ABSTRACT

By the 1970s, after the appeal of Arab nationalist and Marxist-Leninist ideologies had declined, another transnational revolutionary movement, Islamic fundamentalism, began to spread rapidly and score political victories or pose serious threats to governments. Jamal al Din al Afghani believed that returning to the Islam of the Rashidun period would revitalize and strengthen Islamic societies in the face of the European threat. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded by Hassan al-Banna in Egypt in 1928. Its leaders advocated the nonviolent change of Islamic societies in a fundamentalist direction, but offshoots or associated movements, such as Gam iyat Islamiyya, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas, sometimes turned to violence. Hassan al-Banna's Muslim Brotherhood was an Islamic movement intended for such a political purpose. Hamas is one of the fundamentalist-oriented Islamic organizations inspired by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Leaders of Hamas believed that the Palestinian people would have to revitalize their faith in Islam in order to free themselves from Israeli control.