The Muslim
Brotherhood managed to promote its image in the Muslim world as a reformist
organisation after associating itself with Muhammed Rashid Reda, a Syrian
scholar.
All controversies
encompassing the MB unfolded in September 1927 in the city of Islamilia, on the
west bank of the Suez Canal when a 21-years old young man, named Hassan
el-Bana, was appointed a teacher in the city, which is 130 km from Cairo. He was the eldest son of an owner of a watch
repair shop in Al-Mahmoudiya village in Damanhur.
El-Bana
was allegedly interested in charitable work when he was only 12 years old. He
was appointed the head of an outreach. Shortly after, he launched a vigilant
group to fight cultures and ideas alien to Islam in society.
Despite
his religious devotion, el-Bana refused to continue his study in Al-Azhar (the
highest seat of Sunni teaching in Egypt). When he left his village for Cairo, he
was enrolled at the Teachers Colleges. Being a bustling metropolis city, Cairo
was allegedly notorious for its secular European cultures, alcohol shops and
night clubs, which shocked the student, who hailed from a rural area. His diary
was stuffed with his condemnation of these anti-Islam practices and cultures.
El-Bana’s
vision of Islam was greatly influenced by the two scholars and reformers: Jamal
al-Din al-Afghani (1838-1898) and Mohamed Abduh (1849-1905). Both of them are
given credit in the Muslim world for their initiatives to ripple the stagnant
water of Islam. Their chief task was to free the holy texts from restrictions
and religious fetters. They prioritized reason if there was a conflict between
it and slavish imitation.
Al-Afghani
was harsh critic of Muslim rulers for allegedly being amenable to dictations
from foreign powers. He reached cruel conclusion after touring several foreign
countries, such as Iran, Britain, Russia and India.
Al-Afghani visited Egypt in 1871. During his 8-year
stay, he attracted the attention of local sheikhs and scholars. One of his
admirers was Sheikh Mohamed Abduh, a graduate of Al-Azhar, who was appointed
Egypt’s Mufti in 1899. However,
al-Afghani was dismissed from Egypt for his controversial ideology. His influence on his disciples was apparent in
a fatwa Mohamed Abduh issued to encouraged Muslims to deposit their savings in
banks.
The
Mufti also legitimised bank loans and interest rate. In his defence to Islam, Abduh declared that
Prophet Mohamed’s faith did not resist reforms. He said that the Muslim Sharia
should be attuned to the modern life to guarantee the public interest.
Likewise, Muhammed Rashid Rida (1865-1935) is
widely regarded as an influential Islamic reformer of his generation. Rida
was born in the village of Al-Qalamoun, in Lebanese Tripoli, in which he came
across Sheikh Mohamed Abduh in 1894. After three years, Rida decided to leave Syria
for Cairo to be close to Abduh. The following year, he published al-Manar,
a weekly and then monthly journal.
Rida was deeply concerned with finding an answer
to the question: why Muslim nations were lagging behind others. He attributed
signs of backwardness in Muslim communities to their departure from Islam. He
had a strong belief that Islam would have better future only when Muslims
honour its ethics and principles.
During the first two decades of the 20th
century, Rida’s ideas witnessed a radical change, nonetheless. He decided to
propagandise Wahabism of Saudi Arabia. Wahabi ideologists, who were campaigning
for the revival of that raw and unalloyed Islam under Prophet Mohamed and
Muslim caliphs, were invited to contribute extensively to Rida’s Al-Manar.
The publisher also celebrated Wahabi military invasions of the holy cities in
the Saudi kingdom. In his book Najd
Covenant, Rida defended Salafism for being the proper and correct version of Islam.
According to researcher Hammadi al-Redisi, Rida
rehabilitated the image of the Wahabis when he disassociated them from heresy,
declaring that they were reviving the proper and correct Islam. Al-Redisi, who
studies law and political sciences in Tunis University, provided strong
evidence that Wahabi faqeehs and lobbyists financed Rida’s publications,
including his book Wahabism and Al-Hejaz. The book published in 1926
sought to damage the image of opponents of Wahabism by claiming that these
people had allied themselves with the British and the Jews to eliminate Islam
from the world.
Rida’s pro-Wahabism vision influenced the founder
of the Muslim Brotherhood and his religious project.
Re-establishment of the alleged Muslim
Caliphate
In his writings, Rida said that the Muslim state did
not benefit Muslims alone. “The Muslim state is good for humanity,” he noted. He
explained: “[The Muslim state] honours justice and equality; serves the
interests of every individual; and celebrates virtues and values; fight vices;
and offers help to the needy and miserable people.”
In
addition to his unequivocal support to Wahabism, Rida lent his voice to scholar
Abdel-Rahman al-Kawakebi (1849-1902), who said that Arabs were the legitimate
heirs of the throne of the Turkish empire. Al-Kawakebi’s extraordinary theory
of inheritance of throne came in his book The Characteristics of Despotism.
In his Al-Manar, Rida drummed up support to
al-Kawakebi’s support for Arab rulers to succeed Turkish sultans. Al-Kawakebi
revealed his call in this respect prior to the collapse of the Ottoman empire,
which brought in secular ruler Mustafa Kemal Ataturk on the 3rd of
March 1924.
Two years before Ataturk’s ascension to the throne, Rida
published his book The Great Caliphate, in which he condemned Turks for
their betrayal of Islam. Rida strongly defended the integrity of Prophet
Mohamed’s religion in the Arab land by saying that this particular version of
Islam was the best and incontestable. He also declared his support to the
establishment of Arab caliphate.
Rida’s defence to the integrity of Arabs and their role in revealing
the relationship between Islam and humanity was elaborated in the book Islam,
which was written by British-American historian Bernard Lewis, who was specializing in oriental studies.
According to the historian, Rida strongly believed that Egypt was the only Arab
country, which had the potentials to pioneer the Arab world. Egypt’s merits in
this respect included geographical position, big population, cultures and
economy.
In 1924, Rida revealed
his ambition for the establishment of an institution, which could help lay down
the foundations of the new Muslim state, and in the meantime, undermine the
hegemony of Western materialism on mankind.
Rida appeared
to have been fortunate. His dream was fulfilled when it was embraced by Hassan
el-Bana. The young enthusiast launched the Muslim Brotherhood four years after
the Muslim caliphate collapsed in Turkey.
In the preamble
of one of his most interesting writings The Speech of Teachers-the
fundamental principles of the Muslim Brotherhood, el-Bana explained “After four years of the collapse of
the Muslim caliphate, a talented young man in his 20s called strongly for its
revival. This young man is no other than Hassan el-Bana, son of Abdel-Rahman
el-Bana.” In his self-made praise, el-Bana criticized young people of his
generation accusing them of being hedonists.
Wahabism & MB
Although
Wahabism was the chief ideology in Saudi Arabia, an important chapter of the
history of Egypt’s MB was written in the kingdom. The two schools came together
when, a year before el-Bana established his group, he travelled to Saudi Arabia
to work as a teacher.
Seven young
people from Ismailia followed el-Bana there in March 1928. They were seeking
his advice how they could defend the integrity of Islam and what means they
should have to free Muslims from the fetters of Western slavery.
Introducing
themselves, they told him that were Muslim brothers willing to serve Islam.
“Then, you are Muslim brothers,” replied el-Bana. At this moment, the Muslim
Brotherhood, a global Muslim institution was given its name; and the seven
visitors were ordained el-Bana’s disciples. And he was voted the General Guide.
The group’s
banner was inscribed by the words: “Our Goal is Allah; our leader is the
Prophet; our constitution is the Qur’an, the war is our way, and self-sacrifice
is our ultimate goal.”
However, Lebanese-born
French historian Habib Tawa explained that the Muslim Brotherhood was named
after fighters called Muslim brothers, who were sent to Saudi Arabia to support
King Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdul-Rahman Al-Saud of Hejaz and Najd to invade Mecca. “Calling
themselves Muslim brothers, they inspired inspired el-Bana to name his group
the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Tawa, whose PhD thesis was interested in the
intersected relationship between authorities, the political movements and the
armed militias in Egypt—From the Palestinian War Until the Collapse of monarchy
(1948 to 1952).
The mascot
el-Bana suggested to his group bears striking resemblance to Saudi Arabia’s.
The MB’s a banner features two crossed swords embracing the holy Qur’an. The
verse saying ‘And
prepare against them whatever you are able of power’ is visible in the place. The
Saudi Arabia’s mascot revealed in 1926 also features the two crossed words and
the word “And prepare..” (verse 60 of Sura Anfal in the Qur’an)
El-Bana’s
duplicity
Rida’s
influence on the MB was debated by the founder’s grandson Tarek Ramadan. In his
PhD thesis, Ramadan disclosed that his maternal grandfather pledged to publish Al-Manar
for five years after the death of its publisher. The grandson also explained that el-Bana was
a reformer, who walked in Rida’s and Abduh’s footsteps.
The
grandson’s allegations that Rida was Mohamed Abduh’s disciple was refuted by
Islamic thinker Ali Mourad (d. 2017). “Rida opposed Mohamed Abduh’s call for
prioritizing reason,” said Mourad. As long as Rida is concerned, Mourad
condemned him for being fundamentalist, who devoted his intellectual and
religious project to suppress Mohamed Abduh’s reformist voice.
Alain Gresh, ex-Editor of Le Monde
Diplomatique, said that Ramadan’s dissertation
had opened the door on the unknown area of Islamic reformist project. Revealing
el-Bana’s fundamentalism side, Gresh,
who was born in Cairo in 1948, quoted the grandson’s thesis as saying
that both Mohamed Abduh and Hassan el-Bana were interested in introducing a
project of overlapping modernity and fundamentalism. Gresh’s biological father is Henri Curiel, a
communist who was assassinated in Paris in 1978. That was why, Gresh, who has
written extensively on Islam and the Arab world, admired el-Bana’s integrity and
peaceful message by denying categorically that the General Guide had ever ordered
political assassinations.
El-Bana’s duplicity in Europe was also defended in
a report published by the Union of Islamic Organisations in France’s Islam
journal (now suspended). Referring to a conference held in Paris in 1988, UIO’s
report said that el-Bana was an Islamic
reformer, who received the torch from Jamal-Eddin al-Afghani and Mohamed Abduh.
It is noteworthy that Rida was not mentioned in this area. El-Bana was also
praised by UIO for allegedly producing a spiritual and intellectual dimension
to Islam.
Such a deliberately misleading argument and
image-airbrushing managed to increase the number of el-Bana’s admirers in the
Western communities of university professors, politicians, media people and
thinkers over decades. Moreover, these people have portrayed the MB for
being as the Muslim version of the Christian reformist trend in Latin America,
which sought to rekindle the dim hope of the poor and wretched people.
Due to this misplaced
defence and enthusiasm, el-Bana, whose MB is branded terrorist group in several
countries, was compared to India’s Gandhi in the West.
Moreover, leftist icons in
Europe, such as researcher Miguel Bin Siyag, environmentalist Jose Boufi and
member of the French Communist Union Daniel Bin Said paid tribute to el-Bana
when his grandson Tarek Ramadan told the European Social Forum in Paris in 1983
that ‘the tenets of Islam do not conform with the new liberal capitalism. El-Bana was also given credit by European leftists
when his grandson quoted him as saying that Islam being the faith of the poor
is interested greatly in realizing social interdependence and solidarity—the
chief principles sought by communists and later by leftists.
