The questioner is saying that he listened to a tape of a prominent student of knowledge associated with the Ikhaawnee magazine called "al-Mujtama'" in which this student of knowledge mentioned that had there not been any virtue of Shaykh Hasan al-Banna except that he removed them from the amusement centers and cinemas, that would have been enough as a virtue and excellence.

The Shaykh (rahimahullaah) responded:

The Answer: And this individual, I lived close to him for a period of time, and we were companions together in work and that which I know from him is different to what is mentioned now. Let's leave him!

For all of us know the da'wah of Hasan al-Banna. It is correct that he removed the straying youth from the cafes, and from the cinemas, this is not rejected. Everyone who knows mentions this. However, after he took them out of those places, from those places, what did he do with them? Did he invite them with the manner, with the da'wah of the Prophets?! Or did he just transfer them, gather them, and then separated into the Soofee Tariqahs. It is as if he transferred them from one jaahiliyyah to another jaahiliyyah! He did not transfer them to the correct understanding of Islaam. And the Shaykh himself used to have a tariqah, a Soofee tariqah! And those ones that he transfered from the cinemans, they either adopted his tariqah or other tariqahs!

And did the da'wah of Shaykh Hasan al-Banna judge against the worship of other than Allaah, openly in his town?! And did he take the people away from making tawaaf around the tombs, the tomb of al-Husain, and Zaynab and al-Badawi?! And did he take the people away from the democratic rule to the rule of Allaah?! This is the legislation (i.e. the call to Tawheed). If the da'wah had come like this it would have been a correct Islamic da'wah.

As for political gathering, and movements competing with other jamaa'aat, and other parties, and then writing Islam on the book cover, yet it is not inside the book. This Islaam is something else! It is an embroidered (embellished) political movement, this is not the call to Islaam. Every student of knowledge who has studied his Mudhakkirah knows, and what he says about himself of his excursion from one tomb to another tomb, he himself speaks about his frequenting some of the tombs!

If he himself did not reach [that] level of knowledge and knowing the correct understanding of Islaam leading to cutting off [attachment to] the tombs, and warring against those who make tawaaf around them, calling them and guiding them, rather, he himself does just as the common-people do!! Then what did he do with the people [frequenting] amusement centers?!

This reminds me of what the Soofees claim: That they are the onees who entered Islaam into the African peninsula! And I have a reply to them in some of my lectures to this question. The answer is that they transfered some of the idol-worshippers of Africa, from worshipping trees and stones to worshipping men!! They removed them from worshipping inanimate things to the worship of the Mashaayikh of the Tariqahs! There is no difference between a deity being a stone, or a tree, or a person, or a jinn, or an angel. Because worship is not [for any] but Allaah [alone].

From the cassette "Twenty-Seven Question About the Salafi Da'wah", posted on Sahab.Net.