The jailed joke-cracking Muslim Brotherhood leader
Essam el-Erian, who was detained this week by the Egyptian authorities, cuts an unusual figure amongst Muslim Brotherhood leaders, reports Jeremy Bowen.
I was not surprised to see Essam al-Erian wearing a big smile in the photo released by Egypt's interior ministry after his arrest. He smiles a lot.
Essam al-Erian is now back in Tora prison
Before President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February 2011 I used to meet Mr el-Erian on one of the islands in the River Nile in Cairo, in a scruffy flat that back then was the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood.
After the revolution they moved into a spanking new HQ. It was burnt down during the coup against the Brotherhood in the summer.
Essam - it was always first names with him - was friendly to Western journalists. He used to answer his mobile phone, make jokes, and agree to interviews.
Not all the other leaders of the Brotherhood were as obliging. His loyalty to the group seemed absolute, but he did not fit into its austere template.
He is, of course, very religious. Like many pious Muslims he sports a callous caused by rubbing his forehead on a prayer mat during the five daily acts of worship.
Once I told Essam that I was not religious. He seemed shocked, even concerned, and as the BBC team left his office he called back Angy, our Egyptian producer, for a pep talk.
As we went back down the narrow, dusty stairs, Angy, who wears a headscarf, said he had told her to make a big effort to explain how important religion was in any life.
He said: "Look Angy, you are free, you are working, you are veiled - what is the problem? Talk to that man and explain religion to him. People like him do not understand."
Religion defines lives in the Middle East, in a way that many people who grew up in secular Europe can find hard to understand. It took me a while to grasp the idea when first I went to live in the region.
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