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Al Fath (Arabic: The Victory) was a weekly political magazine which existed between 1926 and 1948 in Cairo, Egypt. The magazine is known for its cofounder and editor Muhib Al Din Al Khatib and for its role in introducing Hasan Al Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, to the Egyptian political life. It called itself as the mirror of the Islamic world.

History and profile

Al Fath was established by a group of Islamists, including Muhib Al Din Al Katib, Ahmed Taymour Pasha, Abu Bakr Yahya Pasha, Abdul Rahman Qaraa, Muhammad Al Khidr Hussein and Ali Jalal Al Husseini. Of them Ahmed Taymour Pasha also provided financial support to the magazine of which the first issue appeared on 10 June 1926. Its publisher was the Salafi Press House founded and headed by Muhib Al Din Al Katib in Cairo. The first editor-in-chief was Abdel Baqi Sorour, an Al Azhar ulema. Later Muhib Al Din Al Katib replaced him in the post.

Al Fath folded in 1948.

Content

The goals of Al Fath were to provide news and views about the Muslim world, to describe the good dimensions of Islam and to refute the accusations against Islam. The magazine became a significant media outlet for Islamic modernist and pan-Arab thought. It was one of the Egyptian publications which reported the establishment of the Young Muslim Men's Association, precursor of the Muslim Brotherhood, in 1928. In addition, the magazine was the propagandist of the group until October 1929 when the group launched its own publication entitled Majallat Al Shubban Al Muslimin (Arabic: Young Muslim Men’s Magazine). In the 1930s Al Fath attacked the Christian missionary organizations which it represented as threats to the faith and security of Egyptians. From 1931 the magazine began to publicize the Muslim Brotherhood through the publication of small notices. The role of the magazine was expanded to function as the mouthpiece of Salafi modernist movement following the closure of Rashid Rida's magazine Al Manar in 1936. With this new role the circulation of Al Fath increased in the Arab countries. However, Al Fath's approach towards Salafism was much more populist in contrast to that of Al Manar. Al Fath also dealt with the events related to the Muslims living in non-Arab or Muslim countries such as India and Europe. Partly due to its wide coverage it had readers in London.

Contributors

Hasan Al Banna published his early fifteen articles in the magazine in the period 1928–1930 before the start of the Brotherhood's own publications. In these articles some of which were published on the front page of the magazine he presented his vision about the Muslim Brotherhood movement. These publications contributed to his recognition as a leader by the Muslim world. The other major contributors of Al Fath included Ahmed Muhammad Shakir, Mahmoud Muhammad Shakir, Shakib Arslan, Mustafa Sadiq Al Rafi’i, Mustafa Sabri, Ali Al Tantawi, Zaki Kiram and Taqi Al Din Al Hilali some of whom were living in Europe. These writers attacked the ideas of Taha Hussein who criticized pre-Islamic poetry and adopted a Western-origin views. The other political and literary figures who were harshly criticized by the Al Fath contributors were Ahmed Lutfi Al Sayed, Salama Moussa, Tawfiq Al Hakim, Hussein Fawzy, Michel Aflaq, Mahmoud Azmy and Ismail Adham. In addition, Al Fath clashed with the editors of Nur Al Islam which was one of the media outlets of Al Azhar.

The contributors of Al Fath were not limited to Arabs in that it also had a Chinese Muslim editor, Badr Al Din Hai Weiliang, whose articles were published until 1937.

References

1. ^ John Chen (Spring 2018). "Islam's Loneliest Cosmopolitan: Badr Al-Din Hai Weiliang, the Lucknow–Cairo Connection, and the Circumscription of Islamic Transnationalism". ReOrient. 3 (2): 120–139. doi:10.13169/reorient.3.2.0120.
2. ^ Mubarak Al Qahtani (15 October 2006). "مجلة الفتح" (in Arabic). Alukah. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
3. ^ Mehdi Sajid (2018). "A Reappraisal of the Role of Muḥibb al-Dīn al Khaṭīb and the YMMA in the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood". Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations. 29 (2): 194, 196, 201–204. doi:10.1080/09596410.2018.1455364. S2CID 149627860.
4. ^ Amal N. Ghazal (February 2010). "The Other Frontiers of Arab Nationalism: Ibadis, Berbers, and the Arabist-Salafi Press in the Interwar Period". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 42 (1): 109. doi:10.1017/S0020743809990559. S2CID 162778703.
5. Amal N. Ghazal (2008). "Power, Arabism and Islam in the Writings of Muhib al-Din al-Khatib in al-Fath". Past Imperfect. 6: 135. doi:10.21971/P73K50.
6. ^ Roy Bar Sadeh (December 2018). "Debating Gandhi in al-Manar during the 1920s and 1930s". Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. 38 (3): 504. doi:10.1215/1089201x-7208823. S2CID 150104723.
7. ^ Kiki Santing (2020). Imagining the Perfect Society in Muslim Brotherhood Journals: An Analysis of al-Da'wa and Liwa' al-Islam. Berlin; Boston, MA: De Gruyter. pp. 17–18. ISBN 978-3-11-063649-9.
8. C. Ernest Dawn (1988). "The Formation of Pan-Arab Ideology in the Interwar Years". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 20 (1): 80–81. doi:10.1017/S0020743800057512. S2CID 144241124.
9. ^ Umar Ryad (2016). "Salafiyya, Ahmadiyya, and European Converts to Islam in the Interwar Period". In Bekim Agai; et al. (eds.). Muslims in Interwar Europe: A Transcultural Historical Perspective. Leiden; Boston, MA: Brill. pp. 50–51, 59–60. ISBN 978-90-04-28783-9. JSTOR 10.1163/j.ctt1w8h1hd.7.
10. Noha Mellor (2018). Voice of the Muslim Brotherhood. Dawa, Discourse, and Political Communication. London; New York: Routledge. p. 11. ISBN 9781138078642.

• 1926 establishments in Egypt
• 1948 disestablishments in Egypt
• Defunct Arabic-language magazines
• Defunct Islamic magazines
• Defunct political magazines published in Egypt
• Islamic magazines published in Egypt
• Magazines established in 1926
• Magazines disestablished in 1948
• Defunct magazines published in Cairo
• Weekly magazines published in Egypt