The new generation of Brotherhood secular dissenters

Doaa Emam

In the summer of 2005, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was founded in 1928, introduced new ideas on the constitution in Islamic countries around the world.

The ideas Ali Abdel Hafeez, a member of the second line of leaders inside the Brotherhood, introduced mainly focused on comparing the constitutional system in Islamic states and the constitutional system in western countries.

The aim of the comparison was to explore the possibility of the creation of Arab, Islamic societies that are also modern and in harmony with the modern secular system of national states.

This can be done, he said, by opening the door for a new understanding of the role religion can play in public life.

After years of debate, members of the Office of the Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide and Muslim Brotherhood academics rejected Abdel Hafeez’s ideas, even without saying why.

This forced Abdel Hafeez to quit the Brotherhood altogether in 2007. Quitting the organization with him was also a group of other Brotherhood dissenters who rebelled against what they described as the “moribund” thinking of the group.

On May 31, 2007, the private Arabic language daily al-Masry al-Youm quoted Abdel Hafeez as saying that a large number of intellectuals with different backgrounds had joined him.

In early 2008, Abdel Hafeez adopted what he called “Alternative Current”, a project aiming at renewing the thinking of the Muslim Brotherhood. He also founded a new NGO to lobby for the same project.

Abdel Hafeez wrote a book with the same title, in which he criticized the way the Brotherhood thought. In his book, he disclosed some of the organizational secrets of the group.

The book is literally the very document the Brotherhood rejected, with those controlling the movement at the time having been mere byproducts of its military wing, which was founded between 1940 and 1941 and operated secretly.

Abdel Hafeez had started his debates with Brotherhood leaders since he was a student at the College of Arts of Sohag University in southern Egypt in the 1990s. He used to ask these leaders about things far beyond the Islamic headgear, the thing the Brotherhood was most interested in at the time.

We found out, he said, that the only thing that mattered was to put Egypt in the position it most deserved. This, he added, had nothing to do with whether its Muslims prayed or not.

To his utter shock, Abdel Hafeez also learned that the Brotherhood taught its members the total contrast.

“The fact is that the Christian pope, the grand imam of al-Azhar, and the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood have nothing to do with how we can make progress and rise up as a nation,” Abdel Hafeez said.

Abdel Hafeez wrote in his book, which contains three chapters and was published in 2007, for Arabs to make the required progress, they have to do what the westerners did, namely revolution and religious reform. They have to view religion, he added, through the prism of human rights, not through this of the rights of God.

In another part of the book, Abdel Hafeez describes Islamist currents and movements as a bunch of conservatives who look with suspicion at everything that can harm the stability of religion inside Islamic communities.

Fear for the public, he said, was a mistake some of the early scholars had committed. It is also a typical discourse inside the Muslim Brotherhood, he added.

He recalled a letter he sent the deputy supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood in which he expressed hopes that the movement would address Egyptians in an appropriate manner.

“It is unbecoming of the supreme guide of the group to say his mission and the mission of his movement is to bring up the people,” Abdel Hafeez wrote in the letter.

“It would have been more intelligent if the supreme guide had said our mission is to bring ourselves up and reform our souls,” he added in the letter.

He also dwelt on rivalries between Islamist groups to mobilize the public by making them fear for religion. These groups, he said, always say “Islam is in danger”. In saying this, he added, these groups overlook the fact that God is responsible for protecting the holy Quran.

He accused these groups of only addressing the emotions and turning the life of Muslims into a continual worry that confused their thinking at the end of the day.

He noted that support to Islamist movements did not allow the presence of conversations like those that happened between Prophet Muhammad and his companions after the signing of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. The prophet and the Quran explained the reasons for signing the treaty, even without criticizing those who opposed it.

Abdel Hafeez said Egyptian youth were torn between their country’s “irrational” Islamists and “shameless” intellectuals.

He called on the Brotherhood movement to stop claiming that it represents the Islamic identity. Identity, he said, is something that belongs to everybody in a given community and it is nobody’s right to take the representation of this identity solely for himself. This is why, he said, Islamists alone cannot reserve for themselves the right to formulate a vision for political reform.

Abdel Hafeez also called on the Brotherhood to stop claiming that Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna is the supreme reference for political work aiming at protecting the Islamic identity. This work, he said, belongs to everybody in Egypt.

Abdel Hafeez said al-Banna cannot be viewed highly only because he founded an organization or a party.

“If an entity wants to work in the field of public guidance, it has to choose between adopting the right positions and reaching power,” Abdel Hafeez said. “Muslim Brotherhood groups interested in politics have to quit the organization and then join any of the political parties present.”

Abdel Hafeez preferred the presence of a non-religious state to an Islamic state. The Islamic state, he said, was based on consultation and the sovereignty of the people.

He described the Islamic stewardship system as a “historical disease”. The Islamic caliphate, he said, sprouted under conditions that were totally different from the present ones.

In the third chapter of his book, Abdel Hafeez called for enacting some the features of modern political systems, including the parliament, the senate, and judicial authorities.

He also called for defining political and military security for states. He underscored the need for civilian marriage contracts that are regulated by the state and have no room for influence from men of religion.

Abdel Hafeez suggested the establishment of a university for the study of Arabic and Islamic sciences, western religions and the justice system in Islamic and un-Islamic countries. He said this university should be open to the adherents of all religions. He added that this university should substitute al-Azhar University.

Abdel Hafeez spent a year in jail together with former deputy Brotherhood supreme guide Mohamed Habib.