Hassan al-Banna (14 October 1906-12 February 1949) was an Egyptian schoolteacher and imam who was the founder and first General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood from 1928 to 1949, preceding Hassan al-Hudaybi and Said Ramadan.
Biography[]
Hassan al-Banna was born on 14 October 1906 in Mahmudiyya, Beheira Governorate, Egypt. al-Banna's father was a muezzin, and Hassan himself attended Sufi rituals every Thursday evening after prayers, and he joined a Sufi order. al-Banna became a writer for the Young Men's Muslim Association and became a teacher in 1927 in Ismailia. While there, he was disillusioned with the United Kingdom's cultural colonization, so al-Banna and other angry Egyptian nationalists founded the Muslim Brotherhood to counteract the growing policy of secularism within Egyptian society. By 1937, it had 500,000 supporters in Egypt alone, and the Brotherhood spread to other nations in the Arab World. He called on Muslims to prepare for jihad against the Western colonial powers, and from 1936-39, al-Banna donated money to the Palestinians rising up against British rule in Mandatory Palestine, making Palestine an issue for Muslims across the world. al-Banna also sent volunteers to fight against Israel in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and it was evident that the Brotherhood was becoming stronger. Prime Minister Mahmoud an-Nukrashi Pasha feared that a coup was inevitable, so he had the Iron Guard of Egypt shoot al-Banna and his brother on 12 February 1949. Soon after, he was himself killed by a Muslim Brother.