The Muslim Brotherhood began as a moral movement morphed into a political machine — then, through the writings of Qutb, into an ideological precursor to jihadist extremism.
Muslim Brotherhood
© Kevork’s Newsletter
In 1928, in the colonial garrison town of Ismailia, Egypt, a modest schoolteacher named Hassan al-Banna planted the seed of a movement that would shape the future of political Islam across the Arab world. The Muslim Brotherhood began as a religious and charitable society, preaching moral reform and Islamic revival. But it quickly evolved into something far more ambitious: a political project with transnational reach and ideological rigidity.

Al-Banna's vision was clear from the beginning. Islam, he declared, was not just a religion but a "faith, a worship, a nation, and a nationality; a religion and a state." That fusion of mosque and state — recasting Islam as the complete and exclusive foundation for political and legal life — was the cornerstone of the Brotherhood's ideology. It was framed as a righteous alternative to what al-Banna saw as the corrosive Western influence infecting Egypt: secularism, materialism, and cultural decay.

But here's where the story gets more complicated and politically useful for its critics.

There's a lingering, controversial claim that the Suez Canal Company, then dominated by British and French colonial interests, provided financial support to al-Banna in the Brotherhood's formative years. Whether it was a small grant, a local endorsement, or a tacit nod from colonial administrators, the implication is serious: that the Brotherhood may have emerged not solely as an indigenous resistance to empire, but as a British-tolerated — if not British-facilitated — movement, designed to fragment the nationalist opposition and weaken secular or leftist currents like the Wafd Party.

There is no definitive proof to resolve this allegation. But the Brotherhood's early growth in a British-controlled company town, coupled with its initially non-threatening posture, gave enough rhetorical ammunition to its later enemies — chief among them: Gamal Abdel Nasser.

After the 1952 Free Officers coup, the Brotherhood initially found common cause with Nasser's military regime. Both wanted to eliminate the monarchy, both wanted to expel the British. But this alliance was doomed from the start. The Brotherhood pushed for an Islamic state; Nasser envisioned a secular, Arab nationalist republic. The Brotherhood's wide grassroots support unnerved the new regime, and by 1954, the movement was banned, its members imprisoned or executed, and its leadership driven underground.

This is when the British-funding allegation re-emerged — not just as gossip, but as a Nasserist narrative.

Nasser's government painted the Brotherhood as hypocrites who claimed to be anti-imperialist, yet had allegedly received British support in their infancy. The message was simple: "You say you're fighting colonialism, but look who helped you into the political arena." It was an effective smear campaign, feeding a narrative that Islamists were not revolutionaries, but pawns and agents of the empire wearing the robe of piety.

Even if false, the narrative worked because it spoke to a deeper truth: the ideological ambiguity of the Brotherhood, which positioned itself as both a religious charity and a political movement, allowed for multiple interpretations of its role in Egyptian history.

But the most dramatic transformation of the Brotherhood's ideology came not from al-Banna but from Sayyid Qutb.

Qutb, a former secular intellectual and literary critic, returned from the United States in the late 1940s disgusted by Western society. After joining the Brotherhood and suffering brutal imprisonment under Nasser, Qutb radicalized. He declared that most of the Muslim world had fallen into "Jahiliyya" — a state of pre-Islamic ignorance — and that violent jihad was a legitimate means to overthrow corrupt secular governments and impose Islamic rule.

Qutb's writings — Milestones and In the Shade of the Qur'an — became foundational texts for a far more militant vision of Islamism. Where al-Banna preached gradual moral reform, Qutb called for revolutionary rupture.

Even more concerning was Qutb's sectarianism. He openly condemned Muslim minority groups — Druze, Alawites, and Shi'a Muslims — as heretical. For Qutb, the Islamic revival was not just a struggle against Western imperialism or secular dictators — it was a war against any deviation from his narrow interpretation of Sunni Islam.

This exclusivist ideology proved fertile ground for the birth of al-Qaeda and later ISIS. Figures like Ayman al-Zawahiri adopted Qutb's doctrine wholesale, repurposing it as a theological justification for transnational jihad, not just against the West, but against other Muslims deemed insufficiently "pure."

So, where does that leave us?

The Muslim Brotherhood's legacy is anything but simple. It is a story of anti-colonial activism, moral idealism, foreign entanglement, and ultimately, ideological radicalism. It has served soup kitchens and spawned insurgencies. It has challenged imperialism and incubated sectarianism.

What began as a moral movement morphed into a political machine — then, through the writings of Qutb, into an ideological precursor to jihadist extremism. To ignore that arc is to misunderstand the full weight of the Brotherhood's impact on the Arab world and on global Islamism.

The question isn't whether the Brotherhood fought the empire or enabled it. The question is: Which empire? And to what end?


All of my op-eds are freely available, thanks to the generous support of readers like you. Nonetheless, independent journalism takes time, research, and resources. If you find value in this piece or others I've published, please consider sharing it or becoming a paid subscriber. Your support, whether big or small, truly matters and helps keep this work going.

Want to buy me a coffee (or two)? Just click [here].