Imagining the Perfect Society in Muslim Brotherhood Journals

An Analysis of al-Da'wa and Liwa' al-Islam

Kiki M. Santing

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9783110632958
• eBook ISBN:
  9783110633306
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: 20th Century History

The investigation of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood during the presidencies of Anwar Sadat and the early years of Hosni Mubarak is based on the movement's main journals, al-Da'wa and Liw?' al-'Isl?m, presenting its history during two relevant periods: 1976-1981, 1987-1988. These journals show that, contrary to the focus in modern research (e.a. sharia laws, gender relations, or ideas of democracy), the Brotherhood is a much more broadly oriented, social-political opposition movement, taking Islam as its guideline. The movement's own versatile discourse discusses all aspects of daily and spiritual life. An important adage of the Brotherhood is Islam as a ni??m k?mil wa-sh?mil, 'a perfect and all-encompassing system'. Faith should play a role in every aspect of daily life, from cooking dinner and housekeeping to education, holidays, enemy images, legislation, and watching television. Islam is everything, and everything is Islam. In its journals the Brotherhood provided its unique reflection of the spirit of the age. The movement presented itself as a highly reactive group that responded to current events and positioned itself as a moral, religious and political opposition to the Egyptian regime.

1 Sixty years of Muslim Brotherhood press (1928 – 1987)

The Muslim Brotherhood has a long history of journalistic publications. Soon after the establishment in 1928, Hasan al-Banna managed to publish some articles with the early ideology of his newly founded movement in journals of befriended Islamic movements. Once the Brotherhood had gathered a considerable number of members and sympathizers, it started experimenting with mouthpieces of its own. Over the years the movement published numerous periodicals, books and pamphlets with varying degrees of success. As it grew larger and more influential, the Muslim Brotherhood was more and more thwarted by the Egyptian authorities of which it often did not speak in moderate terms. The increase in criticism went hand in hand with government attempts to halt these publications, sometimes by suspending the license to publish a particular journal and sometimes more radically by dissolving the movement as a whole. Despite the many setbacks, the Brotherhood nevertheless managed to produce an extensive corpus of written material, including a large number of journals.

This large corpus notwithstanding, surprisingly little has been written in English about the Muslim Brotherhood’s publications. Several overviews exist, but these are rarely found, are outdated, mostly incomplete and often contradict one another. Nevertheless, quite a few of the movement’s publications are discussed either directly or indirectly in the existing corpus of Muslim Brotherhood research. Richard P. Mitchell, for example, dedicated an entire chapter to the Muslim Brotherhood press, in which many of the movement’s journals until approximately 1960 were listed.¹ Gilles Kepel discussed al-Da‘wa and so did Abdullah al-Arian.² Ivo Freijsen, moreover, discussed the Muslim Brotherhood press based on his findings from Liwa’ al-Islam and Noha Mellor’s Voice of the Muslim Brotherhood is one of the most comprehensive contemporary studies about Muslim Brotherhood media throughout the years.³

The fact that so little is known about these important sources of information about the movement underlines the need for a thorough study of this material and this is where the Brotherhood itself steps in. The movement published a series of articles in Liwa’ al-Islam from May 1987 until January 1988 titled “Sixty years of Muslim Brotherhood press: 1928 – 1987,” in which all its journals and newspapers until January 1988 were listed and discussed. These articles, in addition to what al-Da‘wa wrote on the movement’s press history, will serve as the main guideline for the arrangement of this chapter. The aim of this chapter is, thus, to read the narrative as it was later told by the Muslim Brotherhood, until the years of Liwa’ al-Islam, with as much detail as possible with regard to content and Zeitgeist, in order to move one step closer to comprehending its extensive and often troubled printing tradition.⁴

Of course the Muslim Brotherhood did not merely publish journals, since it also distributed many pamphlets, books and booklets. However, it is far more difficult to deduce a clearly defined collection or corpus of this material. Nevertheless, their value should not be underestimated, as these printings were affordable and easy to access. As Kupferschmidt puts it, “for today’s historian, they constitute a main source on the movement’s organizational and ideological development. There can be little doubt that internal pamphlets gave the members a feeling of coherence and solidarity.” What makes studying these pamphlets challenging is that printing and distribution numbers are hard or seemingly impossible to come by. Many pamphlets and booklets, moreover, have been printed and Xeroxed illegally and, if they have been preserved in the first place, are extremely hard to find these days. This is to a much lesser extent the case with the journals, which have been preserved on a larger scale and many of which are still accessible today.⁵

One of the earliest accounts of the movement’s printing tradition is provided by Brynjar Lia, who mentions that al-Banna and his brother already started experimenting with home-made presses to print pamphlets in the 1920s. Kupferschmidt adds to this that the Muslim Brotherhood established a printing press company early on, called Sharikat al-Matba‘a al-Islamiyya (“the company of the Islamic printing office”). In 1945 printing and publishing were separated in Sharikat al-Ikhwan li-l-Tab‘a (“the Brotherhood company for printing”) and Sharikat al-Ikhwan li-l-Sihafa (“the Brotherhood company for journalism”). Kupferschmidt further argues that journals, newspapers, pamphlets and pocket books were most popular for economic reasons, given that these were much cheaper to produce and purchase. This tradition of publishing started in the 1930s and 1940s, when periodicals in particular were popular among the wider public. Many people were able to purchase these printings, which helped the Brotherhood to spread its message. However, little to nothing is known about the circulation and readership of these early publications. If membership numbers exist at all, chances are that these are corrupted by either the government, in an attempt to downplay the Muslim Brotherhood, or by the movement itself, in an attempt to exaggerate its own appeal.⁶

1.1 The first phase (1928 – June 1933): Establishing the brand

In Liwa’ al-Islam the Muslim Brotherhood distinguishes five separate phases in its printing tradition until September 1981. The following paragraphs discuss the different journals according to these five phases as defined by Liwa’ al-Islam. Every phase will start with a brief description of the Zeitgeist, after which the movement’s journals of that particular phase will be expounded on.⁷ The return of Muslim Brotherhood journals under President Mubarak, especially the launch of Liwa’ al-Islam, is discussed at the end of this chapter. Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 deal more firmly with the historical background of the Muslim Brotherhood, again largely based on the articles from al-Da‘wa and Liwa’ al-Islam.

The first phase of Muslim Brotherhood publications lasted from 1928 to June 1933. It ended when the movement obtained a license to publish its own journal for the first time. These were the founding years of the Brotherhood, when it tried to establish itself as a new actor among the many Islamic societies that existed in Egypt. The movement was founded in Ismailiyya in 1928, where Hasan al-Banna worked as a teacher. During the first three years, the movement’s primary goal was the enlargement of its membership in and around Ismailiyya, mainly by preaching at mosques, homes and other popular meeting places. In 1932 al-Banna moved to Cairo, where he already had some contact with Islamic groups through his brother. Here he continued to preach and give lectures in order to spread the message of the still largely unknown Muslim Brotherhood to the much larger potential group of followers Cairo offered.⁸

Al-Shubban al-Muslimun (“the Young Muslims”) and Majallat al-Fath (“Journal of the Triumph”): 1926 – 1940

According to Liwa’ al-’Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood was unable to publish its own mouthpieces during the earliest years of existence and therefore used befriended Islamic journals to spread its message. The first media platform of the Brotherhood in these days was the journal al-Shubban al-Muslimun, one of the mouthpieces of a movement with the same name. The other journal was Majallat al-Fath. The movement published more of its articles in al-Fath than in al-Shubban al-Muslimun.⁹

Al-Shubban al-Muslimun was (and still is) “the Young Men’s Muslim Association” (henceforth YMMA): a conservative Islamic youth movement. The YMMA was founded in 1927 by ‘Abd al-Hamid Sayyid, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Jawish and Muhibb al-Din al-Khatib to counter the westernizing influence of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and other foreign groups. Its aims were to teach Islamic morals and ethics and to spread this message. It was a militant, politicized and Pan-Islamic group, with branches all throughout Egypt and in other Muslim countries and it remains a social, educational and religious non-governmental organization with divisions throughout Egypt (and the rest of the world) today.¹⁰

When al-Banna lived in Ismailiyya he remained in close contact with other Islamic groups in Cairo. In 1927, he supported the establishment of the YMMA and acted as an intercessor for the association’s newly founded journal Majallat al-Fath, which was edited by Muhibb al-Din al-Khatib, an Islamist bookshop owner who owned a press, called Dar al-Matba‘a al-Salafiyya (“the Salafiyya Press”) and was one of the founders of the YMMA.¹¹ He supported and encouraged al-Banna and for some time also printed his pamphlets. The weekly Majallat al-Fath was established in 1926 and soon became the “most popular Salafi periodical” of that decade. In Majallat al-Fath al-Banna published several of his earliest articles.¹² In total, more than fifteen of his articles were published during the course of 1928 and 1929.¹³ The journal’s purpose was to “circulate the news and views of the Islamic world, to describe the good qualities of Islam and to refute the accusations leveled against Islam.” It was a political journal that dealt with issues related to the entire Muslim world.¹⁴ The journal appeared regularly until 1940, but was by then overshadowed by the Brotherhood’s own periodicals.¹⁵

Majallat al-Fath was used by al-Banna to communicate his vision to his new movement, but it also helped to introduce him to the members of the YMMA and to present himself as a new leader. Al-Banna began to publish in Majallat al-Fath as early as 1928 and some of his articles were even published on the journal’s front page. By 1931, Majallat al-Fath began publishing small notices, which introduced the Muslim Brotherhood to its readers. These notices mainly consisted of small thank-you notes to those who supported the movement.¹⁶

1.2 The second phase (1933 – 1940): The emergence of Brotherhood journals

The second phase in the Muslim Brotherhood’s media history lasted from 1933 to 1940, according to Liwa’ al-Islam. Al-Banna had moved to Cairo in 1932, established ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Muslim Brotherhood journals under Sadat and Mubarak: An introduction
• 1 Sixty years of Muslim Brotherhood press (1928 – 1987)
• 2 The rise of the Brotherhood and the legacy of Hasan al-Banna (1928 – 1954)
• 3 Incarcerated and tortured: The trauma of the Nasser years (1952 – 1970)
• 4 Between coexistence and confrontation: The return under Sadat (1970 – 1981)
• 5 Mubarak and the search for political representation (1981 – 1988)
• 6 Editorial Features of al-Da‘wa
• 7 Writing the journal: The Authors of al-Da‘wa
• 8 Al-Da‘wa and Matters of National Policy
• 9 Religion and Form of Government
• 10 Women and youth: Contributors to a successful Islamic order
• 11 The Enemies of al-Da‘wa
• 12 The Muslim Brotherhood returns with a new journal: Liwa’ al-Islam
• Epilogue
• List of figures
• Index