The Moslem (Black) Brotherhood
89
be an apology, saluted me respectfully, and cleared traffic for
us. We sped on.
"What did you say to him?" I asked.
"I told him you were an important official I was taking to
the Ikhwan."
Sheikh Hassan el Banna had powerful contacts in the government. He received support from the Arab League, from
wealthy pashas and landowners who opposed Westernization
because it would bring with it the end of child labor, the possible awakening of the fellaheen, and the possible revolt of
workers who received wages as low as twenty cents a day. To
workers El Banna preached the urgency of getting "back to
the Koran," which, he pointed out carefully, made no provision for labor unions.
Several times a week hundreds of students from Fouad University and El Azhar would gather in the courtyard, and in
study groups inside the building, to be harangued by the
Moorshid himself, or by sheikhs sent specially by the Mufti.
They preached the doctrine of the Koran in one hand and the
sword in the other. It became clear to me why the average
Egyptian worshipped the use of force. Tenor was synonymous
with power! This was one reason why most Egyptians, regardless of class or calling, had admired Nazi Germany. It
helped explain the sensational growth of the Ikhwan el
Muslimin. Beyond Egypt, El Banna envisaged the union of
all Moslem countries into a gigantic Islamic power, with himself as caliph—both political and religious leader—of the Moslem world. The newspaper Ikhwan el Muslimin put it this
way:
No justice will be dealt and no peace maintained on earth
until the rule of the Koran and the bloc of Islam are established. Moslem unity must be established. Indonesia, Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Trans-Jordan,
Palestine, Saudi-Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Sudan, Tripoli, Tunis,