Muslim Brotherhood in the Gulf

Saturday, Apr 13, 2013

When they moved into the Gulf countries in the 1950s, the members of the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood were feted by the locals with grand fanfare. They were given an outstanding refuge from oppression back home and were offered ample opportunities to work and live peacefully.

The Gulf countries, starting their nation-building process, were the safest haven where brotherhood members could use their knowledge and pragmatism to benefit personally while helping to ensure religious balance and harmony and to promote education and positive social values.

However, less than five decades later, many members of the Brotherhood who used the Gulf to propagate their ideology and work on strengthening their movement, albeit under different names, have been accused of being “wolves in sheep’s clothing conniving their way into power across the region.”

Kuwait

In Kuwait, the Muslim Brotherhood was able to form its first offshoot in 1947 by Abdul Al Aziz Al Mutawa who built on his special ties with Hassan Al Banna, the founder of the Brotherhood, to launch the Islamic Irshad Society. The offshoot in Kuwait, officially recognized in 1952, was careful not to use the term “Ikhwan” (Brotherhood) to avoid probable social problems. It was renamed the Society for Social Islah (reform) in 1962, one year after Kuwait’s independence. The society was able since the 1960s to extend its presence in all sectors of Kuwaiti society and to influence mainly the education sector and charity work. It became deeply entrenched socially and politically in the country and its members who reached parliament and other sources of power pushed hard for the application of Islamic law. Because of its wealth, it was able to offer substantial financial support to Islamic groups in Egypt and elsewhere.

Saudi Arabia

In Saudi Arabia, the cradle of Islam, Muslim Brotherhood members who were persecuted in their home countries were welcomed both as refugees and as well-trained professionals needed by a vast country undergoing rapid modernization.

“Saudi Arabia embraced the Muslim Brothers at a time of strong Communist, Baathist and pan-Arab movements,” Abdul Aziz Sager, the chairman of the Gulf Research Centre, told Gulf News. “The Saudi kingdom benefited from them intellectually and they played a major role in all sectors, helping to evolve archconservative mindsets and to generate more advanced ideas to help build the state and its institutions. However, the difference with them was not over the Islamic dimension, but over the use of Islam as an umbrella and as a means to achieve political gains,” he said.

Saudi opposition to misusing religion for political purposes was evident when the local authorities never gave the Brotherhood the chance to launch its own group or set its agenda, in the country. King Faisal bin Abdul Aziz, an outstandingly astute leader, reportedly explained the refusal by telling them that all Saudis were Muslims and as such they did not need an organization to spread Islamic ideology.

The Brotherhood understood the message, and stuck to its limits in terms of influence amid local aversion to their ideology. However, after several years, they seemed to have trespassed the limits, sparking the anger of Prince Nayef Bin Abdul Aziz, the interior minister, who in 2002, became highly critical of their attitudes and vocalized his suspicion of their tendency to “politicize Islam for self-serving purposes.”

“I can tell you without the slightest hesitation that the root of all our problems and issues is the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said in an interview with Kuwaiti daily Al Siyassah. “When matters became extremely difficult for them and gallows were readied for them in their home countries, they came to the [Saudi] kingdom that looked after them, took care of them, preserved their dignity and made them feel safe. After some time, they wanted to work and we helped them by opening the schools and the universities, but they unfortunately revived their past links and started recruiting people and founding movements. They turned against the kingdom. They should not have hurt the kingdom. If they wanted to say something, they should have uttered abroad and not in the country that honoured them,” he said.

Bahrain

In Bahrain, the first contact between the Muslim Brotherhood and Bahrainis was in the early 1940s when Shaikh Abdul Rahman Al Jowder went to Cairo on a scholarship and met Hassan Al Banna.

The Muslim brotherhood ideology was brought to Bahrain and nurtured in the Students’ Club, later renamed Al Islah Society.

Egyptian teachers based in Bahrain largely contributed to the expansion of the club and to the spread of the ideology, mainly in Muharraq, the country’s second largest city.

However, the Brotherhood members soon had their first clashes with pan-Arab nationalists supporting their nemesis Egyptian President Jamal Abdul Nasser in 1954, and again in 1956 over support to the Algerian revolution. Most Bahrainis sided with the pan-Arabists while the Brotherhood kept a low profile. In the late 1970s, leftist movements started to recede and the Muslim Brotherhood was able to re-emerge to attract new adherents thanks mainly to an aggressive campaign based on tapes and books.

“The new agreements with Egypt in the mid-1970s allowed more Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated teachers to settle in the Gulf and their force became formidable in Bahrain thanks to their numbers and their growing power in the education sector,” Ghassan Al Shihabi, a Bahraini analyst, said.

Sunni Bahrainis of Iranian origin found in the Brotherhood a solution to their identity issues and used their wealth to generate money for the sprawling organization.

In 1979, the Iranian revolution and the invasion of Afghanistan helped galvanize the Islamists and their role in international politics started to go beyond mere statements of support or condemnation.

Yet, for Bahraini supporters, the local Brotherhood was not strong enough to turn into a political or social threat.

However, in 2001 when political reforms were launched, the Brotherhood formed a political society, the Islamic Menbar. It fielded candidates in the parliamentary elections and won seven seats in 2002 and again seven in 2006. According to Al Shihabi, the Muslim Brotherhood members in Bahrain are pragmatic and flexible. Unlike other similar movements in the Gulf, it did not clash with the authorities.

Qatar

In neighbouring Qatar where they moved in the late 1950s, the Muslim Brotherhood worked on establishing the education ministry and religious institutions.

However, their outreach to the society was also through the local traditions of trips to the desert, camping out and other social occasions in line with the local Bedouin traditions. The main targets were young Qatari minds seeking a role in their country’s future. The Brotherhood was also active in charitable work and it was able to reach several African countries. However, Qatari journalist and writer Abdul Aziz Al Mahmood says that the group pondered dissolving itself in 1999. “The idea of the existence of a group influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood has turned into an issue, especially after several Gulf agencies, under the influence of Egyptian advisors, detained many young people bound by the Brotherhood ideology,” he said.

The group was dismantled in 2003, but its members continued their social and religious interaction with one another and with others, although under different names. The presence of Brotherhood leaders in Doha empowered them to use a media platform and reach out to the world and in several cases influence regional and international events. A Gulf analyst told Gulf News that Qatar’s case in dealing with the Brotherhood was unique in the region and that Doha had opted to co-opt rather than oppose Islamism, involving it in its governance from the very beginning.

Yemen

The Muslim Brotherhood first reached Yemen through the 1948 revolt, but gained a strong foothold in the second half of the 1950s when Yemenis extended great support to the movement suffering from relentless attacks in Egypt. Tribal leaders hosted members of the Brotherhood who gradually benefitted from their underground work at a time when parties were banned in the country and from crucial support by local students invigorated by their meeting with the movement founder Hassan Al Banna in Egypt. The movement came out in the open after the reunification of the two halves of the country in 1990 and turned into a political party - The Yemeni Congregation for Reform, frequently called Islah. At the 2003 legislative elections, the party won 22.6% of the popular vote and launched close cooperation with the Popular Congress Party of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

However, the strategic alliance ended in 2006 when the party fielded its own candidate to run against Saleh for president. In 2011, their relationship deteriorated after the Congregation urged its supporters to take part in the protests to oust Saleh, prompting him to accuse the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaida of instigating violence in Yemen and of working on a military coup to destabilize the country. In March 2013, he charged that the Brotherhood had no management experience in economy, culture or politics. “The Muslim Brothers seek power in Yemen. However, they do not have any experience in managing the economy, culture and politics. They only know how to preach,” Saleh told Rusiya Al Yaum.

Oman

The Muslim Brotherhood has made no impact in Oman because historically the country has issues with the religious ideologies. “The ideology developed within the Sunni sphere, which is less than the half of Oman’s population,” Raid Zuhair Al Jamali, A well-read Netizen, told Gulf News. He reckons that sect being in minority was an impediment for the Brotherhood to make inroads in Oman, where the majority of the population follows the Ibadi sect.

With inputs from Oman Bureau Chief Sunil Vaidya

By Habib Toumi Bureau Chief

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