Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Henry George Farmer, The Science of 

Music in Islam, 2 vols. (1925–66. Reprint, Frankfurt: 

Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science, 

1997); Kristina Nelson, The Art of Reciting the Qur’an

(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985); Amnon 

Shiloah,  Music in the World of Islam (Detroit: Wayne 

State University Press, 1995); Lawrence E. Sullivan, ed. 

Enchanting Powers: Music in the World’s Religions (Cam-

bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997).

Drums on display at a shop in Marrakesh, Morocco 

(Federico R. Campo)

music

  

505  J

---

Muslim

  See i

slam

.

Muslim Brotherhood

 

(Arabic: al-Ikhwan 

al-Muslimun; also known as the Society of 

Muslim Brothers)

The first modern city-based Islamist movement 

with mass appeal in the Arab world was the 

Muslim Brotherhood. Founded in 1928 by h

asan

al

-b

anna

 (1909–49), an Egyptian school teacher, 

in the Suez Canal Zone city of Ismailiya, it subse-

quently created hundreds of branches and spin-off 

organizations throughout e

gypt

, and subsequently 

in l

ibya

, p

alestine

, J

ordan

, s

yria

, s

Udan

, y

emen

,

and  k

UWait

. It developed close contacts with 

Wahhabis in s

aUdi

  a

rabia

 that continue to the 

present day. Splinter groups have arisen elsewhere 

in the region, and it served as the basis, directly or 

indirectly, from which a number of more radical 

Islamic movements have arisen. Today the Muslim 

Brotherhood is an especially influential religiopo-

litical force in Egypt, the Sudan, and Jordan.

Egypt was a protectorate of Great Britain 

when al-Banna established the Muslim Brother-

hood. At the time there was a limited degree of 

Egyptian self-rule under a monarchy and national 

legislature, but the people desired complete inde-

pendence from foreign occupation and a more 

democratic government. Al-Banna appealed to this 

widespread anticolonial sentiment and combined 

it with a call for moral renewal in accordance with 

an idealized Islam of the Quran and the salaf, the 

esteemed first generations of Muslims. He had 

been inspired by the teachings of J

amal

 

al

-d

in

 

al

-

a

Fghani

 (d. 1897), m

Uhammad

 a

bdUh

 (d. 1905), 

and m

Uhammad

 r

ashid

 r

ida

 (d. 1935), leaders in 

the modern Islamic reform movement that was 

sweeping many Muslim countries. Al-Banna was 

particularly troubled by the growing influence 

European secular values were having on Egypt’s 

Muslim youth and the inability of the tradition-

alist 

Ulama

 to counteract this influence. He saw 

this development as more of a threat than British 

military occupation of his country. In the 1930s 

another issue in which he developed great interest 

was the fate of Palestine under British rule and the 

success of the Zionist movement. Al-Banna gave 

speeches about these matters in coffeehouses in 

Cairo and Ismailiya that attracted large audiences, 

from among whom he recruited the first members 

of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In addition to educating people about Islam, 

the Brotherhood engaged in political activity and 

provided social services to the needy. Reflecting 

the diverse sources from which he formed his 

vision of the Brotherhood’s mission, al-Banna 

declared his new organization to be “a Salafiyya 

message, a Sunni way, a Sufi truth, a political orga-

nization, an athletic group, a cultural-educational 

union, an economic company, and a social idea” 

(quoted in Voll, 362). He strove to keep the Broth-

erhood from being associated with ulama and 

secular Egyptian political parties. At the time of 

al-Banna’s assassination in 1949, its membership 

is estimated to have reached 500,000 active mem-

bers, not to mention many more sympathizers and 

supporters. After the Free Officers secured Egypt’s 

independence in 1953, membership dropped sig-

nificantly, and the organization soon came into 

conflict with the new Arab nationalist government 

of J

amal

 a

bd

 

al

-n

asir

 (r. 1953–70).

The Brotherhood’s success in winning popular 

support was in large part due to its leadership 

and its ability to promote its message of Islamic 

renewal through a tightly knit organizational 

structure. It was like a mini-state, headed by a 

General Guide (

murshid

), Guidance Council, 

and Consultative Assembly. This governing body 

worked through a network of units charged with 

technical operations and coordination of activi-

ties at the local level. The operational units were 

concerned with teaching and outreach (

daawa

) 

to students, professionals, labor, peasants, and 

the wider 

umma

, or Muslim community. It also 

had committees charged with financial oversight, 

provision of legal and social services, issuance of 

legal opinions (sing. 

fatwa

), and policymaking. A 

section for women, known as the Muslim Sisters, 

K  506  

Muslim

---

was established in the 1940s, although this was 

not as successful as the Brotherhood in recruiting 

members. An independent Syrian branch of the 

Brotherhood was created in the 1930s by Mustafa 

al-Sibai (1915–64), a Syrian who had studied 

in Egypt and met al-Banna. Egyptian members 

had visited Palestine and Transjordan during 

the 1930s, but the first independent Jordanian 

branch did not officially open until 1946, headed 

by Abd al-Latif Qurah (d. 1953), a Jordanian. 

In 1948 the Brotherhood recruited volunteers 

to fight in Palestine against the Israelis, reflect-

ing their concern for pan-Arab causes. Sudanese 

who had studied in Cairo established the first 

branches in the Sudan in the late 1940s, but the 

official headquarters of the Sudanese Muslim 

Brotherhood did not open until 1954. Perhaps the 

most prominent leader to arise from this branch 

was Hasan al-Turabi (b. 1932), who had joined 

the Brotherhood as a student and rose to promi-

nence in the organization in the 1960s and 1970s. 

He became the chief ideologist of the Sudanese 

National Islamic Front, the Brotherhood’s politi-

cal party, in the 1980s.

From the beginning, the Brotherhood made 

effective use of the print media to spread its mes-

sage. In Egypt it launched several periodicals in 

the 1930s, then took over al-Manar (Lighthouse), 

the Islamic reformist magazine, when its chief 

editor Rashid Rida died in 1935. In 1942 it began 

publishing a weekly magazine called al-Ikhwan 

al-Muslimin, which was replaced by a daily news-

paper of the same name in 1946. This publica-

tion was shut down when the Brotherhood was 

banned by the government in 1948. From 1951 

to 1956 it published al-Daawa magazine, which 

was also banned, but allowed to resume in 1976, 

until banned again by the government in 1981. 

Since the 1980s the Brotherhood has published a 

weekly periodical known as Liwa al-Islam (Banner 

of Islam), and it has also been able to disseminate 

its ideology through numerous books and other 

oppositional newspapers, even when its official 

publications have been banned.

In a development that proved to be a significant 

one with respect to its status in the eyes of Egyp-

tian authorities, the Brotherhood formed a 

Jihad

unit (known as the “secret apparatus”) designed 

to defend the organization against police crack-

downs and to attack the British during World War 

II. After the war it conducted a campaign of terror 

that included attacks on the British, government 

officials, popular cinemas, and Egyptian Jews. This 

cycle of violence culminated with the assassina-

tion of Egypt’s prime minister, al-Nuqrashi Pasha, 

in 1948, followed by the government’s retaliatory 

assassination of al-Banna in 1949. The jihad unit 

was also implicated in an attempt on the life of 

President Nasir in 1954, which resulted in wide-

spread arrests and executions of key members of 

the Brotherhood. One of those imprisoned at this 

time was s

ayyid

 q

Utb

 (1906–66), a former literary 

critic and recent Muslim Brotherhood convert, 

whose experience and torture in prison shaped his 

vision of a united Islamic struggle against modern 

idolatry

 and corruption. Two of the major works 

he wrote at this time were a multivolume Quran 

commentary and Maalim fi’l-tariq (Milestones). He 

became the foremost ideologist of the Brotherhood 

after al-Banna’s death, and his ideas have inspired 

numerous new radical Islamist movements since 

the 1970s in many Muslim countries.

A great resurgence of i

slamism

 swept through 

Middle Eastern lands when many of the newly 

independent national regimes were unable to 

meet the expectations of their people and turned 

to secular authoritarianism to stay in power. 

Democratic impulses that had emerged earlier in 

the 20th century were stifled. The defeat of Arab 

armies in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in particular 

served as a catalyst for the popular turn to religion. 

Egyptian president a

nWar

 

al

-s

adat

 (r. 1970–81), 

Nasir’s successor, took advantage of this religious 

turn to consolidate his power against Nasirite 

loyalists and leftists, releasing members of the 

Brotherhood from prison and allowing Islamic 

student groups to become active on university 

campuses. Although the leadership of the Muslim