Controversy About Ḥasan al-Bannā’s Lineage and Origins
Numerous writers and academics raised questions about the actual lineage of Ḥasan al-Banna. This issue was raised after the period of terrorism the Ikhwān entered into from 1944 onwards, shocking Egyptian society, and it led prominent people such as ʿAbbās al-ʿAqqād to raise questions publicly about al-Bannā’s origins as has preceded. The various considerations which have been presented to question alBannā’s lineage are presented below. The reader should note however that this is a grey area and requires a much more thorough and detailed investigation. Further, it should be mentioned that al-Bannā’s father, Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣāʿātī, who despite his staunch Ṣūfism, had some highly beneficial works such as his arrangement of the Musnad of Imām Aḥmad bin Ḥanbal, titled, “Ghāyat al-Amānī Fī Tartīb Musnad Aḥmad bin Ḥanbal al-Shaybānī.” These types of efforts make it difficult to accept the considerations and arguments presented to cast doubt upon al-Bannā’s lineage. In any case, Ahl al-Sunnah judge people upon their beliefs, methodologies and activities. Knowing the lineage of a person is not necessary to evaluate that individual in light of the Book, the Sunnah and the way of the Salaf. The lines of evidence presented are as follows:
First, the book “Aḥādith al-Thuluthāʾ” of Ḥasan al-Bannā which is a collection of his lectures and sermons that were given on every Tuesday. This book was published in 1985 (Maktabah al-Qurʾān, Cairo) and was compiled by Aḥmad ʿĪsa ʿĀshūr. In a 1940 sermon Ḥasan alBannā said, “Perhaps a person might say: Why are most of the stories given concern in the Qurʾān those related to Banī Isrāʾīl? And why is a major portion of the stories in the Noble Qurʾān taken up with this?” Al-Bannā continues, “This has numerous reasons. The first reason: The nobility of this race and the abundant powerful spirituality which revolves within it. This is because this race has descended from noble origins, and has inherited an amazing type of vigour, even if it has at times harmed itself and harmed people by directing this vigour towards that which does not benenfit… This race has descended from Yaʿqūb, the son of Isḥāq, the son of Ibrāhīm. Thus, the spirituality has been inherited from a great through another great. The Prophet () said ‘The noble, son of the noble, son of the noble. Yūsuf, the son of Isḥāq, the son of Yaʿqūb, the son of Ibrāhīm.’ Four ancestral forefathers, each one of them is a Messenger.”
Then al-Bannā mentions the second reason, “This race possesses a determination (vigour) that no other race has possessed like they have. And just as this vigour was the source of their appraisal (commendation), it was also the source of their being deceived and forgetting the meaning of general humanity which is related in His, the Exalted’s saying, ‘O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you.’ (49:13).” Then al-Bannā gives the third reason, “It is because they possess the earliest heavenly Book about which something at least is known by the people, and it is the Tawrāh, and they were the closest of people to the Arabic nation in that time.”
Then al-Bannā goes on to explain, “The message of our chief, Mūsā () was in Egypt, and we wish to maintain the connection of his message to this ummah. The Israelīs were found in Egypt, even if their original homeland was Palestine, and the first of those to affirm them [in these two places] was Yūsuf (), ‘Take this, my shirt, and cast it over the face of my father, he will become seeing. And bring me your family, all together’ until His, the Most High’s saying, ‘He [Yusuf] said: Enter Egypt, Allāh willing, safe [and secure]’ (12:93-99).” Then al-Bannā says, “Our chief, Yūsūf () granted them the eastern regions of the land of Egypt, and they never ceased to be desert lands, and he granted [these lands] to them because they came [as bedouins] from desert land and also because he did not want to merge them with the Egyptians who in that time were upon the religion of idol-worship whilst Yaʿqūb and the Prophets from his offspring were upon pure Tawḥīd. He did not wish for there to be anything to stir religious argument between them and the Egyptians.”
The essence of the above is that that al-Bannā is telling his Egyptian audience of the nobility of this race, that it has an abundance of spirituality within it, that it is descended from a noble lineage, that it has an amazing vigour, determination, one that no nation possesses, that their original habitation was Palestine and that they were granted the eastern desert regions of Egypt by Yūsūf () and that the message of Mūsa is something with which the Egyptians should be connected. This speech contains such praise that would make a person presume it was written by Jews as propaganda to justify the occupation of Palestine and taking the eastern parts of Egypt.
Second, his claim that the dispute with the Jews is not on the basis of religion, but only because of land, a statement which can be interpreted to mean a validation of the religion of the Jews.
Third, the majority of the Jews in Egypt lived in the Baḥīrah district where Ḥasan al-Bannā was born. In this region is the tomb of Abū Ḥuṣayrah [Yākov Abuhatziera] to which the Jews make an annual pilgrimage.
Abū Ḥuṣayrah was a Moroccan Jewish Rabbī who died in 1880CE whilst passing through Egypt. After setting out for Palestine and passing through Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, he died i Damanhour, the capital of Baḥīrah in the Nile Delta region in Egypt and his tomb became a site of pilgrimage. Strangely, some of the Muslims considered Abu Huṣayrah to be a Muslim saint and used to gather at the tomb in order to seek blessings. There is something which can explain this. The majority of the Jews of Bahīrah came from Morocco and they used to manifest Islām as a means of shielding themselves (whilst preserving their Jewish faith inwardly). So when they appeared outwardly as Muslims, adopting Ṣūfi practices which resemble Jewish practices of venerating their Rabbi saints and would concern themselves with the study of the Qurʾān and Islāmic sciences, it was thought that Abū Huṣayrah was a Muslim saint.
The Jews of Morocco who moved to Bahīrah were themselves descendants of the Sephardic Jews of Andalūsia. They fled Andalūsia when the European Christians took over the land, killing Muslims and Jews in the process. The Jews fled to the neighbouring Muslim countries because they knew they would fare much better under Muslim rule.
From Morocco, many Jews moved to Bahīrah in Egypt. The tomb of Abū Ḥuṣayrah is in Damanhour, the regional capital, as are the tombs of numerous other saints. The writers, researchers and academics who make the claim that Ḥasan al-Bannā’s lineage traces back to Sephardic Jews from Morocco, state that his grandfather and father took Ṣūfism and Taṣawwuf as a cover to live securely in Egypt and encouraged Ḥasan al-Bannā to memorize the Qurʾān at an early age. Both his father and grandfather were watch repairers and at the time it was not known that anyone was a watch repairer in the area except the Jews of Bahīrah. There was not a single Egyptian known in the area which al-Bannā was raisied whose profession was repairing watches. It was an exclusively Jewish profession in that specific area.
Fourth, The surname al-Bannā is not a family name, since the family name was al-Sāʿātī (which means watch repairer), it was an adopted title and no reason is given for choosing this title. His father was known as Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣāʿātī and Ḥasan’s brother was known as ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣāʿātī, who was also a staunch Shīʿite. However, no one in the whole of Egypt knows the identity of his grandfather. All that is known is that he came from Morocco to Bahīrah.
Fifth, ʿAbbās al-ʿAqqād is said to have requested Ḥasan al-Bannā to show his family tree to his fourth or fifth grandfather but al-Bannā failed to do so. Al-Aqqād was very outspoken against the Zionists, he published a number of books about them, “Al-Ṣuḥyūniyyah alʿĀlamiyyah” (World Zionism) and “Al-Ṣuḥyūniyyah wa Qaḍiyyah Falistīn” (Zionism and the Palestinian Issue), and in the latter book he accused the Muslim Brotherhood of being agents for the Zionists, and named al-Bannā as a Jew who was working for the regional interests of the Jews. A person should note the danger of relying upon these types of criticisms about the lineage of a person and who he is allegedly working for, because these can be obscure, hidden issues for which definitive evidence is hard to come by. Thus, as people of the Sunnah, our criterion is simple and definitive: We judge a person’s beliefs, statements, actions and methodologies with the scale of the Qurʾān, the Sunnah and the way of the Salaf. This is the definitive furqān (criterion) and we arrive at definitive judgements in which there is no confusion or ambiguity. As for those who are aware from the Book and the Sunnah, they rely upon obscure issues, and issues which are not necessarily connected to the ʿaqīdah or manhaj in order to make their criticisms and to refute those to whom they have an ideological opposition.
#6, the controversy in this subject has also made newspaper headlines. In the newspaper article pictured below, the headline reads,
“Ḥasan al-Bannā is a Moroccan Jew Planted by Freemasonry to Establish the Jamāʿah of al-Ikhwān.” Four subtitles follow, “”The father of the supreme guide (al-murshid al-ʿāmm) was a watch-repairer, a Jewish profession and lived close to [the tomb] of Abū Ḥuṣayrah” and “Al-ʿAqqād: AlBannā who is of unknown origin is kindling tribulation and follows well the methodology of the Jews and Magian [Persians]” and “The Muslim Brotherhood raise the same slogans as the Masons, Freedom, Justice but Leave out Equality” and “The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood distorted the Qurʾān in Sūrah’s Anfāl, al-Nisāʾ, al-Isrāʾ and al-Ahzāb.”
These are some of the considerations made by researchers and writers on the basis of which controversy has been raised about the lineage of Ḥasan al-Bannā. We are not validating these claims nor rejecting them outright. However, it is important to note that our judgement upon Ḥasan al-Bannā and al-Ikhwān is not on the basis of this information. Rather, it is purely on the basis of the Qurʾān, the Sunnah and the way of the Salaf. It is in light of them that we have come to know this movement does not call to the Tawḥid of the Messengers. Their leaders have the calamitous innovations with them, that of the Rāfiḍah, the Jahmiyyah, the Muʿtazilah, the Ṣūfiyyah. They call to unity of religions, they follow the ways of the non-Muslims in their methodologies of demonstrations, revolutions, assassinations, coups and so on. All of that is known through the Book, the Sunnah and the way of the Salaf and that is suffficient to pass judgement upon them and their misguidance. All of that is firmly established and is the foundation of our position towards these jamāʿāt and their leaders. Thus, the misguidance of Ḥasan al-Bannā is apparent enough already and whatever his background is, it makes no practical difference.
دار السلام - Darussalam 