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This is the first in-depth study of the relationship between the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and its own members. Drawing on years of participant observation, extensive interviews, previously inaccessible organizational documents, and dozens of memoirs and writings, the book provides an intimate portrayal of the recruitment and socialization of Brothers, the evolution of their intricate social networks, and the construction of the peculiar ideology that shapes their everyday practices.
Kandil shows why attempts to compare the Brotherhood to secular social movements or typical forms of religious activism obscure its unique nature, and he seeks instead to unlock the organization's unique logic. Building on his original research, Kandil reinterprets the Brotherhood's slow rise and rapid downfall from power in Egypt, and compares it to the Islamist subsidiaries it created and the varieties it inspired around the world.
This timely book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the politics of the Middle East and to anyone who wants to understand the dramatic events unfolding in Egypt and elsewhere in the wake of the Arab uprisings.
List of contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 - Cultivating the Brother
Chapter 2 - Building the Brotherhood
Chapter 3 - Forging the Ideology
Chapter 4 - The Slow Rise and Rapid Fall from Power
Chapter 5 - Islamism in Egypt and Beyond
Conclusion - The End of Islamism?
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Hazem Kandil is University Lecturer in Political Sociology and Fellow of St. Catherine's College, Cambridge.
Summary
This is the first in-depth study of the relationship between the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and its own members.
Report
"The overall thrust of the book presents an interesting and plausible account of recent historical events in Egypt. But the real value of the work lies not in its ideological drive but in the richness of its empirical data and the rare glimpse of this well-known but little-understood religio-political movement 'from the inside'."
Middle East Monitor
"A deeply intimate portrait of an organisation rightly known as "the mother of all Islamist movements."
Morning Star
"Hazem Kandil has written a fascinating, highly intimate account of the internal practices of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. Kandil takes the reader inside the organization to reveal detailed information about everything from recruitment practices to social network formation to construction of an organizational worldview. Inside the Brotherhood is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand the Muslim Brotherhood's political rise and fall in Egypt."
Lisa Blaydes, Stanford University
"Hazem Kandil has written an original and challenging interpretation of the organisation and ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood enriched by unique access to members and functions. The subordination of policy and strategy to piety and proselytization helps to explain the Brotherhood's twists and turns at crucial points in modern Egyptian history, and their rise and fall since 2011, as well as the messianic reaction to their defeat and suppression."
Sami Zubaida, Birkbeck, University of London
"By probing what it means to be a Muslim Brother, exploring how the Brotherhood organization is structured, and placing religion at the center of the movement's amorphous ideology, Hazem Kandil offers helpful new interpretations even when going over familiar ground. The resulting picture is not always flattering, but it helps shed light on the group's sometimes puzzling behavior."
Nathan Brown, George Washington University
