It ain't all one way in the Muslim world

An interesting article in PJ Media by Roger L. Simon reporting on a speech by Egypt's President, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. In it, he called for a 'religious revolution' inside Islam - so no surprise there, you might think, until that is, you actually read his words:

It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. 

That thinking—I am not saying “religion” but “thinking”—that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world.  It’s antagonizing the entire world! 

Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants—that is 7 billion—so that they themselves may live? Impossible! 

I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema—Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I’m talking about now. 

All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective. 

I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move… because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.

Now it's true that al-Sisi is one man but even so he is president of one of the most powerful Muslim states.  I doubt that he spoke like that of his own accord, he would have sought advice from inside the Egyptian government and army.  There is a tendency in the west to lump all Muslims together and that, I think, is a mistake.  Our governments need to be very watchful and pick up the nuances in 21st century Muslim thinking.  The loonies of ISIL capture the headlines but I do not think they express the wishes of all, or even a majority, of the Islamic world.

 

 

Comments

[Lawrence Duff]

He may be the outrider for the change that will inevitably come to Islam, but it won't happen until the Sunni and Shia factions have beaten each other to a pulp.

We did the same in the Wars of Religion. They won't learn from our history of reformation and enlightenment, they'll reinvent the wheel and learn the hard way.

But thank God we've pretty much disengaged from them. Now let them have at each other. In three generations of slaughter and mayhem the necessary reformation and enlightenment will occur.

In the meantime, let's hope Putin gets the heave-ho and we can buy nice cheap non-Islamic energy from Putin's successor regime, because we don't need the Islamic world for anything else.

SoD

[Whitewall]

Lord SoD...well written, well said.

[David Duff]

Yes, in essence, you're right, Lawrence. Who was it who said something along the lines of 'history always repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce'.

[backofanenvelope]

It surely can't be news to anyone who is interested, that Islam is not a monolithic bloc. They are divided by religion, race and nationality. Our problem is that we have no one who is willing or able to take advantage of these things. Perhaps we need a Royal Commission on the reform of Islam. We could have a few Hindus, Bhuddists, Sikhs as well as some of the English. Even a couple of Scots!

[David Duff]

"Even a couple of Scots!" I say, steady on, old chap, there are limits, you know!

Actually, BOE, the news that the Islamic world is, shall we say, nuanced will be a surprise to the vast majority of the GBP who simply lump them all together as 'a bunch of murderous wogs'!

I must admit that as I watch them thrash around in bloody turmoil, just as we did a few hundred years ago, I do have some sympathy for them. Oddly enough, even for the hardliners who still don't realise that in the long run they are doomed.

[Backofanevelope]

I rather feel that as usual the GBP has got ti right! With the caveat that there are two types of Muslim. Type A want to murder or enslave all non-muslims. Type B don't but will look the other way while the Type As get on with it.

[David Duff]

I don't think history or even modern times will bear that out, BOE. In the middle ages the Spanish provinces and cities run by Muslims were renowned for their tolerance. Equally, some of the latter-day tyrants who ran sundry mid-east countries left minorities alone - including Jews - just so long as they didn't cross the regime.

I do think the social/political mix is exceedingly complex and defies broad-brush analysis.

[backofanenvelope]

Ah yes - Spain! Who do you think lived there before the Muslims arrived? They were Christians and they were converted by the sword. Later, these gloriously tolerant Muslims had a society where Christians and Jews had to wear distinctive clothing and pay a special tax. If you were a Christian shopkeeper, any Muslim could wander up and accuse you of blasphemy. Fairly cheap way of acquiring a shop! A way of doing things that still exists in places like Pakistan. I see that they are up to their usual way of conducting an argument - in Paris this time.

[Whitewall]

Paris may be a tipping point for tolerance of Muslims inside Europe. A cancer can only be lowed to spread so far until it is radiated or cut out. Raping innocents is just a starting point.

[Backofanevelope]

Nothing will happen Whitewall - the most poweful man in the world has said:

"The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."

[Whitewall]

Sounds like "He Who Should Now Be Ignored" gave the Islamists carte blanche.

[JK]

BOE, Whitewall? With y'all in mind ...

(my *personal opinion* differs somewhat from this author's at this early stage - there is Mali [AQIM] and the possibility of Libya [LIFG, AQAP] but like I said, it's too early to guess ... unless it's CNN and FOX.)

http://20committee.com/2015/01/07/parisian-terror-will-europe-finally-wake-up/

[Lawrence Duff]

"But thank God we've pretty much disengaged from them. Now let them have at each other."

OK, so my timing leaves something to be desired.

But it is the responsibility of our politicos to get their Machiavellian shit together and make every effort to encourage the two factions to fight each other, sucking all the nutjobs into the middle east and the mother of conflagrations from which they will not return.

Every let up in their conflict will see some of the nutjobs drifting back to their Western enclaves and doing this sort of stuff, or spending time on the internet converting young Western losers still at home to do their bidding for them. They should be kept as busy as possible fighting each other for three generations in Islamic lands, and only when every Muslim has lost someone, or everyone, or something in between, will the moderate Muslims stop looking away, reform and enlighten.

SoD

[Whitewall]

Will Europe wake up? Or America for that matter? It seems rightist factions in Europe are the ones who see clearly and speak out, while the delicate "mainstream" and "progressive" types would rather dismiss the threat than be associated with "those people". That was a good story link JK. Let the nation's special forces and secret services who are plugged in to these right wing groups do the dirty work and let the sniffling poofters of the mainstream give them free reign to do so.

[JK]

"It seems rightist factions in Europe are the ones who see clearly and speak out, while the delicate "mainstream" and "progressive" types would rather dismiss the threat than be associated with "those people".

It should be always in mind Whitewall;

http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2015/01/appeasement-of-muslim-fanatics-did-not-begin-with-barack-obama.html

(By the way, John's "not exactly perfectly aligned" when it comes to his politics. For that matter, me neither.)

http://20committee.com/2014/12/11/on-my-politics/

[Whitewall]

JK...a good first take over at Waka just went up.