A research article on Hasan al-Banna’s theory of the political interpretation of Islam

Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is no god but God alone, without partner, the manifestly true Sovereign, and I testify that Muhammad is His servant and messenger, the trustworthy guide. May God bless him and grant him peace, and all his family and companions.

To proceed: perhaps the meaning of the term “the political interpretation of Islam” has now become quite clear through what I have written and published so far. In brief, it is a theory of interpreting religion that makes its highest end and supreme purpose the establishment of a worldly social order, and makes all its acts of worship and laws means of achieving that end and attaining that purpose. This theory was explicit and flagrant among extreme philosophers such as al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. More recently it seeped into Islamic activist thought, from Jamal al-Din al-Afghani down to our own day, but in a concealed manner and an obscure form, alongside a valid acknowledgment of Islam’s obligations and rulings, belief in resurrection and the gathering, striving for the Hereafter, and seeking salvation there. Yet all these things became, under the governing theory and central idea of Islamist activists, “means” intended to improve people’s worldly affairs by establishing divine government and a just social order.

The obscurity and concealment of this theory led to its going unnoticed and unrecognized in the words of the Islamic movement’s theorists. Scholarly method therefore required effort, first, to uncover it, explain it in detail, and connect it with its ancient and modern philosophical roots; and, second, to read the Islamic movement’s literature in the light of this detailed knowledge of the theory, so that its discourse is understood according to its authors’ concepts and purposes. This process demands considerable effort and a long time from us, but its results will be important and decisive. It will provide evidence and lengthy, documented quotations substantiating the claim that the Islamic movement’s literature is wholly governed by the theory of the political interpretation of Islam, in both its general outlines and its details.

In this brief article I have chosen to present some initial results from reading the legacy of Shaykh Hasan al-Banna (1324–1368 AH / 1906–1949), founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. These results will surprise and shock many. The man, may God forgive us and him, was governed by this theory in his understanding of Islam, its purposes and ends, in his Islamic thought, his project of religious outreach, and his movement’s efforts. His presentation of it was extremely obscure and concealed. This indicates how thoroughly he had absorbed and assimilated the idea, enabling him to turn it into an overarching idea and a comprehensive project without having to address it through individual explanations and explicit statements, unlike al-Mawdudi after him.

Here I will confine my quotations to Collected Epistles of the Martyr Imam Hasan al-Banna, Dar al-Da‘wah, Alexandria, 1410 AH, giving the page number at the end of each quotation.

Hasan al-Banna possessed comprehensive thought and an overarching vision. We therefore find the issue of “the end and the direction” present in his discourse and outreach. He says:

“The time has come when the Muslim must recognize his end, determine his direction, and work toward that direction until he reaches the end.” (20)

He recognized the importance of “the end” that takes hold of the heart and mind and directs conduct and action. He says, correctly and truthfully:

“The end is a root, and deeds are its branches. It is the end that drives one onto the path.” (44)

Unsurprisingly, al-Banna devoted his whole life to working for that end and direction. He established a worldwide organization for it, educated its followers in it, and instilled in them what he himself called “the Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood” (170). They supposed it to be true Islam, or the correct understanding of Islam and its upright method. Perhaps most of them did not notice that “the Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood” was in fact “the Islam of the political interpretation of religion”, rather than true Islam as brought by Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, in which he educated his noble companions, and which the generality of Muslims, earlier and later, followed!

True Islam establishes that “the purpose of religion” is to fulfill “the purpose of creation”, as God, exalted is He, says: “I did not create jinn and humankind except that they should worship Me” [al-Dhariyat: 56]. Thus the divine religious command came in conformity with the purpose of creation, as the Exalted says: “They were commanded only to worship God, devoting religion sincerely to Him, inclining to truth, and to establish prayer and give zakat. That is the upright religion” [al-Bayyinah: 5]. Acts of worship are therefore intended in themselves, in worship of God Most High, drawing near to Him and hoping for His mercy in this world and the Hereafter. They cannot be means to any worldly aim or fleeting, immediate purpose. Worldly benefits and material gains are only good fruits and outcomes of establishing servitude to God Most High.

By contrast, “the Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood”, as Hasan al-Banna named and explained it, establishes that this religion’s purpose is to institute “the global social order”. God Most High selected Muslims to undertake this mission, which is their function and purpose in this life. Under the heading “The Purpose of Life in the Qur’an”, Hasan al-Banna said:

“The Qur’an has defined the ends of life and people’s purposes within it.” (24)

He then explained some of their corrupt material and sensual purposes and said:

“Those are some of people’s purposes in life. God has raised believers above them and absolved them of them. He has charged them with a higher mission and placed a nobler obligation on their shoulders. That obligation is to guide people to truth, direct all people to goodness, and illuminate the entire world with the sun of Islam. This is His saying, blessed and exalted is He: ‘O you who believe, bow, prostrate yourselves, worship your Lord and do good, so that you may prosper. Strive for God with the striving due to Him. He has chosen you and has placed no hardship upon you in religion, the religion of your father Abraham. He named you Muslims before and in this, so that the Messenger may be a witness over you and you may be witnesses over humankind. So establish prayer, give zakat and hold fast to God. He is your Protector: what an excellent Protector and an excellent Helper!’ [al-Hajj: 77–78]. This means that the Noble Qur’an appoints Muslims guardians over immature humanity and grants them the right of predominance and sovereignty over the world in service of this noble guardianship. It is therefore our affair, not the West’s, and belongs to the civilization of Islam, not material civilization.” (42–43)

The verse is explicit and clear that the believers’ mission in this life is to establish servitude to God Most High through prayer, zakat, and all other forms of worship. But Hasan al-Banna, with his broad imagination, extracted another mission from it: establishing a social order for humanity’s happiness. Al-Banna reaffirmed this concept on the following page:

“Since the end in our nation was obscure and confused, we had to clarify and define it. I think we have achieved much clarification and agreed that our mission is sovereignty over the world and guiding all humanity to Islam’s sound systems and teachings, without which people cannot be happy.” (44)

What al-Banna here described as “the obscurity and confusion of the end in the nation” was what al-Mawdudi later described as the nation’s deviation and ignorance of the four Qur’anic terms: “god, lord, religion, and worship”. It was also what Sayyid Qutb described as twentieth-century pagan ignorance, which led him to declare Muslim societies generally unbelieving.

If the purpose of the prophetic mission and religious obligation is guardianship over humanity in order to establish “Islamic civilization”, why were the primary, purely devotional acts of prayer, zakat, fasting, and pilgrimage prescribed?

The answer of the theory of the political interpretation of religion is that they were prescribed as educational influences and training methods to prepare the human being for the mission for which he was created.

Presenting this answer under the heading “The Practical Rites of This System”, Hasan al-Banna says:

“The Qur’anic system differed from other humanly devised systems and theoretical philosophies. It did not leave its principles and teachings as theories in minds, opinions in books, or words on mouths and lips. Rather, to consolidate and establish them and benefit from their effects and results, it laid down practical manifestations. It obliged the nation that believes in it and adheres to it to observe these acts diligently, making them duties incumbent upon it, allowing no indulgence in their neglect. It rewards those who perform them and punishes those who fall short with a punishment that may carry an individual beyond the limits of this Islamic society and cast him to a distant place. The most important of these obligations, which this system made a protective fence to consolidate its principles, are:

A. Prayer, remembrance, repentance, seeking forgiveness, and so on.

B. Fasting, chastity, and warning against luxury.

C. Zakat, charity, and spending in God’s cause.

D. Pilgrimage, travel, journeys, exploration, and contemplation of God’s dominion…”

He mentioned other duties and laws before saying:

“The Muslim is required to perform these obligations and undertake them as the Qur’anic system has explained them in detail. He must not fall short in any of them. All are mentioned in the Qur’an, and the actions of the Prophet, his companions, and those who followed them in excellence explained them fully, simply, and clearly. Each act, or group of acts, strengthens and consolidates one or more principles of the preceding theories that this system came to realize and whose results and effects it came to make beneficial to people.” (146–147)

Thus purely devotional acts are only “practical means that strengthen, consolidate, and establish” the system for whose institution God Most High prescribed the religion of Islam and laid down theories and principles whose purpose is “benefiting people through their results and effects”.

To explain Hasan al-Banna’s words and clarify his idea, we must call upon a friend. Let us call upon the chief shaykh, the philosopher Abu Ali Ibn Sina the Persian. We will not wrong Hasan al-Banna by accusing him of intellectual theft, however closely the ideas correspond and the wording resembles it!

Ibn Sina explained what “the prophet must inevitably have planned in order to preserve what he institutes and legislates regarding human interests. Undoubtedly its basis is that people should continue to know the Maker and the return after death, and that the cause of their forgetting it should be removed as the generation following the prophet passes away. People must therefore have acts and deeds whose repetition is instituted for them at short intervals…” He then explained this, mentioning purification, prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage, and referring to the manners and forms the prophet institutes for them. He then said of their benefit and purpose:

“These practices benefit ordinary people by firmly establishing remembrance of God, mighty is His name, within them. Through this, their adherence to the practices and laws endures. If they had no such reminders, they would forget all of it with the passing of one or two generations.” (Kitab al-Najat by Ibn Sina, Dar al-Afaq al-Jadidah, Beirut, 1985, pp. 338–343)

Because of this belief and other principles contrary to the religion of the messengers, peace be upon them, the scholars of the Islamic community successively judged Ibn Sina an unbeliever and a heretic. Imam Abu Amr Ibn al-Salah (d. 643 AH) described him as follows: “He was not one of the scholars; rather, he was a devil among the human devils.” (Fatawa Ibn al-Salah, Alam al-Kutub, Beirut, 1407 AH, p. 209.) Imam Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 751 AH) described him as “the leader of the atheists”. (Ighathat al-Lahfan, Dar Alam al-Fawa’id, Makkah, 1432 AH, 2/1032.)

After all this, it is unsurprising that al-Banna explicitly states that acts of worship are means to something else. Explaining the two verses of Surat al-Hajj, he says:

“Then the Truth, blessed and exalted is He, explained to people the relationship between obligations such as prayer and fasting and social obligations: that the former are a means to the latter, and that correct creed is the foundation of both.” (51)

These words of al-Banna explicitly make prayer and fasting, the former, a “means” to social obligations, the latter. This is neither a slip of the pen nor an error of expression, but a firm belief and a settled conviction. It must therefore be adopted as an “overarching criterion” in studying his legacy, understanding his thought and outreach, and evaluating his movement. Upon reflection and contemplation, the effect of this overarching belief appears in every line he wrote and every step of his outreach. Explicit statements, however, are very rare. These words are one instance. Another occurs elsewhere as he explains the principles of his call, including “universality or humanity, which is our loftiest objective, our greatest end, and the final link in the chain of reform” (131). He says:

“This prayer, that zakat, pilgrimage, and fasting are all merely social legislation intended to strengthen unity, bring people together, remove distinctions, and lift the veils and barriers between human beings. Hence our call has stages which we hope will be realized successively, that we will traverse them all, and that afterward we will reach the end.” (131–132)

Hasan al-Banna graduated from Dar al-Ulum, memorized the Noble Qur’an, and acquired a grounding in Arabic and religious sciences. God gave him intelligence and discernment. He was aware of what he said and meant what he said. He understood very well the significance of using “merely” and “all” in this context. For all these reasons, we can confidently say that Hasan al-Banna believed prayer, which he described as “the core of worship, the pillar of Islam, and its most evident manifestation” (50), to be a means to social obligations. A means undoubtedly has a secondary rank and is practiced for a greater end and a higher purpose. Here that purpose is “social obligations”, or the global system containing “the correct, clear, comfortable solution to all humanity’s problems” (120)!

I say: by His universal decree, God Most High has willed that humanity’s problems shall not have “the correct, clear, comfortable solution”. He has willed that human beings shall not attain the complete happiness, absolute good, and absolute justice to which they aspire in this world. In His wisdom, mighty and majestic is He, He decreed this world to be an abode of trial and examination, hardships and afflictions, flaws, deficiency, and disorder. The Exalted says: “Know that worldly life is only play, amusement, adornment, mutual boasting among you, and rivalry in wealth and children. It is like rain whose vegetation delights the tillers, then it dries and you see it turn yellow, then it becomes debris. In the Hereafter there is severe punishment, and forgiveness from God and approval. Worldly life is only the enjoyment of delusion” [al-Hadid: 20]. He, exalted is He, says: “We test you with evil and good as a trial, and to Us you will be returned” [al-Anbiya’: 35]. The Mighty and Majestic says: “It is He who made you successors on the earth and raised some of you above others in degrees, to test you in what He has given you. Your Lord is swift in punishment, and He is indeed Forgiving, Merciful” [al-An‘am: 165]. He, exalted in majesty, says: “Do they distribute your Lord’s mercy? We have distributed their livelihood among them in worldly life, and raised some of them above others in degrees so that some may employ others in service. Your Lord’s mercy is better than what they accumulate. Were it not that people would become one community, We would have made for those who disbelieve in the Most Merciful roofs of silver for their houses and stairways on which to ascend” [al-Zukhruf: 32]. He, exalted is He, says: “We have made some of you a trial for others: will you be patient? Your Lord is ever Seeing” [al-Furqan: 20].

I will suffice with this outline and promise interested brothers an expanded scholarly study of Hasan al-Banna’s theory of interpreting Islam. I have included this outline in my new book, An Introduction to the Interpretation of Islam, which is being printed in Beirut and will be available to readers very soon, God Most High willing. From Him I seek help and success.

Written by Abd al-Haqq al-Turkmani
Saturday night, 14 Muharram 1438 AH, corresponding to 15 October 2016