At five in the afternoon, Cairo time (30).. America and the Muslim Brotherhood (3)

We promised you, in the first installment of this series of articles, to continue tracing with you the history of the relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and Washington—its paths and outcomes. Today, in the third installment, we shed light on the beginnings of that ambiguous and obscure relationship between the two sides, which at one stage reached the point of the United States of America allowing the organization to build its largest branch in Uncle Sam’s own country, at a time when the U.S. Marines were pursuing all Islamic currents around the world.

The Beginnings

The relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood organization and America began with the parent branch in Egypt after the confrontation that took place between the organization and the July Revolution in 1954, against the backdrop of the Brotherhood’s desire to dominate the new leaders and hijack the revolution in favor of the organization’s goals and strategy.

At the outset of the revolution, the group was living in a state of concord with the revolutionary leaders, especially after the group was excluded from the decision to dissolve political parties. This contributed to the growth of the group’s sense of power and subsequently paved the way for confrontation.

The Reasons

Lieutenant Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser recounts the real reasons for the clash with the Muslim Brotherhood organization that led the Revolutionary Command Council to decide to dissolve the group on January 14, 1954. Among the stated reasons for dissolution were the following:

“A number from the first ranks of the Brotherhood’s leadership sought to exploit this body for personal benefits and selfish ambitions, taking advantage of the authority of religion over people’s souls and the innocence and enthusiasm of Muslim youth, without being sincere in this toward either the nation or the religion.

The sequence of events has proven that this group of opportunists exploited the Brotherhood organization and the systems on which it was based to bring about a coup against the existing system of government under the cloak of religion.”

Gamal Abdel Nasser further explains, in the text of the dissolution decision, the details that led the relationship between the two parties to a dead end, prompting the Revolutionary Command Council to take such a decision, stating:

“The events between the Revolution and the Brotherhood organization unfolded in the following sequence:

1 – On the morning of the Revolution, Mr. Hassan al-Ashmawi, the spokesman of the General Guide, was summoned to the General Headquarters at Kobri al-Qubba and informed to ask the General Guide to issue a statement supporting the Revolution. However, the Guide remained in his summer residence in Alexandria, taking refuge in silence, and did not come to Cairo until after the King was deposed. He then issued a brief statement, after which he requested to meet one of the men of the Revolution. He met Lieutenant Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser at the home of Mr. Saleh Abu Raqiq, an employee of the Arab League. The Guide began his talk by demanding the immediate application of the rulings of the Qur’an. Lieutenant Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser replied that this Revolution had arisen as a war against social injustice, political tyranny, and British colonialism, and that it was therefore nothing other than an application of the teachings of the Holy Qur’an.

The Guide then shifted the discussion to the issue of land ownership, stating that his opinion was that the maximum limit should be 500 feddans. Lieutenant Colonel Gamal replied that the Revolution had decided on a limit of only 200 feddans and was determined to adhere to that. The Guide then stipulated, as a condition for the Brotherhood organization to support the Revolution, that any action or decision taken by the Revolution be presented to him for approval beforehand. Lieutenant Colonel Gamal replied that this Revolution had arisen without guardianship from anyone and would never accept being placed under anyone’s guardianship, although this did not prevent those leading the Revolution from consulting, in general policy matters, with all sincere people of sound opinion, without being bound to any organization. This discussion was not well received by the Guide.

2 – After its success, the Revolution hastened to restore rights to their proper place, and among its first actions was reopening the investigation into the murder of the martyr Hassan al-Banna. The accused were arrested at a time when the Guide was still in his summer residence in Alexandria.

3 – Upon assuming office, the Revolution demanded that the former Prime Minister, Ali Maher, issue a general amnesty for political detainees and prisoners, foremost among them the Brotherhood. This was indeed implemented immediately upon President Naguib assuming the premiership.

4 – When it was decided to entrust the cabinet to President Naguib, it was also decided that the Muslim Brotherhood would participate with three members, one of whom would be Sheikh Ahmed Hassan al-Baquri. A telephone call took place between Major General Abdel Hakim Amer and the Guide at noon on September 7, 1952. He approved this view, stating that he would inform the leadership of the other two names. Mr. Hassan al-Ashmawi then came to the leadership at Kobri al-Qubba and informed Lieutenant Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser that the Guide was nominating for the cabinet Mr. Munir al-Dalla, an employee of the State Council, and Mr. Hassan al-Ashmawi, a lawyer. This nomination was presented to the Revolutionary Council, which did not approve them. Lieutenant Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser asked Mr. Hassan al-Ashmawi to inform the Guide to nominate others. At the same time, Lieutenant Colonel Gamal contacted the Guide, who said that he would convene the Guidance Bureau at six o’clock and respond after the meeting.

Lieutenant Colonel Gamal contacted the Guide again, who replied that the Guidance Bureau had decided not to participate in the cabinet. When Gamal said to him, ‘We have informed Sheikh al-Baquri of your approval and asked him to meet the ministers at seven o’clock to take the oath,’ the Guide replied that he was nominating some friends of the Brotherhood to participate in the cabinet and did not approve the nomination of any Brotherhood member.

The following day, a decision was issued by the Guidance Bureau expelling Sheikh al-Baquri from the Brotherhood organization. Lieutenant Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser summoned Mr. Hassan al-Ashmawi and reproached him for this action, which portrayed the Brotherhood as refusing to support President Naguib’s cabinet, and threatened to publish all the details surrounding the cabinet’s formation. Al-Ashmawi responded that such publication would create division within the ranks of the Brotherhood and would not harm only the position of the General Guide, and he implored him not to publish.

5 – When the Revolution asked the parties to submit notifications regarding their composition, the Brotherhood submitted a notification considering themselves a political party. The Revolution advised the Brotherhood’s leaders not to plunge into partisanship and to practice their Islamic mission away from the dust of political battles and partisan desires. They hesitated at first, then complied before the deadline for submitting notifications expired, requested to be considered an organization, and asked Lieutenant Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser to help them correct the errors. He went to the Ministry of Interior, where he met the Guide in the office of Mr. Suleiman Hafez, then Minister of Interior. It was agreed that the Ministry of Interior would ask the Brotherhood to clarify whether their objectives would be pursued through instruments of governance such as elections, and that the Brotherhood’s response would be in the negative so that the law would apply to them.

6 – On the morning of the issuance of the parties’ decision in January 1953, Major Salah Shadi and Mr. Munir al-Dalla came to the office of Lieutenant Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser and told him: now, after the dissolution of the parties, no supporter of the Revolution remains except the Brotherhood organization; therefore, they must be placed in a position enabling them to respond to all causes of questioning. When he asked what this desired position was, they replied that they wanted to participate in the cabinet. He told them: we are not in distress, and if you believe that this circumstance is one of demands and the imposition of conditions, then you are mistaken. They said: if you do not agree to this, then we demand the formation of a committee from the Brotherhood organization to which laws would be presented before their issuance for approval, and this is our way of supporting you, if you want support. Gamal Abdel Nasser replied: I previously told the Guide that we would not accept guardianship, and I repeat it today with resolve and determination. This incident was the turning point in the Brotherhood’s stance toward the Revolution and its government, as the Guide thereafter persisted in issuing press statements attacking the Revolution and its government in foreign and domestic press, and oral orders were issued to the Brotherhood’s bodies to always appear, at occasions organized by the men of the Revolution, in the posture of a defiant adversary.

7 – When the Guide learned of the formation of the Liberation Rally, he met with Lieutenant Colonel Gamal at the leadership building in Kobri al-Qubba and told him that there was no need to establish the Liberation Rally as long as the Brotherhood existed. Lieutenant Colonel Gamal replied that there were those in the country who did not wish to join the Brotherhood and that the field of reform was broad enough for both bodies. The Guide said: I will not support this body, and from that day he began to fight the Liberation Rally, issuing orders to stir up unrest and fabricate occasions to create an atmosphere of hostility among the sons of the same nation.

8 – In May 1953, it became established to the men of the Revolution that there was contact between some Brotherhood members close to the Guide and the British, through Dr. Mohamed Salem, an employee of the Transport and Engineering Company. From his conversation with Mr. Hassan al-Ashmawi on this matter, Lieutenant Colonel Gamal learned that contact had indeed taken place between Mr. Munir al-Dalla and Mr. Saleh Abu Raqiq, as representatives of the Brotherhood, and Mr. ‘Evans,’ the Eastern Adviser to the British Embassy, and that this conversation would be presented when Lieutenant Colonel Gamal and the Guide met. When Lieutenant Colonel Gamal met the Guide, he expressed his displeasure at the Brotherhood’s contact with the British and their discussion with them of the national issue, a matter that leads to contradiction in statements and presents the country as divided.”

The Assassination of Nasser

After the dissolution of the group, its secret apparatus moved to assassinate Gamal Abdel Nasser in the famous Mansheya incident, which ended in failure and led to an escalation of the confrontation between the Revolution and the group. Thousands of its cadres were arrested, some were dismissed from their jobs, many fled and went into hiding, and for many members of the group the best option was to travel to any country outside Egypt—especially oil-producing states such as Saudi Arabia, which at that time was at odds with the Abdel Nasser regime. Others chose to travel to the West, particularly Europe and the United States of America, where they formed Brotherhood networks and tried to remain cohesive until the situation in Egypt became clear and the group re-emerged.

Because our study is concerned with the relationship between America and the Brotherhood, we will focus here on the stages of the organization’s development in the United States of America since a number of its cadres migrated there after 1954.

But Why America?!

In the 1950s, the United States represented a dream and a source of allure for some forces, especially Islamic ones. It was preparing itself to inherit the old colonialism represented by Britain and France, and it was facing intense competition from the Soviet Union, which had begun to dominate and spread its ideas in the Middle East region and amid national liberation movements in general. This alarmed the Americans, who began searching for forces they could rely on to break the power of liberation movements on the one hand and to stand against the expansion of Moscow’s influence on the other. They soon found their objective in the Muslim Brotherhood movement.

The group, along with a number of Islamic thinkers, regarded socialism as blatant unbelief and those who called for it as unbelievers whose blood was permissible, which led to multiple confrontations between emerging national liberation regimes and forces—whether ruling ones, such as the July Revolutionaries, or those seeking to liberate their countries from the grip of colonialism, as in a number of countries of the Arab East—and between the United States of America and its allies among the monarchical regimes at the time.

All these factors led to an increase in waves of Islamist migration to the West in general, and to the United States in particular, fleeing those confrontations.

These migrations were, in the vast majority of cases, organized, meaning that many entities affiliated with those movements—at the heart of them the Muslim Brotherhood movement—supervised the migration of these youths, then regrouped them and molded them into a single crucible.

This is what indeed happened in January 1963, when the “Muslim Students Association in the United States and Canada” was formed. It was the first entity to bring together youths affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood movement in America and is considered the nucleus of the organization’s branch there—something we will discuss, along with its trajectory, in detail in the coming installments, God willing.

Until then.

Paris: 5:00 p.m., Cairo time.