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When Hamas, an Arabic word for ‘zeal’, emerged from ‘Islamic Compound’
It was in June 1989 that Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Hassan Yassin, born in 1938 in Ashkelon — then known as Al Majdel — first admitted that he was the ‘Father’ of the Hamas movement after he and his son were tortured by Israeli soldiers during an interrogation in prison, according to Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of the Militant Islamic Movement, written by Palestinian journalist Zaki Chehab.
Chehab, who had gained significant access to some of the key players in Hamas, also wrote how despite being a quadriplegic, Yassin rose to become the militant group’s spiritual leader from being an ordinary Arabic language elementary school teacher, whom the Palestinians greatly admired.
The journey started in 1978, when Yassin established an organisation with massive followers, which came to be known as ‘Islamic Compound’. He also garnered support and collaborated with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups across Gaza, Hebron, Nablus and Jerusalem.
As strife between Israel and Palestine continued to soar as the latter resorted to the First Intifada, or uprising, in December 1987, Hamas as an organisation led by Sunni-Islamic fundamentalists, began to take shape.
Yassin, now an undisputed leader of the Palestinian cause collaborated with others like Sheikh Salah Shehada from Islamic University in Gaza, Issa Al Nasshaar, an engineer from Rafiah and Abdul Fattah Dokhan, a headmaster among others to create Hamas. Their call was “Right! Force! Freedom”, wrote Chehab.
Back then Hamas could gain immediate and immense popularity within the protesting Palestinians because it was able to fill the political space left by Yaseer Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) which “moved towards the path of a diplomatic settlement”, journalist Anton La Guardia wrote in his book, Holy Land, Unholy War: Israelis and Palestinians. |
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