2 - The Early Muslim Brotherhood’s Political Thought

Summary

This chapter deals with the variety of thought among the thinkers of the early Muslim Brotherhood about the three subjects of the state, political participation and societal rights and freedoms in the period of the late 1920s to the late 1970s. It indicates what main stances can be discerned about the three issues mentioned among the major thinkers associated with the organisation. This is important because the ideological divisions in the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood still run along the lines of sharīʿa-centred, umma-centred or balanced thinking and, as with classical Islamic political thought, have also been heavily influenced by the early Brotherhood’s beliefs. As such, the ideological outlook of these three different trends has shaped the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood’s overall stance towards the subjects of the state, political participation and societal rights and freedoms dealt with in this chapter.