A REQUIEM FOR EGYPT (II)

The Egyptian Interior Ministry said police picked up the 70-year-old Brotherhood leader near Rabi’a al-Adawiyya Square, where thousands of President Muhammad Mursi’s supporters were killed. In its news bulletin after the arrest, Al Jazeera said the arrest was “incredibly significant [and was] always seen as the red line [as] even Hosni Mubarak never arrested him.”Following […]

The Egyptian Interior Ministry said police picked up the 70-year-old Brotherhood leader near Rabi’a al-Adawiyya Square, where thousands of President Muhammad Mursi’s supporters were killed. In its news bulletin after the arrest, Al Jazeera said the arrest was “incredibly significant [and was] always seen as the red line [as] even Hosni Mubarak never arrested him.”
Following Badie’s arrest, the Muslim Brotherhood temporarily appointed Mahmoud Ezzat, Badie’s deputy, as acting spiritual leader. Another deputy, Khairat el-Shater, is also in jail. Significantly, Badie was moved to Tora prison, located in southern Cairo, where ousted President Hosni Mubarak and other leaders from his regime were being held until the momentous court judgement earlier in the week ordering Mubarak’s release. The public prosecutor ordered Badie detained for 15 days pending investigation of accusations of “inciting violence.” With Badie’s arrest, most of the Brotherhood’s leadership are now in the custody of the military-led government.
A son of Badie, Ammar Badie, 38, was among the martyrs killed during last week’s ‘Day of Rage’ protests in the city’s Ramses Square. ‘Inna lilLahi wa inna ilaiHi raji’un!’ (From Allah we come, and to Him shall we return!)’.
But it should be noted that the Brotherhood’s credo is, “Allah is our objective; the Quran is our law, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and dying in the way of Allah is the highest of our aspirations” and its principles are, firstly, the introduction of the Islamic Shari’ah as “the basis for controlling the affairs of state and society” and, secondly, working to unify “Muslim countries and liberate them from foreign imperialism.”
But Mohamed Badie is not the only Brotherhood leader to be arrested by successive Egyptian regimes, nor was Ammar Badie the first martyr. And, by any stretch of the imagination, neither will be the last. So, again, ‘Inna lilLahi wa inna ilaiHi raji’un!’
The founder and first Spiritual Guide of the Ikhwan, Imam Hassan al-Banna, was himself assassinated. Though al-Banna founded the Brotherhood in 1928, the movement did not significantly scare the then Egyptian monarchy and their Western, principally American, friends until 1948 when the Ikwan sent volunteers to fight against Israel in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The Brotherhood Corps at the War distinguished themselves so well that, it was said, were they to have been given a free hand (they were fighting under Islam’s, not any nation’s, command), Israel may not have seen the light of day.
In the event, that show of valour and purpose at the war gave the Egyptian government a lot of concern. The Brotherhood was banned in 1948, its assets were impounded, scores of its members were sent to jail and its volunteer corps barred from further participating in the war. And so it came to pass that Israel was able to thoroughly beat the Arabs and declare independence in 1949.
Banning the Ikwan was not enough for the Egyptian authorities. They went for the jugular. On February 12, 1949 in Cairo, al-Banna was at the Jam’iyyah al-Shubban al-Muslimeen (the Youth Wing of the Brotherhood) headquarters with his brother in-law Abdul Karim Mansur for a meeting with a government representative, a certain Minister named Zaki Ali Basha. Ominously, Basha never arrived and so, by 5 pm, Al-Banna and his brother-in-law decided to leave. As they stood waiting for a taxi, al-Banna was shot and killed by two men. He became the first Shahid (martyr) of the Ikwan.
But nor was al-Banna the first victim.
Hassan al-Hudaybi, a prominent judge and a top official of the Egyptian judiciary who had risen to Chancellor of the Court of Appeals, was the second Murshid of the Brothers. Despite his earlier prominence, he was not spared by government. In 1954, the new military government of Gamal Abdel Nasser (which came in on a wave of Brotherhood confidence) began a new wave of arrests against members of the Muslim Brotherhood left off by the former monarchist regime. On December 4th, seven defendants of the Brotherhood, including Hudaybi, were condemned to death by the courts. Three days later, the death sentences were carried out except that of al-Hudaybi’s, whose verdict was commuted to life in prison. Hassan al-Hudaybi died on November 11th, 1973, while still under house arrest.
But nor was al-Hudaybi the second victim.
The third Spiritual Guide, Umar al-Tilmisani, though from a very wealthy Egyptian family of prominent landowners, was also not spared. al-Tilmisani was imprisoned several times, and once served 17 consecutive years in prison. He was first in jail in 1954, as an activist during the difficult Nasser years, and twice while at the head of the Brethren during Sadat’s mass roundup of opponents in 1981, and again under Hosni Mubarak in 1984.
But nor was al-Tilmisani the third victim.
Perhaps the greatest of the prisoners, and second most prominent Shahid of the Brothers was Sayyid Qutb, the Ikwan’s ideologue, theorist, author and poet of the 1950s and 60s. Author of 24 books, including novels, literary arts critique and works on education, he is best known in the Muslim world for his work on what he believed to be the social and political role of Islam, particularly in his seminal work “Milestones” (Ma’alim fi al-Tariq), seen as the manifesto of political Islam. His magnum opus was “In the Shade of the Qur’an” (Fi Zilal al-Quran), a 30-volume commentary on the Qur’an which he authored in prison.
During most of his life, Qutb’s inner circle mainly consisted of influential politicians, intellectuals, poets and literary figures, both of his age and of the preceding generation. By the mid-1940s, many of his writings were officially among the curricula of schools, colleges and universities. Even though most of his observations and criticism were levelled at the Muslim world, Qutb is also known for his intense disapproval of Western society and culture, which he saw as decadent and obsessed with materialism, violence, and base desires. In fact, the West believes Qutb is the inspiration for groups such as Al Qaida.
After the 1952 military coup, many members of the Brotherhood expected Nasser to establish an Islamic government. However, the cooperation between the Brotherhood and Nasser’s Free Officers which marked the revolution’s success soon soured as it became clear the secular nationalist ideology of Nasserism was incompatible with the Islamism of the Brotherhood.
And since it was well known that the Brothers were made popular by their extensive social programmes, Nasser had secretly set up an organisation that would sufficiently oppose the Muslim Brotherhood in the same work once he came to power. Once Qutb realised that Nasser had taken for granted the confidence of the Brotherhood, he promptly quit the alliance. Nasser tried to persuade Qutb by offering him any position he wanted in Egypt, saying: “We will give you whatever position you want in the government, whether it’s the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Arts, etc.”
Qutb refused every offer, having understood the reality of Nasser’s plans. He was promptly put in jail, charged with plot to assassinate Nasser, and on 29 August 1966, he was executed by hanging. Inna lilLahi wa inna ilaiHi raji’un!’