BANNA, HASAN AL- (1906–1949)

Hasan al-Banna was an Islamic reformer and the founder of Ikhwan al-Muslimin (Muslim Brotherhood). Banna was born in Mahmudiyya, a town near Alexandria, Egypt. In addition to receiving the traditional education in Qur˒an, hadith, elementary principles of law, and Arabic language, Banna became a member of the Hasafiyya Sufi order during his teen years. Although members of the Brotherhood would later attack Sufism, Banna always acknowledged the strong influence of Sufism in his religious outlook and social activism.

In 1923, Banna enrolled in Dar al-˓Ulum in Cairo, the national teachers' training college, whose eclectic curriculum of traditional Islamic and modern Western subjects had been shaped by Muhammad ˓Abduh and Rashid Rida. In 1927, he was sent to his first teaching assignment in a primary school in Isma˓iliyya. Located in the Suez Canal zone, Isma˓iliyya was home to large numbers of European civilians as well as British military personnel. Banna was exposed daily to foreign imperialism in a direct manner that he had not experienced in Cairo. He began to question the reasons for Egypt's political subservience and the means for its revival. Only through a revival of Islamic consciousness among the masses, Banna concluded, could imperialism be combated.

In March 1928, Banna and six other men founded an organization attached to the Hasafiyya order to "command the right and forbid the wrong." By the following year, the organization was already referred to as Ikhwan al-Muslimin. The organization began as an educational society, meant to instill or revive Islamic convictions among ordinary Egyptians. Its primary goal was to create an Islamic society based on the model of the earliest Muslim generations. Banna traveled throughout the canal zone, lecturing, collecting donations, organizing chapters, and building offices and mosques. The Brotherhood's organization reflected Banna's Sufi background. Chapters consisted of groups of young men organized hierarchically according to the level of commitment and knowledge demonstrated. Tying the various chapters together was Banna, the murshid (guide) of the movement, and a majlis al-shura (advisory council) composed officially of twelve members, though sometimes more.

By 1932 Banna had moved the headquarters of the Brotherhood to Cairo, reflecting his intention to play a much more active role in Egypt's politics. The Brotherhood was also firmly entrenched in regional politics by the late 1940s through branches in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Sudan. Banna's ideological vision may be gleaned from his numerous writings, the two most important being his memoirs (Mudhakkirat) and a published collection of his letters (Majmu˓at al-rasa˒il). For him Islam was a holistic creed, providing Muslims guidelines for private piety, public morality, and social justice. The logical extension of this view was the establishment of an Islamic state. The leadership of such a state could only come from committed and informed Muslims, and the Brotherhood was to prepare itself for this role.

Banna could not quell dissension within the Brotherhood once it entered the turbulent Egyptian politics of the 1940s. His control over the "secret apparatus," the armed wing of the organization that planned and carried out attacks on government officials and institutions, was particularly tenuous. More militant members refused to follow his agreement with the Egyptian government to merge the Brotherhood militia into the Egyptian army during the first Arab-Israeli war (1948–1949). Following a military decree banning the organization, Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi al-Nuqrashi was assassinated in December 1948 by a student associated with the Brotherhood. In retaliation, the secret police assassinated Banna on 12 February 1949.

See alsoIkhwan al-Muslimin .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abu Rabi˓, Ibrahim M. Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab World. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.

Banna, Hasan al-. Five Tracts of Hasan al-Banna (1906–1949):A Selection from the Majmuat Rasail al-Imam al-Shahid Hasan al-Banna. Translated by Charles Wendell. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.

Commins, David. "Hasan al-Banna (1906–1949)." In Pioneers of Islamic Revival. Edited by Ali Rahnema. London: Zed Books, 1994.

Mitchell, Richard P. The Society of the Muslim Brothers. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.

Sohail H. Hashmi