The ouster of Mohamed Morsi by a popularly backed military coup in 2013 dealt a debilitating blow to the Islamist project—and left deep cleavages within the Salafist movement.
Ashraf El-Sherif is no longer with the Carnegie Endowment.
Ashraf El-Sherif was a nonresident associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Based in Egypt, El-Sherif is a lecturer in political science at the American University in Cairo. He is an expert in political Islam, state-religion relations, democratic transition, social movements, and state-society relations in the Middle East and North Africa.
He has contributed to several journals and newspapers in English and Arabic.
The ouster of Mohamed Morsi by a popularly backed military coup in 2013 dealt a debilitating blow to the Islamist project—and left deep cleavages within the Salafist movement.
The current turmoil in Egypt has cast shadows on the potential for Islamist integration as well as the regime’s ability to achieve political stability.
Though it had to operate in a hostile political environment, the Brotherhood ultimately fell because of its own political, ideological, and organizational failures.
Mubarak’s overthrow ushered in more of the same in Egypt—an authoritarian political process. The Egyptian state needs to be completely reinvented.
To be a full player in a genuinely democratic Egyptian political system, the Brotherhood has to embark on an ideological, doctrinal, and organizational transformation.
Will the Muslim Brotherhood’s gamble on al-Shater pay off?
Egypt’s revolution has emboldened Islamists from within the Muslim Brotherhood long disenchanted with its conservative leadership. Who are these reformists and what role are they playing in Egypt’s transition?