Egypt Muslim Brotherhood elects Salah Abdel-Haq as acting Supreme Guide to succeed Ibrahim Mounir

Arabi 21 learned that the Egyptian General Shura Council of the Muslim Brotherhood and its International Shura Council elected the historic leader of the group, Dr. Salah Abdel-Haq acting Supreme Guide, succeeding the late Ibrahim Mounir and that the move will be officially announced in the coming period.

An official source from the Muslim Brotherhood told Arabi 21 that there is consensus and welcome among the group’s leaders and bases for this move, absolutely denying what was circulated about internal differences in this regard.

Arabi 21 learned that the group will soon officially announce this decision in the media from the British capital, London, where Abdel-Haq is currently residing after he assumed the new position in the group.

Salah Abdel-Haq is one of the historic leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, and one of the students and fellows of the late Islamic thinker, Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), as they were imprisoned due to the case known as the “1965 Organisation”, after which Qutb and many other Muslim Brotherhood leaders were executed.

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Abdel-Haq joined the Muslim Brotherhood in the fifties of the last century, when he was a high school student. He is a member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood General Shura Council and of the International Shura Council and has assumed many administrative positions in the group inside and outside Egypt.

In the 1990s, the Brotherhood’s Guidance Office assigned him to travel outside the country and work in the group’s International Educational Authority, when he assumed the position of head of the Brotherhood’s International Educational Authority for more than 15 years.

Abdel-Haq, who belongs to an aristocratic family and is a physician, has spent most of his life travelling outside Egypt, up to now, when he is settled in London.

Some have described Abdel-Haq as characterised by “calmness, thought and energy and that he is a man of thought and vision that will affect the group”.

Last 31 January, sources from the Muslim Brotherhood revealed, in exclusive statements to Arabi 21, that the General Shura Council had elected a new supreme administrative body to manage the group’s affairs for a new electoral term.

Among the most prominent figures who were elected in the new term were Engineer Muhammad Al-Buhairi, Dr. Mohiuddin Al-Zait, the official of the political department in the group, Dr. Helmy Al-Jazzar, and the media spokesperson, Suhaib Abdel Maksoud and others, the sources said.

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At that time, the sources confirmed that “the appointment of the acting Supreme Guide will be announced soon after completing the administrative procedures relating to this matter, which are expected to be concluded in the near future.”

On 4 November, sources in the Muslim Brotherhood revealed that the deputy head of the supreme administrative body for managing the affairs of the group, Mohiuddin Al-Zait, had become the temporary acting General Guide after the death of the deputy Guide, Ibrahim Mounir.

On November 4, 2022, the Muslim Brotherhood announced the death of Mounir at the age of 85, affirming that he was one of the most prominent men of invocation and one of the pillars of the group.

A huge crisis emerged within the Muslim Brotherhood after the arrest of the acting General Guide, Mahmoud Ezzat, on 28 August, 2020.

Since the military coup in the summer of 2013, Ezzat continued leading the group for nearly seven years, while his successor, Ibrahim Mounir, assumed leadership of the group who, at that time, became acting General Guide.

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