Inside the Brotherhood

The Arab Uprising has once again led to the re-emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, hereafter MB) in the center stage of political discourse in contemporary Middle East. The book under review is the first in-depth study of the relationship between the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and its own members. Drawing on years of participants’ observation, extensive interviews, previously inaccessible organizational documents, and dozens of memoirs and writings, the book seems to provide an intimate portrayal of the recruitment and socialization of the Brothers (Ikhwan), the evolution of their intricate social networks, and the construction of the peculiar ideology that shapes their everyday practices. Kandil attempts to compare the Brotherhood to secular social movements or other typical forms of religious activism by obscuring its distinct nature, and instead seeks to unlock the organization’s unique logic. Building on his original research, Kandil reinterprets the Brotherhood’s slow rise and rapid downfall from power in Egypt, and compares it to the Islamist subsidiaries it created and the varieties it inspired around the world.