Ikhwanweb :: The Muslim Brotherhood Official English Website

Wishful US thinking

There is a truism understood among the more astute foreign policy analysts in Washington regarding America’s comprehension of the Middle East region: Whatever happens, whether it is the victory of Hamas, the downfall of the reformist movement in Iran, or most glaringly, the monumental humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq, you can count on a misreading of such events for at least three or four years after they have occurred before realism sets in...

If Kosovo, why not Palestine?

As expected, Kosovo has issued its unilateral declaration of independence, the United States and most European Union countries, with whom this declaration was coordinated, rushing to extend diplomatic recognition to this "new country"...

Pessimism USA

So numerous are our problems and so grave our failures that we fully merit being described as the most grim people on earth. The gap between the Arab rich and poor is expanding while the less fortunate despair of their circumstances ever improving in the foreseeable future...

Wrongly accused?

Egyptian parliamentarians lashed out at Europe for questioning our human rights record. Representatives from both houses of parliament took to the floor to denounce Europe for stepping on our toes. That the European Parliament was addressing a real problem didn’t seem to matter. The fact that perhaps we need to come clean didn’t occur to anyone. Only the venting of anger mattered. Europe and America had no right to get on our case, our officials said. ..

What is Mahmoud Abbas waiting for?

With the appalling death toll in Gaza, relentless assaults on the West Bank (in which negotiations chief Ahmed Qurei’s own bodyguard was killed), and Israel’s blatant settlement expansion, one must wonder what Israeli atrocity, if any, would make the Palestinian president change course...

Nazif under fire

Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif was bullish in defence of his two-year-old government’s economic policies, insisting that it had notched up a series of successes, introducing much needed reforms that had resulted in growth rates of 7.1 per cent and attracted $11.1 billion in foreign direct investment in 2007. Nazif also boasted that in the last 12 months the number of tourists visiting Egypt had for the first time exceeded 10 million, and that dollar reserves held by the Central Bank of Egy..

Looking backward, looking forward

At the threshold of a new year Egypt seems to be straddling two eras: that of a now decrepit political order, the life expectancy of which ended years ago but is still clinging tenaciously to life, and that of something that is still embryonic...

Celebrating human rights

Egypt celebrated International Human Rights Day last Monday, holding various official and non- official events designed to highlight the country’s actions to promote human rights and the seriousness with which the government views the issue...

Students strike

More than 2,000 students at Al-Azhar University’s Faculty of Medicine ended their demonstration on Sunday which began inside the campus on 6 December to protest against the detention of 22 of their colleagues...

Jihad revisions

Before Al-Qaeda’s chief theorist, Imam Abdul- Aziz Al-Marouf, publicised the ideological revisions drafted by the founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Sayed Imam El-Sherif (Dr Fadl), and since the Egyptian Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya announced its desire to enter into serious dialogue with the Egyptian authorities, a single question has reigned foremost in the minds of intellectuals involved in the study of Islamist organisations...

Professors review their options

University teachers have decided to escalate their protests, warning that the current policy threatens to render higher education meaningless...

Of Hermeneutics and Reform

Despite the talk being an hour late starting, the audience, largely Middle Eastern, patiently remained in the small auditorium of Alwan for the Arts, an Arab cultural centre founded in New York in 1998. The stature of the lecturer, Nasr Hamid Abu Zeid..

Steps to the syndicate chair

Saturday’s Press Syndicate elections for the 12- member council and the post of chairman come at a crucial time for the profession..

Justice not equality

The mark of power is often presented in the form of the helping hand. Amid invasions and occupation, focus has fallen, too, on more subtle means of advancing the agendas of foreign powers. One such means is targeting the generative essence of societies, wherein women stand at the centre. What role do women in Islamist movements play in defending the cultural particularity and sovereignty of the Arab and Muslim world?..

Logic of extremes

The labour crisis in Mahala textile factories ended in the simplest of ways, with no need for internal or external mediation. Once the company conceded to worker demands, which it had earlier rejected,.....

Redrawing the lines

When the editor of Al-Dostour faces trial on 1 October for "publishing false rumours in bad faith about President Mubarak’s health", it is the independent press that will really be in the dock, ..

’Helpline’ for victims closed

Activists and bloggers, though, are determined to overturn past precedents by a campaign of naming and shaming, as well as reaching out to the victims of abuse...

Democracy under siege

Democracy in the Arab world is in a bind. It is taking one step forward and two steps back. Although the silent majority is growing more active and increasingly restive, ..

Abdel-Moneim Abul-Futuh: A different kind of syndicalism

Following riots on 7 January, 1977 president Anwar El-Sadat met student leaders from across the country.The government was having a hard time containing the fallout from the riots and wanted to gauge students’ reactions. Abdel-Moneim Abul- Futuh was, at the time, head of Egypt’s Students’ Union and he had one question he wanted to ask El-Sadat. ..

Endless clampdowns

Arrests, more arrests and military trials, such was the Muslim Brotherhood’s week...