A Sceptical Islamist

Muslims intellectuals must take on the universal myths of democracy

"Sooner or later Muslim intellectuals, particularly those operating within Islamic movements, must take on the task of challenging the universal myth of democracy instead of pandering to it, and dare to define their ideas and the aspirations of the Ummah in purely Islamic terms. Until that happens Muslims will never achieve the conceptual clarity that will enable them to articulate their political ideas in terms that will offer a genuine and credible alternative to the seductive but oh-so-dangerous myths of democracy."

The harsh reality of the limitations of the Palestinian struggle

"The Palestinians may well be forced into the streets for a third intifada sometime soon, to try and prevent the Israelis from achieving their goals; and this may well hinder the Israeli plans for a while and force them to adjust their short-term tactics yet again. But without a fundamental shift in the balance of power in the region, political as well as military, the overall progress of the US-Israeli agenda will not be reversed."

The US-Israeli thinking behind Abbas's call for elections in Palestine in January

"The Israelis and Americans have made it clear that they prefer the Palestinians to remain divided, and Hamas and Gaza isolated, in the hope that Abbas will be able to deliver a “peace settlement” on their terms on the basis of his political authority in the West Bank.

"Although most Palestinians realize that the division between Fatah and Hamas is deeply damaging to their struggle, Abbas and the Fatah leadership are so beholden to outside forces, specifically Israel and its hegemonic ally, that the interests of the Palestinians are no longer their prime concern."

Iran’s real crime: refusing to venerate the West’s holy cows

"In the West, and in the westernised elites of the rest of the world, even those who criticise the policies of Western powers, and the working of international institutions, seldom question the myths on which they are based. Iran’s real crime is that it does precisely that. Its refusal to allow the Western powers to dictate its energy policy, through the spurious authority of the UN and the IAEA, is bad enough. The fact is it is doing so not only on grounds of its interests, but because it rejects the mythical moral foundations of that authority (the same foundations that supposedly legitimise the zionist state) makes it not just an outlaw, but a revolutionary threat..."

The emergence of salafi-jihadi groups to challenge Hamas in Gaza

"When news emerged of fighting in the southern Gaza town of Rafah after juma prayers on August 14, many observers would have been surprised to learn that it was between Hamas authorities and militants belonging to a Salafi-Jihadi group known as Jund Ansar Allah -- “Soldiers of the Followers of Allah”...

"As in other areas of the Muslim world, it appears that the emergence of these groups has been the result of a combination of the enthusiasm and fervour of local Muslims with more anger and commitment than knowledge and political understanding, and the encouragement of outside forces determined to exploit these Muslims for their own purposes."

Abbas’s attempt to re-invent Fatah marred by the movement’s contradictions

"When Fatah was established as a Palestinian national liberation movement by Yasser Arafat and other young Palestinian radicals in the late 1950s, they could probably never have imagined that it might one day hold a crucial convention in Israeli-occupied Palestine, and with the blessing and cooperation of the zionist state. The fact that that is precisely what happened in Bethlehem early last month is a measure not only of how much has changed in terms of the Palestinian struggle, but also how much Fatah has changed since its last general convention in Tunis in 1989...”

Sectarianism still dominating Iraqi politics

"The years since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 have seen widespread disillusion with events in Iraq... Many in the Islamic movement expected that after the traumas of the invasion, there would be a very real possibility of Iraq emerging as another Islamic state, based on the model of Iran, but reflecting also the fact that Iraq is a major Arab country with a significant Sunni community.

"Looking at Iraqi politics now, the disappearance of the ideals of that time and the decline into sectarianism have been so total that it is difficult to imagine the hopes some people had of Iraq back then..."

Contemplating the possible end of Iran's Islamic experiment

"The unfortunate reality is that the ideals, vision and significance of the Islamic Revolution have not been understood even by many of its own officials and representatives, and have therefore not been effectively communicated either to the rest of the world, or to many of Iran’s own people.

"For 30 years Iran has stood virtually alone as a beacon of Islamic political power in a West-dominated world. Its example has inspired Islamic movements elsewhere, including many that would not recognise its leading role, totally transforming the political dynamics of the entire Muslim world. But there has never been a guarantee of its success; Islamic Iran it may yet fail, like numerous other attempts to re-assert the power of Islam in recent centuries."

The failure of Pakistan's political Islamic movements

"What can we say about the inevitable and long-awaited expansion of the US’s war on Islamic self-determination into Pakistan, with tragic results for the millions of people directly affected, and potentially disastrous effects for the country as a whole and everyone in it? Watching developments in Pakistan over the last 18-24 months has been like watching a car crash in slow motion. You can see exactly what is happening, and what the inevitable results will be, but you are powerless to do anything to change them; meanwhile, those involved seem oblivious of the dangers and determined to charge headlong into the disaster...

"Pakistan’s long-suffering people should never have been forced to choose between supporting the primitive and often brutal Taliban, and a corrupt and self-serving pro-Western government. This is the result of the failure of its mainstream Islamic movements, and the Jama'at-e Islami in particular, to offer any political leadership... "

Egypt attempting to counter popularity and credibility of Hizbullah

(Perspectives, Crescent International, May 2009.)

Since the announcement on April 8 that Egyptian authorities had arrested 49 members of a "Hizbullah cell" in the country, we have been subjected to a variety of explanations for the arrests and several different accounts of exactly what happened, when it happened, and why it happened.  Much of this information has been leaked by Egyptian authorities, and little of it has survived critical scrutiny.  More reliable information has come from Hizbullah itself, particularly in statements by its leader Shaikh Nasrallah.  Montasser El-Zayat, an Egyptian lawyer well known for defending Islamic activists, who is representing at least some of the arrested, has denied a number of statements attributed to him.