The pivotal role Islamism will play in the post-Arab Spring global dynamic drives this thesis. It analyses the various origins and ideologies of the most seminal Islamist movement, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. As Egypt serves as the socio-political fulcrum of the Middle East North Africa region, so too stands the Muslim Brotherhood as the logical genesis for a discussion about the larger phenomenon of Islamism. My thesis argues that the Brotherhood specifically, and Islamism generally, offers far more flexibility in ideology than the West frequently concedes. Its development proves non-linear, complex and frequently interrupted by bifurcation; the ideologies it produced and still produces are therefore polymorphic, ranging from moderate and conciliatory to belligerent and radical.

Which, if any, Islamism prevails in the Middle East will depend on the abilities of the various movements' leaders to offer beneficial alternatives to the decades of tyranny the masses rejected in the Arab Spring. I argue that by returning to the ideology of the Brotherhood's founding father, Hassan al-Banna, a moderate, conciliatory, and above all flexible interpretation of Islamism may be found. This requires a reconsideration of the radicalism that has spiraled out of the ranks of the Brotherhood, specifically acknowledging Sayyid Qutb's writings as aberrations of al Banna's message, rather than as natural evolutions. I conclude that Islamism and radical Islamism must be separated in academic and political discourse, treated as related but separate phenomena, in order to push the quotidial dialogue in a mutually generative direction.

To do this, I first trace the historical trajectory of the Brotherhood, highlighting incidences of flexibility and cooperative methods of the movement to insure its survival through the tumultuous post-Colonial era. The second section highlights the Brotherhood's oscillations between radical and moderate ideological positions. My analysis demonstrates that the Muslim Brotherhood has a long history of pragmatic response to changing political situations. The West too often views the Muslim Brotherhood through the "Clash of Civilization" narrative -- in which the Muslim Brotherhood is one continuous, fixed entity in opposition to the West -- rather than acknowledging the bifurcated and malleable identity of the organization.