EGYPT: Irrational fear of the Muslim Brotherhood

Dr Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's first elected president since independence, was not perfect. He inherited a basket case economy dominated by family and friends of Egypt's top army brass, among them former dictator (and ally of both the United States and Israel) Hosni Mubarak.

Morsi tried and failed to unite various elements of Egypt's civil society, even failing to get other religious parties (such as Saudi Arabia's salafist allies) on board. Morsi wasn't the most polished performer overseas. At home, he was viciously lampooned by satirists on TV, radio and in print. In his clumsily fitting suit and poorly-trimmed beard, he looked more like Yogi Bear than a statesman.

Egypt has been longer a home of Christianity than Islam. Six decades of military rule haven't made Egyptian Christians feel safer, especially with allegedly secular military strongmen using their power to spread anti-Christian hatred to deflect attention and manufacture religious scapegoat. This isn't a peculiarly Muslim or Egyptian phenomenon. Billy Hughes and John Howard each had pieces of Gamal Abdel Nasser and Hosni Mubarak in them.

But to many of Morsi's opponents inside and outside Egypt, his biggest imperfection was his affiliation to the Egyptian branch of the pan-Arab social movement calling itself al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen (the Muslim Brothers or MB). The exact extent of his affiliation isn't very clear. Was he as close to the MB spiritual leadership as, say, Tony Abbott was to Cardinal Pell or the late Bob Santamaria? Or was he just one of those leaders who liked rewarding his political allies with cushy jobs, again something hardly unknown to Australian readers.

Some may find such comparisons offensive. They will insist there is a huge difference between Islamic chalk and Christian cheese. Christians don't declare jihad on other countries, nor do they seek to impose their theocratic politics on others. The MB is an Islamist organisation, much like to other Islamist organisations such as al-Qaida and Hezbollah and the Indonesian JI. Islamists aren't really committed to democracy. Islamists are theocrats at heart.

It's little wonder that those insisting on such reasoning will have little sympathy for any group meeting their label of Islamist. Which leads me to wonder: on what basis do we label individuals or groups 'Islamist'? Or 'fundamentalist'? Or 'extremist'?

How many times need it be said that it is impossible to have a monolith amongst a set of congregations making up almost one quarter of the world's human population? Further, when will anti-'Islamists' recognise that the history and politics and economics of Muslims is just as complex and complicated as the variations of history and politics and economics of Catholic communities? Political Catholics (or Catholic politicians, whatever) in El Salvador has different priorities to those in Germany to those in East Timor to those in Australia.

So if we want to get an understanding of why we should all be concerned with events in Egypt, let's start by removing our sectarian blinkers. This applies not just to anti-'Islamists' but also to the many Shia Muslims that perhaps regard Morsi as a Sunni sectarian fanatic for his opposition to Iranian and Lebanese Shia forces supporting the Syrian government. It applies also to other sectarian and political groupings across the Muslim world who have been fervently critical of Morsi and his government.

It also applies to people like me, people who were once 'radicals' and who once supported 'Islamic' movements (of which MB was one) largely because we were taken in by the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union. We then became disillusioned with MB-style politics after seeing movements becoming embroiled in the Afghan civil wars that erupted after the Soviets withdrew and the American cash dried up. 

In Egypt, many 'Islamists' also became disillusioned with and left the MB. But groups like MB never left their communities. Even when they ceased their political role, successive Egyptian dictators saw the MB as useful for providing social services – medical clinics, legal aid services, etc. The MB has been performing this role for decades. Its grass roots outreach is stronger than any purely political secular grouping in the country. Little wonder one of its allies won the presidential election.

When an elected government proves unpopular and incompetent, we only expect the army to intervene and a coup to take place if the country involved is Pakistan or Bangladesh or a central African nation. Indeed, these days it is rare even in Pakistan, Bangladesh and many parts of Africa. So why should our leaders speak almost approvingly of such a process taking place in Egypt?

It must seem hypocritical to the average person from a Muslim party, to the average cadre who would otherwise be volunteering in a health clinic or legal aid centre in downtown Cairo or Karachi or Jogjakarta. Or indeed Baghdad. The West can encourage democracy. It will even force-feed democracy (as in the Gulf War). It will jail hundreds of innocent people in Guantanamo Bay and in secret camps to protect what is left of its own democracy.

But woe betide any vaguely 'Islamist’ group which tries to democratise itself and its nation.

First published in Eureka Street on 20 August 2013.

EGYPT: A look at divided Cairo ...

Today I had a chat with ABC reporter Hagar Cohen. A migrant from Israel, she settled in Australia in 2003, studying journalism at UTS and now working as a producer for Radio National programs including Background Briefing. She spoke to me in relation to a story about the role of the mufti of Australia.

Ms Cohen told me about a recent trip to Egypt to film a story on the future of Cairo, Egypt's ancient city on the Nile. The program looks at some of the difficult issues facing the city, especially the increasing segregation of rich and poor residents. This includes the development of "gated communities" and suburbs seeking to replicate American suburbia.

I wonder how much of these problems is replicated in other cities in the Arab and nominally Muslim world.

UPDATE I: The episode of Background Briefing dealing with imams and young Muslims can be seen and heard here.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf




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COMMENT: The honour killing they seem to have forgotten about ...

We've all heard of Amina Lawal, of Mukhtar Mai and of the various victims of honour killings over the years. But one woman's honour doesn't seem to figure very highly in European and Western media outlets. Indeed, in Australia, not a single News Limited newspaper has reported the murder of Marwa al-Sherbini. Not a single News Limited blogger has commented on the incident, including xenophobic bloggers like Andrew Bolt who frequently pluck poorly-reported stories of violence against women of nominally Muslim heritage.

Funny, that.

Marwa al-Sherbini is in her early thirties, smart and attractive. She comes from an educated middle class family, both her parents working as pharmacists. She grew up in the cosmopolitan Egyptian city of Alexandria. She now lives in Dresden, a city once famous for a severe allied bombardment at the end of the Second World War.

Every morning, Marwa readies herself for work. She puts on her pharmacy uniform and her headscarf. She stands in front of the mirror, check her makeup and smiles. But Marwa’s smile hides her secret dread. Each morning, Marwa’s honour is sullied and her security threatened by the violent and vicious taunts of a man.

“You slut!” he screams at her, “You whore!” The man doesn’t stop at mere words. He threatens her with violence. He even follows her to work, shouting taunts at her in the presence of horrified onlookers.

Marwa has had enough. She talks to her employers who put her onto local police. She brings an application to court. The man appears and is fined. She appeals. She knows the fine will not stop him. If anything, it will make him angrier and give him more reason to carry out his threats.

The date for appeal arrives, and Marwa attends accompanied by male relatives. The accused also attends. In the presence of the judge, the prosecutors and other persons present in court, the man screams out the same violent abuse. “You slut! You whore!” But this time he goes even further. He produces a knife and stabs her. Not once. Not twice. Marwa is stabbed at least 18 times.

It must have been a Herculean effort for the man to find the time and strength to stab Marwa 18 times. Readers might consider the effort involved by merely stabbing the air that many times.

Marwa is three months pregnant at the time. Her three year old son witnessed the whole incident.

Now let’s imagine for a moment that the man involved in the taunts and the stabbing was Marwa’s husband. Imagine if Marwa had applied to the court for an order restraining her husband from making violent threats toward her, stalking her and harassing her. Imagine if he had then stabbed her in court. No doubt this honour killing would have made a prominent story in your metropolitan daily newspaper. No doubt it would have been treated as yet another story of an honour killing. No doubt some columnists would have frothed at the pen about how Muslim migrants don’t integrate and are typically violent to women while good white-skinned European men (as if Muslims cannot be white or European!) never engage in domestic violence, let alone the kind of violence that led to the murder of Theo Van Gogh in the Netherlands.

But Marwa’s attacker was not her husband. Marwa’s husband, an academic working at the prestigious Max-Planck-Institut for pharmacology, was present in court. He tried to save his wife and was somehow confused by court security as the attacker. Perhaps they assumed that a Middle Eastern looking man was more likely to attack a woman than a German of Russian descent. Marwa’s husband was shot and at the time of writing was in a coma in hospital.

But then he also wasn’t a complete stranger but rather her neighbour. The stranger would taunt and threaten Marwa because she wore some cloth on her head and because she didn’t quite look like everyone else in Dresden.

It all started one day when she took her son to the local park. The man was seated on the swings, and Marwa politely asked if her son could use the swing for a short while. He responded with a continuous array of taunts and threats. He labelled her “terrorist”, “Muslim bitch”, “whore” and numerous other names. In court, he questioned what right she had to be in Germany. Before stabbing her, he declared:

Do you have a right to be in Germany at all? When the NPD comes to power, there'll be an end to that. I voted NPD.

Perhaps this is what’s worth contemplating. More and more European voters are turning to far-Right parties. Many of these parties have replaced virulent anti-Semitism with virulent anti-Muslim (and general anti-immigrant) sentiment. And mainstream European parties are meeting the far-Right challenge by co-opting far-Right rhetoric and attitudes, encouraging ugly sentiment.

What isn’t quite realised is that it isn’t just immigrants that suffer. Their children, their relatives, the descendants also suffer. When they marry Europeans and have children who don’t quite look European (whatever that means), the European spouses and their part-European children also suffer.

And inevitably it is women who suffer more than men. Women are easy targets for hate-filled men. When a man feels a woman has sullied his honour or the honour, he lashes out against her. She is the easy target. A harder target is the man’s own anger, his deeper issues.

Violence against women is violence against women. It is just as evil whether it is perpetrated by a particular kind of religious fanatic or by someone inspired by fanatical hatred of a particular religion. The result is the same. A woman is harmed. Her family mourns. Her community falls into a deep communal depression.

I could write more, but it's hard to keep up with the rage and anger I feel at those who only seem to care about a Muslim woman being killed when they can use it as an excuse to malign her culture and to make life difficult for her children and others she left behind.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: A brief Mark Steyn moment ...

I was cleaning out my car when I came across a copy of the MXNews newspaper from Wednesday 13 August 2008. The paper gets handed out at train stations and other public places.

On page 9, I found a photo of one chap named Mohammed Emad aged 41. All I saw was his face and his eyes closed. Draped over his face was a small marquis. The rest of his body was buried into the sand at the Siwa Oasis, somewhere in Egypt.

So why become immersed in the hot sand? Apparently it cures rheumatism and sexual impotency. I always wondered why they have so much sand in that part of the world. Or maybe this explains why they have so many kids.

Sorry for that Mark Steyn moment.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: On practising certificates and degrees ...

Recently, the Sydney Morning Herald did an excellent series of articles on Islam in Australia. Among them was one by Deborah Snow on the work of the al-Ghazali Centre based in Sydney.

Ms Snow made the following observation ...

Ali's standing as a religious teacher is not fully accepted in some parts of Sydney's Islamic community. Some question his knowledge of Arabic, and the nature of the religious training he has received abroad.

I am among those who have expressed reservations. Some days ago, I received a lengthy comment on a previous entry of this blog from an anonymous person. I reproduce that comment below ...

Assalamu Alaikum,

I hope this doesn't get wiped out...

As a student of Al-Ghazzali centre and advocate of Sidi Afroz Ali, I am deeply offended by the claims of Irfan Yusuf. I will begin with the facts... Sidi Afroz has been studying Islam since the age of 7. He was a qualified Imam in Fiji in 1984. I've seen the certificate. The reason I've seen the certificate is because I approached him directly and didn't make my first port of call a public forum. Show a little humility and respect for those who are somewhat more knowledgeable than ourselves. I've also seen his Ijaza to teach Hanafi Fiqh. The purpose of an Ijaza is not to have it hanging on a wall in an office, it is not a law degree in a lawyers office or doctors practicing certificate. A teacher should not have to justify his position to his students rather the Ijaza serves the purpose of being proof to another teacher that one is qualified to study at the next level. For example you cannot attend university unless you have completed your Higher School Certificate. Similarly, you can only further your religious knowledge with another teacher if you have an Ijaza noting your completion or mastery of the preceding level of that particular subject, be it fiqh, aqeedah etc.. As a result of this, his other two Ijaza's in Shafii fiqh and aqeedah are kept Zaytuna Institute where they will be required as evidence from him by from his future teaches.

Sidi Afroz openly says that he STUDIED in Medina at the Medina University. He does NOT say that he has any degree from that institution, nor does he rely on the knowledge gained there. He mentions his time there so as not to be accused of hiding anything. This is why he can't show documentation saying that he completed his studies there, simply because he did not. If you require proof, ask Professor Abdul Saeed of Melbourne University and stop slandering. He has studied in Pakistan, Mauritania and later this year inshallah, at al-Azhar.

This by the way is not an attack Irfan Yusuf. It is a memo/note to the doubters.

Irfan, you mention the names of sheikhs and elders that you would like Sidi Afroz to display his credentials to. Have you asked any of these sheikhs whether or not they are interested in sighting his credentials? Have you asked any of them if they have any issues with Sidi Afroz? I know for a fact that you haven't asked at least two because I have. They are neither interested in seeing his credentials nor do they have any issues with any of his teachings. The reason for this is that neither of the two sheikhs have heard anything negative from anyone noteworthy in the community regarding Sidi Afroz. The simple formula is 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.'

Regarding taking money for classes; Our community has to snap out the fantasy that everything should be free, mosques across the country are empty, community leaders holding onto ideas of yester year and being run by old boys clubs serving the interests of a select few and leaving the rest to fend for themselves. Al-Ghazzali centre does not charge you money to feed 400+ homeless every month, to do morning invocations, or to attend any of its classes (no one will be refused entry due to inability to pay) this does not apply to structured courses such as the Foundations Diploma or specialised workshops. For the money you do pay, you get undivided attention, all the time you want with the teacher, a quality product and at times as another brother succinctly noted an 'inconvenient truth'.

Please brothers and sisters, let us not cause fitna and spread bad words amongst ourselves about our teachers. Let us look at our own faults and diseases and if we have an issue, go to the source. Sidi Afroz is available at the Al-Ghazzali centre on Saturdays between 1pm and 3pm. If you would like to discuss anything that you have read, seen, heard, are unclear about, be a man and go ask the questions that I humbly confronted my teacher with.

Wassalam

P.S If this does not put to rest doubts, than go and see Afroz and have a chat. I urge you to do this and stop committing grave sins. May Allah purify all our hearts Inshallah.

My detailed response to this comment is reproduced below ...

“As a student of Al-Ghazzali centre and advocate of Sidi Afroz Ali,”

=> Are you claiming to be Afroz’s lawyer? In what sense are you an advocate?

“I am deeply offended by the claims of Irfan Yusuf. I will begin with the facts... Sidi Afroz has been studying Islam since the age of 7.”

=> I have been studying Islam since age 4 when I started learning the Arabic alphabet and memorising certain chapters of the Qur’an. So what?

“He was a qualified Imam in Fiji in 1984. I've seen the certificate.”

=> How does one qualify as an imam in Fiji? In what sense was he an imam? Did he lead prayers in a mosque? Does he lead the Friday service as I used to at Macquarie University for some years? Can I now claim to be an imam?

“The reason I've seen the certificate is because I approached him directly and didn't make my first port of call a public forum.”

=> Lucky you. I approached him directly as well, but never saw anything despite repeated promises. I’m not the only one to have approached him directly. Each time someone approaches him and seeks to view his qualifications, Afroz prevaricates and/or becomes abusive. Why? What can one say about someone who questions other people’s credentials, yet when asked about his own, becomes rude and abusive?

“I've also seen his Ijaza to teach Hanafi Fiqh.”

=> In which area/s of hanafi fiqh? Was it in the entirely of hanafi fiqh? Or in a selection of books? To claim to have ijaza in hanafi fiqh is a nonsense. Hanafi law is the broadest and most comprehensive of the four Sunni schools of law, covering a range of areas.

“The purpose of an Ijaza is not to have it hanging on a wall in an office, it is not a law degree in a lawyers office or doctors practicing certificate.”

=> You clearly don’t have much of an idea about the purpose of ijazas or university degrees. Both are means of accreditation. Standardised accreditation. You only get the accreditation if you go through a process which is standardised and which ou can only get if you go through a structured learning process and you pass certain assessment procedures. If you don’t have the accreditation, fools can still go to you for professional advice. If you claim to have accreditation but are reluctant to show it, one can infer that you are being less than completely honest.

“A teacher should not have to justify his position to his students rather the Ijaza serves the purpose of being proof to another teacher that one is qualified to study at the next level.”

=> Afroz is not my teacher. I have every right to ask him to prove his claims and qualifications.

=> My teachers at school had teaching qualifications. Had they not had any qualifications, they would not have been employed.

=> If people are happy to learn intricate and specialised areas of Islamic jurisprudence from a man who hides his qualifications, that is their choice. I choose not to do so. I also choose to warn others from doing so.

“For example you cannot attend university unless you have completed your Higher School Certificate. Similarly, you can only further your religious knowledge with another teacher if you have an Ijaza noting your completion or mastery of the preceding level of that particular subject, be it fiqh, aqeedah etc.. As a result of this, his other two Ijaza's in Shafii fiqh and aqeedah are kept Zaytuna Institute where they will be required as evidence from him by from his future teaches.”

=> This is the first time I have heard this claim. I will write to the Zaytuna Institute and confirm if this is in fact the case.

“Sidi Afroz openly says that he STUDIED in Medina at the Medina University. He does NOT say that he has any degree from that institution, nor does he rely on the knowledge gained there.”

=> Absolute rubbish. Afroz Ali has repeatedly claimed to have a degree in sharia law from Madina Islamic University. He has made this claim at an Affinity conference on September 11. He made this claim during a seminar organised by the University of Western Sydney. He has also made this claim during a series of lectures he delivered in New Zealand.

=> Further, the claim to holding degrees from Madina has been made in his presence or in promotional material. He knew full well this erroneous and false representation was being made about him, yet he at no stage corrected those making the claim. He was quite happy for those sponsoring his appearances to make this claim about him, yet never did he once correct it.

"He mentions his time there so as not to be accused of hiding anything. This is why he can't show documentation saying that he completed his studies there, simply because he did not."

=> So what did he do at Madina University? Did he complete even one single course? Did he do a summer course? Did he complete a non-award subject? Did he sell man’oush at the canteen? If he completed no systematic study there, why mention it?

=> I have been to Darul Uloom Korangi and Darul Uloom Binuri Town in Karachi. I’ve sat with some shuyukh there. I even gave a bayan in Korangi which was heard by a teacher from the Darul Uloom and whose contents he approved of. So?

"If you require proof, ask Professor Abdul Saeed of Melbourne University and stop slandering."

=> I did. Professor Abdullah Saeed says he doesn’t recall ever studying alongside a student named Afroz Ali. I guess you will say Professor Saeed is lying and slandering.

"He has studied in Pakistan, Mauritania and later this year inshallah, at Al Azhar."

=> A few years ago, he was claiming that his courses were receiving accreditation from al-Azhar. Now it seems he hasn’t even studied there.

=> I also studied in Pakistan. So what? I spent 9 months at the Madressa of the Masjid al-Falah in Karachi.

"Irfan, you mention the names of sheikhs and elders that you would like Sidi Afroz to display his credentials to. Have you asked any of these sheikhs whether or not they are interested in sighting his credentials?"

=> Yes, I have. One of them is a senior imam who was Mufti of an entire province in Turkey and has a Masters Degree from Madina Islamic University.

“Have you asked any of them if they have any issues with Sidi Afroz?”

=> Yes I have. Yes they do.

“I know for a fact that you haven't asked at least two because I have.”

=> I have no way of verifying this because you choose to remain anonymous. For all I know, you could be Afroz Ali yourself.

“They are neither interested in seeing his credentials nor do they have any issues with any of his teachings.”

=> Well, one of them has had his own spot of bothers of late, not to mention frequent overseas travel. Another has expressed serious reservations to me, as have a number of his students. A third has invited Afroz to teach at his sharia college on the proviso that he show his credentials and qualifications.

“If this does not put to rest doubts, than go and see Afroz and have a chat. I urge you to do this and stop committing grave sins.”

=> The best way for the doubts to be alleviated is for Afroz to be up front and open. Personally, I have no problems with the activities of the Ghazali centre in relation to its work with Just Enough Faith or other groups. I have no problem with its inter-faith or other works. I have no problems with its retreats. Even after I brought up these issues with Afroz personally and then publicly, I still participated in and supported certain Ghazali centre programs with no hesitation. My issue is with his attacks on others who express views contrary to his own. Let me give you an example. I once made a comment to the effect that I do not recognise Sheik Hilaly as my Mufti. Afroz Ali thereupon remarked that my refusal to regard Sheik Hilaly as my Mufti affected my aqida. When I asked him for proof of this, he made some reference to Tahawi and then proceeded to claim he had an ijaza in aqida. Despite repreated requests, I have not yet sighted his ijaza in aqida. Yet I am expected to take such an obviously wrong statement for granted on the bases that I must trust Sidi Afroz.

=> I have had other persons send messages to this blog concerning matters which I believe severely compromise Afroz’s credibility. I have deliberately not posted them because they appear to concern private family matters. However, there are issues beyond mere dishonesty concerning qualifications. If you are not Afroz, please feel free to inform Afroz and I will be happy to forward him these unmoderated posts.

=> I realise some will not believe this, but I seriously have no personal issues with Afroz. My concern is that the good work he does will suffer if he does not provide consistent explanations about the issues I have raised. We have already seen the damage done to our community by people making false claims. There are many young people who look upto Afroz as an elder and as a teacher. He owes it to them to be transparent and honest.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf

CRIKEY: Muhammad wins the Nobel Prize twice!

A few weeks ago, Pope Benedict XVI cited a Byzantine emperor who claimed that Muhammad had brought nothing new to the world except war and violence. Yet in the past two years, the secretive Norwegian Nobel Committee has chosen Muhammad to receive its prestigious international peace prize. And not once, but twice in a row.

Well, not exactly. But it’s certainly significant that the two most recent recipients of this award have been prominent members of the Muslim intelligentsia who share the world’s most commonly used name given to male children.

Last year it was the Egyptian-born head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei. This year, the committee overlooked 190 other candidates to award the prize to an eccentric banker from the Indian sub-Continent.

Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi-born and American-trained economist who invented microcredit - an unusual method of lending money to people with no assets to mortgage and nothing to offer except a business plan and economic desperation that forces them into hard work.

Yunus’s Grameen Bank has now lent over $8 billion, most of it to impoverished villagers in Bangladesh and other parts of the Third World. Although largely unknown in the West (as opposed to prominent politicians and activists among past winners), Yunus and his bank are household names in much of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Grameen Bank has an impressive array of assets. It owns Bangladesh’s largest mobile phone network. The bank has played an important role in assisting women from impoverished backgrounds gain some financial independence, particularly women whose male providers are unable to find work.

Muhammad Yunus’ unique banking methodology has been applied outside Bangladesh to great effect. His bank has worked on development projects for women in Vietnam and other parts of the world. From time to time, he has fallen foul of religious zealots in Bangladesh unhappy at what they perceive as Yunus’ methods challenging traditional Bangladeshi gender relations.

Yunus isn’t the only Muslim to receive a Nobel Prize. This year, the Nobel Committee awarded prizes to two prominent Muslims, the other being Turkish author Orhan Pamuk.

First published in the Crikey! Daily alert for 18 October 2006.

Words © 2006 Irfan Yusuf