Friday, September 07, 2012

Who's Who in Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood

Eric Trager, Katie Kiraly, Cooper Klose, and Eliot Calhoun

September 2012

Given its growing control over key government institutions and its unmatched mobilizing capabilities, the Muslim Brotherhood will likely remain Egypt's most consequential political actor for many years to come. But who are the men who make up this uniquely cohesive and secretive "society," and what impact will they have on the country's domestic and foreign policy?

Introduction

Since Hosni Mubarak's February 2011 ouster, the Muslim Brotherhood has emerged as Egypt’s most potent political force. It won a decisive plurality in the winter 2011–2012 People’s Assembly elections and a majority in the January 2012 Shura Council elections, thus gaining control over both houses of parliament and the committee that is writing the next constitution. And in June, the group successfully campaigned to elect Brotherhood leader Muhammad Morsi as Egypt’s first civilian president.


Since taking office, Morsi has moved quickly to consolidate the organization’s power, appointing fellow Muslim Brothers to head key ministries and cracking down on media criticism of the group. His boldest moves came on August 12, when he sacked the generals who posed the greatest threat to his authority, promoted new generals who now answer to him, and issued a constitutional declaration that gave him full executive, legislative, and constitution-writing powers. Although Morsi and the Brotherhood may yet face challenges from non-Islamists, Salafists, former regime elements, and, perhaps, the judiciary, the group’s unmatched mobilizing capabilities and control over key government institutions will likely make it Egypt’s most consequential political actor for many years to come.
For this reason, it is worth taking a closer look at the individuals who make up the Brotherhood’s organizational and political leadership. After all, the group views itself not as a political party directed by a single chairman, but as a cohesive “society” that operates on the basis of internal consultation, or shura. Accordingly, its strategic and policy decisions will be guided not only by Morsi and Supreme Guide Muhammad Badie, but also by a team of longtime Brotherhood officials who will coordinate efforts across the various political bodies the group now dominates.

Who are these individuals? While the profiles in this compendium demonstrate that Brotherhood leaders come from many different educational and professional backgrounds, their stories illustrate three important points about the organization.
First, the Brotherhood’s leadership is composed almost exclusively of longtime members. Most were recruited during high school or college and, in many cases, served in top administrative positions within the Brotherhood’s nationwide structure before being promoted to the Guidance Office (the organization’s top executive authority) or nominated for political office. To some extent, this is typical of any political organization: veteran members tend to lead. But for the Brotherhood, having longtime members in top posts ensures that its leaders have all been vetted over the course of decades for their willingness to comply with the internal shura committee’s decisions. This does not mean that internal divisions are impossible, but the tight, time-tested circle in which decisions are made makes this highly unlikely. As a result, the Brotherhood maintains a unity of purpose that other Egyptian political groups have yet to achieve.
Second, in addition to their positions within the group, most Brotherhood leaders were active in important societal organizations under the Mubarak regime, serving on the boards of professional syndicates, heading labor unions, running religious charities, and/or participating in key social clubs. These positions enabled them to build their stature at a time when avenues for more direct political participation were often blocked. Such activity also helped the group expand its outreach networks, through which it gained popular support by providing social services and increasing its recruitment efforts.
Third, almost all of the Brotherhood’s top leaders were directly persecuted under the Mubarak regime, and many served time as political prisoners. To some extent, this enhances their unity, particularly among those who were imprisoned together. More important, it makes them unlikely to tolerate competing centers of power, since the Brotherhood’s ouster could invite a new era of repression against the organization.
Individual profiles suggest other important points about the Brotherhood as well. In particular, the group’s recruitment networks clearly have international reach, since three of its top leaders (including Morsi) came aboard while living in the United States. The Brotherhood’s internal promotion structure is also somewhat nepotistic, given that its top leaders frequently are related to each other through marriage or are professional colleagues. Finally, despite the fact that Brotherhood officials have never run a government ministry or wielded meaningful political power until recently, the group is confident that it has the expertise to lead Egypt because its members come from many different professional backgrounds.
This first installment of Brotherhood profiles examines top figures from the Guidance Office, the Freedom and Justice Party (the group’s political arm), the parliamentary leadership, and members of Morsi’s presidential office. These profiles will be updated as new information surfaces, and new ones will be added over time.

(Note: To see quotation sources and photographs for each individual profiled, download the PDF version of the compendium.)


Top Leaders

Muhammad Morsi

محمد مرسي
  • Born: August 1951
  • Position: President of Egypt; formerly member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Guidance Office, parliamentarian (2000–2005), and chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party
  • Education: Doctorate in engineering from University of Southern California (1982), master’s degree in engineering from Cairo University (1978), bachelor’s degree in engineering from Cairo University (1975)
  • Occupation: Engineer
Morsi was first recruited to the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States while studying for his PhD in engineering at the University of Southern California. His children were born in California and are U.S. citizens. After receiving his doctorate in 1982, he taught as an assistant professor at California State University–Northridge until 1985.
He then returned to Egypt to teach at Zagazig University, where his colleagues included current Brotherhood deputy supreme guides Mahmoud Ezzat and Mahmoud Ghozlan. Some sources report that Morsi’s rise in the MB began in 2000, when he was elected as a member of the People’s Assembly and served as the Brotherhood’s parliamentary bloc leader from 2000 to 2005. After losing his parliamentary race in 2005 due to Mubarak regime forgery, he became leader of the Brotherhood’s political division. From 2007 onward, he was also the key point of contact between the MB and the regime’s repressive State Security apparatus (and, according to MB political leader Saad al-Husseini, between the Brotherhood and Hamas).
Morsi has been arrested at least twice: he was detained for seven months in 2006 after protesting alongside several judges who had been targeted by the regime, and again during the January 2011 uprising, along with several other Brotherhood leaders. Following the uprising, the MB leadership appointed him chairman of the newly formed Freedom and Justice Party. In April 2012, he was chosen as the group’s backup presidential candidate in the event that its initial candidate, Khairat al-Shater, was barred from running. When Shater was indeed excluded due to a previous conviction, Morsi became the MB’s presidential nominee. In the first round of Egypt’s presidential election, Morsi won 24.78 percent of the vote, securing his position in a runoff against Ahmed Shafiq in mid-June. On June 24, Morsi was declared president, having won 51.73 percent of the vote.

Muhammad Badie

محمد بديع
  • Born: August 7, 1943
  • Position: Supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood
  • Education: Doctorate in veterinary medicine from Zagazig University
  • Occupation: Part-time professor of pathology at veterinary school of Beni Suef University
Shortly after receiving his bachelor’s degree in veterinary medicine in 1965, Badie was arrested for his political activities (along with Muslim Brotherhood leader Sayyed Qutb) and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. He served only nine years; President Anwar Sadat released him in 1974. Badie became a member of the Brotherhood’s al-Mahalla al-Kubra administrative office the following year and was eventually named chief of that branch. From 1986 to 1990, he served as a member of the Brotherhood’s administrative office in Beni Suef, and in 1993 he became a member of the group’s Guidance Office. In 1998, he was imprisoned for seventy-five days for his participation in the Islamic Dawa Society in Beni Suef.
Badie became supreme guide of the Brotherhood in 2010, replacing Muhammad Mahdi Akef. He has made several inflammatory statements about Israel and the West, including a 2010 speech in which he claimed that “Arab and Muslim regimes are betraying their people by failing to confront the Muslims’ real enemies: not only Israel but also the United States. Waging jihad against both of these infidels is a commandment of Allah that cannot be disregarded. Governments have no right to stop their people from fighting the United States.”  Despite being supreme guide, Badie is considered a relatively weak Brotherhood leader; deputy supreme guides Khairat al-Shater, Mahmoud Ghozlan, Mahmoud Hussein, and Mahmoud Ezzat are generally considered more influential in the group’s decisionmaking.

Khairat al-Shater

خيرت الشاطر
  • Born: May 4, 1950
  • Position: First deputy to the Muslim Brotherhood’s supreme guide
  • Education: Master’s degree in construction management, bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and anthropology
  • Occupation: Engineer, businessman
Shater joined the Muslim Brotherhood in 1974. Previously, he was one of the founding members of the General Islamic Action in Alexandria in 1967 and was later imprisoned for participating in student demonstrations. After joining the MB, he became one of its most influential leaders. Due to his many business interests, he is widely viewed as the group’s key financier and strategist.
In the early 1990s, he and business partner Hassan Malek, also a longtime MB member, were imprisoned as part of the Salsabil investigation (see Malek’s entry for more on this case). Shater was released in 1993, and in 1995 he became a member of the MB Guidance Office. From 1995 to 2000, he served out another prison sentence (along with fifty-four other MB members) for his role in “reviving” the Brotherhood, which at the time was an illegal organization. Starting in 2004, he served as second deputy to former general guide Mahdi Akef and was instrumental in negotiating with the regime regarding the Brotherhood’s participation in the 2005 parliamentary elections, in which the group won 88 of 454 seats. In 2007, he was arrested with other MB members for allegedly providing combat training and weapons to student protestors. Sentenced to seven years for terrorism and money laundering, he was released in March 2011 following Hosni Mubarak’s ouster.
Since the January 2011 uprising, Shater has been the Brotherhood’s most influential strategist. He was largely responsible for the group’s decision to form a single political party and was a leading force behind the drafting of the “Nahda project,” the MB’s electoral platform. Shater was nominated as the MB’s primary presidential candidate for the 2012 presidential election but was barred from running due to his recent imprisonment. He continues to play a key role in the Brotherhood’s political strategizing and policymaking, however, and remains a key point of contact between the MB and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.
  • Key quote: “The success of the Muslim Brotherhood should not frighten anybody: we respect the rights of all religious and political groups” (2005) (source)
  • Twitter: @khairatalshater
  • Facebook page

Mahmoud Ghozlan

محمود غزلان
  • Born: Not available
  • Position: Official spokesman of the Muslim Brotherhood; member of the Constituent Assembly
  • Education: Not available
  • Occupation: Professor at Zagazig University, College of Agriculture
Ghozlan is a member of the Brotherhood’s Guidance Office and served as secretary-general of the group until his arrest in February 2002; he was released in August 2005, then imprisoned again from March to October 2007. Currently, he is married to Fatima al-Shater, the sister of MB deputy supreme guide Khairat al-Shater, with whom he has six children. He is also a professor at Zagazig University, where he is a colleague of deputy supreme guide Mahmoud Ezzat and, until recently, President Muhammad Morsi.
Ghozlan became the target of criticism in 2012 when his statements against the United Arab Emirates’ treatment of Egyptian Islamist Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi created a brief crisis in UAE-Egyptian relations.  Ghozlan is considered among the Brotherhood’s more hardline leaders: he accused former Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman of being an “aide to the Jews”  and has stated that he does not believe reports regarding the persecution of Christians in Egypt.

Mahmoud Ezzat

محمود عزت
  • Born: August 13, 1944
  • Position: Deputy supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood
  • Education: Doctorate in medicine from Zagazig University (1985), master’s degree in medicine (1980), B.S. in medicine (1975), diploma from Institute of Islamic Studies (1998)
  • Occupation: Doctor
After becoming acquainted with the Brotherhood as a boy, Ezzat began studying with the group in 1962. He was imprisoned along with Supreme Guide Muhammad Badie from 1965 to 1974 and has been a member of the MB Guidance Office since 1981. He is married to the daughter of former supreme guide Mahdi Akef.
Along with Khairat al-Shater and Hassan Malek, Ezzat was detained under suspicion in the Salsabil case from 1992 to 1993 (see Malek’s entry for more on Salsabil). In 1995, he was imprisoned for being a leader of an illegal organization. He was jailed again in January 2008, this time for participating in Cairo demonstrations against Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. He is currently a professor in Zagazig University’s College of Medicine, where his colleagues have included President Morsi and fellow Guidance Office member Mahmoud Ghozlan. He is also vice president of the Islamic Medical Association.
In the media, Ezzat has been personified as the Brotherhood’s “iron man,” embodying its reputation for top-down decisionmaking.  He is considered close to deputy supreme guide Shater and is a key figure in coordinating policy decisions between the Guidance Office and the Freedom and Justice Party.

Mahmoud Hussein

محمود حسين
  • Born: July 16, 1947
  • Position: Member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s shura committee; secretary-general of the MB
  • Education: PhD, Iowa City University (1984)
  • Occupation: Professor of engineering at Assiut University
Born in Jaffa, mandatory Palestine, Hussein was raised in Beersheba and attended high school in Rafah, Gaza, while it was under Egyptian rule. His mother was Palestinian and his father was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He became active in the MB during the late 1970s while he was a graduate student at Iowa City University in the United States, serving as president of the Brotherhood-affiliated Muslim American Youth Association (MAYA). During this period, he met other future MB leaders in the United States (including Muhammad Morsi and Muhammad Ali Bishr) as well as current Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzouk. Upon returning to Egypt, he became a professor of engineering at Assiut University. His son is married to Bishr’s daughter.
Hussein has been arrested numerous times for his membership in the Brotherhood, serving in prison from 1995 to 1998. He was elected to the Guidance Office shortly after the death of MB leader Abouel Hamid Rabie in 2004. He currently serves as the Brotherhood’s secretary-general and is one of four MB leaders responsible for coordination with the Freedom and Justice Party.

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1 comment:

Hans said...

You omitted Barock Insane Oboma!