When Nihal Abdul-Hamid was a student at Cairo’s al-Azhar university she told few friends she had joined the Muslim Brotherhood, the influential Islamist group outlawed by Egypt’s government. It was a time of crackdowns, and arrests of Islamic sympathisers were widespread. ”It was very dangerous, it was completely secret,” she said. ”The government wanted people to think Islam was dangerous, when, on the contrary, we saw it as a message of peace, something positive and helpful.”
She had one teacher whom she particularly admired, a professor in Arabic literature, who was often taken off to jail. The professor’s husband had been a senior figure in the movement and had spent nine years in jail before he died. The authorities worried that the professor herself had political ambitions.
Now Abdul-Hamid, well-educated, in her late 20s, covers her hair with a hijab and talks openly of her involvement in the Brotherhood. One evening this month she walked down a street in Heliopolis, an eastern suburb of Cairo, at the head of a big campaign rally. Behind her was a long line of party supporters, the men apart from the women. Between them were cars with loudspeakers blaring out the group’s slogans: ”Islam is the solution. Islam is light. Islam is the constitution. Who are we? We are the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Ahead of her was her former professor, Makarem al-Deri (55) the Brotherhood’s only female candidate in Egypt’s month-long parliamentary elections.
The Islamist group is popular and has long espoused non-violence, but is still banned and its members still subjected to frequent arrest. Yet they are allowed to run in the election as independents and for the first time in many years are being allowed campaign rallies.
Halfway through the elections, the Brotherhood has already done surprisingly well. In the previous election the movement won 17 seats in the 454-seat Parliament. This time they already have 47 seats and are likely to gain a dozen or two more, underlining their position as Egypt’s largest opposition group and dwarfing the small, secular opposition.
This week, when the success of the movement became clear, the government cracked down. About 490 members of the group were arrested, while others were attacked by pro-government thugs and there was evidence of ballot rigging.
In Deri’s constituency the movement complained of serious electoral irregularities after she lost in an extremely close count to the local ruling party candidate. But the results suggest political Islam is, for now, a force to be acknowledged in Egypt.
While there are still violent attacks by extreme Islamic groups, like that in Sharm el-Sheikh in July, other groups, like the Brotherhood, have become more political and pragmatic. And as the regime faces pressure to democratise, they are likely to play a central role in the country’s future.
Deri, like all the Brotherhood candidates, offered a programme of what many see as much-needed reforms. ”Education is bad, there is oppression, there is no freedom of expression,” she said. ”We need real reforms — of education, of the economy, of the media.”
There are many who are wary of the group’s deeply conservative programme which, though vague, includes Islamic law and headscarves for women. ”When you have a party that says Islam is the solution then you are going to get conflict between religions,” said Hossam (39) a shopkeeper, who watched the rally. ”We have seen nothing from politics. The first thing we need is a change to help young people find jobs.”
Others are more open in backing the Brotherhood. ”Islam is God’s law so this is a direct way to what God says,” said Hanan Mohammad, a woman clothed in conservative black dress.
Although the Brotherhood is an opposition force, it has an ambiguous relationship with the regime, and this is also part of its strength. While many opposition groups took to Cairo’s streets this year to protest against Egypt’s President, Hosni Mubarak, the Brotherhood resisted confrontation.
”It is too early for that,” said Essam al-Erian, a haematologist, former MP and former political prisoner, who is a senior leader in the movement. ”Our ideology and programme is a gradual one. It does not call for abrupt change. We must have safe, peaceful change.” The movement takes a long view. ”When the people of Egypt change then they can change their circumstances,” said Essam.
For many years the regime has suppressed all liberal, secular political parties, whose lack of seats has aided the Brotherhood, now riding a tide of Islamist support that has grown since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Yet the true gauge of the movement’s strength may not be the number of seats won in Parliament but its support on the ground: winning over the individual comes before winning the big political institutions. ”They are patience itself and they are really convinced that time is with them,” said Diaa Rashwan, an expert on political Islam at the al-Ahram centre for political and strategic studies, in Cairo. ”They believe that if they succeed in building support among individuals then they will win the battle.”
There are more moderate Islamic groups in Egypt but restrictive policies have stifled them. In 1996, one of the Brotherhood’s leading thinkers, Abul-Ela Madi, set up his own movement, the Centre party, an Islamic group that lacks the organisational skills of the Brotherhood but is purely political, rejecting the missionary element that is a mainstay of the Brotherhood. He emphasises his commitment to democracy, does not endorse a theocratic state and says his party’s doors are open to non Muslims.
”The problem is not with Islam but the interpretation of Islam,” said Madi.
America’s reaction to the September 11 attacks had encouraged more young people in the Arab world to turn to extremist Islam, he said. ”We need to change this atmosphere.” Rather than arguing that Islam should be ”the solution”, Islam should be seen as the Egyptians’ shared civilisation, as a reference, not as a political programme, he said.
But three times in the past decade Madi has been refused permission for his group to get the status of a legal political party — his latest appeal hearing, which could finally go in his favour, was delayed until December so there can be no decision on it before the current parliamentary elections.
”How to resolve the problem of Islam and democracy in the Muslim world is the real question,” said Rashwan. ”The answer is not to exclude religion. The key is to reconcile Islam with modernity.”
Backstory
The Society of Muslim Brothers was founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, a primary school teacher. He proposed gradual reform for an Islamic society, in reaction against the perceived secularisation of British imperial rule. The Brotherhood started with social and health work and soon become a significant political force. In 1954 it was banned and thousands of its members were jailed after an assassination attempt on the president, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Later, the movement distanced itself from the revolutionary activism proposed by a prominent member, Sayyid Qutb, who was executed in 1966. Its members can now stand in elections as independents and are Egypt’s largest opposition force. – Guardian Unlimited Â