Islam's Spiritual 'Dear Abby' The Voice of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood By Alexander Smoltczyk
He is a hypermarket of dogma, dispensing advice on subjects ranging from mother's milk to suicide bombing. But few have as much influence on Sunni Muslims as the Muslim televangelist Youssef al-Qaradawi. He says what the Muslim Brotherhood in Egpyt thinks -- and he provides clues to how they might act.
This man is a word machine, a one-man talk show that leaves no subject unexamined. Youssef al-Qaradawi has to talk: about former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, about mothers' milk banks, and about the right of Palestinian women to blow themselves up.
He is a driven man. There are so many decisions to be made in this godforsaken modern age, and yet there is only one mufti, only one Islamic scholar like Qaradawi, who knew the Koran by heart by the time he was 10, only one man who can help the faithful understand the world.
Qaradawi is the father figure of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the country's best-organized opposition group. The Brotherhood is sure to play a part in deciding what path Egypt will now take.
The Islamist group asked Qaradawi to be their leader in 2002, but he turned them down. Such a position would have been too limiting. He has a different mission. He feels compelled to talk.
The Al-Jazeera television network has been broadcasting Qaradawi's program "Shariah and Life" every Sunday for the past 15 years. Some 60 million Muslims watch him as he talks imploringly about the genocide in Gaza or the unique dangers of female masturbation ("the hymen is very sensitive and could tear").
'Every Last One of Them'
Qaradawi advocates establishing a "United Muslim Nations" as a contemporary form of the caliphate and the only alternative to the hegemony of the West. He hates Israel and would love to take up arms himself. In one of his sermons, he asked God "to kill the Jewish Zionists, every last one of them."
In January 2009, he said: "Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by [Adolf] Hitler."
Will this man encourage his brothers in Cairo to uphold the peace treaty with Israel, should the Muslim Brotherhood become part of a government now that Mubarak has resigned?
The 84-year-old is the president of the International Association of Muslim Scholars and the European Council for Fatwa and Research. He has written more than 120 books and penned countless doctrines, which he distributes internationally via his website IslamOnline.net.
He is a blend of pope and service hotline, a spiritual "Dear Abby" for all instances of doubt in Muslim life.
Should a mothers' milk bank be established? Especially since the Koran forbids marriage between two people who were nursed by the same woman? "Yes," says Qaradawi, pointing out that the Koran's prohibition of incest applies only to the mother's breast, not its contents.
Hypermarket of Dogmas
He talks about everything, which makes him exhibit A for anyone seeking to demonize Islam. A justification for every stupidity can be found in Qaradawi's words, as long as one searches long enough. On the other hand, Muslims refer to the search for the appropriate dogma as "fatwa shopping." To them, Qaradawi is a hypermarket of dogmas.
During a visit to London, then Mayor Ken Livingstone asked the sheikh how he felt about the rights of homosexuals. "He told me that he was against attacks on homosexuals," Livingstone recalls. But the mufti isn't opposed to 100 lashes for gays and lesbians if that is the punishment imposed by a Sharia judge, at least according to statements he has made on his program.
It is the responsibility of any scholar to lead the faithful, and only the scholar can interpret the scriptures correctly. This is Qaradawi's mission.
He attended Al-Azhar University in Cairo, where he met Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Banna offered an Islamic alternative to the alleged ills of modern life: corruption and gambling, insolent women and provocative writings, alcohol and the neglect of the poorest members of society. In a word: godlessness.
Former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser imprisoned the sheikh three times because of his Islamist activities. In 1961, Qaradawi went into exile in Qatar, where he still lives today. With the protection of the Emir of Qatar, Qaradawi was able to build his fatwa empire, a realm of schools and various forms of media. "We too are modern," he said in a SPIEGEL interview, "and we too benefit from the great inventions of the West, from the revolution of the information age."
CBS News says correspondent Lara Logan "suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault" while covering the resignation of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. CLICK PHOTO FOR MORE
Equal Rights
The title of a study recently published about Qaradawi in Denmark refers to him as the first "global mufti." Qaradawi specialist Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen believes that the TV imam was behind the protests following the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper -- unrest which led to the Danish embassy in Beirut being set on fire. The sheikh has been barred from entering the United States since 1999.
The imam has also developed a reputation for himself as a moderate. Many see him as a symbol of an enlightened Islam. When speaking to the Western media, in particular, Qaradawi likes to point to Muslims' tolerance of non-Muslims and condemns the attacks of al-Qaida.
He also speaks out against the systematic castigation of wives. He calls the practice unwise, saying: "Blows are not effective with every woman, but they are helpful with some." In other cases, the sheikh insists on equal rights. For example, he says, "a woman does not have to ask her husband's permission to blow herself up in an Israeli café."
Compared with this guardian of the faith, Pope Benedict XVI is positively enlightened.
Otherwise, however, the two elderly men have a few things in common. Qaradawi and the pope were born within the same six months from each other, both in rural areas, one in Lower Egypt and the other in Upper Bavaria. Both feel that the Western world is godforsaken. Both have written enough to fill an entire theological library. And both are determined not to be what they are perceived to be: stern teachers. Qaradawi says that he merely wants to offer "alleviation" in a world of confusion. Benedict XVI says more or less the same thing.
Both Devout and Modern
Many feel that the TV imam is more dangerous than those like the Taliban who teach the Koran to the letter. Qaradawi does not demand anything impossible from his contemporaries. Instead, he stresses that his followers can be devout and modern at the same time.
Critics see Qaradawi's caution as nothing but a ruse. In the German blog "Die Achse des Guten" ("The Axis of Good"), Christoph Spielberger writes about the "Islamic principle of Taqiyya, or misrepresentation to achieve a higher goal." According to Islamic tradition, concealing one's faith is permissible, but only in the face of a massive threat.
The TV imam's followers in Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood share his intangibility. For some, they are the dyed-in-the-wool Islamists, while others see them as champions of democracy on the Nile.
"There is no question that true democracy must gain the upper hand," Mohammed Mursi, a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman, wrote recently. "The Brotherhood adheres to its roots in Islamic thought. It refuses to accept any attempt to impose any ideological line on the Egyptian people."
This sounds good. But as an underground organization, the Muslim Brothers had no opportunity to try out their religious principles on everyday political life, and on tolerance and the balance of interests. They experienced the meaning of human rights firsthand during the years of repression. It changed them.
"Caution is the watchword," writes Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, referring to the tactics of the Muslim Brotherhood. According to Ramadan, its leaders know that "now is not the time to expose itself."
Now everyone wants to know who the Muslim Brothers really are. The question is as pointless as asking whether Yusuf al-Qaradawi is moderate or not. He is both himself and the opposite of himself, depending on one's perspective -- and the circumstances.
What is acceptable in quantum physics can be extremely dangerous in the business of politics.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
Glenn Beck and the Muslim Brotherhood
Those of you who have been watching Glenn Beck, and particularly those who watched last night’s show will see that he is bringing before an audience of millions the message we have been sending from these sites for nearly a decade — that the global Islamic jihad against the West has formed a working alliance with the secular socialist left both at home and abroad.
This “unholy alliance” as we called it was first clearly visible in the anti-American demonstrations opposing the Iraq War. These were mislabled “anti-war” demonstrations by the general media. If they were truly anti-war demonstrations there would have been protests at the Iraq embassy calling on Saddam Hussein to honor the Gulf War truce agreement he had signed and the seventeen UN resolutions that attempted to enforce those agreements. But there was not one such demonstration. Not one.
We pointed out at the time that the steering committee of the largest coalition against the Iraq War — that is against toppling Saddam Hussein — included on its steering committee the Muslim Students Association, an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2003, we laid out the facts in an 80 page booklet edited by John Perazzo and me, called Who Is The Peace Movement? We have updated the information in our online encyclopedia of the left at www.discoverthenetworks.org (CLICK LINK PROVIDED)
(STORY CONTINUES BELOW)
(continued from above)
Everything we know about the collaborations of the Communist left with the Soviet police state, about the collaborations of the New Left with the Vietnamese and Cuban Communists, and about the committees of leftists in solidarity with the communist dictatorship in Nicaragua and the Communist guerillas in El Salvador told us that the current left would be in bed with the Islamic Nazis who now confront us. In 2005 I published a book — Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left — which described this uniting of domestic forces with the external threat, and four years later our Frontpage editor, Jamie Glazov followed it with United in Hate: The Left’s Romance With Tyranny and Terror. We have devoted a section of our online encyclopedia of the left to “Radical Islam’s Alliance With the Socialist Left.” The unholy alliance between Islamo-Nazis and the American left described in these pages is the gravest threat our country has ever faced.
Now Glenn Beck is bringing our warning and the facts on which it is based to millions of Americans in a series of radio and television shows that you don’t want to miss. They are readily available on the web here. Please copy the urls of his shows into your emails and send them to as many people as possible. The time to wake up America is now; the hour is late.
Last month, the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA) advertised on its website an event it was having calling on its followers to refuse to speak with the FBI. This action – a blatant attempt to hinder federal government investigative efforts – warrants a closer look into who’s running the chapter and their motives for committing such an offense, including their support for and involvement with terrorists.
On January 17, 2011, CAIR Spokesman and Legislative Director Corey Saylor appeared as a guest on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor to discuss how one of CAIR’s local chapters had placed on its website a graphic calling on its followers to refuse to talk with the FBI, an idea that CAIR has been promoting for at least the last three years (See ‘CAIR’s Anti-Law Jihad’).
The ad featured a shadowy figure, labeled “F.B.I.,” walking down the street, whilst doors of homes are slamming shut. The headlines on it read, “BUILD A WALL OF RESISTANCE” and “DON’T TALK TO THE F.B.I.” It was hastily pulled from CAIR-SFBA’s site, following a public uproar.
The ad was for an event to be taking place on February 9th, entitled ‘FBI Raids and Grand Jury Subpoenas: Know Your Rights and Defend Our Communities.’ Reportedly, the keynote speaker for the event will be Hatem Abudayyeh, a Chicago-based activist, who has been linked to a number of Palestinian terrorist organizations and whose residence was raided by federal agents last September.
Towards the end of the Fox News segment, the host of the show, Bill O’Reilly, asked Saylor if he could shut down CAIR’s San Francisco operation and suggested that this action does damage to the entire CAIR organization. O’Reilly stated that there are some “branches of CAIR” that are “more militant than others.”
In Saylor’s answer, he quickly caught himself, after he appeared to mention a female associated with the anti-FBI offense. He stated, “Y’know, it was already done, Bill. It was a minor mistake on her part – on the part of the chapter.”
Question: Was the mention of a “her” simply an error in speech or was there something more to it?
CAIR-SFBA is run by a her, a young Muslima who goes by the name Zahra Billoo. Billoo is the Executive Director of the group and epitomizes its radical agenda.
Both within and outside her capacity as CAIR representative, Billoo has accumulated a tremendous list of extremist statements and activities, as has been well documented on CAIR Watch. They include:
January 2009 – Billoo wrote on her personal blog, Cwzy Muslima, that “one amazing reason to get married” is to “raise fighters” (children) to attack the nation of Israel.
December 2008 – Billoo posted on her blog that she considered starting a website to recruit volunteers to attack Israel.
October 2008 – Billoo posted an article on her blog stating that to celebrate Columbus Day was “the same as having Jews celebrate Hitler and the Holocaust.”
March 2008 – Billoo refered to the United States troops as “scum.”
June 2007 – Billoo proudly announced on her blog that her younger brother Ahmed was quoted in an article in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal – an article that discusses in length about how her brother supports suicide bombings.
March 2007 – Billoo attended a fundraiser for Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader, Sami al-Arian, and accused the United States government of “persecuting” him.
February 2007 – Billoo instructed her blog readers to listen to speeches given at a conference, at least one of which contained praise for Hamas.
January 2007 – Billoo wrote that she had thoughts of committing suicide, after she had viewed a pro-Israel advertisement on a San Francisco train.
As well, in March 2007, Billoo and a couple of other CAIR operatives launched a blog, entitled Muslamics. Within the links section of the blog was placed a link to the official website of al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki has been associated with a number of terrorists, including Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan, underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad.
Millions of demonstrators pour into streets across Egypt to mark a week of protests against President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year regime, February 1, 2011.
The American Left and the Crisis in Egypt
FRONTPAGEMAGAZINE.COM
The Mubarak dictatorship is crumbling, the Muslim Brotherhood is warning that regimes will fall all over the Middle East and the radical left in America and internationally is cheering them on. Of course. The unholy alliance between the radical secular left and the forces of the Islamic jihad was forged a long time ago in the crucial of the Palestinian Islamic jihad against Israel and the West. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood as are the Muslim Students Association, CAIR and every major Muslim organization in America. The MSA and the pro-Palestinian left was part of the coalition of radical organizations that defended the Saddam regime during the lead up to the Iraq war and was on the steering committee of the International Answer demonstrations. Yassir Arafat was one of Saddam’s leading cheerleaders when Iraq tried to swallow Kuwait, triggering the first Gulf War. The roots of the alliance we see shaping up in the Egyptian struggle are deep.
We saw the unholy alliance at work in the Hamas inspired campaign to break the Gaza blockade. Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn were leaders of the American wing of the Hamas coalition against the blockade and went to Gaza to meet with Hamas shortly before the terrorist Flotilla was intercepted by Israeli forces. The Gaza blockade was jointly instituted by Israel and Egypt – by the Mubarak regime in Egypt. Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood’s army. If the Muslim Brotherhood topples the Mubarak regime, Hamas’s war against the Jews will be immeasureably strengthened. The radical left in America and internationally is committed to Hamas and its genocidal campaign against the Jews and its general war against the United States. That is why the fate of Egypt in this crisis resonates for all of us.
If this story is correct and the snake Mohammed ElBaradei forms a national unity government with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Brotherhood will be the new government of Egypt.
