Bleak future awaits Brotherhood: Ibrahim Munir's death deepens group's divisions

In an unprecedented manner since its founding in 1928, the Brotherhood has witnessed in recent years a state of dissent and rift that is increasing day by day since the beginning of the era of acting General Guide Ibrahim Munir, who died on Friday, November 4 at the age of 85 while living in London. 

Beginning of the split

On September 28, 2020, the Egyptian authorities arrested acting General Guide Mahmoud Ezzat, which revealed confusion and disagreements within the group. Mahmoud Hussein, a member of the Guidance Office and Secretary-General of the organization, believed that he was entitled to the position of acting guide, but the position belonged to Ibrahim Munir, who was the Secretary-General of the international organization, and this choice contradicts the internal regulation that does not allow the appointment of a guide for the organization outside Egypt.

The splits that erupted within the group during the reign of Mahmoud Ezzat in 2016 due to administrative and organizational disputes with Mohamed Kamal, a member of the Guidance Office, who took over the presidency of the Higher Administrative Committee entrusted with managing the group’s affairs in Egypt, which was an alternative to the Guidance Office, where Kamal decided to exercise his duties without returning to Mahmoud Ezzat.

Splits in the Brotherhood increased strongly during the era of Ibrahim Munir, starting with the ongoing disputes with Mahmoud Hussein’s front. Immediately after the arrest of Mahmoud Ezzat, Munir announced the abolition of the position of the group’s Secretary General held by Mahmoud Hussein in order to prevent Hussein’s eligibility to assume the position of acting guide. In return, the Brotherhood’s Shura Council announced its decision to relieve Ibrahim Munir from his position and to be satisfied with his role in managing the affairs of the international organization, which prompted the latter to transfer the members of the Council who made this decision to investigation.

In another development of the conflict, the Mahmoud Hussein Front announced in December 2021 that Munir was officially dismissed and a committee was formed to carry out the duties of the group’s guide. The London Front responded at the time that Ibrahim Munir was the acting guide and the voice of the organization’s institutions. The front said in a statement issued on January 29, 2022, “Everyone who went out of line, and everyone who contributed to splitting the group and repeating false slanders is not from the group,” and it decided to nullify the committee in charge of the work of the guide, represented by Mustafa Tolba.

Third front

The division of the group into two fronts, the first led by Mahmoud Hussein in Istanbul, and the second led by Ibrahim Munir in London, was not the end of the splits and divisions that revealed the fragility and weakness of the group’s organizational structure. As a result of the successive Egyptian security strikes against the group, it lost its balance and its ability to plan and manage its internal affairs and to resolve conflicts that were not apparent with such strength before during the group’s ten decades of existence, until it reached a stage of schisms that heralds a future and final end for the group.

A few weeks ago, in a new and remarkable development, a third front announced itself in the Brotherhood as the “Change Movement”, describing itself as the group preserving the teachings of Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb. It held a general conference in Turkey under the slogan “On the Covenant of the Martyr” to announce itself and the issuance of a political document.

This front, which secretly began its activity a year ago, criticized the practices of the two conflicting fronts and called for the restoration of leadership roles for young people within the organization in the future. This movement is led by Mohamed Kamal, who is responsible for the qualitative cells for terrorist operations within the organization.

Overview of the Brotherhood’s current state

The terrorist Brotherhood organization is suffering from a state of conflict and structural collapse, especially with the escalation of exchanges and confirmed statements of financial violations and the isolation of the group’s decision, which reinforced the state of division between the organization’s offices in London and Istanbul and the confrontations between the two parties through social media platforms and channels affiliated with the organization. In addition, the arrest of Mahmoud Ezzat eliminated the fragile cohesion and false symbolism claimed by the group, and the group’s leaders have either been prosecuted on charges involving the organization or others are fugitives abroad who have lost the confidence of the remaining Brotherhood abroad.

The Brotherhood also faces extremely complex financial conditions. With the success of the Egyptian strategy to dry up and pursue terrorist financing activities, many networks for managing the financial flows of the organization’s elements fell, in addition to placing the organization’s funds under the control of official institutions, especially the Brotherhood’s Funds Committee, which made the Brotherhood suffer internally from the absence of external funding. The Brotherhood began to issue fatwas prohibiting sending zakat to Egypt to provide financial flows and distribute them to the group’s fugitive members, according to the Al-Araby Al-Hadith website.

In addition, the tendencies of the organization’s youth have become a departure from the constants of the Syrian work and membership of the group, most notably the principle of hearing and obedience, as the youth realized that the group’s hawks used them to achieve their own interests and then abandoned them. Thus, the organization lost an essential advantage of “hearing and obedience” as long as it relied on employing its elements to achieve its goals and subjecting them to leadership levels.

Brotherhood’s future after the death of Ibrahim Munir

The conflict will escalate between the organization’s offices over who reaps the legacy of the General Guide, a stage that may overthrow the existing structure of the Brotherhood and turn them into a more fragile and collapsed state, as the Brotherhood suffers from several structural challenges that afflict the organization’s entity. There are many facets of these problems between the struggles and interactions of the Brotherhood’s wings, as well as the fall of the Brotherhood’s leaders in Egypt to the grip of security and investigation bodies.

Also, intense conflicts within the group may lead to its collapse, which may lead to splitting the group into several sects to some degree, which will eventually lead to its disintegration and collapse unless the Hussein Front exploits the death of Ibrahim Munir to tighten control over the organization’s branch in London, which is difficult for the group to implement, especially after the development of disputes between the elements of the two fronts and the exchange of accusations of treason, brokering and theft of group funds.