Those interested in a fairly detailed account of the history of the Muslim Brotherhood, including its secret collaboration with the British and the CIA, its violent campaign against President Nasser, its support from Saudi Arabia and its backing for Anwar Sadat’s efforts to crush the Egyptian left and the Nasserists in the 1950s should read a piece I’ve written for Mother Jones.
In it, you’ll see a photograph I uncovered while researching my book, Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, showing the Brotherhood’s chief international organizer and ideologue, Said Ramadan, in the Oval Office with President Eisenhower in 1953. Ramadan is the son-in-law of Hassan al-Banna, who founded the Brotherhood in 1928, and he is that father of Tariq Ramadan.
