The Muslim Brotherhood by Wickham Carrie Rosefsky

Author:Wickham, Carrie Rosefsky [Wickham, Carrie Rosefsky]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE SOURCES OF THE BROTHERHOOD’S ORGANIZATIONAL DISCIPLINE AND COHERENCE

The rift between the Brotherhood’s senior leaders and its activist youth was described in some press reports as a “schism” or “split” within the group’s ranks, but this overstates the impact of the defections on the Brotherhood as a whole. First, though the exact figures are unknown, the youth involved in such initiatives appeared to number in the hundreds and at most a few thousand in an organization with tens of thousands of active members. Second, and just as important, senior leaders in the Guidance Bureau retained control over the Brotherhood’s Education Unit (qism al-tarbiya), through which they supervised the recruitment and socialization of new members.

Here it is worth noting that individuals did not join the Brotherhood by choice but had to be invited into the group and pass through successive phases of evaluation and training before they obtained full membership rights. Hence by the time a new recruit achieved full membership status, his commitment to the values and norms of the Brotherhood had already been vetted over a period of several years. A prospective member started out as a muhibb (sympathizer), then proceeded to become a muʾayyid (supporter), muntasib (appointee), muntadhim (member), and finally an ʿudw ʿamil (active member) with full rights to vote and run for office. At each stage the individual enrolled in a religious and cultural study program (barnamig thaqafi) specifically designed for members of that level, and his behavior was scrutinized to ensure conformity with group norms. When I asked a young activist what, for example, would happen if an individual at an early stage of this process was discovered to be having a premarital sexual relationship, he replied that such a person might be permitted to participate in Brotherhood activities but would not be invited to become a full member.100

This process of gradual promotion to higher tiers of membership status helped promote a certain degree of ideological and behavioral conformity within the group’s ranks. Further, as an individual proceeded through the socialization process, not only his political career but also his social life became more deeply embedded within movement networks. Colleagues, friends, and even marriage partners were more likely to be chosen from within such networks, raising the costs of leaving the group behind. Indeed, reformist leaders emphasized how difficult it was to break with the organization, their primary focus of allegiance for all of their adult lives. Ibrahim al-Zaʿfarani told a reporter that on the eve of his resignation, “I could not sleep all night, and neither could my wife.” As he recalled, “For two weeks, we received thousands of calls from Brothers and Sisters inside and outside Egypt. They begged me to change my mind. These phone calls used to kill us emotionally on a daily basis.”101 Youth members who resigned from the group or were expelled from it emphasized the psychological and emotional stress associated with leaving the Brotherhood. As Muhammad Qassas observed: “Resigning from the Muslim Brotherhood is a very tough decision,

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