• MB News
  • March 23, 2016
  • 6 minutes read

Eighty-Eight Years On, Muslim Brotherhood Stands Steadfast As Ever – for Freedom, Reform

Eighty-Eight Years On, Muslim Brotherhood Stands Steadfast As Ever – for Freedom, Reform

Eighty-eight years have passed since the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood on March 22, 1928 at the hands of Imam Hassan Al-Banna.


The group started amidst major historical and political transformations that represented serious and imminent dangers for the Muslim world, with the Sykes-Picot Agreement signed (1916) to carve out the Muslim world and tear it apart to serve the interests of colonialism, while Mustafa Kemal Ataturk abolished the Caliphate (1924) to eliminate Islam – as a faith, law, social system, ideology and history – from the life of the nation.

At the inception of the group, its founder Imam Al-Banna focused on two main objectives:

– Liberating the Muslim world from all foreign powers.
 
– A free Islamic state to be established in that liberated homeland, based on the tenets and principles of Islam and applies its social system, and reaches out to other peoples of the world with the light, mercy, wisdom and guidance of Islam.
 
To that end, Imam Al-Banna worked on raising a generation of good reformers, men and women who are free, strong, determined, and who believe that the nation "has no pride or glory, except through believing, understanding and working with total commitment to Islam".
 
That generation of reformers would also believe that "Islam alone is the solution to all the nation’s political, economic and social problems", and that "in the Islamic state, every worker will have a job, every needy student a salary, each farmer a piece of land to farm, and every citizen a home and wife, and that all citizens will enjoy a standard of living worthy of dignified human beings".
 
Imam Al-Banna was successful in the task of transforming men into good reformers on the basis of "thorough understanding, deep faith and strong brotherly love". Thus the call of his group was heard throughout the land. The Muslim Brotherhood championed the nation’s fair causes, and made dear sacrifices, and continues to do so until now.
 
Today, five years after the beginnings of the Arab Spring, the nation is facing serious challenges similar to those of yesteryears. There are attempts to crack down on Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood. There are attempts to break up the nation into mini-states along ethnic and sectarian lines, and to hand secularists full control of the Muslim world. However, free and patriotic men and women of this nation, including the Muslim Brotherhood, are standing steadfast in the face of this mayhem and destruction.

Evidently, the Muslim Brotherhood made great sacrifices for the sake of Islam and the homeland, in support of the nation’s issues, and in defense of all the nation’s rights – for which the group’s founder Imam Al-Banna gave his life.

Indeed, the group continues to make great sacrifices in an unprecedented way for freedom of the people and the homeland. These sacrifices motivate members of the group and steel their resolve. They are good examples of patriotic giving for all free men and women of the homeland – a beacon that lights the way for generations to come.

The Muslim Brotherhood believes that "this nation will only succeed and progress like the first generation of Muslims, with strong commitment to Islamic principles and practices" and that the nation’s rejuvenation project based on a truly Islamic basis (as highlighted by Imam Al-Banna 88 years ago) is the only way to face up to the current challenges, liberate the people and the homeland, and wrest Muslims’ rights.

The Muslim Brotherhood remains true to its pledge to the nation, until it achieves all the nation’s goals, and calls for all to close ranks, unite and speak with one voice. The Brotherhood is committed to wresting all the people’s rights and reinstating democratic legitimacy and restoring the rights of the martyrs and the wounded, and to the defense of freedom for detainees.

The Brotherhood remains steadfast in non-violent revolutionary resistance, endeavoring to rid the country of corruption, despotism, tyranny and foreign intervention. We will remain steadfast in every street across Egypt until we achieve victory or die for what the founder Imam Al-Banna and other steadfast patriotic advocates died for.

The Muslim Brotherhood

Tuesday – March 22, 2016