Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics (11 page)

technical aptitudes and technological advances, benefiting Islamic socie- ties, while avoiding the degradations which typified the West.

For Afghani, (Abduh, and Rida another natural outgrowth of political leaders’ and a Muslim populace’s commitment to true Islam should be unity. When these three intellectuals spoke of unity, they did not mean that it should be largely or purely emotional or that a single Islamic state should be formed. For them, Islamic unity entailed a general agreement – among those who considered themselves to be true Muslims and who coexisted with one another in a state of mutual tolerance – that they would actively work together in obeying and implementing the dictates of the true Islam.16 This community’s unity, cohesion and veracity were based on and in turn reinforced by the saying of Muhammad in the Hadith, “My community shall not agree upon an error.”17

Yet, Rida did not believe that interpreting the Quran and Hadith, in cases where these documents are silent, was an individualistic enterprise. Rather, the people who applied their reason and made decisions in such cases had to be just and devout Muslim rulers working in tandem with members of an ulema who truly understood Islam and who were qualified educationally and by virtue of personal attributes to render accurate opinions about various matters.18 For Rida, the making of laws in these and all other cases should take place as a result of consultation (shura) between the political leaders and members of this true ulema.19 In conceiving of the relationship between the political leadership and the ulema in this way, he envisions “the ulema as an organized body, of the shura as a deliberat[ive] process, and of the law which it produces as springing from some sort of formal procedure.”20 In constructing the decision-making system in this way, Rida is strongly suggesting that an Islamically-based legislative principle working in accordance with some kind of parliamentary process could create an environment for the writing of laws that are both true to Islam and effective for the needs of Islamic societies. Yet, Rida does not provide illustrative details about such potential procedures.

While Rida’s political thought suggests some very rough outlines of what today may be called an Islamically-based democracy, he forcefully asserts what he believes to be the crucial importance of the perpetuation of a caliphate led by a caliph who fully understood, practiced, and was powerful enough to enforce true Islamic principles in majority-Muslim societies. (The Ottoman caliphate, which was based in Istanbul during much of Rida’s life, was deposed by the charismatic secular Turkish leader Kemal Atatürk in 1924.) While Rida believed, in some respects, in the efficacy of Islamically- based consultation in the law-making process, he vehemently opposed secularism, because it contradicted Islam’s basic principles. Both by virtue of his own Islamic convictions and in response to the increasingly powerful secularizing and Westernizing forces that surrounded him, Rida conceived

of the caliph as a person who should guide the writing of Islamically-based laws and assertively supervise their implementation. According to Rida, the caliph was to be the leading interpreter of Islam who, because of his high aptitude and educational background, could apply Islam’s ideals to continu- ally changing social and political contexts. This kind of caliph, who fully adhered to Islam’s truest principles, would – by virtue of the esteem in which he was held – be able to persuasively encourage the leaders of governments to implement these laws. Rida maintained that only with such a caliph in a leadership position could a truly Islamic society exist. In addition, only such a caliph could bring into existence the institutions which would properly promote the academic disciplines (within the study of Islam as well as the technical and scientific fields) that would – together with other elements in society – lead to Islam’s ultimate ascendance and the unity of all Muslims.21 The model for political leadership which Rida envisioned, while Islamically-based, involved a combination of semi-democratic and authori- tarian principles. The aspects of his model that involved consultation between members of the ulema, consultation between members of the ulema and the caliph, and parliamentary processes for the passage of laws were semi-democratic in the sense that the ulema and elected leaders participated. Yet, the leadership and power which Rida believed should have been accorded to the caliph are suggestive of the authoritarian strand within Rida’s thought. Like certain other political philosophers, either Western or Muslim, Rida wrote in general terms and did not consider the contradictions or potential unworkability of his proposals. Rather, in framing his conceptions of an ideal Islamic state, he tried to combine what he perceived to be the egalitarian and authoritarian strands within Islam’s sacred texts and history in order to construct his vision of an Islamic state for his time. Subsequent twentieth- and twenty-first-century Muslim intellectuals and political organizations would reinterpret and implement versions of Rida’s authoritarian and egalitarian-democratic strands as they conceived of and/

or established Islamic political and religious entities.

Generally speaking, the works of Afghani, (Abduh, and Rida are significant because they reflect the fact that these intellectuals were actively and vitally engaged in appropriating the sacred texts and histories of Islam to the radically changing circumstances which surrounded them. Specifically, they were among an early and influential group of modern Muslim intellectuals who attempted to show that Islam could speak in persuasive and relevant ways to the problems posed by the West’s technical and scientific structures, Western colonialism, weakening political, economic, and social structures in the majority-Muslim world, and what these intellectuals perceived to be the moral decay in their own societies. This is no small accomplishment given the enormity of the problems such societies faced. These intellectuals critiqued and tried to propose Islamically-based solutions for their societies’ problems.

Yet, they operated within a political, cultural, and educational environment which often stifled creative, critical, and analytic thinking – particularly when it pertained to Islam. In these ways, the intellectual contributions of these three intellectuals to modern Islam cannot be overestimated. Their ideas formed a monumental threshold to both Islamists and liberal Muslims in the sense that they encouraged these and other Muslims to use Islam’s foundational documents and principles – the Quran, Hadith, and life of Muhammad – as bases for critiquing the status quo and establishing Islam, in one way or another, as the vital underpinning for majority-Muslim societies.

Hasan al-Banna

Afghani, (Abduh, and Rida did not create any long-lasting organizations which embodied their ideas. Hasan al-Banna (1906–49), the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, which became one of the largest and most influential Islamist organizations during the twentieth century, adapted some of their ideas and implemented them in the establishment and perpetuation of the Muslim Brotherhood; indeed, al-Banna even turned to Rida for guidance and knowledge.22 Some aspects of those three intellectuals’ thought that are present in al-Banna’s ideas are the rejection of significant aspects of Western secularism and colonialism, the idea that Muslims’ straying from “the true Islam” was one reason Muslim societies fell behind Western societies, and the belief that implementing “true Islamic teachings” in majority-Muslim countries would solve those countries’ problems and enable them to become the world’s most advanced nations. Al-Banna drew from numerous sources in formulating his ideas and the influences on his thinking were not limited to the ideas of Afghani, (Abduh, and Rida. Yet those three intellectuals’ beliefs formed a significant part of the milieu in which al-Banna lived and worked. Al-Banna’s interpretation of Islam reflected what later came to be called Islamism. During al-Banna’s lifetime, the Muslim Brotherhood had roughly half a million members and had chapters in several majority-Muslim countries; by the end of Hasan al-Banna’s life, it came to be one of the most influential Islamist organizations in modern times.

Al-Banna was born in the small town of Mahmudiyya, 90 miles north of Cairo.23 His father, Sheikh Ahmad (Abd al-Rahman al-Banna al-Sa(ati, was the leader (or imam) of the local mosque and had been educated at al-Azhar at the same time as (Abduh.24 At the age of 8, Hasan al-Banna began his education at a Quranic school (kuttab) and at age 12 he was enrolled in a primary school, where he became a member of the first of many Islamic societies during the formative years of his life.25 At age 14, he enrolled in the primary teachers’ training school in a town outside of Mahmudiyya.26 At the age of 16, he left the teachers’ training school and later in the same year

he began his studies at Dar al-Ulum in Cairo, the same university where (Abduh had taught.27 Over time, Dar al-Ulum became a university-level teacher-training school and, with the rise of Egypt’s secular university system, it became increasingly traditional in its teaching methods, contents, as well as faculty and student body.28

After reaching Cairo, al-Banna was appalled at the alcohol consumption, sexual promiscuity, gambling, and preponderance of Western clothing styles, Western movies, art forms, and magazines which were capturing the attention of many Cairenes. He was also horrified at the political conflicts and religious disunity in Egypt’s capital as well as the rising influence of secularism in political and social life.29 In response to this deterioration, al- Banna organized a group of students from al-Azhar University who would promote what al-Banna and they considered to be “the true faith and teaching of Islam” to Egyptian Muslims, and eventually, they hoped, to Muslims throughout the majority-Muslim world.30 By 1927, al-Banna had fully committed himself to his purpose in life; he would work to resist the Western influences and the decay in his society by becoming a “counselor and teacher,” devoting himself to educating children and their parents “in the objectives of religion [i.e., Islam] and the sources of their well-being and happiness in life.”31 He dedicated himself to these objectives with “persever- ance and sacrifice.” With a knowledge of Islam’s teachings, his body was prepared to endure suffering with a soul which he had “sold to God.”32

After accepting an appointment in 1927 as a primary school teacher in the Egyptian town of Ismailiyya, near the Suez Canal, al-Banna continued to preach Islam, educate people in small groups, and train cadres of Muslim leaders to spread this message.33 Subsequently in 1928, al-Banna’s own organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, came into existence.34 In March 1928, six Muslim laborers who were working with the British camp labor force in the Suez Canal area made a statement to al-Banna, which to him signified the inauguration of the Muslim Brotherhood.35 While the precise wording of this statement from these six men cannot be verified, what al-Banna believed they said is worth stating for at least two reasons. First, these declarations encapsulate the spirit of the initial impetus and vision for the movement, and second, they indicate one significant source of the organization’s strength – namely, the powerful and dynamic relationship between al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood’s members.36 According to al-Banna, the men approached him and after thanking him for his leadership, guidance, and instruction said to him:

We have heard and we have become aware and we have been affected. We know not the practical way to reach the glory of Islam and to serve the welfare of Muslims. We are weary of this life of humiliation and restriction. We see that the Arabs and the Muslims have no status and no dignity. They are

not more than mere hirelings belonging to the foreigners. We possess nothing but this blood … and these souls … and these few coins … . We are unable to perceive the road to action as you perceive it, or to know the path to the service of the homeland, the religion, and the nation as you know it. All that we desire now is to present you with all that we possess, to be acquitted by God of the responsibility, and for you to be responsible before him for us and for what we must do. If a group contracts with God sincerely that it live for his religion and die in his service, seeking only his satisfaction, then its worthi- ness will assure its success however small its numbers or weak its means.37

With these words, according to al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood was formed. The fact that other Muslims actively called – and in al-Banna’s mind commissioned – him into service is compelling because it indicates to him that his duty to lead the Muslim Brotherhood was not fully initiated by him, but by others who recognized his God-given gifts. While it is heresy in Islam to compare oneself to the Prophet Muhammad – and this like every other heresy is one that al-Banna would not commit – there are echoes in this story of a prophetic call to service. At the same time, numerous modern Muslim reformers have drawn upon metaphors and imagery from Muhammad’s life as ways of legitimating and sacralizing what they perceive to be their own calls to service.38 According to Muslim biographers, after Muhammad received his first Quranic revelations from the angel Gabriel in 610 CE, his wife Khadija and her cousin Waraqa confirmed the notion that messages Muhammad was receiving were from God. Reverberating with similar archetypes, al-Banna did not generate his life’s purpose on his own; rather, al-Banna believed that God used other human beings as conduits through whom he commissioned al-Banna into the service of Islam.

Al-Banna attempted to implement this call and to spread his vision of Islam by means of a practical plan of action that involved creating branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt that would engage in the following tasks: