An unusually public dispute, involving smear campaigns on both sides, has thrown the Muslim Brotherhood into turmoil. It comes at a time when Islamists are struggling across the Arab world
There have been arguments within the Brotherhood over strategy and tactics ever since its creation. But the discord worsened after Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, then a general, toppled Egypt’s first democratically elected government, led by the Brotherhood, in 2013. Mr Sisi, who is now president, imprisoned many of the group’s members. Others went into hiding or fled abroad. Disagreements sprang up over how to respond to the repression.
Today the priority for the rank and file, according to several members, is getting the Egyptian detainees out of prison. But their efforts have been stymied because a new rift has emerged between members of the old guard over who should lead the Brotherhood. On one side is Ibrahim Mounir, who succeeded Mahmoud Ezzat as acting supreme guide after the latter was captured in Egypt last year.
Mr Mounir, who lives in London, oversees the Brotherhood’s international network and has good relations with foreign governments. But Mr Hussein, who lives in Istanbul, controls the Brother hood’s website and its bank accounts, and has the keys to its Istanbul-based television network, Watan. Critics accuse him of ousting rivals and cutting payments to the families of detainees. “He treats the Brotherhood as his possession,” says Azzam Tamimi, an Islamist thinker in Jordan.
The unusually public dispute, involving smear campaigns on both sides, has thrown the Brotherhood into turmoil at a time when Sunni Islamists are struggling across the Arab world. Elections in Iraq and Morocco swept them out of government, while strongmen in Tunisia and Sudan pushed them from power. Qatar and Islamist-led Turkey have offered exiled Brothers refuge and supported the group as a way to project influence. But these countries now have other priorities.
This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline "Fratricidal tendencies"
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