MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA Briefing Cairo/Brussels, 20 April 2004
ISLAMISM IN NORTH AFRICA II: EGYPT’S OPPORTUNITY
This is the second of a series of ICG briefings which many Egyptians feel could lead to a addressing the range and diversity of Islamic recrudescence of violent activism at some stage. activism in the North African states where this The government risks realising too late that it has activism has been able to develop most fully -- Egypt, squandered a vital opportunity and wasted the fruits Algeria and Morocco. The first provides general of its own earlier successes on the security front. background. Each subsequent paper examines with respect to one of the three states the outlook and Between 1974 and 1997, Egypt witnessed intermittent strategies of the main Islamist1 movements and violence conducted by radical Islamic groups animated organisations, their relations with the state and with principally by the desperate vision of Sayyid Qutb.2 each other, and especially the way in which they Between 1992 and 1997, the violence was particularly have evolved in recent years. The analysis focuses on intense, with altogether over a thousand killed. the relationship between Islamic activism and Following the massacre of 58 tourists at Luxor in violence, especially but not only terrorism, and the Upper Egypt in November 1997, however, the armed problem of political reform in general and movements declared a cease-fire, which has held ever democratisation in particular. since. In the meantime, the Society of the Muslim Brothers has been allowed to pursue its activities and has recovered much of the position it held, before its I. OVERVIEW banning in 1954, as a social movement combining religious, charitable, educational and publishing Important changes in the outlook of Egyptian Islamic activities with a substantial political presence. activism in recent years have opened up possibilities However, while it is tolerated by the state, it formally for progressive political development, but these have remains illegal, enjoying neither the status of a legal gone unexploited because of the conservatism of the political party nor that of a legal association. In recent Egyptian government’s policies. The absence of years, a new grouping, consisting in part of former serious violence since late 1997 strongly suggests that Brothers but also of personalities with no links to the the strategy of armed struggle (jihad) against the state Society, has sought to constitute a moderate reformist has not only failed but has effectively been abandoned. party (the Wasat or Centre party) on a new basis, but At the same time, the ideology of non-violent Islamic has also been refused legal status by the government. activism has evolved and now emphatically embraces If armed jihad has led to a dead end, non-violent democratic principles and elements of a modernist Islamic activism appears in an impasse. outlook. However, unless the Egyptian government changes its approach, opens up the political field and Nonetheless, Islamic activism in Egypt has been undertakes serious political reform, the frustration undergoing an important process of change and has begun to emancipate itself from the main perspectives which had oriented it since 1970 if not earlier, that of Hassan Al-Banna on the one hand and Sayyid Qutb 1 In the usage adopted by ICG, ‘Islamism’ is Islam in on the other. The ascendancy of these outlooks, political rather than religious mode: ‘Islamist movements’ expressing a conservative or even reactionary anti- are those with Islamic ideological references pursuing Westernism, followed the eclipse of the earlier primarily political objectives, and ‘Islamist’ and ‘Islamic political’ are essentially synonymous. ‘Islamic’ is a more general expression: usually referring to Islam in religious rather than political mode but capable, depending on the 2 For a discussion of Qutb’s thought, see ICG Middle East context, of embracing both (e,g, references in the text to Briefing, Islamism in North Africa I: The Legacies of History, ‘Islamic activism’). 20 April 2004. Islamism in North Africa II: Egypt's Opportunity ICG Middle East and North Africa Briefing, 20 April 2004 Page 2
positive, if selective and critical, orientation to viewpoints, and will prevent the progressive -- Western thought which had characterised the original, modernist and democratic -- trends within Egyptian “Islamic modernist”, thrust of the Salafiyya Islamism from bearing political fruit. movement under the leadership of Jamal al-Din Al- Afghani and Mohammed Abduh prior to World War The current calm on the security front is unlikely to I.3 In certain respects, the changes which have been endure indefinitely. The distress many Egyptians occurring in recent years represent a recovery of the feel inevitably will seek expression. Because Egypt “Islamic modernist” outlook. both refuses to legalise Islamic parties and significantly circumscribes the operations of secular This evolution of Egyptian Islamism is not parties, there is still no effective constitutional and unequivocal and some scepticism is in order. In peaceful outlet for the country’s Islamists or its rejecting Qutb’s outlook, the Muslim Brothers -- the alienated youth. The government’s strategy of largest movement in Egypt today -- initially reverted immobility is liable to generate frustration and could to Al-Banna’s less radical perspective, and they have stimulate the revival of regressive, even violent, since followed a non-violent and gradualist strategy. tendencies within the Islamist movement. In subsequently incorporating the idea of democracy into their discourse, the Brothers departed from Al- The government should embark on a new strategy as Banna’s views, but this has not been fully soon as possible. While the concern to preserve acknowledged, still less accompanied by an explicit political stability is legitimate and mandates a prudent repudiation of the illiberal and anti-democratic approach to political reform, the government should strand of Al-Banna’s thought. For this reason it is recognise that delay itself is imprudent. It should also liable to be interpreted as a pragmatic and temporary recognise that the measures to reform or at least adaptation to democracy rather than a wholehearted rejuvenate the ruling National Democratic Party,4 conversion to it. And in conserving its purpose as a while valid and welcome, are insufficient. Without missionary movement -- da‘wa -- the Brothers have the stimulus of political competition from credible remained vulnerable to the government’s charge that and legal rivals, its revitalisation is unlikely to go far theirs is a religious organisation, which it would be and will be insufficient to provide effective inappropriate to legalise as a political party. representation for society’s diverse interests and viewpoints. The reform priority should therefore be to The same charge cannot seriously be levelled, revise the law on political parties to enable existing however, at the Wasat Party launched in 1996 by a legal parties to recover an effective social presence number of former Muslim Brothers in concert with and to permit the emergence of new parties capable of activists from other political and ideological offering constitutional channels for the representation backgrounds. In defining its reference to Islam in of Islamic currents of opinion on a non-sectarian basis. terms of Islamic civilisation rather that the Islamic faith, its founders broke with a key aspect of the The situation of the Muslim Brothers also should be Muslim Brothers’ tradition, renewed with the clarified. The government’s strongest argument for outlook of the earlier Islamic modernist thinkers, and refusing them legal status as a political party is a established the doctrinal basis for a non-sectarian pragmatic one. The Society’s social presence dwarfs party of democratic reform. The refusal of the that of all potential political rivals, including the authorities to legalise the party has denied even the ruling NDP; if legalised, there is a real possibility of most liberal and forward-looking current in Egyptian it overwhelming the political scene, a prospect that Islamic activism a party-political outlet. understandably also worries many ordinary Egyptians. In this respect, the disproportionate role This refusal suggests that the government is intent on of the Muslim Brothers in Egyptian society preserving the political dominance of the National resembles that of the Algerian Islamic Salvation Democratic Party in the formal political sphere, at the Front (FIS) in the run-up to the fateful 1991 expense of any serious prospect of a real change in elections and the tragic events that ensued. But this power. This scenario offers little or no scope for the situation is partly of the government’s own making: effective and orderly representation of opposition by hampering legal opposition parties and refusing
3 For a discussion of Al-Afghani, Abduh and the Islamic 4 For a discussion of these measures, see ICG Briefing, The modernism movement, see ICG Briefing, Islamism in North Challenge of Political Reform: Egypt after the Iraq war, 30 Africa, I: The Legacies of History. 20 April 2004. September 2003. Islamism in North Africa II: Egypt's Opportunity ICG Middle East and North Africa Briefing, 20 April 2004 Page 3
to legalise new ones, it has facilitated the Society’s “impious” because it was perceived as the vector of virtual monopoly in this sphere. Were other parties irreligious (jahili) values. This perception was allowed to develop their social presence in rivalry premised in part on a radical rejection of nationalism with the Brothers unhindered by government as un- or anti-Islamic. The popularisation of the idea harassment, legalisation of the Brothers as a political of takfir also expressed the outflanking of the party would carry far less risk. In the meantime, the religious establishment by younger radical activists government should accept that its longstanding pretending to authority in matters of interpretation and refusal to accord them any legal status is inconsistent judgement which were previously the preserve of the with and inimical to the rule of law, and it should act ‘ulama. It thus expressed the degree of anarchy that to bring the Society within the framework of law by had developed within the religious field. recognising it as either an association or a confederation of individual associations. That Islamic extremists in Egypt have been oriented by Qutb’s ideas does not explain why his ideas were Western policymakers need to tread carefully. They taken up on a large scale instead of remaining the should certainly not endorse the regime’s complacent esoteric doctrine of a harmless fringe. The emergence inaction. But, equally, they should not presume to of a jihadi current within Egyptian Islamism in the dictate the specific content or the pace of reform, let 1970s was connected at the outset with the Palestinian alone substitute themselves as the main actors of the question.6 The subsequent popularisation of Qutb’s reform process. In particular, they should recognise thought occurred in conjunction with the the counter-productive nature of applying heavy radicalisation of the younger generation of Egyptian public pressure or attempting to by-pass the Egyptian Islamists in reaction to Sadat’s signing of the Camp government. Such approaches would risk aggravating David accords with Israel and his attempts to repress the regime’s legitimacy deficit and would thus widespread opposition to this. The second wave of subvert its ability to adopt bold reform measures, extremist violence from 1992 onwards came in the while allowing conservatives to engage in hollow context of the fall-out from the war in Afghanistan nationalist posturing as a cloak for their resistance to and from the 1990-91 war against Iraq. change and simultaneously tarring genuine reformers as collaborators with foreign intervention. U.S. efforts Qutb died before he could specify how true Muslims have, undoubtedly, put the spotlight on the question might licitly and effectively oppose the impious state, of political reform, galvanising a debate that had beyond vague references to the need for a vanguard languished too long. But, so long as the U.S. is “movement” (haraka). His Egyptian followers viewed as either insufficiently engaged or excessively accordingly took off in different directions. biased in the Arab-Israeli conflict, its credibility and efforts to promote reform will be undermined. A. AL-TAKFIR WA’L-HIJRA Securing an equitable resolution of that conflict and acting to reduce tensions in the Middle East as a whole would be the most effective way for the West, The idea that the new jahiliyya -- the era of and the U.S. in particular, to facilitate genuine and barbarous ignorance -- was an accomplished fact and sustainable political reform in Egypt and elsewhere in that Egyptian society as a whole had relapsed into the Arab world. unbelief underlay the activity of the group founded in 1971 by Shukri Mustafa (1942-1977), which he II. THE DERIVATIVES OF QUTB called Jama‘at al-Muslimin (The Society of the Muslims), but which the government controlled media dubbed Al-Takfir wa’l-Hijra. Extremist in All the main extremist and violent movements in doctrine, the group was apolitical and initially non- Egypt have been Qutbist. The innovative elements of
Qutb’s thought represented a radical reaction to the doctrine and practice of President Nasser’s regime. see ICG Middle East Briefing, Islamism in North Africa I, The central feature of this reaction was the practice of The Legacies of History, op. cit. takfir, the act of denouncing someone or something as 6 In the same way, the creation by the Muslim Brothers of “infidel” or “impious”.5 The state was condemned as their (now long since defunct) para-military “Special Apparatus” in 1940 was linked to their involvement in the Palestinian question at that time as well as to their anti- British campaign; see Brynjar Lia, The Society of the Muslim 5 For a discussion of the place of takfir in Qutb’s doctrine, Brothers in Egypt (Reading, 1998), pp. 177-181. Islamism in North Africa II: Egypt's Opportunity ICG Middle East and North Africa Briefing, 20 April 2004 Page 4
violent in behaviour. Far from going to war with the Liberation Party (Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami) that had state, Shukri believed true Muslims should denounce been founded in Jerusalem in 1953. Sirriya arrived the society as infidel (hence Al-Takfir) but then in Egypt only in 1971 but in 1974 his followers withdraw from it as the Prophet withdrew from attempted to mount a coup by taking over the Mecca (hence al-Hijra) and constitute a new Military Technical Academy in Heliopolis (a north- community which would enlarge itself by energetic eastern suburb of Cairo) as a preliminary to but peaceful proselytising (da‘wa). This ambitious assassinating President Sadat. The attempt failed, the but non-violent project of an Islamic “alternative group (called the “Military Academy Group”) was society” developing itself on the margins of, but rounded up, and Sirriya was executed in November spiritually in “complete separation” (mufasala 1976. Soon afterwards, a veteran of Sirriya’s group, kamila) from, the surrounding jahili society, came to Salam Al-Rahhal (also a Jordanian, studying at Al- grief when Shukri was drawn into conflict with a Azhar) organised in Alexandria the nucleus of what rival group and then with the Egyptian authorities. was to become al-Jihad. Discovered by the police The fateful decision to take hostage a government and partially dismantled in 1977, it was thereafter minister, who was subsequently killed, precipitated a led by Egyptians: Kamal Habib in Alexandria and, crackdown; hundreds of members were arrested and from 1979, Abd al-Salam Farag in Cairo. In 1980, a imprisoned and Shukri and four other leaders were military intelligence officer, Abbud ‘Abd al-Latif hanged. Many former members remained active, Al-Zumur, joined and later assumed overall military however, often drifting into other groups.7 responsibility. At the same time, the group established a presence in Upper Egypt when Karam Mohammed Zuhdi, from Assiut, brought his B. AL-JIHAD followers (the Jihadi Islamic Group -- al-Jama‘a al- islamiyya al-jihadiyya) into the organisation. The idea that the jahiliyya was a tendency rather than an all-enveloping reality, and that the state, rather than The doctrine of al-Jihad was elaborated by Farag in a the society at large, was impious underlay the outlook pamphlet entitled Al-Jihad: al-Farida al-Ghaiba of the jihadi groups, notably the “Jihad Organisation” (Jihad: the obscured obligation). Clearly influenced by -- Tanzim al-Jihad (often referred to simply as al- Qutb, it also invoked the thirteenth century Hanbali Jihad) -- and, subsequently, the “Islamic Group” -- al- jurist, Taqi Al-Din Ahmed Ibn Taymiyya, who had Jama‘a al-Islamiyya. The society and people (except prescribed the attitude Muslims should take to rulers the Christian minority) of Egypt being substantially whose Muslim credentials were suspect or bogus.8 Muslim, the problem was the impious state against For Farag, that Sadat had cultivated the image of al- which it was necessary, but also possible, to struggle. Ra’is al-mu‘min (the pious President) meant nothing against the crucial fact that Egypt was not governed The first contemporary armed jihadi group in Egypt by Islamic law. Consequently, Sadat’s professions of was formed by a Palestinian of Jordanian nationality, faith were hypocritical and jihad was licit.9 Moreover, Salah Sirriya, an ex-member of the Islamic
8 Ibn Taymiyya considered that the Mongols who had seized power on the ruins of the Abbassid empire after the sack of 7 A distinct takfiri movement roughly contemporary with Baghdad in 1258 were not true Muslims, because they Shukri’s group was the Samawiyya, named after its founder, remained attached to the customary law (yasa) of the Sheikh Abdallah Al-Samawi, who developed the doctrine of Mongol people, instead of upholding Islamic law (the al-takfir with Shukri while they were in prison from 1965 to Shari‘a) exclusively. Since they were not true Muslims, the 1971. Al-Samawi rejected Shukri’s idea of retreating from standard Sunni doctrine that bad Muslim rulers should be society -- al-hijra -- in favour of a militant activist strategy and endured did not apply and rebellion, far from being illicit developed his own following, based mainly in the districts of sedition (fitna), was the licit, indeed obligatory, defence of al-Fayyoum and Minya as well as in Cairo. A characteristic the Islamic community (jihad). feature of his group’s behaviour was the resort to attacks on 9 In May 1980 the Egyptian government amended article 2 of video shops and clubs; some churches were also attacked. The the constitution so as to proclaim the Shari‘a “the main Sheikh and some of his followers were arrested and tried for source” of legislation; see Steven Barraclough, “Al-Azhar: these activities in 1986; see Gehad Auda, “The between the government and the Islamists”, Middle East ‘normalization’ of the Islamic movement in Egypt from the Journal, 52, 2, Spring 1998, pp. 236-249: 247. This was not 1970s to the early 1990s” in Martin E. Marty & R. Scott taken seriously by Farag and his group; at this time Sadat had Appleby (eds.), Accounting for Fundamentalisms: the turned against those Islamist movements which he had dynamic character of movements, American Academy of Arts previously encouraged, the Muslim Brothers and the campus- and Sciences (Chicago, London, 1994), pp. 374-412, 399. based Islamic groups (see below), and could thus be perceived Islamism in North Africa II: Egypt's Opportunity ICG Middle East and North Africa Briefing, 20 April 2004 Page 5
Farag argued, the obligation of jihad against “the as bin Laden’s principal lieutenant. The prominent nearer enemy” (the Egyptian regime) took precedence Islamist lawyer Montasser Al-Zayyat told ICG, “Al- over that against “the more distant enemy” (Israel).10 Zawahiri took nearly everyone into al-Qaeda.”14
This was the doctrinal rationale for the assassination An important element of Al-Zawahiri’s outlook is of President Sadat on 6 October 1981. A full-scale ascribed by some Egyptian Islamists to his experience insurrection was intended, but the attempt to organise in prison. Independent Islamist commentator Fahmi one in Cairo was a fiasco and, outside Assiut, where Howeidi told ICG: “Al-Zawahiri left Egypt because rioting fomented by Zuhdi’s followers lasted three he had been tortured, humiliated; he hated the whole days, few disturbances occurred. In the ensuing world after that. Al-Zawahiri was a product of a repression, Farag, Khaled Al-Islambuli (Sadat’s repressive system.”15 assassin) and several other leaders were hanged, and many imprisoned, including Al-Zumur. The Al-Zawahiri visited Afghanistan in 1980 and organisation survived, however, only to split over an Peshawar in 1981, was arrested in the clamp-down on internal dispute when the Upper Egyptian wing, al-Jihad after Sadat’s assassination in October 1981 Zuhdi’s Jihadi Islamic Group, seceded in 1984.11 but released in 1984.16 Thereafter he took over the leadership of al-Jihad from the imprisoned Al-Zumur. Thereafter, al-Jihad proved unable to maintain an He visited the USA in 1989 and again in 1993, when, effective campaign and local jihadi groups developed disappointed by the failure of his fundraising efforts, outside its control. While its remaining members he reportedly decided to throw in his lot with bin mounted occasional assassination attempts on regime Laden completely. It was Al-Zawahiri who, while figures in 199012 and 199313 and on President based, like bin Laden, in Khartoum, reportedly master- Mubarak himself in 1995, they were increasingly minded the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate drawn into international activities through their President Mubarak in Ethiopia on 26 June 1995 and connection from 1989 onwards with Osama Bin the bomb attack on the Egyptian embassy in Laden’s al-Qaeda network, with which they formally Islamabad on 19 November 1995 which killed sixteen merged in 1998. This re-orientation of al-Jihad to the and wounded 60. Forced to leave the Sudan in May external and international sphere has been largely 1996, Al-Zawahiri scouted the possibility of associated with Ayman al-Zawahiri, who since 11 establishing a base for al-Jihad in Chechnya but was September 2001 has attained international notoriety arrested and briefly detained in neighbouring Dagestan in early 1997. In February 1998, he formally sealed his alliance with al-Qaeda, signing a document as oppressing the agents of the da‘wa in the same way as Qutb proclaiming the formation of the “World Islamic Front had perceived Nasser’s regime. for Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders”. 10 This thesis matched the perceptions of many Egyptian activists that, since Camp David, the state had Meanwhile, what was left of al-Jihad inside Egypt comprehensively defaulted on its obligations in respect of Palestine and that a change of regime was accordingly the had been largely dismantled. Over 300 suspected precondition of a resumed struggle against Israel. members had been put on trial following the arrest 11 At issue was the succession to Farag as the amir (overall of the organisation’s membership director, Ismaïl leader). The Upper Egyptian wing wanted the blind preacher Umar Abd al-Rahman (subsequently notorious for his role in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center) as amir, whereas members of the founding nucleus of al-Jihad in Cairo 14 ICG interview with Montasser Al-Zayat, Cairo, 5 October considered his blindness made him unsuitable and proposed 2003. Al-Zayyat was an Islamist activist in the early 1980s; Al-Zumur (ICG interview with Islamist lawyer and former arrested in October 1981, he was eventually acquitted and activist Montasser Al-Zayyat, Cairo, 5 October 2003). The released in 1984. He has since become the best known members of the Jihadi Islamic Group rejected the leadership lawyer defending Islamists in Egyptian trials . He is the of a prisoner and seceded (Auda, op. cit., p. 400). author of Ayman Al-Zawâhiri ka-mâ arafatuhu [Ayman Al- 12 The speaker of the People’s Assembly, Rif‘at Al-Mahgoub, Zawâhiri as I knew him], 2nd edition, Cairo, May 2002; was assassinated in October 1990, by al-Jihad according to English translation: The Road to Al-Qaeda: the story of Bin some sources (e.g. Sullivan and Abed-Kotob, op.cit., p. 82) Laden’s right hand man, London, Pluto Press, 2001. but not all; Auda (op. cit., p. 401) suggests that independent 15 ICG interview with Fahmi Howeidi, Cairo, 28 October local jihadi groups were responsible. 2003; Howeidi is a prominent Islamist columnist at Al-Ahram. 13 In 1993, unsuccessful attempts were made to assassinate 16 The account given in this paragraph follows that of the information minister, Safwat Al-Sharif, in April, the Lawrence Wright, ‘The Man Behind Bin Laden: how an interior minister, Atef Sidqi, in August and the prime Egyptian doctor became a master of terror’. The New Yorker, minister in November. September 16, 2002. Islamism in North Africa II: Egypt's Opportunity ICG Middle East and North Africa Briefing, 20 April 2004 Page 6
Nassir, in early 1993; a further 280 were arrested The Jama‘a had a different outlook from that of Al- and six sentenced to death after the assassination Jihad. Al-Jihad’s leaders had opted for a narrowly attempt on the prime minister in Cairo the following conspiratorial, elitist and militarist strategy, relying on November. Following the capture by American targeted assassinations of senior regime figures and intelligence agents of senior al-Jihad figures in Baku terrorist bombings and explicitly rejecting religious and Tirana in 1998, over 100 members went on trial proselytising -- the da‘wa - and political agitation in in Cairo and Al-Zawahiri and his brother Mohamed general as impossible given Egyptian conditions. In were sentenced to death in absentia. By then, al- contrast, the Jama‘a sought to combine the da‘wa, Jihad had long since been eclipsed inside the which it interpreted as involving not only preaching country by al-Jama‘a al-Islamiyya. When the latter but also the muscular policing of morals -- amr bi ‘l- decided to end its campaign in 1999, most al-Jihad mar‘uf wa nahi ani ‘l-munkar (commanding that members still in Egypt accepted its cease-fire and which is proper and repressing that which is abandoned their jihadi activities. Montasser Al- reprehensible) -- with militant opposition to the state. Zayyat told ICG, “there is no al-Jihad/al-Qaeda Thus it was not purely conspiratorial but interested network in Egypt today”.17 also in a kind of mass agitation and the project of re- Islamising society. This aspect of its outlook and behaviour expressed an important element of C. AL-JAMA‘A AL-ISLAMIYYA continuity with the Islamist agitation which had occurred in Egypt’s universities in the 1970s. From 1992 to late 1997, the main organisation engaged in violent insurgency in Egypt was the The group which, under Karam Zuhdi, called itself al- “Islamic Group”, al-Jama‘a al-Islamiyya.18 This was Jama‘a al-Islamiyya al-Jihadiyya and joined Al-Jihad an evolution of the faction based primarily in Upper in 1980 was an offshoot of the far broader movement Egypt and led by Karam Zuhdi which seceded from of “Islamic groups” -- al-jama‘ât al-islamiyya -- which al-Jihad in 1984. Although active on its own the Sadat regime had encouraged from 1972 onwards. account from the mid-1980s onwards, it escalated its Concerned above all to purge his regime of Nasserists insurgency with the sensational assassination of a and leftists, Sadat came to rely on Islamists to rout his secularist intellectual, Farag Foda, in Cairo on 8 June critics in the student movement. This encouragement 1992.19 Thereafter, it engaged in numerous armed went a long way. The governor of Assiut appointed by clashes with Egyptian security forces, as well as Sadat in January 1973, Mohammed Uthman Ismail, violent sectarian clashes with the Coptic Christian developed such close relations with the local Islamists communities that are especially important in the Assiut that he became known as “the Godfather of the jama‘ât and Minya districts of Upper Egypt.20 The Jama‘a’s al-islamiyya”;21 the latter were allowed to organise insurgency climaxed in the massacre of 58 foreign Islamic summer camps on university campuses22 and tourists and four Egyptians at Luxor on 17 November in 1975 the government revised the regulations 1997. governing the National Student Union to facilitate its takeover by the Islamists the following year.23
A valued auxiliary against Sadat’s secular opponents, 17 ICG interview, Cairo, 5 October 2003. 18 the Islamic groups also gave the regime support Conventionally referred to in Egypt (where the letter ‘j’ is against the extremist current in Egyptian Islamism pronounced as a hard ‘g’) as al-Gama‘a al-Islamiyya or represented by Shukri Mustafa’s al-Takfir wa ‘l-Hijra simply “the Gama‘a”. 19 It is important to note that Foda had already been group, complementing in this the efforts of the denounced as an apostate - and thus liable to the death Muslim Brothers, with whom Sadat had effected a penalty under Islamic law - by a leading light of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Mohammed Al-Ghazali, two weeks before he was killed (Barraclough, op. cit., p. 241). Al-Ghazali was not 21 Kepel, Le Prophète et Pharaon, pp. 144-145. formally speaking for the religious establishment, but as an 22 These camps were modelled on those run by the Muslim Azhari he had important links to it and his declaration was Brothers prior to 1954; the first camp was held at Cairo evidence of the continuum of doctrine extending from University in 1973; the following year, the Cairo camp was ‘official Islam’ to the extremist movements. Another attended by the First Secretary of the ruling party and received sensational attack by the Jama‘a on a celebrated intellectual favourable coverage in the government daily Al-Ahram; in was the stabbing of Nobel-prize winning novelist Naguib 1975, Al-Ahram reported sympathetically on camps at Cairo Mahfouz in October 1994; Mahfouz survived, however. and Beni Suef, and the camp at Mansourah was inaugurated 20 In those areas, they are 18-19 per cent of the population, by the Rector of Al-Azhar University (Ibid, p. 149). compared to six per cent nationally. 23Ibid., pp. 150-152. Islamism in North Africa II: Egypt's Opportunity ICG Middle East and North Africa Briefing, 20 April 2004 Page 7
rapprochement. One of the jama‘ât’s leading regionalist as well as class and sectarian elements.26 spokesmen, Issam al-Din Al-‘Aryan, wrote an article The project of re-Islamising society came to exhibit denouncing the concept of al-Takfir as developed by two particular features, which precipitated the Shukri Mustafa as a “sin” and arguing that Egypt was eventual violent confrontation with the state: fundamentally a Muslim country, not part of dar al- harb (“the house of war”, the traditional term for the In Cairo and some other large towns, the Jama‘a non-Islamic world), and other members of the invested in the poorer quarters neglected by the jama‘ât claimed to have been “combating them [Al- authorities and imposed its own conception of Islamic Takfir wa ‘l-Hijra] from the outset”.24 order, turning them into “Islamic liberated zones”; the classic instance was the Imbaba neighbourhood on The regime’s alliance with the jama‘ât broke down the north-western edge of Cairo, where the Jama‘a’s in 1978. This was a consequence of Sadat’s visit to local leader, Sheikh Gaber, proclaimed an “Islamic Jerusalem in November 1977 and his moves state”; it was only in December 1992 that the regime towards peace with Israel, which culminated in the reacted decisively, deploying 14,000 security Camp David agreement of March 1979. In early personnel to reassert its authority there. 1978 the government organised a campaign to weaken the jama‘ât in the universities and students’ In establishing an “Islamic order”, the Jama‘a union; the following summer, the authorities engaged in massive intimidation of the Coptic prevented attendance at the jama‘ât’s camps in Christian population, notably in the Assiut and Minya Alexandria, Cairo and Zagazig; in April 1979, districts of Upper Egypt, imposing on them the immediately after Camp David, Sadat vehemently traditional status of dhimmis (non-Muslims tolerated attacked the Islamists in a speech at Assiut and in and protected by Islamic rule) in return for payment June the national students union was dissolved by of the jiziyya, a kind of poll tax which amounted to decree. It was in this context, marked by the protection money, Copts who refused to pay being regime’s inability to tolerate criticism of its foreign exposed to violent and sometimes lethal attacks. policy and its resort to repression of Islamist as well as other dissidents, that a section of the III. LUXOR AND ITS AFTERMATH jama‘ât was radicalised. Some of the movement’s leaders aligned themselves with the Muslim Brothers, whose understanding with Sadat had also In the course of its escalating confrontation with the broken down over Camp David. Others, especially authorities from 1992 onwards, the Jama‘a those based in Upper Egypt, revised their view of repeatedly attacked tourists.27 This continued over the regime along Qutbist lines, embraced the jihadi the next five years, badly damaging Egypt’s tourist outlook and joined Farag’s organisation. trade and affecting the economy as a whole. The climax came in late 1997 with the bombing of a Al-Gihad and the Gama‘a were both involved tourist bus in Cairo’s Al-Tahrir Square in in the assassination of Sadat. What brought September, in which nine Germans and the Egyptian them together was Islamic revolutionary bus driver died, and the previously cited November thought against recognising the Muslim massacre at the Hatshepsut Temple in Luxor. character of the regime, based on Ibn Taymiyya, Mohammed Ibn Abd al-Wahhab,
Sayyid Qutb and Al-Mawdudi.25
26 For discussion of this aspect of the Jama‘a, see Kepel, Following the break with Al-Jihad in 1984, however, Jihad, pp. 281-293, and Mamoun Fandy, “Egypt’s Islamic the Jama‘a developed a strategy that incorporated the Group: regional revenge?”, Middle East Journal, 48, 4 mass agitation perspective of the 1970s campus (1994), pp. 607-625. radicals. It also reflected the group’s roots in the 27 On 24 June 1992, Jama‘a activists attacked a sound and society of Upper Egypt and the extent to which it was light show at Luxor; in the succeeding weeks, they machine- articulating popular resentments, which combined gunned tourist boats on the Nile and in October an Englishman was killed in Cairo and three Russians were stabbed in Port Said. In February 1993, three foreigners were killed in an explosion in a Cairo café; in March the Cairo Museum was the target of a bomb attack; a few weeks later a bomb exploded at one of the Pyramids and in December 24 Ibid., p. 158. eight Austrian tourists were wounded in an attack on their 25 ICG interview with al-Zayyat Cairo, 5 October 2003. bus in Cairo. This pattern broadly continued until late 1997. Islamism in North Africa II: Egypt's Opportunity ICG Middle East and North Africa Briefing, 20 April 2004 Page 8
By this time, however, many Jama‘a leaders an interview in Al-Mussawar on 15-16 July 2003 recognised their campaign was strategically lost. The in which Karam Zuhdi went far beyond the state’s brutal repression had been effective and, in original 1999 “initiative for the halt to violence” addition to the violence, the damage to the tourist to disavow and apologise for the Jama‘a’s past trade had alienated public opinion. Already in 1996, actions, describing its armed conflict with the the leading Islamist lawyer Montasser Al-Zayyat state as fitna (illicit rebellion) and Sadat and all had publicly appealed to all armed Islamic groups in security forces killed since 1981 as “martyrs”. Egypt to cease violent activities.28 In July 1997, Mohammed Amir Abd al-‘Ali, the leading Jama‘a On 22 September 2003, Karam Zuhdi was released defendant in a trial of militants involved in bomb from jail, followed on 29 September by two other attacks on banks, announced a cease-fire in a court leaders, Fuad Al-Dawalibi and Assam Abd Al- statement, but the government refused to take this Mageed and, on 30 September, by nearly 1,000 29 other Jama‘a activists and another senior figure, seriously and cast doubt on it. No further attacks 33 followed the Luxor incident, while intense Mamduh Al-Yussef. discussions occurred within the Jama‘a in both its The “ideological revision” has had four main elements: internal and external wings. In March 1999, the renouncing the use of violence; renouncing the resort group’s leading instance, the Majlis al-Shura to jihad against a ruler who does not apply the (Consultative Council), formally proclaimed a cease- Shari‘a; accepting that the practice of amr bi ‘l-mar‘uf fire, which has held ever since. wa nahi ani ‘l-munkar (commanding what is proper The Jama‘a has recently engaged in a remarkable and prohibiting what is reprehensible) should be left to process of collective self-criticism that has included: the legal authorities; and abandoning the doctrinaire opposition to party politics, voting and so forth. publication in early 2002 of four volumes written by imprisoned Jama‘a leaders in which As comprehensive and radical as this “ideological they renounced their previous ideas;30 revision” has been, it raises a number of questions. As several Islamists have noted, including some who publication by the state-owned weekly Al- supported the original cease-fire, it had the Mussawar in June 2002 of interviews with appearance of an unqualified, even humiliating, imprisoned Jama‘a militants, including Karam repentance,34 and so gave the impression of a Zuhdi, in which they criticised their former repudiation of the past made under duress. It has thus 31 actions;