Muslim BrotherhoodImage Credit source: Laith Al-jnaidi/Anadolu via Getty Images

US President Donald Trump has taken action against the Muslim Brotherhood. Trump signed an executive order on Monday regarding the Muslim Brotherhood. Now it will be investigated whether certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood should be declared a foreign terrorist organization or not. Where now Trump is preparing to declare some chapters of Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. In the meantime, let us know what is Muslim Brotherhood? What is its history?

Muslim Brotherhood is an organization which has been banned from Saudi to Jordan and Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood is a religious-political organization founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna. Hassan al-Banna was a school teacher. It is an organization with Islamic ideology and its objective was to adopt the Quran and Hadith as guidance for the modern Islamic society.

Organization spread in Muslim countries

Since its establishment, the Brotherhood rapidly spread to Egypt, Sudan, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and North Africa. Membership figures are reported separately. But it is estimated that at the end of the 1940s it had up to 5 lakh members.

Initially, the Muslim Brotherhood focused on religious and educational programs and was considered a social services organization. Its membership increased rapidly in the 1930s. By the late 1930s the Brotherhood began to politicize its views and organized demonstrations against the government during World War II, opposing Egypt’s ruling Wafd party.

Egypt’s PM assassinated

In the 1940s, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood formed an armed wing. In 1948, a member of this wing assassinated Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmoud Fahmy al-Nuqrashi Pasha. After this, founder Hassan al-Banna strongly condemned this murder and said that such people are neither brothers nor Muslims.

In the 1960s, the Muslim Brotherhood formally declared that their work was only one of preaching and preaching, not violence.

US declares two branches as FTO

Following the 2013 military coup in Cairo, some factions of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood—such as Hasm and Liwa al-Thawra—split from the main organization and engaged in violent attacks against the government. America has already declared both these groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO).

Bomb blasts and violence

An armed wing formed in the early 1940s was later linked to a number of violent incidents, including bombings and political assassinations.

After the bomb blasts and political assassinations, Sarkane made efforts to disband the organization. In response to these efforts, the Brotherhood assassinated Prime Minister Mahmoud Fahmy al-Nuqrashi in December 1948. Shortly thereafter, Hassan al-Banna was also assassinated. However, many people believe that he was murdered on the orders of the government.

6 leaders were hanged

After the arrival of revolutionary rule in Egypt in 1952, the Muslim Brotherhood went underground. The Brotherhood was forcefully suppressed after attempting to assassinate Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in Alexandria on October 26, 1954. Six of its leaders were tried and hanged on charges of treason and many others were put in jail. After this, the Brotherhood gradually became active in Egyptian politics.

Connection to al-Qaeda

Fugitive al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was once a member of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, but on the other hand, the Brotherhood has also strongly condemned al-Qaeda’s ideology and methods. Branches of the Muslim Brotherhood around the world have been advocating for democratic elections. For this reason they are targets of both authoritarian rulers and radical Islamic groups.

In Egypt the Brotherhood has been part of the parliament since the 1980s. They achieved great success in the parliamentary elections held after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and their leader Mohammed Morsi became the President. But, Parliament was dissolved in 2012 and Morsi was also removed from power the very next year.

Question on connection with Hamas

Outside Egypt, Hamas—an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood—has been designated a terrorist organization (FTO) by the United States. According to the Washington Institute website, the roots of Hamas and the Brotherhood go back to the time it was founded and was defined in its 1988 charter as the Palestinian branch of the Brotherhood.

According to the Washington Institute’s website, the US believes that the Brotherhood supports Hamas. In fact, in a 2015 report, the UK government accused the Muslim Brotherhood of deliberately and openly supporting Hamas.

Such relations have become even more clear after the October 7 attack by Hamas. In a September 2024 report, the Israeli government reported that Hamas had established a network of activists and organizations in Western Europe, many of which are linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Relations with Hezbollah

The Muslim Brotherhood also has relations with organizations like Lebanon-based Shia extremist organization Hezbollah and fundamentalist Palestinian organization Hamas, due to which the Brotherhood’s relations with America have been very bad.

Jordan banned

The Jordanian government also reported similar trends. After banning the Brotherhood in April, Jordan took legal action in July against NGOs in the country linked to the movement.

Jordan banned the movement’s branch in April after several of its members were accused of planning and organizing terrorist attacks.