PDP 3- The Tyranny of Materialism over the Lands of Islam

Arthur Bio:
        Hasan Al-Banna was originally a teacher of the Sunni Muslim faith
whom in 1928 created the Muslim Brotherhood. He did this because he
believed that European influence was found too commonly within the
Middle Eastern countries and this problem could be solved by creating
another political party. He strongly opposed European influence
because people were too willing to ditch their Muslim heritage and
start believing and living the way the Europeans did. Hasan Al-Banna thought that
the only way to diminish European influence would be for everyone to
rejoin the Muslim faith and give worship to God. He was assassinated
in 1949 in revenge for the prime minister being assassinated by one of
the members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Date and Context:
        "The Tyranny of Materialism over the Lands of Islam" was written most
likely in the 1940s. Although the situation is still continuing today. It was written with the inferred goal of
obtaining new members for the Muslim Brotherhood. However this was not
directly stated and just assumed. This brotherhood began in Egypt as
this is where Hassan Al-Banna lived and noticed the problems of
European influence. At the time the leader of Egypt had been directly
influenced by European lifestyle and decided to ban the Muslim
Brotherhood in fear that he would gain a large following. As mentioned
before Egypt was an independent state at the time however when
European influence reached the leaders of Egypt the country seemed to
go into a colonized mode in which Egyptians followed the European
beliefs.

Summary:
        Hassan Al-Banna believed that Islamic countries were becoming too
heavily influenced by European interaction. He claimed that this was a
form of modern colonization even though the countries being colonized
are independent. This was a problem in his mind because with European
influence came many sins. Some examples of these sins were abuse of
alcohol, having sexual relations with multiple partners, smoking, and
many others that Muslims had not been introduced to before. In
addition less people were following the Muslim faith and remembering
to pray multiple times a day. His thinking was that European influence
could be ended by convincing more people to follow the Muslim faith
and to worship God multiple times a day. The overall goal or inferred
meaning of this article is to convince people to join the Muslim
brotherhood to fix these problems.

Key Quotation:
        "They laid their plans for this social aggression in masterly
fashion, invoking the aid of their political acumen and their military
predominance until they had accomplished their desire."