“In June 2012, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood won a tightly contested election to become the first freely elected president of post-Hosni Mubarak Egypt. His ascent marked a stunning reversal in the political fortunes of the Islamist movement. For decades, the Brotherhood had engaged in politics with clearly understood limits on its power and under the constant threat of repression. Morsi, like most other top leaders in the organization, had recently spent time in prison for his political activities. No roadmap existed for predicting what he might do with his newfound presidential power.

Morsi’s victory, along with an earlier Islamist near-sweep of parliamentary elections, forced Egyptians and outside observers alike to suddenly confront long-simmering questions about the compatibility of Islamism and democracy. As Carrie Rosefsky Wickham’s fascinating and marvelously detailed new book makes clear, the Muslim Brotherhood itself has long struggled internally with the same questions. Mubarak ironically helped the Brothers dodge the toughest challenges by making it impossible for their true intentions to be put to the test of governance. His fall has brought those contradictions to the surface.

Few would contend that the Brotherhood has risen to the challenge. The newly open political arena has demonstrated the prowess of its electoral machine, to be sure. But the Brotherhood’s political rise has sparked deep and intense fears among many Egyptians. Politics has polarized sharply between the Brotherhood and its rivals of all description (it is telling that no single label beyond “anti-Brotherhood” can capture the essence of this coalition). Sectarianism and street clashes have spread through society. Many fear that the Brotherhood seeks to establish its hegemony over all parts of the state and to place its people at the top of key institutions. A million headlines have bemoaned the descent of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ into an ‘Islamist Winter.'”

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