Ikhwanweb :: The Muslim Brotherhood Official English Website

Spoilt ballots

Moderate Islamist movements across the Arab world have made a decisive turn towards participation in democratic politics over the last 20 years. They have developed an elaborate ideological justification for contesting elections, which they have defended against intense criticism from more radical Islamist competitors. At the same time, they have demonstrated a commitment to internal democracy remarkable by the standards of the region, and have repeatedly proved their willingness to respect the results of elections even when they lose...

Political interference leads to Egyptian judge’s resignation

As one of Egypt’s longest-serving judges, Mahmoud el Khodeiri’s decision to resign last month was not taken lightly. But the level of corruption and government interference in judicial matters, he said, had become too much...

Egypt moves to increase female MPs

CAIRO // More than half a century after women won the the right to vote and be elected to parliament, legislators have amended Egypt’s electoral laws to reserve them 64 seats in an effort to combat dwindling female representation...

Lawyers turn to Muslim Brotherhood for leadership

CAIRO // Egyptian lawyers voted last week to return the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition movement, to the leadership of the country’s most powerful professional syndicate...

Surprising times for outlawed opposition

As the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s officially outlawed opposition organisation, Mohammed Mahdi Akef, 80, has grown accustomed to making political statements that buck the status quo. Last week, he made another one: he will resign in January. ..

Brothers gonna work it out?

On March 25 Mohammed Mehdi Akef, the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, told an Egyptian newspaper that he would not seek a second term and will step down within a few months. The coming election of his successor marks an interesting and important moment in the history of the Brotherhood, with broad implications for the future of moderate Islamist movements in general...

Middle East democratic reforms call

The United States should push harder for democratic reforms in the Middle East and end its policy of supporting repressive regimes to serve its national interest, a group of about 140 scholars, foreign policy experts and Arab leaders say in an open letter to the US president, Barack Obama..

To take political Islam seriously, the West can’t romanticise it

Shadi Hamid, a researcher on political Islam, has drawn a useful classification between politically active organisations like the Brotherhood, apolitical groups like the Hizb ut Tahrir, and those who operate outside and beyond politics like al Qa’eda. Another useful criteria differentiates between organisations that have never used violence as a means to attain power or have credibly renounced it and those who see violence as a legitimate instrument...

I know it will be a fierce battle

Outside the penthouse apartment which Ayman Nour, Egypt’s recently released opposition leader, can once again call home, dozens of bouquets of flowers crowd the doorway. ..

The conversation

Barack Obama has vowed to restore America’s stature in the Arab world. A task so enormous, writes Marc Lynch, demands a new approach to public diplomacy that seeks engagement rather than victory...

In search of a lasting legacy

I am, in some sense, torn. Most American analysts look back at the era of Bush and feel a mix of sadness and anger. I have been both sad and angry but my view is coloured by another emotion, that of betrayal. It is not so much that the last eight years, particularly in the realm of foreign policy, were a failure. What troubles me more is that it needn’t have been so. Something, here, was lost...