The party was founded by Sheikh Ali Radai, whose family originally migrated from the Hejaz region in Western Saudi Arabia and later became the President of the Eritrean Assembly.
[3] The historian Okbazgi Yohannes claims that the split was caused intrigues of behalf of the British Military Administration, who was able to convince Muslim chiefs that the Moslem League leader Ibrahim Sultan Ali was an Italian agent.
[4] However this assertion is contested, as it overlooks internal social and political cleavages within the Eritrean Muslim community.
[6][5] The party sought to exclude Italian-Eritreans from the political process in the country, a policy that sharply contradicted the line of the Moslem League.
[5] The party won 14 out of 68 seats in the 1952 Eritrean Assembly election (which was held through direct suffrage in some cities, and indirect vote in other areas).