Encyclopedia of Islam

Banna, Hassan al-

---

become the premier Islamist organization in the 

Muslim world.

From the outset, al-Banna viewed the society 

as a broad-based movement, encompassing intel-

lectual, moral, and practical goals. Unlike earlier 

reformers, such as J

amal

 

al

-d

in

 

al

-a

Fghani

 (d. 

1897) and m

Uhammad

 a

bdUh

 (d. 1905), who had 

provided the intellectual Islamic legitimacy for 

accommodating the changes brought about by 

contacts with the West, al-Banna wanted to create 

an Islamic order (nizam islami) that encouraged 

modern Muslims to live according to what he 

deemed to be their tradition. And, for al-Banna, 

there was a desperate need for such an order 

because Egyptians, along with other Muslim peo-

ples, had adopted the secular ways of their colonial 

occupiers and subsequently lost their identity. The 

society, under al-Banna’s direction, operated on a 

grassroots level—through the founding of schools, 

clinics, factories, and publishing houses—to dem-

onstrate the strength of the Islamic alternative to 

a people who had become enamored with Western 

nationalist ideologies, such as communism, capi-

talism, and liberal democracy

Political conflict, and occasionally political 

violence, was the order of the day in Egypt 

throughout the 1930s and 1940s, as nationalist 

movements fought for independence from the 

British and vied for power among themselves. The 

society played an important role in the proinde-

pendence fight, and al-Banna participated in the 

political process, even running for election once. 

In the end, however, the society’s Islamic agenda 

put the organization on a collision course with 

Egypt’s more secular establishment, including 

government authorities. Implicated in the murder 

of several government officials, the society was 

dissolved in late 1948, and, in what most observ-

ers regard as an act of government retribution, 

al-Banna himself was assassinated in February 

1949.

Al-Banna’s legacy within the Islamist move-

ment in Egypt and the Muslim world is that of 

father of the movement and martyr to the cause. 

His life story exemplifies the Islamist struggle to 

establish an authentic Muslim society, ruled by 

and for Islam, a struggle that continues to this 

day.

See also i

slamism

; 

politics

 

and

 i

slam

; 

reneWal

and

 

reForm

 

movements

.

Jeffrey T. Kenney