About
Egyptian journalist and researcher. He writes on Islamists and the state, and investigates wars through satellite imagery and documents.
Photo: east of Gaza, January 2013.
Abdelrahman Ayyash began writing as a blogger, on al-Gharib. He trained as a computer engineer in Mansoura, then turned to journalism and research.
In Istanbul he co-founded Noon Post and later led the investigations unit at HuffPost Arabi. His report from the migrant boats of the Mediterranean won first prize at the 2017 Migration Media Award.
He worked as a researcher in Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division and as a research fellow at The Century Foundation, where he co-authored Broken Bonds, on the crisis of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. He was a case manager at the Freedom Initiative in Washington, and a senior policy manager at the Middle East Democracy Center; in 2018 he was a non-resident fellow at the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED). He now leads the Investigations and Features Unit at Al Jazeera Net, and lives in Edinburgh.
He has translated three books into Arabic, on armies, dictatorships and the Brotherhood, and is writing a book on the Brotherhood and the state.
Year by year
Blogging
Wrote the blog al-Gharib (The Stranger) and took part in Ikhwanophobia, an English-language blog written by young Brotherhood members. In 2009 the scholar Khalil al-Anani named him among the group’s leading young bloggers.
The January revolution
A university student when he went to Tahrir Square. He wrote a chapter on the negotiations that followed the revolution for a book published by the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies.
Gaza and Idlib
Reporting from the eastern edge of the Gaza Strip, and from camps for the displaced in rural Idlib.
Co-founds Noon Post and becomes its chief editor
A pan-Arab site for young writers after 2011, run by a team of journalists and translators.
Rabat and Doha
From the Noon Post years.
Senior journalist and investigations editor at HuffPost Arabi
Led the investigations unit and managed reporters in several countries.
Twenty days on a sea of darkness
Three weeks aboard the rescue ship Aquarius between Libya and Malta, within more than two months of reporting. HuffPost Arabi ran the report in March; in June it won first prize for Arabic online reporting at the Migration Media Award.
Human Rights Watch, and an MA in Istanbul
Assistant researcher in the Middle East and North Africa Division. Conducted more than 200 interviews and co-authored two reports on Egypt, on extrajudicial killings and on children in detention. From April to October he was a non-resident fellow at the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), tracking disinformation and checking news and political claims.
Al Jazeera Net, and Paris
Writer and editor, and from 2026 lead of the Investigations and Features Unit.
The Century Foundation, and The Freedom Initiative
Research fellow leading a working group on political Islam and civil-military relations in Egypt. From October 2021 to December 2023 he was a case manager at the Freedom Initiative: documenting abuses, gathering testimony, following the cases of more than 80 political detainees in Egypt, and building advocacy plans and procedures to protect information.
Broken Bonds
A book-length study of the Muslim Brotherhood’s crisis in Egypt from 2013 to 2022, with Amr ElAfifi and Noha Ezzat. In October he and ElAfifi presented it at the LSE Middle East Centre, with Jeroen Gunning in the chair.
The Middle East Democracy Center
From January 2024 to July 2025, senior policy manager for the Democracy Matters Initiative. He planned its work, coordinated researchers, editors and partners, oversaw its publications in Arabic and English, set its Arabic editorial standards and moderated its panels.
Cambridge, and a report on transnational repression
Presented “Escaping Presentism: Hamas, Memory and the Politics of Endurance in Gaza” at the BRAIS conference, and led the research team for Wherever They Go, the Egyptian Human Rights Forum’s second annual report.
A peer-reviewed chapter, and an investigations unit
Publishes a chapter on the politics of time in Islamic movements, and leads the Investigations and Features Unit at Al Jazeera Net.
In academic research
Research interviews
Studies whose authors interviewed him and used the interviews in their analysis.
- Democracy or Authoritarianism: Islamist Governments in Turkey, Egypt, and TunisiaAcademic book · Şebnem Gümüşçü, Cambridge University Press, 2023, p. 267 (interviews)Interviews: 11 January 2016, Istanbul; 27 October 2016, by Skype; 2 August 2017, IstanbulA comparative study of Islamist rule in Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia. He is in its list of interviews.
- The Early Muslim Brotherhood: Tarbiyah as the Foundation of Hasan al-Banna’s Project of Islamic Revival and ReformDoctoral dissertation · Khalidah Ali, University of Toronto, 2022, pp. 200–201, 219Interviews: October 2017, IstanbulQuotes his view that the oath and trust ran one way, and that tarbiya sessions instilled them from an early age to shore up the leaders’ authority.
- The Fourth Ordeal: A History of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, 1968–2018Academic book · Victor J. Willi, Cambridge University Press, 2021, pp. xii, xvi, 16, 38, 160–161, 272, 330, 404Interviews: 2 October 2015, Berlin; 30 December 2016 and 13 August 2018, IstanbulThe book built on the dissertation. Lists three interviews with him, thanks him among those who helped gather information, and cites his 2015 Carnegie analysis.Cites his workAcknowledgment
- Leading Protests in the Digital Age: Youth Activism in Egypt and SyriaAcademic book · Billur Aslan Özgül, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, pp. 95–102, 127Interviews: 2013, IstanbulUses his account of the first days of the revolution in Mansoura, and thanks him among those who introduced her to activists.Acknowledgment
- Inside the Muslim Brotherhood: Religion, Identity, and PoliticsAcademic book · Khalil al-Anani, Oxford University Press, 2016, p. xiNamed in the acknowledgments among current and former members interviewed for the study. Ayyash later translated the book into Arabic.
- The Fourth Ordeal: A History of the Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt (1973–2013)Doctoral dissertation · Victor J. Willi, University of Oxford (DPhil), 2015, pp. 153, 226, 265Interviews: 2 October 2015, BerlinDraws on the interview for the roles of Khairat al-Shater and Essam al-Haddad during Mohamed Morsi’s presidency.
- The Construction of Islamic Identity in Everyday Life: The Case of the Muslim Brotherhood in EgyptDoctoral dissertation · Khalil Mohamed Ibrahim, Durham University, 2013, pp. 153, 174–176, 200, 206–207, 214, 236–237Interviews: 11 and 12 January 2012; 26 March 2012, CairoDraws on his interviews in the chapters on recruitment, membership ranks, tarbiya, the oath of allegiance, obedience, and how leaders treat dissenters.
- Digital Dissidence and Political Change: Cyberactivism and Citizen Journalism in EgyptDoctoral dissertation · Courtney C. Radsch, American University, 2013, pp. 192, 293, 338, 366, 416Interviews: 10 March 2008, CairoLists his blog al-Gharib among Egypt’s first generation of citizen journalism, and studies his path as a young Brotherhood blogger: his 2008 question about the group’s stance on the strikes, and his 2007 call to gather the group’s bloggers.Studies his experienceCites his work
- Egypt: Freedom and Justice to the Bedouins in Sinai? A Study of the Freedom and Justice Party’s Policy Towards the Bedouin Minority in SinaiMaster’s dissertation · Heidi Breen, University of Oslo, 2013, pp. 15–16, 51, 60, 100Interviews: October 2012, Cairo, after a tour of north SinaiUses his account of the Sinai attacks and of Hamas’s ties with armed groups there.
Research about his experience
Work on his early blogging and activism.
- The Young Brotherhood in Search of a New PathInstitutional report · Khalil al-Anani, Hudson Institute, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, 2009Names him among the leading young Brotherhood bloggers, as the author of al-Gharib.
Citations of his publications
A citation is not an endorsement either way.
- 2025A Wave of Unbelief? Conservative Muslims and the Challenge of Ilḥād in the Post-2013 Arab WorldJournal article · Sebastian Elsässer, Religions 16 (6): 670, 2025Quotes Broken Bonds on the blogger generation and draws on its chapters on young members’ doubts after 2013.
- 2025The AKP and the Muslim Brotherhood: Making and Unmaking an Islamist Alliance in the Middle East and EuropeInstitutional report · Jan-Markus Vömel, Dokumentationsstelle Politischer Islam (Vienna), Study Report 07, 2025Cites “The Turkish Future of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood” and Broken Bonds.
- 2024A movement in exile: the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s survival action frames in the post-coup era (2013–2023)Journal article · Carmen Fulco and Doha S. Abdelgawad, The Journal of North African Studies 30 (3), 2024Cites four of his works: the Carnegie analysis (2015), the Arab Reform Initiative paper (2019), the Century Foundation paper (2020) and Broken Bonds (2023).
- 2024Turkiet i Afrika – Afrikapolitikens utveckling under AKP, 2002–22Institutional report · Anna Ida Rock and Aron Lund, FOI, Swedish Defence Research Agency, FOI-R--5595--SE, 2024Cites “The Turkish Future of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood”.
- 2022The Symbolic Struggle for the Arab Spring: Political Fields and Foreign Policy in the Middle EastDoctoral dissertation · Francesco D’Alema, University of Edinburgh, 2022, pp. 133–134, 212Cites “The Turkish Future of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood” on how the Brotherhood saw the AKP.
- 2022Erdoğan and the Muslim Brotherhood: an outside-in approach to Turkish foreign policy in the Middle EastJournal article · Hakkı Taş, Turkish Studies 23 (5), 2022Cites “The Turkish Future of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood”.
- 202110 Years On: New Contextual Factors in the Study of IslamismJournal article · Lucia Ardovini and Erika Biagini, Middle East Critique 30 (4), 2021Cites the policy brief he wrote with Victor J. Willi for the German Council on Foreign Relations (2016).
- 2020Grievances and Fears in Islamist Movements: Revisiting the Link between Exclusion, Insecurity, and Political ViolenceJournal article · Ioana Emy Matesan, Journal of Global Security Studies 5 (1), 2020Cites his Arab Reform Initiative paper on the Brotherhood in Egyptian prisons (2019).
- 2020Re-examining Hasan al-Banna’s Model of Da’wah in the Post-Arab Spring EraBook chapter · Khalidah Ali, In Arab Spring: Modernity, Identity and Change, eds Eid Mohamed and Dalia Fahmy. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 79–96, 2020Cites his 2015 Carnegie analysis.
- 2015The Brotherhood DividedInstitutional report · Samuel Tadros, Hudson Institute, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, 2015Cites his Carnegie analysis on violent rhetoric spreading among some members.
Acknowledgments
Books and dissertations whose authors thanked him for help or discussion.
- Jannis Julien Grimm, Contested Legitimacies: Repression and Revolt in Post-Revolutionary Egypt, Amsterdam University Press, 2022, p. 9 · Thanked in the acknowledgments.
- Jannis Julien Grimm, Contesting Legitimacy: Protest and the Politics of Signification in Post-Revolutionary Egypt, Freie Universität Berlin, 2019, p. vii · Thanked among those who discussed the work at conferences and workshops.
- Ismail Yaylaci, Performative Socialization in World Politics: Islamism, Secularism, and Democracy in Turkey and Egypt, University of Minnesota, 2014, p. ii · Thanked among Egyptian friends during fieldwork in Egypt.
The full CV.
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