The Ambiguity of the Quest for Mastership of the World: The Concept of Ustāḏiyyat al-ʿĀlam in the Doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood

Abstract

This article examines the idea of ustāḏiyyat al-ʿālam (mastership of the world), in the political thought of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Ustāḏiyyat al-ʿālam was formulated by the movements’ founder, Ḥasan al-Bannā, as the ultimate goal of the MB, the last of a gradual seven-stage plan to Islamize the individual, the family, society, the government, and the state, and restore the caliphate. In an attempt to unpack this abstract concept, this article offers a contextualized reading of its use in the foundational tracts of the MB general guides, and in pertinent commentaries on some of these tracts. We point to an inherent ambiguity in the concept, which intertwines ideational and active elements of domination, ranging between the homiletical task of propagating Islam to the world and striving to rule the world. Within the MB, ustāḏiyyat al-ʿālam is found to serve alternately as a privileged status of the Islamic nation, a duty, a mechanism of power legitimation, and as a source of motivation in times of despair, while utilized in anti-MB campaigns to discredit the MB and curb its internationalization.