The Muslim Brotherhood was launched in 1928 as a project aimed at restoring the Islamic Caliphate, which had fallen four years prior. Its founder, Hassan al-Banna, established a methodology focused on building a comprehensive Muslim individual, combining spirit, mind, and body. This emergence coincided with a wide intellectual movement in the Islamic world that discussed the repercussions of the absence of religious political authority, and Muhammad Rashid Rida's book 'The Caliphate' was one of the most prominent pillars of this movement.
The group's relationship with the authorities during Al-Banna's era was characterized by flexibility and a demand for gradual reform. The Brotherhood engaged in educational and economic work and participated in parliamentary elections. At the same time, Al-Banna did not hesitate to send firm messages to heads of government, such as Mustafa El-Nahhas, demanding the abolition of usurious laws and the reform of the banking system in accordance with Islamic Sharia, warning of a 'Quranic revolution' if popular demands were ignored.
Al-Banna identified two strategic dangers facing the Egyptian state: the British military occupation and the Zionist project in Palestine. This prompted him to establish the 'Special Secret Apparatus' as a military arm to confront these challenges. The group succeeded in gaining a broad popular base that enabled it to compete with the venerable Wafd Party, and even force it to negotiate with them to form electoral alliances in several regions.
The Brotherhood played a pivotal role in confronting the currents of Westernization and Pharaonic tendencies led by intellectuals such as Taha Hussein and Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad. These intellectuals were later forced to appease the rising Islamic current by writing books about Islamic figures. This influence was further embodied in their field participation with fighting battalions during the 1948 Palestine War, which raised the group's political and popular standing to an unprecedented level.
The results of the 1948 war and the establishment of the occupation state led to a radical shift in the Egyptian government's dealings with the Brotherhood. Arrest and confiscation campaigns began, culminating in the assassination of Hassan al-Banna in 1949 and the banning of the group. With Hassan al-Hudaybi assuming the position of General Guide in 1951, he made decisive decisions to abolish the secret apparatus and emphasize that the group was a da'wah (preaching) and educational organization that rejected violence and secrecy in political work.
Egypt witnessed rapid events in the early 1950s, starting with the abrogation of the 1936 treaty and the outbreak of the Cairo Fire, leading to the July 1952 coup led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. Despite initial agreement, a major clash soon occurred after the assassination attempt on Abdel Nasser in 1954, which led to the imprisonment of Brotherhood leaders and the execution of some of them, and the emergence of a new ideology within the prisons led by the writer and thinker Sayyid Qutb.
Sayyid Qutb's writings, most notably 'In the Shade of the Quran,' came as a direct reaction to the Nasserist regime's tendencies, which sought to consolidate Arab nationalism, secularism, and Marxist socialism. Qutb considered these ideologies to represent 'modern jahiliyyah' (ignorance/paganism) that sought to distance religion from life, emphasizing that a Muslim's true identity is their creed, and that ruling by what Allah has revealed became an individual obligation to restore the nation's identity.
Qutb proposed the concept of the 'believing vanguard' that must emotionally isolate itself from the jahili society to build a solid base capable of change, which sparked widespread debate about the idea of 'excommunicating society.' Analysts believe that Qutb's soaring literary language contributed to the ambiguity of some of his concepts, opening the door to extremist interpretations by groups that later emerged from the Brotherhood's fold, such as 'Takfir wal-Hijra.'
In contrast, Guide Hassan al-Hudaybi countered these ideas through his famous book 'Preachers, Not Judges,' refuting the arguments for excommunication and setting strict jurisprudential conditions for judging individuals. Al-Hudaybi emphasized the need to distinguish between criticizing the political system and excommunicating society, stressing that the group's mission is da'wah and guidance, not issuing judicial rulings on people's faith.
This intellectual divergence between Qutb and Al-Hudaybi created a silent division within the group's ranks. Al-Hudaybi's attack on Qutb's writings limited their organizational benefit within the Brotherhood. Nevertheless, Qutb's ideas remained an inspiration for many jihadist movements outside the official framework of the group, which adopted the concepts of separation and jahiliyyah in a more radical and confrontational manner with the state and society.
The author believes that the stalling of the Brotherhood's renaissance project is due to the failure of the subsequent leadership to integrate the organizational structure established by Al-Banna with the precise political diagnosis of the Nasserist reality provided by Qutb. While Al-Hudaybi adhered to traditional da'wah work, the new reality required a development in the tools of intellectual and political confrontation with a system that adopted material socialism and secular nationalism.
Sayyid Qutb's use of the term 'jahili society' instead of 'umma' (nation) led him into linguistic and jurisprudential problems, as the umma in the Quranic concept is not excommunicated as a whole. The accusations of excommunication could have been avoided if the discourse had focused on 'jahiliyyah of governance' as a political and legislative system, instead of generalizing the term, which in the minds of some extended to peoples and individuals.
Sayyid Qutb succeeded in diagnosing the deviations that marred the Nasserist experience, especially in aspects of class struggle and fighting what was called 'religious reactionism.' However, this diagnosis did not find a disciplined activist path within the group due to fears of sliding into violence, leaving the field open for individual interpretations and sub-groups that adopted violence as a means of change.
In conclusion, the experience of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt remains a model for the major transformations that swept through Islamic movements in the twentieth century, between the ambitions of comprehensive establishment and the pressures of security persecution. The debate surrounding Sayyid Qutb's legacy and Hassan al-Hudaybi's methodology remains a fundamental axis for understanding the crisis of contemporary Islamic political thought and its ability to adapt to the modern nation-state.
The Muslim Brotherhood will declare a comprehensive Quranic revolution if governments do not accelerate the necessary reforms.
شارك برأيك
The Muslim Brotherhood and the Stalling of the Arab Renaissance: A Reading of Methodological Transformations Between Al-Banna, Qutb, and Al-Hudaybi