Islamists: Opportunity or Threat for Revolutionaries? A Comparative Analysis of the Iranian Islamic Revolution and the Egyptian Revolution of 2011

Why did the non-Islamist political groups, and the Iranian people in general, enthusiastically welcome the protests of the Islamist clergy in January 1978, while many Egyptians regarded the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the revolutionary scene of 2011 with a considerable caution? This paper seeks to answer this question by using the concepts of ‘attribution of opportunity/threat’ and ‘discursive opportunity structure’ and the methodological strategy of ‘individualizing comparison’. According to the results, the importance of fighting against ‘cultural colonialism’ set the intellectual ground for the alliance of non-Islamists with the oppositionist clergy in the 1970s. Moreover, since there was no record in the contemporary history of Iran for the clergy to hold state power, the oppositionist activities of the clergy was attributed as a political opportunity by other oppositionist groups. With the transition from the Iran of 1978 to the Egypt of 2011, the ideology of liberalism became globally hegemonic and set the stage for value-based tensions between the Islamists and non-Islamists. Furthermore, because of a) the emergence of terrorist Islamist groups in Egypt and abroad; b) the retreat of the Mubarak regime from some of its secular policies and, consequently, the reinforcement of the conservative Islam; c) the emergence of ‘new preachers’ broadcasting an ‘apolitical’ version of Islam; and d) the long history of Muslim Brotherhood of being in formal politics and their high organizational resources; the revolutionaries regarded the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the revolution with a great caution, if not as a threat.