Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt & Sudan

Abstract

This article compares the evidence from two related movements: the contemporary Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and the cluster of organisations that have been closely associated with Hasan al-Turabi in Sudan, in order to query the extent to which Islamism is compatible with liberal democratic politics. The answers suggested are, in the Egyptian case, hopeful, but for Sudan decidedly pessimistic. However, there are complexities within both stories. The comparison indicates ways in which the outcomes are related to the framing circumstances, but also points out the limitations of the information currently available in the academic literature.

The authors are grateful to ROAPE for proposing we write this article. We also thank Gill Lusk and two ROAPE reviewers for their comments on drafts. Responsibility for the contents remains ours.

Notes

1. This paragraph and the next, on the foundations of the MB draw on overlapping accounts in Mitchell (1969), Gomaa (1983), Esposito (1998:136-148), Armstrong (2000:218-232), Abdel Salam and de Waal (2004:26-35).

2. It is widely estimated that about two-thirds of the national population is Muslim. Non-Muslims mainly live in peripheral areas and have usually been electorally under-represented, partly because those areas have often been deemed too insecure for popular elections to take place.

3. Both of these sects, though they have important differences in character, can be labelled Sufi. That is to say they incorporate mystical traditions of religious practice such as special reverence for hereditary holy men. See Trimingham (1949), Karrar (1992), Warburg (2003).

4. See de Waal and Abdel Salam (2003:83-84) for an interesting characterisation of al-Turabi's writings in Arabic.

5. This has been the case for the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey which has become extremely pragmatic in order to survive in a secular polity held together by the coercive arm of the military.