10 Years On: New Contextual Factors in the Study of Islamism

Abstract:

Although the popular protests that swept across the Middle East and North Africa in 2011 were short-lived, their long-term consequences are still resonating through the region a decade after their outbreak. Islamist movements have been affected in different ways by the drastic change in the political, social and geographical contexts in which they historically operated, highlighting the need for a renewed examination of these changed circumstances. Based on the case study of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, we argue that three key factors need to be accounted for when studying Islamist movements in the aftermath of the 2011 uprisings. These are the dimension of exile; the increased role played by women and youth; and the emergence of cross-generational and cross-ideological alliances. The article analyzes these three factors through a comparative study of responses by Muslim Brotherhood and Muslim Sisterhood members to repression across Egypt, Turkey and the UK.

Key Words:

• Alliances
• Exile
• Islamism
• Muslim Brotherhood
• Muslim Sisterhood
• New actors
• New directions for scholarship
• Post-Arab Uprisings
• Repression

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Brotherhood and Sisterhood members for their continuous dialogue and friendship over the years, and despite the challenging circumstances; we alone are responsible for any inaccuracy in this research. We would also like to thank the journal’s anonymous reviewers and editorial board for useful comments and assistance in the process of publication.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Among others, see Marc Lynch & Jillian Schwedler (2020) Introduction to the Special Issue on Islamist Politics after the Arab Uprisings, Middle East Law and Governance 12(1), pp. 3–13; Hendrik Kraetzschmar & Paola Rivetti (eds) (2018) Islamists and the Politics of the Arab Uprisings: Governance, Pluralization and Contention (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).

2 Jillian Schwedler (2018) Conclusions: New Directions in the Study of Islamist Politics, in: Kraetzschmar & Rivetti (eds), Islamists and the Politics of the Arab Uprisings, p. 367.

3 Data in Egypt were collected in Cairo in 2013–2014 and 2017–2018, with 40 respondents (35 F; 5 M). Interviews in Turkey were carried out in Istanbul between 2016 and 2019, with 30 respondents (2 F; 28M), and in the UK in London, between 2013 and 2019, with 22 respondents (3F; 19M). During the course of fieldwork, we interviewed some of the participants multiple times.

4 Hesham Al-Awadi (2014) The Muslim Brothers in Pursuit of Legitimacy. Power and Political Islam in Egypt under Mubarak, 2nd ed. (London and New York: IB Tauris).

5 Barbara Zollner (2019) Surviving Repression: How Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has Carried On, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 11 March. Available at https://carnegie-mec.org/2019/03/11/surviving-repression-how-egypt-s-muslim-brotherhood-has-carried-on-pub-78552, accessed September 7, 2021.

6 Khalil Al-Anani (2016) Inside the Muslim Brotherhood: Religion, Identity, Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

7 Hazem Kandil (2015) Inside the Muslim Brotherhood (Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press); Mustafa Menshawy (2020) Leaving the Muslim Brotherhood: Self, Society and the State (Palgrave MacMillan); Erika Biagini (2021) What’s Love Got to do with it? Women, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Organizational Identity,  Partecipazione e Conflitto [Participation and Conflict], 14(2) pp. 547–564.

8 Amr Hamzawy (2019) Can Egypt's Democratic Hopes Be Revived? Journal of Democracy 30(4), pp. 158–169.

9 Hillel Fradkin (2013) Debate: Arab Democracy or Islamist Revolution? Journal of Democracy 24(1), pp. 5–13; Marie Vannetzel (2017) The Party, the Gama’a and the Tanzim: the Organizational Dynamics of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s Post-2011 Failure, The British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 44(2), pp. 211–226.

10 Khalil Al-Anani (2015) Upended Path: The Rise and Fall of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, The Middle East Journal, 69(4), pp. 527–543.

11 Vannetzel, “The Party, the Gama’a and the Tanzim.”

12 Carrie R. Wickham (2013) The Muslim Brotherhood Evolution of an Islamist Movement (Princeton: Princeton University Press); Khalil al-Anani, Inside the Muslim Brotherhood, and (2009) The Young Brotherhood in Search of a New Path, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, 9, pp. 96–109; and Mona El-Ghobashy (2005) The Metamorphosis of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 37(3), pp. 373–395.

13 Nathan Brown & Michelle Dunne (2015) Unprecedented Pressures, Uncharted Course for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 29 July. Available at https://carnegieendowment.org/2015/07/29/unprecedented-pressures-uncharted-course-for-egypt-s-muslim-brotherhood-pub-60875, accessed September 7, 2021.

14 Lucia Ardovini (2020) Stagnation Vs Adaptation: Tracking the Muslim Brotherhood’s Trajectories after the 2013 Coup, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, DOI: 10.1080/13530194.2020.1778443; and Lucia Ardovini (Forthcoming) “The Muslim Brotherhood in Turkey after the 2013 coup d’état: Organizational renewal in the diaspora,” in: Dalia Abdelhadi & Ali Ramy (eds) Routledge Handbook of Middle East Diasporas (Abingdon: Routledge, forthcoming).

15 Erika Biagini (2017) The Egyptian Muslim Sisterhood between Violence, Activism and Leadership, Mediterranean Politics 22(1), pp. 35–53; and Sarah ElMasry & Neil Ketchley (2020) After the Massacre: Women’s Islamist Activism in Post-Coup Egypt, Middle East Law and Governance 12(1), pp. 86–108.

16 Ibid; and Ardovini, “Stagnation Vs Adaptation.”

17 Wickham, The Muslim Brotherhood; and El-Ghobashy, “The Metamorphosis of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.”

18 See also Victor J. Willi (2021) The Fourth Ordeal: A History of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, 1968–2018 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

19 Khalil al-Anani (2019) Rethinking the Repression-Dissent Nexus: Assessing Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood’s Response to Repression Since the Coup of 2013, Democratization 26(8), pp. 1329–1341; Lamis El Muhtaseb (2020) Preaching and Ruling: The Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood Post Arab Uprisings, Mediterranean Politics, DOI: 10.1080/13629395.2020.1748471

20 Jillian Schwedler (2013) Islamists in Power? Inclusion, Moderation, and the Arab Uprisings, Middle East Development Journal 5(1), pp. 1350006-1–1350006-18; Marc Lynch (2016) Is the Muslim Brotherhood a Terrorist Organization or a Firewall Against Violent Extremism? In: Evolving Methodologies in the Study of Islamism (Project On Middle East Political Science, 17), pp. 6–9. Available at http://pomeps.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/POMEPS_Studies_17_Methods_Web.pdf, accessed December 30, 2020; El Muhtaseb, Preaching and Ruling; Stacey Philbrick Yadav (2020) Fragmentation, Disintegration, and Resurgence: Assessing the Islamist Field in Yemen, Middle East Law and Governance 12(1), pp. 14–34.

21 Lynch and Schwedler, “Islamist Politics after the Uprisings.”

22 Al-Anani, “Rethinking the Repression-Dissent Nexus.”

23 Ibid; Erika Biagini (2020) Islamist Women’s Feminist Subjectivities in (R)Evolution: the Egyptian Muslim Sisterhood in the Aftermath of the Arab Uprisings, International Feminist Journal of Politics 22(3), pp. 382–402; Menshawy, Leaving the Brotherhood; Ardovini, “Stagnation Vs Adaptation”; Wickham, The Muslim Brotherhood; Kandil, Inside the Muslim Brotherhood.

24 Husain Haqqani (2013) Islamists and Democracy: Cautions from Pakistan, Journal of Democracy 24(2), pp. 5–14.

25 See also Lynch and Schwedler, “Islamist Politics after the Arab Uprisings.”

26 Michelle Dunne & Amr Hamzawy (2019) Egypt’s Political Exiles: Going Anywhere but Home, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 29 March. Available at https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/03/29/egypt-s-political-exiles-going-anywhere-but-home-pub-78728, accessed December 30, 2020. Some of the factors that have facilitated the Brotherhood’s settling in Turkey are the historical relationship between the movement and Turkish Islamic figures, hence the “ideological welcoming context”, as well as Erdogan’s overt condemnation of the 2013 coup. The Turkish government has also provided the Brotherhood with the legal and financial backing they need to start building their transnational activism and advocacy networks.

27 See for example: House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (2016) ‘Political Islam’ and the Muslim Brotherhood Review. Sixth Report of Session 2016–17, 1 November. Available at https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/118/118.pdf, accessed December 30, 2020.

28 Author Interview [Ardovini], Istanbul, January 2017.

29 House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (2015) Muslim Brotherhood Review: Main Findings, 17 December. Available at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/486948/53163_Muslim_Brotherhood_Review_-_PRINT.pdf, accessed December 30, 2020.

30 Abdelrahman Ayyash & Victor J. Willi (2016) The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in 2016: Scenarios and Recommendations, DGAP Kompakt, 2 March. Available at https://dgap.org/system/files/article_pdfs/2016-09.pdf, accessed December 30, 2020.

31 Author Interview [Ardovini], Istanbul, August 2018.

32 Author Interview [Biagini] with two Muslim Sisterhood young members, Cairo, 2018; see also “Hoping for release, families of imprisoned Muslim Brotherhood youth offers to stay out of politics, make hefty donations to state-run fund,” Mada Masr, 27 August 2019. Available at https://madamasr.com/en/2019/08/27/feature/politics/hoping-for-release-families-of-imprisoned-muslim-brotherhood-youth-offer-to-stay-out-of-politics-make-hefty-donations-to-state-run-fund/, accessed December 30, 2020.

33 Omaima Abdel-Latif (2008) In the Shadows of the Brothers: The Women of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Available at https://carnegieendowment.org/files/women_egypt_muslim_brotherhood.pdf, accessed December 30, 2020.

34 Jeffrey Martin, Dalia Dassa Kaye and Erin York (2012) The Muslim Brotherhood, its Youth, and Implications for U.S. Engagement (USA: National Defense Research Institute) . Available at https://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG1247.html, accessed December 30, 2020.

35 Biagini, “The Egyptian Muslim Sisterhood.”

36 Mohammad Hamdan (2019) Every Sperm is Sacred: Palestinian Prisoners, Smuggled Semen, and Derrida’s Prophecy, International Journal of Middle East Studies 51(4), pp. 525–545.

37 Al-Anani makes a similar observation with regard to da‘wa in Egypt but he does not look at how women are engaging with it. See al-Anani, “Rethinking the Repression-Dissent Nexus.”

38 Barbara Zollner (2007) Prison Talk: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Internal Struggle during Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Persecution, 1954 to 1971, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 39(3), pp. 441–433.

39 Author Interview [Biagini] with senior Muslim Sister, Cairo, 2017.

40 For a historical account of how more puritanical and conservative Islamic interpretations drawing on Wahhabism have permeated the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership starting in the 1960s, see Hossam Tammam (2011) The Salafization of the Muslim Brothers, Marased, 1, pp. 1–54.

41 Author Interview [Biagini] with a middle-generation Sister who lived a period of exile in Turkey before returning to Egypt, Cairo, 2018.

42 Author Interview [Biagini] with three young Sisters, Cairo, 2014 and 2018.

43 Ibid.

44 See Menshawy, Leaving the Brotherhood; Ardovini, “Stagnation Vs Adaptation.”

45 Author Interview [Biagini] with senior Sister, Cairo, 2017.

46 Noha Mellor (2016) Voice of the Muslim Brotherhood (London: Routledge).

47 Author Interview [Ardovini] with senior Sister, Istanbul, 2019.

48 Author Interview [Biagini] with a young Sister, Istanbul, 2018.

49 Biagini, “The Egyptian Muslim Sisterhood,” p. 48.

50 Author Interview [Biagini] with a young Sister, Istanbul, 2018.

51 Author Interview [Ardovini] with young Sister, London, 2016.

52 Author Interview [Biagini] with young Sister, Cairo, 2018; and with a senior Sister, Istanbul, August 2018.

53 See for example: El-Ghobashy, “The Metamorphosis of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers”; Wickham, The Muslim Brotherhood; Al-Anani, “Young Brothers in Search of a new Path.”

54 Samir, “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Generational Gap.”

55 Author Interview [Ardovini], Istanbul, August 2018.

56 Biagini, “The Egyptian Muslim Sisterhood,” & “Islamist Women Feminist Subjectivities in R-Evolution.”