18.8 Hamas (1987)

Hamas was founded in 1987 at the beginning of the First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation. It emerged from the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and presented itself as an Islamist alternative to the more secular Palestinian nationalist movements that had long dominated Palestinian politics.  

The name Hamas is an Arabic acronym for Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah, meaning Islamic Resistance Movement. 

From the beginning, Hamas combined Islamist ideology, Palestinian nationalism, social activism, and armed struggle. It was not simply an ideological foundation like the Muslim Brotherhood, but a movement that more directly fused religion, politics, and violence.  

Part of Hamas’s strength came from its social-service networks.

Even before Hamas was formally founded, Muslim Brotherhood activists in Gaza and the West Bank had built charities, clinics, schools, and mosque-based networks. Hamas became known for providing schools, clinics, and food assistance for the unemployed, which helped it build loyalty and legitimacy among Palestinians, especially in places where people viewed other leadership as corrupt, weak, or ineffective.  

At the same time, Hamas also became known for terrorism.

Hamas started using suicide bombings in April 1993, and over time it carried out attacks on Israeli civilians, including bombings, shootings, and rocket attacks. During the Second Intifada (2000–2005), Hamas became especially notorious for suicide bombings targeting buses, restaurants, and other civilian areas.  

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A major turning point came in 2006, when Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections. In 2007, after conflict with Fatah, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip and became its de facto ruler.

Since then, Hamas has governed Gaza while also continuing armed conflict with Israel, making it one of the clearest examples of a politico-militant Islamist movement: it is part governing authority and part militant organization.

Hamas returned to the center of world attention on October 7, 2023, when it launched a large-scale assault on Israel. The attack killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and militants also took 251 hostages.

That assault triggered the devastating war that followed in Gaza and made Hamas central again to global debates about terrorism, war, governance, and the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  

Hamas is important in the history of Islamist extremism because it shows how an Islamist movement can operate on several levels at once. It can provide charity, social services, political organization, territorial governance, and at the same time engage in terrorism and armed struggle.

That makes it different from the Muslim Brotherhood, which functioned more as an ideological and organizational foundation, and different from Al-Qaeda, which focused more heavily on transnational jihad.  

Hamas represents a shift from the Muslim Brotherhood’s broader ideological foundation into a more direct form of Islamist militancy tied to a specific territory, population, and conflict.

In section 18.9, we will examine Hezbollah (1982), another politico-militant Islamist movement that combined religion, armed struggle, and political power, but in a very different sectarian and historical context.