Egypt’s Khomeini comes home?
I observed a while back that:
One very large difference between Egypt and Iran is that Iran had a ready-made charismatic figure in Khomeini, who was ruthless in his drive to power. Egypt seems to lack a similar figure””so far.
Well, Bryan Preston points out that:
Muslim Brotherhood mastermind Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi returned to Egypt, from which he had been banned for decades, and gave a speech before hundreds of thousands. As Andrew McCarthy and Big Peace’s al-Mutarjim note, here’s a portion of what the cleric said:
“A message to our brothers in Palestine: I have hope that Almighty Allah, as I have been pleased with the victory in Egypt, that He will also please me with the conquest of the al-Aqsa Mosque, to prepare the way for me to preach in the al-Aqsa Mosque. May Allah prepare the way for us to (preach) in the al-Aqsa Mosque in safety”“not in fear, not in haste. May Allah achieve this clear conquest for us. O sons of Palestine, I am confident that you will be victorious.”
For the leader of a religion of peace, Qaradawi sure talks an awful lot about war. This call for conquest, in particular, should disturb everyone: The Al-Aqsa mosque stands on the Temple Mount in the heart of Jerusalem. Qaradawi’s call for conquest of that mosque is a call to destroy Israel.
This all might seem like so much bluster, but for the Egyptian army’s role in allowing Qaradawi in, and providing security for his speech while keeping non-Islamists off the stage. The Egyptian revolution now has its Khomeini, come home to roost.
Whenever I hear this sort of thing, I think of Churchill’s quote about the return of Lenin to Russia: that he was “transported…in a sealed train like a plague bacillus from Switzerland into Russia.”
Why do I find looking at the chess piece being laid out interesting even though I’m square in the middle of the board?
Recall that Qaradawi praised Hitler as an instrument of justice against the Jews and that he hoped to participate in the next holocaust even if in a wheelchair.
Do you think DNI Clapper will mention next time he describes the Moslem Brotherhood as a largely secular organization to Congress? Or maybe Obama will mention this next time he calls for MB participation in government. Actually that may be unnecessary as I hear the MB already has a representative working on Egypt’s new constitution.
Here’s the quotes (from MEMRI):
The following are excerpts from speeches delivered by Sunni Islamic scholar Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on January 28 and 30, 2009.
January 30, 2009:
Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi: Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them — even though they exaggerated this issue — he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers.
[…]
January 28, 2009:
To conclude my speech, I’d like to say that the only thing I hope for is that as my life approaches its end, Allah will give me an opportunity to go to the land of Jihad and resistance, even if in a wheelchair. I will shoot Allah’s enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life with martyrdom. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds. Allah’s mercy and blessings upon you.
I really don’t think Islamists have engaged the imagination of the young people who initiated the Egyptian revolution. You don’t hear people chanting “Islam is the Solution” nor do you see folks carrying pictures of Bin Laden.
It is easy to get fixated on the Iranian revolution, but the Egyptians have a huge advantage over the Iranian students of 1979: they now know what an Islamic theocracy looks like and they are well aware of how disaffected their age counterparts are in Iran.
That said, however, the situation is extremely fluid and the rebellion lacks a compelling figure. Had this been the result of a lengthy protracted struggle, some figure would have emerged or been forged by the experience (think Castro etc). The Egyptian Flash Revolution happened too quickly for that process to have occurred. There is a vacuum at the core of this revolt that is worrisome and ill-defined.
As I feared, and have been warning about…2 million Egyptians were at his Friday sermon.
And they just “discovered” a Shia Imam from Lebanon that had long been thought dead, in Libya. Turns out he had been in prison there for over 30 years.
(Return of the Mahdi anyone?)