Special Apparatus of the Muslim BrotherhoodInception, Objectives and Evolution

This study addresses the issue of violence as it pertains to the Muslim Brotherhood and, more specifically, the Brotherhood's so-called Special Apparatus. Despite the Brotherhood's claim to be nothing but a religious and social advocacy movement, the formation of the Special Apparatus under the supervision of the Brotherhood's First Guide has been seen as evidence of the Group's institutionalization of violence as a means of ensuring achievement of its goal of coming to power and establishing the 'Islamic State' and, beyond this, offering what the Brotherhood's founder Hasan al-Banna referred to as 'the exemplary model for the world.'The Muslim Brotherhood's ideology has provided the intellectual foundations for a variety of contemporary Islamist groups from Al Qaeda to ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), which have drawn on such ideas in their justification of violence and terrorism throughout the world. This ongoing appeal to the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology has guaranteed the continuity of the Special Apparatus despite the blows it received from government security forces in the nineteen fifties and sixties.The Brotherhood's declared dissolution of the Special Apparatus and termination of its activities aside, the Group remains favorably disposed to the possession and use of force. From its point of view, the Muslim Brotherhood possesses a credibility and purity that set it apart from all other entities such that if it were to decide to use force, it would most certainly be in response to an urgent need.Depending on internal and external variables, the activity of the Special Apparatus currently takes a variety of forms, be they relevant to politics, intelligence-gathering, or public relations. Such activity also includes what is termed 'defensive violence,' represented by the unrest, vandalism of infrastructure and targeting of police forces that came in the wake of the late President Mohamed Morsi's ouster.