Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Competitive Politics

Abstract

With its electoral gain of eighty-eight seats in the legislative elections of 2005, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) once again reestablished itself as the main Egyptian opposition movement. After a decade of repression and relative marginalization, the MB renegotiated its paradoxical participation in Egyptian politics in a rapidly changing regional and international context. At the same time, the MB also reviewed its ideological outlook. While the movement stayed true to its commitment of nonviolent political action, the movement is still not legal under Egyptian law.

Most Western observers tend to look at the phenomenon of political Islam as if it were a butterfly in a collection box, captured and skewered for eternity, or as a set of texts unbendingly prescribing a single path. This is why some scholars who examine its core writings proclaim Islam to be incompatible with democracy—as if any religion in its origin was about democracy at all.

—Graham Fuller (2002: 50)