Already, when he was barely 20 years old, al-Banna had entrusted him with the editorship of his magazine al-Shihāb. Then he volunteered to fight in Palestine, at the age of 21, participating in the defence of Jerusalem. In 1948, aged 22, he went to Pakistan where he was approached about taking the post of General Secretary of the World Islamic Congress. His determination scared the “diplomats”. He remained in Pakistan for several months. He took part in the debates about constitutional questions and directed a weekly radio programme on Islam and the Muslim world which made him very popular among the youth and intellectuals. Returning to Egypt, he engaged himself in mobilisation for social and political reform. Then he travelled across the country, gave lectures, and directed encounters. In 1952, he launched, on the model of al-Shihāb, a monthly magazine called al-Muslimūn in which were to write some of the greatest Muslim scholars and, which was going to be distributed from Morocco to Indonesia in both Arabic and English. But Hasan al-Banna, well before his assassination, warned them: the road will be long, marked out with pain, sadness and adversity. He knew, himself and all those who accompanied him, that they would be subjected to lies, humiliation, torture, exile and death.
For him it was exile, because Nasser deceived them. He had to leave the country in 1954, never to return, except on 8th August 1995 in his coffin – 41 years of exile, suffering, commitment and sacrifice for God and justice and against all dictators and hypocrisies. Exile is the exactness of faith. The length of this road, the difficulties and the sorrows were numerous and continuous. This was first experienced in Palestine were he was designated General Secretary of the World Islamic Congress of Jerusalem before being banned from the city by Glubb Pasha, himself subjected to American orders. Then, in Damascus were he restarted the diffusion of al-Muslimūn with Mustafa al-Siba’i. Thereafter in Lebanon, before arriving in Geneva in 1958. He obtained his Doctorate in Cologne in 1959, and published his thesis under the title ‘Islamic Law: its Scope and Equity’ in which he presented the synthesis of the fundamental positions of Hasan al-Banna on the subject of the Sharī‘a, law, political organisation and religious pluralism. This was an essential book, without doubt the first in a European language, on the question of the universal Islamic point of reference. One can find therein conviction and determination and at the same time a manifest and permanent open-mindedness; never once the slightest sanction of violence.
He founded the Islamic Centre of Geneva in 1961 with the support and participation of Muhammad Natsir, Muhammad Asad, Muhammad Hamidullah, Zafar Ahmad Ansari and Abu al-Hasan al-Nadwi. All symbolic figures and faithful brothers of the same struggle. This Islamic centre was to serve as a model for the creation of other centres in Munich, London, Washington and, in a general fashion, in the West. The objective being to enable the immigrant Muslims in Europe or the USA to maintain a link with their religion and find a place of welcome and reflection. It was equally a question of producing an absolutely independent activity in order to present Islam, to carry out works of unimpeded publication, and to analyse current questions without constraint. Numerous books and facsimiles were published from Geneva in Arabic, English, French and German, along with the re-publication of the magazine al-Muslimūn which later ceased in 1967. Meanwhile he thought out the creation of the Islamic World League of which he wrote its first Statutes. His commitment was total and the Saudi funds that he received, through the intermediary of this same Islamic League which at that time was opposed to Nasser’s regime, were never subject to particular conditions of commitment or to political silence. When, at the end of the 1960s, the Islamic World League, which had then become too much under Saudi influence, and who put conditions on their financial support, in particular a requirement to take over the Islamic Centre and its activities, he refused. Then in 1971, all incomes were cut off . Thus was preserved independent thought and action. The road would be long and difficult. This he never doubted, as he always knew what the price of independence and what the price of the word of truth was.
How many are those who have known and appreciated him during these full years. Travelling to the countries of the entire world; expressing himself in Malaysia, staying in England, Austria or in the USA, creating links, spreading profound, analytical thought and always nourished by spirituality and love. Mawdudi even thanked him for having awakened him from his unconsciousness. Muhammad Asad was grateful to him for having made him know, or rather profoundly feel the thought of Hasan al-Banna. Malek Shabbaz (Malcolm X) heard in the kitchen of the Islamic Centre of Geneva that no race is chosen and that an Arab, no more than a black person, is not superior to his white brother, if not by piety. Malcolm X retained the lesson, loved it profoundly and his last written words, on the eve of his death in February 1965, were addressed to him. Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) paid him numerous visits in his London hostel. He confessed to me of having retained the memory of his fine intelligence and extreme sweetness. In 1993, in Geneva Airport, the scholar Abu al-Hasan al-Nadwi showed him the signs of infinite respect, and during a visit to Lucknow, in India, where is found the Nadwat al-‘Ulam ā ’, al-Nadwi recalled with deep emotion one of his visits and the marks that it left on him. In exile, far from his own, exposed to political and financial harassment, and beset by all kinds of problems, he worried and tortured his mind but he preserved the essential: a deep faith, a faithful fraternity, the eyes of kindness and the thirst for exactness.
His work-place was a room, full of documents and magazines. Here a phone, there a radio and a television, there piled-up books, opened or annotated. The world was at the reach of his hand. Whoever entered this universe entered in sympathy with a story, a past, a life, intermingled with sadness and solitude. One thousand and one memories and, at the same time, an incomparable view on the current events of the world. He was in affective contact with the most distant of countries. He knew almost everything that was going on in Tadjikistan, Kashmir, Chechnia, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere. He followed the regional current events of Washington, Los Angeles, Harlem, London, Munich, Paris, Geneva, right up to Karachi. A horizon burgeoning with information. He suffered so much and with such intensity in his room, from the state of the world, from the lies, massacres, imprisonings and tortures. His political intuition was fearsome; one understood why he was feared.
He did not content himself with current events, he was interested in everything including the development of techniques, medicine, sciences and ecology. He knew the requirements of a deep Islamic reform. His curiosity was without limit, always awakened and particularly lucid. He had travelled across the world; and from then on the world lived in this room. There used to be crowds, scholars, presidents and kings; there remained, henceforth, nothing but observation, analysis and a deep sadness. In solitude, though, there was the Qur’ān; and in isolation, there were invocations. Invocations and tears. He gave his children symbolic names, names from the history of all persecutions and infinite determinations. With each one, he had the cord of complicity, the space of attention, the sensitivity of relation and love. With Aymen, his success and wounds; with Bilāl, his potential and heartbreak; with Yasser, his presence, his generous devotion and his waiting; with Arwa, his complicity and silences; with Hani, his commitment and determination. To each one, he reminded that he made us a gift of the best of mothers. She is, with the quality of her heart, his most beautiful present.
After more than 40 years of exile, an entire life for God, faith and justice, he knew that his last hour was coming. In the most profound hours, he spoke and he spoke so much of love, fraternity and affection. A few months before returning to God, he said to me, with the strength of his sad, drowned look: “Our problem is one of spirituality. If a man comes to speak to me about the reforms to be undertaken in the Muslim world, about political strategies and of great geo-strategic plans, my first question to him would be whether he performed the dawn prayer (fajr) in its time.” He observed the agitation of each and everyone, including my own. He reminded me so much not to forget the essential, to be with God in order to know how to be with men. An entire life in struggle, the hair turned grey by time, and a reminder: “Power is not our objective; what have we to do with it? Our goal is love of the Creator, the fraternity and justice of Islam. This is our message to dictators.” Late at night, in that famous room, he spoke and entreated. The link with God is the way, and spirituality is the light of the road. One day, when having a look at his life, he said to me: “Our ethical behaviour and conscience of good and evil is an arm that is used against us by despots, lovers of