Court deems old Muslim Brotherhood dissolved since 1953

AMMAN — A Cassation Court ruling issued on May 29 decided that the Muslim Brotherhood that was licensed in 1946 has been officially dissolved as of June 16, 1953 because it failed to rectify its status. 

The decision stated that the Muslim Brotherhood that was established in 1946 was dissolved as of June 16, 1953, in implementation of the law on charity organisations published on page 550 in the Official Gazette in February 16, 1953, which went into effect a month after its publication, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

The court decision was taken after Hammam Saeed, who was the old Brotherhood’s overall leader at the time, and others legally challenged the lawsuit filed by the Muslim Brotherhood Group Society, which was licensed in 2015, demanding the movable assets that the dissolved brotherhood had under its control.

The decision closes the file on the dispute of whether the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan is considered unravelled or not, as it deemed that the Muslim Brotherhood Group Society cannot be a legal successor of the Muslim Brotherhood, because the latter has been dissolved under the law, has no legal existence since 1953 and, thus, could not have had a successor since. 

In 2015, the overall leader of the unlicensed Muslim Brotherhood movement has charged that the establishment of the new Muslim Brotherhood Group Society is a “conspiracy .”

 The new entity was led by Abdul Majeed Thneibat and its members said the licensing was a reformative move to ensure that the Brotherhood remains a purely Jordanian group.

The Muslim Brotherhood-Jordan was licensed in 1946 as a charity affiliated with the mother group in Egypt and was relicensed in 1953 as an Islamist society, but remained affiliated with Cairo.

At the end of May 2015, the Legislation and Opinion Bureau issued a fatwa (legal edict) allowing the transfer of the assets of the old Muslim Brotherhood group to the new “licensed” society.

The fatwa, according to the bureau’s then director, Nofan Ajarmeh, was issued based on a request received from the Land and Survey Department.