CAIRO — Conflicts within the Muslim Brotherhood led Sept. 13 to violent clashes between advocates and opponents of the intellectual revisions carried out by the group in Fayoum prison. Similar clashes had broken out Sept. 2 in the same prison located in the Fayoum governorate, southwest of Cairo.

Before their regime was overthrown on July 3, 2013, the Muslim Brotherhood had their ducks in a perfect row, but the conflict with the Egyptian state seems to have exposed their weakness and brought to the surface internal conflicts plaguing the group.

It all started when on Aug. 1, when Amr Abdel Hafiz, a young member of the Muslim Brotherhood, imprisoned in Fayoum, announced to a number of newspapers that he and other young members of the Brotherhood in that prison called for intellectual and political revisions. In these revisions, members of the Muslim Brotherhood — to reconcile with the state and get out of prison — would admit that they made a mistake adopting extremist religious ideas and opting for erroneous political practices. These calls were supported by several activists in the group such as Hamza Mohsen.

In a press statement in August, Abdel Hafiz revealed that advocates of such revisions in the group had completed a number of booklets containing their final recommendations and the lessons they drew from their mistakes. He said that the booklets would be distributed to all Brotherhood members imprisoned following the riots and violence that occurred after July 3, 2013.