It was a sunny day on 12th February 1949 when the leader of Muslim
Brotherhood, Hasan al Banna was invited for a meeting with an Egyptian
government minister in Cairo. At the venue, the minister never appeared
and hence the brotherhood’s leader had to leave. While he was on the
street to get a taxi, he was shot by unknown person.
The Brotherhood’s leader death was widely assumed as an officially
planned assassination. Hasan al banna funeral was publicly banned by the
then Egyptian government and only his father, brothers and some family
female members were allowed to carry out his final ceremony.
Hasan al banna was a highly charismatic person and a sharp-minded school
teacher who laid the foundation of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928.
This was the first mass based Islamic party, which overtly worked
politically and within country’s legal framework. Brotherhood challenged
the ascendancy of secular and western ideology in Egypt and in the
whole of Middle East countries. Hasan al banna strongly felt that in the
unislamic ideology lays the root of the decay of Islamic societies in
the modern world, and advocated a return to Islam as a solution to the
ills that had befallen Muslim societies. The message of Brotherhood had
spread swiftly not only across the adjacent Arab countries but reached
countries far away like Indonesia, Malaysia, Iran and Pakistan.
Hasan al banna’s achievement was creating a flexible and dynamic
structure aiming to transform his vision into reality. He founded
numerous schools, factories and mosques in less than 10 years. He was
able to provide over a half million committed workers and twice as many
supporters to the Brotherhood. The work of Brotherhood started to
transcend the national borders. It was the time when Hasan was invited
by the British ambassador for tea, complimented for his good character
and admired for his work for the poor. He was told that it is in the
Brotherhood’s interest to get assistance from British. Hasan politely
listened to ambassador and told him that all of his money belongs to
Egyptians and the time for British was soon coming to an end. This
caused the starting of the conflict between him, British and the then
Egyptian monarchy.
No one could have imagined the future of the then Egypt’s most
influential and largest revivalist party after his founder, Hasan al
banna was mercilessly murdered followed by a massive crack down on his
party. Scores of his party members were arrested and subjected to worst
physical torture inside the military jails. The party’s assets were
confiscated. The situation not only lasted for months and years but for
decades and any association with Brotherhood was consider as a serious
and unforgivable crime.
The dawn of June 24th,2012 comes along with the election commission’s
announcement that Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate, Mohammad Morsi, had
won the country’s first contested presidential election, making him the
first ever islamist president in the arab world. It took eight decades
to Hasan al banna’s dream to come true. Morsi addressed to the tens of
thousands at Tahrir square, “I’m your president, but not without you.
I’m your president, but I’m not the best of you.”
Despite the time taking and tough period, The Egyptian socio political
Muslim Brotherhood has shown its commitment to its cause and vision,
given many decades before by Hasan al banna. It would be interesting to
see how their counter parts in other countries especially in Pakistan
would be performing in the Elections to come. Jamate Islami claims not
only to have close ideological ties with Brotherhood, but due to the
amazing similarity in organizational structure and working strategy, is
considered to be the Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan.
The political battle between Islamists and regimes all around the world
is not over, it has not only begun but in fact has gained momentum. The
brotherhood and such revivalists are emerging as significant forces in
the politics of several Arab and non-Arab countries, either directly or
through the movements they inspired.
They are appealing most to the masses and cultural conservatives who
want their government and society to reflect and defend certain basic
Islamic values and principles, and who favor a pragmatic and incremental
approach to achieve these goals. The legacy of Hasan al-Banna is thus
still presents, and will continue to shape the destiny of societies in
the new millennium.