Harakat-al-muqawama al-Islamiyya, known by the acronym Hamas, is an Islamic resistance movement whose roots can be traced back to the 1940's as an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization founded in the 1920s in Egypt, which was renewed and strengthened in the Arab world, particularly in Jordan, Egypt, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the 1960s and 1970s , . Hamas was officially founded in 1978 after the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada, when the Muslim Brotherhood decided it was time to add a military arm to their organization. Hamas is led by its founder and spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, according to five principle objectives: a commitment to Islam as a way of life; the destruction of the Zionist entity as the only solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict; creation of a Palestinian Arab state to replace Israel because Israel is located on sacred Islamic land; the synthesis of pan-Islamic and religious ideals with Palestinian nationalism; and violent opposition to the Palestinian-Israeli peace process .
The Islamic Covenant, the ideological doctrine of Hamas, was published in 1988, and it challenges not only Israel, but also the PLO, claiming that Hamas is the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. It grew principally through its influence in the Gaza Strip, with its large number of refugees, massive socio-economic problems for those in the refugee camps, and the low nationalist elements to be found there . The mosques became the centers for spreading HamasÆs ideology. Hamas is funded by sources spread around the globe, from Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, the United States to the Gulf States and Iran - mostly through charitable organizations, but also from profitable economic ventures . Some of the funding is used for charitable works, while some is used for terrorist activities, but it is difficult to identify which sources of funding are used for what ...