How essential is reaching power for Islamist groups?

Emad Ali Abdel Hafez

The Islamist groups have emerged with various trends since the Islamist movement began in the early 20^th century after the foundation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Many Islamist groups emerged as of the 1960s. Reaching power has been the common objective of all these groups.

In a bid to reach power, the Islamist movement has been engaged in repeated conflicts at various levels. The Islamist movement sacrificed all it had and sometimes opposed the best interest of the whole society if necessary to realize its objective.

The Islamist groups believe that reaching power would establish religion, saying that is more like a magical wand that will change the state of society and the whole nation.

In this study we analyze why reaching power has such a great place in the mindset of the Islamist movement.

The history of the Muslim state has gone through different conditions. The Muslims were advanced intellectually, morally, materially and militarily,. However, they have gone through weak circumstances from the civilizational perspective, despite the military and geographical expansion.

The Islamic weakness continued for several centuries until the Muslim world woke up at the beginning of the 19^th century with a strong Western civilization at its door. That was great shock for Muslims, who compared their weak reality to the advanced and powerful presence of the West.

The Muslim intellectual and religious leaders, who had better knowledge of the Western civilization through culture and traveling to some European countries, tried to analyze the situation in the Islamic world. The translation movement has also helped with understanding the reasons for the civilizational deterioration in the Islamic world. They aimed at developing some visions to catch up with the West.

These attempts continued throughout the 19^th century and early 20 th century until the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate, which was the result of its weakness. The collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate has deepened the crisis of Islamic societies.

The collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate [in 1924] played a key role four years later in the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928.

The Muslim Brotherhood – like other Islamist groups — says that rule is an essential issue in sharia (Islamic law). The Brotherhood’s founder, Hassan al-Banna, said that rule is well-established in Islamic doctrines.

However, the Brotherhood and other Islamist groups don’t realize that rule should be based on a set of ethics and values.

That brief overview shows the importance of reaching power and rule and its central role in mindset of the Islamist movement. This mindset is based on three major factors.

1. The wrong diagnosis of the social reality of society. The Islamist movement deems the crisis in Muslim societies as a political issue. However, this conception is not correct as the deficiency in the Muslim societies is rather social, not political.

2. Misunderstanding of the modern state concept. The philosophy and nature of the modern state are completely different from the state of the past, where the ruler had all the power.
3. Narrow understanding of sharia.  The Islamist groups deem sharia as a set of static laws, which are implemented by the ruler. However, sharia has a broader meaning as explained by many scholars. Any reforms and development in society for improving the standard of living and combatting poverty is part of sharia. Sharia is not only applied by the rule as the society’s institutions – social, economic and charities — can implement it too.

Conclusion

The dream to assume power, for which the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups have mobilized many young people, should be revised when these groups have courage to do so in a bid to avoid more crises, conflicts and divisions.