and movement literature conflates the divine and the temporal, presenting the Brotherhood as a faithful application of Islamic teachings and history. To aid prefects, each lesson begins with pedagogical goals and concludes with a short exercise to ensure their accomplishment. Prefects also undergo a special training course (dawrit nuqaba) to learn, among other things, how to iron out differences in understanding and keep Brothers on the same page. More importantly, prefects cultivate the talent of matching the fixed curriculum lessons to the movement's varying policy positions. The best prefects are those who can conjure the suitable verse or sacred story to justify whichever policy the movement adopts.

The masters of this art, of course, are the heads of the cultivation committee. Among all the Brotherhood's specialized committees, those selected for this sensitive role must have specific qualities: they must be staunch loyalists; they must be able to tame spirited Brothers with a paternalistic attitude; and they must not have a busy working schedule. Because cultivating is almost a full-time job, senior cultivators are often retired professionals, absentee landowners, shop owners, or rent collectors. A central cultivation committee receives regular reports from branch-level committees, and en mission veteran cultivators roam through family and battalion meetings to offer advice and mete out reprimands. Constant vigilance is justified by the fact that cultivation mistakes are quite taxing. For example, Brothers claim that former President Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser, the 1952 coup leader, was their recruiting lieutenant in the army in the 1940s, and when he complained that the moral criteria for cultivating members were unattractive to officers, who were not very observant by nature, the Guidance Bureau succumbed and relaxed the requirements. Hassan al-‘Ashmawi, his Brotherhood contact, blamed this flexibility for the Free Officers' subsequent betrayal of Brothers (‘Ashmawi 1985: 26). Along similar lines, morally questionable actions by today's senior Brothers are attributed to the lenience of the third general guide, ‘Umar al-Telmesani, who incorporated “un-cultivated” Islamist activists en masse in the 1970s to reinvigorate the decaying Brotherhood (Farghali 2013).

But if cultivation – which is defined in article 3(b) of the Brotherhood's General Order (al-Nizam al-‘Am) as endowing an entire generation with a “unified Islamic view” – is to succeed, the question that immediately arises is: how could hundreds of thousands of members from different backgrounds subscribe to the same version of something as complicated and personal as religion? Similarly, how could a movement as large as the Muslim Brotherhood suffer no major dissent in its eight-and-a-half-decade existence? The answer must be sought in the general spirit that drives the whole cultivation process – what I refer to as the Brotherhood's ‘anti-intellectualism.’ This pervasive attitude towards those who, in Collini's (2006: 37) description, relish “complicating the simple and obscuring the obvious,” manifests itself, firstly, in privileging sentiments and practice over enquiry; secondly, in the methodical censuring of arguments; and finally, in an aversion towards those with a background in the social sciences. These three strategies work together to curb members likely to foster disagreements among Brothers. Let us consider each separately.

The Pedagogy of Praxis

Those nominated to join the Brotherhood are typically young men and women with a kindling passion and a humble knowledge of history, politics, and religion. It helps that many are either born into Brotherhood fa...