Hassan al-Banna is the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement that has followers around the world. The movement is the first within the Islamist movement.
Youth
Al-Banna was born in 1906 in Mahmudiyyah, a village north-west of Cairo. He was the son of a respected imam and Quranic school teacher, Ahmed al-Banna, who was educated at the famous al-Azhar University. He was also a watchmaker. The family was certainly not rich and after the family moved to Cairo in 1924 they had difficulty making ends meet. Al-Banna was interested in religion from an early age and by the age of fourteen he knew the Koran by heart. At the age of twelve he joined a Sufi order and at fifteen he became a fully initiated member. His enthusiasm began to be noticed in high school, when he organized committees and associations based on the Islamic model.
Course
In 1923 he was admitted to Al-Azhar University, he was only 16, but his great knowledge made him a great impression. Cairo gave him the opportunity to continue his education and meet more members of the ‘ulema’ (Muslim clergy), but even then he was shocked by the loss of traditional values, increasing secularization and Western influences.
During his studies he immersed himself in Islamic reformism (the Salafiyyeh movement), primarily in the work of Muhammed Abduh, who had been taught by his father, but in particular he was influenced by Rashid Rida. Like Rida, he was concerned about the decline of Islamic culture compared to the West. And like Rida, he believed that returning to the original Islam, stripped of all additions that obscured the original message, was the only way to save Islamic society. Ultimately, they both felt that the greatest danger to Islam came from the conservative ‘ulema’ and institutions such as Al-Azhar and not from increasing Western influences. In 1927 he graduated and went to work as an Arabic teacher in Ismailia, near the Suez Canal. Here he was shocked by the conditions in which the workers were exposed to the Channel. He saw the inferior way the British treated the Arabs and decided to take action.
Muslim Brotherhood Foundation
In 1928, Al-Banna, together with some friends, founded the Muslim Brotherhood. Initially it was an association like many others during that period. It advocated the return to traditional Islamic norms and values. Thanks to the charismatic leadership of Al-Banna and the group’s charitable work grew the association into a major movement, initially with branches throughout Egypt and soon throughout the Arab and Muslim world. In 1932, Al-Banna moved the movement’s headquarters to Cairo. gradually started to focus more and more on politics.
Politics
In 1939 the organization became a political party based on the Koran and the hadith (recorded tradition from the life of the prophet Mohammed (pbuh)). This transformation was accompanied by a certain radicalization and the creation of a ‘secret apparatus’, which carried out a number of attacks on opponents of the movement.
Coup
In 1948, rumors spread that the Brotherhood was planning a coup, a car containing documents was stopped and 32 members were arrested and offices searched. The president subsequently banned the movement and was assassinated by a brother less than three weeks later. In February 1949, Al-Banna was assassinated, probably by supporters of the president.
Influence
As the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Banna has had an enormous influence on the thinking of new generations of Sunni Muslims. His movement was the first popular movement to oppose increasing secularization and Western influences. The charismatic Al-Banna played a major role in the rapid growth of the movement. And the Brotherhood’s influence soon extended far beyond Egypt, even to places as far-flung as Indonesia and Pakistan. Al-Banna wrote several works, which were translated into many languages and continue to influence Muslim thinking to this day.
Islamism
The Brotherhood is seen as the first movement of Islamism. Al-Banna himself was a believer in nonviolence, but many of his followers became radicalized.