How the Muslim Brotherhood rose to power in Egypt, and what it means for the Islamic world
The Muslim Brotherhood has achieved a level of influence nearly unimaginable before the Arab Spring. The Brotherhood was the resounding victor in Egypt's 2011-2012 parliamentary elections, and six months later, a leader of the group was elected president. Yet the implications of the Brotherhood's rising power for the future of democratic governance, peace, and stability in the region is open to dispute. Drawing on more than one hundred in-depth interviews as well as Arabic language sources not previously accessed by Western researchers, Carrie Rosefsky Wickham traces the evolution of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt from its founding in 1928 to the fall of Mubarak and the watershed elections of 2011-2012. Further, she compares the Brotherhood's trajectory with those of mainstream Islamist groups in Jordan, Kuwait, and Morocco, revealing a wider pattern of change. Wickham highlights the internal divisions of such groups and explores the shifting balance of power among them. She shows that they are not proceeding along a linear path toward greater moderation. Rather, their course has been marked by profound tensions and contradictions, yielding hybrid agendas in which newly embraced themes of freedom and democracy coexist uneasily with illiberal concepts of Shari'a carried over from the past. Highlighting elements of movement continuity and change, and demonstrating that shifts in Islamist worldviews, goals, and strategies are not the result of a single strand of cause and effect, Wickham provides a systematic, fine-grained account of Islamist group evolution in Egypt and the wider Arab world.
Industry Reviews
"The Muslim Brotherhood has been pushed out of power in Egypt and Carrie Rosefsky Wickham ... might appear to be publishing just too late. In fact, her book still matters."--Gerard Russell, Times Literary Supplement "[F]ine-grained, historically rich analysis ..."--Charles Tripp, London Review of Books "This timely publication emerges from Emory University political scientist Wickham's (Mobilizing Islam) long-term research into the institutional and ideological nuances of 'movement changes' within the Muslim Brotherhood--the Sunni revivalist organization that was the leading opponent of the Mubarak regime in Egypt before the popular uprising of January 2011... This admirable study (based on hundreds of interviews) is a judicious, well-grounded plea for complexity in the depiction and analysis of Islamist movements."--Publishers Weekly "[F]ascinating and marvelously detailed... The Muslim Brotherhood offers one of the best and most detailed presentations of a robust school of thought among students of Islamism... [I]t is likely to become a standard text and will be received as a major summary statement of decades of research and analysis."--Marc Lynch, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas "In this richly researched book, Wickham provides the most in-depth analysis of the genesis and development of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood available in English... This valuable contribution to the literature on mainstream Islamist movements will be useful to scholars and policymakers alike."--Library Journal "[A] clearly written and balanced account of the Brotherhood from its modest beginnings to its coming to power."--Michael Burleigh, Literary Review "[A] commanding study of the Brotherhood's long history ..."--Frederick Deknatel, National "[An] excellent new history of the Muslim Brotherhood."--Christopher de Bellaigue, Guardian "[O]utstanding... The Muslim Brotherhood is an essential guide to understanding the historical background of the political crisis in Egypt today."--Joseph Richard Preville, Muscat Daily "[The Muslim Brotherhood is] an accessible and informative analysis of one of the most important and perhaps most misunderstood political organizations in the Middle East."--Matthew Feeney, American Conservative "Wickham's thoughtful presentation of the Muslim Brotherhood as both a significant historical player and a responsive ideological organization may serve to deepen our understanding of current upheavals in the Arab world. Fascinating, revealing, and impressive in scope, Wickham's book stands to make important contributions to contemporary studies of the Middle East."--Michelle Anne Schingler, Foreword "[The Muslim Brotherhood] is a careful analysis that is meticulous in questioning the data from a position of critical reflection, demonstrating many years of research and experience and a genuine understanding of the region and its complexities by not taking simple statements at face value... The extent to which analysis of this kind can derive valid causal inferences from observed data hinges on the contextual knowledge of the researcher, and it is here that this work truly excels... The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement is not just a timely new book on a topic of public interest but a fine example of academic research."--Christina Hellmich, Times Higher Education
