Ikhwanweb :: The Muslim Brotherhood Official English Website

The Muslim Brotherhood, the largest Sunni group, and an influential Egyptian association, has been under fire by the Egyptian government. Founded in 1928 in Egypt, the Brotherhood grew to approximately 2 million strong in the 1940"s. Soon the Brotherhood was at arms with the government, one of their member assassinated the prime minister, and soon after the Brotherhood founder and leader Hassan al-Banna was assassinated, presumably by a government agent.

Tensions with the government have not eased up. Although the Brotherhood shuns terrorist violence, they also promote Jihad. Tensions with the government also arise from the Brotherhood"s support of laborer rights and political freedom, at times being critical of the government. The Muslim Brotherhood is still intregal within the government, even though they are adversarial towards it, they are the largest opposition party, holding 20% of the seats. However the Brotherhood has been officially banned since 1954, so all of it"s political members are forced to run as independents.

Recently the Egyptian government has started cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood. As many as 600 Brotherhood members have been arrested in this crackdown, and even arresting 6 Member of Parliament, 4 of which were believed to be kidnapped or murdered, as the government had not announced their arrests until recently.

The Brotherhood is on the defensive on all of this. Regarding 4 of the members of parliament imprisoned the Brotherhood lawyer has said, "But they had nothing at all to do with this mess ... and the people questioning them know this, they"re certain of this." The Economist speculates that the reason for this recent crackdown by the government is to create a more accepting climate for the rumored inauguration of the current president"s son, Gamal Mubarak.