If we are familiar with the history of the societies of the Arabic-speaking Middle East region...
If we know that the collective mind of its peoples still can’t consider religion to be a personal decision and links theology to all matters of life...
If we have been following the developments in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Libya during the past decade…
If we are aware of the extent of the apostasy that Tunisian society witnessed after its exceptional leader, Habib Bourguiba, drove it to the threshold of contemporary and modernity…
If we are aware of what the Gaza Branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas) did when it won the elections and took control over the Palestinian Authority-run territories...
If we understand the phenomenon of the occurrence of the so-called Arab Spring events in the Arab republics but not in the monarchies…
If we are among those who studied the Algerian Civil War in the 1990s, referred to as the “black decade,” in which thousands of people were killed…
If we are aware of these seven key facts and yet don’t recognize the criminal policies of former US president Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, and many other western politicians that are aimed at pushing Arab societies to perform an artificial democratic act, similar to that which brought Hamas to power in Palestine in 2006…
If we add to these seven facts the tragedy of many countries, such as the United States, European Union, Canada, and Britain not including the Muslim Brotherhood in their lists of terrorist organizations, while considering Hamas a terrorist group…
It is noteworthy that any political science student knows that Hamas is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood Organization and that it had been for years called the “Gaza Branch of the Muslim Brotherhood Organization.”
Therefore, many first-world countries consider the Muslim Brotherhood to be the core of political Islam and that one of its branches is the Hamas Movement.
However, they designated the branch as a terrorist organization while turning a blind eye to the main source and trying to let it rule in several Arab countries.
A few years ago, I was invited to speak about the Muslim Brotherhood in the British Parliament. After the lecture, a session was organized for the parliament members who attended and wanted to ask questions.
“Do I understand from what I heard from you tonight that democracy is not your top priority?” a baron asked me.
“Definitely not,” I answered immediately without any hesitation.
The Baron thought he had won the round, so he again asked with a sarcastic tone, “what is your priority over democracy?”...
I once again answered directly that my priority is his as well. It is to ensure my family members return home safely at the end of each day.
The attendees took us by surprise and applauded my response.
“The aforementioned seven facts and my answers to the questions indicate two things,” I added.
First, you should understand the societies of the Arabic-speaking Middle East region are not the usual stereotypes and great intellectuals must not consider them as stereotypes.
Second, you should let go of the information given to you by the intelligence services about the Muslim Brotherhood. Every intellectual knows the truth about these services’ historical ties with the Brotherhood!!
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Despite the various factions within Sunni Islam, I believe that the biggest “battle” fought among them was between the Mu'tazila and the Hanbalis.
The Mu'tazila could not win this battle before Abbasid Caliph Al-Ma'mun (Ibn Harun al-Rashid) took over the rule.
One of the most accurate descriptions of this battle is that it was the most important contest between the “people of reason” (the Mu’tazila) and the “people of transmitted scripture” (the Hanbalis or Ahl al-naql), whose orientation is based on fatwas by Ibn Hanbal, Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawzi).
Since al-Ma’mun’s death, Hanbalis became predominant.
Luckily, I studied this battle from three different perspectives, including jurisprudence, history and politics.
I was keen to study carefully all that Ibn Hanbal, Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim had written.
My passion for theology (philosophy) also led me to read most of what the Mu'tazilites wrote and most of what was written about them.
If you ask why am I writing about this subject now, especially when I had previously addressed this matter in my books and article? It is because I believe that that the current deterioration in the way millions of Muslims think as well as the Islamic religious discourse is a direct result of the crushing defeat of the school of reason, which was followed by a thousand-year-old intellectual inertia after closing the door on flexibility in applying independent juristic reasoning (ijtihad).
The consequences of this tragedy are far greater than most people think. It is the direct cause of very dangerous phenomena, such as the exodus of most of the Muslims from the path of human progress and their lack of scientific thinking.
Many of the Muslims are in total conflict with humanity. This conflict begins with isolation and reaches the extent to which they carry weapons and explosives (terrorism).
Objectivity requires me to mention that I do not see that any time soon there will be an end to this crisis that has been escalating since the ninth century A.D., when the Hanbalis used to slaughter the Mu'tazila in the alleys of Damascus.
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The terrorism tree is like any tree, it has roots, stems and branches.
As for the roots, they are “Salafism” represented by the writings of several Hanbali jurists and preachers, such as Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim and those who followed their path.
As for its stem, it is the Muslim Brotherhood School founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna (1906/1949). However, it currently represents the ideas of Sayyid Qutb (1906/1966) more than any other Brotherhood figure.
Finally, the branches are the numerous organizations such as al-Gamaa al-Islamiya, al-Jihad, Hamas, al-Qaeda, Islamic Courts Union (Ittihad al-Mahakim al-Islamiyya) (Somalia), Boko Haram (West Africa), al-Shabaab (Somalia), ISIS, al-Nusra, Bayt al-Maqdis...etc.
All of these entities share an ideology that represents their intellectual foundations. They also share strategic objectives but distribute the tasks among them. The planning, politics and dealing with the world are the tasks entrusted to the Muslim Brotherhood, and specifically the International Organization of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Al-Qaeda, ISIS, al-Nusra, Bait al-Maqdis and Boko Haram are among the armed groups tasked to change the reality on the ground by force.
This distribution of tasks has taken place outside western societies, making it difficult for them to see the whole actual picture. They are not aware that all of these mosaics constitute one entity, which is the “political Islam project” that aims (strategically) to establish a global entity to obliterate the idea of contemporary countries.
This global entity is the “Islamic State,” whose foundations contradict all concepts of modern value systems. These include freedoms, foremost of which are the freedom of belief, expression, pluralism and altruism (accepting others), coexistence, religious and cultural tolerance, critical thinking, women's rights, rule of law, secular state, constitutions, laws and access to free education.
