Turkey!
In fact, the Brothers are in the throes of an ideological transformation. An internal debate involving discord between the old guard and the “young” leadership has engulfed the movement in recent years. Indeed, its ability and desire to enter Egypt’s political life has intensified the ddiscussion about what the Muslim Brotherhood ultimately wants to achieve.
While the older faction remains in an ideological quandary - at times repeating the ambiguous and anachronistic dictum “Islam is the solution” - the “young” elements (represented by such figures as Essam al-Erian and Abdel Moneim Abou el-Fotouh) view Turkey’s ruling Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi(Justice & Development Party / AKP) as their favoured model of Islamic governance. This embrace of a modern concept of democracy is a radical departure from the group’s adherence in the early 1990s to the Qur’anic concept of shura, a vague conception of authoritarian but just rule subject to the principle of consultation.
The shift in Egypt’s religious politics goes beyond the Muslim Brothers. Al-Gama‘a al-Islamiyya, the Islamist group that inflicted atrocious violence on officials, Copts, and foreign tourists in the 1980s and 1990s in pursuit of an Islamic state in Egypt, underwent a significant change by the late 1990s; it laid down its arms, abandoned its violence and radical Islamism, and opted to work as a political party to pursue peaceful da‘wa (proselytising) within Egypt’s legal framework (though the government refused to give the group a permit).
Even before the transformation of al-Gama‘a al-Islamiyya, the Hizb-ul-Wasat had defected from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood to pursue its own very different trajectory. Al-Wasat now privileges modern democracy over the Islamic shura, embraces pluralism in religion, welcomes gender mixing, supports women’s prominent public roles, and ideological diversity. It’s not merely that (Christian) Copts are admitted to the party; a Christian, Rafiq Habib, serves as the group’s key ideologue.
The model of “Islamic governance” that Tunisia’s al-Nahda, the “young” Egyptian Muslim Brothers, and Iran’s reformist and other groups project is the AKP in Turkey, which has governed that country since November 2002. This Islamic party has - amid much and continuing political controversy - implemented important reforms that have had an overall democratising effect.
Asef Bayat writes:
In fact, the Brothers are in the throes of an ideological transformation. An internal debate involving discord between the old guard and the “young” leadership has engulfed the movement in recent years. Indeed, its ability and desire to enter Egypt’s political life has intensified the ddiscussion about what the Muslim Brotherhood ultimately wants to achieve.
While the older faction remains in an ideological quandary - at times repeating the ambiguous and anachronistic dictum “Islam is the solution” - the “young” elements (represented by such figures as Essam al-Erian and Abdel Moneim Abou el-Fotouh) view Turkey’s ruling Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi(Justice & Development Party / AKP) as their favoured model of Islamic governance. This embrace of a modern concept of democracy is a radical departure from the group’s adherence in the early 1990s to the Qur’anic concept of shura, a vague conception of authoritarian but just rule subject to the principle of consultation.
The shift in Egypt’s religious politics goes beyond the Muslim Brothers. Al-Gama‘a al-Islamiyya, the Islamist group that inflicted atrocious violence on officials, Copts, and foreign tourists in the 1980s and 1990s in pursuit of an Islamic state in Egypt, underwent a significant change by the late 1990s; it laid down its arms, abandoned its violence and radical Islamism, and opted to work as a political party to pursue peaceful da‘wa (proselytising) within Egypt’s legal framework (though the government refused to give the group a permit).
Even before the transformation of al-Gama‘a al-Islamiyya, the Hizb-ul-Wasat had defected from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood to pursue its own very different trajectory. Al-Wasat now privileges modern democracy over the Islamic shura, embraces pluralism in religion, welcomes gender mixing, supports women’s prominent public roles, and ideological diversity. It’s not merely that (Christian) Copts are admitted to the party; a Christian, Rafiq Habib, serves as the group’s key ideologue.
The model of “Islamic governance” that Tunisia’s al-Nahda, the “young” Egyptian Muslim Brothers, and Iran’s reformist and other groups project is the AKP in Turkey, which has governed that country since November 2002. This Islamic party has - amid much and continuing political controversy - implemented important reforms that have had an overall democratising effect.
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