The Man Who Founded the Muslim Brotherhood

Founded in Egypt in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood became the key promoter of the political visions of Islam that spread more widely as the century progressed. By following the biography of its founder, Hasan al-Banna, this episode examines the circumstances, debates and idiosyncrasies that gave shape to the world’s most influential Islamist movement. As well as al-Banna’s adept organizational skills, we’ll look closely at his teachings as recorded in his various Arabic writings. At the center of his mission, at once practical and ideological, lay the leading political role which Islam had to play in a modern world he saw dominated by colonialists, nationalists and communists. Seven decades after his death, we’ll finally ask what al-Banna’s legacy is today. Nile Green talks to Gudrun Krämer, the author of Hasan al-Banna (Oneworld, 2010).