Author Beth Baron describes how one of today's most notorious and polarizing organizations first came to be.
Q:
You describe the Muslim Brotherhood as emerging from a battle “for the bodies and souls of Egypt’s children”—can you elaborate on that? What motivated the formation of this group?
A:
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded by Hasan al-Banna in 1928 as an Islamic reform organization to combat British colonialism and Westernization as well as the inroads of missionaries. American and other missionaries had started a network of social welfare institutions—hospitals, clinics, schools, and orphanages—as sites where they could spread the message of the gospel. Orphanages became particularly contentious sites, for missionaries had discovered that children who were not under parental care were relatively easy targets for conversion.
Q:
Who was Turkiyya Hasan and what’s her role in the greater narrative of Egyptian history?
A:
Turkiyya Hasan was a teenage Muslim orphan who stood up to missionaries in June 1933 in the Swedish Salaam Mission of Port Said when they pressured her to convert to Christianity. After police investigated an incident in which she was severely beaten, she became a symbol and spokesperson for the anti-missionary movement, working closely with Muslim Brotherhood members. Turkiyya’s story highlighted the threat to Muslim children in missionary institutions, spurring state authorities to remove them and expand their own network of social welfare institutions.
Q:
How would you characterize the relationship between foreign missionaries and native Egyptians?
A:
Foreign missionaries and native Egyptians had complex relationships. Not all missionaries were alike, and some were more aggressive in proselytizing and pushing for conversion than others. Missionaries often provided invaluable social services to the Egyptian public, which many—Muslims and Copts—valued but Egyptians increasingly realized that these services came at a very high cost.
Q:
Considering the rather small number of Muslims who converted to Christianity, why do you think the Muslim Brotherhood, and Egyptians more generally, felt so threatened by missionaries?
A:
Even one convert was too many for observers. It not only tore a family apart, it threatened the standing of Islam and the validity of its message. The Muslim Brotherhood therefore felt a special need to protect the young and vulnerable from missionary proselytizing.
Q:
How did the Muslim Brotherhood counterbalance the influence of the Christian missionaries? Were their tactics effective?
A:
The Muslim Brotherhood fought the missionaries by adopting their weapons: the Brotherhood fought school with school, factory workshop with factory workshop, and orphanage with orphanage. It started its own network of social welfare institutions, patterned after those of the missionaries, in a scenario that was played out in villages, towns, and cities throughout Egypt. The tactic was extremely effective, as the organization mobilized at the grassroots and won multiple adherents.
Q:
What was the original goal of the Muslim Brotherhood? How would you compare those goals to the aims of the organization today?
A:
The original goal of the Muslim Brotherhood was to reform Islam and educate Muslims. It was a very youthful organization with a limited political agenda and no ambition to hold political power. Change was to come from below. The Muslim Brotherhood today is a highly hierarchical organization run by an aged leadership that aspires to initiate change from above through control of the state.
Q:
In your estimation, what do you think were the most significant consequences of “the orphan scandal”?
A:
The orphan scandal rocked Egyptian society and politics, marking the beginning of the end of missionaries in Egypt, the mobilizing of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the seeding of a Muslim welfare state. It widened fissures between indigenous Muslims and Christians, and helped to bring down a government. When Turkiyya Hasan stood up to the missionaries on that hot June morning in the summer of 1933, she had no idea what would follow and where it would lead.
Beth Baron is Professor of History at City College and Director of the Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She is the author of three books, including The Orphan Scandal: Christian Missionaries and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics, and The Women's Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press.
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