Al-Ahram Weekly Issue No. 247 16 - 22 November 1995
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood has no legal sanction as a political party, and yet it is a major contender in this month's elections. Amira Howeidy reviews its history and repeated confrontations with successive governments, interviews Mustafa Mashhour, one of its leaders, and invites political experts to assess its performance

Officially speaking

For the past few years, Ma'moun El-Hodeibi, 74, has been the Brotherhood's official spokesman, the group's first. "I don't know exactly when or how I became spokesman for the Brotherhood in parliament," Hodeibi, who first entered parliament in 1984, explained. However, it is actually believed that he pushed for the post.

Hodeibi is the son of Hassan El-Hodeibi, the group's second Supreme Guide who took over from Hassan El-Banna after his assassination in 1949. Hodeibi Sr, one of the group's most powerful leaders, managed to uphold El-Banna's policies and face the group's darkest years under President Gamal Abdel-Nasser. Although Hodeibi Sr spent 18 years of his life in jail, his son, Ma'moun, says he was raised in a religious climate of an "enlightened understanding of the teachings of Islam". His sister, Soad, was one of the first women to graduate from Cairo University's Faculty of Medicine. Ma'moun himself is a strong advocate of women's right to work; his own three daughters became doctors.

After obtaining a university degree in law in 1942, Ma'moun El-Hodeibi began a legal career as an assistant district prosecutor. In 1956 he became head of the Giza Criminal Court, later rising to become head of the Cairo Court of Appeals. Determined to give priority to his work, El-Hodeibi stayed away from the group and did not seek Brotherhood membership.

But his legal career was interrupted when he was arrested in 1965 along with hundreds of Brotherhood members. He spent six years in prison for providing financial assistance to the families of imprisoned Brotherhood members. Following his release in 1971, he traveled to Saudi Arabia where he stayed until the early 1980s. It was only then, upon his return to Cairo, that he officially joined the Brotherhood.

El-Hodeibi won a seat in two consecutive parliaments, in 1984 and 1987. He served as the group's spokesman in parliament between 1987 and 1990 and afterwards as the group's official spokesman.

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