Issam El-Erian ... a man who does not know a vacuum

Magdy Mustafa

Egyptian universities in the seventies of the last century ... a wide womb in which the seeds of currents, ideas and affiliations left and right fought ... Communists, nationalists, socialists, Nasserists, government and Islamists in an open competitive competition to attract students in the most fertile stages of awareness and formation of their lives.

The Nasserists are effective, they have strong extensions, inside and outside the university, and they share a media presence with the Communists and the rest of the left factions, while the government is protected by their "mabahith" back.

Only the Islamists are in the stage of "liquidity". The Brotherhood, and especially the leaders, are divided into the memory of names who were executed or killed, "she obtained martyrdom" or imprisoned, so she was kept in "seclusion" or exiled voluntarily or involuntarily to live a compulsory "tourism", but there is a change - as it was said - on the The scene when the late President Mohamed Anwar Sadat opened the door in front of them to student work in the face of his opponents from the opposing currents.

In this atmosphere, and to the Qasr Al-Aini Medical College, one of the "top colleges" in Egypt, the student Essam El-Erian from the village of Nahia - affiliated to the Imbaba Center in Giza Governorate - came to study, so fate drove him to be one of the Brotherhood leaders who contributed to what could be called the "second foundation" The group recorded a remarkable presence from that time until his fifth arrest.

The paradoxes of
El-Aryan were born on April 28, 1954, the same year in which Defense Minister Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was born, but Essam is about seven months older than him, when Sisi was born on November 19 of the same year.

While Al-Erian's civil life and career is full of many political battles for the group to which he belongs, Sisi’s biography is devoid of any military battle or war. He graduated from the Military Academy in 1977, four years after the October 1973 war, which Sadat wanted to see. Be the last wars, and it was

During his studies at the Faculty of Medicine - and until his graduation in 1977 with a very good grade - Al-Erian registered a remarkable attendance and role, becoming the Emir of the Islamic Group at Cairo University, then coordinator of the "Universities Shura Council of the General Union of Islamic Associations and Groups" at the end of the seventies, which was chaired by the former guide of the Brotherhood, Omar al-Tlemceni.

Upon joining the group in 1974, he contributed to the formation of the first Brotherhood "families" in Giza Governorate, became responsible for the Cairo University Student Union, and was elected president of the General Union of Egyptian University Students. He was the secretariat of the cultural committee of the Cairo Medical Students Union from 1972 to 1977.

No time for emptiness
Whoever knows Al-Arian closely testifies to him that he is "a man who does not know emptiness." This testimony confirms his academic, political and union history, and those who know him closely wonder how he managed his time, and these tasks he undertook.

He works as a doctor, specializing in hematology and medical analysis, and he obtained a master's degree in clinical pathology, and a doctorate in medicine at Cairo University, but it was hampered by his repeated arrest and security restrictions on the other hand.

Al-Arian was not satisfied with studying medicine, so he obtained a Bachelor of Laws from Cairo University with a very good grade and a Bachelor of Arts in History Department from the same university in 2000 with the same appreciation as well. He also studied at Al-Azhar and obtained a high degree in Islamic Sharia from that prestigious university, and he is registered for a diploma in public law. Cairo University.

A trade unionist and parliamentarian.
He was elected as a member of the board of directors of the Egyptian Medical Syndicate since 1986 until now. He has held the position of Assistant Secretary-General. He formed a popular organization with the aim of standing by the people of Palestine, called the "Forum of Professional Associations to Support the Palestinian Cause."

As for a parliamentarian, he was elected a member of the People's Assembly (Parliament) in the legislative season 1987-1990 from Imbaba district, and he was the youngest member of parliament in that session that was dissolved before completing its constitutional term.

He is a founding member of the Arab National Islamic Conference, a founding member of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, and an associate member of the Arab Organization for Human Rights. He has also participated in many cultural and political seminars and conferences around the world, in Europe, America, and the Arab and Islamic world.

Al-Arian has written for several local, Arab and international newspapers, magazines and periodicals on various topics.

Before the establishment of the Freedom and Justice Party, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, where Al-Erian held the position of Secretary-General and Vice-President, he was a member of the group’s Guidance Bureau and an official of the political bureau.

Years of detention
Al-Erian was arrested for his political and union activities more than once, for periods totaling seven years. In the first time, he was arrested one year prior to the assassination of President Sadat from the beginning of September 1981 until the end of August 1982, and after 13 years of that experience A special military trial resulted in his imprisonment for five years, which he spent from January 1995 to the same month in 2000, due to his affiliation with the Brotherhood.

He was arrested again on May 18, 2006 as part of the pro-judges demonstrations in Cairo, and his detention was renewed for multiple periods until his release on December 10, 2006. But he was arrested in July 2007 and released in October of the same year. He was also arrested without charge just before Friday of Anger on January 28, 2011 until he was released from Wadi al-Natrun prison, accompanied by a group of leaders of the group, including the ousted President Mohamed Morsi.

Al-Arian knew that he was one of the owners of the moderate approach, and some of those concerned with the group’s affairs considered him advocates of internal reform for the Brotherhood and that he was biased towards the principle of gradual reform.

He was subjected to internal Brotherhood criticism, especially in the run-up to the presidential elections, when Abdel Moneim Abul-Fotouh, a dissident from the group and a candidate for the presidency at the time, was called a "mujahid brother." Despite Al-Erian's opposition to nominating any of the Brotherhood’s members to the presidential elections, he was chosen as a political advisor to Morsi after his victory in the presidential elections.

Al-Erian resigned from his post after a series of positions and because of his Facebook posts, the most prominent of which was his call for Egyptian Jews to return to Egypt and compensate them for their property that had been nationalized, provided that the Palestinians of the diaspora would return to their lands, as well as his statements regarding the Emirates during his membership in the People's Assembly, which prompted the Freedom and Justice Party represented by its president Saad Al Katatni To confirm that Al-Arian's statements do not reflect the party.

Attitudes and accusations
following the June 30 coup, Al-Erian launched a sharp attack on the pillars of the coup and its leader Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, which put him under the penalty of law on charges of "insulting the armed forces" in addition to other charges related to incitement to kill demonstrators. Al-Erian succeeded - according to Egyptian security sources - In "hiding from the security pursuit that carried out more than a hundred failed arrest and summoning missions." His method of communicating with the group’s supporters was to record messages and broadcast them on the Internet and satellite channels.

With the impending trial of the president-elect and the group’s readiness to organize demonstrations that it sees as the largest on November 4 - the date of the trial of Morsi and a number of Brotherhood leaders in the federal events - the coup authorities arrested Al-Arian at dawn last Wednesday in an apartment in the Fifth Settlement in Cairo, and considered it a painful security strike for the Brotherhood Which most of its leaders are inside prisons.

The console
has not gone unnoticed in the character of the mystic feature of the Arian, as long as it was known especially for those who have already shared his ordeal in prison where he picks them daily wisdom of the rule of Ibn Ata Allah, Marja -With Acharh- to glitter flying away from their blues confinement.

And here he quotes - without explanation - this time on the authority of Ibn Ataa as saying, "Do not question you in the promise that the promised will not come true, even if its time is set, lest that be an insult to your insight and suppress the light of your bed."

Al-Aryan chose this phrase as his last post on the social networking site (Facebook) through his mobile phone, which he had no other person at the moment of his arrest, to follow it with the phrase "Rest assured and meet."