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May 08, 2007

The US and the Muslim Brotherhood

By Patrick Poole

Western media and Beltway foreign policy establishments are engaged in a push to
rehabilitate the image of the Muslim Brotherhood in order to convince US diplomats to
initiate a dialogue with the organization. The Muslim Brotherhood has spawned virtually
every single Islamic terrorist outfit in the world. But one of their central claims these days
is that the Brothers long ago rejected the "offensive jihad" ideology of their leading
theorist, Sayyid Qutb, found in his 1964 book, Signposts. Invariably, they cite the
circulation and later publication of Hassan al-Hudaybi's, Preachers, Not Judges, during
the late 1960s and 1970s in Egypt, as proof of the Brotherhood's break with Qutbian
jihadist ideology. The late Hudaybi's status as the second Supreme Guide of the Muslim
Brotherhood, to which he was appointed after founder Hassan al-Banna's assassination in
1949, is invoked as further evidence of the book's ultimate authority as the organization's
official philosophy and methodology.

The problem with the apologists' narrative is that scholars over the past decade have
discovered that Hassan al-Hudaybi did not author Preachers, Not Judges, and its target
was not Sayyid Qutb, who is never mentioned in the text itself or even in the footnotes.
Contrary to the claims of the apologists that Preachers, Not Judges has represented the
ideological core of the Muslim Brotherhood since the 1960s, Qutb's Signposts remains a
standard part of the organization's introductory membership curriculum (including the
Muslim American Society in the US), making Signposts one of the top-selling books in
the Muslim world and appearing in numerous translations, while Preachers, Not Judges
has not been reprinted in Egypt for more than three decades, and hasn't appeared in print
anywhere in the Arabic world since 1985.

Furthermore, Hudaybi, who did not leave much in the way of writings behind (one
observer, Muslim Sister Zaynah al-Ghazali, remarks that he "had rarely left books or a
trace of his thoughts on paper"), made absolutely no effort to promote the book that has
since been attributed to him. To the contrary, he advocated positions much in line with
Qutb's philosophy, and in fact, it was Hudaybi that was responsible for explaining Qutb's
book, authorizing its publication (since Qutb himself was in jail), and recommending it to
the Brotherhood's followers.

Perhaps the most recent example of this appeal to Preachers, Not Judges as proof of the
Muslim Brotherhood's ideological rehabilitation can be found in last week's edition of the
New York Times Magazine, where James Traub writes:
Qutb remains a heroic figure for many Egyptians. But Ibrahim Hudaybi, the young
activist who sent me the text message about the arrest, pointed out to me when we met
the next day that his own grandfather, Hasan Hudaybi, who replaced al-Banna as
supreme guide and was jailed along with Qutb, wrote a book from prison, "Preachers,
Not Judges," designed to reassert the brotherhood's commitment to peace and to open
debate... Hudaybi wanted to see the brotherhood deal explicitly with the legacy of Qutb,
even if doing so might not play well in the hustings. Other, more senior figures I spoke to
insisted rather implausibly that Qutb had been misunderstood; but all swore by the
philosophy of tolerance and the program of gradual reform laid out in "Preachers, Not
Judges." (James Traub, "Islamist Democrats," New York Times Magazine [April 29,
2007])
One immediate problem with Traub's representation of Preachers, Not Judges is that the
book has absolutely nothing to say about "the brotherhood's commitment to peace and to
open debate", nor does it elaborate a "philosophy of tolerance and program of gradual
reform". This isn't the argument of the book, which is instead directed towards the
theological arguments of Pakistani Islamist writer, Maulana Mawdudi. This is indicative
of a common problem among those making positive assertions about the text - virtually
none of them speak or read Arabic, the only language in which the book has appeared.

It should be noted that most, if not all, of those advancing these claims are merely
repeating the argument made by Nixon Center fellows Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke
in their highly-controversial article in the March/April edition of Foreign Affairs, "The
Moderate Muslim Brotherhood".

At the heart of Leiken and Brooke's argument are the dual assertions that the group has
"rejected global jihad" and that it "embraces democracy". To support their first claim,
they invoke Preachers, Not Judges as the primary piece of evidence of the organization's
alleged rejection of their Qutbist past:

One issue of enduring concern is Qutb's ambiguous legacy in the Brotherhood. Critiquing
"the martyr," as Qutb is known, requires a surgeon's touch: he died in the service of the
organization yet had strayed far from the founder's vision. Even Hudaybi's Preachers,
Not Judges, an indirect but clear refutation of Qutb, never mentions him. Today, the
Brotherhood lionizes Qutb, admittedly a major figure whose views cannot be reduced to
jihad. But it straddles a barbed fence in embracing Qutb while simultaneously arguing
that his violent teachings were "taken out of context." What lessons will younger
members tempted to radical action draw? ("The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood", p. 113)
To their credit, they admit that Qutb is nowhere mentioned in the book, but nonetheless
contend that Qutb was still the "indirect" subject without identifying any supporting
evidence. Elsewhere in their article, Leiken and Brooke spin a story of Hudaybi's soul-
searching and intellectual labors while in prison in the 1960s, finally arriving at the
conclusion that Qutb was in error:

But from his own cell, Hudaybi disputed Qutb's conclusion. Only God, he believed, could
judge faith. He rejected takfir (the act of declaring another Muslim an apostate), arguing
that "whoever judges that someone is no longer a Muslim ... deviates from Islam and
transgresses God's will by judging another person's faith." Within the Brotherhood,
Hudaybi's tolerant view-in line with Banna's founding vision-prevailed, cementing the
group's moderate vocation. (p. 110)
In my contributions to this ongoing debate, I have previously noted ("Showdown on the
Muslim Brotherhood, Part 1") that Hudaybi's initial response to Qutb's jihadist
manifesto, Signposts, was to hail it as the ideological future of the organization. The
French Islamic scholar, Gilles Kepel, describes his excitement:

Hudaybi himself (whose opinion became far more measured after 1966) declared that the
book vindicated all the hopes he had placed in Sayyid Qutb, who now embodied "the
future of the Muslim mission" (da'wa). (Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and
the Pharaoh [University of California Press, 1993], p. 30)
Scholars agree that Preachers, Not Judges was born out of the prison experience of the
Muslim Brothers during the 1960s, during which time Qutb and several other
Brotherhood leaders were executed. But recent research and new evidence over the past
decade have revealed that the circumstances through which the book came about are
radically different than what is represented by the Muslim Brotherhood's defenders in the
West.

One of the recognized scholars on the topic of Preachers, Not Judges is Barbara Zollner,
Director of Islamic Studies at Birbeck College, University of London. Not only is the
book the topic of her PhD dissertation, but she has a volume on the subject, The Muslim
Brotherhood: Hasan al-Hudaybi and Ideology, which is due to be published by Rutledge
early next year.

At a conference held at Georgetown University in March on the theme of "Islamist

Politics: Contemporary Trajectories in the Arab World," Zollner delivered a brief
synopsis of her extensive research on the subject, "Du'at la Qudat: Notes on the
Authorship, Purpose, and Relevance of a Text Purporting a Moderate Theology". During
her lecture (available in audio here) she challenged the popular myth still advanced by the
Muslim Brotherhood's Western apologists:

There are a number of writers who argue that Du'at la Qudat, when it was published in
the 1970s, to be exact in 1977, that it is an evidence of the Muslim Brotherhood's turn
away from radical thinking, and that it evidences a shift of the Muslim Brotherhood's
stance towards a centrist Islamist ideology...What I want to say today are two things.
Overall my argument that Preachers, Not Judges was not written by Hassan al-Hudaybi,
and secondly, it is not written as a response to Sayyid Qutb.
Dr. Zollner also challenges the claims that the Brotherhood had somehow rejected Qutb
based of the group's continued and present promotion of his works, including Signposts:

There is an oversimplification of the historical context, because as we know all you have
to do is go on their [the Muslim Brotherhood] website today you still have a sub-section
where Qutb is referred to and reference is made to his work; Qutb is still held in the
Brotherhood's memory, the Brotherhood did not turn away or against Qutb. To say that it
that the Muslim Brotherhood issued a refutation in the 1970s rejecting Qutbian thinking,
that would contradict exactly that. So I would say that it is more in response to an inner
conflict, but it is also a truce, the beginnings of a truce, with Abd' al-Nasser's regime...
What Zollner's research has found is that rather than being the product of the Muslim
Brotherhood leadership, the book was a collaborative effort by the Egyptian security
apparatus and scholars of Al-Azhar University. She cites the testimony of security
officials and Brotherhood leaders at the time about the true circumstances of the book's
appearance.

As the jailed Brotherhood leaders were waiting for signatures on their pardons, the secret
service became aware that some among their group had adopted a "moderate" posture as
part of a deliberate plan of taqiyya (deception). The authorities responded with the
creation of the text of Preachers, Not Judges to respond to the accepted ideology of the
group, which was then handed off to the jailed Brotherhood leadership through Hudaybi's
son, Ma'mun, with the intent of providing ideological "encouragement" to the prisoners
(or more likely, an "imposed truce" by the Nasser regime).

An Egyptian scholar, Sayed Khatab, in a 2002 Middle East Studies article on Qutb's
ideology, cites the memoirs of Brigadier General Fu'ad Allam, head of the security
apparatus during the period when the Brotherhood's leadership was imprisoned,
providing further details on the background of the creation of Preachers, Not Judges. The
following account is from Allam's tell-all memoirs, which originally appeared in the
1990s in serialized form in the Egyptian daily, Rose el-Youssef.

In the mid sixties, Abd al-Nasser decided to release all Muslim Brothers who were in jail
at the time. However, the security Authorities (sulutat amniyyah) opposed the decision
due to the security policy then in place. Around this time, we obtained information that
the Brothers who were brought to jail in 1965 were of three groups, comprising followers
of al-Banna, the followers of al-Hudaybi, and the followers of Sayyid Qutb. There was no
disagreement among them; they were all agreed that contemporary society was in a
condition of jahiliyyah that must be changed to establish the Islamic state. Exactly when
an Islamic state should be established varied amongst the three groups...

The followers of al-Hudaybi and al-Banna preferred to delay the establishment of an

Islamic state, since delay was in the interest of survival of the organization. Their view
was that they should save the life of their Brothers and not to provoke the authority at that
particular time. Given these circumstances, we sought more information and found
evidence of extreme Islamic thinking among the Brothers in jail. Investigations revealed
sufficient evidence to result in 17 potential charges (qadiyyah). We moved quickly to
face this type old thinking that was spreading from jail and gaining public support due to
current socio-economic discontent in the wider society. Our plan, of course, was to match
this type of thinking intelligently. We asked the Ulama and the men of al-Azhar for
assistance. We intended to take advantage of the differences that we found among the
extreme groups with regard to when it was best to establish an Islamic state. We also
devised a successful plan for us to infiltrate the Islamic groups, secure our presence
among them and persuade some of them to co-operate with us...
The truth of this matter is that Hasan al-Hudaybi did not co-operate by an opinion, or by
fatwa (legal opinion) in this book. The book was not, in fact, written by Al-Hudaybi at
all. Actually, the book was written by select members at al-Azhar. We managed to get the
prepared chapters into the jail and circulate them amongst the Muslim Brothers. We then
closed our eyes to their meetings and discussions. We had arranged for Ma'mun, the son
of al-Hudaybi, to pass him the chapters. He did this pretending that they were his own...
Among the Brothers who were in the prison and co-operated with us in circulating this
book in jail were Abd al-Mut'al al-Jabri and Saad al-Din Mutwally Ibrahim. We then
collected the chapters and facilitated the book's publication and rapid distribution...

The book made a significant impact on the Brothers and encountered their extreme
thinkers particularly inside the jail. Muhammad Qutb and some of his supporters
separated themselves from the groups of extreme thinkers, although with Muhammad
Qutb were Shukri Ahmad Mustafa, Sayyid ‘Id Yusuf, and Ali Abd al-Fattah Abduh
Isma'il. These three Brothers were, however, the first to spread the militant extremism
after they were released. (Fu'ad Allam, "Akhtar Kutub Hasan al-Hudaybi min Ta'lif
Mabahith Amn al-Dawlah" Rose el-Youssef, No. 3507 [1995], p56-59; cited in, Sayed
Khatab, "Hakimiyyah and Jahiliyyah in the Thought of Sayyid Qutb," Middle Eastern
Studies 38/3 [July 2002]: 149-150)
Allam qualifies that several prominent leaders, including Sayyid Qutb's brother,
Mohammad (who would remain an important Brotherhood ideologue and later mentor
Osama bin Laden while teaching at King Abdel-Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia), quickly rejected the arguments of Preachers, Not Judges, not long after they
were released from prison, which is evidence that the jail-house acceptance of the text for
some was more for pragmatic than ideological reasons. Shukri, one of those identified as
having embraced the program outlined in Preachers, Not Judges, would found the
Ja'maat al-Islamiya (Society of Muslims), which would later be known as al-Takfir wa al-
Hijra (excommunication and emigration), which would take Qutb's thought to its most
extreme.

As Khatab states in his own analysis, Hudaybi continued to advocate the essence of
Qutb's jihadist teachings:

There has been no response to this revelation from either Ma'mun, the son of al-Hudaybi,
or from al-Azhar, and there is no reason to reject this new information. Al-Hudaybi, like
others of his brothers, believed that Islam is a religion and state. He, like others,
described the society of their time as a ‘society of jahiliyyah that should be changed and
an Islamic state be established'. (Ibid, pp. 150-151)
In an earlier article published in 2001 in The Muslim World, Khatab noted both that
Hudaybi affirmed Qutb's teachings and never promoted the book that was attributed to
him:

Al-Hudaybi accepted the theory and practice, namely the book Ma'alim [Qutb's Signposts
- P] and its milestones and recommended them for his group. It is noteworthy that al-
Hudaybi did not recommend the book Da'ah wa Laysa Qudah [Preachers, Not Judges -
P], which was attributed to him. (Sayed Khatab, "Al-Hudaybi's Influence on the
Development of Islamist Movements in Egypt," The Muslim World 91, 3/4 [Fall 2001], p.
468)
Based on the witnesses, such as Fu'ad Allam and other first-hand accounts, who attest to
the book not authored by Hudaybi, Khatab examines the argument of Preachers, Not
Judges and concludes that the ideology it espouses was directly contrary to Hudaybi's
beliefs:

Du'ah wa Laysa Qudah (Preachers, Not Judges) was written to claim that hakimiyya
(sovereignty) is not a Qu'ranic term mentioned in the Qu'ran. However, the term hukm
(from hakama, to govern or to judge) is a Qu'ranic term repeatedly mentioned in the
Qu'ran. The author's analysis seeks to separate the term hakimiyya from the term hukm
and then denies the Qu'ranic word group of hukm any political connotation. This
perspective views Islam as simply a religious without the right to govern and order
human life or to organize the daily affairs of the Muslim, a point directly opposite to al-
Hudaybi's ideological position...According to this information the book is not al-
Hudaybi's and he did not write a single word of it. (p. 465; emphasis added)
Khatab suggests that scholarly accounts of this period written prior to this new evidence
that assume Hudaybi's authorship of Preachers, Not Judges should be considered
"doubtful" and need to be approached "carefully".

These evidences raise some important questions in the current debate in the West over the
Muslim Brotherhood: is it the case that the journalists and Beltway wonks appealing to
Preachers, Not Judges as proof of a "reformed" Brotherhood are simply ignorant of most
of the scholarship over the past decade on this topic, or have they determined to bury this
evidence with their silence in the hope that it will be ignored? If the former, we have
cause to question their credibility as self-appointed experts on the ideology of the Muslim
Brotherhood, and we also have to acknowledge their gullibility in accepting unquestioned
the propaganda put out by the group; if the latter, their pretended objectivity is little more
than the component of the official duplicity that characterizes the Muslim Brotherhood's
long-standing operational methodology. Only they can tell us which it is.

Patrick Poole is an occasional contributor to American Thinker. He maintains a blog, Existential Space.