The Muslim Brotherhood is a missionary organisation that was started in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, a teacher who lived close to the Suez Canal in the town of Ismailia. He maintained that the Muslim world could catch up to the West and end colonial control if Islam saw a religious renaissance.
But when it came to the group's objective, he was vague and contradictory, and he mostly avoided describing what an Islamic government might entail.
His beliefs were widely disseminated outside of Egypt, and now there are many different Islamist political movements with origins in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, including missionary, charity, and advocacy organisations as well as political parties in many different countries. These organisations go by various names, some of which include the "Muslim Brotherhood."
The Egyptian Brotherhood was one of the numerous groups to establish paramilitary wings during the British-backed monarchy's rule in the 1940s. The group included a 23-year-old veterinary student who murdered the prime minister in 1948. Another member of the group was detained for attempting to bomb a courthouse two weeks later.
A small group of Muslim Brothers were detained in the 1960s for attempting to revive an armed wing. In a pamphlet titled "Preachers, Not Judges," the Brotherhood formally formalised its rejection to violence at that time.
One militant Islamist group that sprang from the Muslim Brotherhood is Hamas, which is based in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood views Hamas' kidnappings, suicide bombings, and rocket strikes on civilian targets as justified resistance to Israeli occupation. Hamas has been classified as a terrorist group by the US.
Beyond that, it is challenging to make sweeping generalisations because the numerous Brotherhood organisations around the world run independently and only loosely identify with the Egyptian original.
Many Muslim Brotherhood members who are dissatisfied with the group's nonviolence have defected to more aggressive groups like Al Qaeda.
Former Brotherhood member Ayman al-Zawahiri is the Egyptian who co-founded and currently commands Al Qaeda. He criticised the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's nonviolence in a book-length jeremiad titled "The Bitter Harvest," and the Brotherhood has firmly and frequently denounced Al Qaeda
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