Ḥasan al‐Bannā or the Politicisation of Islam

Abstract

Abstract The politicisation of Islam can be traced back to the establishment of the Muslim Brothers’ Society in Egypt in the late 1920s. Its founder, Ḥasan al‐Bannā, was greatly influenced by the European political religions that appeared in the first decades of the twentieth century, and there were significant similarities between the Society’s organisation and that of fascist parties. In addition, al‐Bannā embraced totalitarianism and developed the notion of Islam as a ‘comprehensive’ system. Finally, his worldview shows striking parallelisms with that of the totalitarian ideologues, with its depiction of history as a process of decline from a mythical past, and of the Muslim Brothers as the saviours who will lead the nation back to the lost utopia.