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Famous
Personalities of the Global Islamic Movement Throughout History
Imam Hassan al
Banna (October 14, 1906 – February 12, 1949, Arabic:
حسن البنا) was an Egyptian social and political reformer
best known as founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Hassan al-Banna was the founder of the Muslim
Brotherhood or Society of the Muslim Brothers, one of
the largest and most influential Sunni revivalist
organization in the 20th century. Created in Egypt in
1928, the Muslim Brotherhood became the first
mass-based, overtly political movement to oppose the
ascendancy of secular and Western ideas in the Middle
East. The brotherhood saw in these ideas the root of the
decay of Islamic societies in the modern world, and
advocated a return to Islam as a solution to the ills
that had befallen Muslim societies. Al-Banna's
leadership was critical to the spectacular growth of the
brotherhood during the 1930s and 1940s. By the early
1950s, branches had been established in Syria, Sudan,
and Jordan. Soon, the movement's influence would be felt
in places as far away as the Gulf and non-Arab countries
such as Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Driving
this expansion was the appeal of the organizational
model embodied in the original, Egypt-based section of
the brotherhood, and the success of al-Banna's writings.
Translated into several languages, these writings have
since shaped generations of Sunni religious activists
across the Islamic world.
Banna was born in 1906 in Mahmudiyya, Egypt (north-west
of Cairo). His father, Shaykh Ahmad al-Banna, was a
respected local imam (prayer leader) and mosque teacher,
educated at Al-Azhar University, who wrote and
collaborated on books on Muslim traditions, and also had
a shop where he repaired watches and sold gramophones.
Though Shaykh Ahmad al Banna and his wife owned some
property, they were not wealthy and struggled to make
ends meet, particularly after they moved to Cairo in
1924. Like many others, they found that Islamic learning
and piety were no longer as highly valued in the
capital, and that craftsmanship could not compete with
large-scale industry.
When Hassan al-Banna was twelve years old, he became
involved in a Sufi order, he and became a fully
initiated member in 1922.
When he was thirteen, Banna participated in
demonstrations during the revolution of 1919 against
British rule.
In 1923, at the age of 16, Al-Banna moved to Cairo to
enter the famous Dar al-'Ulum college. Life in the
capital offered him a greater range of activities than
the village and the opportunity to meet prominent
Islamic scholars (in large measure thanks to his
father's acquaintances), but he was deeply disturbed by
effects of Westernization he saw there, particularly the
rise of secularism and the breakdown of traditional
morals. The four years that Al-Banna spent in Cairo
exposed him to the political ferment of the Egyptian
capital in the early 1920s, and enhanced his awareness
of the extent to which secular and Western ways had
penetrated the very fabric of society. It was then that
Al-Banna became particularly preoccupied with what he
saw as the young generation's drift away from Islam. He
believed that the battle for the hearts and minds of the
youth would prove critical to the survival of a religion
besieged by a Western onslaught. While studying in
Cairo, he immersed himself in the writings of the
founders of Islamic reformism (the Salafiyya movement),
including the Egyptian Muhammad 'Abduh, under whom his
father had studied while at Al-Azhar. But it was 'Abduh's
disciple, the Syrian Rashid Rida, who most influenced
Al-Banna. Al-Banna was a dedicated reader of Al-Manar,
the magazine that Rida published in Cairo from 1898
until his death in 1935. He shared Rida's central
concern with the decline of Islamic civilization
relative to the West. He too believed that this trend
could be reversed only by returning to an unadulterated
form of Islam, free from all the accretions that had
diluted the strength of its original message. Like Rida
at the end of his life — but unlike 'Abduh and other
Islamic modernists — Al-Banna felt that the main danger
to Islam's survival in the modern age stemmed less from
the conservatism of Al-Azhar and the ulama (which he
nevertheless criticized) than from the ascendancy of
Western secular ideas.
He was equally disappointed with what he saw as the
failure of the Islamic scholars of al-Azhar University
to voice their opposition to the rise of atheism and to
the influence of Christian missionaries.
In his last year at Dar al-'Ulum, he wrote that he had
decided to dedicate himself to becoming "a counsellor
and a teacher" of adults and children, in order to teach
them "the objectives of religion and the sources of
their well-being and happiness in life". He graduated in
1927 and was given a position as an Arabic language
teacher in a state primary school in Isma'iliyya, a
provincial town located in the Suez Canal Zone.
It was to spread this message that Al-Banna launched the
Society of the Muslim Brothers in March 1928. At first,
the society was only one of the numerous small Islamic
associations that existed at the time. Similar to those
that Al-Banna himself had joined since he was 12, these
associations aimed to promote personal piety and engaged
in charitable activities. By the late 1930s, it had
established branches in every Egyptian province. A
decade later, it had 500,000 active members and as many
sympathizers in Egypt alone, while its appeal was now
felt in several other countries as well. The society's
growth was particularly pronounced after Al-Banna
relocated its headquarters to Cairo in 1932. The single
most important factor that made this dramatic expansion
possible was the organizational and ideological
leadership provided by Al-Banna.
In Isma'iliyya, in addition to his day classes, he
carried out his intention of giving night classes to his
pupils' parents. He also preached in the mosque, and
even in coffee-houses, which were then a novelty and
were generally viewed as morally suspect. At first, some
of his views on relatively minor points of Islamic
practice led to strong disagreements with the local
religious élite, and he adopted the policy of avoiding
religious controversies.
He was appalled by the many conspicuous signs of foreign
military and economic domination in Isma'iliyya: the
British military camps, the public utilities owned by
foreign interests, and the luxurious residences of the
foreign employees of the Suez Canal Company, next to the
squalid dwellings of the Egyptian workers.
Hassan al-Banna is known to have great impact in the
modern Islamic thought. He managed to (re)introduce
Islam as an all-inclusive system of life, providing a
practical example through his society.
He endeavored to bring about the changes he hoped for
through institution-building, relentless activism at the
grassroots level, and a reliance on mass communication.
He proceeded to build a complex mass movement that
featured sophisticated governance structures; sections
in charge of furthering the society's values among
peasants, workers, and professionals; units entrusted
with key functions, including propagation of the
message, liaison with the Islamic world, and press and
translation; and specialized committees for finances and
legal affairs.
In anchoring this organization into Egyptian society,
Al-Banna skillfully relied on pre-existing social
networks, in particular those built around mosques,
Islamic welfare associations, and neighborhood groups.
This weaving of traditional ties into a distinctively
modern structure was at the root of his success.
Directly attached to the brotherhood, and feeding its
expansion, were numerous businesses, clinics, and
schools. In addition, members were affiliated to the
movement through a series of cells, revealingly called
usar (families. singular: usrah). The material, social
and psychological support thus provided were
instrumental to the movement's ability to generate
enormous loyalty among its members and to attract new
recruits. The services and organizational structure
around which the society was built were intended to
enable individuals to reintegrate into a distinctly
Islamic setting, shaped by the society's own principles.
Rooted in Islam, Al-Banna's message tackled issues
including colonialism, public health, educational
policy, natural resources management, Marxism, social
inequalities, Arab nationalism, the weakness of the
Islamic world on the international scene, and the
growing conflict in Palestine. By emphasizing concerns
that appealed to a variety of constituencies, Al-Banna
was able to recruit from among a cross-section of
Egyptian society — though modern-educated civil
servants, office employees, and professionals remained
dominant among the organization's activists and
decisionmakers.
As the society expanded during the 1930s, it quickly
changed from a movement for spiritual and moral reform
into an organization directly active on the Egyptian
political scene. Concurrent with that transformation,
radical tendencies asserted themselves within the
organization. A "secret apparatus" (al-jihaz al-sirri)
was formed that engineered a series of assassinations of
enemies of the brotherhood.
Between 1948 and 1949, shortly after the society sent
volunteers to fight in the war in Palestine, the
conflict between the monarchy and the society reached
its climax. Concerned with the increasing assertiveness
and popularity of the brotherhood, as well as with
rumors that it was plotting a coup, Prime Minister
Nuqrashi Pasha disbanded it in December 1948. The
organization's assets were impounded and scores of its
members sent to jail. Less than three weeks later, the
prime minister was assassinated by a member of the
brotherhood. This in turn prompted the assassination of
Al-Banna, presumably by a government agent, in February
1949, when Al-Banna was still only 43 and at the height
of his career.
He is the grandfather of Tariq Ramadan and older brother
of Gamal al-Banna. |
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