By Wallace Bruschweiler & Alan Kornman
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi calls for Islam to ‘grow up’ and join the 21st Century in its “Islamic thinking” at the prestigious Al-Azhar University.
General al-Sisi is saying the current Islamic Thinking based on the texts and Islamic Law are “antagonizing the entire world” General al-Sisi understands that the current trajectory of the Islamic World is the major “source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction” for the rest of the non-Muslim world.
General al-Sisi, a devout Muslim, is telling all who will listen that his fellow Muslims who use terrorism, suicide bombings, beheadings, mass killings, violent expansionism and wish to kill and subjugate ‘the others’ to build a new caliphate so that they themselves may live, is Impossible!
“You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it from the outside, to root it out and replace it with a more enlightened vision of the world” General al-Sisi says.
General al-Sisi’s message will will capture the imagination of everyone who dreams of the day where the Muslim and non-Muslim world will find a common ground of mutual respect and the possibility of living in a more peaceful world.
Conversely, al-Sisi’s message will enrage those who support violent Islamic expansionism, totalitarianism, hatred of the non-Muslim, and subjugation of entire populations both Muslim and non-Muslim who do not follow the right form of Islam, whatever that may be.
Assuming President Obama does not openly support General al-Sisi’s call for Islam to join the 21st Century, we will know he is not a part of the solution. If American Islamic civil rights groups like (CAIR) Council On American Islamic Relations, (MSA) Muslim Students Association, (ISNA)Islamic Society of North America, (NAIT) North American Islamic Trust, (MAS)Muslim American Society, and (MB) The Muslim Brotherhood to name only a few, do not publicly support General al-Sisi’s call for change then they are a part of the problem.
We strongly suspect General al-Sisi’s message had been cleared with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
“I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move… because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost-and it is being lost by our own hands.” Gen. El Sisi
Egyptian President General El Sisi – New Years Day Speech 2015 (Excerpt)
“I am referring here to the religious clerics. We have to think hard about what we are facing-and I have, in fact, addressed this topic a couple of times before. It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma[Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible!
That thinking-I am not saying “religion” but “thinking”-that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It’s antagonizing the entire world!
Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants-that is 7 billion-so that they themselves may live? Impossible!
I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema-Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I’m talking about now.
All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it from the outside, to root it out and replace it with a more enlightened vision of the world.
I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move… because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost-and it is being lost by our own hands.”
Where do you and especially the so called silent majority of Muslims stand?
