Making the Arab World: Nasser, Qutb, and the Clash That Shaped the Middle East

505 Pages·2018·1.98 MB·English

by  Fawaz A. Gerges

Making the Arab World

Ma k i n g t h e
A ra b Wo r l d
Nasser, Qutb, and the
Clash That Shaped the
Middle East
Fawaz A. Gerges
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Princeton & Oxford
Copyright © 2018 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press,
41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR
press.princeton.edu
Jacket photograph: Burning of the Muslim Brotherhood’s headquarters in Cairo, Egypt,
in retaliation for an attempted assassination of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, October
27, 1954 / AP Photo
Jacket design by Faceout Studio, Charles Brock
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 978-0-691-16788-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018930051
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Miller Text
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
As AlwAys, for NorA

Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 3
 1 Egypt’s “Liberal Age” 35
 2 The Anti-colonial Struggle and the Dawn of
Underground Politics 60
 3 The Free Officers and the Ikhwan 77
 4 The Birth of the Deep State and Modern Radical
Islamism 126
 5 Young Gamal Abdel Nasser 152
 6 Young Sayyid Qutb 175
 7 The Lion of the Arabs 187
vii
viii contents
 8 The Accidental Islamist? 214
 9 Qutb’s al-Tanzim al-Sirri 236
10 The Decline of the Nasserist Project 284
11 Sadat’s Coup and the Islamist Revival 314
12 The Mubarak Era: Keeping the Ikhwan in the
Freezer 343
Conclusion 390
Notes 407
Index 467
Preface
this book sets out to explain how the opposing forces of Arab
nationalism, spearheaded by the military, and the Islamists, led
mainly by the Ikhwan (the Muslim Brothers), have shaped the
development of postcolonial Arab politics. It does so by focusing on
two seminal, and interconnected, figures: Gamal Abdel Nasser and
Sayyid Qutb.
Far from being diametrically opposed, the movements that Nasser
and Qutb represent have had critical commonalities with each
other. The book aims to break down the established and misleading
dichotomy of two monolithic ideas that has dominated conventional
thinking on Middle Eastern politics. Through a detailed historical,
sociological, and personality-based approach the book shows that
Arab nationalism and Islamism are constructed in large part through
interaction with each other, and also that each group has “ideational
fluidity,” shifting from one mode of thinking to another. In so doing,
the book avoids reductionist and ahistorical viewpoints that fre-
quently stereotype both Arab nationalists and Islamists.
The history pinpoints the rise of nationalist forces—both religious
nationalists and more secularly oriented nationalists—starting in the
ix