One the most organised, well-financed, and state-backed political movements in the post-25 January Revolution political scene, Egypt’s Islamists received a blow to both their project and organisation on 30 June 2013 after thousands took to the streets demanding the removal of then president Mohamed Morsi.
Faced with mass public anger, the Muslim Brotherhood’s president who was backed by almost all of the country’s Islamist factions, with the exception of the Salafist Al-Nour party, including radical and takfiri salafists, was ousted by the military on 3 July 2013. He was ousted by the same military which previously helped the Islamists reach power, pushing them as a more conservative and pragmatic alternative to the “civilian current” that included liberal, leftist, and youth movements.
Ever since July 2013, political Islam in Egypt has suffered one of the deadliest crackdowns, leaving hundreds of its followers dead, thousands in jail or standing trial in civilian and military courts, or on the run in Egypt or outside. In addition, hundreds of Brotherhood NGOs and businesses, and organisational structures in universities or syndicates, as well as political arms were legally closed by the government.
However, despite having suffered the same kind of repression, two years after Morsi’s violent ouster, the solid one-man “supporting legitimacy alliance” is currently scattered and licking its wounds. Daily News Egypt met with Ashraf El-Sherif, a professor of political science at the American University in Cairo and an expert on political Islam, to understand the mechanisms of these divisions and how they have been translated in the current actions and rhetoric of different Islamist factions, ranging from the Brotherhood, the Salafist movement, and the militant and radical.
Three years after 3 July 2013 and the ouster of Morsi, if we want to draw a map of current Islamist movements in Egypt, how can we approach this and how many categories will there be?
To do this, we might face a methodological problem, as the majority of Islamist movements are being chased by the police, hence we don’t have enough information to do this.
There is not enough flow of ideology and background about the current group, but we can do a primary attempt to categorise the different groups, which can be subjected to criticism and modification.
First, there is the Muslim Brotherhood, which is divided internally. Not from an ideological point of view, but from an organisational point and due to a personal feud between leaders. The division exists between two groups; however, it has not crystallised into an ideological feud. A large proportion of the group is currently outside Egypt due to the security crackdown, which affected the group’s social and proselytising activities, as well as its mobilisation in universities. All finances are currently being deployed to help families of imprisoned members.
Second, the Salafists divided into a number of groups.
The first is the “proselytising or scientific Salafism”. They returned back to their pre-25 January Revolution position and tactics, to focus only on proselytising and religious sciences. Examples of this are Mohamed Hassan and Mohamed Hussein Yacoub. They have become currently irrelevant and lost many supporters inside Islamist circles. Outside the Islamist circles, they have been subjected to criticism from society, which has grown to become an antagonism towards these preachers.
The second is the “politicised Salafism”, which can also be divided into two categories. The first is the Al-Nour party, who participated in the 30 June roadmap with the state against the Brotherhood. Currently, they have two goals: survival amid the crackdown that the Islamists are facing by acting as a counselling opposing and continuing their role in preaching and charity work in mosques and NGOs. Their ability to participate in politics was tested during parliamentary elections, as their results were less than expected and less than the previous elections in 2011. Their performance, however, was not that bad when compared to other entities. They pushed forward a few members in the elections so as not to frighten the state. The reason why they got fewer votes than the previous elections is that the Islamist current gave up on them and withdrew its support from the party accused of selling out the Islamic cause. So it was left with the votes of the members of its religious wing: the Salafist Call group.
The second within this faction is the unorganised Salafism in Cairo and elsewhere. They adopted the cause of the Brotherhood from the start. They are convinced that the Brotherhood is the most organised Islamist movement on the scene, and it is logical to stand with them. They also believe that struggle is a “righteous and just cause”. However, they believe that the fight is not just about Morsi but it is about survival of Islam. They include the Salafist Front, supporters of Fawzy Al-Saed and Mohamed Abdel Maqsoud. All are unorganised.
Third, the jihadists trend, whose existence in Egypt is limited to Sinai, decided not to carry arms, such as the Al-Jamaa Al-Islamyia who decided that military opposing the state is a lost cause. Even for the youth, carrying arms in the classical terms is obsolete. The only existence of this phenomenon is in Sinai, where militants later joined Islamic State.
Fourth, a new trend has been growing which we can call the revolutionary Islamists or the Rabaa Islamists. They include several factions: supporters of Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, radical Brotherhood, and Salafist youth. The common factor in all of them is the dismissal of the state, the political system, spreading Islam through the democratic process, and their refusal of the classical rhetoric of the Brotherhood and the Salafists.
