Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimun Fi Uruba (The Muslim Brotherhood in Europe) by Samir Amghar, translated by Dina Mohamed, Alexandria: Marased Series, Vol 10, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, 2012. 28pp.

The tenth volume of the Marased Series published by the Future Studies Unit at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina is devoted to an academic paper on the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe. The peer-reviewed papers included in the Marased Series track new social phenomena, especially those related to religion in the Arab and Islamic world.

Samir Amghar, the paper's author, identifies the first appearance of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe in the late 1960s, through political refugees and students coming to study there. Quickly they were joined by young immigrants from the Islamic world that bolstered their numbers. During the early 1980s, the Muslim Brotherhood became an organised heavyweight, due to its high capacity to organise and its financial capacities, enabling it to create a mass network of social services throughout Europe. The aim of Amghar's study, as the author puts it, is to "present an analytical study about Jihadi Islam brought to Europe by the Muslim Brotherhood," through tracking three main currents within the organisation.

The first of these currents includes independents and those were the first Brothers and don't belong to the global organisation of the Muslim Brotherhood. Members of this current move independently, such as Tareq Ramadan in Switzerland, who belongs to a Brotherhood family and yet refused to belong to the Muslim Brotherhood, preferring to stay independent though aligned ideologically to the Brotherhood.

The second current, termed the "opposition" by the author, includes individuals who decided to exit from the political line of the Muslim Brotherhood despite belonging to the international organisation. This current includes two factions: the first includes members of the organisation who disagree with its internal structure and decision making; the second includes those who decided to leave the Muslim Brotherhood and initiate competitive organisations after failing to reform the organisation from the inside.

The third current is active members and this includes groups and individuals that follow the mother institution in Egypt, swear allegiance to the supreme guide, and resemble a commercial franchise oversees, guided by the principals of the Muslim Brotherhood and yet in some way are independent in applying this thought, according to the author. The Union of Islamic Organisations in Europe, based in Brussels, is the representative of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe.

The author reveals that the way the Brotherhood attracts members in Europe is through three stages. First, a potential member is chosen from among those who go to mosques and attend events and activities organised by the Brotherhood. The potential member's history is then investigated without his knowing before his name is presented to the Muslim Brotherhood. The regional head then meets with the potential member, who is then sworn in, eventually becoming a regular member.

The study, as brief as it is, achieves what it sets out to do. Islamist organisations are divided into two types: the general organisations, including religious, social and cultural, with varied relations with the Brotherhood, and second, specific organisations, extending the Muslim Brotherhood, such as student organisations.

The book pauses on the early 1990s, when a dispute erupted between the heads of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe and the heads of other currents that wish to direct their attention to European conditions instead of seeking power in their own nations. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt ended this dispute in favour of each branch working in the country where they are.

Since then, the role of the Islamic organisations turned to representing and defending the rights of Muslims that decided to stay in Europe. A new movement started, aiming to integrate Muslims into the political and social reality of Europe.

More importantly, the Muslim Brotherhood tried to merge the Islamist lifestyle with a non-Islamic context, through "adapting to the European reality, yet adding legitimacy to the Islamist presence there," the author describes.

Finally, with the advent of the new millennium, a new type of crisis started among the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe, the first being the loss of utopian ideology as the organisation lost credibility with the Muslim youth owing to the lowering of their tone in opposition to existing governments, and promoting a "civil Islam" that mingles in Western societies. This pushed them into building a stable political force that aims to avoid instability while keeping a certain tone that allows them to enter oppositional coalitions, political and electoral, therefore leaving behind the idea that they own the religious identity of being Muslim.

The second crisis the Muslim Brotherhood faced is the jihadi crisis due to the bureaucratic and secret culture they retain at a time when young European-born Muslims reject control by Maghreb immigrants that represent the control of political Islam over disparate organisations.

The extent of the impact of these crisis is yet to be determined, but there's no doubt that the future of the Muslim Brotherhood will depend on how these forces align.