Jails are meeting points for Brotherhood apologetics, avengers

A large number of Muslim Brotherhood junior members are now in the jails, turning these jails into a meeting point for people who share the same thinking and ideology.

There is talk now about intellectual revisions by these junior members, even as the coming together in the jails of Muslim Brotherhood youth, in particular, and Islamists, in general, opened the door over the years for the formation of terrorist organizations.

One of these organizations planned to assassinate former revolutionary leader Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Organization 65 as an example

Three members of the Muslim Brotherhood met at one of the military jails. These three men were arrested and put in jail against the background of an attempt on the life of Nasser in 1954.

Three men, namely Mohamed Abdel Fattah Rizk, Abdel Fattah Ismail, and Awad Abdel Muta'al, planned to take revenge on the late president for planning to dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood.

These men could not reconcile with the idea propagated by Nasser then that for the Brotherhood to evade dissolution, it had to do without its secret militia.

They worked to unite the members of the Brotherhood, but also keep the leaders of the movement in the dark about efforts in this regard. They also planned to assassinate Nasser along with a series of other state officials. The three men and their followers also planned a series of terrorist attacks against state facilities, including the television and radio building in downtown Cairo. Around 50 members of the Muslim Brotherhood joined them. 

Soon after the three men were released from jail, they met a group of Brotherhood junior members, including Ali Ashmawi who was the last commander of the Brotherhood militia.

They contacted Hassan al-Hodeibi, the second supreme guide of the Brotherhood. He, however, rejected the idea of reviving the Brotherhood secret militia. Nonetheless, Hodeibi turned down the idea, not because he renounced violence, but because he wanted to manipulate this group of Brotherhood members and only wanted them to heed his orders.

The new group raised funds in the buildup for assassinating Nasser. This was an objective so important that some Brotherhood members were ready to sacrifice their money to achieve it.

Ashmawi said the supreme guide asked Brotherhood members to report the members of the new group, which called it Organization 65, to police.

The junior members of the Brotherhood did not know how they would get rid of Nasser. They warmly welcomed the release of Sayyed Qotb, the Brotherhood theoretician, from jail. Qotb was pardoned for health reasons. They used Qotb's book, "Road Landmarks", as a reference. Qotb became the commander of the new group, whereas Ashmawi became responsible for supplying it with arms and money.

At the end of 1965, Qotb's hopes for ruling Egypt and establishing an Islamic caliphate were dashed. He was arrested and then sentenced to death. On the way to his execution, he kept saying that the government knew that he was an Islamist thinker and that his thoughts would continue to live, even after his death.

Qotb was executed on August 29, 1966. Nonetheless, his books continued to live, influencing all the radical organizations that appeared everywhere in the world.