Making the Arab world: Nasser, Qutb, and the clash that shaped the Middle East

Abstract

Introduction following the large-scale popular uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011, Egypt witnessed a polar-ization between Islamist and secular nationalist forces. Ultimately, this contentious dynamic culminated in the military toppling of the country's first democratically elected post-revolution president, Mohamed Morsi of the Islamist movement al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, better known in English as the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan will be used throughout this book). As soon as it took power, the new military-dominated administration led by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi undertook a campaign of repression, violently breaking up Ikhwan protests, killing a few thousand and arresting tens of thousands more. Remarkably, it did so with considerable support from nation-alist secularists and revolutionaries who had earlier protested in their millions against Morsi's tenure and who had initially taken to the streets to denounce the tradition of regime-led oppression in their country. Even more striking was the extent to which the new military-dominated order and its supporters instantly sought to ground their legitimacy by invoking a historical precedent with great symbolic weight and situating themselves in relation to the legacy of Gamal Gerges_Making the Arab World.indb 3 22/01/18 11:58 PM