Call for Book Chapters: The Muslim Brothers through the eyes of the others a century on. A battle of perceptions and narratives in the Middle East and beyond

Summary

The proposed edited volume is about how the Muslim Brotherhood (hereinafter MB), the world's oldest and largest Islamist group, has been understood and shown throughout its long history by others, both supporters and opponents, within the country and around the world.

This book comes at an important moment. The MB is about to reach its 100th anniversary (1928-2028), but its political power is at its lowest point, unlike its strong periods between the world wars, the 1970s, 1980s, and especially during the Arab Spring. Recently, there has been renewed academic and political interest in the group. After the Arab Spring, governments made new decisions and changed alliances that put the MB at the center of heated debates about security, identity, and the future of political Islam. For example, President Trump's administration recently labeled MB branches in Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan as "terrorist organizations," even though the group has been weak for over ten years and does not currently threaten any US allies in the Middle East. At the same time, authorities became worried about what they see as "Brotherhood activities" in the US for the first time. The Emirates stopped funding academic institutions in the UK, saying it was because of the growing influence of the MB. In Europe, leaders like the French government have also pointed to possible national security threats from the group's actions. In the Middle East, political and diplomatic conflicts include Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu calling Ankara’s government "a regime infected with the Muslim Brotherhood," while Turkey and Qatar have kept supporting the MB and their removed president Mohammad Morsi, even though it has hurt their relations with other regional powers.

These recent events show the lasting and changing importance of the MB, showing how different stories and security worries keep shaping how people see it and its political future. By looking at how these views are created and used by different groups, this book aims to help scholars better understand why talking about the MB is still important not only in the Middle East but around the world. At the same time, these ideological debates and international struggles over the Muslim Brothers and their role happen alongside a large amount of academic work on the group going back nearly forty years to studies of "religious revivalism" in the Middle East and beyond.

Taking the above into consideration, the proposed study's main argument is that much of what we think or know today about the MB has been formed by the discourses and narratives of others who engaged with the group both negatively and positively, rather than the Brothers themselves. While previous scholarship has extensively analyzed the internal dynamics and self-representations of the Muslim Brotherhood, there is a significant gap in systematically examining and synthesizing how the organization has been perceived, constructed, and instrumentalized by a diverse array of external actors. Although researchers have undertaken serious attempts to give the Brothers their "voice back" and narrate their history, goals, and identity through their own standpoints and sources, to date there is no comparative study that comprehensively brings together the varied external perceptions of the Brotherhood—examining their origins, historical and geopolitical contexts, and their policy consequences for the MB and the wider Middle East.

Existing works are often fragmented, focusing on single contexts or case studies, without offering a broader comparative framework that situates these narratives side by side. This proposed volume directly addresses this research gap by providing the first systematic, cross-regional, and interdisciplinary analysis of "the Muslim Brotherhood through the eyes of others." In the editor's view, this is the greatest contribution of the proposed collective volume to the existing literature, as it will illuminate how externally constructed perceptions reflect specific policy agendas and regional interests, and how these, in turn, have shaped the state of the MB and its evolving relationships with societies and states worldwide.

Approaches, Materials and Methodology: An Open Invitation

In order to meet its ends, the proposed study invites scholars from the field of modern and contemporary history, political sciences, international relations and law, religious studies, anthropology, sociolinguistics and Middle Eastern and Islamic studies to contribute using their expertise on how others perceive the Muslim Brotherhood. Contributions are expected to cover a large repertoire of political parties, foreign governments, religious and academic institutions, minority groups, think tanks and international fora across the globe, aiming at the examination of their attitudes vis-a-vis the Muslim Brotherhood and its various branches and affiliates, including Hamas. In terms of materials, authors are expected to present part of their research on historical archives and/or relevant sources (government reports and statements, declarations, speeches, interviews, audiovisuals, books, essays, articles, newspapers, documentaries, films and all types of media) in the respective language(s) of each case study. Please note that all chapter submissions must be written in English. If chapters rely substantially on non-English primary sources, authors are required to provide accurate English translations of any quoted material or central evidence, along with the original text whenever feasible. Among other methodological tools that could be employed, critical discourse analysis and qualitative content analysis seem to be the most appropriate approaches for the study's inquiry.

What We Are Looking For

Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:

●       The Muslim Brothers in academic discourses

●       Media representations of the Muslim Brotherhood

●       Perceptions of the Muslim Brothers throughout history

●       Orientalism and narratives on the Muslim Brotherhood

●       Islamophobia and narratives on the Muslim Brotherhood

●       The Muslim Brothers through the eyes of their adversaries and their sympathizers

●       Christian reception of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East and beyond

●       Salafist and Islamist perceptions of the Muslim Brotherhood

●       Political cleavages in the West and the Muslim Brotherhood

●       Arab perceptions of the Muslim Brotherhood: past and present

●       Turkish perceptions of the Muslim Brotherhood

●       Iranian perceptions of the Muslim Brotherhood

●       Israeli perceptions of the Muslim Brotherhood

●       African perceptions of the Muslim Brotherhood

●       Asian perceptions of the Muslim Brotherhood

●       US and European perceptions of the Muslim Brotherhood

●       The Muslim Brotherhood in world politics

Submission Guidelines

Given the global scope of this anthology, we strongly encourage submissions from scholars working across diverse geographic, cultural, and disciplinary contexts. Chapter proposals (approx. 500 words, excluding biography) should include:

●        Proposed chapter title

●        Central argument and objectives

●        Outline of chapter structure

●        Materials/sources and methodological approach

●        Contribution to literature

●        Short biography (approx. 200 words) including name, affiliation, and email

Final chapter length: 5,000–8,000 words
Reworked parts of theses or previously presented material may be considered if substantially revised and not under review elsewhere.

All final chapters should include:

●        Abstract

●        Introduction (including central argument and objectives, literature review and contribution of the chapter, sources employed and methodology, outline of chapter structure)

●        Main body

●        Conclusion

Important Dates

∙ Proposal submission deadline: 25 October 2026
∙ Notification of acceptance: 1 November 2026

Please submit to: Panos Kourgiotis, kourgiotis@uom.edu.gr.

Editor Bio

Panos Kourgiotis is an Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern history and politics in the Department of Balkan Slavic and Oriental Studies at the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece. His teaching assignments and scientific interests focus on the relation between politics and religion, as well as identity politics and the shaping of narratives and discourses in several countries of the Middle East and North Africa. His works have been published in highly influential academic journals, such as The British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, The Maghreb Review, and Religions. His chapter "Islah versus Jihad/takfir: Convergent or Divergent Paths Within the Early Muslim Brotherhood?" has been published in the edited volume Rethinking Islamism beyond jihadi violence Fighting ideas leaving the sword aside, edited by Elisa Orofino, Vernon Press. For full access to his publications: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=H1QxJscAAAAJ&hl=el