How the Muslim Brotherhood rose to power in Egypt, and what it means for the Islamic worldFollowing 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.

Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Note on Transliteration xvii
Chapter One Conceptualizing Islamist Movement Change 1
Chapter Two The Brotherhood's Early Years 20
Chapter Three The Brotherhood's Foray into Electoral Politics 46
Chapter Four The Wasat Party Initiative and the Brotherhood's Response 76
Chapter Five The Brotherhood's Seesaw between Self-Assertion and Self-Restraint 96
Chapter Six Repression and Retrenchment 120
Chapter Seven The Brotherhood and the Egyptian Uprising 154
Chapter Eight Egypt's Islamist Movement in Comparative Perspective 196
Chapter Nine The Muslim Brotherhood in (Egypt's) Transition 247
Afterword to the Paperback Edition 289
Notes 325
List of Interviews 369
Selected Bibliography 373
Index 389