(, lit. "Islamic Group") is an Egyptian Sunni Islamist movement based in Egypt and Syria.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt; the Prophet and Pharaoh, p. 129, 1985, It is considered a terrorist organization by many world nations including the European Union, the United Kingdom, Israel, Russia, Canada, as well as the United Nations. It was similarly designated by the United States from 1997 to 2022 and has since remained under American sanctions. The group was dedicated to the overthrow of the Egyptian government and replacing it with an Islamic state. Since the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état and overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi, the group has committed to non-violent religious activities.

Founded in the 1990s, the fought an insurgency against the Egyptian government from 1992 to 1998 during which at least 796 Egyptian and combatants as well as civilians were killed.Uppsala Conflict Data Program, Conflict Encyclopedia, The al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya insurgency, Government of Egypt – al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, viewed 2013-05-03, http://www.ucdp.uu.se/gpdatabase/gpcountry.php?id=50&regionSelect=10-Middle_East# Iran and Sudan provided proxy support for the group alongside al-Qaeda.Uppsala Conflict Data Program, Conflict Encyclopedia, The al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya insurgency, viewed 2013-05-03, http://www.ucdp.uu.se/gpdatabase/gpcountry.php?id=50&regionSelect=10-Middle_East# The Egyptian government was supported by the U.S., U.K. and E.U. nations. orchestrated major attacks across the world, including the 1995 Rijeka bombing, 1996 Cairo shooting, and 1997 Luxor massacre, among others. Active as a militant movement from 1992 to 1998, has since seen significantly degraded financial and combat infrastructure due to collective American, Egyptian, and Croatian military interventions.

The group's imprisoned leadership – led by Omar Abdel-Rahman – renounced violence in 2003 and again in 2011. In 2006, the Egyptian government initiated a limited prison release program for the group. Following the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, the movement formed a political party, the Building and Development Party, which gained 13 seats in the 2011–2012 elections to the lower house of the Egyptian Parliament. Since the 2010s, have closely cooperated with the Muslim Brotherhood but struggled to integrate into Egyptian society.

History Origins in universities began as an umbrella organization for Egyptian militant student groups, formed, like the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, after the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood renounced violence in the 1970s.

In its early days, the group was primarily active on university campuses, and was mainly composed of university students. Originally they were a minority in the Egyptian student movement which was dominated by leftist Nasserists and Marxists. The leftists were strongly critical of the new Sadat government, and urged Egypt to fight a war of revenge against Israel, while President Sadat wanted to wait and rebuild the military.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: the Prophet and Pharaoh, p. 132 However, with some "discrete, tactical collaboration" with the government,Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: the Prophet and Pharaoh, p. 133 who sought a "useful counterweight" to its leftist opponents,Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: the Prophet and Pharaoh, p. 134 the group(s) began to grow in influence in 1973.

The Jama'at spread on campuses and won up to one-third of all student union elections. These victories provided a platform from which the associations campaigned for Islamic dress, the veiling of women, and the segregation of classes by gender. Secular university administrators opposed these goals. By March 1976, they were "dominant force"Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: the Prophet and Pharaoh, p. 141 in the student movement and by 1977 "they were in complete control of the universities and had driven the left organizations underground."

Expansion Having once been favored by the Egyptian government of Anwar Sadat they now threatened it, opposing what they believed was a "shameful peace with the Jews," (the Camp David Accords with Israel). By 1979, their numbers steadily grew.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: the Prophet and Pharaoh p. 149 In 1979, Sadat sought to diminish the influence of the associations through a law that transferred most of the authority of the student unions to professors and administrators. During the 1980s, Islamists gradually penetrated college faculties. At Assiut University, which was the scene of some of the most intense clashes between Islamists and their opponents (including security forces, secularists, and Copts), the president and other top administrators – who were Islamists – supported Jama'at demands to end mixed-sex classes and to reduce total female enrollment.. from Helen Chapin Metz, ed. Egypt: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1990. In other universities Jama'at also forbade the mixing of genders, films, concerts, and dances, and enforced their bans with clubs and iron bars.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: the Prophet and Pharaoh, p. 151 From the universities the groups reached out to make new recruits, preaching in poor neighbourhoods of cities, and to rural areas. and after a crackdown against them, inmates of Egyptian jails.

In April 1981, the group became involved in clan feuds about livestock or property lines between Coptic and Muslim Egyptians in the vicinity of Minya, Egypt. The group believed in the position of tributary or dhimmi for Christians in Egypt and opposed any signs of Coptic "arrogance" (istikbar), such as Christian cultural identity and opposition to an Islamic state. The group distributed a leaflet accusing Egypt's one Christian provincial governor (appointed by the government) of providing automatic weapons to Christians to attack Muslims, and the Sadat administration of following orders given by the United States.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: the Prophet and Pharaoh, pp. 156–66

Crackdown In June 1981, a sectarian Muslim-Copt conflict broke out in the al-Zawaiyya Al Hamra district of Cairo. Over three days of fighting, 17 people were killed, 112 injured, and 171 public and private buildings were damaged. "Men and women were slaughtered; babies thrown from windows, their bodies crushed on the pavement below; there was looting, killing and arson."Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: the Prophet and Pharaoh, p. 166 The group were accused of participating in the incident and in September 1981, one month before the assassination of Sadat, the were dissolved by the state, their infrastructure was destroyed and their leaders arrested by the State Security Investigations Service.

Assassination of president Anwar Sadat

In 1980, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad under the leadership of Muhammad abd-al-Salam Faraj, formed a coalition with the Jama'at under the leadership of Karam Zuhdi, with both agreeing to follow the guidance of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman. One of Faraj's groups was responsible for the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Members in Asyut launched a rapidly suppressed uprising two days after the assassination. Following the assassination, Karam Zuhdi expressed regret for conspiring with Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the assassination, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Zuhdi was among the 900 militants who were set free in April 2006 by the Egyptian government.

Omar Abdel-Rahman The cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman was the spiritual leader of the movement. He was accused of participating in the World Trade Center 1993 bombings conspiracy, and was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for his espousal of a subsequent conspiracy to bomb New York City landmarks, including the United Nations and FBI. The Islamic Group had publicly threatened to retaliate against the United States if Rahman was not released from prison. The group later renounced violence and their leaders and members were released from prison in Egypt. Abdel-Rahman died on 18 February 2017.

1990s terrorism campaign The Islamic group, by the late 1980s, had become more organized and adopted an official logo: "an upright sword standing on an open Qur'an with an orange sun rising in the background," encircled by the Qur'anic verse that Abdel Rahman had quoted at his trials while trying to explain his interpretation of jihad to the judges: وَقَاتِلُوهُمْ حَتَّى لاَ تَكُونَ فِتْنَةٌ وَيَكُونَ الدِّينُ لِلّهِ فَإِنِ انتَهَواْ فَلاَ عُدْوَانَ إِلاَّ عَلَى الظَّالِمِينَ

Fight them on until there is no more Tumult, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah; but if they cease, Let there be no hostility except to those who practise oppression.

This became the official motto of the group.Murphy, Caryle. Passion for Islam: Shaping the Modern Middle East: the Egyptian Experience by Caryle Murphy, (2002), p. 65 The 1990s saw engage in an extended campaign of violence, including the targeting of tourists and foreigners. Egypt's tourism sector was negatively impacted."Solidly ahead of oil, Suez Canal revenues, and remittances, tourism is Egypt's main hard currency earner at $6.5 billion per year." (in 2005) ... concerns over tourism's future. Retrieved 27 September 2007.Kepel, Jihad, 2002 Victims of campaign against the Egyptian state from 1992 to 1997 totaled more than 1200Wright, Looming Towers, (2006), p. 258 and included the head of the counter-terrorism agency (Major General Raouf Khayrat), a speaker of parliament (Rifaat al-Mahgoub), dozens of European tourists and Egyptian bystanders, and over 100 Egyptian police.

The 1991 killing of the group's leader, Ala Mohieddin, by security forces, led Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya to murder Egypt's speaker of parliament in retaliation. In June 1995, working together with Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the group orchestrated an attempt on the life of President Mubarak, led by Mustafa Hamza, a senior Egyptian member of the Al-Qaeda and commander of the military branch of the Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya. Mubarak escaped unharmed and retaliated with crackdown on GI members by the State Security and their families in Egypt.Wright, Looming Towers, (2006), po. 213–15 Tal'at Fu'ad Qasim was arrested in Croatia in 1995.Mayer, Jane, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, 2008. p. 113

Failed nonviolence initiative By 1997, nearly 20,000 Islamists were in custody in Egypt and thousands more had been killed by the security forces. In July of that year, Islamist lawyer Montassir al-Zayyat brokered a deal between the and the Egyptian government, called the Nonviolence Initiative, whereby the movement formally renounced violence. The next year the government released 2,000 members of the Islamic Group. After the initiative was declared Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman also gave his approval from his prison cell in the United States, later withdrawing it. The initiative divided the Islamic Group between members in Egypt who supported it and those in exile who wanted the attacks to continue. Leading the opposition was EIJ leader Ayman Zawahiri who termed it "surrender" in angry letters to the London newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat.Wright, Looming Towers, (2006), po. 255–56

Temple of Hatshepsut attack