Hassan al-Hudaybi

Hassan al-Hudaybi (also Hassan al Hodeiby) (Arabic: حسن الهضيبي) (lived 1891-1973) was the second "General Guide", or leader, of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood organization, appointed after founder Hassan al-Banna's assassination in 1949. He is credited with writing the book "Preachers, Not Judges", ("Du'at la Qudat"), reputedly an "indirect but clear refutation" of Sayyid Qutb's Islamist manifesto "Ma'alim fi al-Tariq" ("Milestones"), [James Traub, "Islamist Democrats," "New York Times Magazine", April 29, 2007] [Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke, "The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood", "Foreign Affairs", March/April 2007] and an argument against takfir of other Muslims. [cite book | author=Sivan, Emmanuel | title=Radical Islam : Medieval Theology and Modern Politics | publisher=Yale University Press | year=1985 ]

Trained as a lawyer, he became a judge in 1924, with a first posting at Qena; he continued working as a respected judge until the killing of al-Banna, when he was chosen as a respectable outside candidate to reduce the group's then-violent reputation. He was arrested in 1965 in the crackdown against the Brethren by Pres. Nasser but and freed with other political prisoners in 1971 by Anwar al-Saadat, having outlived Nasser.

According to scholar Emmanuel Sivan, al-Hudaybi's argument against the idea promoted in "Milestones" - that Islam had disappeared and so-called Muslim governments were actually non-Islamic "Jahiliyyah" that must be abolished by "physical power and Jihaad" [Qutb, Sayyid, "Milestones", p.9, 55] - was that "Judgment as to whether major sins committed exclude a Muslim from the umma, ... should be left to God alone. Collective judgement over the whole of the umma is even more contrary to the tents of Islam. Hurling the epithet jahili upon Muslims societies today is thus absurd." [Sivan, "Radical Islam", (1985), p.108-9]

Some dispute his authorship of "Preachers, Not Judges," [ [http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/05/the_us_and_the_muslim_brotherh.html The US and the Muslim Brotherhood] ] and/or describe him not as a critic of Qutbism but a supporter who hailed "Milestones" as the ideological future of the Musilm Brotherhood, and Qutb as "the future of the Muslim mission" (da'wa). [Kepel, Gilles, "Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and the Pharaoh" [University of California Press, 1993] , p. 30]

Upon his death, al-Hudaybi was succeeded by Umar al-Tilmisani; years later, Hudaybi's son, Ma'mun al-Hudaybi, briefly headed the Brotherhood from 2002 until his death in 2004.

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