Samir Sadik, M. Bitar
who wants to understand the phenomenon of the Muslim Brotherhood, i.e., political religion, must answer several questions, the first or last of which is: Is the Muslim Brotherhood a religious doctrine or is it a political doctrine? Here it can be said that the Muslim Brotherhood is political and not religious! One of the greatest mistakes is considering the Muslim Brotherhood as a synthesis of politics and religion, because opposites cannot be reconcile, We have asserted on numerous occasions that there is no religion in politics and no politics in religion, just as there is no evolution in the constant and no stability in the variable, There is no dogmatism in pragmatism and no pragmatism in dogmatism, Acceptable results cannot be expected from the forced fusion of religion and politics. Furthermore, there is no such thing as a believer who is an infidel or an infidel who is a believer, The Muhammadan movement is practically a historical phenomenon, while the Muslim Brotherhood is a political phenomenon whose exact age cannot be determined; it may be around 14 centuries old, Religion is a code of ethics, while the Muslim Brotherhood is a code of politics aimed at dominating others, Its scope is limitless, given its international nature. Its means of achieving its goals are dissimulation, consolidation of power, and ultimately, violence and oppression.
In addition to what has been mentioned, it can be said that the Muslim Brotherhood, by combining spirituality and materialism, suffers structurally from a kind of schizophrenia, especially in the era of the state, that is, for about 500 years. There was a caliphate, and the caliphate is not a state, but rather an entity that derives its legitimacy from Sharia, The schizophrenia was not limited to this point, but included other points such as the dichotomy of citizen-subject, then the dichotomy of the ethics of obedience-values of freedom, then the dichotomy of divine decree and predestination-human will, then the marketing of citizenship, that is, the concept of the homeland-entity, Here we find a time difference of about a thousand years, as the concept of the state was not known before 1440 years ago, The concept of the state and its institutions was born around the sixteenth century, and crystallized further after the Treaties of Westphalia. That is, it is an exclusively European concept, and has no relation to the caliphate in substance or history, In a state, there are several authorities, while in the caliphate, there is only divine authority represented by Ibn Abdullah and the caliphs after him, who were addicted to the Sharia that He doesn’t know a formula that is understandable or even known; Sharia reflects Sharia law, and Fiqh reflects Fiqh only.
The peoples of this Middle Eastern region live in an age of revolutions, an age of profound changes, These revolutions are not part of a religious doctrine that focuses almost exclusively on rituals and jihad in the name of God, followed by the practice of takfir (excommunication), slaughter, and killing for the most trivial reasons. Most importantly, there is obedience to the ruler, According to the Brotherhood’s interpretation of Sharia law, whoever forgets the dawn prayer is killed by his father,Here, the hypocrisy is most evident, We know that the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula were plagued by the disease of conquest, meaning warfare, and there are accounts of hundreds of thousands killed. Certainly, some neglected the dawn prayer, but history doesn’t provide us with information on the number of massacres expected for neglecting it, even in the early days, In practice, those who neglect prayer are not killed. Therefore, what has been written and said about unimaginable punishments is merely capricious chatter, like other rulings.
Globalization is increasing steadily and in a way that clashes with the nature of Islam, which, from its inception, has been characterized by isolation and poor relations with the peoples whose lands were conquered, These peoples were forced to pay tribute in humiliation, convert to Islam, or face war, There were no friendly relations with anyone except Abyssinia, which granted believers what could be called humanitarian asylum, The evolution of the global situation towards globalization requires Islam to be prepared to engage positively with globalization as a prerequisite for belonging to the world. However, a reading of Islam’s history, addicted to hostility, isolation, and the arrogance of being the best nation, suggests significant difficulties with the rest of the world, Islam has failed to establish constructive relations with all countries and has misinterpreted the humanitarian inclinations of the world’s peoples towards the tragedies and calamities that have befallen the peoples of the region, Arab humanitarianism is dormant, and we all remember the gloating celebrations on 9/11. Some official religious authorities claimed on the occasion of 9/11 that religion had been hijacked by the terrorist Bin Laden and then hijacked by… Before ISIS, Hezbollah, and others, there were similar movements, but reality does not support this claim of abduction, as history demonstrates that Bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, and their ilk and disciples did not bring anything new compared to the practices of the early Islamic years and the last fourteen centuries.
The peoples of the region live in a state of constant crisis because they oscillate between a nomadic, pastoral lifestyle—under tribal and religious leadership—and a very limited civil model—a legal system and a balance of rights and duties, a system of citizenship based on earned rather than granted rights, where individuals live by their own labor, not on the favors of a president or prince,The system of favors leads to subservience and obedience, which aligns with the imported, Brotherhood-inspired mentality of a “glorious” tribal past—a past of conquests and war spoils.
Political Islam involves an underlying conflict between the pastoral model—the concept of religious leadership embodied in the sheikh, guide, preacher, or imam—and the civil model—the legal form of legitimacy within the framework of citizenship. Fundamentalism and Salafism address subjects, not citizens, because in their concept of citizenship, they conflate obedience and freedom in a nihilistic way, as if only obedience exists. The fundamental question facing fundamentalist Salafism is this: How prepared is Islamic culture to engage with secularism as a prerequisite for belonging to the world and remaining within history, rather than outside of it? And to what extent is this culture capable of relinquishing its stagnant particularities, which represent a forced demonization of the West to evade the demands of modernity, which is fundamentally a high human achievement, not exclusively European? In religious terms, it is a kind of destiny. The thinker Fathi al-Miskini asked: How long will we remain poor interpreters of our own ancient potential within the lexicon of humanity?