Heroes in Egypt Confront Islamist Ideology

[Geee]

Gatestone Institute:

What made Egyptian President Sisi's speech remarkable is that he pointed to the problem within and did not blame a Western or Jewish conspiracy for the problems facing Muslims.

 

The sad fact, which Western leaders and peaceful Muslims do not want to know or publicly acknowledge, is that when Western and other leaders say that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam, they are simply flat wrong.

 

About a month after Sisi said "We must revolutionize our religion," Ibrahim Eissa, an Egyptian journalist and another hero of the Middle East backed him up, saying, "when the people of ISIS perpetrate slaughter, murder, rape, immolation, and all those barbaric crimes, they say that they are relying on the sharia. They say that this is based on a certain hadith, on a certain Quranic chapter, on a certain saying of Ibn Taymiyyah, or on some historical event. To tell the truth, everything that ISIS says is correct."

 

Sisi wants to defeat extremism, not use it as a tool of statecraft. He understands the importance of defeating this expansionist ideology, and deserves the full support of America and the international community in this struggle.

 

For years, intellectuals have called on Cairo's Al-Azhar University to change its pre-medieval mindset of jihadism, without any success. This time might be different.

[Valin]

http://youtu.be/VaHaWta7AFI

[Valin]

MEMRI: Qatari Writer: Religious Extremism's Roots Are In Muslim Society, Not External Elements
On September 7, 2016, Qatari writer and intellectual Dr. 'Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari, former dean of Islamic law at Qatar University, wrote in his column in the UAE daily Al-Ittihad that the Arabs must stop thinking that external elements such as the West or economic woes are to blame for Islamic religious extremism. The Arabs, he said, should examine themselves and their school curricula, raise the younger generation to be tolerant and open, and fight political Islam and prevent mosque pulpits from being used to spread extremist ideas.

"Religious extremism is not, as many believe, a new phenomenon or the result of current events. It has accompanied Arab societies throughout Islamic history, but was [at first] limited to individuals, not to [entire] groups and organizations – until the arbitration between 'Ali and Muawiya, [which led] to the Kharijites'[2] breakaway [from Islam]. They were the first armed terrorist organization, and their violent attack was against the best Muslim society [of all] – the righteous caliphs and the righteous caliphate state – [and was launched] under the slogan of 'there is no rule but Allah's.' This [Kharijite] slogan gave rise to Al-Mawdudi's, and later Sayyid Qutb's, espousal of perception of hakimiyya,[3] which forms the ideological lynchpin of all subsequent extremist organizations.

 

"Had the Kharijites been satisfied with armed rebellion, had not accused the Companions of the Prophet of apostasy and made [taking] their blood [i.e. lives] and property permissible, we would have said that they were like all separatist rebel groups that gnaw away at the united Muslim corpus. But the Kharijites were known for their aggressive religious extremism that did only accuse their political rivals of apostasy, but also declared their blood, property, and honor [permissible] – and today this is what we call terrorism.

 

"I oppose the politicization of religious extremism, or justifying it on the grounds of political oppression, suppression of liberties, and the spread of tyranny. I also [oppose] blaming religious extremism on economic factors such as unemployment and poverty; attributing it to international conflicts such as the problems in Palestine, Kashmir, and Chechnya, or to the American presence in the region and the American occupation in Iraq; or [claiming] that Muslims have been the target of an external plot. These and other excuses are spread by various media outlets, a large portion of writers and intellectuals, pan-Arabist preachers, left-wingers and Islamists, and especially political Islam preachers, who justify religious extremism by calling it a response to oppressive international policy and the result of totalitarian Arab regimes and secular [desecration] of religious symbols.They even tie religious extremism to the torture inflicted on Muslim Brotherhood [members] in the prisons.

 

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