Muslim Brotherhood: Rise, Rule, and Fall in Egypt
This paper examines the Muslim Brotherhood's turbulent political history in Egypt from its founding in 1928 through its brief hold on power following Mohamed Morsi's 2012 election victory and its subsequent overthrow by military coup in 2013. Drawing on scholarly sources, the paper argues that the Brotherhood's ideological opposition to Western liberalism, Soviet Communism, and the broader globalist order made it perpetually incompatible with entrenched power structures in Egypt. The paper traces the organization's grassroots appeal among Egypt's middle and lower classes, its civil society activities, and the semi-colonial conditions that both created and ultimately destroyed it as a governing force.
- Introduction: The Brotherhood's Century-Long History: Brotherhood's founding, 2012 election, and 2013 collapse
- Ideological Opposition to the Globalist Order: Brotherhood's rejection of Western and Soviet alignments
- The Brotherhood's Conflict with Egypt's Establishment: Accusations against intellectuals and elite backlash
- Semi-Colonial Egypt and the Brotherhood's Persistence: Post-independence semi-colonialism fueling Brotherhood activism
- Civil Society, Charitable Works, and Mass Mobilization: Brotherhood's schools, unions, and charitable outreach
- The Military Wing and the Brotherhood's Inevitable Fall: Military wing formation and Brotherhood's ultimate defeat
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds its argument in a clear thesis: the Brotherhood's ideological incompatibility with the globalist order explains both its appeal and its downfall, giving the essay a consistent analytical thread throughout.
- It integrates multiple scholarly sources (Chalcraft, Brooke & Ketchley, Sabaseviciute, Baron) alongside broader historical context to support claims rather than relying on assertion alone.
- The paper balances internal factors (the Brotherhood's grassroots appeal, civil society activities, military wing) with external ones (Western imperialism, semi-colonialism) to produce a multi-causal explanation.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective use of contextual framing: each claim about the Brotherhood is situated within a larger geopolitical narrative (Cold War alignments, NATO interventions, Suez Canal interests), showing how local political movements are shaped by and respond to international power structures. This technique elevates what could be a straightforward historical summary into a structural critique.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a brief historical orientation before advancing its central argument about ideological incompatibility. It then moves through the Brotherhood's relationships with Cold War powers, its conflict with Egypt's own intelligentsia and establishment, the persistence of semi-colonialism after 1922, and the organization's civil society activities. It concludes by connecting the Brotherhood's origins directly to its fall, culminating in a geopolitical argument about Western strategic interests in the Suez Canal region.
Introduction: The Brotherhood's Century-Long History
The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is nearly a century old, having been founded there in 1928. Yet prior to the elections of 2012, the organization had never been in control of the nation. In 2012, with the election of Mohamed Morsi of the Freedom and Justice Party — which the Brotherhood had founded — it appeared that the organization was finally turning a page in its political story. However, by the end of 2013, a major crackdown saw the leaders of the Brotherhood arrested and imprisoned, and a new military-based government outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood completely.
Perhaps such an outcome should not have been surprising: after all, the Brotherhood's turbulent history had shaped the organization in such a way that made it ill-equipped to govern in a globalized world. As Brooke and Ketchley (2018) indicate, the Muslim Brotherhood was supported by local organization and the railroad more than by cosmopolitan Europeans where state administration is extensive. The Brotherhood was culturally rooted in Sunni Islam, with a strong inclination toward urban reform; it very much resembled a grassroots movement at odds with establishment politicians and globalist, secular trends (Chalcraft, 2016). Chalcraft (2016) points out that the Muslim Brotherhood "was devoted to making what it saw as a morally decadent and religiously deviant Egypt — and in particular the secular, nationalist Wahdists — a more Islamic society" in order to create a true Islamic state (p. 286). The tools by which it sought to create this state were "piety, charity, persuasion, mass mobilization and reform" (Chalcraft, 2016, p. 286). These tools were what made it dangerous to the globalist order emerging in the Middle East in the twentieth century.
The Muslim Brotherhood's failure to hold on to power was a direct result of its ideological opposition to the globalist order: its military overthrow is evidence that the Brotherhood served no purpose to the established powers beyond whatever utility it had offered them in the past. The Brotherhood took itself and its mission seriously — but the wider imperialistic powers that methodically and routinely intervene in and manipulate geopolitics in the Middle East regarded it as nothing more than a useful tool for their own imperialistic ambitions.
Ideological Opposition to the Globalist Order
The anti-Communist, anti-liberal ideological bent of the Muslim Brotherhood certainly did not win it any affection from either Western or Eastern powers throughout the twentieth century (Chalcraft, 2016). The West represented liberal democratic values; the Soviets represented Communism; neither appealed to the Muslim Brotherhood, and so the Brotherhood never enjoyed support from the established political leaders of Egypt, who often sought backing from both the West and the East. The Kennedy Administration supported Nasser, for instance; and when Johnson came to power, the shift toward the Soviets was clear (Stone & Kuznick, 2012).
The Muslim Brotherhood resisted both blocs and appealed instead to the middle and lower classes of Egyptian Muslims. Because of its popularity and its ability to portray itself as an anti-secular but pro-reform movement, it spoke to the common sense of people who took pride in their Islamic identity and in the idea of having a state of their own (Chalcraft, 2016). The Brotherhood was a potent force in the post-war world of Egypt and was perceived as a threat to the "authority of the parliamentary system" (Chalcraft, 2016, p. 286). The founder of the Brotherhood, Hasan Al-Banna, was horrified by the invasion of Western liberalism between the wars and saw the "new woman" coming to dominate Western culture as a liberal corruption that threatened to undermine the morals and ideals of Islamic culture in Egypt (Chalcraft, 2016). The Brotherhood came into existence to oppose this progressive movement within Egyptian society, and its opposition to the progressive trend marked it as a troublemaker in the eyes of the established powers. Even radicals within Egypt's intelligentsia viewed the Muslim Brotherhood as problematic — a view that typified the turbulence the Brotherhood routinely caused within Egypt.
References
Baron, B. (2014). The orphan scandal: Christian missionaries and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood. Stanford University Press.
Brooke, S., & Ketchley, N. (2018). Social and institutional origins of political Islam. The American Political Science Review, 112(2), 376–394.
Chalcraft, J. (2016). Popular politics in the making of the modern Middle East. Cambridge University Press.
Sabaseviciute, G. (2018). Sayyid Qutb and the crisis of culture in late 1940s Egypt. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 50(1), 85.
Stone, O., & Kuznick, P. (2012). The untold history of the United States. Gallery.
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