Muslim Brotherhood: Egypt's unbowed opposition
CAIRO: Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which on Thursday refused dialogue with the embattled government that has banned but tolerated it for decades, is the country's strongest organized opposition group.
Though it has adopted a low profile in the massive protests that have rocked President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-old regime, it is sure to be a major force in any post-Mubarak Egypt, especially a democratic one.
The group has been officially banned since the 1950s, but it counts hundreds of thousands of members and operates a vast network of social and religious outreach programs across the country.
Founded by schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928 as a grass-roots movement opposed to colonialism and Zionism, the group has largely succeeded in its main goal of encouraging Egyptians to embrace Islam in public life.
At the same time it has alarmed Western governments and some of its secular rivals with its anti-Israel rhetoric and calls for a more Islamic state.
Mubarak's regime has routinely arrested hundreds of its members and curtailed its political activities, though the group managed to win 88 seats in 2005 parliamentary elections in which its candidates ran as independents under the slogan "Islam is the solution."
It boycotted the second round of elections last fall after failing to win a single seat, accusing the government of violence and vote-rigging.
But it remains active in mosques and universities, and its charity programs have won it a loyal following among the country's poor.
It initially distanced itself from the latest protests and has since played at most a supporting role in a mass movement that appears to be led by youth with little interest in the country's formal politics.
The Brotherhood has long supported the creation of a more Islamic state, but it renounced violence decades ago and has called for democratic reforms and elections, insisting it would participate like any other political party.
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But in the group's earlier days it was more radical, and in the 1940s was implicated in a string of assassinations, including of Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi al-Noqrashi in 1948, who was killed following a crackdown on the group.
Egypt's secular nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser ruthlessly suppressed the group after an assassination attempt in 1954, jailing and torturing thousands of its members.
The crackdown led many one-time Muslim Brothers to chart a more radical path than that followed by the movement as a whole.
Sayyid Qutb, a former Brother who was hanged by Nasser's regime in 1966, is seen as the intellectual godfather of modern militant Islamism.
However, the Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda have long been bitter rivals, with Al-Qaeda criticizing the Brotherhood's participation in elections and the Brothers condemning attacks on civilians in Egypt and elsewhere.
Since its founding, the Brotherhood has inspired branches in several Middle Eastern countries and gained followers in the West, but the different groups' activities vary, usually according to their political circumstances.
In Jordan the Muslim Brotherhood openly competes in parliamentary elections and regularly holds peaceful protests, while in the Palestinian territories the Brotherhood-inspired Hamas has vowed to wipe out Israel and carried out hundreds of deadly attacks over the last two decades.
Though it has adopted a low profile in the massive protests that have rocked President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-old regime, it is sure to be a major force in any post-Mubarak Egypt, especially a democratic one.
The group has been officially banned since the 1950s, but it counts hundreds of thousands of members and operates a vast network of social and religious outreach programs across the country.
Founded by schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928 as a grass-roots movement opposed to colonialism and Zionism, the group has largely succeeded in its main goal of encouraging Egyptians to embrace Islam in public life.
At the same time it has alarmed Western governments and some of its secular rivals with its anti-Israel rhetoric and calls for a more Islamic state.
Mubarak's regime has routinely arrested hundreds of its members and curtailed its political activities, though the group managed to win 88 seats in 2005 parliamentary elections in which its candidates ran as independents under the slogan "Islam is the solution."
It boycotted the second round of elections last fall after failing to win a single seat, accusing the government of violence and vote-rigging.
But it remains active in mosques and universities, and its charity programs have won it a loyal following among the country's poor.
It initially distanced itself from the latest protests and has since played at most a supporting role in a mass movement that appears to be led by youth with little interest in the country's formal politics.
The Brotherhood has long supported the creation of a more Islamic state, but it renounced violence decades ago and has called for democratic reforms and elections, insisting it would participate like any other political party.
!
But in the group's earlier days it was more radical, and in the 1940s was implicated in a string of assassinations, including of Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi al-Noqrashi in 1948, who was killed following a crackdown on the group.
Egypt's secular nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser ruthlessly suppressed the group after an assassination attempt in 1954, jailing and torturing thousands of its members.
The crackdown led many one-time Muslim Brothers to chart a more radical path than that followed by the movement as a whole.
Sayyid Qutb, a former Brother who was hanged by Nasser's regime in 1966, is seen as the intellectual godfather of modern militant Islamism.
However, the Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda have long been bitter rivals, with Al-Qaeda criticizing the Brotherhood's participation in elections and the Brothers condemning attacks on civilians in Egypt and elsewhere.
Since its founding, the Brotherhood has inspired branches in several Middle Eastern countries and gained followers in the West, but the different groups' activities vary, usually according to their political circumstances.
In Jordan the Muslim Brotherhood openly competes in parliamentary elections and regularly holds peaceful protests, while in the Palestinian territories the Brotherhood-inspired Hamas has vowed to wipe out Israel and carried out hundreds of deadly attacks over the last two decades.
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