1928–1949: Hassan al-Banna organizes Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood

A movement begins near the Suez Canal

In 1928, schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Ismailia, Egypt, while Britain still held substantial power over Egyptian affairs. Al-Banna argued that religious belief should influence schools, family life, law and political institutions. His followers organized lectures, associations and local welfare services. For residents who saw existing elites as distant, education and mutual assistance could make the new organization attractive.

The Brotherhood was not the only movement challenging foreign influence. Egyptian nationalists, liberals and leftists also criticized Britain and the monarchy, although they differed about how society ought to be governed. Al-Banna wanted Islam to guide public authority as well as personal conduct. That view became a central strain of modern political Islamism; it was not a description of what every Muslim believed.

Growth produces internal tensions

During the 1930s and 1940s, Brotherhood membership expanded beyond local charitable work into demonstrations and national politics. The organization opposed British influence and addressed events in Palestine. Some members developed an armed clandestine apparatus. Supporters of its social programs and political message did not necessarily endorse the activities of militants. Tensions also grew with governments that feared the Brotherhood was becoming a rival center of power.

In December 1948, Egypt’s prime minister Mahmoud Fahmy al-Nuqrashi was assassinated by a Brotherhood member after the government had dissolved the organization. Al-Banna condemned the murder, but the organization had to confront the consequences of armed activism that had grown within its ranks. Al-Banna himself was assassinated in February 1949. The events linked clandestine violence, state repression and political retaliation in a cycle that shaped later generations.

The difference between social work and state power

The Brotherhood’s schools, clinics and associations supplied services as well as networks of loyalty. Its political demands raised harder questions: whose interpretation of religious law would govern, how would minorities and critics participate, and who could remove rulers? Different Brotherhood members and later leaders offered different answers. The organization’s early history is therefore both a record of community-building and a warning about the dangers of armed wings operating alongside public political activity.