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3. The Origins of the Muslim Brotherhood: Hassan al-Banna and the Birth of Political Islam

In a colonized Egypt, caught between modernity and tradition, a young schoolteacher conceived a project that would transform the Muslim world. In 1928, Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement at once spiritual, social, and political. Nearly a century later, his legacy remains central to debates on Islam and power.

Ismailia, 1928.

In this city on the Suez Canal under British control, Hassan al-Banna, the 22-year-old schoolteacher and son of an imam, gathered six workers around a single pledge: to restore the greatness of Islam. From this modest circle would emerge a movement that would leave a profound mark on the Middle East throughout the twentieth century: the Muslim Brotherhood or al-Ikhwān al-Muslimūn.

At a time of major political, social, and cultural upheaval, this initiative was no spontaneous act. It was, in fact, an ideological and spiritual response to a deep identity crisis affecting the Arab-Muslim world in the early twentieth century. 

The context of its founding is crucial to grasp its significance. Egypt, then under British rule, was a stage for sometimes opposing forces. Colonialism, reform movements, nationalist fervor, and religious aspirations — all intertwined in a society searching for meaning.

The fall of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924, driven by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, left a huge symbolic void in the Muslim world. For many, its collapse marked the end of Islamic unity and the loss of a major political and spiritual reference point.

“It was a shaken man who created the Muslim Brotherhood,” observes Pierre Vermeren, a professor of contemporary history at the University of Paris 1 – Sorbonne.
Hassan al-Banna was shaped by several decisive influences: The Salafiyya, an Islamic reform movement led by Cairo’s ulama, newly emancipated from the authority of the Ottoman caliphate by the colonial presence; Leninism, which promoted militant political parties; and the pervasive British colonial presence along the Suez Canal.

From Teaching to Political Awakening

Born in Mahmoudiyya, west of the Nile Delta, Hassan al-Banna grew up in a devout family. His father, an imam and hadith scholar aligned with the Hanbali school—known for its literal interpretation of Islamic texts—introduced him early on to religious studies.

From his teenage years, al-Banna showed an interest in Islamic reform movements and joined several moral and religious societies. He later enrolled at the Cairo Teachers’ College, where he was influenced by thinkers such as the Syrian intellectual Rashid Rida. 

In 1927, after graduating and becoming a schoolteacher, he was assigned to Ismailia, a city under British control at the strategic crossroads of the Suez Canal.
There, he witnessed a society deeply marked by social injustice, foreign domination, and a local elite captivated by Western ideals. To al-Banna, these conditions reflected a deeper malaise: the gradual erosion of Islamic values within Egyptian society, particularly among its youth.

Reviving Islam

Facing what he perceived as a dual alienation—colonial domination and moral decline—al-Banna believed that only a revival of Islam could restore meaning and autonomy to the nation. The stated goal was simple, yet ambitious: to reestablish religion as the organizing principle of society.

According to Pierre Vermeren, “Al-Banna affirmed the theses of the Salafiyya: God punished Muslims for straying from His teachings.” For the young reformer, “Islam is no longer the foundation of politics, society, knowledge, or morality.” Vermeren adds that his aim was therefore to “put God back at the center of society.”

From that point on, the moral reform became the prerequisite for political renewal. “The restoration of a caliphate is central to his program, but it will come later, after the reform of individuals, families, and society,” Vermeren continues.

Al-Banna did not view Islam merely as a religion in the narrow sense, but as a comprehensive way of life encompassing spirituality, politics, economics, and social justice. He rejected the separation of religion and state, viewing it as a Western import incompatible to Islamic tradition.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s initial goals were primarily educational, moral, and social. Its purpose was to cultivate a devout and active Muslim elite capable of re-Islamizing society from the ground up through education, exemplary conduct, and community service. “The Muslim Brotherhood is not a party in the modern sense,” explains Vermeren. “It is a modern tariqa, a reformed fraternity that seeks to be spiritual, political, and social at once. Al-Banna did not found a sect, but a way of life.”

An Ideological and Activist Structure

From the outset, it was primarily the political dimension of the project that came to the fore. The Brotherhood denounced the corruption of the local elites, European colonialism, and the uncritical imitation of the West. Instead, they advocated a return to Islam’s foundational sources within a modernized framework that remained faithful to the sacred texts.

Pierre Vermeren sums up al-Banna’s project as “an Islamic fraternity, a Leninist-style political party, and a revolutionary association.” He adds that al-Banna “radicalized the Salafiyya by giving it a political and operational dimension.”

Al-Banna’s message quickly struck a chord. The movement spread rapidly across Egypt, building on a network of mosques, schools, charitable associations, and even businesses. 
The group’s disciplined, hierarchical structure strengthened its effectiveness while arousing suspicion from the authorities. “It is a mass movement, but structured like a leading core,” notes Vermeren. “The Muslim Brotherhood draws from Jesuit organization, the Bolshevik party, and Sufi fraternities alike.”

A Disciplined Mass Movement

The movement drew in devout members of the middle class, civil servants, teachers, and young graduates frustrated with Egypt’s rigid political system. “Al-Banna embodies the comeback of the religious and popular classes against Cairo’s Westernized elites,” Vermeren adds. “It is a cultural revolution before it is a political one.”

While the founder’s rhetoric remained moderate, favoring gradual reform rather than violence, the movement’s tightly knit leadership and clandestine structure set the stage for future tensions. Over the years, the Brotherhood steadily gained influence, and by 1941 it already counted hundreds of thousands of members.

Heading for Confrontation

The Brotherhood’s rapid growth soon alarmed both the Egyptian authorities and the British. The creation of an armed branch in the 1940s marked a decisive turning point.
“The logic of moral purity and of a leading core inevitably leads to the temptation of violence,” Vermeren notes. “When one claims to hold divine truth, there is a tendency to want to impose it.”

Thus, the birth of the Muslim Brotherhood signaled the reinvention of political Islam in a world undergoing profound transformation. Hassan al-Banna laid the ideological foundations of a movement that still inspires part of the Islamist movement today, fusing faith, activism, and the pursuit of justice.

In 1949, al-Banna was assassinated in Cairo, likely at the behest of the Egyptian authorities, amid an atmosphere of mounting repression. Yet his death did not bring the movement to an end. Instead, it elevated him into a founding myth, a martyr for a reborn Islam.

His legacy endures, carried by the conviction that “an elite organization can lead Islam and Muslims through the new and unsettled world,” Vermeren notes before concluding that “this message, more than the program itself, explains the movement’s lasting presence.”