On the Anniversary of Al-Banna Martyrdom, Message from Mr. Mohammad Mahdi Akef

A Message from Mr. Mohammad Mahdi Akef, Chairman of theMuslim Brotherhood
In the name of Allah; and peace and blessings be upon His messenger and his proponents.

We commemorate these days the anniversary of the martyrdom of the leader of Islamic revival Imam Hassan Al-Banna, may Allah have mercy on his soul and be pleased with him. Such anniversary is full of significances, rich with lessons worth of contemplating and pondering. Herein we will not talk at great length about aspects of his character and how cowardly and brutal his assassinating was. However, We will focus on the relationship between that wicked assassination and the endeavor of those involved to eliminate the project of moderate Islam personified by Al-Banna. He was the most prominent leader, and struggler for such project; the one who designed its features, and renewed its means and mechanisms in modern age. What he did was confirmation to what our noble Messenger, peace and blessings of Allah are upon him, said:” Every hundred years God let someone revive the religion of my Ummah”

An Education and a Group
This active and humble man who was assassinated at the age of 42, had influenced our Arab and Islamic world greatly and permanently. He was very much following the steps of  the Prophet Mohamed, Peace Be Upon Him, when he created the  first Islamic society.  Al-Banna proved superior to preachers and strugglers of his time by focusing on education, purifying the souls and consciences, and building Muslim personality from all aspects. He was not only an eloquent preacher, influential orator and much enthusiastic struggler, but also he wanted to be an educator who realizes the correct Prophetic method, and the goal of God’s saying: “Allah does not change a people’s lot unless they change what is in their hearts”13:11. Preferring teamwork, his amazing patience to achieve his goals; relentless  work to gather the hearts, build souls, clarify  the purposes, show methods, and set an example for others. Even before the very beginning of his career, he had a very clear vision of the inevitability, religious obligation and practical importance of teamwork. When he was a university student, he was asked about his future plans after graduation, he said: “To become a guide of a religious group”. When some people blamed him friendly that he was too busy to compose books and to write down his copious knowledge, he said:” I compose men, and men compose books”.
 

Time proved Al-Banna’s correct vision and wise method. When the criminals assassinated him, his absence did not mean the end to his vision and ideas. Generation after another continued his mission; and his ideas moved allover the world. His group became deeply rooted in life; stronger than the attempts to destroy it; continues to win proponents despite of successive ordeals; and able to achieve witnessed success. This method was, by God’s grace and will, the main defender of tAl-Banna project to revive Islam, a project he lived and died for.

 Major Goals

Not only our martyred Imam, may God have mercy upon him, was inspired when choosing his methods to achieve his purposes, but also he was inspired when summarizing, deepening, and clarifying his purposes, and calling people for them. He said explaining that:” always remember that you have two main goals:

       1- To liberate the Islamic world of any foreign domination. An undeniable right, except by those who are unjust or dictatorial.

       2- To establish a free Islamic movement in that free nation, abiding by the rules of Islam, applying its social system, announcing its true principles and conveying its wise message to people. Muslims are responsible to establish that state, otherwise they would be sinners.

 

The Imam realized that the war of liberating the Muslim nations should not aim at ending the military occupation only, but also these nations must be liberated from any foreign domination; political, intellectual, cultural or economic. He was completely right when he stated that the desired Islamic state will not be free unless it adopts a comprehensive Islamic agenda, on the political, social, moral and preaching levels. He was great when he spent his youth days using these major facts to confront the forgery of our Ummah’s consciousness, the marketing for imported solutions, the taming of the Ummah’s will to be satisfied with a superfacial and incomplete independence, or an imported and imposed identity that leads to the loss of long struggle and the abundant sacrifices of the Ummah’s sons and leaders.

 He proved to be a real struggler, when he went on quickly in practical way with his project, setting an example by himself and his group, reviving the ways of struggle in his Ummah, spreading the sense of honor, and deepening the conviction of the ability of confronting the colonial and aggressive western project in all its forms. He frequently said to his brothers: “you are not a charity, nor political party, nor a body of positivist and limited purposes. You are a new soul going through the whole Ummah, reviving it by Qur’an. You are a new light spreading to remove the darkness of materialism through knowing Allah. You are a loud voice repeating the message of the Messenger, God’s peace and blessings be upon him. It is fair and right to feel that you carry that burden, which people deserted.” He conformingly spoke loud to them: “Do not give up hope, as despair is not of the Muslim character. Today’s facts are yesterday’s dreams. And today’s dreams are tomorrow’s facts. Still there is a plenty of time ahead of us. Safety elements in the souls of the believing people are still strong and great, in spite of the prevalence of elements of corruption. The weak does not stay weak all his life; and the strong does stay strong forever.  “

 

He was honest with himself , his group and Ummah when he sent his brothers to fight in Palestine to confront the Zionist project supported by western colonization; and when he declared later that he is ready to go with 10,000 brothers to continue struggling there.

 

 

 He was true to himself while educating preachers, instructing writers,

Establishing companies, sport clubs and charities, communicating with other leaders in Islamic and Arab world. The house of Muslim Brotherhood became the meeting place of the free and the destination of our Ummah’s leaders. He disdained the attempts to stir conflicts. He openly said “Let us cooperate in what we agreed upon, and excuse each other for what we did not agree upon”. He appointed some Egyptian Coptic leaders as his political consultants. When the criminals killed him and refused to let people attend his funeral and carry his body, except women of his household, Makram Ebeid, a famous Coptic leader, insisted on attending the burial of Al-Banna.

 

 

Assassinating him was an Attempt to Abort his Islamic Project

 

It was necessary for the western colonization, which is prone to use disgraceful means to achieve its goals, to kill Al-Banna by its collaborators in Egypt. In a meeting in the city of Faid during Palestine war, representatives for France, Britain and America decided that must eliminate Al-Banna and his group. They wanted to pave the way for a new phase during which our nation and Ummah to be controlled by a group of easy-to-go soldiers with little awareness, who can be deceived and wrongly persuaded that the Islamic project is a danger to their future and leadership. Through such group, the tragedy of Palestine would take place and the  nation would be lost, Al-Aqsa Mosque to be controlled by Zionists and lands in three Arab countries to be occupied. They saw Al-Banna as an impregnable hurdle to their intellectual invasion and emotional and mental subjugation of our people, in order to let them remain dazzled by, dependent on and subjugated to the western project of civilization.

 

The pioneers and leaders of the western civilization showed satisfaction with dictatorship in our countries as long as it fulfills their goals and does not oppose their plans. This proved the racist essence of western civilization, as it gives its own people the right to live in democracy and freedom, but the others can only have that right if they behaved according to the west dictates.

 

They found it acceptable to let this horrific Al Banna assassination to take place in Cairo’s main street, his group to be dissolved, and his followers to be unjustly arrested then either killed or imprisoned. No wonder, it is the same civilization of the invaders, which left behind more than a million Muslim martyrs in Algeria. Recently they are slaughtering Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, Palestine, and elsewhere.

 

 First Signs of Victory and Empowerment

 

 

Evil always fires back at its doer. After more than half of a century of Al-Banna martyrdom, we see the first signs of success of his reform project. These signs come from Palestine, which he died for its freedom and independence. Hamas won in the legislative elections to turn the enemies’ plans upside down. Other good omens of empowerment come from many parts of our Islamic world.

 

We are not sad about the thousands who were martyred on the road. They are being treated with generosity in heavens. Thousands of other Muslims on the road of sacrifice and martyrdom are the pioneers of near victory by God’s will. “Do men think that they will be left alone on saying, “We believe”, and that they will not be tested? (2)We did test those before them, and Allah will certainly know those who are true from those who are false (3) “29:2-3.

God promised to grant us victory and empowerment: “Allah has promised, to those among you who believe and work righteous deeds, that He will, of a surety, grant them in the land, inheritance (of power), as He granted it to those before them; that He will establish in authority their religion – the one which He has chosen for them; and that He will change (their state), after the fear in which they (lived), to one of security and peace”24:55

 

May God’s peace and blessings be upon Muhammad, his family and companions