Ikhwanweb :: The Muslim Brotherhood Official English Website

Cracking down on moderate Islamists

The detention of the three MB bloggers is part of a wider crackdown which has directly targeted the most moderate and pragmatic figures within the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. That ongoing policy escalated dramatically with the arrest of several members of the MB’s Guidance Council. The arrested figures including Abdel Monem Abou al-Fattouh, a leading moderate and pragmatic figure within the Egyptian MB, on what appear to be trumped up charges related to his alleged activities with t..

Qaradawi’s Revisions

His book, described by the Egyptian newspaper al-Masry al-Youm last week in a seven part series, is far more important than the much-discussed "recantations" and "revisions" of former jihadist intellectuals such as Dr. Fadl (Sayid Imam) and the leaders of the Gama’a Islamiya. The internal revisions by ex-jihadists (which Qaradawi praises) may influence that tiny group of extremists, and demonstrate cracks in their intellectual foundations. But for the most part, the mass Arab public h..

Public Diplomacy and the War of Ideas

In the lively discussion which followed, I pushed the panelists on two points. First, everyone would probably agree that we should do everything but in a world of scarce resources - and getting scarcer - which should we choose? All seemed to agree that the problem wasn’t getting more resources, it was about the distribution of the resources: the Pentagon would barely even notice the transfer of a few hundred million dollars which would revolutionize the State Department’s program..

MB and democracy, again

This afternoon I spoke at a panel at Brookings with Daniel Levy about Islamist movements. I’m not sure what the rules of engagement were, so I won’t talk about any of the content really...

No Brothers in Doha

Alongside the ongoing military trial of a number of leaders such as Khairat al-Shater - revered by reformist Brotherhood youth, there has been a new campaign of arrests against political organizers and activists, including the outrageous arrest of the quietly influential reformist Khaled Hamza..

Al-Jazeera and Saudi Arabia

I’ve gotten a lot of calls from journalists over the last year or two with questions about alleged changes in al-Jazeera. To me, the best indication that little had really changed was that half wanted to talk about al-Jazeera’s turn in a more radical Islamist direction and the other half wanted to talk about al-Jazeera’s turn in a more pro-American direction. At the same time! ..

More Arab bloggers in peril

It seems like every day there’s another story about Arab political bloggers being arrested, harrassed, or shut down. In Egypt, Abd al-Monem Mahmoud draws attention to the early December arrest of Ahmed Mohassan ("Eyes Still Open"), whose blog has among other things reported police torture, and the harassment and arrests of other Egyptian bloggers...

FYI Upcoming Appearances

For those in DC or the Boston area, FYI: I’ll be doing the following events over the next two weeks, all of which I assume are open to the public though you may have to RSVP:.....

Doing dialogue in Cairo

I’m just back to the US, and now I can say a bit more about where I was and what I was doing. Some readers might recall that last month I published an essay in Foreign Policy magazine, "How to Talk to America", cast as a memo to the Supreme Guide of the MB. ..

The Arab Media Paradox

Today is World Press Freedom Day, which for students of the Arab media is a depressing day indeed...

New Muslim Public Opinion Survey

PIPA has just released the results of another major public opinion survey in four Muslim countries (Egypt, Indonesia, Morocco, and Pakistan). The survey is unusually interesting, with some very well-designed questions. Overall..