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The Muslim Brotherhood (Jamiat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun) was established in Egypt in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna and soon spead to other countries. Their ideology is that Islam is "creed and state, book and sword, and a way of life." By this they hope to spread the idea that it isn't possible to live in an Islamic society unless the whole of society, including the government, is run according to strict Islamic principles.

It has also been a guiding principle of the Brotherhood that Muslims must establish a pan-Islamic state, transcending all current political and geographic divisions. The ideal leader of this state should be a Caliph, an office modeled after the leaders of the Muslims just after the death of Muhammad. According to al-Banna.

The notion of nationalism...melts away and disappears just a snow disappears after strong, sparkling sunlight falls upon it, by contrast with Islamic brotherhood, which the Qur'an instils in the souls of all those who follow it.

Like all Islamists, al-Banna was opposed to loyalty to nation, ethnicity, race or class: only loyalty to the one truth faith of Islam was important, because Islam was the only thing that mattered. Thus, he was opposed to the very existence of a nation-state, and became violently opposed to one which failed to impose the laws of Islam. Of course, the fact that modern Arab states were essentially established by Western powers did not help, because al-Banna was just as opposed to the West.

[Europeans had] imported their half-naked women into these regions, together with their liquors, their theaters, their dance halls, their amusements, their stories, their newspapers, their novels, their whims, their silly games, and their vices.

All of this was, for al-Banna, much more dangerous for the future of Islam than "the political and military campaigns by far." The Brotherhood has therefore always been opposed to all forms of secularization in society and all Western influences.

An important parallel with our current situation can be found in 1948, when war broke out with Israel. At that time, members of the Brotherhood were eager volunteers, and this led to a further militarization of the group, giving it many leaders who were combat veterans. This is not very different from what happened with Afghanistan, when war against Western invaders was joined by Muslims from all over the Middle East, resulting in Islamic groups which became more radicalized and which were filled by combat veterans who were not afraid to use violence to accomplish their goals.

Al-Banna, like many in the Brotherhood, was decidedly an enemy of Israel, stating that "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." This opposition to Israel in particular, and Jews in general, was a new theme which would keep recurring. There is political opposition to Israel as a Western colony, and religious opposition to Israel as foreign government controlling a portion of Dar al-Islam.

The Brotherhood supports the existence of democracy insofar as it is limited to the people deciding who their leaders should be. People should not, however, be allowed any freedom to change the laws - laws which are, of course, derived from the Qur'an and hence come directly from God. Personal freedom is also only to be allowed insofar as it remains within the boundaries of Islamic tradition, meaning women can't wear shorts and dissenters can't try to convert people away from Islam.

The Brotherhood is very much a product of the political climate in which it formed. However, that political climate changed after the assassination of President Sadat in 1981, when his successor, Hosni Mubarak, altered the laws to permit more avenues for Islamic dissent. It wasn't complete freedom, but in the face of the new competition, the Brotherhood's popularity dropped considerably.

Today, the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan is essentially the same as Hamas, the terrorist organization everyone hears about. The word Hamas is the Arabic acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement (IRM), the current name for the major offshoot of the Brotherhood in that area.

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