Posted on 01/04/2015 8:23:37 AM PST by Beave Meister
Egypts President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made an extraordinary speech on New Years Day to Cairos Al-Azhar and the Awqaf Ministry calling for a long overdue virtual ecclesiastical revolution in Islam. This is something no Western leader has the had the courage to do, certainly not Barack Obama, despite his Muslim education.
Accusing the umma (world Islamic population) of encouraging the hostility of the entire world, al-Sisis speech is so dramatic and essentially revolutionary it brings to mind Khrushchevs famous speech exposing Stalin. Many have called for a reformation of Islam, but for the leader of the largest Arab nation to do so has world-changing implications.
Here are the key parts as translated on Raymond Ibrahims blog:
I am referring here to the religious clerics. We have to think hard about what we are facingand I have, in fact, addressed this topic a couple of times before. Its 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!
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
Al Sisi, with his power and influence, can staff Al Azhar University with Muslim scholars who still know Averroes and maybe that would help.
This isn’t the Islamic reformation, this is the Islamic inquisition. the Islamic reformation comes afterwards.
Bookmark
Ping
Maybe. More likely obama will just keep trying to force, facilitate, finance, arrange the islamoNazi muslim bros takeover of Egypt. Like he’s been trying to do all along, in Egypt and similarly the most anti- American hostile islamoNazi groups everywhere he can.
Re Obama, that should read, "despite his Muslim indoctrination and belief.
There is a big problem with attempting to start an Islamic Reformation.
There are just too many things wrong with islam that trying to nail them to the mosque’s front door would be like attempting to attach the Manhattan Phone directory with a staple gun..
(This applies to Church inquisitons, not State inquisitions.)
Moreover, the Inquisition initiated and developed the practice of Procedural Due Process. making it far fairer than the secular courts of the time. An accused person would ordinarily fare better at the hands of the Inquisition than the only two other alternatives: mob justice, or prosecution by a prince or noble who was interested in seizing their estates. People even sought to have their cases transferred from civil to ecclesiastical courts, in order to benefit from the signficantly improved chance of being acquitted.
A little more Inquisition historical background here (Link) plus this additional great link to historian Thomas Madden.
That is why the religion can't be altered by mere mortals.-Tom
Yup. Remember the Koran was dictated to Mohamed by an Angel. According to Islam it’s the literal, unchangeable word of Allah. Try reforming a religion based on that....
Like I said. Inquisition.
Jihadis are not known for adherence to the rule of law, attention to due process, surpassing secular norms of justice, or clemency in judgment. You were making a metaphor whose factual basis has turned out to be thin. Perhaps you were relying too much upon the Black Legend.
I won't even mention Monty Python. :o)
Actually, it’s not as thin as you want, and I’m not impressed with pendantry. Sorry, that’s all I can come up with.
It would be a shame to call resort to historic facts pedantry. Well, as the saying goes, Happy New Year.
Happy new year to you too.
In context, Sisi might be doing the equivalent of asserting nationalism, which has a peculiarly Egyptian history.
That is, Islamic radicals and fundamentalists always push for the equivalent of internationalism, of the Muslim form, which is a return to an expansionistic type of Ottoman Empire, but with them in charge. Sultan as absolute ruler. (The Shiite version of this is similar, but with an expansionistic Shiite Empire, the “Shiite Crescent” taken from the Sunni lands.)
But the secular counter to this is nationalism. Many of the Muslim nations think of themselves as better than the “Arabs”, their derogatory name for Muslims from other countries.
The Turks, Egyptians and other North Africans, Saudis and the Bedouin in Jordan, as well as the Persian Shiites, all think of themselves as a cut above everyone else.
Previously, under pressure from the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian president Gamal Nasser went the route of popular nationalism, and was thus able to both suppress the MB as well as form the United Arab Republic with Syria, and smite the communists there, which he also correctly imagined a threat to Egypt.
But such nationalism is always multi-faceted, what we might call “two-faced”. Because Nasser was still expansionistic, wanting a pan-Arabic secular empire *with* Islam, but not ruled by it. So he played games with both the western powers and the Soviet Union, but could never be trusted.
In any event, Sisi might be moving in the direction of Nasser, at least to the point of suppressing the MB; but from there, it is anybody’s guess.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.