A New Internal Conflict Intensifies as Muslim Brotherhood Youth Turn Against Their Leadership
The struggle for influence within the Muslim Brotherhood has not subsided. Instead, young members have launched a rebellion fueled by internal divisions, deepening a crisis that is shaking the movement’s rival factions.
In recent months, the Muslim Brotherhood, designated as a terrorist organization in several countries, has experienced a succession of crises. These range from conflicts between competing factions and increasing restrictions and bans to a growing wave of dissent among younger members dissatisfied with the organization’s leadership.
As organizational withdrawals and departures continued to expand, the leadership attempted to contain youth discontent by proposing reconciliation initiatives and promising future leadership positions to younger members, provided they remained committed to organizational activities.
However, these initiatives have failed to address the deep-rooted crisis facing the movement.
As a result of widespread youth resistance and their refusal to participate in routine organizational activities, including attendance at Brotherhood “family” meetings—educational and organizational gatherings held within the movement’s smallest structural unit known as the “family”—the leadership inside and outside Egypt was forced to dissolve a large number of these groups due to low participation rates.
The Brotherhood’s leadership abroad also canceled several training camps, meetings, educational seminars, and activist programs because young members largely ignored invitations to participate, the sources said.
According to the sources, one of the primary reasons behind the growing rebellion is the perception that senior Brotherhood leaders have abandoned younger members. Critics accuse leaders of focusing on their personal affairs, securing foreign citizenship for themselves and their families, and managing private business ventures abroad while failing to provide meaningful support to younger members, particularly regarding housing, living conditions, and legal status issues in host countries.
The sources explained that some of the young dissidents had previously held influential roles within major organizational structures and leadership positions in both the faction led by Salah Abdel Haq, commonly referred to as the “London Front,” and the faction headed by Mahmoud Hussein, known as the “Istanbul Front.”
Among them is Hussein Reda, son-in-law of Brotherhood Shura Council member Naguib Al-Zarif. Reda became one of the leading youth figures within Salah Abdel Haq’s faction following the movement’s internal split in 2021. He managed campaigns aimed at responding to Mahmoud Hussein’s faction before recently withdrawing from organizational activities.
According to the sources, Hussein Reda and several other youth leaders decided to suspend their activities because they had lost confidence in the movement’s future and believed their efforts were no longer productive. They had previously hoped that the current London Front leadership, represented by Salah Abdel Haq and its administrative body acting as the Guidance Bureau, would help the organization overcome the crisis that has plagued it for years.
Not the First Wave of Defections
This is not the first time that youth groups have left the movement’s organizational structure. Similar departures have occurred on multiple occasions, including the emergence of the youth faction associated with Mohamed Kamal in 2015. Other members have left either quietly or publicly.
Among the most prominent recent departures is filmmaker Ezz Eddine Douidar, who abandoned organizational work to focus on producing a cinema-related program. He had also been involved in managing Brotherhood-affiliated online campaigns, including the “Isnad Campaign,” which operated alongside other Brotherhood digital networks on social media and targeted the movement’s opponents.
Unlike Douidar, other young former members have openly criticized the organization on social media. One example is Hassan Al-Ashri, a former youth cadre who moved with the organization from Egypt to Sudan and later to Turkey before ultimately breaking away and leaving Turkey. He subsequently launched a campaign criticizing the Brotherhood’s practices and leadership under the title “One of the Brothers.”
His campaign reportedly provoked a negative reaction from the movement’s leadership, which attempted to discredit him and silence his criticism by claiming that external actors were directing his statements.
Similarly, Ahmed Barakat, known among Brotherhood members in Egyptian prisons as “Ahmed Malek,” launched his own campaign criticizing the organization after being released from prison, having served a ten-year sentence for membership in the group.
Barakat called for the dissolution of the organization and an end to activities directed against the Egyptian state, arguing that such measures could pave the way for broader efforts to secure the release of imprisoned Brotherhood members who had distanced themselves from the movement after, in his view, discovering its true nature.
The appeals made by Barakat and other dissident members reportedly gained traction among Brotherhood supporters inside Egypt, particularly because they emphasized that the confrontation with the Egyptian state had primarily benefited the organization’s leaders, who accumulated wealth and advantages abroad while imprisoned members and their families continued to suffer.
According to the sources, the Brotherhood’s senior leadership adopted strict measures to deal with rebellious members. These measures included cutting financial assistance, known as “living support,” provided to the families of imprisoned members and dismissing dissident youth from jobs within Brotherhood-affiliated institutions. Hassan Al-Ashri, for example, was reportedly dismissed from the Brotherhood-linked Mekameleen television channel.
Meanwhile, dissident members have increasingly distanced themselves from major Brotherhood centers abroad. Some have relocated to countries with limited traditional Brotherhood presence, such as New Zealand and Canada.
Others have chosen to remain in Turkey but moved away from Istanbul to cities with smaller Brotherhood communities, including Ankara, Bursa, and Izmir.
Some attempted to return to Egypt through official legal channels. However, according to the sources, the organization allegedly targeted them by filing complaints against them in their countries of residence and accusing them of espionage activities. Several individuals were reportedly arrested and remain under investigation.
It is noteworthy that opposition to the Brotherhood’s senior leadership is no longer confined to younger members. In recent years, several senior leaders have either frozen their membership or left the movement altogether.
Among them are Shura Council members Ali Batikh and Ahmed Abdel Rahman. The latter previously headed the so-called “External Crisis Office” and was a leading figure in Mohamed Kamal’s faction, now known as the “Change Current,” before breaking away. Amir Bassam, another Shura Council member, also joined the ranks of dissidents.
Other former leaders have adopted a sharply critical stance toward the current leadership, including Ashraf Abdelghaffar, a former member of the General Shura Council and former head of the Brotherhood’s Central Asia sector within its international organization. He has focused his criticism on what he describes as the leadership’s “methodological deviation.”
