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Jazeera is alerting the death of Essam al-Erian, a top Muslim Brotherhood figure, in Tora prison.
It's obviously distasteful to dissect the legacy of a man who died after almost seven years in prison, by all accounts a very harsh prison, but Erian always symbolized to me the essence of the Brotherhood's downfall
Like other journalists at the time, I'd interviewed Erian many times. He was a go to for journalists and often the centre of stories. Before 2011, he was seen as a "moderate" who opposed the "hardliners"--Akef resigned in part over resistance to Erian on guidance council
Erian quickly became an opponent of liberal/left/secular revolutionaries after the uprising, when the Brotherhood struck a deal with the army. see interview here for example https://sg.news.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/defiant-protesters-remain-cairo-tahrir-square-20110410-003524-834.html
Like many in MB, Erian had his eye on parliamentary elections late 2011 early 2012 the MB were confident they'd dominate. They saw the protests of Tahrir as aimed at delaying them (which was partly true)
At any rate, what always stayed with me was one long interview I had with him at the cusp of the elections. He'd taken to tweeting Sufi aphorisms at the time by Ibn Attallah, so I asked him whether he subscribed to those beliefs
He said yes. I asked him in that case, are you not concerned by pride? (ghuroor). He responded: "no, the people will hold us to account."
That answer stayed with me over the next year and half as Erian became more and more hardline against the opposition to MB in parliament and Morsi as president.
There was no doubt that Morsi et al faced sabotage and what one can call deep state opposition. Some of it was inevitable, but not all of it. I still believe the military did not plan from the outset to sabotage his presidency, but came to that position later
(I still recall a senior military official close to then def min Sisi complaining that the MB simply refused to take their advice, and they'd given up trying)
Meanwhile no quarter was given to the protesters--even concessions urged by the US such as the removal of PM Qandil. And all along, the leadership refused to acknowledge just how substantial popular opposition was to them. Pride played a role.
Ahram reports he died of a heart attack "following an argument with another Brotherhood leader" http://gate.ahram.org.eg/News/2449477.aspx
