R.P. Mitchell's 1960 doctoral dissertation on the Muslim Brotherhood (later published as The Society of the Muslim Brothers) offers a wealth of details and insights into the first, and still the most powerful, Islamist group in the world. The dissertation's advantage lies in its perspective. Written in the late
1950s, and submitted in 1960, it is devoid of the hyper-politicized,
left-leaning ideology that renders worthless so much of today's Middle
Eastern studies. And of course, there's the advantage of timing and location. He was there in Egpyt for some of the most significant events in the group's history. In his
introduction, Mitchell discusses his field research that
began in July 1953 and ended in April, 1955, research sporadically curtailed, often enriched and always complicated by the growing pains of a revolutionary government, increasing tensions between this military government and the Muslim Brothers, a cleavage within the Society itself, two official dissolutions of the Society, a struggle for power in the government in which the Brothers beame involved, a near assassination and, subsequently, six hangings and hundreds of incarcerations.
Mitchell breaks down the dissertation into four major sections: "History," "Organization," "Ideology," and "Conclusion." The "History" section is a narrative of the people and events leading up to the mass executions of 1955, including refreshing insights into the early years of Hassan Al- Banna and his movement. The narrative ends with the '55 executions of Brotherhood leadership , but it doesn't end there. Mitchell explores the group's internal structure and function, explained in more detail here.
The Muslim Brotherhood was the first Islamist group, but in its
actiitvities and organization, it remains the blueprint for Islamist
organizations (whether "political" or terrorist) all over the world. I'm reproducing a section called "Militancy, Martyrdom, and the Secret Apparatus." It occurs at the very end of the Organization section, almost as an afterthought:
With these three units, the family, the rovers, and the secret apparatus outlined, we can now go on to discuss briefly the "tone" of the training, which gave to them and to the Society its most distinctive qualities. This tone might be described in two words as "militancy and martyrdom" and was the important dimension of all phases of training and activity of the membership.
The phenomenon exhibited itself in many different ways. Even in the most generalized self-descriptions, those intended for general inspiration, the concepts were embodied in military phraseology. The following sentence is typical: To the Brothers, Banna says, you are “the army of liberation, carrying on your shoulders the message of liberation; you are the battalions of salvation for this nation afflicted by calamity.” Again, the painted signs on the walls of Cairo recruited for the liberation battalions which went into the Canal Zone in the following terms: “Join the troops of God.” These are only two numerous such quotations.
The most specific illustrations of the militant quality of the movement is to be found in the use of the concept of jihad. While very often members insisted that jihad, properly, was a variant of ijtidah and connoted intellectual effort, it more correctly, as used in the Society, literature, conveyed the send of qital - fighting – leading if necessary, to death and martyrdom. “Jihad is an obligation on every Muslim” -- a duty as firmly established as any of the other pillars of the faith. This view, argued Banna, was supported in the Quranic texts, the Traditions, and the four schools of law. Those who minimize “the importance of fighting (qital) and the preparation for it…” are not true to the faith. God grants a “noble life” to that national along which “knows how to die a noble death.”
The certainty that jihad had the physical connotation is evidenced by the relationship made always between it and the possibility, even the necessity, of death and martyrdom. Death, as an important end of jihad, was extolled by Banna in a phrase which came to be a famous part of his legacy; "the art of death." "Death is art". The Quran has commanded people to love death more than life. Unless "the philosophy of the Quran on death" replaces "the love of life" which has consumed Muslims, then they "will reach naught." Victory can only come with the mastery of "the art of death." In another place, Banna reminds his followers of a Prophetic observation: "He who dies and has not fought (ghaza - literally: raided) and was not resolved to fight, has died a jahiliyah death." No movement can succeed, Banna insists, without this dedicated and unqualified kind of jihad.
This aspect of the literature of the Society was an important part of the training of the members. In the families, along with the "theoretical" study of jihad, the student studied in his "history lessons" largely about the martial glory of early Islamic conquests. The lessons also included an important section called "the legality of fighting"; in substance, these lessons were exhortations to Muslims to resist the imposition on then of non-Muslim and anti-Muslim ideas and values.
Similarly, one of the important aspects of holiday celebrations was the recollection of the famous military events in Muslim history. Of special significance was the special celebration held each year on the anniversary of the battle of Badr, during which speakers extolled the spirit of jihad. The battle of Badr and its significance for Muslims was the subject of one of the few theatrical productions, which Brothers, for Brothers, performed.
That militant jihad and the concept of the "art of death" had as a necessary corollary an emphasis on martyrdom needs no further elaboration. By fighting and dying in the name of Islam in the Canal Zone, in Palestine, and on the gallows of Egypt, the Brother was sure that his "noble" death had elevated him to the ranks of the pious heroes of Islam. It was in this spirit that a Brother could calmly observe: "It is the shortest and easiest step from this life to the life hereafter."
In Hudaybi's [Banna's successor] efforts to establish a new kind of basis for the indoctrination of the Brothers, he never frontally attacked this emotional underpinning of the training program. Rather, he attempted its revision via the institutions, which generated the activism, which was a consequence of the training. That he failed was partly due to the external circumstance of political conflict, but primarily due to the intensity with which these views continued to be held after the death of their chief inspiration, Banna.
