Scholars dealing with the rise of contemporary Islamism and the Muslim Brothers’ early history frequently turn to Ḥasan al-Bannā’s autobiography, Mudhakkirāt al-Daʿwah wa’l-Dāʿiyah (Memoirs of the Call and the Preacher) as one major source of information about the movement’s origin. Despite the centrality of this autobiography and the abundance of references to it in Islamist literature, it remains poorly understood. Drawing upon a range of under-explored primary sources, this article argues that the autobiography was never written as a traditional ex post facto memoir. Only by recognizing its fictionalized nature and by exploring the boundaries between biography and fiction, can al-Bannā’s memoirs can be properly understood.Keywords: Islamism, Egypt, Ḥasan al-Bannā, The Muslim Brothers, Biography, Autobiography
The rise of ISIS has drawn scholarly attention to militant Islamist movements as quasi-state actors, embracing governance as a core area of legitimation. Due to their commitment to conservative, literalist interpretations of Sharīʿa, jihādī movements have gained a reputation for being patriarchal, misogynist, and ultra-masculinist. This article seeks to qualify this perception, arguing that the social and political order established in jihādī proto-states is not based on norms and practices commonly associated with patriarchy. Although ISIS and other militant Islamist rebel rulers may outwardly have some of the trappings of a patriarchal order, especially in gender relations, they are first and foremost intensely religious-ideological communities, where blood ties and kinship play a minimal role. They are surprisingly bureaucratized and highly regulated, leaving little room for the traditional holders of power in patriarchal societies: the elders, traditional religious clerics, clan leaders, and heads of tribes. Instead, those who hold power are overwhelmingly young armed men whose authority rests on warfare skills and the mastery of extremist ideology. In the case of the ISIS "caliphate", the most well-known jihādī proto-state, women also take part in a variety of roles outside the household, including operative and military roles, defying the image of women as passive victims. 1 The abbreviation ISIS is used in this article to denote the "Islamic State" organization and its predecessor, "the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham", also dubbed "the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant." 2 For recent studies of rebel governance, see in particular Zachariah Cherian Mampilly,
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