A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year In the century since the Muslim Brotherhood first emerged in Egypt, its idea of “the West” has remained a key driver of its behavior. From its founding, the Brotherhood stood opposed to the British Empire and Western cultural influence. Its leaders hoped to create more pristine, authentically Islamic societies. As British power gave way to American, the Brotherhood oscillated between anxiety about the West and the need to engage with it, while American and British officials struggled to understand the group, unsure whether to shun or embrace it. The Muslim Brotherhood and the West offers the first comprehensive history of the relationship between the world’s largest Islamist movement and the powers that have dominated the Middle East for the past hundred years. Drawing on extensive archival research in London and Washington and the Brotherhood’s writings in Arabic and English, Martyn Frampton reveals the history of this charged relationship down to the eve of the Arab Spring. What emerges is an authoritative account of a story that is crucial to understanding one of the world’s most turbulent regions. “Rigorous yet absorbing...Fills a crucial gap in the literature and will be essential reading not just for scholars, but for anyone seeking to understand the ever-problematic relationship between religion and politics in today’s Middle East.” —Financial Times “Breaks new ground by examining the links between the Egyptian Brotherhood’s relations with Britain and...the United States.” —Times Literary Supplement

In Europe and North America, networks tracing their origins back to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist movements have rapidly evolved into multifunctional and richly funded organizations competing to become the major representatives of Western Muslim communities and government interlocutors. Some analysts and policy makers see these organizations as positive forces encouraging integration. Others cast them as modern-day Trojan horses, feigning moderation while radicalizing Western Muslims. Lorenzo Vidino brokers a third, more informed view. Drawing on more than a decade of research on political Islam in the West, he keenly analyzes a controversial movement that still remains relatively unknown. Conducting in-depth interviews on four continents and sourcing documents in ten languages, Vidino shares the history, methods, attitudes, and goals of the Western Brothers, as well as their phenomenal growth. He then flips the perspective, examining the response to these groups by Western governments, specifically those of Great Britain, Germany, and the United States. Highly informed and thoughtfully presented, Vidino's research sheds light on a critical juncture in Muslim-Western relations.

Orignally published in 1969, this monograph has become known as a standard source for the history of the revivalist Egyptian movement, the Muslim Brethren, up to the time of Nasser. The work has been reissued for those scholars and students interested in the Muslim revival.

Following the Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood achieved a level of influence previously unimaginable. Yet the implications of the Brotherhood's rise and dramatic fall for the future of democratic governance, peace, and stability in the region are disputed and remain open to debate. Drawing on more than one hundred in-depth interviews as well as Arabic-language sources never before accessed by Western researchers, Carrie Rosefsky Wickham traces the evolution of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt from its founding in 1928 to the fall of Hosni Mubarak and the watershed elections of 2011-2012. Highlighting elements of movement continuity and change, Wickham demonstrates that shifts in Islamist worldviews, goals, and strategies are not the result of a single strand of cause and effect, and provides a systematic, fine-grained account of Islamist group evolution in Egypt and the wider Arab world. In a new afterword, Wickham discusses what has happened in Egypt since Muhammad Morsi was ousted and the Muslim Brotherhood fell from power.

The Muslim Brotherhood is one of the oldest and most influential Islamist movements. As the party ascends to power in Egypt, it is poised to adopt a new system of governance and state–society relations, the effects of which are likely to extend well beyond Egypt’s national borders. This book examines the Brotherhood’s visions and practices, from its inception in 1928, up to its response to the 2011 uprising, as it moves to redefine democracy along Islamic lines. The book analyses the Muslim Brotherhood’s position on key issues such as gender, religious minorities, and political plurality, and critically analyses whether claims that the Brotherhood has abandoned extremism and should be engaged with as a moderate political force can be substantiated. It also considers the wider political context of the region, and assesses the extent to which the Brotherhood has the potential to transform politics in the Middle East.

The Arab Spring heralded a profound shift in the Middle East, bringing to power Islamist movements which had previously been operating in the shadows. The Muslim Brotherhood stormed to victory in Egypt and emerged as a key player in Libya's nascent political arena. Meanwhile, An-Nahda found itself catapulted into power as the head of Tunisia's coalition government. For a while, it looked as though the region was entering the dawn of a new Islamist age. But navigating their respective countries through difficult and painful transitions ultimately proved too challenging for these forces, and, just as suddenly, the Brotherhood was dramatically overthrown in Egypt and left severely weakened in Libya. In Tunisia, An-Nahda managed to pull itself through the crisis, but its failure to articulate and deliver the hopes and aspirations of a large section of Tunisian society damaged its credibility. In this authoritative account, Alison Pargeter expertly charts the Islamists' ascent and subsequent fall from power. Based on extensive research and interviews with high ranking members of the Brotherhood and An-Nahda, Pargeter offers a comparative analysis of the movement in North Africa since the Arab Spring, and outlines the consequences of the Brotherhood's decline on both the region and the wider Islamist political project.

A look at the history of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, examining why the group failed to capitalise on its political advantage during the Syrian uprising and civil war.