The Society of the Muslim Brothers (), better known as the Muslim Brotherhood (), is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar, imam and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Al-Banna's teachings spread far beyond Egypt, influencing various Islamist movements from charitable organizations to political parties.
Initially, as a pan-Islamist, religious, and social movement, its members preached Islam in Egypt, taught the illiterate, and set up hospitals and business enterprises. The group later advanced into the political arena, aiming to end British colonial rule in Egypt. The movement's self-stated aim is the establishment of a state ruled by under a caliphate, with one of its most well-known slogans being "Islam is the solution". The group combines political activism with Islamic charity work.
The group spread to other Muslim countries but still has one of its largest organizations in Egypt, despite a succession of government crackdowns since 1948. It remained a fringe group in the politics of the Arab world until the 1967 Six-Day War, when Islamism replaced popular secular Arab nationalism after a resounding Arab defeat by the State of Israel. The movement was also supported by Saudi Arabia, with which it shared mutual enemies like communism.
The Arab Spring initially brought the group legalization and substantial political power, but that expansion had suffered reversals by 2013. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was legalized in 2011 and won several elections, including the 2012 Egyptian presidential election, in which its candidate, Mohamed Morsi, became Egypt's first democratically elected president. Following massive demonstrations and unrest, Morsi was overthrown in the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état orchestrated by the military and placed under house arrest; a later review found that the Muslim Brotherhood had failed to moderate its views or embrace democratic values during its time in power. The group was then banned in Egypt and declared a terrorist organization. The Persian Gulf monarchies of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates followed suit.
The group's founder accepted the utility of political violence, and members of the Brotherhood conducted assassinations and attempted assassinations on Egyptian state figures during his lifetime, including Egyptian prime minister Mahmoud El Nokrashy Pasha in 1948. In his 1964 book Milestones (), Sayyid Qutb, one of the group's most prominent thinkers, promoted takfirism, a doctrine permitting "the stigmatisation of other Muslims as infidel or apostate, and of existing states as un-Islamic, and the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society"; the doctrine continues to inspire many jihadist movements. The group abandoned the use of violence in the 1970s. The Muslim Brotherhood since does not have a clear ideological platform on violence.
In recent years, the primary state backers of the Muslim Brotherhood have been Qatar and AKP-ruled Turkey. , the flagship group or specific chapters are considered a terrorist organization by the governments of Argentina, Kenya, Germany, Bahrain, Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.
Classification In academic research, four different approaches to understanding the Muslim Brotherhood are distinguished. The first approach draws a clear connection between the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorist organizations such as al‑Qaeda. It is argued that the Brotherhood refrains from violence for tactical reasons and merely seeks to gain power. The organization is portrayed as a wolf in sheep's clothing that cooperates with terrorist groups and allegedly shares ideological similarities with them. The second approach overlaps partly with the first. It views the Muslim Brotherhood as an unchanging group for which a strict interpretation of the Quran and the Sunna is essential. This perspective attributes a supposedly undemocratic character to the Brotherhood; the organization is said to strive for an Islamic theocracy in individual countries and ultimately worldwide. The third approach regards the Muslim Brotherhood as an international conspiracy against the West, pursuing a hidden agenda that it skillfully conceals. Individuals associated with the Brotherhood are described as a "spider in the web" or a "Trojan horse," or compared to tentacles. This imagery suggests that the Muslim Brotherhood functions as a central, controlling power. Organizations linked to it are said to adopt different names in order to obscure their traces. The fourth approach is the most common among scholars who have conducted research on the Muslim Brotherhood. It views the organization as pragmatic, dynamic, and flexible, capable of adapting and accepting political rules of the game. The Brotherhood is seen as exerting pressure on regimes to implement democratic and constitutional reforms and as being receptive to the demands of the population. Proponents of this approach do not claim that the Muslim Brotherhood is a liberal‑democratic organization. However, they identify real, organizational, intensely debated, and ideologically grounded developments within the movement.
Foundation and history in Egypt
Early years
Formative period (1928–1936)
Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in the city of Ismailia in March 1928 along with six workers of the Suez Canal Company, as a Pan-Islamic, religious, political, and social movement. They appointed Al-Banna as their leader and vowed to work for Islam through Jihad and revive Islamic Brotherhood. Thus, the Muslim Brothers were born; under the pledge that its members would be soldiers in the call to Islam, and in that is the life for the country and the honour for the Umma... We are brothers in the service of Islam.. Hence we are the "Muslim Brothers".
The Suez Canal Company helped Banna build the mosque in Ismailia that would serve as the Brotherhood's headquarters, according to Richard P. Mitchell's The Society of Muslim Brothers. According to al-Banna, contemporary Islam had lost its social dominance, because most Muslims had been corrupted by Western influences. Sharia law based on the Qur'an and the Sunnah were seen as laws passed down by God that should be applied to all parts of life, including the organization of the government and the handling of everyday problems.
Al-Banna was populist in his message of protecting workers against the tyranny of foreign and monopolist companies. It founded social institutions such as hospitals, pharmacies, schools, etc. Al-Banna held highly conservative views on issues such as women's rights, opposing equal rights for women, but supporting the establishment of justice towards women. The Brotherhood grew rapidly going from 800 members in 1936, to 200,000 by 1938 and over 2 million by 1948.
Entry into politics (1936–1939)
As its influence grew, it opposed British rule in Egypt starting in 1936. al-Banna had been in contact with Amin al-Husseini since 1927. A central concern for the early Muslim Brotherhood was its pro-Arab activism for the Arab-Zionist conflict in Palestine, which in 1936–1939 culminated in the great Arab revolt. While absent before the outbreak of the revolt, the Brotherhood now began to make use of aggressive anti-Jewish rhetorics which also targeted the Jewish community in Egypt. The official weekly of the Brotherhood, al-Nadhir, published a series of articles titled "The Danger of Jews", warning of alleged Jewish plots against Islam like Freemasonry or Marxism. In 1938 al-Nadhir demanded from Egypt's Jews to either adopt an openly anti-Zionist stance or to face "hostility". It also criticized the prominent role of Jews in Egypt's society and their prominence in journalism, commercial spheres and the entertainment industry. al-Nadhir even called for a boycott and their expulsion, "for they have corrupted Egypt and its population." In another instance the Jews were referred to as a "societal cancer". The Brotherhood eventually distributed a list of Jewish business owners and called for their boycott, claiming that they supported the Zionists. Such conflations of Jews and Zionists were common.
In the years preceding World War II the Muslim Brothers likely received indirect funds from Nazi Germany, maintained via the Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro in Cairo and Amin al-Husseini, who himself received funds from Italian intelligence and the Abwehr. Being interested in strengthening a militant anti-British organization, Germany may have funded the Brotherhood as early as 1934. One later British source claimed that in 1936 alone, Germany transferred over £5.000. The author Francis Nicosia found in his research however that the Germans had generally refused to assist Arab independence movements and related activities before 1938 due to a desire to keep positive relations with Britain. al-Banna and other members of the Brotherhood voiced admiration for aspects of Nazi ideology, including its militarism and its centralization revolving around a charismatic leader, but opposed others like its racial policies and ethnic nationalism. The outbreak of the war ended any relationship between Germany and the Muslim Brothers. al-Banna denied that he had ever received German funding. Italian funding of the Brotherhood is unlikely, as the latter vehemently opposed the Italian occupation of Libya.
World War II (1939–1945)
During the early part of World War II, the Brotherhood at times displayed pro-Axis sympathies. Worried, the British kept the Brotherhood under firm control by temporarily banning its newsletters, surveiling its meetings and arresting various provincial leaders. al-Banna himself was briefly taken into custody and eventually acknowledged his loyalty to the British, although the latter remained suspicious.
By 1942 the Muslim brotherhood had begun receiving British funding in coordination with the pro-British Wafd Party. During World War II the Muslim Brotherhood openly condemned the racist and chauvinist tendencies of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in its newspapers, something noted by a British intelligence report from 1942 which stated “although the Muslim Brotherhood may have imitated Nazi and fascist organizational forms, they have no particular sympathy for Nazi ideology”.
Between 1938 and 1940 or 1941 the Brotherhood formed an armed wing called the "Secret Apparatus" (al-Nizam al-Khas), also known as "Special Apparatus". This group was a successor of the "battalions" (kata'ib) established in late 1937. Its goal was to fight the British until their expulsion from Egypt, British collaborators as well as Zionists. It also protected the Brotherhood against the police and infiltrated the Communist movement. The "Secret Apparatus" was led by a committee of five, with each of them commanding one tightly knit cell. Only the most committed members, mostly young students or men with salaried jobs, were invited to join. New members of the "Secret Apparatus" were taught to obey, were given weapons, underwent heavy physical training and were taught the concepts of Jihad and underground operations. The result was a zealous elite force. Its first operation was allegedly towards the end of World War II, when members of the group threw a bomb at a British club. Militarized youth sections were also raised, namely the junior kashafa ("scouts") and the more senior jawala ("travellers").