The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780691149400)

How the Muslim Brotherhood rose to power in Egypt, and what it means for the Islamic world

The Muslim Brotherhood has achieved a level of influence nearly unimaginable before the Arab Spring. The Brotherhood was the resounding victor in Egypt's 2011-2012 parliamentary elections, and six months later, a leader of the group was elected president. Yet the implications of the Brotherhood's rising power for the future of democratic governance, peace, and stability in the region is open to dispute. Drawing on more than one hundred in-depth interviews as well as Arabic language sources not previously accessed by Western researchers, Carrie Rosefsky Wickham traces the evolution of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt from its founding in 1928 to the fall of Mubarak and the watershed elections of 2011-2012. Further, she compares the Brotherhood's trajectory with those of mainstream Islamist groups in Jordan, Kuwait, and Morocco, revealing a wider pattern of change. Wickham highlights the internal divisions of such groups and explores the shifting balance of power among them. She shows that they are not proceeding along a linear path toward greater moderation. Rather, their course has been marked by profound tensions and contradictions, yielding hybrid agendas in which newly embraced themes of freedom and democracy coexist uneasily with illiberal concepts of Shari'a carried over from the past. Highlighting elements of movement continuity and change, and demonstrating that shifts in Islamist worldviews, goals, and strategies are not the result of a single strand of cause and effect, Wickham provides a systematic, fine-grained account of Islamist group evolution in Egypt and the wider Arab world.

Author: Carrie Rosefsky Wickham
ISBN-10: 0691149402
ISBN-13: 9780691149400
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Language: English
Published: 07/21/2013
Pages: 360
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.49lbs
Size: 9.37h x 6.46w x 1.17d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 06/03/2013
Library Journal 06/15/2013 pg. 104
Foreword 08/31/2013
Choice 07/01/2014