Al-Sisi and an Islamic Reformation
[Hat tip: Roger Simon and Ace.]
Diogenes was the father of Cynicism (that’s with a capital “C”). He had a lot of colorful eccentricities:
He inured himself to the weather by living in a clay wine jar belonging to the temple of Cybele. He destroyed the single wooden bowl he possessed on seeing a peasant boy drink from the hollow of his hands. He then exclaimed,” Fool that I am, to have been carrying superfluous baggage all this time!” It was contrary to Athenian customs to eat within the marketplace, and still he would eat, for, as he explained when rebuked, it was during the time he was in the marketplace that he felt hungry.
But Diogenes was most famous for his search for an honest man:
He used to stroll about in full daylight with a lamp; when asked what he was doing, he would answer, “I am just looking for an honest man.” Diogenes looked for a human being but reputedly found nothing but rascals and scoundrels.
Ever since 9/11 a lot of people have been similarly searching for the moderate Muslim. Unlike Diogenes’ elusive honest man, moderate Muslims exist (actually, honest men exist too, but I like the tale). The problem is that once moderate Muslims speak up publicly they tend to have a dangerous and rather short life, especially if they are people of any influence.
Which brings us to Egyptian President al-Sisi, who recently delivered a speech that marks him as a very moderate Muslim indeed, and as a ruler whose days may be numbered. Here are some excerpts:
Speaking to an audience of religious scholars celebrating the birth of Islam’s prophet, Mohammed, he called on the religious establishment to lead the fight for moderation in the Muslim world. “You imams (prayer leaders) are responsible before Allah. The entire world””I say it again, the entire world””is waiting for your next move because this umma (a word that can refer either to the Egyptian nation or the entire Muslim world) is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost””and it is being lost by our own hands.”
He was speaking in Al-Azhar University in Cairo, widely regarded as the leading world center for Islamic learning.
“The corpus of texts and ideas that we have made sacred over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. You cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You must step outside yourselves and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.”…
“We have to think hard about what we are facing,” he said. “It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire Islamic world to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing, and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible.”
These are not just empty words, either. Al-Sisi was originally appointed by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsi to the post of commander of the army, but proceeded to oust Morsi and then to outlaw the Brotherhood itself (and you thought Justice Roberts was betraying the people who nominated him!) and to be elected president in his own right.
This speech of al-Sisi’s seems extraordinary in its boldness and reasonableness. Can al-Sisi provide a voice for the heretofore silent—we have no idea whether they are a majority or small minority—of Muslims who might agree with him? Let’s hope he lives long enough for us to find out. His predecessor prior to Morsi, Mubarak, was a dictator, but part of the reason was that heavy-handed tactics are required to deal with the Brotherhood in Egypt (please read this post of mine for an in-depth discussion of the history of the Brotherhood in Egypt). The fight against the Brotherhood was also waged by Nassar and Sadat:
…Nasser himself was more Draconian, establishing concentration camps for the Brotherhood and torturing them, although only killing a few. Sadat and Mubarak made the Brotherhood illegal, but their imprisonment waxed and waned periodically depending on circumstances, and few if any were killed. However, it was Muslim fundamentalists (although not Brotherhood members) who assassinated Sadat…
It seems that al-Sisi is going even further than his predecessors, who kept the fight to the Brotherhood. Al-Sisi appears to be speaking more globally and generally about Islam itself and the course it should take in the 21st Century. I wish him luck. He’ll need it.
[NOTE: No doubt there are additional complicated geopolitical considerations behind al-Sisi’s speech, including the rise of Iran as a nuclear power as well as the terrorist actions of groups such as ISIS.]
How many Communists does it take to make a Soviet Union? How many Nazis does it take to attempt a thousand year Reich? Minorities, militant and terrifying, most often prevail, more so in the Mahometopias than other ideological strongholds, for the Muslim is more susceptible to riding the strong horse.
That which is axiomatic, doctrinal, canononical, and essentially Islam cannot abide moderation for it would be the reduction of Islam to irrelevancy. Hence, moderation is apostasy and apostasy punishable by death. That’s how you keep them down on the -stan even when they’d seen civilization.
As far as I can reckon, Al-Sisi and the others like him make of the Brotherhood, and other such organizations and sects — Boko Haram, Wahhabism — an enemy for the sake of self-preservation.
”Speaking to an audience of religious scholars celebrating the birth of Islam’s prophet, Mohammed, he called on the religious establishment to lead the fight for moderation in the Muslim world.”
I suspect Al-Sisi was calling for an iron fist alliance against the alliance that makes up militant Islam. He can’t have been talking of moderating Islam. To do so, one would have to moderate, to reform the prophet himself – the Model of Conduct (uswa hasana) and the Perfect Man (al-insan al-kamil) — and he’d been taken by Burak to perdition long ago.
Have, as the moderate — the practical Muslim who would say not too much nor do too much on one end; and the instigators of 9/11 and Beslan, and thousands more terror episodes, at the other. Taking the mean of Islam still leaves one with a horrible pathogen loose on the world.
The most honest of men is they who see themselves most clearly. “This above all: to thine own self be true. And it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”
The difficulty in searching for the ‘moderate’ Muslim is determined by one’s definition. If by moderate one means refraining from active participation in jihad against non-Muslims, then the majority of Muslims are moderate. If by moderate one means those Muslims who do not condone the violence, then very few Muslims are moderate.
This is demonstrated by the curious absence of anonymous Muslim voices speaking out on the internet against Islamic terrorism and violence. As there’s no fear of reprisal when speaking anonymously, by definition silence amounts to condoning it.
Given the circumstances, Gen. al-Sisi is a brave man indeed, a man of principle as well and one who obviously loves his people.
But he is also a man in denial as to the basic tenets of the religion he embraces. He urges Islamic religious scholars to think from a more “enlightened perspective”, as if there could be a more ‘enlightened’ perspective than Allah’s…
“The corpus of texts and ideas that we have made sacred over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. You cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You must step outside yourselves and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.”
He bemoans that “the corpus of texts and ideas that we have made sacred over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible” is resulting in the world grimly looking at Islam and he rightly fears that unimaginable consequence awaits the Ummah if Islam’s Imams and Mullahs do not awaken from their religious obsessions.
But Muslims have NOT ‘made’ their “corpus of texts and ideas” sacred. They were declared sacred by Muhammad, who emphatically claimed that they were not from him but directly from Allah. Leaving no room whatsoever for revision.
Exactly equivalent to suggesting that the Ten Commandments be revised. That fallible mankind ‘correct’ infallible God.
And that is why it has always been ‘impossible’ for Muslims to depart from their “corpus of texts and ideas” declared sacred, for to depart from those “texts and ideas” Islam must implicitly declare that Muhammad was ‘mistaken’ (making him NOT the perfect man) in his claim that the Qur’an was dictated to him by the arch-angel Gabriel directly speaking Allah’s words to Muhammad.
But if he was mistaken about something as basic as the Qur’an’s author, what else did he get wrong? And Islam’s entire theological infrastructure collapses.
Tragically for Muslims, al-Sisi’s days are numbered, he’s a ‘dead man walking’.
I’d really like to know the reaction of the Al-Azhar audience.
Anybody living in the Middle East and reading NeoNeocon?
Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure that Neo’s final note about the geopolitical considerations is, in fact, the heart of the issue.
Beyond his immediate audience of Muslim scholars, I’d bet that the speech is generally heard, in both Egypt and the broader Middle East, as an attempt to repudiate the religious pretensions of the Muslim Brotherhood and similar groups. Very few people will take the speech as a critique of Islam, or a call for religious reform. Still, the speech took more courage than I have. I don’t mean to minimize it.
Saudi Arabia is trying to form a Sunni Arab alliance with Egypt and the UAE, and they’ve even become unacknowledged allies with Israel. Qatar is feeling the pressure, but so far still supports the Muslim Brotherhood. Qatari Wahhabism is a lot more conservative than Egyptian Sunni Islam, but a lot less conservative than Saudi Wahhabism. Only the Qataris support the Muslim Brotherhood. It’s regional politics, not theology; but religious legitimacy is critical to political power.
Sorry, don’t have references at hand, but the political/religious maneuvering has been pretty widely reported.
Every predominantly moslem needs an Attaturk every generation; just like we need a Jefferson every generation.
Moderate Muslims may exist but you would probably have to water board them to get them to admit it. Keep in mind the Koran contains over a hundred verses calling for violence against non-believers.
My understanding is he was speaking of texts of the last several hundred years, centuries of self-serving future-modernity-blind jurisprudence that created texts that they themselves have sacralized and made as Given Law. Texts such as those that led to the creation of MB, and al-queda, fueling the modern-day global jihad.
I don’t think he was attacking the Quran at all, or Mohammed, he was seeking enlightened Martin Luthers. Sadly, if one kept only the Quran and the Hadiths the bloodthirsty would still have the textual basis for the monstrous jihad they are currently waging, or will ever wage.
Rolling back the jurisprudencial clock only part-way isn’t going to find a moderate Islam either, unfortunately. The only way is to dial it back to before Mohammed even lived. I think that one day Civilization may have to do just that.
We are in need of a genuine Crusade, without half measures, squeamishness, or moral cowardice.
If he doesn’t survive the next 2 years, what are the odds that Hussein Obola had a hand in that?
According to Debka, which is not necessarily reliable, Egypt is in the process of fighting a war with Islamic radicals in the Sinai peninsula – next to Gaza and Israel. Many terrorists were killed as were many members of the Egyptian army.
Egypt is in the process of building physical barriers to tunneling and overland transport to Gaza – to try to seal off Gaza. Its essentially a quiet alliance between Egypt and Israel.
All of that is probably enough for Al-Sisi to realize the danger he faces.
Al-Sisi, the Muslim Martin Luther? Time will tell, I guess.
What’s interesting is that there has been literally no MSM coverage of this remarkable speech.
See Michael Ledeen’s musing about that:
http://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/2015/01/06/blockbuster-story-spiked/
The West should reach out to Al-Sisi and encourage him. But, if course. with all the Muslim Brotherhood that are in the administration there will be no recognition except animosity.
He has stated the case that should be made by Western leaders. Islam as practiced may or may not be true to the Quran – I don’t really know. What we do know is that it is not compatible with freedom, democracy, religious tolerance, and many other values that we hold dear. Thus, it is clear that the West and Islamism cannot coexist. The sooner we realize it the better.