How do Islamist movements perceive citizenship rights, particularly in conservative societies such as the case in the Middle East? This study attempts to answer this question by examining the case of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Conventional wisdom demonstrates that Islamic movements adopt illiberal views towards women and minorities, particularly non-Muslims, because of their conservative and rigid interpretation of religion. This study argues that religion is not the only factor that shapes these views. By unpacking the position of the Brotherhood towards women and Christians’ rights in Egypt, it shows that the Islamists’ conception of citizenship is driven by ideological and political considerations. It contends that the Brotherhood adopts an ambivalent and ambiguous understanding of citizenship that can be construed by three key factors: ideological stance, organizational cohesion, and political calculations.

The Arab Spring initiated a new era in the history of the Middle East and significantly shifted regional dynamics. It profoundly marked the history of the region and affected relations between Middle Eastern countries. Qatar–Saudi Arabia relations have likewise been profoundly impacted by it. This study focuses on how the Arab Spring affected relations between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and on how the regional power struggle and rivalry between Riyadh and Doha were exacerbated during that period when disagreements and clashes escalated and deepened between both countries. It also emphasizes the causes of tensions that emerged during the period of the Arab Spring between both states. Using classical realism as a theoretical framework in approaching the issues at hand, the study begins by outlining the historical background to Qatar–Saudi Arabia relations. It then describes the policies of Qatar and Saudi Arabia towards the Arab Spring and explores the problem areas in their bilateral relations. Finally, the sanctions imposed against Qatar are also discussed.

In the first parliamentary elections after Mr. Mubarak’s overthrow in February 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood’s newly formed Freedom and Justice Party had won nearly half the seats in the People’s Assembly. The Muslim Brotherhood, had, over the two previous years, gained political expansion in parliament. The Brotherhood entered into a coalition with other Islamist parties including two Salafist parties, forming an Islamist bloc, but their experience ended with their removal from power and significant changes in the structure of the Brotherhood. Based on the political programs of the Islamist parties in Egypt, this article seeks to analyze the experience of Islamists in power by focusing on their practical perceptions of the Islamist political system. The article concludes that the political Islamist organizations lacked a coherent mechanism to propel them from the stage of the organization’s (political party) management to a stage of state administration. Egyptian Islamist groups had no specific perception of the nature of the state, or of an applied model to implement the “Islamic state.” Although these groups had a declared project, which they had been attempting to establish for decades, their focus was solely on discussing the expected outcome they had hoped to achieve, while neglecting to elaborate on how their affairs could be run, once in power. This shortfall was due to an accumulation of the multiple problems the groups had faced, whether they be conceptual reasons of state, power issues, or the organizational obstacles strewn along the paths of the components that comprised the group, which had prevented them, over decades, from overcoming them. Hence, the traditional mechanisms they continued to apply while in power proved inadequate in responding to the crises inherent in the experience of government. They failed to introduce new mechanisms to address the issues as dictated by the necessity for practical experience and solutions once they had attained power.

This paper examines the origin and the relationship between Islamist and non-Islamist political trends in Libya, highlighting the development of the contestation between the two before and after the fall of Gaddafi’s rule. The relationship appears to be that of a contestation between Islamists and liberals but this may be misleading. Islamists are not united but they share an adherence to the establishment of a Muslim society and some form of a khilafa. However, non-Islamists may not easily be identified as “on current.” Indeed, the “current” includes an array of political factions of various dispensations with some not necessarily subscribing to liberal models of democracy. Some belong to pre-Gaddafi-era political parties or were political and human rights’ activists during Gaddafi’s reign. They range from leftist, nationalist, and liberal orientations to populist Arab nationalist forces (including the Ba’th, Pan-Arabists, and others with socialist or communist orientations). When the uprising took place in 2011, the positions each trend took differed before some tactical unity was deemed necessary. When the regime fell, however, differences remerged and became more evident once the transitional structures were put in place. Just before and during the first elections in 2012, Islamists broke ranks with their struggle comrades and fired their cannons at the leaders of the liberal, nationalist, and other elements within the non-Islamist orientations. Islam then became crucial in political expression and rhetoric, especially for Islamist actors. Focusing on the development of this contestation, this paper analyzes the reaction of both Islamist and non-Islamist trends to the policies and tactics adopted by each side in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising and the post-Gaddafi phase. It suggests that although ideology, specifically references to Islam, became crucial in the political contention between Islamists and non-Islamists, the cleavage was not entirely ideological, as both trends considered the Islamic identity of Libya central to their political programs. The interviews with leading representatives of both trends that the author conducted for the purpose of writing this article confirm such a view on the role of ideology in the contestation. As the following discussion indicates, ideology is evidently part and parcel of each sides’ tools, ready to be employed against the other. However, when it does not suit all their purposes, they claim ideology has no role, offering insights into the instrumental and tactical approach to the ongoing contestation of both sides. The article therefore examines the struggle between the two factions as a political competition for the control of resources and positions of power, yet it also argues that ideology and ideas have a role to play, as they constitute the instruments deployed in this struggle, which has, with foreign involvement and backing of different sides, reduced Libya to a “failed state.” In fact although ideological contraposition figures in the contestation, political factionalism and contention in post-2011 were actually fuelled by political factors related to the struggle over access to power and resources, which are instrumental in enabling each side to shape the future state and its political order according to their plans. The struggle between Islamists and non-Islamists may have been the most visible, but it is certainly not the most significant factor in explaining the political dynamics and contention in the country since the fall of Gaddafi.

This article examines the trajectory of the group called the ‘Salafist Call’ in Alexandria ( al-Da‘wah al-Salafiyyah ) and its political party, the ‘Nour Party’ ( Hizb al-Nur ). It discusses the group's formation, its intellectual and legal concepts and positions, its move towards party political action, the repercussions of that experience on both the group and its political party as well as the effect of that on the performance of political Islamism in general. The conclusion considers the future of Salafist political action and the extent to which the Salafist Call can continue as the political representative of the Islamists, particularly in light of the ban on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

The empirical literature has focused on political, socio-economic and even religious indicators when attempting to understand the rise of Islamic factions in Egypt, thereby minimizing the role of cultural aspects in driving mobilization and contestation processes in the Arab World. With this issue in mind, this paper focuses on the alteration of cultural perception of the public through the capitalization of perceptual biases. The contribution of European Union policies in the region has served as useful material for the Islamic rhetoric of the ‘Salafi Call’ and the Muslim Brotherhood in creating a European Union-sceptical culture to contest and mobilize for the elections in 2012 in Egypt. Based on the sixth edition of Jerald Greenberg and Robert Baron's Behavior in Organizations (London, 1997), perceptual biases of stereotyping, which may distort the image of the target collective, and comparative examples of Islamic rhetoric from the period covering the Egyptian elections will be analyzed to demonstrate how Islamic factions took advantage of these perceptual biases to disparage the ‘West’ in the region and, at the same time, to gain more sympathy, support and legitimacy from the Egyptian people. Whilst there is a significant knowledge gap about Europe in the Arab world, clouded by generalization and stereotyping, the European Union likewise lacks accurate and up-to-date information about religious movements. Religious elites constitute a significant player in altering cultural perception in the Arab region. Pragmatism of politically active religious factions increases their impact on perception of the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’.

Prior to the 2011 Arab uprisings, Islamist parties in most Arab states had been systematically prevented from exercising any meaningful authority in government. Following President Hosni Mubarak's ousting from power in 2011, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) established a political party – the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) – and formally entered mainstream politics, providing a rare opportunity to examine the role of an Islamist party in the context of democratic transition. Contrary to concerns that the MB might use Egypt's political opening to install an undemocratic regime, the movement instead committed itself to electoral politics and consistently adhered to the framework for political transition. An analysis of the MB's political trajectory during the 2011–13 timeframe reveals that the movement endeavoured to protect Egypt's democratic transition against the encroachment of the military and the judiciary. Despite the FJP's efforts, sustained interference by non-elected institutions brought Egypt's democratic experiment to a premature end. This course of events confirms that an Islamist movement is capable of fully committing to politics, but also indicates that political commitment alone is insufficient to ensure a successful transition to democratic governance.

The problematic addressed in this article is the challenge initiated by the Arab revolutions to reform the Arab political system in such a way as to facilitate the incorporation of ‘democracy’ at the core of its structure. Given the profound repercussions, this issue has become the most serious matter facing the forces of change in the Arab world today; meanwhile, it forms the most prominent challenge and the most difficult test confronting Islamists. The Islamist phenomenon is not an alien implant that descended upon us from another planet beyond the social context or manifestations of history. Thus it cannot but be an expression of political, cultural, and social needs and crises. Over the years this phenomenon has presented, through its discourse, an ideological logic that falls within the context of ‘advocacy’; however, today Islamists find themselves in office, and in a new context that requires them to produce a new type of discourse that pertains to the context of a ‘state’. Political participation ‘tames’ ideology and pushes political actors to rationalize their discourse in the face of daily political realities and the necessity of achievement. The logic of advocacy differs from that of the state: in the case of advocacy, ideology represents an enriching asset, whereas in the case of the state, it constitutes a heavy burden. This is one reason why so much discourse exists within religious jurisprudence related to interest or necessity or balancing outcomes. This article forms an epilogue to the series of articles on religion and the state published in previous issues of this journal. It adopts the methodologies of ‘discourse analysis’ and ‘case studies’ in an attempt to examine the arguments presented by Islamists under pressure from the opposition. It analyses the experiences, and the constraints, that inhibit the production of a ‘model’, and monitors the development of the discourse, its structure, and transformations between advocacy, revolution and the state.

The article examines the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Egypt, 2012–2013, and how they dealt with the multifaceted challenges. The main argument is that the Brotherhood benefited from their past populist legitimacy to fill the vacuum created by the collapse of the Mubarak regime, but that this legitimacy waned when they did not consolidate this legitimacy with a tangible national achievement. The Brotherhood were unable to count on Egyptians’ sympathy for their endurance of rough treatment at the hands of the previous regime over many years, because the 25 January Revolution changed the Egyptian people's expectations and spread knowledge of how to punish rulers who fail to meet these expectations: with sit-ins and street demonstrations. Despite Muhammad Morsi's victory in the presidential elections, and the forceful curtailment of his four-year term by the army, this leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood failed to translate his legal legitimacy into a wider populist legitimacy based on tangible achievements.

According to Tariq Al-Bishri, it is not true that it is the Islamic current that controls the state in Egypt as a political project is in the process of crystallizing. His main proposal is for the three forces dominating the structure and dynamics of political life in Egypt – namely the army and judiciary, the Muslim Brotherhood, and liberals – to collaborate and avoid posing religion and the state as two opposing entities. Having to deal with the Shari'a as the source or reference for legislation need not be a polarizing issue as religion is being dealt with as ‘the dominant culture’; moreover, much work has already been done along this line throughout the 20th century. Al-Bishri argues that democracy within a society becomes vacuous if it is detached from solving its socio-economic challenges. To this end he prioritizes four main issues: (1) freeing the Egyptian national will from American and Israeli pressures; (2) reforming and rebuilding government administrative bureaucracy; (3) organizing civil society; and (4) drafting a constitution. Al-Bishri considers that ‘after Islamists assume power in Egypt’ it is imperative for the existing political and cultural forces in Egypt to cooperate as none of them has enough power to negate the others or lead on his own.

This paper highlights the Muslim Brotherhood's experience in Egyptian elections since the 1980s with an emphasis on their last attempts during the Hosni Mubarak era in 2010 and in light of their most recent showing in the 2011 elections. This summary reveals how past electoral activities and failures have positioned this organization the better to capitalize on the newfound democratic climate in a post-revolution Egypt and perform well during the 2011 parliamentary elections. Drawing on these and more recent sources, an attempt is also made to bring the features of today's Egypt's political field into clear focus in the wake of the January 25 revolution and the subsequent emergence of newly formed political parties on the Egyptian scene. The paper concludes with a broad assessment of the prospects for the political future of the Muslim Brotherhood in view of its showing in the initial phase of elections for the People's Assembly that took place in November 2011.

This article argues that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's policy changes towards the Muslim Brotherhood were based on their ability to effectively challenge the legitimacy of the regime. This rested on the Islamists’ ability to provide social services via a well-organized structure and network of contact with the ultimate result being that the Muslim Brotherhood garnered a de facto societal legitimacy, if not an official one from the state. In the 1990s, this social Islamist legitimacy was politicized and employed to impel the state to officially recognize the banned Islamists. However, instead of conceding to Islamist pressures, the state launched an offensive campaign to uproot their influence.

Egyptian economic reforms have been an on-going process since the Egyptian government adopted liberal market reforms in 1991 (Kienle 2001, 2004), influenced by a number of internal socio-economic factors, including growing levels of poverty, heightened inflation, high levels of corruption and rising levels of unemployment, in particular among new university graduates. These factors were exerting heavy pressure on a highly bureaucratic and inefficient state (Bayat 1997). However, the ensuing economic reforms resulted in tightened fiscal and monetary polices, and a subsequent increased and heightened socio-economic crisis in Egypt, which the Egyptian government attempted to control by imposing increasingly authoritarian measures, with political de-liberalization evident in both urban and rural areas (Kienle 2001). This led, at the turn of the millennium, to a period of failed economic reforms and increased levels of authoritarianism, which coincided with the political rise of the president's son, Gamal Mubarak, whose economic and business credentials have led to optimism concerning the possibility of future reform and change in Egypt. This paper examines the electoral promises made by Hosni Mubarak in the 2005 presidential elections and the ensuing economic and political implications for the political succession in Egypt, leading to conclusions about the future processes of economic and political reform in Egypt and the impact upon them of the political succession