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Before arriving in Britain to set up the Muslim Association of Britain in 1997 (which became part of the FIOE), a senior Egyptian Brother Kamal Helbawi said: "This religion that is Islam shall govern the whole universe, the Islamic civilisation should rule and govern and direct people in every walk of life, but not be governed by others." As fanciful as this dream might seem, it does appear to be shared by those Muslim Brothers regarded as enlightened.

In the wake of the Arab Spring, Rachid Ghannouchi, the exiled leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunis, returned there from London to help run the country after President Ben Ali was ousted. In the Islamic world Ghannouchi is regarded as one its foremost scholars. Last year, Time magazine included him among the world's 100 most influential people and he was presented with the Chatham House Prize by the Duke of York for promoting "a culture of tolerance and bridge-building" with minority secular parties in the new Tunis.

Yet Ghannouchi has also spoken of his hopes for what he calls the "Islamic project" and the "rebirth of a civilisation" which is "qualitative and humane rather than quantitative and secular". And what has prevented the rebirth of civilisation?

"Zionism," according to Ghannouchi. Zionism "represents a secular onslaught on the heart of our Islamic nation" (i.e. Palestine), which he has portrayed as a sort of virus spreading "octopus-like over the whole planet, embracing and transforming every aspect of existence by means of its economics, communications, arts, and literature, or — more crudely — through the presence of its fleets, intelligence agencies, and the recruitment of local converts . . .", and thereby repressing "hope for a global liberation".

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Christopher C.
July 2nd, 2013
4:07 AM
"Let me be clear: followers of the Brotherhood in Britain are not advocating violent jihad here. They condemned the beheading in May of Drummer Lee Rigby by two Muslims on a London street in broad daylight. Their organisations have civic-sounding names; they emphasise human rights, respect for democracy and integration." There is a good Islamic word for those public pronouncements. It is taqqiya - religiously-sanctioned misrepresentation (to say it most politely). But "ordinary" Muslims - are they representative of Islam? Here's a suggestion - what if Hassan al-Banna and others like him are the leaders of an Islamic Reformation. The original Reformation, after all, followed Gutenberg, and the much greater availability of the Bible. Luther and thousands of other Christians went to the source and made their own judgements about the Bible's meanings. So, is there a parallel between post-Gutenberg Europe and the Middle East of the early 20th C.? I suggest that Hassan al-Banna and those of his ilk were, for perhaps the first time, a critical mass for the study of the Koran and the adhadith. And they took the exhortations of both seriously. The language is plain. And it is aggressive. It demands the imposition (not the free acceptance) of sharia. In other words, it demands of Muslims that they be total in their acceptance of Islam, and to ensure that everybody else submit as well (after all, that is what Islam means - submission). The point? "Ordinary" Muslims, in the sense that such persons present no threat to post-Judeo Christians, do not really exist. Those who do not wish to compel others to follow Islam are not really Muslims. The West is in very great trouble that even writers such as Mr Ware can part-recognise the danger, but not travel the last, few necessary steps to describe what we are really faced with.

truthseeker
July 1st, 2013
12:07 PM
The article says the Muslim Brotherhood has made Islam political instead of only religious. In fact, Islam makes no distinction between the political and the religious, as sharia law demonstrates. There is no Islamism, there is only Islam.

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