Understanding the Muslim Brotherhood

Mohammed Zahid. The Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt's Succession Crisis: The Politics of Liberalisation and Reform in the Middle East. London; New York: I. B. Tauris [2010] 2012. Carrie Rosefsky Wickham. The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013. Hazem Kandil. Inside the Brotherhood. Cambridge: Policy Press, 2015. The status of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt presently is, at best, tenuous. Accordingly, some questions that are pertinent for today and tomorrow include: Is this movement in Egypt that at one point attained a pinnacle of success beyond its members' wildest dreams alive and well? If not, can the movement in Egypt still make a comeback? The three books selected for review offer insights on these and other related questions from different points of view. Of particular interest are the following topics that all three books develop directly or indirectly: (1) history of the movement; (2) the spiritual or religious objectives of the movement vis a vis the political objectives of the movement; (3) the conflict between the Brotherhood leadership and its youthful reformist membership in the organization; and, (4) how these topics were interrelated in the days before and after the fall of Morsi. The three texts cover the historical context of the secular revolution of 2011 from three overlapping temporal vantage points. Zahid covers the Muslim Brotherhood up to 2011; Wickham covers the Brotherhood to the period just after its ascension to power, but before its fall; and, Kandil covers the Brotherhood through its fall from power to the immediate aftermath thereof.