EGYPT: RETURN OF THE FULOUL (II) Category: Dailytrust Friday column Published on Friday, 30 August 2013 Written by Adamu Adamu adamuadamu@dailytrust A criticism of the Ikhwan is not a criticism of its goal; it is a criticism of aspects of its methods and assumptions some of which are in fact counterproductive to its long-term interest. Unfortunately, as the casualties of the clearing of the sit-ins showed, Ikhwan has not perfected an effective strategy of resistance that will advance its goals and minimise its losses. For the Islamic movement in Egypt, the leadership question remains the most crucial issue and without answering it there may be no way to go but down; and the leader needed must be an alim, erudite, conscious, socially active, aware of the problems of the epoch, non-sectarian and respectful of other traditions. For the moment, it remains debatable whether after its extensive secularisation by the Egyptian military, al-Azhar can produce the class of Ulama who can confront the problems and crises created by Western civilisation with any measure of confidence and without compromise. Real Islamic leadership can only be given by someone with a worldview untainted by the nihilism of the modern world; and even though there is probably no activist on the Islamic scene who does not owe a debt of gratitude to Maulana Abul A’la Maududi, Shahid Hassan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb and a host of other Ikhwan figures, the reality is that most of them were Western-educated; in fact Maududi never attended a school—Western or Eastern—at all. They are often unable to fully grasp the tradition of what they are trying to implement. A doctorate cannot hope to replace the encyclopaedic breadth of classical and the neo-classical Islamic scholarship required for the effective and comprehensive leadership which only the socially aware Ulama can give. And the difference between an alim and a learned activist can best be seen in the fact that despite his vast written output, including a popular tafsir of the Holy Qur’an and the well-regarded Islamic Law and Constitution, Maududi would not be admitted into the Council of Ulama of Pakistan; because, they said, he was not an alim. That might explain the precipitate entry into Pakistani politics by his Jama’ati islami. Sometimes a lack of background in the tradition of the Madrasah confers a kind of disdain for the masses, and an inability to move them to action. For instance, but for the coming of the Arab Spring, D Rachid Ghannouchi, head of the Islamic Tendency Movement in Tunisia, would have remained in terminal exile in London; because he had almost given up and had in fact declared that confronting the manifestation of modern kufr was an unwinnable proposition. A self-immolating lad was thus able to do and produce what his al-Nahda couldn’t pull off. And though Dr Hassan Turabi has not produced any written legacy in either of the French and English in both of which he is mother-tongue fluent, he remains one of the most influential and most valuable individuals in the worldwide Islamic movement. Despite the image of an insufferable know-all of a leader some of his associates have given, he remains the most accommodating of all Islamic activists working within a plural national setting. The Ikhwan in Egypt has a lot to learn from him; and if he had had his way, the territorial integrity of the Sudan would today have been maintained. Islamic activists have often had difficulty identifying their enemies. They fail to realise that their quarrel is not with Christianity: it is with imperialism to which, along with Christians of the world, they are hapless victims; and their revulsion should not be reserved for Jews, it is to be directed against Zionism. These two twins are by no means identical. The earlier activist Muslims realise and accept this the better for the worldwide Islamic revival. Unless they do this, it is to be feared that they will not be able to establish true Islamic rule anywhere on earth; because they will not be able to deal justly with people—locally or on the international scene. They have all forgotten that it was only after the arrival of the Companions of the Holy Prophet [SAW] that Coptic Eastern Orthodoxy was able to build its first church in Egypt, something that their own Christian brethren of the Byzantium would not allow. What has come over the Ikhwan that it will now resort to burning churches or allow others—perhaps the government or agents of the West—to do this and blame them? Even before they were Islamised and Arabised by the conquests of those days and after, ethnic Coptic Egyptians had been victims of a series of oppressive kings and queens; so the dictatorship of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak were mere footnotes in a historical anti-climax. But, all the same, the gratuitous violence of Sisi’s debut as he cleared Ikhwan sit-ins was remarkable for its extreme viciousness—and for his subsequent lack of remorse in its aftermath. Dr Mohammed al-Beltaji, a ranking member of Ikhwan’s Freedom and Justice Party, said history has never seen crimes such as the massacres that were committed by the coup during the operation to disperse two pro-Morsi sit-ins at the Rabea Al-Adawiya and Nahda squares in Cairo. He explained that no tyrant throughout history has committed such heinous crimes as burning protestors alive, murdering the wounded, and violating the sanctity of mosques and burning them. After basking in the glory of the only senior military officer in the Supreme Armed Forces Council whose wife appears in public in hijab, the only reason Mursi selected him, he felt he needed to reassure the Americans that hijab or no hijab he could be relied upon to crack down on the Ikhwan with such murderous finality. And the attack was not just on the members of the Ikhwan, it was also an attack on its future. On the Wednesday that they cleared the Rabia al-Adawayyah Square, more than 2,600 people were killed on that single day. And it was clear that the children of the Ikhwan were specifically targeted. The first to die was Asmaa, the 17-year-old daughter of Mohamed al-Beltaji, who was shot in the head and killed. Then Ammar Mohammed Badie, the 38-year-old son of Mohammed Badie, current murshid of the Ikhwan, was shot and killed during a protest at Al-Fath Mosque in Cairo. Khalid al-Banna, grandson of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Ikhwan, was also shot and killed. But this shouldn’t be surprising. Sisi is protégé to Mohammed Hassanein Heikal just as Nasser was to him; and Sisi had been meeting with him regularly before the coup. He was said to have written Sisi’s speeches giving Morsi a 48-hour ultimatum, and the post-coup statement announcing the takeover. Heikal was in the inner circle of Nasser and by his side when he hanged Sayyid Qutb; and the Ikhwan should not expect anything different. Concern with national and a so-called Arab homeland will now take centre stage. If the West and the rest are propelled by a nationalism that is divisive even if inward-looking, Muslims are supposed to be propelled by an internationalism that is integrative even if outward-looking; if they seek to promote the compatriotic brotherhood of citizens only, Muslims seek to affirm the brotherhood of all believers and the fellowship of all men without frontiers. That is why Islam will forever remain an adversary of the West, because true Islam teaches real independence in which neither the spirit nor purse of the Muslim World can be grabbed, so long as Muslim countries maintain their unity and Islam remains a social and political force. The smokescreen is slowly clearing: those who promote sectarianism as state policy are the very same people trying to deny Islam a political role not only in their own countries but everywhere in the Muslim World. In the end, of course, Washington doesn’t really care whether power in Egypt is in the hands of Free Unionists, Wafdists, democrats, socialists, Salafists or Ikhwanis, so long as the country accepts and operates within the context of the discredited Washington Consensus—and then it will be allowed to employ the kind of anti-imperialist rhetoric that has for long deceived the Ummah. After the events of the past several weeks, Egypt will probably go back to that era of extreme Arabism, perhaps with an inkling of Turkey’s new secular Islam to fool the masses. After the passage of the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s, the phase and fashion of Arabism has faded; and it has fully served its purpose. Now, they will devise a new political toy for the Arabs with which they hope to replace the Islamic reawakening that, but for the failure of Ikhwan in Egypt, will have begun to come to fruition. Now that the experiment is being defeated, international capital will have unhindered chance to continue playing Russian roulette with the Muslim lives in Libya, in Syria, in Egypt and, soon to come, in Tunisia—Muslim shoots Muslim, Saudi Arabia foots the bill with Muslim money—and America takes the profit; and has the Muslim World rearranged in its own image. Welcome the New Muddle East.
Posted on: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 10:45:23 +0000
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