Milken Institute Review 2Q10 Page 80

The Milken Institute Review

Nasser hanged Sayyid Qutb for treason in

1966. But his brother, Mohammed Qutb, sur-

vived to publicize his works, and would even-
tually personally influence Al Qaeda leaders

Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden.

While it is easy to lump al-Banna and Qutb

together, understanding the broad influence
of the Muslim Brotherhood requires carefully
distinguishing al-Banna's organizational

model from Qutb's theology. Al-Banna's
major innovation was not theological, but or-
ganizational. He invented what is now called
the Hamas model an Islamic social service
provision organization that can quickly
evolve to exploit political opportunities as
they arise, all with the goal of enabling per-
sonal piety and eventually establishing an Is-
lamic state. This model generated the expo-
nential growth and popularity of the Muslim
Brotherhood long before massive oil revenues
were available to subsidize present-day Is-
lamist charities. Al-Banna's model of Islamist
charities combined with politically active
Islam has spread successfully and widely, with
Brotherhood chapters now established
throughout the Muslim world.

President Anwar El-Sadat, who succeeded

Nasser in 1970, freed members from jail and
co-opted the Brotherhood in an effort to
present himself as a more Muslim leader as
he consolidated power. Sadat would not sur-
vive his experiment: in October 1981, as he
reviewed a military parade, a truck full of
troops halted in front of the review stand and
opened fire on the presidential party, killing
Sadat and 11 others. The troops were loyal to

the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, an outgrowth of
the Muslim Brotherhood that espoused a ji-
hadist theology influenced by Qutb.

President Hosni Mubarak, Sadat's succes-

sor, has taken a middle course, allowing the

Muslim Brotherhood to compete unofficially
in tightly controlled elections while brutally

suppressing the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. In the

Egyptian parliamentary elections of 2005,

Muslim Brotherhood candidates ran as inde-
pendents. Despite strict government control
of both the media and the election process,
they won one-fifth of the total seats and
formed the largest opposition bloc.

hamas

With the history of the Muslim Brotherhood

as background, the birth of Hamas appears
familiar. Palestinian-born Sheikh Ahmed Yas-
sin returned to Gaza in the early 1970s from

Egypt, where he had joined the Muslim
Brotherhood as a university student. He vital-
ized local branches of the Brotherhood by
following al-Banna's standard procedure:
build an organizational base of social service
provision and wait patiently for political op-
portunities. The Israeli occupational govern-
ment and foreign aid sources left him lots of

service provision opportunities. Gaza had a
tremendous unfilled demand for schools,
clinics, youth groups and the like.

The Brotherhood managed to supplement

local charitable giving by soliciting funding
from Muslims abroad, especially after the oil
crises of the 1970s initiated a flood of oil rev-
enue into the Persian Gulf. The organization

l-Banna's model of Islamist charities combined

with politically active Islam has spread success-

fully and widely.