Brotherhood, Sufism: Contradictions of the bureau guide and his followers
Thursday 20/September/2018 - 01:22 PM
Doaa Imam
Before the age of 14, Hassan al-Banna (the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in
1928) insisted that a merchant named Bassiouni al-Abd presents him to Abdul
Wahab al-Hasafi (the son of the Sheikh who founded the Sufi Hasafi method) to
become one of the followers of the method. That is why he was keen on regularly
attending on the lecture which was held every night in the mosque.
Al-Banna's confession in his autobiography (memoirs of preaching): read, “In
several Fridays, we used to spend our time in Damanhur. We travelled on our
feet after the morning prayer directly, where we arrived at about eight in the
morning. The distance was three hours, and we visited, performed Friday prayers
and then rested after lunch. We sometimes visited Ezbet al-Nawam; where the
tomb of Sayyed Singar, one of the followers of the Hasafi method, exists.
Dervish Founder
The Moalameen school which was joined by Al-Banna (1906-1949) and was situated
in Damanhour (the capital of the northern province of Beheira), was one of the
buildings attached to Hasafi’s shrine and cemetery. Al-Banna liked the Sheikh
of the Sufi method and went with followers in crowds to celebrate religious
festivals, visited shrines of sheikhs, and sang songs of the Hasafi method.
"I remember that it was our custom to go out on the anniversary of the
Prophet's birth after the lecture, every night from the first month of Rabee I
to 12," he said.
Exit on Sufism
The position of the founder of the group and his followers on Sufism changed
after 1928. The Brotherhood did not hesitate from the time to repeat that their
sheikh took from Sufism what suits religion. He did not visit the graves or
bless the deceased, even if they read Banna's autobiography, their claims would
fall as dust.
Moreover, the content came in contradiction to his old position of Sufism. He
said: "Will the Prophet be satisfied with these superstitions which were
invented by the people after him? These groups do not gather to scare the enemy
or support the religion, but to disturb the population at night shouting and
knocking on drums.”
Al-Banna pointed out that these battalions should be separated from the
religious festivals, saying: "They should participate in sports, swimming,
horseback riding, swordsmanship and training on detection and militarization.
That force if gathered, and those new armies if assembled, and those battalions
if combined would benefit us at the time of tragedy."
Refuting the group's claims
Dr. Ali Abdul-Baki Shehata, Secretary-General of the former Islamic Research Academy,
said that true Sufism has glories in Islamic history. Sufi merchants and their
sheikhs played a role in spreading Islam in Africa and East Asia, and they had
a good image of religion.
"Sufism has never been a source of terrorism or violence; it has been a
means of spreading love and affection among people," he told The
Reference, suggesting the dissemination of Sufi thought in prisons to assess
the behavior of Muslim Brotherhood prisoners and others so that they return to
the mainstream religion and renounce violence and militancy.
As for the reform project that al-Banna talked about, Shehata said: The reform
of the path of Sufism is through media, education and the establishment of a
model for a religious discourse that takes away the extremists and returns
people to moderation, not the Muslim Brotherhood, as they claim.
