CAIRO, 10 January 2004 — The spiritual leader of Egypt’s banned but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood, Maamoun Al-Hodeibi, died early yesterday at the age of 83 following an undisclosed illness, his family said.
Between 20,000 and 25,000 followers attended the funeral at a mosque in Rabaa Al-Adaweya, a suburb east of Cairo.
The congregation took part in prayers for the spiritual leader, before the ritual washing of his body which was then carried out of the mosque by close family members.
Thousands followed the funeral procession in silence. Hodeibi’s body was to be buried in Arab Al-Sawalha graveyard, in Qualiubia province, north of Cairo.
Hodeibi took over the helms of the Muslim Brotherhood at the end of November 2002, following the death of his predecessor Mustafa Mashhur. He was the sixth “supreme guide” to lead the Brotherhood, which has been banned but tolerated in Egypt for half a century.
His father, Hassan Al-Hodeibi, was the second spiritual leader of the group from 1951 to 1973, after he succeeded Hassan Al-Banna who founded the group in Egypt in 1928.
Born in the town of Sohag in 1921, Hodeibi served time in prison in 1965 under the regime of former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. He was set free in 1971 by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated a decade later.
