AMMAN — The Muslim Brotherhood has been shaped by the shifting politics of the Arab world over the last seven decades, argues Ibrahim Gharaibeh, author of a new book on the movement titled “From Religion to Politics — The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan: History and Ideology”.

The publication explores the ideological and administrative evolution of the Muslim Brotherhood movement over a 70-year period.

The Muslim Brotherhood started its activity in Jordan in the mid-1940s as a social daawa (Islamic preaching) movement, and thus received official endorsement, as it was considered to be complementary to the message of both the state and society. For a while, the group maintained its focus on daawa and societal activities, resisting the “temptation of politics”, according to Gharaibeh.

Against the backdrop of a number of events and developments in the Arab world, however, the Brotherhood abandoned its primary role of social daawa, the author says.

The 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the unification of the east and west banks in the 1950s, the rise of other political and armed groups, as well as the regional dominance of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the charismatic, anti-Brotherhood leader of Egypt: All of these events led to the Brotherhood reinventing itself in 1954 as an Islamic political and social party, Gharaibeh argues.

After that, the Arab world was swept by a leftist and Arab pan-nationalist tide that diminished the Brotherhood’s presence and influence on society and public opinion.

The movement soon recovered though, as a religious trend developed throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds after 1967, while political regimes, including Jordan’s, reoriented themselves towards new religious policies that reaffirmed religion’s role in societies and increased the state’s religious roles, the author writes.

Covering the era between early 1970s and 1990, the author highlights the influence of the Egyptian group’s leader Sayyid Qutub’s radical ideas on the new generation of the Brotherhood.

In the surge of global transformations, a new political life started to take shape in 1989, and parliamentary elections were held in Jordan. These elections witnessed a historic victory for the group, and their aftermath marked the beginning of a new political era based on freedom of association and freedom of the press, according to Gharaibeh.

The internal soul of the Brotherhood was contested at the time by two main factions: The moderates, who led the group from 1954, and the hardliners, who rose to dominate the Brotherhood from 1972 until 1990, he says.

The book discusses in detail such competition, the role of Hamas, and later, the Brotherhood and the “Arab Spring”.

The book is divided into two parts. Firstly, there is a historical account, which tracks the Brotherhood’s route and its general history, accounting for the main events and chapters of its narrative.

The author notes and analyses the administrative and ideological transformations and developments that the group went through, using available resources and personal interviews with a number of the Brotherhood leaders, as well as his own personal experience in the group and his work reviewing it for 40 years.

The second part is ideological; presenting and analysing the main ideologies and principles of the Muslim Brotherhood, while relying on letters from its founder, Hassan Al Banna, as well as statutes and documents which present the movement’s ideologies and orientations.

Among such sources are “the Vision of the Islamic Movement for Reform”, its electoral programmes and general plans, in addition to publications by intellectuals and researchers, both from within the group and from outside observers.

The researcher attempts to interpret the ideological, political and pluralistic stances and transformations, as well as the contrast in the Brotherhood’s vision and its level of self-awareness.