Muslim Brotherhood: A Force Throughout The Muslim World
The Muslim Brotherhood, which has a presence in dozens of Muslim countries, has been banned, repressed or restricted for much of its more than eight-decade history in Egypt, the place where it was born.
After ruling Egypt for the past year, the group was effectively ousted when the military overthrew Mohammed Morsi as president on July 3. The security forces have cracked down on the Brotherhood and its supporters this past week, resulting in deadly clashes leaving hundreds dead.
Here is a brief history of the Islamist group:
Early Years
The Brotherhood was founded in 1928 in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna, an Islamic scholar and schoolteacher, and has been a political, religious and social movement. It has spread throughout the Islamic world and is often described as the single most influential Islamic movement.
The Brotherhood seeks rule by Islamic law, though it also says it accepts democracy. Time and again, the group survived attempts to weaken or crush it.
"The history of the Brotherhood is different phases where you have crackdowns and then a slow softening of the policy where the Brotherhood can operate, find some modus vivendi with the government, and operate through the crevices and the gaps that the regime allows them to operate under," says Vidino Lorenzo, senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies in Zurich, Switzerland, and author of The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West.
The Brotherhood briefly supported President Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1950s before he cracked down, viewing the group as a threat. It was subject to severe repression in the 1950s and '60s. But in the 1970s, under President Anwar Sadat, there was a softening.
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