CAIRO — Abdel Moneim Abou el-Fotouh is a popular leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and a candidate to become Egypt’s first president since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak.
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| Khaled Desouki |
A Muslim Brotherhood rally in Cairo. The group figures to play a leading role in elections.
But he is not running as a Brotherhood candidate; in fact, he is running despite its opposition and openly criticizing many of its decisions. And instead of demonstrating the group’s growing power as Egypt’s best-organized political movement, his candidacy is exposing its internal divisions, as the unifying sense of opposition to a secular dictatorship fades and various factions — including two breakaway political parties and much of the group’s youth — move toward the political center.
“To the Brotherhood, I am more liberal,” said Dr. Abou el-Fotouh, a 59-year-old physician, smiling over a neatly trimmed beard in the office he uses as head of the Egyptian doctors union.
Sympathetic Islamists and liberals call him Egypt’s answer to Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose roots lie in political Islam but whose policies advocate tolerance and pluralism. Like many moderate Islamists, Dr. Abou el-Fotouh has long argued that to avoid compromise in their spiritual mission or intolerance in their politics, those who enter political life should separate themselves from their religious associations, just as he has done in his presidential bid.
Dr. Abou el-Fotouh “believes in democracy, and he believes in Islam; he accepts liberal values, and he will apply social justice,” said Islam Lotfy, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Youth who was among the young instigators of the Egyptian revolution.
“You will find this new trend largely among the youth,” Mr. Lotfy added, “and as you go up the pyramid to people in their 50s and 60s, you will find fewer and fewer.”
“Some in the Brotherhood say he is too liberal,” Mr. Lotfy added, but he argued that those were old-school Islamists who “don’t believe in democracy or some liberal values.”
Older leaders in the Brotherhood, some of whom have clashed with Dr. Abou el-Fotouh for years, are threatening to expel him for defying the group’s pledge not to run a presidential candidate in the first election. The tactic is intended to avoid any appearance of an Islamist takeover — a commitment Dr. Abou el-Fotouh himself laid out on behalf of the Brotherhood in an op-ed in The Washington Post days before Mr. Mubarak resigned. (The date for the presidential elections has not been set.)
“He has nothing to do with us now,” said Essam el-Erian, a Brotherhood leader and spokesman for its newly formed Freedom and Justice Party. “We cannot support anyone violating our decisions.”
Egyptian liberals say he is likely to be a strong candidate because he stands in Egypt’s political middle, “the missing link” between Islamists and secular voters, as the political analyst Diaa Rashwan of Al Ahram Center put it. But liberals are divided over whether to embrace him as an ally or distrust his ties to the Brotherhood.
“Abou el-Fotouh is genuine,” said Shady el-Ghazeli Harb, a young liberal who worked with Mr. Lotfy and others to start the revolution. “He has always been known as a reformist within the Brotherhood. But he is a Brotherhood guy.” Banned, but tolerated under Mr. Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood built a formidable organization as the country’s principal political opposition, building networks of support through its religious and charitable work as well as in student and professional groups — like the doctors union that Dr. Abou el-Fotouh leads.
But many Egyptian liberals and Western analysts worry about the prospect of the Brotherhood’s growing power in post-Mubarak Egypt in part because the group, founded in this country in 1928 and the great-grandfather of Islamist political movements around the world, has always remained vague about its long-term vision of how to incorporate Islamic law into a civil state. Some in the West recall the 1979 Iranian revolution, in which the ouster of a secular dictator paved the way for a takeover by religious extremists.
A few in the organization have acknowledged an undisclosed agenda. “Our preliminary platform will be shown through the Freedom and Justice Party,” said Mehdi Akef, a former top Brotherhood leader and a conservative. “But our full platform will not be disclosed until we are in complete control and take the presidency as well.”
The emergence of liberal Islamists like Dr. Abou el-Fotouh, however, pulls the Brotherhood’s internal debates over its agenda out into the open.
“To the Brotherhood, I am more liberal,” said Dr. Abou el-Fotouh, a 59-year-old physician, smiling over a neatly trimmed beard in the office he uses as head of the Egyptian doctors union.
Sympathetic Islamists and liberals call him Egypt’s answer to Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose roots lie in political Islam but whose policies advocate tolerance and pluralism. Like many moderate Islamists, Dr. Abou el-Fotouh has long argued that to avoid compromise in their spiritual mission or intolerance in their politics, those who enter political life should separate themselves from their religious associations, just as he has done in his presidential bid.
Dr. Abou el-Fotouh “believes in democracy, and he believes in Islam; he accepts liberal values, and he will apply social justice,” said Islam Lotfy, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Youth who was among the young instigators of the Egyptian revolution.
“You will find this new trend largely among the youth,” Mr. Lotfy added, “and as you go up the pyramid to people in their 50s and 60s, you will find fewer and fewer.”
“Some in the Brotherhood say he is too liberal,” Mr. Lotfy added, but he argued that those were old-school Islamists who “don’t believe in democracy or some liberal values.”
Older leaders in the Brotherhood, some of whom have clashed with Dr. Abou el-Fotouh for years, are threatening to expel him for defying the group’s pledge not to run a presidential candidate in the first election. The tactic is intended to avoid any appearance of an Islamist takeover — a commitment Dr. Abou el-Fotouh himself laid out on behalf of the Brotherhood in an op-ed in The Washington Post days before Mr. Mubarak resigned. (The date for the presidential elections has not been set.)
“He has nothing to do with us now,” said Essam el-Erian, a Brotherhood leader and spokesman for its newly formed Freedom and Justice Party. “We cannot support anyone violating our decisions.”
Egyptian liberals say he is likely to be a strong candidate because he stands in Egypt’s political middle, “the missing link” between Islamists and secular voters, as the political analyst Diaa Rashwan of Al Ahram Center put it. But liberals are divided over whether to embrace him as an ally or distrust his ties to the Brotherhood.
“Abou el-Fotouh is genuine,” said Shady el-Ghazeli Harb, a young liberal who worked with Mr. Lotfy and others to start the revolution. “He has always been known as a reformist within the Brotherhood. But he is a Brotherhood guy.” Banned, but tolerated under Mr. Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood built a formidable organization as the country’s principal political opposition, building networks of support through its religious and charitable work as well as in student and professional groups — like the doctors union that Dr. Abou el-Fotouh leads.
But many Egyptian liberals and Western analysts worry about the prospect of the Brotherhood’s growing power in post-Mubarak Egypt in part because the group, founded in this country in 1928 and the great-grandfather of Islamist political movements around the world, has always remained vague about its long-term vision of how to incorporate Islamic law into a civil state. Some in the West recall the 1979 Iranian revolution, in which the ouster of a secular dictator paved the way for a takeover by religious extremists.
A few in the organization have acknowledged an undisclosed agenda. “Our preliminary platform will be shown through the Freedom and Justice Party,” said Mehdi Akef, a former top Brotherhood leader and a conservative. “But our full platform will not be disclosed until we are in complete control and take the presidency as well.”
The emergence of liberal Islamists like Dr. Abou el-Fotouh, however, pulls the Brotherhood’s internal debates over its agenda out into the open.
Dr. Abou el-Fotouh cites verses of the Koran to support the right of Muslim women to reject the veil, the freedom of Muslims or Christians to ignore Islam’s prohibition on alcohol, the right of a woman or non-Muslim to hold the office of Egypt’s president, the separation of the Brotherhood’s religious mission from politics, and his own opposition to the Brotherhood’s recent proposal to require Muslims to pay 2.5 percent of their income to a state-sponsored charity in fulfillment of the Islamic charitable duty known as zakat.
“Allah told our Prophet, ‘You cannot control or strongly influence people, you can only advise them,’ ” Dr. Abou el-Fotouh said. “ ‘If I obligate you to take some religion — to take some behavior — I shall charge you as a hypocrite.’ ”
He added, “People must have a free will.”
While he criticized the United States for its support of Arab dictators like Mr. Mubarak, he said he admired “the American people” and considered himself “very close to Western values.” His campaign aides say he supports the 1978 Camp David accords, which ended decades of conflict between Egypt and Israel; a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and a future of harmonious relations between Muslims and Jews in the region.
The son of a government employee of modest means, Dr. Abou el-Fotouh said he was first attracted to Islamist politics while a student as a means of advocating for freedom and democracy. His work with the Brotherhood earned him three prison terms, he said, the longest for five years.
In 2000, when a group of like-minded Brotherhood members attempted to break away to form the moderate Hezb el-Wassat, or Center Party, the Brotherhood joined the Mubarak government in a successful court case blocking recognition.
Dr. Abou el-Fotouh, in prison at the time, said he told his fellows in the Brotherhood, “You guys are very wrong to stop the Center Party because they have done nothing wrong.’ ”
Now the Center Party has re-emerged as another high-profile player in post-revolutionary Egyptian politics, and other Brotherhood moderates have formed a second, newer breakaway party, Al Nahda, or The Renaissance.
Four years ago, the Brotherhood prepared a first prototype party platform that, among other provisions, proposed barring women and non-Muslims from Egypt’s presidency, and also creating a council of clerics to issue binding Islamic legal rulings to the Egyptian government.
Dr. Abou el-Fotouh led a faction of Brotherhood members who denounced the platform, enlisting rulings from prominent Muslim scholars like Sheik Yousef el-Qaradawi in his cause.
“The foundation of rights and duties is citizenship, not religion or sex,” Dr. Abou el-Fotouh recalled as his arguments.
The Brotherhood softened both positions and has left them out of its new party platform, but never fully disavowed the ideas.
Now, Dr. Abou el-Fotouh said, his platform — focused on securing individual freedoms, establishing judicial independence, and development in health and education — may not appear much different from that of the Brotherhood’s new party, or for that matter from the ideas of Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the leading liberal standard bearer.
But the doctor said he looked forward to the debate among the diverging strands of Egypt’s Islamists.
“Islam accepts multiplicity,” he said, “in religious or political or economic beliefs.”
nytimes.com/2011/06/20/world/middleeast/20egypt.html?pagewanted=2&ref=todayspaper
While he criticized the United States for its support of Arab dictators like Mr. Mubarak, he said he admired “the American people” and considered himself “very close to Western values.” His campaign aides say he supports the 1978 Camp David accords, which ended decades of conflict between Egypt and Israel; a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and a future of harmonious relations between Muslims and Jews in the region.
The son of a government employee of modest means, Dr. Abou el-Fotouh said he was first attracted to Islamist politics while a student as a means of advocating for freedom and democracy. His work with the Brotherhood earned him three prison terms, he said, the longest for five years.
In 2000, when a group of like-minded Brotherhood members attempted to break away to form the moderate Hezb el-Wassat, or Center Party, the Brotherhood joined the Mubarak government in a successful court case blocking recognition.
Dr. Abou el-Fotouh, in prison at the time, said he told his fellows in the Brotherhood, “You guys are very wrong to stop the Center Party because they have done nothing wrong.’ ”
Now the Center Party has re-emerged as another high-profile player in post-revolutionary Egyptian politics, and other Brotherhood moderates have formed a second, newer breakaway party, Al Nahda, or The Renaissance.
Four years ago, the Brotherhood prepared a first prototype party platform that, among other provisions, proposed barring women and non-Muslims from Egypt’s presidency, and also creating a council of clerics to issue binding Islamic legal rulings to the Egyptian government.
Dr. Abou el-Fotouh led a faction of Brotherhood members who denounced the platform, enlisting rulings from prominent Muslim scholars like Sheik Yousef el-Qaradawi in his cause.
“The foundation of rights and duties is citizenship, not religion or sex,” Dr. Abou el-Fotouh recalled as his arguments.
The Brotherhood softened both positions and has left them out of its new party platform, but never fully disavowed the ideas.
Now, Dr. Abou el-Fotouh said, his platform — focused on securing individual freedoms, establishing judicial independence, and development in health and education — may not appear much different from that of the Brotherhood’s new party, or for that matter from the ideas of Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the leading liberal standard bearer.
But the doctor said he looked forward to the debate among the diverging strands of Egypt’s Islamists.
“Islam accepts multiplicity,” he said, “in religious or political or economic beliefs.”
nytimes.com/2011/06/20/world/middleeast/20egypt.html?pagewanted=2&ref=todayspaper