by Thomas Purcell

Created on: February 14, 2011   Last Updated: February 15, 2011

With the Egyptian army now in control, the Egyptian government and the population still arguing in the streets of Cairo, a big question is being asked: How will the Muslim Brotherhood factor into the new government?

It's a question that CNN's Anderson Cooper thought was important enough to ask Egyptian activist/actor Khalid Abdalla the other night when the news was breaking that Mubarak was stepping down and revolution had come to Egypt.

Before I repeat that answer, let's take a look at the Muslim Brotherhood's role in Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, a schoolteacher, to promote implementing of traditional Islamic sharia law and a social renewal based on an Islamic ethos of altruism and civic duty, in opposition to political and social injustice and to British imperial rule. For those that are unfamiliar with the term sharia, it means law by a set of rules based on religious teachings (despite our CIA head Clapper calling them 'secular').  The MB focused on the disenfranchised masses of Egypt and their efforts on the poor and downtrodden in Egyptian society.

Relatively unsuccessful and underfunded, the MB met and worked with Nazi leaders during WWII to develop itself into a potent anti Semitic force, and counterweight to British rule in the Mideast. The MB got funding and training, and the Nazis got a thorn in the side of the British. After the war, and the fall of the Nazi's, the MB grew even stronger in Egypt. Perceived as a threat to the legitimate government, the MB was outlawed in Egypt in 1948 as a violent, seditious group. In response the MB assassinated the Egyptian Prime minister and went underground. They surfaced again in 1952 with an attempted military coup, but the coup failed when the MB's military law became onerous on the people.

The coup involved turning the masses against the government during a tough economic period. The '52 coup is interesting, in the fact that it eliminated constitutional authority and put the military in charge; very much the same situation Egypt finds itself in today. The '52 coup ultimately failed, and the MB moved into the background again. They tried to assassinate Nasser in 1954, and in response Nasser aggressively pursued and killed and jailed many of its leaders. The MB managed to survive and was believed to be behind the Sadat assassination in 1981. As late as 2005, Mubarak declared the MB an enemy of the state, and although tolerated their presence in Egyptian society

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