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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Note on Transliteration xi
1. Uncharted Territory: Political Islam and Rentier States 1
Part I | Origins
2. No Taxation, No Representation?: Political Opposition in Rentier States and the Origins of Muslim Brotherhood Movements in the Gulf 13
3. Systems of Governance and Politics of Opposition in the Super-Rentiers 28
Part II | Rise and Fall
4. Education and Influence: Origins of Rentier Islamism 45
5. Politicians or Preachers?: The Development of Rentier Islamist Agendas in a Post-Arab Nationalist Era 69
Part III | Modern Rentier Islamism
6. Rentier Islamism after Pan-Arabism 109
7. Challenges and Opposition in the Twenty-First Century 140
8. Rentier Islamism: Explaining Ikhwan Politics in the Super-Rentiers 174
Notes 185
References 245
Index 271
Acknowledgments
I first decided to write about Muslim Brotherhood groups in the Gulf at a dinner party in Doha in 2011. Since that time, I have spoken at length about this topic with scholars, policymakers, and friends, all of whom have helped me refine my ideas. I am indebted to many, many people who allowed me to interview them over the course of my fieldwork in Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE between 2013 and 2014; without their candor and generosity of time, this project would have been impossible. I also owe particular thanks to the Kuwaiti Ministry of Information, which aided me greatly in the arrangement of field interviews, and to the Brookings Doha Center team, which has been supportive of me in this endeavor since my PhD application process in 2011.
This book represents a reorganization and reworking of my doctoral thesis at the University of Oxford. I am indebted to my supervisor, Philip Robins, for his indispensable guidance and patience throughout my time there, during which he read several (quite long and messy) drafts of the original version. In addition to having a very knowledgeable supervisor, I have been fortunate to have had extremely supportive employers during the period this idea first germinated when I was at Brooking Doha Center, until today, when my colleagues at LSE’s Middle East Centre have celebrated my successes as their own and have challenged me to make my work better.
Without the help and encouragement of Shadi Hamid, my former supervisor at Brookings Doha, I may never have pursued my PhD and, accordingly, would never have written this book; he has been a generous mentor and wonderful friend who has challenged me to develop these ideas, has influenced my work with his extensive knowledge of Islamism and excellent research, and has shared his wide-ranging network of contacts with me. Salman Shaikh and Ibrahim Fraihat were also wonderful colleagues at Brookings
Acknowledgments
Doha, and I became a better researcher and scholar by working with them. In addition, they encouraged me to pursue doctoral studies. At LSE, Toby Dodge has given me invaluable feedback and advice over the past two years and continues to inspire me with his work. Steffen Hertog, who shared his always sharp insights as a reviewer of my thesis at Oxford, has remained a mentor during my time at LSE, encouraging and advising me to move forward with this project. If my work has a fraction of the impact that any of these scholars’ work has had, I will consider myself a great success. I am proud to have worked with them and even prouder to call them friends.
I have also been fortunate to have had the constant encouragement of LSE’s Middle East Centre, where I wrote nearly all of this book. My position at the Kuwait Programme, with the generous support of the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences, has given me the freedom to pursue this research and the opportunity to connect with many inspiring Kuwaiti academics who have influenced this and other research. My colleagues at LSE have also made the past two years fantastic—Madawi al-Rasheed, Aula Hariri, Zeynep Kaya, Robert Lowe, Jack Mcginn, Chelsea Milsom, Stella Peisch, Sandra Sfeir, Ian Sinclair, and Ribale Sleiman-Haidar have made my workplace not only the site of great intellectual exchange but also plenty of laughter. All of my colleagues have pushed me to improve my work and have been very patient and helpful sounding boards throughout the drafting and editing process.
I have also had the privilege to speak to experts on the Gulf and Islamism outside of LSE about this project. Their time and insights are deeply appreciated. In particular, I am indebted to Ali al-Kandari, Farah al-Nakib, Alanoud Alsharekh, Abdullah Baabood, Nathan Brown, Kristin Smith Diwan, Justin Gengler, Ambassador Edward Gnehm, Adel Hamaizia, Michael Herb, Mehran Kamrava, Jessie Moritz, Gerd Nonneman, David Roberts, Michael Stephens, Steven Wright, and Karen Young.
I would also like to thank the many friends who have influenced my research and writing, and have eased the process of doing the research that led up to this book and of writing the book itself. I am particularly indebted to Daniel Fedorowycz for proofreading nearly everything I have written since 2013, including various versions of this book, and to Andrew Leber for his edits and adding the keen eye of an American-trained political scientist. Jaclyn Lyman, Meredith Morrison, Hussein Omar, Sam Plumbly, Sophie Sportiche, Anna Della Subin, Nouri Verghese, and Thomas Wood made my time at Oxford, during which these ideas first arose, both pleasant and the site of many fascinating late-night conversations. Steffen Hertog and Michael Willis, as reviewers of my thesis, provided me with wonderful feedback and encouraged me to publish this book; their belief in this project pushed it forward.
I am fortunate to have an incredible network of friends and family who have put up with my talking about my dissertation and this book for years. In particular, my brother Collin has encouraged me with his enthusiasm for my work, and my aunt Leslie has provided me with unyielding support. I am also grateful to Alex for responding to my occasional panics about this project with patience, good humor, and buffalo wings.
My parents have been the most important in always supporting my academic endeavors, even when I insisted that I wanted to major in biology for a brief period in 2005. My dad, the first academic I ever met, has provided a model for how to enter the profession with passion,
Acknowledgments
integrity, and an obsessive attention to grammar. My mom has been the sounding board for nearly every idea I have ever had and has handled my many, many phone calls with remarkable patience. This book is dedicated to them.
The fantastic team at OUP has made this process surprisingly painless. I am particularly indebted to Alexcee Bechthold, Angela Chnapko, and Anne Dellinger, as well as many others who have seen this project through to the end.
Note on Transliteration
In transliterating the titles of Arabic sources and names of organizations, I have used the guidelines of the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. For Arabic terms found in the New Oxford American Dictionary, I have used the spellings in that dictionary (e.g., sharia rather than shariʿa). For place names, I have used the transliterations most commonly seen in English language sources and translations. And for personal names, I have used the standards of the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies with two exceptions: when a different transliteration is favored by the individual, as seen on his/her website, business card, social media presence, and so forth; and when a different spelling is more commonly used (e.g., Gamal ‘Abdel Nasser rather than Jamal ʿAbd al-Nasir).
Rentier Islamism
Uncharted Territory
Political Islam and Rentier States i
Scholars have struggled for decades to understand the role of political Islam1 in the Middle East, and a large body of literature has emerged on this topic. The study of political Islam, however, has primarily been confined to an examination of the region’s more democratic states—those in which Islamist2 groups like the Muslim Brotherhood (also referred to as Ikhwan, the Arabic word for brothers) can participate in parliamentary elections—or those states in which such organizations either provide much-needed social welfare or more broadly constitute powerful social movements. Existing literature on political Islam in such environments does not apply to the wealthy monarchical states of the Arabian Peninsula. The body of scholarship on political life in the Gulf has similarly overlooked the role of Islamist movements in that region. Since Hussein Mahdavy introduced the theory of the rentier state in 1970,3 many scholars have deferred to this framework to explain the domestic politics of states accruing substantial oil profit, or rents, in the region. Numerous studies, both qualitative and quantitative, have demonstrated the reality of a “rentier effect,” distinguishing these states from those without large external windfalls. In describing the government systems of such states, taxation is emphasized as spurring citizens’ demands for representation. According to leading scholar of rentier state theory Hazem Beblawi, “with virtually no taxes, citizens are far less demanding in terms of political participation.”4 The simple formula “no taxation, no representation” is thus often considered to describe the extent of political life within rentier states. The reality, as this work demonstrates, is far more complicated. This book will examine the role of political Islam in the Gulf through the study of Muslim Brotherhood5 affiliates in three of the least-examined rentier states of the Arabian Peninsula: Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). We will trace how Muslim Brotherhood movements, the most powerful independent voices in the Middle East, originated in and currently influence government policies in states that allow few institutionalized means of political participation, at least outside of Kuwait. Muslim Brotherhood movements in the super-rentiers6 are able to influence government policy decisions, yet
function differently from Ikhwan affiliates elsewhere in the region due to their context within oil-wealthy states. Significantly, there exists variation even among the cases examined here, as political participation is institutionalized in Kuwait through parliamentary elections yet remains far more personalistic in Qatar and the UAE. By examining the unique properties of Muslim Brotherhood activities in super-rentiers, this book will thus fill a gap in the existing literature on political Islam. Neither the body of scholarship on political Islam nor the academic work on rentier states adequately explains the political role of Islamist groups in the oil monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula.
Role of Islamist Movements
Rentier state theory, the primary theoretical framework used in discussions of Gulf politics, allows solely for the presence of economically based political movements in such wealthy states. Indeed, Giacomo Luciani claims, “it is only in the case that an allocation state fails, or is widely believed to fail, to take full advantage of the possibility of receiving income from the rest of the world that substantial political opposition may develop.”7 Examination of the political histories and contemporary political currents in the Gulf, however, disproves this claim; opposition in the Gulf is not dependent on economic largesse or lack thereof. While rulers in the Gulf may consider their duties to citizens to be primarily pecuniary, as they have often answered calls for democratic reforms with economic benefits, continued protest in the face of government disbursements demonstrates that citizens disagree with this simplistic perception of government responsibility.
Ideologically driven Islamist movements are even less likely to be placated by government payouts, making it more probable that they become powerful voices of political opposition in rentier states. Hootan Shambayati’s 1994 article about rentierism in Turkey and Iran is one of the few existing pieces of scholarship that addresses the unique ability of Islamist movements to function in rentier states. As he explains, in such countries, “no conflict arises over the ownership of the means of production. Instead, strictly moral and cultural considerations become the legitimizing ideology of groups opposing rentier states.”8 Nonetheless, Islamist movements in such states remain underexamined, and little is known about how exactly they operate.
In his 2011 book on Saudi Arabia, Stéphane Lacroix explains the rise of independent Islamism inside the Kingdom, marking an important development of the literature on rentier Islamists. He traces Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the education system, outlining the transformation of Islamists into independent actors in the form of the broader-based Sahwa movement (al-Sahwa al-Islamiyya, or Islamic Awakening) and analyzing the ultimate failure of this group. While Islamist complaint initially constituted “politically neutered opposition [that] gradually became primarily a cultural opposition,” dynamics changed with the advent of the Sahwa movement of the 1990s.9 The new group united sectors of society that had previously been separated, namely the ulama10 and intellectuals, behind an Islamist agenda. During this period of Sahwa activity, in Lacroix’s words, “it was precisely the collapse of sectoral barriers and the transformation of the social arena into a unified space that momentarily gave life to what Islamist discourse had long proclaimed: the utopia of a fusion
of politics and religion. But the crisis was short lived and inevitably ended with a return to the logic of sectorization.”11 By granting that Islamists in the rentier context came to hold political appeal, Lacroix makes an important contribution.
He also adds the notion “state Islamism” to the discussion of Islamism in the rentier context: “In almost all countries in the Muslim world, Islamism arose and developed outside the state. The converse was true of Saudi Arabia: from the beginning, Islamism was integrated into the official institutions.”12 Because the state dominates so much of life in rentier societies even outside of Saudi Arabia, it has historically played a large role in the Islamic sector. As a result, the trajectory of Islamist organizations is different in Gulf states than elsewhere in the Middle East: they have gained political capital13 through the prevailing system before coming to challenge it. This pattern is confirmed through examination of how Brotherhood affiliates in Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE came to gain influence through their positions in state apparatuses beginning in the 1950s.
Gwenn Okruhlik also notes the ability of Saudi Islamists to instigate a series of reforms in the Kingdom in the 1990s, specifically the creation of the Consultative Council in 1992, citing the politicization of Wahhabi Islam after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.14 She posits that Islamists, more difficult for an avowedly Muslim state to regulate, have “capture[d] the discourse in Saudi Arabia” and thus have “initiated a renegotiation of the social contract in Saudi Arabia and an alternative telling of history.”15 Although non-Wahhabi Saudi Islamists have not secured an institutionalized place in politics, they have had remarkable success in beginning political negotiation and compromise in arguably the most autocratic state of the Gulf. Okruhlik charges that, in the absence of Islamists, such changes would not have taken place.16 Islamist organizations have managed to gain a political say by “provid[ing] people with common scripts and symbols to utilize when confronting the overwhelming power of state institutions.”17 Islamist movements in the Saudi context also benefit from the fact that the ruling family “cannot easily quash or oppose Islamist arguments, since they stake their right to rule on largely Islamic grounds.”18 The same is true elsewhere in the Gulf to a large extent, though it is logically more amplified in the country that houses the two holy mosques of Islam. Okruhlik’s study goes a long way toward demonstrating that Islamist actors in the Gulf do, in fact, hold political influence, yet, like Lacroix’s research, it remains focused on such actors in the unique Saudi case wherein religious influence is more institutionalized than anywhere else in the region due to a centuries-old alliance between al-Saʿud ruling family and the Wahhabi ulama. In such a system, a threat to Wahhabism constitutes a threat to the regime.
Eric Rouleau makes the important point that Wahhabi Islam19 of the Arabian Peninsula, and particularly Saudi Arabia, became politicized with the arrival of members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood escaping persecution under the rule of Gamal ʿAbdel Nasser (r. 1956–1970).20 This period, he claims, marks when the Saudi ulama “under the impact of the new arrivals . . . began, for the first time, to challenge the House of Saud’s temporal power.”21 Still, there has been no comprehensive account of how exactly Muslim Brothers came to the broader Gulf or in what ways they affected the domestic political scenes of Gulf countries.
This book will demonstrate that political Islam serves as a prominent voice critiquing social policies, as well as promoting more strictly political, and often populist or reformist, views supported by a great many Gulf citizens. The way that Islamist organizations operate in the unique environment of the super-rentiers is distinct. The smallest and wealthiest
states of the Arabian Peninsula—Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE—are monarchies that, with the exception of Kuwait, do not allow for political participation through parliamentary elections. In the monarchical systems of Qatar and the UAE, Islamist groups do not have the opportunity to compete for institutionalized political power and therefore cannot use the ballot box to gain popularity or influence political life, as they do elsewhere in the Middle East. When the dynamic of electoral politics is removed, the nature of the Brotherhood’s function changes. In fact, one interviewee went so far as to state that “the Muslim Brotherhood needs parliamentary democracy as oxygen to function . . . . The Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t come to power without democracy.”22 Though the Brotherhood can gain political capital even in the absence of democratic institutions, it does so in different ways, as political opportunity structures are altered.
Further distinguishing these countries from others in the region, rentier states benefit from oil wealth, which allows them to grant generous social welfare benefits to all nationals, obviating the need for Islamist groups to provide such services. The smaller states of the Gulf also differ from the rest of the region in the prevailing importance of tribal social structures. Because these emirates have only existed as independent states for the past four to five decades, they have retained their tribal substructures: kinship ties remain of critical importance in social and political life. The presence of such a strong social network in small and tightly knit states reduces the need for an organization like the Muslim Brotherhood to provide a sense of belonging and an arena for social gathering. Further constricting the space for the Muslim Brotherhood is government co-optation of the Islamic sphere through Ministries of Endowments (or Awqaf)23 and Islamic Affairs, which monitor mosques, imams,24 and sermons.
Thus, though Brotherhood movements elsewhere in the region originated in opposition to the existing order, Islamists in the Gulf gained political capital by working through the prevailing system before coming to challenge it. As Herbert P. Kitschelt puts it in the context of antinuclear movements in Europe and the United States, “political opportunity structures functioned as ‘filters’ between the mobilization of the movement and its choice of strategies and its capacity to change the social environment.”25 Like other actors in rentier states, then, Islamists compete for state support because challenging the state outright is irrational, as it holds the monopoly of power and wealth. Since Islamist movements cannot afford to and realistically cannot exist outside of the system, they work gradually from within it to promote their ideology. As a result, writing the history of the Muslim Brotherhood in rentier states, especially in the super-rentiers, involves tracing their influence through various ministries, particularly education, Islamic affairs, awqāf, and justice. In closed political systems, Sidney Tarrow points out, “elites chose their allies and attacked their enemies, and the state provided opportunities to some groups and not to others.”26 At their inception, Muslim Brotherhood groups in the Gulf were closely allied with their governments; as they became increasingly powerful through state support, however, this relationship changed, in turn altering political opportunity structures.
Despite the unique political conditions inside rentier states, Muslim Brotherhood branches have existed in the Gulf for decades, dating back to the Nasser era in Egypt, when many Islamists moved to the Gulf to escape persecution in Egypt and to take jobs in the understaffed region. Large numbers of Egyptian immigrants worked in the Gulf states’ newly established educational and judicial systems, beginning in the 1950s. Gulf governments,
under British protection at that time, initially welcomed Islamism as a counterbalance to the rising tide of Arab nationalism, even granting Brotherhood groups funds for social activities. Today, however, the Gulf states have taken a very different tack toward the Brotherhood, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, alongside Bahrain and Egypt, leading the charge against the organization as a terrorist group and a major political threat to their governments. Qatar has adopted a relatively sympathetic stance toward the Brotherhood, supporting its cause abroad to a limited extent and providing refuge for influential Brotherhood figures within the country. Even Qatar, however, expelled seven leading Egyptian Brotherhood members in September 2014, pursuant to an article in the Riyadh Agreement signed with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in November 2013.27 Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE went so far as to withdraw their ambassadors from the state in March 2014 over what they considered Qatar’s failure to implement the agreement, which demanded that it withdraw support from “anyone threatening the security and stability of the GCC whether as groups or individuals—via direct security work or through political influence, and not to support hostile media.”28 This veiled reference to the Muslim Brotherhood reveals the degree to which the organization has become politically relevant and polarizing in the region. Meanwhile, Kuwait has remained a mediator as political Islam has divided the other Gulf states, pitting the Emirati and Saudi response against the Qatari approach. These tensions have recently become reignited, with Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE once again breaking ties with Qatar in June 2017 while also blocking access to the state through air, land, and sea. The official Saudi news agency explained these actions as a means to “protect national security from the dangers of terrorism and extremism,” accusing Qatar of adopting Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, while the UAE claimed that Qatar engages in “funding and hosting” the Brotherhood.29 These events, triggering an unprecedented diplomatic crisis in the GCC, have made clear that the large extent to which the organization still holds considerable political capital in the Gulf and deserves greater scholarly attention.
Sources
Given the lack of secondary literature on the topic of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gulf, data have been collected through primary sources (in Arabic and English), namely government documents, such as constitutions and relevant laws—particularly those that regulate civil society30 and the religious sphere. These sources helped clarify the extent to which independent political and religious associations are permitted in the countries under study. Official documents, such as platforms, petitions, and publications from the national Muslim Brotherhood organizations, were also examined to determine the nature of these groups’ goals and their success in achieving them. In addition, secondary sources, such as other studies that critique rentierism and those that concern domestic politics of the Gulf as well as relevant news items, were examined. Analysis of the existing body of literature has made clear where this study adds unique insight.
Extensive fieldwork was conducted from September 2013 to April 2014, divided into roughly two months in each country. During this period, some one hundred open- ended interviews (over thirty in each country under study) were conducted, in English and Arabic, about Islamist movements, and particularly Muslim Brotherhood organizations,
in Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE. Interviewees came from a variety of backgrounds and ideological leanings. They included academics, politicians, activists, and journalists. While in the field, primary source material was also gathered through visits to archives, including the National Library of Kuwait and the UAE Federation Library. Local university libraries,31 think tanks,32 the office of Jamʿiat al-Islah al-Ijtimaʿi (the Social Reform Association, hereafter Islah) in Kuwait, the Kuwaiti Ministry of Information, and American and British embassies in Kuwait and Qatar provided useful resources as well. Further meetings with figures in exile were arranged in London, where the National Archives provided a crucial source of information about the history of the Brotherhood inside Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE when they were British-protected states.
Case Selection: Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE as Super- Rentiers
Though the GCC countries are often considered as a single unit, Michael Herb makes an important distinction between the wealthier rentier states of the GCC (Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE) and their less affluent neighbors (Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia), explaining that the former group has managed to use petroleum windfalls to perpetuate the strongest support system for their citizens.33 In addition to providing extensive social welfare benefits, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE have “fail[ed] to wean citizens from dependence on public sector jobs,”34 making employment part of the rentier package.35 These wealthy states can also afford to import large numbers of expatriates to fill private sector positions, as well as jobs in service industries that nationals consider undesirable, leading the state to employ some nine out of every ten citizens.36 Further reinforcing the privileged position of nationals, governments of the wealthiest Gulf states have constructed systems of disbursements to citizens so extensive that Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE provide the best examples of rentierism in the Gulf. We thus have distinguished them as superrentiers. Rentier state theory would lead us to believe that these states are the least likely to house independent political actors of any type. Table 1.1 illustrates the extent to which these states are economically distinct from other rentiers of the Arabian Peninsula.
Table 1.1
Economic Comparison of GCC States
Country Gross National Income (GNI) per Capita, Atlas Method, 2013 (US Dollar)37 Purchasing Power Parity per Capita, 2013 (International Dollar)38 Percentage of Nonnational Population (2008)39 Percentage of Nonnationals in Labor Force (2008)40
Aside from economic differences, significant political variations complicate comparisons with other GCC states. Bahrain seems an obvious outlier as the only GCC state with a majority Shiʿi population. Consequently, Bahrain’s most powerful opposition Islamist movements (al-Wefaq and the Haq Movement) are Shiʿi and therefore not linked to the Muslim Brotherhood ideologically, as the Ikhwan is Sunni. Interestingly, that country’s Muslim Brotherhood branch is often aligned with the government, suggesting the primacy of loyalty to religious sect over political ideology in Bahrain.
Oman, while also having a highly centralized and personalized government under Sultan Qaboos, is influenced by ideologies that differ greatly from those found in the rest of the GCC. A unique strand of Ibāḍī Islam dominates the religious scene,41 where Sunni Muslims number only 15–20 percent of the population.42 The state’s most prominent independent Islamist movement, Jamaʿat al-Tabligh, has roots in India,43 reflecting Oman’s outwardlooking orientation, which has long differentiated it from its Gulf neighbors. Furthermore, the Omani branch of the Brotherhood was effectively shut down in the early 2000s after a preliminary crackdown in the mid-1990s.44
Saudi Arabia’s opposition movements, specifically Islamist groups, have been the subject of a number of studies, particularly since the 1979 takeover of the Grand Mosque by radical Islamists under the leadership of Juhayman al-ʿUtaybi. Many studies have focused on violent strands of Islamism in the Kingdom,45 while several others have treated the topic of Islamism in Saudi Arabia more broadly.46 Aside from hoping to uncover new knowledge about understudied countries, concerns about access to information and entry into states were taken into consideration in the selection of cases.
Unlike the other GCC states, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE are Sunni majority emirates. They are also the wealthiest states of the region, were influenced by British rule, and enjoy relatively placid internal political environments. Nonetheless, these cases demonstrate a spectrum of political activity among the Gulf rentiers. The study of Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE will be used to build an independent theory of Islamist political action in the Gulf. Nonetheless, each case is distinctive. Indeed, one reason for the case selection is the variety these states provide.
Kuwait, under leadership of the al-Sabah family since the eighteenth century, is the only super-rentier country with an active parliament. Further, the country’s Muslim Brotherhood organization has successfully fielded candidates for this body as a bloc since the 1980s. In 1991, the Brotherhood created a specialized political branch, al-Harakat al-Dusturiyya alIslamiyya (the Islamic Constitutional Movement, also known by its Arabic acronym Hadas and hereafter the ICM), which functions as a political party in all but name (political parties are formally banned in all super-rentiers). It works alongside Islah, the organization’s social branch, which was established in 1951. The Kuwaiti Brotherhood is highly organized, well funded, and benefits from a broad support base. Although the Brotherhood boycotted parliamentary elections held between December 2012 and November 2016, it is represented in the current legislature with four seats effectively under its control. Muslim Brotherhood influence also continues to be felt through its social outreach, which is done through its participation in charity organizations, sporting clubs, and educational institutions. Politics in the super-rentiers is often displaced into other groups and institutions, considering the lack of formal political parties and meaningful institutionalized political participation.
Qatar lies on the other end of the spectrum in terms of political freedom. The emirate has one elected political institution, the Central Municipal Council (CMC), yet the body itself plays little more than an advisory role on primarily nonpolitical matters. Policy decisions thus remain in the hands of a relatively small number of people, namely members of the ruling al-Thani family. Current Amir Shaykh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani (r. 2013–present), who has held this position since his father Shaykh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani (r. 1995–2013) transferred power in June 2013, is often portrayed as a pragmatist rather than an ideologue, who is likely to continue his father’s policies toward Islamists only to the extent that they are politically useful for his reign at home and his country’s relationships abroad. Though Qatar does not have a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, as it formally disbanded in 2003, Islamist influence remains palpable, if not structurally salient. As mentioned above, charges of Qatari support for Islamist movements worldwide have become more prominent in recent years. Qatar has, since 1961, provided rentier Brotherhood figure Shaykh Yusuf al- Qaradawi a platform from which to spread his ideas; it has also been charged with aiding Islamists in Libya, Syria, and Tunisia, and publicly supported the Mohamed Morsi government in Egypt in 2012 and 2013.
The UAE is composed of seven emirates, with six ruling families. Still, the country is dominated by the ruling families of Abu Dhabi (the president is Abu Dhabian ruler Shaykh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, in office since 2004) and Dubai (the vice president is Dubai ruler Shaykh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, in office since 2006). The UAE has one partially elected body, the Federal National Council (FNC), yet it is chosen by a small percentage of Emirati nationals and holds only nonbinding advisory power in a variety of federal government matters. Decision-making in the UAE, similar to Qatar, remains personalized and concentrated in the hands of relatively few people, though political and cultural variation exists across the emirates. As the UAE has experienced a meteoric economic rise and resultant social changes, a degree of Islamist backlash has been witnessed, along with secular liberal47 opposition movements advocating for more participatory governance. The government has responded swiftly and harshly, increasing internal security and arresting over one hundred suspected Emirati Islamists since 2012 on charges of attempting to overthrow the regime.48 Table 1.2 illustrates these countries’ political similarities.
This book will shed light on why and how Muslim Brotherhood branches have emerged as important social and political actors in the wealthiest oil monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula. By examining the three super-rentiers of the region, we demonstrate the degree to which rentier state theory underestimates the complexity of domestic politics in states that benefit from large amounts of oil wealth. The variation among these cases in and of itself illustrates the inadequacy of a single theory to describe them all. This book also reveals the shortcomings of the prevailing literature on political Islam, as it fails to account for the presence of politically relevant Brotherhood movements in the Gulf monarchies and thus does not describe how their function differs from that of the Ikhwan in other parts of the region.
As will be shown, Muslim Brotherhood organizations in the Gulf are politically influential entities in terms of shaping government policy. It is important to note, however,
Political Comparison of the Super-Rentier States
Country Amir Parliament Consultative Assembly
Political Parties Council of Ministers
that these groups often shape cultural and social ideas as readily as political49 notions; they promote the implementation of conservative social policies while also often advocating for major reforms to government apparatuses and changes in domestic and foreign policies. The division between the social and political sectors is often blurred in the atmosphere of socially conservative states of the Gulf, as political actors operate through channels that are not institutionalized, due to the informal and underinstitutionalized nature of such political systems more generally, excepting Kuwait. Simply because politics is underinstitutionalized in such states does not mean that it is underdeveloped; rather, political opportunity structures are altered, and the informal realm holds considerable political capital. In the super-rentiers, social policies form a major part of local Ikhwan discourse, and opinions about appropriate social practices inform citizens’ views of the correct role of the government more broadly. As Kitschelt explains, “[P]olitical opportunity structures influence the choice of protest strategies and the impact of social movements on their environments,” allowing for the different shape of movements in otherwise similar states.50
There is undoubtedly a social element to political trust within the super-rentiers, and Brotherhood movements have managed to use the links between the social (i.e., informal personal networks) and political (i.e., government institutions) to gain influence in policymaking in such states. In the case of Kuwait, the Muslim Brotherhood wields substantial political capital in the domestic arena, as it forms the most organized political bloc in the country. The Qatari case, however, demonstrates that, even when a formal Brotherhood branch does not exist locally, Islamist ideology is influential domestically in social policy and has affected the government’s posturing abroad to a limited extent. In the case of the UAE, the local Brotherhood’s involvement in domestic politics and criticism of local policies led to the government crackdown in 2012–2013. Today, the Emirati Brotherhood is vilified, yet its ideology remains influential in some circles. Despite the variety of outcomes in these states, they are critically similar in that the Ikhwan is politically significant even in the presence of vast hydrocarbon reserves and with limited institutionalized political openings. Structure of This Book
This book is divided into three main sections and seven chapters, in addition to this introduction. In Part I, “Origins,” chapter 2 offers a review of relevant literature—namely rentier state theory and significant scholarship on political Islam. By assessing the existing literature on these topics, we clarify where this study adds value. We also consider these two Table 1.2
bodies of literature together for the first time to assess their efficacy in describing the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gulf countries under study. The third chapter provides relevant comparative historical background on the political landscapes of Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE. In tracing the rise of the political systems in these three states, we demonstrate how such systems have constrained independent political (though not necessarily social) action. Historical and political background also provides an important regional context that further clarifies the importance of the case studies.
Part II, “Rise and Fall,” comprises two chapters. Chapter 4 covers the foundational periods of Brotherhood branches in the Gulf, ranging from the 1951 establishment of the Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood to the 1975 creation of the Qatari Ikhwan, examining the agendas of these groups and the degree of popular support they received in their initial years. Chapter 5 focuses on the period of expansion of the Brotherhood after the fall of Arab Nationalism from the 1970s through the 1990s, with a view to how Ikhwan movements used ties with government and social appeal to earn more popular support.
Part III, “Modern Rentier Islamism,” takes up analysis from the twenty-first century. In the sixth chapter, we analyze the changing role of Brotherhood affiliates in the first decade of the 2000s, and in chapter 7, we assess the role of Brotherhood affiliates after the so-called Arab Spring, with the aim of understanding how they function in the present day.
Chapter 8 comprises an extended, substantive conclusion to take into account individual country experiences and to compare these countries along common themes. In this final chapter, we elucidate a new model for understanding how Muslim Brotherhood movements influence government policies in the super-rentier states, which we call rentier Islamism.
Part I
Origins
