become the premier Islamist organization in the
Muslim world.
From the outset, al-Banna viewed the society
as a broad-based movement, encompassing intel-
lectual, moral, and practical goals. Unlike earlier
reformers, such as Jamal al-din al-aFghani (d.
1897) and mUhammad abdUh (d. 1905), who had
provided the intellectual Islamic legitimacy for
accommodating the changes brought about by
contacts with the West, al-Banna wanted to create
an Islamic order (nizam islami) that encouraged
modern Muslims to live according to what he
deemed to be their tradition. And, for al-Banna,
there was a desperate need for such an order
because Egyptians, along with other Muslim peo-
ples, had adopted the secular ways of their colonial
occupiers and subsequently lost their identity. The
society, under al-Banna’s direction, operated on a
grassroots level—through the founding of schools,
clinics, factories, and publishing houses—to dem-
onstrate the strength of the Islamic alternative to
a people who had become enamored with Western
nationalist ideologies, such as communism, capi-
talism, and liberal democracy
Political conflict, and occasionally political
violence, was the order of the day in Egypt
throughout the 1930s and 1940s, as nationalist
movements fought for independence from the
British and vied for power among themselves. The
society played an important role in the proinde-
pendence fight, and al-Banna participated in the
political process, even running for election once.
In the end, however, the society’s Islamic agenda
put the organization on a collision course with
Egypt’s more secular establishment, including
government authorities. Implicated in the murder
of several government officials, the society was
dissolved in late 1948, and, in what most observ-
ers regard as an act of government retribution,
al-Banna himself was assassinated in February
1949.
Al-Banna’s legacy within the Islamist move-
ment in Egypt and the Muslim world is that of
father of the movement and martyr to the cause.
His life story exemplifies the Islamist struggle to
establish an authentic Muslim society, ruled by
and for Islam, a struggle that continues to this
day.
See also islamism; politics and islam; reneWal
and reForm movements.Jeffrey T. KenneyFurther reading: Richard P. Mitchell, The Society
of the Muslim Brothers (London: Oxford University
Press, 1969); M. N. Shaikh, trans., Memoirs of Hasan
Al Banna Shaheed (Karachi: International Islamic Pub-
lishers, 1981); Charles Wendell, trans., Five Tracts of
Hasan al-Banna’ (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1978).baqa and fana (Arabic: abiding and
annihilation)
Baqa and fana are key concepts in sUFism. They
are employed by Sufis in their discussions about
mystical experience and union with God. At issue
is whether any aspect of a mystic’s individual-
ity (or selfhood) really remains or abides (baqa)
when mystical union or annihilation (fana) is
experienced, and whether true self-annihilation
can really be attained. A common teaching story
used in connection with this subject is that of the
moth that is drawn to the light of a candle only
to perish in the flame: Does the moth completely
perish, or does something of the moth continue to
exist in a transformed state after it is consumed by
the flame? The roots of such discussions are based
partly in human speculation about life (existence)
and death (the end of existence; nonexistence).
When people are born into the world, are they
born into true life? When they die, does life truly
come to an end? Pre-Islamic Neoplatonic think-
ers in the Middle East, among whom were many
Christian mystics, identified the living God with
true existence and viewed worldly existence as a
kind of nonexistence. Therefore, for a Sufi influ-
enced by Neoplatonism, to be truly alive meantbaqa and fana 89 J