Suppressing opposition to the revolution

During the two years of Neguib's leadership, Nasser, as vice-president, introduced a number of important measures, the critical one being agricultural reform (see page 192), but he was principally concerned to use the time to crush any political elements that might offer a serious challenge to the new Republic. In a preparatory move, he called for a 'national union', by which he meant the fusing of all the Egyptian parties under the leadership of the RCC. Nasser argued that the new Egyptian Republic would be best served by all the parties joining together in one major organization. What, in effect, he was pressing for was a one-party state which, by definition, would exclude all opposition groups.

It was such reasoning that provided the pretext for Nasser to embark on a policy of political repression. Groups such as the communists and extreme nationalists, who were unwilling to co-operate with the new government, were to be suppressed. Nasser made a particular target of the Muslim Brotherhood. Initially, the Brotherhood had welcomed the Free Officers' revolution since it expected that it would lead to the establishment of an Islamic republic. However, when Nasser made it clear that Egypt was to remain a secular state the Brotherhood quickly turned against him.

Although a Muslim himself, Nasser considered that the influence of the Brotherhood, which had a large following among ordinary Egyptians, had to be curtailed. He feared that it might present itself as an alternative power structure to the National Union, claiming the right to govern Egypt as a religious state that was entitled to the loyalty of all Muslims. When Nasser learned that a move against him was being prepared by the Brotherhood, he ordered it to be closed down in January 1954. In justification for such suppression Nasser pointed to the uncompromising opposition of the Muslim Brotherhood as powerfully expressed by Sayyid Qutb, one of its leading spokesmen (see Source E).

SOURCE E

Excerpt from Milestones by Sayyid Qutb, published by Kazi Publications, USA, 2003, p. 85.

Rather than support rule by a pious few, whether a dictator or democratically elected, Muslims should resist any system where men are in 'servitude to other men' - i. e. obey other men - as un-Islamic and a violation of God's sovereignty over all of creation. A truly Islamic polity would have no rulers since Muslims would need neither judges nor police to obey divine law.