ABSTRACT
Hamas is considered to be the second biggest Palestinian organisation after the Fatah. It was established in late 1987 with the outbreak of the first intifada, the Palestinian uprising, as a religious alternative to Fatah, and hence it represented a dramatic challenge to Fatah hegemony within the Palestinian arena. The foundation of Hamas as the military wing of the Muslim Brotherhood by Ahmed Yassin, then a dominant preacher of the Muslim Brotherhood, and his colleagues, required an organisational adjustment and justification for its initiation. Hamas was created originally as an independent organisation, and arguably, had Hamas not enjoyed success fighting for the Palestinian cause via the uprising, the organisation would not have been recognised by the Muslim Brotherhood and may have been overlooked. Hamas developed from the Muslim Brotherhood, which represented a range of institutional and security establishments. The Hamas charter is considered to be Hamas's most important ideological document.
