“Monks by Night and Knights by Day”: Ḥasan al‐Bannāʾ, Tarbīya , and the embodied ethics of the early Muslim Brotherhood

Abstract

Abstract In this article, I trace and analyze the manifold ways in which Ḥasan al‐Bannāʾ (d. 1949), founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, appropriated Ṣūfī thought and practice in the creation of Brotherhood doctrine and institutional structures, with a particular focus on his model of ethico‐spiritual formation ( tarbīya ). For al‐Bannāʾ, Ṣūfī discursive and embodied practices and the virtues they produced were required not only for individual flourishing, but as the necessary precondition for socio‐political activism. Such a recognition of the embodied nature of ethical formation stands in contrast to Salafī epistemologies predicated on a scriptural positivism and an exoteric focus on law, and sheds further light on the early Muslim Brotherhood's Ṣūfī origins. Moreover, this ethical paradigm, which entails a “ sharīʿa ‐minded” Ṣūfism placed in an activist framework, not only challenges those narratives which perpetuate an inherent Salafī‐Ṣūfī divide; it also creates avenues for exploring the relationship between practical reasoning, virtue formation, and public engagement, thus further contributing to an “engaged Ṣūfism” advocated by some today.

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