The Muslim Brotherhood (3 page)

Yet, as Hanafi correctly identifies, it was al-Banna’s ability to mobilise 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.

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

But in his bid for the movement to be all things to all men, rather than expelling this group al-Banna instead tried to convince and somehow accommodate them. Some of the other Ikhwani were furious that their leader chose to protect them.
²⁶
Yet al-Banna’s way of handling this group came to be symptomatic of the way in which he dealt with the more militant currents that continued to evolve inside his movement, especially among the youth. For him, containment was the most appropriate solution. Therefore whilst al-Banna continued to advocate a peaceful approach and continued dealing with the powers of the day, he also began adapting his leadership style to try to appease those who were calling for more direct action.

In May 1938 he adopted a more hawkish rhetoric, declaring that if the authorities failed to implement the Ikhwan’s programmes the
movement would consider itself ‘at war with every leader, every party and every organisation that does not work for the victory of Islam!’
²⁷
However, he was still unwilling to actually put these words into action. As a result his attempts to contain these more militant elements failed and a group of them, which included a number of senior brothers and which by the late 1930s had formed their own group under the name ‘Mohamed’s Youth’, seceded from the Brotherhood.
²⁸
In 1942 Mohamed’s Youth issued a communiqué in which it accused al-Banna of deviating from true Islamic principles by declaring that the success of the Islamic mission was ‘dependent on pleasing the rulers and working under their party banner’.
²⁹

However, the secession of Mohamed’s Youth should not be read as a rejection by al-Banna of the principle of the use of military means to effect change. His reputation for moderation notwithstanding, in the late 1930s he set up a secret military unit known as the Nizam al-Khass under the leadership of Saleh Ashwami.
³⁰
Although the Brotherhood has argued that this military wing was set up in direct response to the situation in Palestine and that its main objective was to provide military assistance to the Palestinians, it was in line with al-Banna’s vision for the movement right from its inception. One of the founding members of the Nizam al-Khass explained:

The image that al-Ustath [the Master] had in his mind since he started his
dawa
in Ismailia about that [military] aspect of
dawa
activity was … of a military group that would encapsulate the idea of jihad in Islam … He was so keen to emphasise military activity in order to demonstrate the idea of jihad. But he was frightened that these kinds of things might be used against him.
³¹

Al-Banna was so keen to set up some kind of military arm that he had established scout units to provide physical training for the young
cadres in preparation for the later military phase without drawing suspicion on the part of the authorities. However, the creation of the Nizam al-Khass was also a useful way to relieve some of the pressure from the more ardent activists within his organisation. As Lia has argued, ‘There can be little doubt that strong internal pressure from radical members was the major factor behind the formation of the military wing.’
³²
Although this assertion may be a little overstated, such pressure certainly contributed to pushing al-Banna into setting up something that was already in his mind and the Palestinian cause provided him with the opportunity to kill several birds with one stone.

The Nizam al-Khass may have a troubled history, but like its founder it still has a special place in the hearts of many Ikhwani and is considered as something glorious. The former Supreme Guide Mehdi Akef still describes this group as ‘the pride of the Muslim Brotherhood’.
³³
Yet at the time its establishment sowed yet further dissent within the Ikhwan’s ranks. Whilst some were happy with the military dimension, others were less comfortable with it and found it to be outside of the movement’s traditional sphere of activity. Some brothers believed the whole project to be downright bizarre. Mahmoud A’asaf, one time Information Secretary of the Ikhwan, related how one day in 1944 he and another leading member of the Ikhwan Dr Abdelaziz Kamel were called to give
baya
(oath of allegiance) to the Nizam al-Khass in a house in the Al-Saliba district of Cairo: