The Muslim Brotherhood Read online

  However, this conflict of views is not sufficient to explain the dichotomy in which the Egyptian Ikhwani found themselves. The problem was always far more complex than a simple clash of views within the leadership. Rather it was a result of the Ikhwan’s need to play to several different constituencies simultaneously and its desire to be all things to all men. As a movement, the Egyptian Ikhwan always sought to appeal to as broad a base as possible in order to challenge the regime of the day, hence the all-encompassing slogan ‘Islam is the solution’. Whilst this wide popular base was always one of the Ikhwan’s key strengths, it restricted how far it could stray from the original ideology of its founder. Many of the movement’s supporters and sympathisers backed the Ikhwan precisely because they considered that it held on to traditions such as calling for the implementation of Sharia law. Moreover some of the movement’s supporters considered the Ikhwan to be representing Islam itself, a view that the Brotherhood was not averse to promoting over the years. It is this amalgamation of the political and the religious that has always given the Ikhwan its potency. As such the extent to which it was able to reform was always limited by the movement’s need to remain anchored in its own traditions.

  However, like other Islamist groups, the Ikhwan was always anxious to demonstrate that it could be considered as a trusted political partner and that it was not seeking to overturn the state through revolution. Rather, the brothers asserted that they wanted whoever rules Egypt to do so in a proper Islamic manner, seemingly indicating that they would like to take the role of moral arbiters of the state.

  Whilst the pressure to be seen as a moderate progressive organisation was exacerbated after 9/11, this tension between the need to reform and the need to hold fast to tradition was present from the very beginnings of the movement. Hassan al-Banna struggled to strike a balance between engaging with the country’s establishment and appeasing his followers, many of whom were anxious for the Ikhwan to take a more radical stance. This remained a constant pressure for the Brotherhood. Whilst other Ikhwani branches, such as the Syrians, were able to shake themselves up and put forward programmes that strayed further from the original tenets of the movement, the Egyptians repeatedly failed to break free of their own traditions.

  Al-Banna: The Man and the Myth

  If the Murshid is held up as the main spiritual reference for the Muslim Brotherhood worldwide, Hassan al-Banna is revered as the leader of all leaders and has attained near iconic status within the movement. Yet it is in Egypt that the figure of al-Banna looms largest and where his memory is ever present. This reverence for al-Banna is not only related to the fact that in 1928 he founded the Muslim Brotherhood; by extension, he sowed the seeds of the contemporary political Islamist movement that would play such a major role in the history of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

  Yet a kind of personality cult has evolved around the figure of al-Banna, wherein stories about his character seem to overshadow discussions of his ideas. The Ikhwan’s website, full of descriptions of al-Banna’s personal qualities and his dedication to the cause, is testimony to this. One article on the website cites the reason for the movement’s expansion as ‘the enthusiastic and marvellous nature of al-Banna’.1 It goes on to describe him as a man with an almost superhuman capacity for hard work, stating, ‘He visited every village in the Upper Egypt in twenty days, sometimes he would be in Bai-Swaif in the morning, have lunch in Beba, in al-Wasta in the evening and stay the night in al-Fayoom … he regarded the Call for Allah first and foremost.’2

  There is a tendency within the Brotherhood if not to equate al-Banna with the Prophet, then at least to depict him as more than merely mortal. For example, one of the founding members of the Brotherhood, Mahmoud Abdelhalim, describes al-Banna as ‘less than the Prophet. Nevertheless al-Dawa preoccupied him … and the likes of Hassan al-Banna are the heirs of the Prophet’.3

  There are several reasons why discussions of al-Banna tend to focus more on his personal attributes than his ideology. Firstly, such descriptions reflect the fact that he appears to have been blessed with a particularly forceful personality and a special charisma. He certainly had the personal touch and those who knew him relate that he made them feel as though he had an intimate connection to them. Farid Abdel Khaliq, who went on to become al-Banna’s personal secretary, has described meeting al-Banna for the first time. From that night, he followed him everywhere he went to preach, explaining: ‘The way he spoke allowed you to see the whole sky through a keyhole.’4 Similarly, former Murshid Omar al-Tilimsani used near metaphysical terms to describe al-Banna, noting, ‘In the presence of al-Banna I was like a dead man in the hands of someone washing my corpse.’5 Another Egyptian Ikhwani, Musa Ishaq Al-Husayni, has also commented, ‘His mastery over his followers was complete and inclusive, almost approaching sorcery.’6

  Secondly, it is probably fair to say that al-Banna’s personal qualities were more impressive and left a greater impression than his ideology. Although he was able to tap into the grievances of a generation, he can hardly be considered to have been a major intellectual force or even a scholar. His ideology was drawn primarily from the great reformist Islamist thinkers of the nineteenth century such as Rashid Rida and Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, and as Egyptian philosopher Hassan Hanafi has argued, ‘he came to complete the project of al-Afghani’.7 As Hanafi goes on to comment, ‘To say the truth, the ideas of Hassan al-Banna probably may not amount to much: an Islam that is simple and clear … The Qur’an, The Hadiths etc … His ideas were very clear, very pure and there was no ideological complexity, but … as an organizing power … he was something else.’8

  Hanafi’s comments are probably a little harsh: whilst al-Banna may not have been a scholar in the conventional sense, he did succeed in establishing a movement that was able to present itself as something progressive and modern despite upholding traditional values, and which clearly had a broad appeal. Through the simple message that Islam was a means of regulating every aspect of life, he skilfully tapped into people’s concerns about the eroding of tradition and the increasing Westernisation of the Egyptian elite, along with the seemingly quiescent attitude of the official religious establishment. (Some scholars at Al-Azhar University seemed almost willing to adopt the secularist ideas that were openly propagated by some of the intelligentsia. Ali Abd al-Raziq, for example, denied that Islam was in any way connected to politics.)

  Al-Banna articulated the anxieties of a generation who were struggling to deal with the encroaching modernisation that had accompanied the colonial presence and which the Egyptian elite seemed more than willing to accept. Although al-Banna did not reject the West in itself, he certainly had major concerns about the impact of Western culture on his own society, asserting: ‘Western civilization has invaded us by force and with aggression on the level of science and money, of politics and luxury, of pleasures and negligence, and of various aspects of a life that are comfortable, exciting and seductive.’9 His assertion of the comprehensiveness of Islam seemed therefore to offer certainties in an increasingly uncertain world.

  He also saw the Brotherhood as a champion of anti-imperialism, and his strong views about the British colonial presence certainly increased his movement’s appeal. Al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood came to present themselves as the guardians of the native popular culture against the distortions of foreign and secularist ideologies.10 Yet rather than retrenching himself in the traditions of the past, al-Banna was able to present his ideas and his desire for action as something new and exciting and it was for this reason that many of his adherents were drawn from the younger generations. As Brynjar Lia has argued in his excellent study The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt, the fundamental appeal of the Ikhwan 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’.11

  Yet, as Hanafi correctly identifies, it was al-Banna’s ability to mobil
ise and organise people that enabled him to turn his organisation into such a significant force. Farid Abdel Khaliq has argued that al-Banna ‘wasn’t about absolute ideas. He was an organisational thinker … He translated theoretical ideas into reality.’12 Even al-Banna himself seems to have concurred with this assessment of his qualities, once telling his followers, ‘I might have not left a lot of books with you but my job is to write men rather than to write books.’13 He also responded to one suggestion that he write a book thus: ‘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.’14

  Another reason for this near mythical status is that no other leader within the movement has come close to having the calibre of its founder. It is striking that in spite of being at the forefront of such an important worldwide organisation, the Egyptian Ikhwan has failed to produce any Murshid, or, indeed, any thinker, who can match the talents and qualities of al-Banna. Although certainly well respected within Islamist circles, successive Murshids such as Omar al-Tilimsani or Hassan al-Hodeibi have left no real long-lasting impression beyond the confines of the movement. The only other Murshid or Egyptian Ikhwan who has come close to having the same aura or legacy as Hassan al-Banna was the more controversial figure Sayyid Qutb, although there is ongoing debate about the extent to which Qutb reflected the views of the Ikhwan. Qutb himself seems to have been as disappointed in this lack of intellectual ability within the Ikhwan’s leadership and is alleged to have complained to a fellow member of the Brotherhood that his experience in prison had revealed to him the shallowness of the thinking of the Ikhwan’s leaders.15

  On account of these factors, al-Banna’s hold is such that his ideas, conceived over eight decades ago in response to a set of very specific conditions inside Egypt, have been almost untouchable. His legacy means that altering the fundamental principles of the movement that he established has been almost unthinkable for many of the Ikhwan – and he will be forever held up as an almost ‘divine’ leader.

  Yet this image of the movement’s founder as a flawless leader is at odds with the true picture. In reality al-Banna was a shrewd political operator whose ultimate goal was the survival of his movement at what some would argue was almost any cost. In addition the Brotherhood under al-Banna was as riven with factions and rivalry as it is today. In spite of his best attempts to impose rigid obedience on his followers, al-Banna struggled for many years to appease the various competing factions within his support base, setting in motion the above cited contradiction within the Ikhwan between the political realities of the day and traditional Islamic principles.

  The Roots of Pragmatism

  Al-Banna’s image of devout purity and humility notwithstanding, what ensured the success and survival of his movement was his extreme pragmatism. He repeatedly proved his willingness to be flexible in his principles for the good of the greater cause. This flexibility held as true in his personal relations as it did in his political dealings. Farid Abdel Khaliq has related his shock at how, in the spirit of practicality, al-Banna once reassured a rich man that he did not need to perform his ablutions before praying after the man told him he bathed twice a day and considered himself to be clean enough.16 Within this ethos, al-Banna was acutely aware of how to project an image in order to win people over to his cause. Even his choice of clothes was a calculated decision designed to achieve maximum impact and he wore a different garb to fit each occasion, be it a suit, a jelaba or a fez.17

  It was not only on the personal level that al-Banna displayed his willingness to demonstrate expediency. He also proved an adept and shrewd political operator, who was not averse to the idea of becoming part of the political establishment in order to further the goals of the Ikhwan – even though this directly contradicted his own teachings and ideology. Whilst he was explicit in his condemnation of political parties in Egypt, referring to those that existed as ‘the parasites of the people’ and the ‘greatest threat to our development’,18 at one point he proposed that the Ikhwan join Hizb al-Watani (the Nationalist Party). His motivations for doing so were because he believed the party’s immense popularity would assist his own movement.19 The proposal was ultimately rejected, yet al-Banna’s willingness to join forces with an established political party demonstrates just how far he was prepared to go in order to bolster his movement and gain political leverage. In spite of all the teachings advocating the need to educate the population from below, it sometimes seemed as though playing a part in the politics of the day was the ultimate and more pressing ambition.

  Al-Banna was always aware that in order for his movement to survive, he needed to come to an understanding with the powers that be, even if he considered their rulings un-Islamic. A detailed account of the political ins and outs of the al-Banna period is outside the scope of this study and there are already a number of excellent works on the subject.20 However, it is clear that al-Banna was, in the words of Farid Abdel Khaliq, ‘very keen to have a kind of understanding between himself and the rulers’.21 He focused a great deal of energy avoiding antagonising the Palace and was also keen to come to an understanding with the government of the day. In March 1942, disregarding his condemnation of multiparty politics, al-Banna (with the support of the Guidance Office) decided to field seventeen candidates in the parliamentary elections. He put himself forward to stand for Ismailia and focused his election campaign around Islamic and moral issues. However, he came under intense pressure from the government to withdraw the Ikhwan’s candidacies and to make a written statement declaring his loyalty to the government and the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, which was the legal foundation for the British presence in Egypt. This was quite a demand given that in 1938–9 the Ikhwan, as part of its anti-imperialist stance, had demanded the amendment of this treaty. Nonetheless, even though the Ikhwan’s Guidance Office decided that he should reject these demands, al-Banna acted unilaterally and decided instead to cut his own deal with the government of the day. In return for publishing an open letter supporting the treaty and withdrawing from the elections, he extracted a promise from Prime Minister Mustafa Pasha al-Nahas that the government would allow the movement to operate freely and that it would take action against the sale of alcohol and prostitution. Clearly al-Banna was intent on doing his utmost to ensure the survival of the Brotherhood, even if that meant entering into deals with a regime that it considered un-Islamic.

  Moreover, for all that al-Banna extolled the virtues of shura (consultation), he did not always live by its principles. As Dr Abdelaziz Kamel, a member of the Ikhwan, has commented, al-Banna didn’t believe in the principle of shura because for him shura wasn’t obligatory for the Murshid himself. Al-Banna repeatedly made unilateral decisions, completely bypassing the Guidance Office and infuriating many within it in the process. This held true when he was selecting candidates to high-ranking appointments or deciding where to channel funds. His insistence on total obedience resulted in his acquiring a reputation for being authoritarian.22 This judgement is probably a little unfair; rather than being dictatorial, al-Banna seems to have had his own vision of what he wanted his movement to be. To this end he pushed ahead with his own policies, unwilling to see this vision thwarted by others within the organisation, even if that alienated some of his followers.

  Clearly the roots of the Ikhwan’s trademark pragmatism were established at the very beginnings of the movement through al-Banna’s personal style. However, such willingness to co-operate with the authorities, as well as al-Banna’s autocratic style, provoked intense criticism from inside the movement as more radical elements considered al-Banna’s stance to be too moderate and accommodationist. Resistance to his leadership really began to gather momentum in the late 1930s, when a group of Ikhwani became increasingly frustrated at al-Banna’s gradual and what they considered to be passive approach. This group appears to have been led at one point by Ahmed Rifat, who accused the Ikhwan of dealing with the government rather than confronting
it for its failure to rule by the Qur’an. They also accused the Ikhwan of not doing enough to assist the Palestinians, who were rising up against the British and the Jews, and of not being forceful enough over the issue of women. At one point they even proposed that all Ikhwani should carry bottles of ink to throw at those women who did not wear correct Islamic attire.23

  Although these more militant elements are often portrayed as nothing more than a handful of hot heads, there was quite a sizeable current within the Ikhwan who resented al-Banna’s non-confrontational approach and his willingness to co-operate with whatever political partners he deemed fit. According to Mahmoud Abdelhalim, who was a high-ranking member of the Brotherhood at this time, many senior Ikhwan actually supported Ahmed Rifat. Abdelhalim describes a meeting in which Rifat began verbally insulting al-Banna and explains that although many of the Ikhwani from Cairo were horrified at Rifat’s manner, by the end of the meeting he had succeeded in attracting even greater support among those brothers who came from outside Cairo.24 It seems that some parts of the Ikhwan were waiting for a man like Rifat to come along: ‘A large number of Ikhwani gave Ahmed Rifat’s call their full attention and they responded quickly. As soon as they heard Ahmed Rifat they found in his language echoes of what was going on inside themselves.’25