Written on 19 December 2015.

Wahhabism

   During the 18th century, revivalist movements sprang up in many parts of the Islamic world as the Muslim imperial powers began to lose control of peripheral territories. In the west at this time, governments were beginning to separate church from state, but this secular ideal was a radical innovation: as revolutionary as the commercial economy that Europe was concurrently devising. No other culture regarded religion as a purely private activity, separate from such worldly pursuits as politics, so for Muslims the political fragmentation of society was also a religious problem. Because the Quran had given Muslims a sacred mission – to build a just economy in which everybody is treated with equity and respect – the political well-being of the ummah was always a matter of sacred import. If the poor were oppressed, the vulnerable exploited or state institutions corrupt, Muslims were obliged to make every effort to put society back on track.

   If 18th-century reformers were convinced that should Muslims ever regain lost power and prestige, they would have to return to the fundamentals of their faith, ensuring that God – rather than materialism or worldly ambition – dominated the political order, Wahhabism would come to pervert such desires.

   There was nothing militant about this “fundamentalism”; not yet, rather, it was a grassroots attempt to reorient society and did not involve jihad.

   Only, if the idea of going back to the root of Islam at a time when society had strayed from the path was indeed laudable, Wahhabism would work to betray such ideal by twisting on its head Islam’s most sacred pillars, perverting Islamic law and the interpretation of its scriptures to serve the mighty and enslave the weak.

   Under Wahhabism’s interpretation of Islam, women reverted to being objectified. Those many great women Islam saw rise under the strict protection of the Quran, those model Muslim women came to look up to and aspire to become – Maryam, Khadija, Fatma, Zaynab, Mohammed Abdel Wahhab would have had locked up in their home.

   When Islam gave women their rightful place within society, Wahhabism denied them everything.

   And for those of you who continue to live under the premise that Islam is profoundly unfair against women, do remember it is not Islam but rather men’s interpretation of it which is the source of your ire.

   Islam secured women’ status according to God’s will. Islam poses both men and women o a equal footing in terms of their faith – it is only in their duties and responsibilities which they differ, not worthiness. Islam calls on men to provide for women and offer them security, both financial and physical. Under Islam women are free to marry, divorce and work. Under Islam women cannot be bought, bartered or oppressed. Under Islam women enjoy more freedom than most western women have been given. It is society which has denied them those rights, not Islam. Read the Quran and you will see!

   Like Martin Luther, Abdel Wahhab claimed he wanted to return to the earliest teachings of Islam and eject all later medieval accretions. To achieve such ambitions he opposed Sufism and Shia Islam, labelling them as heretical innovations (bidah) as both opposed tyranny in faith. He went on to urge all Muslims to reject the learned exegesis developed over the centuries by the ulema (scholars) and interpret the texts for themselves, or rather under his guidance.

   This naturally incensed the clergy and threatened local rulers, who believed that interfering with these popular devotions would cause social unrest. Eventually, however, Wahhab found a patron in Mohammed Ibn Saud, a chieftain of Najd who adopted his ideas. Ibn Saud quickly used Wahhabism to support his military campaigns for plunder and territory, insisting such violence was all in the name of the greater good.

   To this day Al Saud’s house is following in such bloody footsteps.

   Although the scriptures were so central to Abdel Wahhab’s ideology, by insisting that his version of Islam alone had validity, he distorted the Quranic message in the most violent way. The Quran firmly states that “There must be no coercion in matters of faith” (2:256).

   It rules that Muslims must believe in the revelations of all the great prophets (3:84) and that religious pluralism was God’s will (5:48). Until Wahhabism came knocking, Muslims remained traditionally wary of takfir, the practice of declaring a fellow Muslim to be an unbeliever (kafir). Hitherto Sufism, which had developed an outstanding appreciation of other faith traditions, had been the most popular form of Islam and had played an important role in both social and religious life. “Do not praise your own faith so exclusively that you disbelieve all the rest,” urged the great mystic Ibn al-Arabi (d.1240). “God the omniscient and omnipresent cannot be confined to any one creed.” It was common for a Sufi to claim that he was a neither a Jew nor a Christian, nor even a Muslim, because once you glimpsed the divine, you left these man-made distinctions behind.

   After Wahhab’s death, Wahhabism became more violent, an instrument of state terror. As Al Saud sought to establish an independent kingdom, Abd al-Aziz Ibn Muhammad, Ibn Saud’s son and successor, used takfir to justify the wholesale slaughter of resistant populations. In 1801, his army sacked the holy Shia city of Karbala in what is now Iraq, plundered the tomb of Imam Hussain and slaughtered thousands of Shias, including women and children; in 1803, in fear and panic, the holy city of Mecca surrendered to the Saudi leader.

   Little do we remember the sacking of the holy city of Medina, when Al Saud’s legions ransacked mosques, schools and homes. Al Saud’s army murdered hundreds of men, women and children, deaf to their screams. As imams pleaded for the most sacred relics of Islam to be protected, Al Saud’s men pillaged and looted, setting fire to Medina’s library. Al Saud made an example out of Medina, the very city which proved so welcoming to Islam. On the ground which saw rise the first mosque of Islam, Al Saud soaked the earth red with blood.

   Where the footsteps of the last Prophet of God still echoed, Al Saud filled the air with ghastly cries of horrors.

   But such terror has been erased from history books. Such tale of blood and savage betrayals have been swallowed whole by Al Saud as this house attempted to re-write history and claim lineage to the house of the prophet.

   Eventually, in 1815, the Ottomans despatched Muhammad Ali Pasha, governor of Egypt, to crush the Wahhabi forces and destroy their capital. But Wahhabism became a political force once again during the First World War when the Saudi chieftain – another Abd al-Aziz – made a new push for statehood and began to carve out a large kingdom for himself in the Middle East with his devout Bedouin army, known as the Ikhwan, the “Brotherhood”.

   In the Ikhwan we see the roots of ISIS (Daesh). To break up the tribes and wean them from the nomadic life which was deemed incompatible with Islam, the Wahhabi clergy had settled the Bedouin in oases, where they learned farming and the crafts of sedentary life and were indoctrinated in Wahhabi Islam. Once they exchanged the time-honoured ghazu raid, which typically resulted in the plunder of livestock, for the Wahhabi-style jihad, these Bedouin fighters became more violent and extreme, covering their faces when they encountered Europeans and non-Saudi Arabs and fighting with lances and swords because they disdained weaponry not used by the Prophet. In the old ghazu raids, the Bedouin had always kept casualties to a minimum and did not attack non-combatants. Now the Ikhwan routinely massacred “apostate” unarmed villagers in their thousands, thought nothing of slaughtering women and children, and routinely slit the throats of all male captives.

   In 1915, Abd al-Aziz planned to conquer Hijaz (an area in the west of present-day Saudi Arabia that includes the cities of Mecca and Medina), the Persian Gulf to the east of Najd, and the land that is now Syria and Jordan in the north, but during the 1920s he tempered his ambitions in order to acquire diplomatic standing as a nation state with Britain and the United States. The Ikhwan, however, continued to raid the British protectorates of Iraq, Transjordan and Kuwait, insisting that no limits could be placed on jihad. Regarding all modernisation as bidah, the Ikhwan also attacked Abd al-Aziz for permitting telephones, cars, the telegraph, music and smoking – indeed, anything unknown in Muhammad’s time – until finally Abd al-Aziz quashed their rebellion in 1930.

   After the defeat of the Ikhwan, the official Wahhabism of the Saudi kingdom abandoned militant jihad and became a religiously conservative movement.

   But the Ikhwan spirit and its dream of territorial expansion did not die, instead it gained new ground in the 1970s, when the Kingdom became central to western foreign policy in the region. Washington welcomed the Saudis’ opposition to Nasserism (the pan-Arab socialist ideology of Egypt’s second president, Gamal Abdel Nasser) and to Soviet influence. After the Iranian Revolution, in 1979 it gave tacit support to the Saudis’ project of countering Shia Islam by Wahhabizing the entire Muslim world.

   Just as Nasserism posed a threat to both the Saudis and the U.S. in that it entailed independence and a supranational sense of belonging and solidarity, in opposition to colonialism and feudalism, Iran Shia democratic movement presented too much of a pull for countries in the region to follow to be allowed to shine forth.

   And so the wheels of propaganda were set in motion and Iran became western powers and its allies’ designated enemy. Right alongside Soviet Russia, Iran became the source of all evil, while all the while Saudi Arabia was left to industrialize radicalism on a mass scale.

   The soaring oil price created by the 1973 embargo – when Arab petroleum producers cut off supplies to the U.S. to protest against the Americans’ military support for Israel – gave the Kingdom all the petrodollars it needed to export its idiosyncratic form of Islam.

   The old military jihad to spread the faith was now replaced by a cultural offensive. The Saudi-based Muslim World League opened offices in every region inhabited by Muslims, and the Saudi ministry of religion printed and distributed Wahhabi translations of the Quran, Wahhabi doctrinal texts and the writings of modern thinkers whom the Saudis found congenial, such as Sayyids Abul-A’la Maududi and Qutb, to Muslim communities throughout the Middle East, Africa, Indonesia, the United States and Europe. In all these places, they funded the building of Saudi-style mosques with Wahhabi preachers and established madrasas that provided free education for the poor, with, of course, a Wahhabi curriculum.

   Slowly Muslims’ understanding of Islam became polluted by Wahhabism and Sunni Muslims began to think and breathe Wahhabism, no longer in tune with its own religious tradition, cut off from free-thinking Islam, moderate Islam, compassionate Islam and non-violent Islam.

   At the same time, young men from the poorer Muslim countries, such as Egypt and Pakistan, who had felt compelled to find work in the Gulf to support their families, associated their relative affluence with Wahhabism and brought this faith back home with them, living in new neighbourhoods with Saudi mosques and shopping malls that segregated the sexes. The Saudis demanded religious conformity in return for their munificence, so Wahhabi rejection of all other forms of Islam as well as other faiths would reach as deeply into Bradford, England, and Buffalo, New York, as into Pakistan, Jordan or Syria: everywhere gravely undermining Islam’s traditional pluralism.

   A whole generation of Muslims, therefore, has grown up with a maverick form of Islam that has given them a negative view of other faiths and an intolerantly sectarian understanding of their own. While not extremist per se, this is an outlook in which radicalism can develop. In the past, the learned exegesis of the ulema, which Wahhabis rejected, had held extremist interpretations of scripture in check; but now unqualified freelancers such as Osama Bin Laden were free to develop highly unorthodox readings of the Quran. To prevent the spread of radicalism, the Saudis tried to deflect their young from the internal problems of the kingdom during the 1980s by encouraging a pan-Islamist sentiment of which the Wahhabi ulema did not approve.

Daesh / ISIS – the brain child of Wahhabism

   Like the Ikhwan before, ISIS represents a rebellion against the official Wahhabism of modern Saudi Arabia. Its swords, covered faces and cut-throat executions all recall the original Brotherhood. But it is unlikely that the ISIS hordes consist entirely of diehard jihadists. A substantial number are probably secularists who resent the status quo in Iraq – Baathists from Saddam Hussein’s regime and former soldiers of his disbanded army.

   This would actually explain ISIS’s strong performance against professional military forces. In all likelihood, few of the young recruits are motivated either by Wahhabism or by more traditional Muslim ideals. In 2008, MI5’s behavioural science unit noted that, “far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could be regarded as religious novices.”

   A significant proportion of those convicted of terrorism offences since the 9/11 attacks have been non-observant, or are self-taught. Misguided or disguised ISIS militants are certainly not looking for religious enlightenment; rather they have been sold to a violence which speaks to their own pain and sense of loss.

   Two wannabe jihadists who set out from Birmingham for Syria last May had ordered Islam for Dummies from Amazon. ISIS militants are no Muslim devouts, only sociopathic begots.

   It would be a mistake to see ISIS as a throwback; it is a thoroughly modern movement which has drawn its inspiration from the Ikhwan crusades. It has become an efficient, self-financing business with assets estimated at $2bn. Its looting, theft of gold bullion from banks, kidnapping, siphoning of oil in the conquered territories and extortion have made it the wealthiest jihadist group in the world. There is nothing random or irrational about ISIS violence. The execution videos are carefully and strategically planned to inspire terror, deter dissent and sow chaos in the greater population.

   ISIS is not just a terror army, it is a terror movement with imperialistic ambitions. And if its methods are terrifying and bloody they are hardly an innovation. There too ISIS drew from past examples – Mass killing is after all a thoroughly modern phenomenon, one which western powers gave into many times over.

   During the French Revolution, which led to the emergence of the first secular state in Europe, the Jacobins publicly beheaded about 17,000 men, women and children.

   The Soviet Bolsheviks, the Khmer Rouge and the Red Guard all used systematic terrorism to purge humanity of corruption.

   In the 1990s, Armenia slaughtered hundreds upon hundreds of Azeris in a grand scale flash ethnic cleansing campaign.

   Similarly, ISIS uses violence to achieve a single, limited and clearly defined objective that would be impossible without such slaughter. As such, it is another expression of the dark side of modernity – industrial killing to achieve politico-strategic goals.

   Above all ISIS wants rebuild the caliphate Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Turkey declared null and void in 1925.

   The caliphate had long been a dead letter politically, but because it symbolised the unity of the ummah and its link with the Prophet, Sunni Muslims mourned its loss as a spiritual and cultural trauma. Yet ISIS’s projected caliphate has no support among ulema internationally and is derided throughout the Muslim world.

   That said, the limitations of the nation state are becoming increasingly apparent in our world; this is especially true in the Middle East, which has no tradition of nationalism, and where the frontiers drawn by invaders were so arbitrary that it was well nigh impossible to create a truly national spirit. Here, too, ISIS is not simply harking back to a bygone age but is, however eccentrically, enunciating a modern concern.

   The liberal-democratic nation state developed in Europe in part to serve the Industrial Revolution, which made the ideals of the Enlightenment no longer noble aspirations but practical necessities. It is not ideal: its Achilles heel has always been an inability to tolerate ethnic minorities – a failing responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. In other parts of the world where modernisation has developed differently, other polities may be more appropriate. So the liberal state is not an inevitable consequence of modernity; the attempt to produce democracy in Iraq using the colo­nial methods of invasion, subjugation and occupation could only result in an unnatural birth – and so ISIS emerged from the resulting mayhem.

   ISIS has declared war against all — Sunnis, Shias, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Yazidis — there is no escaping this reactionary band of Godless criminals and murderers.

   Interestingly, Saudi Arabia has now become the designated target of ISIS militants. As if playing out a Greek tragedy, ISIS seeks now to strike at its creator, intent on pushing the boundary of the acceptable to reinvent itself not a religion but a radical atheist movement which stands in negation of the Holy, in all its forms and all its manifestations.

   If Wahhabism did not scare you, ISIS should.

   Maybe just maybe it would be a good idea to choose those allies which intend to defeat and destroy ISIS and deny the one power which started it all – the Kingdom.

Catherine Shakdam -- New Eastern Outlook
First appeared:http://journal-neo.org/2015/06/14/wahhabism-al-saud-and-isis-the-unholy-trinity/

Written on 16 December 2015.

  Seit Monaten herrscht im Irak eine merkwürdige Ruhe. Seit der Daesh (Islamischer Staat) grosse Teile der Provinz Anbar erobert hat, haben sich die Fronten weitgehend verfestigt. Alle drei Kontrahenten – Kurden. Daesh und die Regierung – leiden unter dem gleichen Problem: Geldmangel. Der Verfall der Erdölpreise hat sie massiv betroffen, da sie versäumt haben, sich alternative Geldquellen zu erschliessen.

   Die Kurden schulden ihren Peshmerga-Kriegern seit Monaten den Sold. Der Daesh musste seine Sozialausgaben und die Stromversorgung drosseln, denn der Sold der Kämpfer hat Vorrang. Die Einkünfte aus Enteignung (Diebstahl) und Steuereintreibung (Erpressung) leiden unter der Wirtschaftskrise.

   Obwohl alle Drei so viel Erdöl pumpen, wie sie nur können, reichen die royalties bzw. die Erlöse nicht. Die Regierung in Bagdad muss einen Kredit von 1,2 Milliarden Dollar beim Weltwährungsfonds aufnehmen – vorgeblich für den Wiederaufbau der Provinz Anbar, die sie nur teilweise beherrscht.

   Für die derzeitige Starre der Frontlinien im Irak gibt es zwei einfache und eine komplizierte Erklärung. Die einfachen Gründe: sowohl die Kurden als auch die Fanatiker des IS sind gegenwärtig zu schwach, um grössere Offensiven zu starten. Dem Daesh setzen die Luftangriffe merklich zu. Ein Teil des Spitzenpersonals hat sich von Rakka nach Mossul und nach Libyen abgesetzt. Die Türkei ist nicht mehr der nette Verbündete, über den man Freiwillige, Bräute und Rüstungsgüter bezieht, und in dessen Krankenhäusern man seine Verwundeten behandeln lassen kann. Verteidigung ist für den Daesh in Syrien und Irak an die Stelle von Angriff getreten. Erfolge erzielt man stattdessen in Libyen und auf dem Sinai.

   Warum die Regierung in Bagdad keine ernsthaften Versuche unternimmt, die an den Daesh und die Kurden verlorenen Gebiete zurück zu gewinnen, ist eine komplizierte Frage. Der vom Daesh beherrschte Norden einschiesslich der Millionenstadt Mossul ist sunnitisches Siedlungsgebiet. Weder die in Bagdad vertretenen sunnitischen Parteien, noch ihre amerikanischen Freunde wollen, dass das besetzte sunnitische Gebiet von schiitisch dominiertem Militär oder von den mit Iran verbündeten schiitischen Milizen “befreit” wird.  Zu schrecklich ist die Erinnerung an frühere “Befreiungs”.Aktionen der Milizen, bei denen hemmungslos gemordet und gestohlen wurde.

   Die Amerikaner wollen verhindern, dass der sunnitisch geprägte Nordirak den Schiiten und ihren iranischen Freunden anheim fällt. Sie wollen im Prinzip den Daesh als ein sunnitisches Staatswesen erhalten – freilich ohne den Kalifen und seine Mörderbande. Den Amerikanern liegt also nichts an einer Wiedererrichtung des alten Iraks, es sei denn als ein lockeres Gebilde bestehend aus einem schiitischen Süden, einem sunnitischen Norden und einem weitgehend autonomen Kurdistan.

   Aus dieser Haltung der Amerikaner erklärt sich der Hass der Schiiten auf die vormalige und immer noch einflussreiche Besatzungsmacht. Militärisch gesehen, streben Kreise um den regierenden Premier Haider al-Abadi die Bildung einer gemischt schiitisch-sunnitischen Streitmacht an, der man die Befreiung anvertrauen könnte. Diese Idee lehnen sowohl hardcore Schiiten um den Ex-Premier Nouri al-Maliki, als auch die Sunniten ab.

   Die Amerikaner favorisieren die Bildung sunnitischer Einheiten für die Rückeroberung des Nordens. Mit dieser an sich vernünftigen Idee sind die Schiiten absolut nicht einverstanden. Zu tief sitzt die Angst vor den militärischen Qualitäten der Sunniten, die ein Jahrhundert lang die Streitkräfte des Irak dominiert haben. Wenn schon sunnitische Einheiten, dann sollen sie klein und dem schiitischen Militär untergeordnet bleiben.

   Aus diesen Gründen passiert wenig oder garnichts. Das schiitische Militär bleibt undizipliniert, korrupt und weitgehend wertlos. Die Sunniten wollen weder der Regierung, noch dem zusehends mehr einer kriminellen Bande gleichenden Kalifat dienen. So werden die auf baldige Befreiung hoffenden Untertanen des Kalifen enttäuscht. Hilflos müssen sie den doppelten Terror der Gotteskrieger und der Luftangriffe ertragen, während ihre Wirtschaft zerfällt, ihr Einkommen weggesteuert wird und sich Hunger und Not ausbreiten. Eine Tragödie, von der die Welt wenig erfährt, während in Bagdad die alten Ränkespiele und Intrigen herrschen und der Beamtenapparat sich nach Kräften am Erdölgeschäft und an der internationalen Hilfe bereichert.

   Die Amerikaner verlegen soeben eine ihrer Elitetruppen in den Irak, die 101st Airborne Division, angeblich zu Ausbildungszwecken. Am 14. Februar wurde bekannt, dass eine weitere, nicht näher identifizierte amerikanische “Special Force” in der Ein al-Assad Airbase im Westen von Anbar eingetroffen sei, begleitet von schwerer Ausrüstung und Kampfhubschraubern. Vielleicht ist das ein Zeichen, dass die Ankündigungen der Regierung Abadi, demnächst Mossul erobern zu wollen, doch glaubwürdig sind. Abadi jedenfalls erklärte jüngst, dass die Streitkräfte “unabhängig” sein müssten: also überkonfessionell. Wie das gehen soll, hat er nicht ausgeführt.

   Während sich das Land weiterhin in einer Art von stabilem Kleinkrieg befindet, wird das Tagesgeschehen von einer ganz anderen Drohung überschattet: ein amerikanisches Expertenteam will herausgefunden haben, dass der Damm des von Saddam Hussein geschaffenen Tigris-Stausees von Mossul morsch ist und brechen könnte,

   Schon einmal in der Geschichte Arabiens hat der Bruch eines Staudamms eine Katastrophe bewirkt und Weltgeschichte geschrieben: In Jahre 575 AD brach der Damm von Marib im Jemen, der grösste Wasserbau der Antike. Die Flut zerstörte eine jahrhundertealte Zivilisation und sandte Scharen von Ökoflüchtlingen nordwärts gen Mekka, wo ein Prophet und Heerführer, Mohammed aus dem Stamm der Qureishi, Kämpfer für seinen Dschihad brauchte.

    Der Damm von Marib, das achte Weltwunder, brach nach Jahrzehnten der Vernachlässigung. Genau dasselbe Problem bescheinigen jetzt die Fachleute dem Damm von Mossul. Aus politischen Gründen seinerzeit auf weichem, ungeeignetem Boden erbaut, muss er ständig mit Beton- und Kiesinjektionen stabilisiert werden. Das unterblieb monatelang, als der Daesh (IS) den Damm besetzt hielt. Auch danach unterblieben wegen der chaotischen Lage Wartungsarbeiten. Nun soll eine italienische Firma, geschützt von 450 (angeblich sogar 1000) italienischen Soldaten, den Damm reparieren. Bagdad zögert jedoch, den Vertrag zu unterzeichnen.

   Es könnte schon zu spät sein. Wenn im Frühjahr die Schmelzwasser den Tigris anschwellen lassen, der Stausee ohnehin schon übervoll ist weil ein Teil der Schleusen nicht mehr funktioniert, dann kann es zum Dammbruch kommen. Eine Wasserwalze von 45 Meter Höhe würde Mossul total zerstören, ebenso Tikrit, und selbst das 650 km entfernte Bagdad würde von einer noch zweieinhalb Meter hohen Welle heimgesucht.

   500.000 Menschen würden ertrinken und über eine Million obdachlos werden. Eine Katastrophe in der Grössenordnung des syrischen Bürgerkriegs, die zwar auch den Daesh in Mossul treffen würde, ihm in Rakka/Syrien aber Hunderttausende potentielle Dschihad-Kämpfer, die aus dem zerstörten Tigristal nach Norden strömen, zuführen könnte.

“Alles Quatsch”, sagt der irakische Wasserminister Mohsen al-Shamry, ein Schiit, der glaubt, dass die Amerikaner nur bluffen. um einen Grund zu haben, Truppen einzufliegen und die “Befreiung Mossuls zu verhindern”. “Der Damm wird halten”, sagt er, “es gibt keine Erosion an der Basis”.

Man kann nur hoffen, dass er mehr weiss als die Experten.

Heinrich von Loesch

Update

Die irakische Regierung und die amerikanische Botschaft haben die Bevölkerung vor der Möglichkeit des Dammbruchs gewarnt. Das italienische Aussenministerium teilt mit, dass die irakische Regierung (endlich!) den Vertrag für die Konsolidierung des Hochdamms von Mossul unterschrieben hat. Die Arbeiten im Rahmen des Auftrags an die Firma Trevi im Wert von 273 Millionen Euro sollen 18 Monate dauern.

Giulio Ratti, ein römischer Kommentator, schreibt zu der Meldung in breitem Dialekt: “Noch einmal habt Ihr Euch betrügen lassen! Die dort halten keinen Vertrag ein, sind stets im Krieg, haben vor nichts Respekt, haben keine Regierung, alles hängt in der Luft, es sei denn es werden 272 Millionen vor Arbeitsbeginn gezahlt, und 1 Million am Ende….( 2.3.16)

Written on 17 December 2015.

   The British Prime Minister, Mr David Cameron, has ordered a review of the Muslim Brotherhood and its link to extremism. The review project was highly controversial from the start. Its main author, Sir John Jenkins, was until recently UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia -- one of the main enemies of the Brotherhood.

   germanpages.de -- Deutsche Rundschau is publishing the conclusions of the government report as it is presented to the House of Commons. The Brotherhood has already announced that it will legally challenge the report.

********

" Conclusions

39.Both Sir John Jenkins and Charles Farr drew the following overarching conclusions from their work:

- the Muslim Brotherhood have promoted a radical, transformative politics, at odds with a millennium of Islamic jurisprudence and statecraft, in which the reconstruction of individual identity is the first step towards a revolutionary challenge to established states and a secularised if socially conservative order;

- the Muslim Brotherhood historically focused on remodelling individuals and communities through grassroots activism. They have engaged politically where possible. But they have also selectively used violence and sometimes terror in pursuit of their institutional goals. Their public narrative – notably in the West - emphasised engagement not violence. But there have been significant differences between Muslim Brotherhood communications in English and Arabic;

- there is little evidence that the experience of power in Egypt has caused a rethinking in the Muslim Brotherhood of its ideology or conduct. UK official engagement with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood produced no discernible change in their thinking. Indeed even by mid 2014 statements from Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood-linked media platforms seem to have deliberately incited violence;

- much about the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK remains secretive, including membership, fund raising and educational programmes. But Muslim Brotherhood associates and affiliates here have at times had significant influence on the largest UK Muslim student organisation, national organisations which have claimed to represent Muslim communities (and on that basis have sought and had a dialogue with Government), charities and some mosques. Though their domestic influence has declined organisations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood continue to have an influence here which is disproportionate to their size;

- the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK claimed to act in support of Muslim communities here and use London as a base for activism elsewhere, notably with other Muslim Brotherhood organisations in Europe, in Egypt and the occupied Palestinian territories and in the Gulf. This activity is sometimes secretive, if not clandestine;

- the Muslim Brotherhood have been publicly committed to political engagement in this country. Engagement with Government has at times been facilitated by what appeared to be a common agenda against al Qaida and (at least in the UK) militant salafism. But this engagement did not take account of Muslim Brotherhood support for a proscribed terrorist group and its views about terrorism which, in reality, were quite different from our own;

- aspects of Muslim Brotherhood ideology and tactics, in this country and overseas, are contrary to our values and have been contrary to our national interests and our national security."

Written on 15 December 2015.

   The Pew Research Center compiled the results of several reports on Islam it had published in recent years,  in an overview:

"Muslims and Islam: Key findings in the U.S. and around the world".

   Among its interestung results there is a  table showing the level of acceptance of Sharia law among Muslims, by country.

--- ed.