A Reformer Arises...?

"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 centuries, 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 and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.
"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."                                                                                                                  Egyptian President Abadel-Fattah el-Sissi

Sisi during his New Year’s Day speech before Al Azhar

Now that is a man of intrepid courage and determination. To take on the religious scholars of the prestigious al-Azhar university for religious scholars, and to impress upon them his view of their laxity as Islamic scholars in failing to make an effort to bring Islam into the world of the present, rather than allow the sclerotic and vicious version of the sacred precepts of Islam to remain mired in the proselytizing conquest of jihad and conflict.

But the president has exposed himself willingly to criticism from among the Islamic scholars who no doubt bridled at his presumption to interfere in their sphere, a mere military man, a politician, aspiring to move their religion into a sphere of modernity that it was never meant to reflect. It is, after all, a Bedouin-tribal-inspired religion that took its inspiration from the much older religion of Judaism, adopting its basic precepts and presenting itself as the more complete version of God's message to humankind.

But there it is, a speech to the venerable college, warning that the Muslim world has become a cataclysmic venue of destruction, pitting itself against the rest of the world in a struggle meant to prove once and for all that it is Islam above all other religions with their messages and values and erring ways must see that they submit wholemeal to the one true religion. What President Sissi, in other words is suggesting is that Islam must become more amenable to the presence of others and agreeable to their belief of equality of their faiths.

Above all, that the concept of jihad, incumbent upon all true Islamic believers to commit to, as a fundamental obligation represents a turgid force for destruction, not elevation, since the jihadists see themselves becoming martyrs, ascending to heaven, while those they consider their adversaries whom they must slaughter to themselves become eligible as martyrdom candidates guarantees a world in a constant whirlwind of strife and bloodshed.

"What the president meant is that we need a contemporary reading for religious texts to deal with our contemporary reality", explained Al-Azhar official Hohie Eddin Affifi, secretary general of the Islamic Research Center, an Al-Azhar body responsible for studying Islamic issues to guide clerics in their explanation of religious affairs, as well as being responsible for censorship. Heaven forfend that clerics be charged with altering the sacred texts!

But the New Year's speech by President el-Sissi has mortally offended those clerics for whom his "We need a religious revolution", concept translates to a deliberate corruption of the religion. He, in fact, has called upon them to promulgate a reading of Islamic texts in a "truly enlightened" way so that concepts "that have been made sacred over hundreds of years", can be seen in modern terms without eliciting the constant bellicosity against others that has become endemic.

It is obvious enough that President el-Sissi is a sensible man who views the necessity for modernization of Islam to cope with the violence that extremist Islamists around the world are inflicting wherever they roost in angry contempt of other religions, ideologies and political structures, with the intention of exacting as much violent harm in the name of Islam as conceivably possible.

One can only hope that he persists in his thoughtful and absolutely needful goal and continues to urge for such a change, difficult as it will be to bring about; to at least plant the seed of doubt and reconsideration to have Islamic theologians move toward a more conciliatory and peaceful version of Islam to replace the implacable belligerence and dangerous violence now afflicting the world order.