Brothers in Motion: Religious Practice, Political Action, and the Mobilization of the Early Muslim Brotherhood

Author

Ian Henry VanderMeulen, Graduate Center, City University of New YorkFollow

Date of Degree

6-2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Program

Middle Eastern Studies

Advisor

Samira Haj

Subject Categories

Near Eastern Languages and Societies | Other International and Area Studies

Keywords

al-Banna, dance, Egypt, Islam, Muslim Brotherhood, social history

Abstract

In light of Randy Martin's proposal to use dance as an analytic tool for understanding social movements, this article seeks to reconstruct the early mobilization of the Muslim Brotherhood as "bodies in motion." Through a re-examination of both primary and secondary source material, this study highlights the ways in which founder Hasan al-Banna appropriated both Islamic and colonial choreographic logics into the Muslim Brotherhood's pious training regimen, scouting programs, political expression, and social welfare projects. I argue that the Muslim Brotherhood was mobilized through al-Banna's revival of traditional Islamic practices concerning the body, reconfigured for the goal not of otherworldly transcendence, but of the construction of a moral community committed to da`wa and the care of the material needs of others. This reconfiguration of embodied Islamic practices sets al-Banna apart as a unique figure within the political problem space of 1930s and '40s Egypt.

Recommended Citation

VanderMeulen, Ian Henry, "Brothers in Motion: Religious Practice, Political Action, and the Mobilization of the Early Muslim Brotherhood" (2014). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/300