Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiyya

Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiyya

Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (Arabic: الجماعة الإسلامية‎ al-jamāʻah al-islāmīyah, "the Islamic Group"; also transliterated El Gama'a El Islamiyya; also called "Islamic Groups" and transliterated Gamaat Islamiya, al Jamaat al Islamiya) is an Egyptian Sunni Islamist movement, and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union. The group is (or was) dedicated to the overthrow of the Egyptian government and replacing it with an Islamic state.

The group(s) is said to have constituted "the Islamicist movement's only genuine mass organizations" in Egypt. The group is reported to be responsible for the killing of hundreds of Egyptian policemen and soldiers, civilians, and dozens of tourists in a violent campaign in the 1990s. While the assassination of the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981 is generally thought to have been carried out by another Islamist group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, some have suggested al-Gamaa was responsible for or at least related to the assassination. In 2003 the imprisoned leadership of the group renounced bloodshed, and a series of high-ranking members have since been released by Egyptian authorities, and the group has been allowed to resume semi-legal peaceful activities. The now imprisoned cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman was a spiritual leader of the movement, which actively campaigns for his release.

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.