Drawing on years of participant observation, interviews, previously inaccessible organizational documents, and memoirs and writings, Hazem Kandil aims to provide an intimate portrayal of the recruitment and socialization of the Muslim Brotherhood. Toygar Sinan Baykan recommends this read for the clarity of its narrative

Baykan, Toygar Sinan

LSE Research Online

24/02/2015Book Review: Inside the Brotherhood by Hazem Kandilblogs.lse.ac.uk /lsereviewofbooks/2015/02/24/book-review-inside-the-brotherhood-by-hazem-kandil/Drawing on years of participant observation, interviews, previously inaccessible organizational documents,and memoirs and writings, Hazem Kandil aims to provide an intimate portrayal of the recruitment and socialization ofthe Muslim Brotherhood. Toygar Sinan Baykan recommends this read for the clarity of its narrative. Inside the Brotherhood. Hazem Kandil. Polity. 2015.Find this book: The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has been an enormously influential politicalmovement in the Middle East, whether through its closely linked affiliates or byrepresenting an organisational and ideological model for Islamists.Despite the rich literature on the various aspects of the MB, Hazem Kandil’s Insidethe Brotherhood, as its title suggests, contributes remarkably to our understandingof the inner ideological commitments and organisational dynamics of thebrotherhood through its examination of MB instructions, dozens of memoirs by MBmembers and years of observing and participating in its activities and socialnetworks. In addition, unlike other researchers, the author of the book has gainedexceptional access to the “natural habitat” of MB members beyond their politicalactivities (pp. 2-3).From this privileged position Kandil has sought answers to the followingquestions: “Who are the Muslim Brothers? And what sort of relationship do they believe they have with the divine?”(p. 2). In order to answer these questions Kandil focuses on three related aspects of the MB’s politics. His researchis an in-depth study of the cultivation of brothers, their interaction and “what goes on inside their head” (p. 4)In the first chapter of the book, “Cultivating the brother”, Kandil demonstrates the peculiar recruitment processesand the long disciplining period preceding official membership of the organisation. As he underlines at the verybeginning of the chapter, “one cannot choose to join the Muslim Brotherhood; one has to be chosen” (p. 5).According to him, this long probation and screening process, summed up as ‘cultivation’ (tarbiya), is not simply amatter of indoctrination but aims at “producing a new kind of person: the Muslim Brother” (p. 6). He stresses that thiscultivation process has been central to the cohesion and tenacity of the MB; it has ensured that the Brotherhood inall its 85 years has experienced no major dissent. Kandil contends that the key element in producing itsextraordinary resilience is its “anti-intellectualism”.First of all, the MB has always prioritized sentiments and practice over enquiry. As al-Banna advised the brothers,they should “be practical not argumentative” (p. 19). Otherwise, the MB leadership believed that arguments wouldpoison the peace between brothers (p. 19). The second component of the MB’s cultivation practice is the preventionof discord within the organisation through techniques of “pre-emption”, “disinformation”, “organisational pressure”and “marginalization” (pp. 22-28), which have inhibited any lively intellectual or ideological debate and deprived theMB of any public intellectuals (p. 26). This tendency has been consolidated by the dominance since the beginning ofthe 21st century of rural-provincial members in the MB cadres (pp. 31-2), the participation of fundamentalist (salafi)currents during the 1970s (pp. 32-33) and the strong leverage of the radical Qutbists segments within theorganisation (pp. 33-34).These structural developments have paved the way for the prevalence of a background of the natural sciencesamong the MB elite and the absence of “students of politics, sociology, history, and philosophy” among them (p. 34).1/3Hence it was not surprising to read that al-Banna criticized students who do not study natural sciences but spendtheir time on “abstract philosophies and unproductive, fanciful sciences” (p. 38). But, Kandil maintains, once the MBcame to power, the lack of social scientists and experts in politics, economics and administration among its cadresresulted in major practical problems in government (p. 46).Yet the MB has convinced its members that the movement is sacred (p. 48). In addition, it seems that most of itsmembers have started to conflate the brotherhood with Islam itself (p. 48). As one of the brothers commented onleaving the MB, the dissidents within it “are renouncing faith not an ideology; [they] are abandoning God not Hassanal-Banna” (p. 50). Hence, MB members experience their membership not as a political and ideological engagementbut as a whole way of life and social existence (pp. 70-71). Drawing on its anti-intellectualism and throughsanctifying its leaders and enhancing conspiratorial understandings among the members (pp. 53-70), the MB hasfurther isolated its members from sound interaction with those outside the MB circle. Hence, leaving the organisationafter a certain time among the MB social networks  entails a huge cost: leaving all one’s meaningful social relationsand functions (pp. 70-71); one of the tendencies of the MB is to provide an insulating social environment, mostnotably wives to the brothers from the ranks of an affiliated sisterhood (p. 74).Mohamed Morsi – Image credit: thierry ehrmann (CC BY)After illustrating the recruitment processes and the extent of the social networks of the MB, Kandil demonstrates theessence of the MB ideology, namely “religious determinism” (p. 85). Given its members’ strong faith in thesacredness of the movement, its efforts to cultivate new Muslim subjects and its inward-looking organisationaldynamics, the MB has produced a deterministic approach to politics which stems from a belief that, when certainhistorical, social and above all theological conditions are met – that is, when the MB has cultivated true Muslims insufficient numbers – its victory, with no political intervention, will be inevitable. Hence, as Kandil illustrates in thefourth and the fifth chapters of the book, its anti-intellectualist, anti-argumentative and isolationist cultivation process,its inward-looking organisational culture and its strategically impotent mind-set prevented the MB from establishingalliances with the secular political actors of the Egyptian revolution; it suffered from the lack of competent cadresamong its elite. The result was that this mighty movement, constructed over decades, fell within weeks of the eventsin Adawiya square while its members were still waiting for the divine intervention which would bring victory to the MBand Morsi.Despite the clarity of the narrative in the very informative fifth chapter of the book, where Kandil evaluates differentIslamist movements across the Middle East, a couple of minor mistakes were made in the part on Turkey and theseshould be corrected in future editions. Kandil argues that “In 2002, AKP became the first political party to govern2/3without a coalition since the republic’s embrace of multiparty politics six decades before” (p.170). In fact, since thetransition to multi-party politics, Turkey has seen long periods of single majority government, such as those of theDemocrat Party from 1950 to 1960 and the Motherland Party from 1983 to 1991. It is also parenthetically suggestedin italics that the Turkish equivalent of the term “intellectually able” is entelektüel mümkün (p.167) and of “neo-Ottomanism” is Osmanlicaler (p.171). In fact, the first expression means in Turkish entelektüel olarak yeterli/yetkinand the second expression translates as yeni Osmanlıcılık.Kandil could also have shed more light on the nature of the highly restrictive Egyptian authoritarianism which hashardly been rewarding for the transformation of Islamist movements. He could have engaged, too, in widerdefinitional discussion and comparative scholarship on Islamism (and perhaps post-Islamism). Nevertheless, as hemakes clear in his brief discussion on theory and method, he is mainly interested in showing how ideologyconstrains political actors (p. 179). Hence, he adopts an agency based theoretical approach and makes aninvaluable contribution to our understanding of agency based obstructions to the transformation, adaptation andsuccess of Islamist political actors.Toygar Sinan Baykan is a PhD researcher in politics at the University of Sussex. He studied political science in theFaculty of Political Science, Ankara University. He also attended the Middle East Technical University and LeidenUniversity for his graduate studies and has a master’s degree in comparative politics from LSE. His current researchfocuses on Islamist and post-Islamist politics and political organisations, in particular the organisation and strategiesof the Justice and Development Party in Turkey. His research interests include party politics, comparative politicsand political culture.Copyright 2013 LSE Review of Books3/3

Book review: inside the Brotherhood by Hazem Kandil

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