See also :Qaradawi and The Treason of the Intellectuals. By Andrew G. Bostom
Friday, February 18 may be a turning point in Egyptian history. On that day Yusuf al-Qaradawi spoke to a giant cheering crowd in Tahrir Square.
He praised the army – to ward off it’s repression and to encourage it to support a transformation of the country.
He preached caution and patience, working with the army.
And he also lavished praise on the pro-Islamist chairman of the committee to write the new constitution, which may not be a good sign at all.
There is one easily missed word in his speech that is the most significant. That word is “hypocrites.” In the Islamist lexicon, hypocrites means Muslims who do not practice “true” Islam according to the radicals. To take Egypt out of the hands of “hypocrites” is to put it onto the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood – or at least similarly minded people – which, contrary to the best and the brightest policy makers, intelligence analysts, experts and journalists, is not a moderate organization.
History may show that while president Jimmy Carter may have “lost” Iran, one of his successors may have helped give away Egypt. Is that alarmist? I hope so.
Watch and see.
As so often happens, Israel will be left to pay the bill.
Qaradawi said he looked forward to a similar ceremony in Jerusalem, and he did not mean after a two-state negotiated solution.
IT WAS 32 years ago almost to the day when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned in triumph to Tehran to take over the leadership of that country. Qaradawi has a tougher job, but he’s up to the challenge if his health holds up.
Up until now, the Egyptian revolution generally, and the Brotherhood in particular, has lacked a charismatic thinker, someone who could really mobilize the masses. Qaradawi is that man. Long resident in the Gulf, he is returning to his homeland in triumph.
Through Internet, radio, his 100 books and his weekly satellite television program, he has been an articulate voice for revolutionary Islamism. He is literally a living legend.
Under the old regime, Qaradawi had been banned from the country. He is now 84 – two years older than the fallen president Hosni Mubarak – but tremendously energetic and clear-minded.
It was Qaradawi who, in critiquing Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, argued that Islamists should always participate in elections because they would invariably win them. Hamas and Hezbollah have shown that he was right.
Symbolically, he gave the Friday prayer/sermon in Tahrir Square, the center of the revolutionary movement.
The massing of hundreds of thousands in the square to hear a sermon by a radical Islamist is not the kind of thing that’s been going on under the 60-year-old military regime that was recently overthrown.
The context is also the thanking of Qaradawi for his support of the revolution – an implication that he is somehow its spiritual father.
Though some in the West view him as a moderate, Qaradawi supports the straight Islamist line: anti-American, anti-Western, wipe Israel off the map, foment jihad, stone homosexuals….in short, the works.
One of his initiatives has been urging Muslims to settle in the West, of which he said, “that powerful West, which has come to rule the world, should not be left to the influence of the Jews alone.”
He contends that the three major threats Muslims face are Zionism, internal integration and globalization. To survive, he argues, Muslims must fight the Zionists, Crusaders, idolators and communists.
Make no mistake, Qaradawi is not some fossilized Islamic ideologue. He is brilliant and innovative, tactically flexible and strategically sophisticated. He is subtle enough to sell himself as a moderate to those who don’t understand the implications of his words or able to look beneath the surface of his presentation.
What is his view of both the Mubarak regime and the young, Facebook-flourishing liberals who made the revolution? As he said in 2004: “Some Arab and Muslim secularists are following the US government by advocating the kind of reform that will disarm the nation from the elements of strength that are holding our people together.”
There is no doubt. Qaradawi, not bin Laden, is the most dangerous revolutionary Islamist in the world, and he is about to unleash the full force of his persuasion on Egypt.
Who are you going to bet on being more influential, a Google executive and an unorganized band of well-intentioned liberal Egyptians, or the world champion radical Islamist cleric?
BlandOatmeal – Your comments about Israel needing a “CENTRIST, SECULAR revolution” baffle me. Israel definitely needs revolution, but it needs a Jewish revolution. It is the current secular “elitist” who have put Israel into the situation that it is currently in. Successive Israeli governments have continually stripped everything Jewish out of the country. There is nothing Jewish left in the Israeli public education system. Eighty percent of Israeli’s entering the army have never even visited Jerusalem. Government policy until very recently has been to discourage Jews from going to many of it’s holy places. They have completely abandoned Joseph’s tomb. If you are anything but Jewish, you may ascend the Temple mount without being searched, but if you are Jewish, you must have proper ID and turn out your pockets to make sure you are not carrying any sort of prayer book. I experienced this myself as an Asian tour group went up without issue, but I was nearly stopped from ascending.
Israel needs revolution, but it needs it from Israel’s Jewish tea party, Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership). Manhigut Yehudit has been leading the revolution for over ten years (these things don’t happen overnight). If you think they don’t have any influence, why is it that the only person Bibi ever has political fights against is Moshe Feiglin, the leader of Manhigut Yehudit. About a month ago, 14 Likud MKs attended the wedding of the daughter of Michal Fuah, Manhigut Yehudit’s political coordinator. They attended because they know how much influence Manhigut Yehudit has.
Israel has a tea party and they are gaining strength by the day. Israel must stop denying it’s identity as a Jewish state. It is not America and it is not, as Shimon Peres likes to say, the Singapore of the Middle East. If you want to know more about Israel’s “tea party”, come to their annual dinner in New York on March 21st. You can find out more by going to http://www.jewishisrael.org
al Qaradawi is the first bad Muslim cleric I came to know about. Around 2003 I was posting on Islam Online out of Qatar. There were many smart and kind Muslim posters on that site, and we had a lot of serious conversations and laughs. This was my first contact with Muslims and of course things got all fired up when the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. I began reading al-Qaradawi’s posts in English, very welcoming, but it wasn’t long before some Muslims began posting that this wretched old fart was posting the exact opposite in Arabic to his Islamic readers, i.e., kill the infidels. After a few years I left the site because the people who ran the site blamed the Jews for everything, even when it was evident Hamas or another extremist group committed atrocities. There was little objective views of the Israeli-Arab Palestinian problem, and I went from being a fence sitter to a 100% supporter of the Jews. There are many Muslims who are on to the tricks of this crumb-bum but not enough.
He is just trouble. I hope the Egyptians won’t fall for it, and may this weenie of a man cross the Great Divide soon.
I agree — this fellow is Egypt’s Khomeini. The “leaderless revolution” now has a leader; and there is no doubt about the direction he is leading them.
Forgive me for trying, as a goy, to talk sense into a group of thick-headed, stiff-necked Jews; but Israel seriously needs a “tea party” movement that culminates in the enacting of a constitution. Only the Center can accomplish this, in my opinion: The religious, including the Modern Orthodox, are too far gone into la la land. Netanyahu certainly has to go, because he is entrenched in an old-school, temporizing mentality. If Lieberman has a mind to bring about a constitution, then he is the man to back; otherwise, Israel needs a CENTRIST, SECULAR revolution — even, if need be, a leaderless one. Israel is in such a pathetic state right now, it is worth the gamble to go for such a thing.
That’s as far as I can go, here on Israpundit. Most of the comments here (howbeit from a small minority of commentators), led by Yamit the Diarrheamouth, have no aim other than to get people angry at one another, and to deride Israel and its leaders. I am hoping these words will fall on the saner ears of Israpundit’s quieter readers.
My inspiration for what I am proposing is George Washington, the man who led America into independence from Great Britain. Washington endured the eight years of the War of Independence, mostly trying to keep body and soul together for shoeless, horseless (They had to eat all their horses) soldiers who were not funded adequately by a Continental Congress that was high in its self-estimation, lofty in its ideals and bankrupt in delivering the goods. After the war, Washington lived in retirement, composing his memoirs and preparing to die, considering that his chapter in history had closed.
During his retirement, Washington was the object of countless visitors, well-wishers and advisors who urged the General to be a secular “messiah” to deliver America from the moral decay that had set in after the war. Washington realized, however, that America did not need a moral messiah at that time, but political reform; that said reform would not happen until Americans strongly desired it, and that they would not desire it until things got desperate. After only a few years, Washington saw his desires fulfilled by the enacting of the Constitution of the United States of America; and he got to end his days as the President of a strong federal republic.
As I said already, Jews tend to be a pig-headed lot, that cannot receive good advice from the goiim. The days of Moses listening to the wisdom of his gentile father-in-law are long past. It is the few who will listen, and I pray that they will: Israel, at this point, does not need a messiah. If a messiah comes, he will find himself ruler of an ungovernable people, all doggedly intent on pursuing their own ways. Israel needs an effective government, which can only come about through a well thought-out constitution. Like the Arabs before them, the leaders of Israel will not give up their privileged condition without a fight; so prepare for a fight. I hope the flames of reform go on to consume Israel, in a good way. Once the people have done their part, God will eventually give them a leader of His choosing (after they have had enough of Shaul).