For decades, numerous books have denounced the dangerous nature of the Muslim Brotherhood. However, until 2011 and the Arab Spring, very little was known about their ability to manage countries. In Cairo, as in Tunis, when they came to power, it only took them a few months, if not a few weeks, to reveal their incredible incompetence. “To rise in the hierarchy of the Brotherhood, you have to obey and, above all, not think. As a result, it’s not the most intelligent who have come to power”, notes sociologist Sarah Ben Néfissa, co-author with Pierre Vermeren of the book “Les Frères musulmans à l’épreuve du pouvoir”1.

Muslim Brother Mohamed Morsi, democratically elected President of Egypt, did not even realise that he was going to shock – and even revolt – large sections of public opinion by revealing that he had had a very cordial telephone conversation with… Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two man in Al Qaeda until Bin Laden’s death. The terrorist reportedly asked him in all seriousness to throw the Sheikh of al-Azhar in prison. Mohamed Morsi, even if he didn’t do it, didn’t formally say no. Even more incredible was the appointment in June 2013, as governor of Luxor, of one of the leaders of the terrorist organisation responsible for the massacre of fifty-eight foreign tourists in 1997 in the same governorate. “Faced with the outcry caused by his appointment, he resigned”, says the book “Les Frères musulmans à l’épreuve du pouvoir”. “They didn’t understand that Egyptians didn’t vote for them to re-establish the Caliphate, but because they wanted more social justice, more social, educational and medical services, and above all less corruption. The Egyptians chose people they considered to be honest and serious”, points out Sarah Ben Néfissa, Emeritus Director of Research at the Institut de recherche pour le développement.

The disappointment was all the greater when it was discovered that the Muslim Brotherhood had started by helping itself, very copiously, in particular by recruiting, without moderation, civil servants chosen almost exclusively from within their organisation. “Before the arrival of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian administration already had a system of bonuses that could be much higher than the salaries themselves. The Brothers have perpetuated this method, but for their own benefit. Non-Brothers, on the other hand, were denied bonuses”, says Tewfik Aclimandos, director of the European Studies Department at the Egyptian Centre for Strategic Studies, who helped write the book “The Muslim Brotherhood and the test of power”. “Their main problem is that they think you can’t be a good Muslim if you’re not a Muslim Brother”, he adds.

First of all, to be pious and obedient      

A similar situation has arisen in Tunisia, where the number of civil servants has risen from 444,905 in 2011 to 604,163 in 2015 in a country that is already heavily in debt and highly functionalised. “What’s worse is that some of these people have been parachuted into management positions, even though their skills have not been proven! These new recruits were paid emoluments for their years of inactivity, spent in prison”, says a former finance minister. “90% of appointments in the public sector were made on the basis of partisan, regional or family orientations, not on the basis of competence”.

After reading the 285 pages of this book, you almost have to ask yourself the question: are there really only idiots and incompetents in this powerful organisation that aspires to dominate the world? ‘if you ask me if there are any intelligent people among the Brothers, I would answer ‘yes’. The problem is that they are not in charge. To rise in the hierarchy, you have to be pious and obedient. And above all, never ask questions”, says Tewfik Aclimandos.

Sarah Ben Néfissa agrees. “The Brotherhood has welcomed competent young people and reformers, but it has always kept them on the sidelines. At the top, there are only “Qutbists”, followers of the ideologue Sayyid Qutb, the extremist executive leader executed in 1966 by the Egyptian authorities. For nearly sixty years, the hierarchy has remained static, incapable of innovation. When they came to power in Egypt and Tunisia in 2011, these obtuse Brothers simply didn’t know what to do”, says Sarah Ben Néfissa. Not only did the Muslim Brotherhood believe that it was enough to put pious Muslims in charge of a country for everything to go well, but they also believed that the State was not a player in the reform process. Ultimately, the state doesn’t matter to them. They believe that only religion can reform society.

Competence doesn’t count  

Was this fiasco foreseeable? Yes, for the most part. Arabic-language academic literature on the Muslim Brotherhood has always been very abundant in Egypt. In particular, the book published by Haytham Abou Khalil, now a refugee in Turkey, the “Reformist Brothers”, devoted to those who tried to change the organisation from within in the late 1980s, denouncing “the militant’s submission to the leadership and his attachment to a sacralised organisation, perceived as infallible”. Untranslated works whose content has escaped Western researchers. Everything is codified in the Brotherhood. So a Brother can only marry a Sister who has the same level of moral qualifications. Each member is required to have moral, religious and sporting qualities, but never intellectual ones. Clearly, competence counts for little. “It is no coincidence that the Muslim Brotherhood is absent from cultural and media circles, and that it has never produced an intellectual, journalist, novelist or film-maker “, states the book “The Muslim Brotherhood and the test of power”.

But why did the Muslim Brotherhood enjoy such favourable public opinion at the time of the Arab Spring? From 1990-2000, this was mainly due to the development of religious satellite channels in the Gulf States. They advocate compulsory veiling, the closure of pubs and the end of co-education in public places. egyptian-born Qatari preacher Youssef al-Qaradawi’s “’Sharia and Life”’ on the al-Jazeerachannel was the most watched programme in North Africa. An example of his prescriptions? “All gambling for money is forbidden”, says the author of the book “Le Licite et l’illicite en Islam”. According to Youssef al-Qaradawi, the Prophet said: “He who plays trictrac is as if he had plunged his hand into the flesh and blood of a pig”. Egyptians and Tunisians became convinced that the Brotherhood could only be sincere Muslims.

After their bitter failure to win power, can the Muslim Brotherhood ever govern again? Certainly not in the near future. They have disappointed all sections of the population. Nevertheless, the Brotherhood was succeeded by authoritarian regimes in both Egypt and Tunisia. Regimes that are incapable, because of deep economic crises, of providing their populations with more social, educational and medical services, and of effectively combating unemployment. “At present, the Muslim Brotherhood that has not been imprisoned is keeping a low profile. But it’s not impossible that tomorrow they will try to intoxicate the Egyptian population by making people believe that President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi is, in fact, a Christian, or worse, a Jew, in order to discredit him”, says an academic, half-jokingly.

1- Les Frères musulmans à l’épreuve du pouvoir, Égypte, Tunisie (2011-2021), edited by Sarah Ben Néfissa and Pierre Vermeren, Odile Jacob, 2024.