Islamic organizations in Egypt and the Iranian revolution of 1979: the experience of the first few years.

• Author: Abdelnasser, Walid M.

The Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran has had a far reaching impact, direct as well as indirect, throughout the region. This has been the case whether at the level of other governments' policy-making options or at that of various groups and/or organizations upholding the banner of Islam as a political ideology and program in their quest for political control in different countries of the region.

This study confines itself to the examination of the positions of various self-declared political Islamic actors in Egyptian politics in the late 1970s and early 1980s toward the events in Iran, namely the triumph of its revolution in 1979 and the subsequent declaration of an Islamic republic there, all related developments including the position toward Shiism(1) as well as the eruption of the Iran-Iraq war in September 1980.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Before dealing with the period under study, however, this study will briefly highlight some aspects of the position of the Muslim Brotherhood(2) of Egypt toward Iran and the Shiite doctrine in an earlier period, namely before its banning in 1954.

In the 1940s, Shaykh Hasan al-Banna, the founder and first General Guide (al-Murshid al-'Am) of the Muslim Brotherhood, joined a group aimed at bridging the gap between Sunnism and Shiism as a means to achieve doctrinal unity among Muslims. Such efforts reflected the Muslim Brotherhood's conviction that any Islamic unity should be based on Quranic principles and doctrinal unity; a goal to which it had worked since its establishment in 1928. The same group included, beside al-Banna, the Shiite Mulla al-Sayyid al-Qummi. Hasan al-Banna believed that the Muslim Brotherhood should join any effort that would prevent the enemies of Islam from manipulating doctrinal differences among Muslims in order to pre-empt any attempt aimed at the achievement of Islamic unity.(3) On several occasions, al-Banna said that divisions among Islamic sects should be brought to an end so that Islamic law (Shari'a) would be applied and, therefore, the glory of Islam would be restored.(4)

At that stage, it was reported that the Muslim Brotherhood had developed links with Nawab Safawi's Fedayan-Islam organization in Iran. In fact, shortly after the 1952 revolution, the pro-Muslim Brotherhood students invited Safawi to participate in a conference organized by them at Cairo University. They held him on their shoulders and introduced him as an Islamic leader.(5)

IRAN'S REVOLUTION OF 1978/79

Since 1978, most political Islamic actors in Egypt have, implicitly or explicitly, criticized official stands expressing support for, or at least sympathy with, the Shah of Iran and criticism of the Iranian revolution and its leader Ayatollah Khomeini. Some of those actors in fact interpreted the official position as a provocation, the ostensible purpose of which was to spread feelings of hatred against the Islamic model in Iran. Successive invitations extended to the deposed Shah to reside in Egypt as well as the position on the question of the American hostages in Teheran in the period from 1979 to 1981 helped exacerbate differences between the State and various groupings of the Islamic movement in Egypt and antagonized an increasing number of Islamic groups in Egypt.(6)

Some political Islamic actors challenged the official argument that the help provided for the Shah was an expression of gratitude for the substantial oil, military and economic assistance he gave to Egypt in 1973 and thereafter.(7) Instead they referred to the oil the Shah had provided for Israel at the time of the 1973 oil embargo and the close military and intelligence relations he had established with Israel. Furthermore, political Islamic actors charged that there were attempts to project Egypt as an alternative regional power to the Shah's Iran. The movement also charged that the underlying objective of the Egyptian media campaign against Khomeini and the new regime in Teheran was to widen the gap between Sunnis and Shiites.(8)

There is no doubt that the Iranian revolution gained the sympathy of many political Islamic groups in Egypt. Pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini appeared in Cairo and in some provincial cities, and demonstrations were organized against the arrival of the deposed Shah in Egypt.(9) Despite different perceptions of the Iranian revolution by political Islamic actors in Egypt, the success of the Iranian revolution meant for most of them the triumph of Islamic ideology and its establishment in a state structure. The Iranian revolution proved for those actors that it was still possible for a government to be established on an Islamic basis.(10) And finally, the Iranian revolution seemed to seek to project an independent model free from foreign influence.(11)

It was argued that the Iranian revolution tried to instigate Islamic groups in Egypt to topple the government, in a Khomeini-style Islamic revolution.(12) It is true that the Iranian revolution contributed to a revival of the political role of mosques in the mobilization of politically-oriented Islamic elements throughout the Muslim world.(13) Some Islamic actors in Egypt were impressed by the proposed Iranian project of Islamic renaissance with its extranational dimensions. For those actors, the Iranian revolution represented a new reality to which all Muslims could relate their history, ideals and the objective of reviving the Islamic Umma. That revolution meant for them that, in practice, Islam could win against imperialist powers and oppression. Even though some political Islamic actors in Egypt did not support post-revolutionary developments in Iran, they did learn an important lesson from the Iranian revolution; namely that the traditional leadership was not passe, and that it could still lead a revolution and win.(14) Moreover, it was argued that the increase in the use of the hijab (veil) and niqab by the female members of Jama'at Islamiya (Islamic Associations) in Egyptian universities and among other groups of Egyptian women was encouraged by Iranian Islamic propaganda.(15) However, such phenomenon could be equally attributed to the influence of Gulf countries particularly for millions of Egyptians who spent years living there before returning to Egypt.

Journalists belonging to political Islamic organizations in Egypt gave a favorable coverage to the Islamic Republic of Iran and its developments in their publications as well as in other opposition papers.(16)

All Islamic actors in Egypt praised the demand of the Iranian revolution for the withdrawal of Israel from all of Palestine occupied in 1948 in contrast to the increasing trend among Arab states to limit their goal to Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in June 1967 and granting the Palestinian people their national rights. Those actors who remained supportive of the Iranian revolution accused the United States, the former Soviet Union, Israel and the former Shah of conspiring to thwart that revolution.(17) In fact, the belief in an international conspiracy against Islam has been a recurrent theme in the political literature of Islamic movements, that of Egypt being no exception. It was consistently used to explain a number of events and developments.

At the ideological level, the Iranian revolution influenced the thoughts of various political Islamic actors in Egypt. Increasingly, the moderate elements in the Islamic movement argued that nationalism and confessional tendencies had become outmoded and should be replaced by Islamic unity.

Some radical components of the Islamic movement in Egypt were influenced by the Iranian revolution's views on nationalism when they considered that Arab nationalism was a racist ideology which was opposed to any collective framework grouping Muslim countries together.(18)

Just as many Islamic elements in Egypt believed that the differences between Sunnis and Shiites should be discarded as a matter of the past, they called for the inclusion of both Sunnis and Shiites in the prospective unified Islamic State. However, years after the Iranian revolution, some political Islamic actors in Egypt began to revise their positions on the revolution. A negative attitude toward Shiism even began to merge with a variety of anti-Shiite publications which started to discredit the Islamic credentials of Shiites and to question the intentions of the "Shiite" Iranian revolution. It was argued that Iraq had encouraged some individual Islamic figures in Egypt such as the late Shaykhs Salah 'Abu Isma'il and 'Abd al-Mun'im al-Nimr to adopt stands opposed to Shiism and to the Iranian revolution.(19)

If we move now to analyze the positions of Islamic organizations and figures in Egypt toward the Iranian revolution, we shall find the following:

THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

The Muslim Brotherhood had initially declared its explicit support of the Islamic revolution...