When we observe the evolution in the political, social, and moral spheres of the lives of nations and peoples, we note that the Islamic world--and, naturally, in the forefront, the Arab world--gives to its rebirth an Islamic flavor.  This trend is ever-increasing.  Until recently, writers, intellectuals, scholars, and governments glorified the principles of European civilization, gave themselves a Western tint, and adopted a European style and manner; today, on the contrary, the wind has changed, and reserve and distrust have taken their place.  Voices are raised proclaiming the necessity for a return to the principles, teachings, and ways of Islam, and, taking into account the situation, for initiating the reconciliation of modern life with these principles, as a prelude to a final “Islamization.”

Causes

In trying to understand the new movement [the Muslim Brotherhood], these governments have produced all sorts of possible interpretations… this new movement can only be the result of the following three factors…

The Failure of the West

The first of the three is the failure of the social principles on which the civilization of the Western nations has been built.  The Western way of life--bounded in effect on practical and technical knowledge, discovery, invention, and the flooding of world markets with mechanical products--has remained incapable of offering to men’s minds a flicker of light, a ray of hope, a grain of faith, or of providing anxious persons the smallest path toward rest and tranquility.  Man is not simply an instrument among others.  Naturally, he has become tired of purely materialistic conditions and desires some spiritual comfort.  But the materialistic life of the West could only offer him as reassurance a new materialism of sin, passion, drink, women, noisy gatherings, and showy attractions which he had come to enjoy.  Man’s hunger grows from day to day: he wants to free his spirit, to destroy this materialistic prison and find space to breathe the air of faith and consolation.

Perfection of Islam

The second factor--the decisive factor in the circumstances--is the discovery by Islamic thinkers of the noble, honorable, moral, and perfect content of the principles and rules of this religion, which is infinitely more accomplished, more pure, more glorious, more complete, and more beautiful than all that has been discovered up till now by social theorists and reformers.  For a long time, Muslims neglected all this, but once God had enlightened their thinkers and they had compared the social rules of their religion with what they had been told by the greatest sociologists  and the cleverest leading theorists, they noted the wide gap and the great distance between a heritage of immense value on one side and the conditions experienced on the other.  Then, Muslims could not but do justice to the spirit and the history of their people, proclaiming the value of this heritage and inviting all peoples--nonpracticing Muslims or non-Muslims--to follow the sacred path that God had traced for them and to hold to a straight course.

Type of Development

The third factor is the development of social conditions between the two murderous world wars (which involved all the world powers and monopolized the minds of regimes, nations, and individuals) which resulted in a set of principles of reform and social organization that certain powers, in deciding to put them into practice, have taken as instructional basis…

The world has long been ruled by democratic systems, and the man has everywhere glorified and honored the conquests of democracy: freedom of the individual, freedom of nations, justice and freedom of thought, justice for the human soul with freedom of action and will, justice for the peoples who became the source of power.  Victory at the end of World War I reinforced these thoughts, but men were not slow to realize that their collective liberty had not come intact out of the chaos, that their individual liberty was not safe from anarchy . …  Quite the contrary, vice and violence led to the breaking loose of nations and peoples, to the overthrow of collective organization and family structure, and to the setting up of dictatorial regimes.

Thus, German Nazism and Italian Fascism rose to the fore; Mussolini and Hitler led their two peoples to unity, order, recovery, power, and glory.  In record time, they ensured internal order at home and, through force, made themselves feared abroad.  Their regimes gave real hope… [of] reuniting of different, divided men around the words “chief” and “order.”  In their resolutions and speeches, the Führer and the Duce began to frighten the world and to upset their epoch.[1]

What happened then?  It became evidence that in a powerful and well-knit regime where the wishes of the individual were based on those of their chiefs [leaders], the mistakes of the chiefs became those of the regime, which shared also in their acts of violence, their decline, and their fall;  then, everything was at an end, all had been cut down as in a single day, but not until the world had lost in a second war thousands of men, the flower of her youth, and the masses of wealth and material.

The star of socialism and Communism, symbol of success and victory, shone with an increasing brilliance; Soviet Russia was at the head of the collectivist camp.  She launched her message and, in the eyes of the world, demonstrated a system which had been modified several times in thirty years.  The democratic powers—or, to use a more precise expression, the colonialist power, the old ones worn out, the new ones full of greed—took up a position to stem the current.  The struggle intensified, in some places openly, in others under cover, and nations and peoples, perplexed, hesitated at the crossroads,  not knowing which way was best; among them were the nations of Islam and the peoples of Quran; the future, whatever the circumstances, is in the hands of God, the decision with history, and immortality with the most worthy.

No Incentive for Trouble

[The people of the West]…are worried by this development [of the Muslim Brotherhood], which they consider serious, since they seem themselves forced to combat it by every means…here our intention is to demonstrate to the West two points:

1. Demonstration of the excellence of Islamic principles of collective organization, and their superiority over everything known to man until now, these principles being:

• Brotherly love: condemnation of hatred and fanaticism 

• Peace: Error is committed by the misguided thinking on the legitimacy of the Holy War.

• Liberty: Error is committed by those who suspect Islam of tolerating slavery and interfering with liberty.

• Social justice: obvious character of the Islamic theory of power and class structure.

• Happiness: manifest error in the appreciation of the reality of abstinence.

• Family: matters concerning the right of women, number of wives, and repudiation.

• Work and profit: matters concerning the different kinds of profit, and error in the appreciation of the fact of relying on God.

• Knowledge: Error is committed by those who accuse Islam of encouraging ignorance and apathy.

• Organization and determination of duties: Error is committed by those who see in the nature of Islam a source of imperfection and indolence.

• Piety: the reality of faith, and the merit and reward attached to it.

2. Demonstration of the following facts:

• • For the good of man in general, Muslims must move toward a return to their religion.

  • Islam will find in this return her principal strength on earth.

  • Far from receiving impetus  from a blind fanaticism, this movement will be inspired by the strong regard for the values of Islam which correspond fully to what modern thought has discovered as most noble, sound, and tested in society.  It is God who says what is true and who shows the way.