The series of bombings and other acts of violence directed at American installations in Lebanon over the last months has focused public attention on the fanatic groups, acting in the name of fundamentalist Islam, that have proudly accepted responsibility for these terrible deeds. Most of these groups have been linked with the radical regime now in power in Iran. But the influence of Muslim fundamentalism is hardly limited to Iran or the areas into which Iran has been able to project its beliefs. Indeed, one of the most fertile grounds for ideological and political fundamentalism in recent years has been, paradoxically, that quintessentially “moderate” Arab country, Egypt. To an extent little realized, Muslim fundamentalists played and have continued to play a major part in setting the terms and defining the limits of Egyptian policy, not just in domestic matters but in foreign policy as well, and most especially in relations between Egypt and Israel.

In order to understand the nature of the present influence wielded by the fundamentalists within Egypt (and in the Arab-Islamic world generally), it is necessary to survey, however briefly, the recent history of their views toward Israel and the Jews.

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I

The general Islamic attitude toward Zionism and Israel was from the beginning totally antagonistic, rejecting absolutely the legitimacy of Jewish statehood in Palestine. The foundations of this harsh animosity lay in the Islamic conception of the Jews and of their proper place in history and society. It was held that the majority of Jews had long sought to undermine Islam; to curb their evil proclivity was one of the purposes of Muslim rule over the Jews. This conception naturally denied the possibility of Jewish self-rule or even of equality with Muslims.

With the rise of Zionism and the establishment of Israel, contemporary Muslim fundamentalists were instrumental in reformulating traditional doctrine on the subject of the Jews. Indeed, many of the fundamentalists, obsessed with their self-appointed tasks of purging Muslim countries of alien Western influences, and of helping to create regimes on the example of the earliest Muslim polity, saw an even deeper significance in the contemporary position of Jews and Israel. For them, the Jewish state represented a center of Jewish conspiratorial power, whose purpose it was to infiltrate the Muslim countries, striving first to destroy Islamic values and then to instill the germ of Westernization. Leading fundamentalist ideologues carried this idea to its extreme, claiming that the secular leadership of their own countries, and the ideas and institutions which this leadership imposed on its Muslim subjects, were part of the larger Jewish-Zionist conspiracy against Islam. This “explanation” enabled them to “understand” better the “sources” of Islam’s contemporary crisis, and to locate these sources where they might be successfully confronted.

The line of reasoning was clear and simple: Islam was undergoing a crisis, characterized by subjugation to the West and the erosion of traditional ways. The main source of this crisis was the insidious Jewish presence, which weakened the Muslim polity by denigrating and devaluing Islamic principles. The Jews and Israel thus came to be seen as the impediment to Islamic renewal—just as they had been Islam’s enemies in the days of Muhammad.

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II

The first and most important Sunni Muslim fundamentalist organization was the Muslim Brothers. Founded by Shaykh Hasan al-Banna in Ismailiyah in 1928, the Brothers gave practical expression to fundamentalist doctrine by forming a network of social and guild institutions. There they also laid a foundation of broad popular support. But notwithstanding periodic involvement in revolutionary politics, the Muslim Brothers were generally cautious politically, preferring to wait for an opportune moment to effect their program.

The establishment of Israel in 1948 and the Arab military defeat in the war of independence provided the Muslim Brothers in Egypt with a focus for refining their basic doctrine concerning the need for internal cleansing and external struggle. The notion of Zionism as an evil force became their ideological center, Israel and the Jews their permanent enemy. This in turn helped to loosen the traditional Sunni strictures against overthrowing any Muslim ruler, no matter how objectionable his behavior, so long as he remained nominally Muslim. Once the “true,” i.e., Jewish, nature of the Westernizing Muslim regimes was revealed, the sacred struggle could be turned inward. When the Ayatollah Khomeini, calling for war against the secular Ba’ath regime in Iraq, said that this would be a “war against the Zionist agent, Saddam Hussein,” and the first step toward “the liberation of Jerualem,” he was speaking out of just this conception of the Jews and of Israel.

It was also such thinking, given its most articulate early expression in the writing of Sayyid Qutb (1906-66), that was later to become the basis of the Muslim Brothers’ renunciation of Camp David—and of the assassination of Anwar Sadat.

Qutb’s thoughts on the subject of the Jews and Israel were summarized in his influential essay of the early 1950’s, “Our Struggle With the Jews.” Qutb portrayed the Jews here as the essential enemy of Islam, and the struggle against the Jews as Islam’s main historical challenge. In Qutb’s view, Jewish machinations against Islam possessed a prototypical quality; though Christianity and sometimes Communism also appeared as part of the anti-Islam front, the Jews (or Zionism) were in fact the wellspring of all the forces of darkness, whatever the latter’s ostensible identity. Indeed, Qutb used the terms “the Jews” and “enemies of the Muslims” interchangeably.

Qutb saw a basic continuity between the classical relationship of Muslims and Jews and its modern manifestation in the Arab-Israeli conflict:

The struggle between Islam and the Jews continues and is destined to continue in the future, because the Jews will be satisfied only with the destruction of this religion. . . . Today, the conflict has intensified since the Jews came from everywhere and announced that they had established the state of Israel. Their covetousness extended from afar to Jerusalem. . . .

The Jews realized, said Qutb, as many Muslims did not, that the Muslim community bereft of true Islam would be no physical match for a determined Zionist campaign. Just as the Jews in the early period of Islam sought to undermine the Muslims’ faith, so today did they seek the same goal, albeit in ways more suited to modern life:

These forces appear today in the Islamic world as a large army of [Jewish] agents in the form of professors, philosophers, researchers—some-times also writers, poets, scientists, and journalists—carrying Muslim names because they have a Muslim ancestry! And some of them are even from the ranks of the Muslim religious authorities! This “army of the learned” seeks to shake the faith of Muslims in all possible ways. . . . The agents of Zionism today are like this. . . .

In later fundamentalist writings, Qutb’s idea of a permanent adversarial relation between the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac was taken as axiomatic. It became the center of the doctrine legitimating indigenous political protest and even, in the appropriate circumstances, rebellion, to rid Muslim states of their crypto-Jewish secular rulers and intelligentsia. Already for Sayyid Qutb, Gamal Abdel Nasser was an agent of Zionism. But Nasser at least obscured his alliances with the Jews. His successor, Sadat, shamelessly proclaimed his.

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III

In Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in 1977 and in the subsequent peace he concluded with Israel at Camp David, the Muslim Brothers found dramatic proof of the fundamentalist explanation of Islamic weakness and decadence. This “fallacious peace” vindicated the fundamentalist thesis of an alien ideological invasion; it proved that decades of Muslim backsliding had culminated in a near-total collapse. The leaders of the worldwide anti-Islamic forces, now stripped of all disguises, had brazenly entered a sovereign Muslim state for their final thrust.

The reaction of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers was expressed most forcefully in their monthly magazine, al-Da’wah (“The Call to Islam”). Here there was intense discussion concerning the diabolical nature of the Jews and Israel’s intent to wreck Egypt and its Islamic foundations. Particularly important were the articles of Umar al-Tilmisani, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt and chief editor of al-Da’wah.

The cornerstone of al-Tilmisani’s “vision” was the notion that the Jews are by nature evil and therefore cannot live in peace with others:

The whole world knows the nature of Jewish “morality”: (1) Artifice. (2) Robbing. (3) Reneging on promises. (4) Opportunism. (5) Insincerity. (6) Fanatical racism. (7) A desire to destroy the world in order that they might rule it. (8) Striving for battle. (9) Egoism and selfishness. (10) Pillaging most of the world’s resources. (11) Horrible cruelty in torturing their enemies. (12) [A tendency] to sacrifice the precious things which other people are proud of, in the pursuit of money. . . .

Umar al-Tilmisani saw in “normalization of relations” the means which would enable the Jews of Israel to act according to the dictates of their nature—i.e., to destroy the values, customs, and material foundations of an Islamic Egypt. With the normalization of relations, he wrote,

will come all manner of moral evils such as cabarets, drinking of liquor, and white slavery. . . .

The Jews will exploit all the writers who will sell their faith and honor for dirhams. These writers will hide behind Muslim names or “freedom of speech” . . . and this at a time when the Islamic message is impeded by many obstacles. . . .

The Jews institute ways of deceitful propaganda. What enables them to utilize this propaganda as they spread their poison among the youth is that they claim to be fighting backwardness which they allege [is due to Islam]; while they also in fact fight all varieties of Islamic tradition. . . .

In al-Tilmisani’s view, the Egyptian economy would also fall victim, through general economic exploitation and, even worse, through the violation of the sacred Islamic prohibition on interest. The Israeli embassy in Egypt would be established as the internal “command center” of nefarious Zionist planning:

Normalization of relations with Israel is the most dangerous cancer eating away at all the life cells in our bodies. . . . As for exchange of ambassadors with Israel, this is the greatest catastrophe . . . and the opening of the gates of evil on Egypt. . . .

Have we really reached the point where we would protect those who want to destroy us? . . . What has befallen us? Where is our intellectual soundness? Where is our foresight?

This frightful extreme, according to al-Tilmisani, had been reached because of the weakness and collapse of the Muslim religious, cultural, and political leadership. Though Muslims had to recognize that Israel was the head of the snake of international anti-Islamic forces, no special blame was to be cast on Israel for doing what came naturally to it. Instead, “the greatest blame is to be laid on the rulers of the Islamic countries who know all this and do not condemn it, but rather encourage it. . . .”

In one of his most outspoken pieces, al-Tilmisani attacked these Muslim rulers, whom he called “lovers of Islam’s enemies”:

Consider to what extent there may be a connection betweent [our] real enemies and [our] rulers; the latter whom we would always have considered the strength of the Muslims—and once they were—but who [now] defend the Muslims’ enemies. Our rulers have become as poisoned arrows in the very hearts of the Muslims. This is our situation today. . . .

Egypt made a peace treaty with Israel. We opposed it from the first day, because it was, and remains, an evil in every respect. And your shouts [O Rulers] were raised in anger and threat [against us]. We thought you might do something to save the Muslims from this hideous treaty. But all we saw were empty conferences. . . . And we heard nothing but excuses . . . and the rustling of billions of dollars moving from pockets to pockets; not in the service of beating back Israel, but rather in the service of those among you who oppress their Muslim subjects, to aid them in mistreating [Muslims] . . . O brave leaders!! . . . Your arm is raised only against Muslims who proclaim truth, and your strength falters only against your worst enemies . . . the Zionists. . . .

The Muslim rulers love their enemies—the enemies of their religion. This is something their subjects cannot accept. . . .

Al-Da’wah held out little hope that the present generation of Muslim rulers would do what was required. Yet a message of exhortation nevertheless filled its pages. In this “crisis of crises,” only “the reformist Muslims”—i.e., fundamentalists—were capable of carrying the day. With broad strokes and in emotionally evocative hues, al-Da’wah set forth its vision of true Muslim leaders directing the masses back to their sources of life and vitality. The peace with Israel, signifying the ultimate degradation of Islam in the modern world, would be renounced. Guided by traditional principles, Muslims in Egypt would again live nobly and gloriously, an example to their oppressed brethren throughout the lands of Islam. In order to achieve this goal, Umar al-Tilmisani exhorted his people to die, if necessary:

When death is inevitable, it is impossible that you will die as cowards. Surely it is better that you should die under fire, honorably, than that you should live debased, subjected to the arrogance of those who despise us.

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IV

Some months before his assassination, President Sadat halted the publication of al-Da’wah. The magazine’s open enmity to his government and its pledge of continuous struggle against the peace were obviously symptoms of a situation becoming uncontrollable.

But it was too late. The peace with Israel had violated the sensibilities of even the most moderate elements in the Muslim Brothers. In an atmosphere already heavy with fundamentalist stirrings, and with the tensions of a deteriorating economic situation, Sadat’s peace offered conclusive proof of the corruption of rulers and a legitimation of fundamentalist principles. The drama of the final struggle had begun.

The ideologues and leaders of the Muslim Brothers interpreted the situation in terms of their philosophy. Meanwhile, on the streets, in the mosques, and on the university campuses a burgeoning “new fundamentalism” of charismatic shaykhs, youth movements, and revolutionary cells had also been developing. Parallel to the pronouncements of al-Da’wah and other activities of the Muslim Brothers, this fluid revolution was heading toward a violent militancy, and it reached a climax of a sort with the assassination of Sadat in October 1981.

For Muslim fundamentalists in Egypt, Sadat’s assassination marked the opening of the longed-for “reconquest” of the nation in the name of Islam. All fundamentalist camps girded themselves for a continuing struggle, hoping at least that Hosni Mubarak, an uncertain new leader, might permit them an interim of renewed activities before the next storm. The leaders of the Muslim Brothers, their main publication still banned, continued quietly to proclaim their ideas. Then in the last months of 1982, al-Da’wah resumed publication, now from Vienna, and again under the editorship of al-Tilmisani. Prominent in its pages was an undisguised sympathy for Sadat’s assassins, as well as a continuing portrayal of the peace with Israel as a central symptom of the Islamic malaise. And for once, history seemed to be moving in a direction compatible with the fundamentalists’ dreams.

Before the assassination of Sadat, Egypt had proceeded slowly and hesitantly in normalizing relations with Israel, but the hesitancy was controlled, part of an overall strategy of rewarding Israel with increments of “peace” in return for its gradual, voluntary shrinkage. After Sadat’s death, controlled hesitation became a directed gallop. Egypt removed its ambassador from Tel Aviv after the initial violent phase of the Lebanese war; anti-Israel attacks intensified in Egypt’s press; Egyptian War Minister Abu Ghazala remarked that in the event of a war between Israel and an Arab state, Egypt would be unable to stand aside; President Mubarak welcomed Yasir Arafat to Egypt; Egypt negotiated a political return to the Islamic and Arab fold; during the Islamic conference in Morocco (January 1984), Mubarak reportedly asserted that “Camp David is dead” (this was later officially denied); and Sadat’s closest colleagues were removed from the ruling party’s list of candidates prior to elections in May 1984.

To be sure, the alterations in policy after Sadat’s death were not directly due to fundamentalist influence. In Sadat’s absence, and perhaps in part because of it, other factors as well touched the essence of the peace policy and began to cast doubt on its practicability. These included the continued unrelenting opposition of the other Arab states and the PLO to entering negotiations with Israel; the resultant Arab political boycott of Egypt; and Israel’s continued “intransigence” on the Palestinian issue, as expressed most dramatically in its war against the PLO in Lebanon. These historical realities challenged the basic premises of the Egyptian philosophy of peace, whose proponents had sincerely believed in a gradual Arab acceptance of a (reduced) Israel and a new Israeli “realism.” Thus Mubarak and his colleagues, though remaining committed to the goals of Sadat’s policy, could not have been expected to remain totally steadfast in implementing it, particularly not in the absence of the martyred charismatic leader. The fact that the formal peace remained even minimally in place was a tribute to the regime’s hope that somehow more auspicious days would come.

But if fundamentalist challenges were not directly responsible for the misfortunes suffered by the peace, indirectly they were greatly influential. The assassination itself, as a revolutionary fundamentalist act, served warning to Egypt that the tide of Islam, having begun to rise after the Six-Day War, would henceforth more aggressively lap at the foundations of alien domination and that the peace with Israel, the symbol of all that was wrong, was destined to be swept away in the great cleansing. Only this would insure the revival of Islam as Egypt’s guiding hand.

The continuing strength of fundamentalism in Egypt, manifested in revolutionary cells and in various cultural and religious activities, was not easily to be dismissed. Every time it was announced that another fundamentalist conspiracy had been thwarted, one could be sure that the country’s secular leaders had been made aware of the many who viewed them as Zionist lackeys and enemies of Islam. And if suppression was one prong of their effort to contain fundamentalist influence, appeasement was the other. Not by chance was it that the meeting of the Organization of Muslim States in Morocco, where Egypt was seeking reentrance into the Muslim fold, became the venue of Mubarak’s alleged proclamation that Camp David was dead, a statement obviously directed toward Muslim circles in Egypt as much as toward the delegates in Morocco.

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V

The fundamentalist goal of destroying the peace and thereby “saving Islam” in Egypt was, then, partially successful, coinciding as it did with Mubarak’s own interim interests. Deflating the peace became a kind of policy-by-default during the period after Sadat’s assassination while Egypt waited for some indication of the ultimate intentions both of Israel and of the other Arab parties.

Today the peace still hangs in the balance, while Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt continues to grow in social and political strength. Though the fundamentalists are internally fragmented into diverse factions, from the Muslim Brothers—“moderate” by today’s standards—to the independent militant movements of Muslim youth, the jama’?;t, and the revolutionary jihad groups, all nurture the hope (bordering on expectation) that Islam will eventually rule and pervade the whole of Egyptian life, whether through new and comprehensive legislation or through the total transformation of Egypt into an “Islamic Republic.”

In keeping with their practical orientation, the fundamentalists work hard to achieve their goal. Their ideologues write and speak. Their activists organize and mobilize. Their publicists persuade. Their revolutionaries conspire. Their preachers entreat. All this, in a milieu which for several years now has generously repaid the fundamentalists’ efforts with a growing positive response. This response is itself linked to the widespread conviction (in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East) that modernization and successful competition with the West will not come about by means of borrowed Western political ideas and systems, but only by means of a return to the sources and earliest examples of Islam’s civilization.

It is true that the spread of fundamentalism in Egypt in recent years does not yet appear to have taken on a sharply defined political form; the government is strong, and the “Islamicizing” process is a gradual one. Still, various developments traceable to fundamentalist influence have emerged and seem destined to expand. These include the partially successful Muslim demand for increased legislation in accordance with the Shar?’ah (Muslim law); the standing of the Muslim Brothers in partnership with the revived Waf’d party in the May 1984 elections, which resulted in giving the Muslim Brothers some seats in the Parliament; the emergence of an Islamic opposition party, al-Ummah, which also appeared before the May 1984 elections; and the political “takeover” of campuses by fundamentalist groups.

Such highly specific and public forms of Islamic politics are not, however, the real measure of fundamentalist strength in Egypt. Rather, this strength resides in the extensive and general Islamicization now taking place in the hinterland, and which must be reckoned one of the strongest forces in Egypt’s recent history. The goal of the fundamentalists is to make of hinterland and political front one and the same thing, thus bringing about the total Islamicization both of Egyptian politics and of Egyptian society.

The peace with Israel will remain a central issue for the fundamentalists. They will certainly continue to preach and struggle against it no matter how feeble it may grow and even if the government itself attacks it. For as we have seen, in fundamentalist thinking, the peace is an abominable extension of the basic cancer that threatens the lifeblood of Islam. Moreover, the anti-peace banner serves as a focal point for the campaign to rid Egypt of all its difficulties—political, social, and economic—through a return to fundamentalist Islam.

The Egyptian movements are further emboldened by the moral and political support they have garnered from colleagues in surrounding countries. Thus, recent reports of the almost total Islamicization of the Sudan, Egypt’s erstwhile good neighbor and fellow fighter against fundamentalist intrusions, has caused tremendous worry in Cairo. And then there is the continuing example of Iran, and the revolutionary terrorist acts in Lebanon. Such developments remind us once again that what we have been discussing as an aspect of local Egyptian politics is really part of a larger and much more threatening regional trend.

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