Islamic extremism in Egypt caused terrorism and controversy in the country in the 20th century and continues to be a main issue in the 21st century Egyptian society. Egypt has a long history of radical and extreme sects of Islam with roots dating back to around 660 CE. Islamic extremism opposes "democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs". These extreme beliefs led to radical actions across the Middle East. The main conflict between Islamic extremists and the government officials throughout history stems from two major issues: "the formation of the modern nation-state and the political and cultural debate over its ideological direction".Kenney, Jeffery T. Muslim Rebels: Kharijites and the Politics of Extremism in Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. pg 56.
Origins Islamic extremism has its roots in a sect of Islam called Kharijism, which came about around 600 CE when the third and fourth caliphs were murdered during the first civil war.Kenney, Jeffery T. Muslim Rebels: Kharijites and the Politics of Extremism in Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. pg 4. The Kharijites no longer exist today, and it did not continue as a sect of Islam, but their beliefs laid the early groundwork for much of what Islamic extremists believe today. During the time of their existence the name was understood as anyone who rebelled against the caliph or their appointer ruler, but over time the name came to denote anyone of Islamist beliefs, or “religiously motivated militants.”Kenney, Jeffery T. Muslim Rebels: Kharijites and the Politics of Extremism in Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. pg 4,5 Much like the Islamic extremists today, the Kharijites “gave themselves the right to judge who is a true believer of Islam and who is not.”Jabbour, Nabeel. The Rumbling Volcano: Islamic Fundamentalism in Egypt. Pasadena: Mandate Press, 1993. Print. pg 41. Also the Kharijites would eventually split into various sects, “whose common denominator was their claim that believers had to denounce” any Muslim leader who did not follow the Quran.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Print. pg 58. The ideals of Kharijism would continue to exist in the more modern sects that were formed, but the sect itself would not continue to exist like the Sunni or Shia.Jabbour, Nabeel. The Rumbling Volcano: Islamic Fundamentalism in Egypt. Pasadena: Mandate Press, 1993. Print. pg 31.
20th century
The Society of Muslim Brothers During the 20th century, Egypt experienced several waves of revolutions to regain control of their nation from colonial rulers as to create a modern nation-state. Much of Egypt was Muslim at the time although there were significant numbers of Jews and Christians as well, but many of the political revolutions that Egypt experienced were centered on religions and how they related to politics. “The result was an ideological conflict over the direction of the Egyptian nation, over who had the legitimate authority to determine the direction,” and “by the 1930s a pattern of radical politics had taken hold across the Middle East.” Kenney, Jeffery T. Muslim Rebels: Kharijites and the Politics of Extremism in Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. pg 59, 60 In 1928, Hasan al-Banna founded the Society of Muslim Brothers, or Muslim Brotherhood, a prototype of the contemporary Islamic extremist movements.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Print. pg 22. At this time, the revolutions were causing outbreaks of violence rooted in the political upheaval, but the Brothers denied to view their position as anything but religious. Like the Kharijites before them, the Brothers firmly believed that the law could only follow the guidelines that God had set for them.Kenney, Jeffery T. Muslim Rebels: Kharijites and the Politics of Extremism in Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. pg 61. The Brotherhood rose to popularity through the 30s and 40s, and still had a significant membership in the 1950s, when Gamal Abdel Nasser began to rise to power.
Nasser's influence Nasser and his party took control of Egypt in July 1953, and he quickly set out to destroy the largest branch of the Muslim Brothers.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Print. pg 26. By the end of 1954, Nasser’s goals to “mobilize civic society” to create modern, independent Egypt, had ended the lives of several leaders of the Brotherhood while arresting or forcing the others into underground hiding.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Print. pg 26. For Nasser, “Islam could and should be politicized, as long as it remained subordinate to the state’s political purpose.”Kenney, Jeffery T. Muslim Rebels: Kharijites and the Politics of Extremism in Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. pg 69. Hoping that their political actions would be absolute, Nasser and Sadat would face the Islamist militants several more times in the coming decades.
Sayyid Qutb and Signposts While detained in the Nasser regime’s concentration camps, the remaining members of the Muslim Brothers discussed and strategized new plans to take revenge on the secular enemy regime and Islamiscist thought was reconstructed.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Print. pg 27. One of the incarcerated members was a man by the name of Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966), who was being detained in the camp in the year 1957. He was so “horrified by the barbarism of the camp guards” who brutally massacred twenty-one inmates who refused to do labor for fear of dying that he “believed the guards and torturers had forgotten God,” and “only the imprisoned Brethren were still true Muslims.”.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Print. pg 28,29. While in the camp Qutb wrote a book titled, Signposts, that would serve as a reflection of the time spent in the camp would later serve as a “theoretical tool” that provided the future mission of the Muslim extremists.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Print. pg 35. Qutb was released from the prison camp in May 1964, and continued plans to overthrow the regime except for the Brotherhood had divided and could not agree on a political strategy.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Print. pg 31. Qutb was arrested a second time in 1965 before being sentenced to hanging in 1966 with several other Muslim Brothers. Although Qutb along with many other Islamists became martyrs for the cause their legacy did not die with them. Qutb’s writings argued that the Nasser regime belonged to the jahiliyya category. Jahiliyya is an Islamic concept of “pre-Islam barbarism” where the people were ignorant of the guidance of God.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Print. pg 37. Qutb claimed that “the restoration of Islam required a genuine revolution” under the guidance of the Quran.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Print. pg 53.
Shukri Mustafa The next major influencer of Islamic extremism in Egyptian history is Shukri Mustafa (1942–1978). Egypt was still under Nasser’s rule when twenty-three-year-old Mustafa joined the Muslim Brotherhood, and was arrested for distributing Muslim Brotherhood materials at Asyut University. Mustafa was sent to Tura prison originally, but was transferred to one of the concentration camps for the Islamic extremists where he encountered different readings of Qutb’s Signposts, where the youth followers had split into several branches of thought.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Print. pg 74. Mustafa joined the Qutbian group of Brothers that sought “complete physical and spiritual separation from the jahiliyya society.”Kenney, Jeffery T. Muslim Rebels: Kharijites and the Politics of Extremism in Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. pg 127. This ideal was based on Muhammad’s hijra from Mecca to Medina, “whereby the Prophet removed his band of believers from the dangers and corruption of the unbelievers.”Kenney, Jeffery T. Muslim Rebels: Kharijites and the Politics of Extremism in Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. pg 127. This group of Islamicists that were eventually led by Mustafa were known as al-Takfir wa’l-Hijra, and based on the ideal of complete separation from the jahiliyya society; they became a modern version of the Kharijites.
After Nasser’s death from health issues, Anwar Sadat took rule over Egypt, and released the prisoner’s from the concentration camps in 1971, as to try to make peace with the Islamic extremists. Then in 1973, after a conflict with the authorities, Mustafa and some of his followers took refuge in the landscape of the Minya region, “enacting the pure model that Mustafa had idealized in prison.”Kenney, Jeffery T. Muslim Rebels: Kharijites and the Politics of Extremism in Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. pg 127. However, in 1977, the group kidnapped[Sheikh Muhammad Hussein al-Dhahabi as a hostage in an attempt to free their brothers, but al-Dhahabi was killed resulting in Mustafa’s arrest and execution.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Print. pg 78.
The Takfir group The Takfir group were among the many Islamic extremists that followed in the Kharijite ways, but “the sincerity as Muslims has overshadowed their rationality.”Kenney, Jeffery T. Muslim Rebels: Kharijites and the Politics of Extremism in Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. pg 131. These groups were so concerned with the faults of the Muslim society in Egypt that they took extreme measures in attempt to change the way the modern society functioned. This tension of identifying as both modern and Muslim, has been a source of conflict since the days of colonialism. Kenney states, "The problem is that Muslims have lost their “cultural identity,” immersing themselves in the ways of the West; and as a result, they have become weak and divided. The young have lived through this cultural decay, and they have also witnessed the harsh manner in which Muslim activists have been treated in the recent past. Thus their natural instinct is to chance the situation and to seek revenge."Kenney, Jeffery T. Muslim Rebels: Kharijites and the Politics of Extremism in Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. pg 131.
The Takfir group did not begin as a violent sect, but because of the violence shown to them, they reacted with the same harshness, which creates this never-ending conflict of religious extremism versus the secular state. Sadat’s government took a democratic position and was willing to negotiate with the Islamic extremist groups, but the religious extremists continued to act out against the government.Kenney, Jeffery T. Muslim Rebels: Kharijites and the Politics of Extremism in Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. pg 134. After the government suppressed the Takfir, the group dissolved, and the members would then join other Islamist groups, some of which would cause major uprisings in the future.
Salih Sirriya