So, has Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi been reading too much FrontPage Magazine or Jihad Watch?
In a New Year's Day speech al-Sisi said this:
I am referring here to the religious clerics. We have to think hard about what we are facing—and I have, in fact, addressed this topic a couple of times before. 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. Impossible!
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.Hope the President has a really good bodyguard.
That's a very hopeful sign.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this, Doodad.
If you want a Protestant reformation applied to Islam then you're going to have to put up with their version of the 30 Years War.
ReplyDeleteAny possible genuine reformation of Islam would likely take centuries to play itself out and, yes, there would be rivers of blood. Of course, there is precious little to suggest that any such things is in the offing. I am not seeing some Muslim equivalent of Martin Luther nailing 95 reformist fatwahs on the door of Al-Hakim mosque, after all.
DeleteNonetheless, it is nice to know that al-Sisi gets it, anyways.
If history is any benchmark, heterodox Islamic splinters don't very well. Sufi's, B'hai, Druze and others are tiny fringe groups who do their best to stay out of the Muslims' way. After all, the MOST profound schism in Islam is the oldest one - Shia vs Sunni. And they've been killing each other for 1,200 years over whether Mohammed's grandson was a legitimate Mullah or not.
ReplyDeleteIs that a private fight or can anyone join?
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