The Global Muslim Brotherhood In Britain

Since 2011, with the British Government’s counter-radicalisation strategy, Prevent, non-violent Islamist groups have been considered a security risk for spreading a divisive ideology that can lead to radicalisation and violence. More recently, the Government has expressed concerns about their impact on social cohesion, entryism, and women’s rights. The key protagonists of non-violent Islamist ‘extremism’ allegedly include groups and individuals associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and Jama’at-i-Islami. They have been described as part of the ‘global Muslim Brotherhood’, but do they constitute a singular phenomenon, a social movement? This book shows that such groups and individuals do indeed comprise a movement in Britain, one dedicated to an Islamic ‘revival’. It shows how they are networked organisationally, bonded through ideological and cultural kinship, and united in a conflict of values with the British society and state. Using original interviews with prominent revivalist leaders, as well as primary sources, the book also shows how the movement is not so much ‘Islamist’ in aspiring for an Islamic state, but concerned with institutionalising an Islamic worldview and moral framework throughout society. The conflict between the Government and the global Muslim Brotherhood is apparent in a number of different fields, including education, governance, law, and counterterrorism. But this does not simply concern the direction of Government policy or the control of state institutions. It most fundamentally concerns the symbolic authority to legitimise a way of seeing, thinking and living. By assessing this multifaceted conflict, the book presents an exhaustive and up-to-date analysis of the political and cultural fault lines between Islamic revivalists and the British authorities. It will be useful for anyone studying Islam in the West, government counter-terrorism and counter-extremism policy, multiculturalism and social cohesion.

The Muslim Brotherhood and the West is the first comprehensive history of the relationship between the world’s largest Islamist movement and the Western powers that have dominated the Middle East for the past century: Britain and the United States. In the decades since the Brotherhood emerged in Egypt in the 1920s, the movement’s notion of “the West” has remained central to its worldview and a key driver of its behavior. From its founding, the Brotherhood stood opposed to the British Empire and Western cultural influence more broadly. As British power gave way to American, the Brotherhood’s leaders, committed to a vision of more authentic Islamic societies, oscillated between anxiety or paranoia about the West and the need to engage with it. Western officials, for their part, struggled to understand the Brotherhood, unsure whether to shun the movement as one of dangerous “fanatics” or to embrace it as a moderate and inevitable part of the region’s political scene. Too often, diplomats failed to view the movement on its own terms, preferring to impose their own external agendas and obsessions. Martyn Frampton reveals the history of this complex and charged relationship down to the eve of the Arab Spring. Drawing on extensive archival research in London and Washington and the Brotherhood’s writings in Arabic and English, he provides the most authoritative assessment to date of a relationship that is both vital in itself and crucial to navigating one of the world’s most turbulent regions.

The Muslim Brotherhood is the oldest and most important international Islamist group. Aside from strong organizations in Egypt, Jordan, Syria—where it provides the main opposition—and its Palestinian offshoot Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip, the Brotherhood has become active in Europe and North America.

In both Europe and North America, organizations tracing their origins back to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist movements have rapidly evolved into multifunctional, richly funded organizations. They now compete to become the major representatives of Western Muslim communities and government interlocutors. Some analysts and policy makers see these organizations as positive forces encouraging integration. Others treat them as modern-day Trojan horses that feign moderation while radicalizing Western Muslims. Lorenzo Vidino brokers a third and more informed view. Having completed more than a decade of research on political Islam in the West, Vidino is keenly qualified to analyze a movement that is as controversial as it is unknown. Conducting in-depth interviews on four continents and sourcing documents in ten languages, Vidino shares the history, methods, views, and goals of the Western Brothers, as well as their phenomenal growth. He then flips the perspective, examining the response to these groups by Western governments, concentrating specifically on Great Britain, Germany, and the United States. Highly informed and thoughtfully presented, Vidino's work sheds light on a critical juncture in Muslim-Western relations and the role Islam plays for a variety of uprooted individuals.

In April 2014 the Prime Minister commissioned an internal review of the Muslim Brotherhood, including its origins, ideology, record in and out of government; and its organisation and activities in the UK and abroad. The review comprises a classified report to the Prime Minister. However, the Prime Minister made clear that the main findings of the review would be made public. These findings are set out below. The Government is committed to developing a much better understanding of groups which have been or are alleged to have been associated with extremism and terrorism, and has made further resources available for that purpose. The review was conducted by two of the UK's most senior and expert civil servants: Sir John Jenkins, until recently HM Ambassador to Riyadh, assessed the Muslim Brotherhood and affiliates overseas; Charles Farr, at the time of writing Director General of the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism in the Home Office considered the history, activities, ideology and influence of the Muslim Brotherhood network and affiliates in the UK. The review found that The Muslim Brotherhood has not been linked to terrorist related activity in and against the UK. The Muslim Brotherhood in the UK (eg MAB) has often condemned terrorist related activity in the UK associated with al Qai'da. However, in common with the Muslim Brotherhood elsewhere, Muslim Brotherhood-related organisations and individuals in the UK have openly supported the activities of Hamas. People associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK have applauded suicide bombing by Hamas, in some cases against civilians. Hamas terrorist activities have not been publicly disowned or condemned. Muslim Brotherhood organisations and associates in the UK have neither openly nor consistently refuted the literature of Brotherhood member Sayyid Qutb which is known to have inspired people (including in this country) to engage in terrorism.

The Muslim Brotherhood and the West is the first comprehensive history of the relationship between the world’s largest Islamist movement and the Western powers that have dominated the Middle East for the past century: Britain and the United States. In the decades since the Brotherhood emerged in Egypt in the 1920s, the movement’s notion of “the West” has remained central to its worldview and a key driver of its behavior. From its founding, the Brotherhood stood opposed to the British Empire and Western cultural influence more broadly. As British power gave way to American, the Brotherhood’s leaders, committed to a vision of more authentic Islamic societies, oscillated between anxiety or paranoia about the West and the need to engage with it. Western officials, for their part, struggled to understand the Brotherhood, unsure whether to shun the movement as one of dangerous “fanatics” or to embrace it as a moderate and inevitable part of the region’s political scene. Too often, diplomats failed to view the movement on its own terms, preferring to impose their own external agendas and obsessions. Martyn Frampton reveals the history of this complex and charged relationship down to the eve of the Arab Spring. Drawing on extensive archival research in London and Washington and the Brotherhood’s writings in Arabic and English, he provides the most authoritative assessment to date of a relationship that is both vital in itself and crucial to navigating one of the world’s most turbulent regions.

This is the authorised biography of Youssef Nada, a man who knows most of the untold story of more than half a century of rage and revolution. Through war, global terrorism and complex international crises, he was there. On the inside. A true eyewitness to history, a participant and powerbroker in events which shaped it. Youssef Nada would never promise answers, but would offer possible solutions through the ideas and philosophy he has lived to all his life as an ambassador of reason, a peacemaker and as the de facto foreign minister of the Muslim Brotherhood group who have a membership of more than one hundred million worldwide with many millions holding pivotal positions in America, the UK, and throughout continental Europe. He has a hard, clear, lucid, vision; he has insight into the terror of Lockerbie in Scotland, the 'rehearsals' for the September 11 onslaught against America and the July 7 London bombers, the Iran-Contra affair, the Beirut kidnapping of Terry Waite, and of deals and horrors that have touched the lives of individuals and nations alike. He has been involved in all aspects of the 'Arab Spring' in Egypt, including the upcoming elections in which the Muslim Brotherhood will take power. Youssef Nada was, until now, the hidden mystery at the heart of the Middle East; the part of the puzzle no one could place. It was safer. After 9/11 Nada, known throughout much of the world as a humanitarian, was branded a global terrorist and listed as such by America and the UN. The Muslim Brotherhood (al-lkhwan al-Muslimeen), the most controversial, and influential, of all Islamist 'organisations' from East to West and back again, has been at odds with many governments; it is the most potent Islamist opposition party throughout the Arab world. Youssef Nada believes that, as he is known as the Muslim Brotherhood's international political foreign emissary, all the interional intelligence agencies moved against him. Now, he had decided to step completely out of the shadows and tell the story of his life.

In the wake of the 25 January revolution and the coup that followed in 2013, Egyptian bookstores recorded a significant increase in demand for books by and about the Muslim Brotherhood. However, despite the burgeoning literature on the Brotherhood, knowledge about the movement is still rather limited, particularly with regard to its most strategic tool – media and communications. This book offers a fresh and close look into the communication strategy of the group, focusing on published periodicals, biographies, and websites that represent the voice of the Brotherhood. The book analyses the core mission of the Brotherhood, namely its dacwa (call, invitation to faith) – how it is articulated and how it is defined by the movement as an ideology and a process. Have the media represented a coherent voice of the Brotherhood over the past decades? What can they communicate regarding the Brothers’ perception of the needs of their audiences? How have the media served to sustain, preserve, and distinguish the movement for nine decades? The book argues that the Brotherhood media speak with an intermittent voice and deliver an incoherent message whose tone is changeable and fluctuating and cannot be claimed to truly represent the heterogeneity of the group. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach that integrates Media Studies and Social Movement Theory, the book provides a fresh analysis of the Brotherhood movement as an interpretive community and will be a valuable resource for anyone studying Egypt or the Muslim Brotherhood.