Tel Aviv University

Hassan al-Banna: Reformist or fundamentalist?

By Federico Gaon (Student ID: 341046043)

Lecturer: Dr. Elisheva Machlis
Foundations for the Advanced Study of Muslim Societies
Fall Semester 2016-2017
Long Paper (8800 words)
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Introduction

Hassan al-Banna (1906-1949), the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, was one of the most
important personalities of the twentieth century, particularly in the context of Middle Eastern
history. He is widely considered one of the founding fathers of political Islam or Islamism; that is, a
modern political ideology, seeking to foster social transformation in light of an ideology based in
Islamic principles and values, either through collective action, or through direct exercise of power.1
Alternatively, to use Uriya Shavits definition, Islamism is an ideology that regards Islam as the
exclusive source of political authority, and political activism as the instrument to instate Islam as
such.2 Most if not all accounts of al-Bannas life emphasize his skills as a political and pragmatic
operator, as well as his emblematic charisma, which allowed him to articulate Egypts first mass
movement. From 1928 until his death, al-Banna used his traits and abilities as a communicator to
mobilize elements in the in the Egyptian urban lower middle-class, conveying new political
meaning to Islam against a background marked by social tensions and turmoil. As Brynjar Lia put
it in his seminary work The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an Islamic Mass
Movement 1928-1942, the essence behind the Brotherhoods appeal was its ability to link issues
which were usually associated with reactionism and backwardness such as Islamic laws and strict
public morality, to the national issues of independence and development.3
There is universal consensus around the notion that the Muslim Brotherhood developed as a
grassroots movement, yet scholars remain divided over al-Bannas true intention regarding state
power. Those who generally consider al-Banna a forerunner of modern Islamic extremism, often
coin the term fundamentalist to describe both the founder and the movement he created.
Evidently, as attested by common use, fundamentalism has a clear negative connotation, and it is
used to denote extremism or radicalism. Those who subscribe to this view, tend to contend that al-

1 There is persistent disagreement about how to define the scope of Islamism, particularly in light of different trends and
attitudes among Islamic associations. For instance, whilst some contemporary groups affiliated with Wahabist ideas
denounce party politics as heretic behavior, others embrace it for practical purposes. As Olivier Roy has noted,
notwithstanding differences in methods, all Islamists acknowledge the necessity of controlling political power, in one way
or another. In this regard, as Gerhard Bwering, Patricia Crone and Mahan Mirza have suggested, Islamism can be
broadly understood as an interpretive framework, from where to note diversity in Islamic-based groups with political
aims. With that being said, the definition proposed here seeks to conciliate between different interpretations. For instance,
while some scholars have emphasized Islamists religious or ideological drive for power, others have centered on
describing modern tendencies. For further reference on this discussion, see Bwering, Crone and Mirza, The Princeton
Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 182-183; and Roy, The Failure
of Political Islam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 35-42.
2 Uriya Shavit, Islam and the West (New York: Routledge, 2014), 3.
3 Brynjar Lia, The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement 1928-1942 (London:
Ithaca Press, 1998), 213.
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Banna sought to implement a totalitarian government under the guise of a legitimate Islamic order.
According to this view, notwithstanding al-Bannas bottom-up, non-revolutionary and gradual
approach towards politics in general, his ultimate objective is systematic state control.4 On the other
hand, those who question that claim tend to argue that hardline elements within the Brotherhood,
rather than al-Banna himself, were largely responsible for the posterior radical politicization of the
movement and its use of violence in a fashion rather consonant with the term Islamic
fundamentalism.5 Moreover, although al-Banna used modern methods and recruitment techniques,
scholars are also divided in regards to the extent in which he accepted these for their intrinsic value.
For instance, scholars closest to the former historiographical tendency have identified al-Banna as a
conservative reaction to modernity, suggesting that he only reluctantly accepted modern elements,
given their practical potential to boost his cause.6 At the other end of the spectrum are scholars who
argue that al-Banna was truly committed to modernist principles, thus seeking to accommodate
Islam with the prevailing Zeitgesit of his age. In any case, it seems evident that al-Banna had an
intellectual debt to a previous generation of thinkers, who collectively formed the Islamic
modernism trend, also known as salafiyyah.
Islamic modernism is a trend of political thought that emerged in the middle of the
nineteenth century among Muslim intellectuals, primarily as a response to European imperialism.
Overall, despite their opposition towards Western expansion in the Middle East, these thinkers
argued that the Islamic civilization had fallen behind as a result of centuries of fallacious religious
practices. In light of European technological advancements and military might, they stressed that
Islam was not grounded in blind faith, and that rationalist thinking played an essential part in the
creed, something purportedly advocated by the salaf, the ancestors; the first three generations of
Muslims. By emphasising reasoning (ijtihad) over tradition in accordance to legal precedent
(taqlid), Islamic modernists represented a renaissance movement. They criticized the dogmatic
rigidity of the ulama, the Muslim jurists, campaigning for an understanding of Islam that embraces

4 See for instance Elie Kedourie, Democracy and Arab Political Culture (Washington: The Washington Institute for Near
East Policy, 1992), 93-95; Martin Kramer, Fundamentalist Islam at Large: The Drive for Power. Middle East Quarterly
(1996) 37-49; Mansoor Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse
(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2005), 197-220; and Nazih Ayubi, El Islam Poltico: Teoras, tradicin y rupturas,
trans. Anna Herrera (Barcelona: Edicions Belaterra, 1996), 186-191.
5Brynjar Lia and Khalil al-Anani remain well-known proponents of this thesis. See Lia, The Society of the Muslim
Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement 1928-1942; and Al-Anani, Inside the Muslim Brotherhood:
Religion, Identity, and Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
6 Richard Mitchell was the most important proponent of this thesis. In his seminal work, The Society of the Muslim
Brothers (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1969) he equalled the Muslim Brotherhood to a reactionary response against
secularization, identifying al-Banna as a pragmatic authoritarian traditionalist. Nevertheless, Mitchell does not attach the
term fundamentalist to al-Banna, nor indicates that he had a distinct concern with state power.
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innovation, considering it something natural to the core of Islam itself. In addition, they urged rulers
of Muslim polities to import and embrace Western technologies in order to bolster their authority,
and conduct their affairs in parity with European powers.7
The purpose of this paper is to contextualize the work of Hassan al-Banna between 1928
and 1949. More precisely, this paper intends to explore the intellectual link between Islamic
modernists and al-Banna, so as to elucidate his character and the extent of his role as a reformer. Al-
Banna adopted the modernists premises, namely, the critique towards clerical Islam and dogmatic
propositions, as well as a strong anti-Imperialist attitude, but introduced a distinct methodology as
far as preaching Islam and obtaining political influence are concerned. Notwithstanding his
adoption of modernist thought, he mobilized supporters in unprecedented ways, while assuming his
as a path independent of Western influence.
In order to contrast al-Banna with previous and contemporary thinkers from the Islamic
modernist camp, the analysis will be based on three prominent representatives of the latter trend,
Jamal al-din al-Afghani (1838/39-1897), Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905) and Rashid Rida (1865-
1935). The paper will show that while the salafiyyah operated in reduced literary circles, al-Banna
appealed to collective action, creating a modern social movement rhetorically articulated under the
banner of Islam. Furthermore, while men like Afghani, Abduh and Rida concerned themselves
with intellectual debates proper, al-Banna was essentially preoccupied with deeds rather than
ideology. In al-Banna, the plight of Islam in the modern world is not to be resolved by the pen, but
by concrete actions directed towards Islamizing the society according to religious principles. In this
respect, scholars who mark al-Banna as a fundamentalist, tend to argue that contemporary Islamic
radicalism was born with the Muslim Brotherhood, because its creator attempted to politicize
religion in order to make it a totalizing component of daily life. Although Afghani, Abduh and
Rida dealt extensively with the problems of their time, they had no clear ambition or program
leading to the politicization of religion using it to create a properly defined social movement. Put
by Mansoor Moaddel, while Islamic modernism aimed at rationalizing religious dogma to show its
consonance with modernity, fundamentalism aimed at Islamizing society through social and
political action, the seizure of the state power being a necessary step in its overall Islamization
project.8 Although it is not the purpose of this paper to address terminological discussions over the

7 Liberal elements within the Islamic modernist trend presented the case for democratic reform, arguing that democratic
institutions were not only compatible with Islam, but preferable to other forms of government in regards to strengthening
the state. For a brief encyclopedic entry on Islamic modernism, refer to Bwering, Crone and Mirza, The Princeton
Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought, 350-351.
8 Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse, 5.
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adequacy of the term fundamentalism applied to an Islamic setting, suffice it to say that scholars
are divided over al-Bannas purported attempt to attain an Islamic state through direct political
action.9 Therefore, framed within this discussion, the term contentious as it might seem ascribes
foremost to the politicization of Islam. As Nazih Ayubi has contextualized, while historically the
state has Islamized politics, fundamentalists want to politicize Islam.10 By the same measure, while
the initial Islamic reformists like Afghani and Abduh fought to modernize Islam, the next
generation of Islamists like al-Banna and the Muslim Brothers fought to Islamize modernity.11
However, as will be discussed here, al-Banna worked on a modern platform and
emphasized social development as a necessary step towards the implementation of his vision. Al-
Banna did not look back to the seventh century as a source of literal inspiration to address the
grievances of modernity, and he did not reject technology or innovation at face value. As a result,
he arguably embodied both a reaction to and an expression of modernity. Hence, his work and
organizational approach cannot be contextualized without referring to al-Bannas intellectual
references, a generation prior, and the context he faced in British-dominated Egypt.

9 Bwering, Crone and Mirza present a relevant summary over the terminological debate in their encyclopedic entry,
alluding to the main objections towards applying fundamentalism to describe Islamic movements. See The Princeton
Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought, 179-182. Shavit also addresses the terminological issue in his introduction to
Islam and the West, 3.

10 Ayubi, El Islam Poltico: Teoras, tradicin y rupturas, trans. Anna Herrera, 219.

11 Ibid., 319.
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Ideological precursors of Hassan al-Banna

Hassan al-Banna was not the founder or the architect of a religious-modernist building of thought.
Notwithstanding original contributions in creating a collective identity his most remarkable
contributions lie not in the realm of ideological production as in the operational field. 12 Al-Bannas
most original and enduring accomplishment lies in his organizational skills in mobilizing rather
successfully contingents of supporters. For this reason, some scholars have noted al-Bannas
efforts to conciliate his platform with politics and nationalism for pragmatic purposes.13
Al-Banna sought solutions to the grievances of his day, and he largely drew on the remedies
prescribed by the modern salafiyya movement, which developed one or two generations before the
Muslim Brotherhood started engaging Egyptian civil society. Like al-Banna, the nineteenth century
philosophers who preceded him dealt primarily with the question of Modernity and its challenges.
Often called Islamic Modernism, the movement they embodied presented a revivalist tendency
aiming to reform Islam in light of its apparent failures in foreseeing the military and scientific might
of the West. To that end, in contrast with the pre-Modern and largely Arabian Wahhabi current, its
advocates found in rationalism a legitimate tool for bolstering Islamic values and offering an
indigenous response to the threat posed by European conquests in Muslim territories. These thinkers
argued that the perceived inferiority of Muslims before Westerners laid in the misrepresentation of
original Islamic values through the centuries. By refraining from embracing rationalist methods, the
community had forsaken the path of the salaf, the ancestors and early caliphs. Instead, the faithful
had allowed misconstructions to consolidate a dogma that could and ought to be scrutinized.14 This
current influenced al-Banna and enabled him to diagnose (and propose a remedy for) the broader
ill-condition of the Muslim society, as he saw it in the early decades of the twentieth century.

12Hassan al-Banna played a significant role in constructing a collective identity for his movement framed with Islamic
references. This development is particularly in Khalil al-Ananis Inside the Muslim Brotherhood: Religion, Identity, and
Politics, 58-66. Anani describes what he calls the Jamaa paradigm, a cognitive system that encompasses and guides
Brotherhood members in everyday life, detailing its aims and objectives, duties and means, and phases and norms. Al-
Anani, 58.

13Some scholars argue that the Muslim Brotherhood adopted nationalist underpinnings, to the extent that it is possible to
analyze Islamism as a modern political movement. Framed with Islamic meanings, the movement appealed to
indigenous elements to construct a distinct speech in national politics. The connection between Islamism and
nationalism has been the focus of scholars like Sami Zubaida, Olivier Roy, and Andrea Mura. See Sami Zubaida, Islam,
the People and the State: Essays on Political Ideas and Movements in the Middle East (New York: Routledge, 1989),
Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, and Andrea Mura,"A genealogical inquiry into early Islamism: the discourse
of Hasan al-Banna." Journal of Political Ideologies vol. 17, no. 1 (2012), 61-85.
14For scholarly accounts of Islamic Modernism and Islamic intellectual history in the nineteenth century, see for example
Albert Houranis Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798 1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983) and
Mansoor Moaddels Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse, 197-220.
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Islamic modernists wrote and spread their ideas at a juncture for the Arab and broader
Muslim world. The event that marked the historical turning point occurred in 1798 with the
Napoleonic expedition in Egypt, a military campaign with profound repercussions in shaping events
to come. As Bernard Lewis put it, two ominous lessons were extracted from the occasion: first that
a relatively small European force could invade Muslim lands with impunity, and second, that only
another European force could expel the former and take its place.15 This realization revealed the
decadence of Ottoman power, which, subsequently, proved unable to retain hegemony against the
backdrop of ascending European empires. The technological contrast between the West and the East
was stark and daunting, and the Ottomans were in no condition to meet the challenge. Throughout
the nineteenth century, whether Europeans attempted to impart a mission civilisatrice upon colonial
subjects, or balance the geopolitical table to the detriment of third actors, Western powers surpassed
the once virtually unstoppable force of the Ottomans. Moreover, given the influence of European
powers, Westerners brought to Islamic domains revolutionary ideas and scientific and
administrative innovations. In this context, prompted into a crisis by European entrenchment in
Middle Eastern affairs, for the most part of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire attempted
administrative reforms to reduce the technological gap with Western powers, with ambivalent
results, to the ultimate downfall of Turkish polity.16 The authorities at Constantinoples Sublime
Porte repeatedly faced the same dilemma; to modernize the State apparatus with European
advancements without endangering or undermining Islamic values, upon which rested the very
same legitimacy of the Empire. In 1839 it launched a series of reforms that would come to define
the reorganization period or Tanzimat of the Ottoman Empire. The rearrangements were oriented
not towards embracing modern secular values or philosophy in government, but rather to secure the
territorial integrity of its domains. As far as the reforms are concerned, the Ottoman society also had
to change in order to accommodate foreign pressures and boost economic development. Hence,
non-Muslim minorities would acquire civil rights and, subsequently in 1856, full equality before the
state. As such, these developments would undermine traditional centuries of Islamic practice and
jurisprudence pertaining the rights of non-Muslims. For instance, the polling tax or jizya would be
superseded, an act which supposed trialing the very same notion of Islamic supremacy over non-

15
See Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong?: The Clash between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East (New York:
Harper Perennial, 2003), 31.
16 Orientalist historiography has traditionally adopted the notion that Modernity inflicted a profound and traumatic rupture
in the Islamic collective. It resulted in a crisis of identity and direction, leading to various intellectual responses,
including Islamic Modernism and more radical formulations. Contemporary exponents of this narrative include Bernard
Lewis and Efraim Karsh. See Lewis, What Went Wrong?: The Clash between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East and
Karsh, Islamic Imperialism: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007).
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believers.17 These structural changes provided the conditions for sectarian rivalry and resentment,
fragmenting the social fabric of the Empire through ensuing revolts and massacres of Christians,
who were by large extent beneficiaries of civil reforms.18
The Tanzimat exposed the surmounting degree of difficulty in harmonizing modernity with
tradition, and in finding compromise between warranted positivist-inspired reforms and Islamic-
based identity. Critically enough, despite the changes, the gaps with Europe continued to increase.
By 1878, in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War, it became manifest that the Empire had lost its
European possessions, perhaps paradoxically, to the Christians who it had vested with legal rights.19
Moreover, notwithstanding administrative reforms and the integration of the Ottomans to the world
economy, by the latter part of the nineteenth century subsequent wars took an enormous toll on
Ottoman finances. Dubbed the sick man of Europe, in 1881 the Turkish state had to accept the
imposition of a European-controlled Debt Administration, a vast bureaucracy established to extract
funds from the treasury to repay foreign creditors who had invested in the Ottoman debt.20
Against the backdrop of ever-growing challenges, the authorities could not maintain the
territorial continuity of the Empire, nor mount an effective response to the tide of nationalism that
swept across its domains during such times. In order to contain separatist impulses, in the last
quarter of the nineteenth century, a new generation of military officers conceived and promoted an
imperial blend of supranationalism, which would come to be known as Ottomanism. For the central
government, this meant fostering patriotic sentiment towards the state through education and
modern institutions amid the various groups and religious communities. However, Ottomanism
embodied a forerunner of Turkish patriotism, and failed to accommodate the inclinations of all
elements in the fragmented and multicultural Ottoman society. By discouraging representations
based on traditional religious or sectarian grounds, Constantinople was dismissing customary
practices, imparting a systematic process of turkification that, in the eyes of non-Turk
intellectuals and clerics, undermined the legitimacy of the Ottoman polity. In short, ironically, the
process upon which unity was to be strengthened caused the exact opposite, accelerating the

17For an account of the Tanzimat era and the decline of the Ottoman Empire, see M. Skr Haniolus A Brief History of
the Late Ottoman Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).
18Notwithstanding reforms oriented towards empowering non-Muslims, throughout the nineteenth century the rise of
nationalism contributed greatly to the territorial diminishment of the Ottoman Empire. In the Middle East, economic and
social ascendency of Christians devolved into violent incidents where Christians were slaughtered by Muslim rioters, in
Aleppo in 1850, the Jeddah in 1858, and in Damascus in 1860. See Eugene Rogan, The Arabs: A History (London:
Penguin, 2012).
19 Haniolu, A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire, 107.
20 Ibid., 135.
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decadence of the once mighty Islamic empire.21

The events of the nineteenth century casted a long shadow in Middle Eastern affairs,
arguably to this day. Given the relationship between state and religion in the Ottoman circumstance,
the decline of the former lead to turmoil in the latter. The prevailing religious discourse had to adapt
to the Modern Era in order to address the abovementioned challenges, and the plethora of
grievances that came along with them. A reform was warranted to account for the new realities and
counter a palpable sense of inferiority among the believers vis--vis Westerners. Muslims were no
longer the masters and governors of their own faith, one that was customarily held as
insurmountable over other religions Reform, thereafter, became a trend among Muslim scholars,
devoted to find answers to the spiritual and physical quagmire of their time. That is, to find what
went wrong, place the blame somewhere, and reestablish the pride of the Islamic creed.
Incidentally, the modernizers attempting to reorganize the Ottoman polity sought religious
legitimacy for their undertaking, bringing about the opportunity to remove dogmatic barriers to
religious innovation, particularly acute in Sunni Islam. Indeed, following the emergence of a plural
intellectual market, rationalism which evoked classic dialectics known to Muslim philosophers
was rebranded and introduced to Islamic shelves as an indigenous product. The rediscovery of
rationalism was not the result of an internal retrospection, but rather an immediate and direct
response spurred by pressing gaps with Europe. In light of this context, an opportunity arose for
new thinkers to embrace modernity as a positive development akin to Islamic sources.22 Amid such
circumstances, as suitably summarized by Israel Gershoni and James P. Jankowski, intellectuals had
an urge to formulate and promulgate a new collective image congruent with an emerging new
order.23 In this respect, for instance, a common trend among reformists was to argue that European
scientific and technological advances were in reality rooted in Islamic enlightenment. According to
the argument, even if Westerners did not acknowledge this notion publicly or consciously, their
progress was nonetheless tacitly built upon the foundations of Islamic sciences developed during

21See Hasan Kayali, Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1918
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 82, and Haniolu, A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire, 107.

22 Hourani and Moaddel argued that Wahhabism, in spite of its rigorous regressive (fundamentalist) character, became
in itself a precedent to challenge established norms and discourse. It allowed reformists to challenge jurists, and debate
religious reform openly. Hourani stressed that the Wahhabi movement had been nearer to a true reform, for it had
attacked the problem as its root, the need for a reformation of morality and doctrine, a return to the fundamentals of
Islam (Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798 1939, 155). That is, to use Moaddels expression, Wahhabi supporters
opened the Pandoras box of rational criticism that expanded the range of permissible expressions in Islamic theology,
weakening the ideological rigidity of Islamic orthodoxy (Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism:
Episode and Discourse, 45). Notwithstanding traditional aversion towards religious innovation, by questioning the piety
of the ulama (Muslim jurists), Wahhabism contributed to the legitimization of religious critique and debate.
23Israel Gershoni, James P. Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search for Egyptian Nationhood, 1900-1930
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 81.
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Islams Golden Age. This exercise enabled apologists of the Islamic modernist variety to convey
the cause for modernizations among the faithful, bypassing conventional objections towards
philosophical innovations, which allegedly undermined the faith, as they presumably casted doubt
on Gods word. In a way, these thinkers saw themselves as the Lutherans of Islam, the Protestants
that strove to return religion to the initial revelation, before subsequent agents tampered with it. 24
That said, although these voices insisted the fatalistic renderings of religion had to be suppressed,
they warned against embracing positivism and secularism full-heartedly.
Three men, particularly representative of the modernist trend, played an important role in
influencing Hassan al-Banna: Jamal al-din al-Afghani (1838/39-1897), Muhammad Abduh (1849-
1905) and Rashid Rida (1865-1935). To different degrees, these men attempted to find a balance
between tradition and innovation, in order to thrust the Islamic community toward the new era. In a
sense, each seemed to have imparted a lesson, influencing the ideology of the Islamist movement
later founded by al-Banna. It is not a coincidence that all four of these men would develop and
disseminate their work in Egypt, the most populous of Arab countries, and one with a distinct sense
of identity. Moreover, Egypt was one of the Arab territories mostly pressed by modern innovations
and foreign non-Muslim presence.25 By the 1870s, the Nile Delta faced a crisis prompted by the
increasing social costs of modernization. An autonomous yet tributary state of the Ottoman Empire,
the country was in debt amid growing dependence on European creditors, and featured little if any
margin for the local populace to exert influence in public affairs.26 In the aftermath of the proto-
nationalist Urabi Revolt, partly spurred by anti-Western sentiment, in 1882 the British seized Egypt,
and would remain dictating policy until 1956, after the Suez Crisis of that year. Against the
backdrop of such turmoil, through the activity of Islamic modernists, in the final quarter of the
nineteenth century Islam began its transformation into an ideological sub-product, as a possible
indigenous solution to problems caused by Europeans. Decades later, by the 1930s, Hassan al-
Banna became instrumental in molding a distinctively modern ideology with elements inherited
from his predecessors. These men thus shared a common sense of crisis prompted by the clash
between traditional social norms and new rapid-changing circumstances affecting the former.
Afghani was the first Muslim activist to entertain the notion of a pan-Islamic movement
within the framework of modernity. Having lived in various Muslim countries, he adopted the
premise of international Islamic solidarity as an attainable political objective. In the face of rampant

24See Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798 1939, 122 and Michaelle Browers and Charles Kurzman
Comparing Reformations in An Islamic Reformation?, (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2004), 1-17.

25 See for instance Rogan, The Arabs: A History, 98-101.

26 Ibid., 139.
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challenges like Western imperialism, he dismissed sectarian and religious differences to highlight
communality among both Sunni and Shia as fellow co-religionists. Using Islam as the foremost
element of identity, he wielded it as a political weapon to counter secularism and European
meddling in Islamic domains. With time, he managed to gain a solid base of supporters, especially
in Egypt, where he lived for almost two decades between 1860 and 1879. Notwithstanding his
advocacy for Muslim unity an ideological pillar of Islamist movements to this day Afghani
sought to foster change through uprisings against European powers.27 But rather than igniting a keg,
he arguably attempted to create one, stuffed with the powder provided by the general panorama. He
did this by pursuing the awakening of the Muslim abodes. He ran publications, penned treatises,
and sought to raise awareness about contemporary issues among reserved, yet prestigious, circles.
He would not create a mass movement, not engage actively in operation rather than intellectual
discussions. Nevertheless, as Nikkie Keddie has argued, Afghani was the initiator of a growing
trend towards the ideologization of Islam. Intellectually, he took religious affairs out of the ulama
and the rulers, and gave it a new popular scope and meaning as a force of social solidarity, dealing
with contemporary matters, such as the European encroachment in the Middle East.28
Muhammad Abduh was a disciple of Afghani, and would also gain notoriety for his
activism in Egypt. However, unlike his master, Abduh came to advocate for conciliation rather
than confrontation with the West. In spite of sharing the same concerns over the plight of Muslims
in coping with modernity and European might, he understood that violence had not produced
results, and would not produce a favorable outcome. Broadly speaking, he tried to find a
compromise and impart such values onto his constituents. He deemed that Europeans, through self-
reasoning, had attained the inventiveness and artfulness supposedly envisioned in the revelation that
was given to Muhammad.29 In this fashion, after attaining a position in Al-Azhar in the 1890s, he
became the most respectable learned voices for reform. His contribution to Islamist ideology,
however, does not entirely lie in the field of religious polemics. By studying the sources, he
reinterpreted possible meanings that would accommodate tenants of religion to modernity. His main
premise was that Islam acted as the moral basis of a modern a progressive society, serving as a
principle of restraint and spiritual enlightenment. In this process, he engaged in topics such as
liberty and self-help, which were of no interest to traditional ulama, and therefore not part of formal

27For scholarly accounts of Jamal al-din al-Afghani see Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798 1939, 103-
129, and Nikki Keddie, An Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal al-din al-
Afghani (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).
28 Keddie, An Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal al-din al-Afghani, 97.
29For scholarly accounts of Muhammad Abduh see Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798 1939, 130-160
and Mark Sedgwick, Muhammad Abduh (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2009).
 Gaon 11

debates of Islamic jurisprudence. In terms of subsequent Islamist though, his legacy seems to derive
from the fact that he embodied the archetype of the modern believer-intellectual.30 Although the
liberal aspect of his work was later undermined by the authoritarian trend of the twentieth century,
which probably influenced al-Banna,31 Abduh overall contribution has to do with his emphasis in
self-learning, and the lasting power of education within the modern context.32 Thereafter, given
Abduhs example, scientific or technical instruction did not preclude the option of religious
education, as one purportedly complemented the other. In hindsight, as scholars and analysts have
repeatedly observed, a prominent number of Islamists from the twentieth and twentieth first
centuries received degrees in medicine, engineering, or applied sciences, without conducting
conventional religious studies at Islamic institutions.33
Rashid Rida, who was a contemporary to Al-Banna, also exerted considerable influence on
the Muslim Brotherhood. Rida adopted the rigorousness of Afghani, and starting with the
publication of a journal in Egypt in 1898, he managed to systematize his predecessors anti-
imperialist stance, giving it ideological depth in the proper sense of the expression. 34 Although
Afghani is noted for his ferocious opposition to colonialism, he was a well-traveled man for his
time, and had established friendly acquaintances in Europe. He opposed colonialism, not the West
per se. Rida, however, was intrinsically anti-Western, and identified Europeans as a perennial
source of moral corruption.35 Afflicted by the political developments of the early twentieth century,
Rida adopted Arab unity wholeheartedly as counterweight to splintering nationalisms, advancing a
syncretic if not blurred proposition between Arab-based identity and pan-Islamism that would
become central to Islamist thought.36 In light of the First World War, Rida exalted the position of

30 Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers, 327.

31See Ana Beln Soage, Hassan al-Banna or the Politicisation of Islam, Totalitarian Movements and Political
Religions, Vol 9, No. 1 (2008): 21-42.
32 Abduh saw education as the main channel through which achieve social progress. In this respect, in 1892 he took part
in the founding of a liberal Muslim Benevolent Society, which was dedicated to this purpose. See Sedgwick, Muhammad
Abduh, 92.
33A new study by Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog explores the connection between Islamists and technical careers.
The authors argue that engineers, and to a lesser extent doctors, are disproportionately represented among radical Islamic
groups, particularly during periods of economic turmoil. See Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog, Engineers of Jihad: The
Curious Connection between Violent Extremism and Education (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016).
34 For a scholarly account of Rashid Rida see Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798 1939, 222-244. Ridas
broader legacy in Islamist thinking is covered by John Willis in Debating the Caliphate: Islam and Nation in the Work of
Rashid Rida and Abul Kalam Azad, The International History Review, Vol 32, (2010): 711-732 , and also by Ana Beln
Soage in Rashid Ridas Legacy, The Muslim World, Vol 98, (2008): 1-23 .
35 Soage, Rashid Ridas Legacy, 13.

36 Whilis, Debating the Caliphate: Islam and Nation in the Work of Rashid Rida and Abul Kalam Azad, 721.
 Gaon 12

the Arabs as the original recipients of Islam, and advocated for Arab unity under the banner of
Islam. He also conceived the re-establishment of a truly Arab caliphate as the nominal spiritual
figurehead of the Islamic domains. Insofar as the Ottoman polity is concerned, Rida developed
radical arguments against it, blaming the Turkish leadership for the steep decadence of Islamic
power, and the distortion of the religion that was supposedly brought about by those who sought to
imitate Europe.37 Although he endorsed Abduh with whom he collaborated, Ridas position was
shaped by the outcome of the war, and the subsequent dismantling of the caliphate in 1924 by the
Kemalist regime.38 Rida argued that, in order to achieve a systemic reversal of Islamic decadence,
the Arabs as a collective had to command their own destiny that is, they had to wield power at
the expense of both European and Turkish masters. Analogically, he articulated strong opposition to
the Zionist project in Palestine, and was one of the first influential voices to do so. Perhaps more
importantly, he expressed his adamant opposition by adopting anti-Semitic slurs uncommon in the
Islamic tradition.39
Rida embodied the most enduring reactionary posture in the salafiyyah movement. In his
stark opposition to the perceived otherness of the West and secular apologists, he found common
ground with the Wahhabi clerics, welcoming their conquest of Mecca under Ibn Saud in 1926.
Despite Wahhabi disdain towards religious innovation (a posture that troubled Abduh), in Ridas
view, the Arabian movement had renewed Islam,40 and served as an inspiration to recover former
glories and reconquer Islamic unity.41 In short, only the Arabs could revive Islam, provided that
their territorial contiguity was preserved, and that Muslim principles and solidarity were cherished
above other influences. Balance between tradition and the requirements of modernity could only be
attained through the preservation of the Islamic faith. The caliph would serve as the guarantor of
such balance, acting as a mujtahid, who would make laws and oversee their application.42 On his
part as will later be discussed Hassan al-Banna conceived in practice a similar position for
himself within the Muslim Brotherhood as a murshid, a guide and teacher hierarchically and

37 Ibid., 718-719.
38 Soage, Rashid Ridas Legacy, 9.
39 Ibid., 12.
40 See note 22 above.
41 Soage, Rashid Ridas Legacy, 10-11.
42 A mujtahid is an Islamic scholar regarded as qualified to perform ijtihad independent or rational reasoning. The term
contrasts with taqlid, which relates to strict imitation of legal precedent. As Hourani argues, Rashid Rida saw the caliph as
the supreme practitioner of ijtihad, a man capable by intelligence and special training [] of applying the principles of
Islam to the changing needs of the world [] (Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798 1939, 240).
 Gaon 13

spiritually above his peers in the movement.43

Islamic modernists lived in an historical juncture, and despite their different undertones,
Afghani, Afghani and Rida shared a common aversion to the classic Islam of the religious scholars,
a broad concern for the worsening political situation of Muslims living under European mandates,
and the influence of secularism in the Islamic collective. For them, modernizing Islam (italics
added) was in fact restoring religion to its purported pristine position, to the time of the revelation,
before it was tarnished by untightened jurists. However, as Nazih Ayubi aptly puts, the religious-
philosophical trend of the modernists did not present an original or essential return to the
foundations of Islam. Rather, they represented new formulations outside the scope of usul al-fiqh
traditional religious jurisprudence, taking place in a sociopolitical context, in response to modern
politics and secularism.44 Breaking the mold of tradition, the modernists addressed society, not the
conventional religious establishment. They argued that one did not necessarily have to graduate
from a madrasa in order to engage in religious and philosophical debate relevant to every days life.
Given the rapid changes of their era, the modernists dealt primarily with contemporary affairs, and
imprinted religious meanings to modern themes broadly ignored by jurists. Nevertheless,
notwithstanding these principles, by the early twentieth century Islamic modernism proved
incapable of gaining hold among the Arab collective. The intellectual production of its luminaires
failed to materialize in political platforms capable of competing with, for instance, secular and
nationalist ideologies in vogue during the 1920s.
Al-Banna himself noticed that the salafiyya failed to anticipate the worsening situation of
the Muslim world. Despite their attempts to reinterpret Islam in accordance with the Modern era,
while their work addressed limited or privileged circles, they neglected to involve the common men
in the process of Islamic revival and transformation. In contrast, as noted by Richard Mitchell, the
Muslim Brotherhood saw itself as a practical extension (amali) of the religious and moral
reformers that laid the ideological foundations for their movement.45 Put by al-Banna, Afghani
sees the problems and warns; Abduh teaches and thinks; and Rida writes and records.46 Or, as
summarized by Khalil al-Anani, while Abduh and Rida focused on reforming religious
institutions and discourse, al-Banna focused on reforming society as a whole.47

43 Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers, 165.

44 Ayubi, El Islam Poltico: Teoras, tradicin y rupturas, trans. Anna Herrera, 219.
45 Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers, 321.
46 Ibid.

47 Al-Anani, Inside the Muslim Brotherhood: Religion, Identity, Politics, 54.

 Gaon 14

Here is where the Islamists would achieve success where the Islamic modernists did not.
Hassan al-Banna enlarged the audience exposed to reformist ideas, and managed to venture into
mass politics, maneuvering in an urban environment, at some point behaving not dissimilarly to
nationalists. As essentially synthesized by Brynjar Lia, following its establishment in 1928, the
movement would achieve prompt expansion due to its ideological appeal and modern
organization which attracted the lower urban middle class.48 For Mitchell, the Brothers represented
a conservative transition to the Modern age. 49 For Albert Hourani, this competency for politics
meant that the Brothers, guided by al-Banna, sought to generate popular energy in order to seize
power rather than to restore the rule of Islamic virtue. 50At any rate, what set al-Banna apart from
his modernist predecessors is an active quest for social and political influence in Egypt, a purpose
served best by embracing Islamic principles and values, which could be used as Andrea Mura
argues as a counter-hegemonic articulation to highlight national signifiers, and thus compete
with secular nationalist movements.51

48 Lia, The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement 1928-1942, 280.

49 Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers, 331.

50 Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939, 360.

51 Andrea Mura, A Genealogical Inquiry into early Islamism: the discourse of Hasan al-Banna, 79-80.
 Gaon 15

The Muslim Brotherhood as a modern social movement

In hindsight, Hassan al-Bannas most notable legacy lies in his capacity as a builder (bani)
of an organized Islamic mass movement.52 Through the Muslim Brotherhood religion became
invariably politicized, for it was constantly used as a totalizing discursive framework applied to
sociopolitical and socioeconomic affairs. Al-Banna tapped on the grievances of a disenfranchised
mass, and proposed to achieve political impact through collective action from below. 53 As
Mitchell remarked, Bannas efforts were aimed towards recruiting energetic supporters; preachers
sympathetic to the needs, feelings, idiosyncrasies, dialectical peculiarities, and local circumstances
of the great masses of workers.54 In light of these remarks, the theoretical approach adopted by
Ziad Munson is particularly useful to contextualize the fast mobilization of the Muslim Brotherhood
in the early 1930s. 55 The author uses the concept of political opportunity structure to explain the
relationship between the Brotherhood and the political environment in which it operated, suggesting
that the overall context provided incentives and opportunities for mobilization that might not been
available against a different background.56 Although the political opportunity structure model has
largely been applied to social movement operating in a Western setting, Munson argues that the
model can also be applied to the Muslim Brotherhood after considering a series of key dimensions
relevant to the Egyptian scene. He thus identifies three important themes to contextualize the
prompt consolidation of Al Bannas social movement: the role of the British in Egyptian political
life, the delegitimation of the formerly popular liberal Wafd party, and finally, the ideological
conflict over the creation of Israel.
In regards to the first dimension, Al-Banna operated during a tumultuous phase in Egyptian
politics. Albeit being nominally independent, Egypt was part of the British Empire in all but in
name. Given Egypts strategic value, partly because of the Suez Canal, London had advisors and
loyal officials in key positions throughout Egypts higher echelons of power. Moreover, Britain had
direct military control of the Suez Canal and the Sudan, both claimed by Egyptian nationalists.

52
Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers, 321.
53 Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, 36.

54 Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers, 190.

55See Ziad Munson, Islamic Mobilization: Social Movement Theory and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, The
Sociological Quarterly Vol. 42, No. 4 (2001): 487-510.
56The political opportunity structure model has been developed by sociologists studying social movements. In short, as
expressed by Peter Eisinger, political opportunity is the degree to which groups are likely to be able to gain access to
power and to manipulate the political system. See Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald. Comparative
perspectives on social movements: Political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and cultural framings. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996), 23.
 Gaon 16

Therefore, during the interwar period, the issue of persisting British influence remained a key focal
point in every public discussion. 57 From its inception, the Muslim Brotherhood became
increasingly involved in such debates, adopting a strong anti-British posture that lead some Western
observers to classify Al-Banna as almost if not fully xenophobic towards European men.58 Yet by
appealing to Islamic values, the group managed to compete with the liberal camp, and present a
formula to Egyptian problems increasingly appealing to the populace vis--vis the solutions offered
by the competing Wafd party.
Concerning the second dimension, as Mansoor Moaddel put it, given that the Wadf and the
Muslim Brotherhood were mutually exclusive, the decline of the former benefited the later.59 The
Brotherhood managed to exploit the factionalism that tarnished Egyptian politics in the interwar
period, deteriorating the image of liberals. On the one hand, albeit enjoying a high degree of
popularity during the early 1920s, repression and political fraud undermined the Wafd image as a
force capable of political change. Factionalism in Egyptian politics resulted in disruptive rivalries
between the parliament, the monarchy, and the British. While each party attempted to gain
prevalence over the other, the latter two played a significant role in obstructing the Wafds abilities
to implement policies, or to move decisively towards independence.60 This perception was later
heightened during World War II by the fact that the liberals aligned with the British.61 Under these
conditions the Wafd lost credibility as a platform for expressing nationalist discontent. Hence the
decline of liberal propositions benefited Al-Bannas standing, leading to the identification of his
ideas as native or indigenous formulations that triumphed over the European references adopted by
competing associations.62
Insofar as Egypt debated the prospective independence from Great Britain, liberal thinkers
argued in favor of reviving ancient pharaonic civilization as a useful historical past for the Egyptian
ethos. Based on the secular European example, pharaonism implied separation of religion and
state, and the replacement of Islamic jurisprudence with positivist expressions. This movement

57Rogan, The Arabs: A History, 192, and Gershoni, Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search for Egyptian
Nationhood, 1900-1930, 40.

58 Lia, The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement 1928-1942, 22.
59Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse, 207, and Rogan, The Arabs:
A History, 214.

60Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse, 207, and Rogan, The Arabs:
A History, 192.

61 Munson, "Islamic Mobilization: Social Movement Theory and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood", 495.

62 Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse, 197-220.
 Gaon 17

drew on European ideological constructs, advocating for a constitutional monarchy. In principle,

this meant that the liberal response to British hegemony sought an accommodation with British-
style institutions. The Wafd thus opposed traditional practices such as polygamy, opposed sharia
courts, and minimized the role of Islam in public life. 63 Nevertheless, many Egyptians purportedly
found it hard to distance themselves from an identitary setting expressed in secular terms. Thus,
when nationalist protests broke out countrywide against British rule in 1919, some sectors
purportedly believed that the turmoil would lead to an extension of the old, bringing about a
prewar state of affairs.64 With this in mind, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood as a social
movement is possibly connected to Al-Bannas capability in offering a synthesis between the old
and the new. Through his charismatic presence, he built a movement offering responses to
popular grievances, using elements from both modernity and tradition.
Al-Banna subscribed with anti-colonial protests, and the movement he created shared the
disdain of nationalist elements towards British influence in domestic and Middle Eastern affairs.
Nonetheless, he accused liberals of adopting the false ideas of the colonizers, whether
intentionally or not. He opposed secular, pharaonic nationalism as an orientalist fallacy, which in
his own words meant the revival of customs of a pagan age which have been swept away.65 In
the process of opposing liberalism by virtue of Islamic slogans, Al-Banna articulated a distinct
political ideology, whose main premise consisted in holding Islam as the perfect, all-encompassing
religion that fits in any society and survives any circumstance.66 His position, summarized in the
slogan Islam is the solution, represented an alternative to the otherwise uncontested political
hegemony of the Wafd during the interwar period, amid a period of considerable domestic as well
as regional upheaval.67 Al-Banna saw Islam as an inclusive system of norms and regulations with
the potential to anticipate or to adapt to every historical conjecture. He stressed that Islam alone
could restore order and justice to the Muslim world, and in this respect, he seemingly drawn
inspiration from Rida. Not unlike his contemporary, he shared the belief that Islam represented the
only safeguard against anarchy and moral deviation. Furthermore, he saw the exercise of political
power as an indispensable requirement to protect the community from internal and external threats.
Applying this principle to the twentieth century, he contended that religion had to become an

63For an broad account of intellectual history in early twentieth century Egypt see Gershoni, Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and
the Arabs: The Search for Egyptian Nationhood, 1900-1930.
64 Ibid., 50.
65 Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse, 213.

66 Al-Anani, Inside the Muslim Brotherhood: Religion, Identity, Politics, 56.

67 Alison Pargeter, The Muslim Brotherhood: From Opposition to Power (London: Saqui, 2013), 9.
 Gaon 18

explicit part of the political order, for Islam encompasses the ruler and the ruled. Thus
according to the bani Caesar and what belongs to Caesar is for Gold Almighty alone.68 As such,
in order to assure the primacy of God over society, the Brothers would seek to replace positivist law
with Islamic law, sharia. In essence, built as a response to secularism in Egyptian society, Al-
Bannas organization equated secular lifestyles with immorality and foreign domination. To restore
and transform society, the Brothers campaigned for fostering religious values amid the populace,
and demanded the moral censorship of practices deemed socially corruptive, such as the selling of
alcohol or prostitution.69
Regarding the third dimension proposed by Munson in terms of political opportunity, the
question of Palestine played a role in bolstering the legacy of the Brotherhood as a pan-Islamic
movement. Starting in 1935, the Brothers carried out intensive work disseminating information
about the Arab campaign against the Zionist project, accelerating the movements entry onto the
Egyptian political scene. Al-Bannas pan-Islamist message calling for the protection of the Islamic
homeland regardless of geographical borders echoed Afghani and Rida, but it also offered the
Brotherhood the opportunity to use patriotism for recruitment purposes, to strengthen the
movement. Thus, the movement promoted itself as a channel through which foreign entrenchment
in the abode of Islam, whether Jewish or British, could be challenged. Subsequently, the
organization staged fundraising efforts to support the Arab cause in Palestine, held rallies, and sent
volunteers to fight during the 1948 war. These actions served as a demonstration of power, which
became an end in itself, insofar as it strengthened the Brotherhoods standing, augmenting the
desired anti-Western backlash.70 The Jewish settlement in Palestine galvanized the population, and
the Brothers exploited the issue to overlap Islamic solidarity with nationalist pan-Arab sentiment. 71
According to this view, to use Olivier Roys characterization of Islamic movements, the Muslim
Brotherhood constitutes an example of Islamo-nationalism, to the extent that it appeals to a pan-
Islamic cause, whilst fitting into the mold of modern Egypt, a nation-state.72 No doubt, the conflict
in Palestine served the Brotherhood to increase its influence, but only because the issue was already

68 Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers, 244.

69 Munson, "Islamic Mobilization: Social Movement Theory and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, 490.

For a historical account of the Muslim Brothers early position towards Zionism in Palestine see Israel Gershoni, The
70

Muslim Brothers and the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936-39, Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 22, no. 3 (1986): 367-397.

71 Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers, 31- 57.

72 See Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, 201.
 Gaon 19

a dominant theme in Egyptian politics, to which naturally al-Banna had to draft a position.73 For the
same token, in light of the circumstances, by the end of the 1930s, al-Banna recognized that Egypts
national character would not fade away, and that, at any rate, it had to be harmonized with Islam. 74
Having politicized religion for domestic purposes, the founder of the Brothers worked
towards building a social order based on the sovereignty of Islam over all aspect of life. However,
unlike future thinkers within the Islamist spectrum who would later accentuate rejection over all
values considered Western75 al-Banna was consistent with intellectual underpinnings of the
Islamic modernists. Despite his opposition towards the perceived Westernization of the country, he
did not reject modernization all together. That is to say, notwithstanding his overreaching emphasis
on sharia and Islam as an order for every aspect of life,76 al-Banna had an intellectual debt with the
Islamic Modernists, and having been instructed in religious as well as secular affairs, he did not
oppose the technological modernization of the country. Rather, he opposed what he called the
doctrine of imitating Europe fikrat al-taqlid al urubbi . Like the apologists who preceded him,
he endorsed innovation as a positive development as long as it was aligned or framed within an
Islamic discourse. For that reason, he envisioned an orderly transition to a genuine modernity, in
a coherent fashion with Islamic values, in harmony with the temperament of the East.77 Al-Banna
endorsed Western technological innovations, but only saw value in such advancements for their
capacity in reaffirming Islam, heightening piety, not harming it.
The most significant intellectual leap between the salafiyya and al-Banna is in fact
methodological. Unlike the salafiyya, al-Banna used his renaissance movement to target the
common people as a whole. He did not target institutions or decision makers directly, but
concentrated his efforts in influencing as many Muslims as he could. This fact underscores a
noticeable different between himself and the Islamic modernists. On one occasion he purportedly
told his followers, I might have not left a lot of books with you but my job is to write men rather

73For instance, Gershoni explains that, during its first years, the Muslim Brotherhood did not have a clear position
towards the Zionist enterprise in Palestine. The Brotherhood only started addressing the issue actively after 1935, once
Arab-Jewish tensions surmounted, and raising anticipation for an open war. See Gershoni, The Muslim Brothers and the
Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936-39, 368.
74 Mura, A Genealogical Inquiry into early Islamism: the discourse of Hasan al-Banna, 77.
75 Oliver Roy and Nazih Ayubi make a distinction between Islamists and fundamentalists or (neo-fundamentalists).
Although both seek to politicize Islam, whilst the former follow the practical framework best exemplified by al-Banna, the
latter reject party-politics outright, and deny the religious adaptability or flexibility adopted by Islamic modernists and al-
Banna. See Ayubi, El Islam Poltico: Teoras, tradicin y rupturas, and Roy, The Failure of Political Islam.

76Richard Mitchell argues that the ultimate objective of the Muslim Brotherhood under Hassan al-Banna resides in
creating an Islamic order, which not necessarily equals an Islamic state. See Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim
Brothers, 234-236
77 Gershoni, Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search for Egyptian Nationhood, 1900-1930, 258.
 Gaon 20

than to write books. When asked to write one, he supposedly responded by saying, In the time
that I would waste in writing a book, I could write one hundred young Muslims. Every one of them
would be a living speaking influential book.78 Thus, while the Islamic modernists generally sought
to create pressure from above, al-Banna adopted a bottom-up approach. Given the broader scope of
his movement as a force for Islamization, while stressing that his platform did not constitute a
political party in the strict sense of Egyptian politics, he acknowledged these were at the heart of his
thinking.79 The bani was an organizational thinker, and a shrewd political operator 80, concerned
foremost with the practical application of religion in society. For instance, despite his rejection of
nationalism, his pragmatic mindset enabled him to conceive a form of loyalty which combined pan-
Islamism with nationalist elements, to the extent that both trends opposed imperialism, and sought
to preserve the territorial integrity of any Islamic homeland.81 Hence, the attitude towards Western
ideals, which he rejected at face value, and not its innovations, marked the irreconcilable difference
between Al-Bannas movement and the Wafd. This synthesis implies, as Mura and Moaddel have
hinted, that the Muslim Brotherhood is not an implicit reaction to imperialism or colonialism, as
indeed was the case with the salafiyyah, but a reaction to secularism and liberalism, as it was spread
in Egypt during the 1920s and 1930s.82 Also, as Lia has noted, the Brotherhoods widespread use of
publications to convey its intentions, and its involvement in political affairs, reveals Al-Bannas
underlying understanding of the political process.83 Indeed, in view of the abovementioned political
factionalism, and the incapacity of the Wafd to achieve results in contending with British
hegemony, the Brotherhood was noted for its activism and discourse.
The Brotherhood provided an extensive network of charities open to the public, to some
extent covering bare social necessities the state was incapable of satisfying, such as healthcare and
lodging. They provided for earthly needs, mounting canteens, organizing schools, communal
networks and recreational spaces outside the framework of the mosque. Meetings took place in
coffee houses and private homes, where religious issues could be debated along with social
grievances and political affairs. In a way, the Brothers devolved religion from the ulama to the

78 Ibid., 21-22.
79 Ayubi, El Islam Poltico: Teoras, tradicin y rupturas, 189.

80 Pargeter, The Muslim Brotherhood: From Opposition to Power, 22.

81 Mura, A Genealogical Inquiry into early Islamism: the discourse of Hasan al-Banna, 71-73.

See Moaddel Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse, and Mura, A
82

Genealogical Inquiry into early Islamism: the discourse of Hasan al-Banna.

83 See Lia, The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement 1928-1942.
 Gaon 21

common men, embedding contemporary debates with religious meaning, all against the backdrop of
modern Egyptian politics. Al-Banna presented himself not as a religious scholar, but as a social
activist and reformer, and he stressed that Islam offered a comprehensive method apt to rebuilding a
just society.84 The charismatic personality of al-Banna was his strongest asset, serving him to
inspire audiences in his quest of Islamizing society.85
The Brotherhood functioned as a vehicle for citizen participation and social development.
In addition to charity services, al-Bannas men worked to bring electricity to the villages, build
more religious centers, and accommodate potential members. This approach was critical in
sustaining the growth of the movement and the appeal of its ideas. In hindsight, Islamism became a
way of engaging with political issues on an everyday basis, under the guise of religious activism.
On the one hand, the Brothers could appeal to the legitimacy religion conveyed in order to boost
their efforts. On the other, in parallel, their actions perusing common welfare enhanced the prestige
of the Islamic discourse in the face of challenging secular ideologies. The Brothers kept direct
communication with the people in various social environments other than the mosque, embedding
the movement with respectability and sincerity based on a personal touch with the membership.86
Through their activism, the Brothers perused dawa among the beneficiaries of their services. That
is, the Brotherhood invited those with whom it interacted with to join the path of Islam, and in
sum, this purpose cast upon the Brotherhood an aura of constancy in satisfying the unfulfilled debts
owed by the authorities. Above all, al-Bannas network constituted a modern grassroots movement
capable of collective action, with an encompassing political ambition.87
Albeit no political representation was available in the context of the Egyptian monarchy,
the Brothers provided the fellow man with spiritual as well as physical containment. The efficacy
al-Bannas approach is attested by the rapid growth of the movement. Four years after its creation,
the movement transferred its headquarters to Cairo, from where it could spread its message in the
most important city in the country. From there, the Muslim Brotherhood grew consistently in
numbers until it became of one the main contenders in the national public scene. From having five
offices in 1930 and fifteen in 1932, the decision to move to Cairo allowed the movement to reach
three hundred representations by 1938, and near two thousands by 1949. Although the exact number

84 Al-Anani, Inside the Muslim Brotherhood: Religion, Identity, Politics, 58.

85 See Lia, The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement 1928-1942.

86 Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers, 9.

87Al-Anani, Inside the Muslim Brotherhood: Religion, Identity, Politics, 55, and Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim
Brothers, 264.
 Gaon 22

of the membership cannot be ascertained, Mitchell supposed that the aforementioned three hundred
chapters summed between 50,000 and 150,000 members; and that the two thousand represented
somewhere between 300,000 and 600,000 members making the Muslim Brotherhood the most
organized force in the country.88 From its beginnings in Ismailia, the Brotherhood concentrated its
effort in the most populous locales of Egypt. Furthermore, by positioning itself in Cairo, it was able
to project mass activism in the core of the country, rallying a social base composed of middle
income professionals from the urban areas.
In the years prior and during the Second World War, the organization had moved from
being an extensive social network to become a political organization proper. In 1942 the
Brotherhood presented 17 candidates for the parliamentary elections, including al-Banna as
candidate for the Ismailia district. Nevertheless, al-Banna was subject of intensive scrutiny by the
liberal government, and he was pressed to withdraw all the candidacies of the Brotherhood, while
recognizing the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, which legally cemented British power in the country.
Notwithstanding al-Bannas condemnation of multiparty politics, his maneuvering in such field
casts a light on his traits as a political figure. In return for him stepping aside, Al-Banna was able to
negotiate freedom of action for his movement, obtaining a ban on prostitution and on alcohol. Thus,
the event illustrates the gradualist approach in the Brotherhoods strategy, from resting primordially
in grassroots activities to make dawah among the populace, creating political awareness to create
pressure, as to influence the upper-echelons of society from below.Under al-Banna, the concept of
movement development was gradual, and seems to have been inspired by Abduhs purported
moderation. In fact, al-Banna stressed the importance of education among ranks, conceiving a
scheme of planned stages for upward mobility within the movement, as part of a broader effort to
bring about the desired social change.89 However, as a result of such political maneuvers, the
discourse of the Brotherhood was at times ambivalent. Given the scope of the movement, by the
1940s al-Banna faced political repression insofar he had to calculate attached to his statements and
actions.
This paralyzing effect over the Brotherhood would survive Al-Bannas death in 1949.
Whilst the Egyptian security serviced purportedly had Al-Banna killed, the movement lived on. It
was, nonetheless, beset by international divisions, between different impulses and trends. For this
reason, Al-Bannas often ambiguous position regarding concrete political objectives has lead to a
scholarly debate over his real intentions in regards to excessing state power. For instance, Mitchell

88 Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers, 328.

89Al-Anani, Inside the Muslim Brotherhood: Religion, Identity, Politics, 63; Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim
Brothers, 37; and Pargeter, The Muslim Brotherhood: From Opposition to Power, 24.
 Gaon 23

made a distinction between an Islamic order and a Muslim state, and ultimately suggested that
al-Banna was not after direct political power. Mitchell has suggested that Al-Bannas main interest
lay in the idea of a prevailing Islamic order, not in governing through state institutions.90 Lia, on the
other hand, has suggested that radical elements were responsible for the Brotherhoods paramilitary
arm, and for harvesting hardliners in the movement.91 Moreover, as noted earlier, Hourani believed
that al-Banna intended to seize power.92 Ayubi and Moaddel, both inclined to labeling Al-Banna as
a fundamentalist, share the same inclination.93
In retrospect, al-Banna became the first prominent figure in the Arab world to use Islam as
a rallying cause among the masses, openly discussing the question of Egyptian identity and
modernization. His charismatic personality, and the appeal of his ideas galvanized public support to
generate collective action in ways not seen until the rise of Arab nationalism. His legacy is attested
by the fact that he has become a spiritual reference for the movement worldwide, attaining an
iconic status within the movement94 Moreover, al-Banna introduced political Islam or Islamism to
the twentieth century, setting a powerful example that would have significant political repercussions
up to contemporary times.

90 Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers, 234.

91 Lia, The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement 1928-1942, 178.
92 Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939, 360.

93See Ayubi, El Islam Poltico: Teoras, tradicin y rupturas, and Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and
Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse.
94 Pargeter, The Muslim Brotherhood: From Opposition to Power, 18.
 Gaon 24

Conclusion: Hassan al-Banna, Modernist or fundamentalist?

This paper has demonstrated that Hassan al-Banna embodied both a reaction to and an expression of
modernity. While some authors define him as a forerunner of contemporary Islamic
fundamentalism, given his purported attempts to Islamize modernity, he was seemingly aware of
his surroundings, and the inevitable coming of modern politics in Egypt. Whether al-Banna
embraced modernity reluctantly or openly has been the subject of scholarly debate. However, at any
rate it seems clear that al-Banna was instrumental in creating a political consciousness among the
Muslim lower urban and middle classes, disenchanted with the traditional political figures coming
from elitist backgrounds. This approach towards his audience marks a significant shift from the
methods employed by Islamic modernists, who relied on publications and personal relationships
with notables and literary circles to get their message across. In this regard, notwithstanding his
religious conservatism, and sense of mission oriented towards creating an Islamic order, al-Banna
does not stand out as an ideologue, but as a political operator, centered in accommodating principle
to practicality. Unlike Afghani, Abudh and Rida, he did not present the credentials of a scholar, but
as a fellow Muslim activist, concerned with widespread grievances and the diminishment of Islam
in public life. However, similar to his predecessors, al-Banna did not engage in theological
discussions. Whereas the Islamic modernist avoided such disputes, opting to focus on developing
new interpretations and meanings to tradition, al-Banna disregarded differences in religion
altogether.
By virtue of al-Bannas personal charisma and organizational skills, the Brotherhood
became the first mass movement in Egypt to extend membership and participation to broader
elements of society. Although Islam played a role as a universal signifier, used to legitimize its
activities and influence political action, the movement engaged wholeheartedly in modern methods,
reasserting Islam through press campaigns, pamphlets, and open demonstrations. In a way, by
extending participation and social services to the masses, the Brotherhood served as a de facto
democratizing element in Egyptian society. The platform allowed the disenfranchised to discuss
politics and benefit from the social network and welfare services the organization provided,
covering necessities beyond the capacity of the state. These activities underscore that al-Banna
successfully managed to exploit political opportunities around him. The Brotherhood managed to
capitalize on the shortcomings of the state, and on the inability of traditional platforms, chiefly the
Wafd liberal party, to co-opt segments in the lower middle-class. By the same token, the pan-
 Gaon 25

Islamic, anti-imperialist rhetoric of the Brothers, albeit not an original ideological production,
contributed to mobilizing supporters, particularly amid British intervention in Egyptian politics,
which undermined the legitimacy of the Wafd, and in light of the Zionist enterprise in Palestine.
In balance,to label al-Banna a fundamentalist is to stress (with a negative connotation) the
fact that he sought to politicize Islam, conveying that religion has a practical purpose in public and
state affairs, which goes far beyond piety. Yet the regressive sense of the term fails to account for
al-Bannas reconciliatory position towards modern politics. In stark contrast with contemporary
militant Islamic movements of today, usually referred to as fundamentalists, including Al-Qaeda
or the Islamic State (IS), the Muslim Brotherhood under al-Banna did not condemn party politics as
a system alien to Islamic law. Despite being ambivalent towards nationalism and multiparty
politics, pragmatic as he was, he reached a compromise in order to advance his cause. As such, al-
Banna can hardly be considered a traditionalist or an extremist, in a fashion likened to Wahhabi
trends. That being said, al-Bannas bottom-up approach postponed the drafting of a specific
program to gain direct political power over the entire country. This means that whilst Al-Banna is
noted for introducing the notion that social transformation could be achieved from below, and not
necessarily through state power, his ulterior motives or ambitions towards exercising power for
Islamizing purposes remains elusive. Considering that al-Banna saw Islam as an all-reaching,
totalizing moral force, some authors have argued that achieving state power was his intent in the
first place, which gives weight to the regressive meaning conveyed by the term fundamentalist.
Due to the evident inconvenience and vagueness posed by this term, it would seem
convenient to drop its usage. Al-Banna was indeed a reactionary, in the sense that he articulated
Islam as an indigenous response to colonialism and secularism. Yet he also followed the reformist
trend of his predecessors, and encouraged innovation through education. By mobilizing the masses,
he simplified the message of Islam so as to end the traditional submissiveness of the politically
excluded majorities. In other words, he was a smuch a student from Afghani and Risa as he was
from Abduh.
In light of these dual circumstances, the term political Islam, or Islamism, reflects a less
emotion-laden term to describe the shifting dynamic introduced by the murshid. Scholars are bound
to continue disagreeing over the ulterior motives of al-Banna. Nevertheless, there is consensus
around his historic role in taking religion to a popular political level. Even if the Brotherhood under
al-Banna represented a conservative transition towards modernity, in that process he gave shape
to a distinctively modern social phenomenon, a syncretic formula that revolutionizes the role of
Islam as a political, popular force for better or worse according to the source.
 Gaon 26

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