Hasan al-Banna
* Hasan al-Banna was very young, just 21 years old. He came from a lower-middle class family. He was a teacher in an elementary school.
*He started as a Sufi. He joined one of the Sufi tariqas, a Sufi group and later he developed, but he did not emphasize much about the Sufi attitude. He said that Islam is not a religion of rituals and it should change according to the demands of life.
*He started a movement in the city of Ismaliya in Egypt; all his ideas were translated to the mass Ismaliya movement.
*He felt that good manners, good education, studying Arabic, understanding politics and so many other things cannot be done without the broad based grassroots, because no one can be proficient in everything and a broad based people’s movement is needed.
*He recruited like-minded people. His idea was that Islam addresses all aspects of life and should not be imprisoned to the mosque itself.
*He carried the movement to the universities.
*He was an organisation genius and hence he was able to organise his movement in an efficient manner.
Jamaat ulama al-Islam – Algeria
Abdul-Hameed bin Badees
*Abdul-Hameed bin Badees was facing an altogether different issue… is Algeria going to be a French territory or an Arab country?
*French occupation was different from British occupation. It was to franchise Algeria, it was to make those people a part of France.
*Arabic language was punishable by law at that time.
*Quran was edited. The word jihad should be removed from the Quran.
*The newspapers should be published only in French.
*When Bin Badees made these facts to the people, no one at that time was able to understand him and not even English was allowed at that time.
*His movement was to make Arabic the language and Islam the religion in Algeria.
*He wanted at least some of their children to know about Islam.
*He made every possible effort to build schools. Some of his schools were kept secret.
*Thanks to this movement, because today Algeria is an Arab-Muslim country.
Jamaat-e-Islami – India
Abu Ala Maududi
*When Islam entered India, it ruled for 300 years. It had both good and bad history.
*Three politicians Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad formed the Congress party and believed in a united country.
*Amongst them, there was a movement within the Muslim minority that claimed, “We can never trust the Hindu majority because it has very malicious feeling against the Muslims” and it was led by Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Mohammad Iqbal.
*Iqbal was a spiritual inspiration while Jinnah was a political inspiration.
*All of them were educated in Britain.
*Under that background, came Abu Ala Maududi, who disliked Pakistan. He considered Pakistan a non-secular state.
*He wanted a real Muslim state that was based on certain principles.
Comparative study between these three movements
Hasan al-Banna’s idea was that Egypt should be democratic within Islamic guidelines. Problems resulted when his movement became very strong, so it was targeted. King Farouk was feeling threatened. Egypt was under British occupation. No Egyptian was allowed to carry a bullet and hence his movement went underground.
The second threat was the Zionist movement. He feared the same way Bin Badees feared with the French occupation. He felt that Zionism is an expansionist replacement movement and not just an occupation.
Two ways of underground operations were started by some members of Hasan al-Banna’s movement. One, was bombing the economic institutions that were financially supporting the Zionist groups in Palestine and the other was to send people to fight for Palestine.
When Hasan al-Banna contested for elections, the election was forged and hence he did not make it to the Parliament. His movement became too political and hence the Islamic spiritual orientation and upbringing became less than the starting period.
In 1948, he was assassinated at the young age of 40.
The people belonging to his movement were in and out of jail, on and off. In the jail, something important happened. Sayyid Qutb, a poet and who was not a student of Hasan al-Banna, became popular. He introduced ideas exactly similar to Abu Ala Maududi, which was developed within a confrontation environment where Hindus were against the Muslims.
In Egypt, Qutb got the ideas of Maududi i.e. All ruling is to Allah (or Allah is the ruler), human being is not to decide and should get things only from the text. Maududi called for a radical change by mobilising the masses without using violence.
We really do not know whether Qutb got Maududi’s idea or was it a mere coincidence, but anyway that gave a new meaning to the word jihad, which became an offensive jihad. The jihad was to liberate all non-Islamic authorities, even from enslavement to their own whims.
Until 1950-54, Qutb was on his own and was not a part of Ikhwan al-Muslimeen. He was catering to the people who were angry and resenting the oppression of the rulers, particularly those who were tortured. Some came out of the jail wise and nice, while some went on to become extremists.
In 1965, Sayyid Qutb had a leading voice to some of the elements of Hasan al-Banna’s movement. This paved the way to violence.
Qutb wrote good tafsir of the Quran known as Fithilal-el-Quran (In the Shade of the Quran). Qutb, a man of literature also wrote the books, “The artistic imagery in the Quran” and “The scenery of the Day of Judgment in the Quran”.
Salafism
Salafi is an attitude to go back to the original sources and early models. It led into liberation, but was also rigid at the same time. It promoted the idea of forgetting the madahibs i.e. the intellectual heritage altogether. It recommended the idea of following directly the Quran and the Prophet, rather than man-made schools.
Progressive Movement
Sir Syed Ahmed Khan who was the founder of the Aligarh Muslim University in India was one among those who said we need to stick to the Quran, confirmed Sunnah and should adopt the intellectual work done by madahibs, “schools of thought,” and thereby established the concept of progressive thinking in Islam.
This trend is the one that in my judgement should be adopted by Muslims in India. They can then keep their faith and identity, but at the same time keep developing with the speed of the modern world. They can co-exist and contribute to the well being of the larger society, which will help them feel secure.
( The writer is Advisor, Muslim Public Affairs Council-MPAC) (This was the concluding part)