SHAIKH HASSAN AL BANNA

In the year 1906 in the town of Mahmudiya, Egypt, a boy was born destined by God to become the most vigourous crusader for the cause of Islam the Arab world has known in recent history—Shaikh Hassan al Banna.

Hassan al Banna was reared in such a devout Muslim home that he often said: “Islam is my father and I have no other.” His real father was no less immersed in a life of learning and piety. He was an expert at the watchmaking trade which earned a prosperous livelihood for himself and his family. He worked at night. During the day he served as Imam at the local mosque where he preached and taught. His leisure time was spent in his library. Islamic jurisprudence was his special joy. The Muwatta of Malik and the Musnad of Shafai ranked among his favourites. He was also the author of a commentary on the Musnad of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal. Hassan al Banna’s father was also his teacher under whose guidance he memorized the entire Quran.

When the boy grew a little older his father introduced him to his library and encouraged him to read whatever he wanted from his collection. Thus Hassan al Banna received from his father a pure Islamic education. His mastery over his native Arabic was superb; he never learned any other language.

Both his zeal for Islam and his genius for leadership manifested themselves at a tender age. When only a little child, Hassan al Banna and his brother organized “The 213 Society for the Enjoinment of Good and the Prohibition of Evil.” He himself composed a proclamation printed by hand exhorting men not to wear gold rings or silk clothes. This proclamation was posted on the doors of the mosques and distributed among the notables of the town. At the age of twelve, we find the youthful Hassan al Banna leading the congregational prayers in the mosque, calling the Adhan from the minaret and at dawn he would go from house to house knocking on doors and windows to awaken the people and exhort them to say their prayers. He even took it upon himself to arouse the muezzins! He fasted through the months of Rajab and Shaban in addition to Ramadan. He studied the Quran continually at home, in school and on the streets.

When he was sixteen years old, his father decided to enroll him in the Dar ul-Ulum, a teachers training school in Cairo. When he arrived in Cairo, he was shocked by the moral degeneration he witnessed and the indifference towards Islam. While Hassan al Banna was still a student at the Dar ul-Ulum, Dr. Taha Hussain composed his heretical book, On Pre-Islamic Poetry which attempted to cast doubts on the authenticity of Quran and Hadith and Shaikh Ali Abd ar Raziq’s equally notorious book, Islam and the Principles of Government, urging Muslims to adopt secularism, was published. A flood of magazines and newspapers held aloft such slogans as “Egypt is a part of Europe.” The nationalists were meanwhile urging their countrymen to return to the days of the Pharaohs for their cultural inspiration. The clamour to imitate Kemal Ataturk’s drastic, 214 enforced westernization grew ever louder and never ceased.

Hassan al Banna was saddened as he saw the most respected and influential personalities in Egypt joining the ranks of the modernists and leading the people astray. Deeply grieved, he sought consolation in the company of Sayyid Rashid Rida and his disciples.

It was at this time when he began to conceive of a great organized movement to destroy the new paganism and inspire his countrymen with devotion to Islam as supreme in every detail of private and public life. When the senior students for their final composition were asked to explain their future plans, Hassan al Banna wrote:

I will be a counsellor and teacher. Even if I spend the whole day for the better part of the year teaching children, I will not neglect instructing their fathers in the objectives of Islam, sometimes by writing and at other times making speeches and holding conversations and also by roaming and making trips.

I have prepared myself for the former task with a spirit of thankfulness and optimism and for the latter with perseverance and sacrifice.

Both of these are essential to the reformer 1 and the secret of his success. Among the practical means of the reformer are a long period of study, a knowledge of those who embrace Islamic ideals and are sympathetic to them, a body inured to roughness despite its smallness and familiar with hardship despite its slenderness and a soul I have given to God. This is my contract between my God and me which I here record, which I call upon my teacher to witness, which cannot be influenced by anything except conscience and which is inscrutable except to God.

And he who fulfils what he promises to God shall be given a great reward.*

Hassan al Banna graduated from the Dar ul-Ulum in 225 21, 1927 at the age of twenty-one. He was a brillant student and stood first in his class.

Several months after his transfer to Ismailia where he was employed as a teacher in the government preparatory school, he officially established the Association of Muslim Brethren (Ikhwan al Muslimun) supported by six followers and loyal students. He used to frequent the largest cafes where he preached vivid sermons on the horror of Hell and the joy of Paradise.

His penetrating voice was enough to arouse the most lethargic listeners. He used to spend the early evenings at prayer in a nearby Sufi zawiya before returning to the cafe to continue his preaching and teaching far into the night. During his summer vacations, he travelled both on foot and on the hard, rickety benches of crowded third-class trains from one end of Egypt to the other. He would never pass a town, a village nor even the poorest hamlet without visiting it, spending the night and preaching to the people in their homes and in the mosques.

Shaikh Hassan al Banna was magnificently equipped for his task. He was not only endowed with a razor-sharp intelligence but an exceptionally strong body as well. Despite his short stature, he was the epitome of virile manhood. Throughout his life, he was blessed with exuberant, radiant health, his energy and capacity for endurance inexhaustible. Nothing can touch the heart of any Arab more than eloquent speech and Hassan al Banna possessed this gift to the very highest degree. Illiterate labourers and learned Shaikhs alike flocked to him, irresistibly drawn by his powerful oratory and magnetic personality.

216 In 1933, Hassan al Banna shifted the central headquarters of the Ikhwan from Ismailia to Cairo. For the next three years the movement concentrated its activities upon educating the people to live the Islamic way and establishing a network of mosques, schools and social welfare centres in every part of Egypt. The youth who only a few years before was arousing the sleepy muezzins was now arousing the whole country. What he accomplished, not even the most esteemed ulema of al-Azhar could do. In such a city as Cairo where pagan influences had grown so strong that Muslims felt embarrassed to perform their Salat in public places, where school children learned to despise the very mention of Islam, Shaikh Hassan al Banna succeeded in transforming the lives of hundreds of Western-educated youth, some of whom later became his most dedicated disciples.

Here are some maxims of Shaikh Hassan al Banna upon which the principles of al Ikhwan al Muslimum rest:

“Offer Salat whenever you hear the Adhan whatever may be the circumstances. Recite Quran, ponder over it, listen to it, remembering Almighty Allah.

Do not waste your time on useless matters.

“Work diligently to speak correct Arabic; this is an important Islamic duty.

“Do not argue too much in any matter whatever it is because showing off does not bring any benefits.

“Do not laugh too much; the heart which is close to Allah is serene and reverent.

217 “Do not engage in frivolous, playful passtimes; the struggling nation knows nothing except seriousness.

“Do not speak louder than what suffices your listener because that would be thoughtless and irritating.

“Avoid backbiting individuals; do not speak scornfully about organizations or movements unjustly. Speak nothing but good.

“Acquaint yourself with whoever you meet of al Ikhwan even if he does not take the initiative because our ideology rests upon the pillars of knowledge and love.

“Consider obligations more important than time. Help one another to benefit the most from his time and when you have any project to do, always complete it.”[*]

Ikhwan was a tightly centralized movement over which its founder wielded total authority.

No absolute monarch ever demanded and received such instant unquestioning obedience, such loyalty and devotion as did Hassan al Banna from his followers.

Confident Ikhwan had achieved sufficient development and influence, Shaikh Hassan al Banna was henceforth determined to implement his programme on a national scale. His goal was a total reform of Egyptian society based on strict adherence to the Shariah.

Ikhwan first attracted the attention of the Government when in 1936, Shaikh al Banna began to address letters to the King and the highest ranking ministers of the land, urging them to renounce Western ways and obey the Islamic laws. He demanded that they set an example for

1 “Sayings of Shaheed Hassan al Banna,” Muslimnews International, Karachi, July 1971, p. 24.

218 the Egyptian people by prohibiting the mixing of men and women and drinking liquor at official functions, refrain from frequenting the gambling houses, race tracks, night-clubs and cinema, stop publishing the pictures of their wives and daughters in the newspapers, observe regular Salat, speak Arabic in the home rather than English or French and refrain from hiring European governesses for their children and sending to them to foreign schools. Of all the varied aspects of the movement, Shaikh Hassan al Banna was most deeply concerned with the education of the rising generation. On numerous occasions, he called upon the Government to reorganize the schools on the basis of Islam, ban co-education and consider the necessity of providing different curricula for girls and boys. He particularly wanted to encourage the pursuit of the physical sciences divorced from the context of modern materialism to enable Egypt to derive full benefit from all useful knowledge without harmful consequences. By the end of World War II, *al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun* exercised such tremendous influence in Egypt, it constituted virtually a government within a government. Scarcely any city or town in Egypt lacked one or more branches. Al Banna had created a complete, comprehensive educational system all his own. *Ikhwan* schools, mosques, social welfare centres and flourishing commercial enterprises covered the country. Their newspapers, pamphlets, magazines and books enjoyed an ever-growing circulation. The influence of the *Ikhwan* now began to spread beyond the frontiers of Egypt as Islam in neighbouring countries increasingly looked to Hassan al Banna for guidance. 219 Branches were established in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Morocco and the Sudan. Like Jamal-ud-Din Afghani before him, Shaikh Hassan al Banna realized that it is impossible for an Islamic society to flourish under hostile, foreign domination. Therefore, he demanded that Jihad be waged to the death against British imperialism, both political and economic. He demanded that Great Britain be forced to relinquish her control over the Suez Canal. He hated Zionism and all Zionism stands for with a deep and passionate hatred and vowed to fight against this menace to his last breath. During the war against Israel in 1948, no Arab army fought so valiantly as the volunteer troops of the *Ikhwan.* Never did the Zionists encounter a more bitter and implacable enemy. As its popularity and influence continued to grow, the established ruling clique began to regard the *Ikhwan* as a major subversive threat. In December 1948, the Government bowed to British coercion and decreed the movement outlawed. Thousands of *Ikhwan* were thrown into prison and their property confiscated. Scarcely two months later on February 12, 1949, Shaikh Hassan al Banna was fatally shot on a Cairo street by an unknown assassin. Even the martyrdom of their beloved leader could not discourage the surviving Ikhwan for the movement continued to grow and flourish more luxuriantly than ever before. Its progress continued unabated until the end of 1954 when it was crushed with the same ruthlessness and inhuman methods totalitarian dictatorships have made the world all too familiar. 220 From earliest childhood to his last breath, Shaikh Hassan al Banna gave all his talent, all his thoughts, all his time, his energy, his property and finally his life for the cause of Allah. Indeed, he gave and sacrificed everything he had. He was a Shahid in the very truest and highest sense. May Allah bless him and may his soul rest in peace. May his memory live long to inspire all of us. 231