Lookouts On Islam: Either The Summit of Muhammad Ali, or The Gutter of Omar Mateen

ISIS is not the only source of subversion of Islam. Of equal lethality are citizens of non-Muslim societies who act on ISIS inspiration to murder their co-citizens. In the name of Islam. A stab in the back for environments which ensured for them freedom of faith. Only, as in Orlando, or San Bernardino, or Fort Hood, to kill in cold blood their protectors.

The choice for lookouts on Islam is immensely stark. It is either from the summit of Muhammad Ali, a world champion, or the gutter of Omar Mateen who killed and maimed more than a hundred of his neighbors at a night club in Florida.

In the world of US presidential campaigning, the choice of lookouts on Islam begins with the summit of Obama. Refusing to label such massacre "Islamic terrorism." And ends with the abyss of Republican presumptive presidential nominee, Trump. Clamoring for walling out all Muslims from entering the US. In the squalor of his ignorance, Trump should know that the creation of fortress America is the very hope of the evil-doers, free at the gates, gaining from American immobility for inflicting maximum harm.

Returning to the comparison between how Muhammad Ali viewed Islam, and how that Orlando thug clothed his criminality in an ISIS garb.

Let us here again recall the meaning of the term "Muslim." In Islamic Law, it is not restricted to the adherents of Islam. It applies to any human being, regardless of any faith, who practices what I could here term: "the subsidiarity of will. The human will is subsidiary to the will of the Creator." The term "infidel" does not mean "non-Muslim." It means a person who has no values. Nor is the term "hold war" an Islamic term. Nor is the expression "killing for the sake of God." Nor is "Allahu Akbar," used by terrorist morons as a battle cry. It is a pledge to the equality of all humans in the eyes of God.

Muhammad Ali, the Afro-American convert, lived that creed of universality. At his funeral on Friday, June 10, held at Louisville, Kentucky, leaders of every faith eulogized him. In him, they had a lookout at the summit. Prayers were read from the palette of every faith which Ali had honored. As in the best traditions of Islamic Law, all of those faiths were his paths to an inner truth.

In the Quran, Ali's conduct conformed to this verse from the Quran: "Indeed God has bought from believers their lives and their wealth, that they shall have the Gardens... a pledge from God made in the Torah, in the Bible, and in the Quran. And who is more true in fulfilling His covenant than God..." (Chapter IX, verse 111).

By contrast, Omar Mateen, the Orlando mass killer, made his pledge, not to Islam, but to ISIS, the proverbial subverter of Islam. Mateen had called 911 to proclaim his allegiance (Baiaa) to ISIS. That was before he, on June 12, stormed that night club to kill in fulfillment of their pledge.

One criminal act, in fact the worst act of mass shooting on US soil in history was soon the occasion for Donald Trump to "appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism." Using an oxymoron expression "Islamic terrorism." A vicious linkage between Islam as faith, and terrorism as criminality of which the Muslim world is still the largest target. What compounds Trump's insensitivity is opportuning a massive human tragedy for sordid electioneering ends.

While Ali saw in himself a citizen of America and the world, Mateen saw himself an adherent of a mythical caliphate, soon to be thrown in the dust bin of history.

It is saddening to recall my interviewing of Ali at the UN for the UN Radio during my service for the world organization. His wit, his humor, his cascading torrents of adjectives, were power in action. All within the summitry of his belief in universality.

It is no wonder that Ali's widow, Lonnie, said that "Muhammad indicated that when the end came for him, he wanted to use his life and his death as a teaching moment." And it was.

As for Noor, Mateen's wife, she is said to have driven him to his Orlando target, armed for the kill. Purported to have pleaded with him not to harm anyone. By contrast, Muhammad Ali sought in his new faith, a connection to humanity. As for Omar, he had told his co-workers that he thought martyrdom. None of the Islamic Law standards for martyrdom applied to him.

In Islam, only self-defense is the core of permissible war. It is combat that stops at the borders of an Islamic State under attack. It is also the vehicle for negotiating peace with the adversary, once that adversary is inclined toward peace negotiations. The Quran provides for this rule of post-conflict resolution. "But if they incline to peace, then incline to it, and trust in God. Indeed He is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing." (Chapter VIII, verse 6).

But for Mateen, the pretender to martyrdom, the Quran stops him far away from his goal. It says: "We prescribed to the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul, unless it be for retaliation or because of spreading corruption on earth, it would be as if he had killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it would be as if he had saved the life of all mankind." (Chapter V, verse 32).

And where is Mateen from that gentle giant Muhammad Ali?! Mateen's former wife, Ms. Yusufiy had married him in a ceremony in a Florida courthouse in 2009. Following the Orlando massacre, she made revelations about him to the authorities. Referring to an incident of domestic abuse, she said: "He almost killed me. Because he started choking me. And I somehow got out of it and I tried to tackle him."

Where is Mateen from the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad who admonished: "Do not be bad news for your household." The moral here is that your household had nothing to do with whatever bad happened to you outside of your home. So don't even dare return home and take your anger on them.

And aside from attitudes, Islamic Law sees only gender equality. For it has to be read as supplemented by legislated law. Having elevated women from being a mere chattel, and decreed the abandonment of female infanticide, it made marriage a contract. A contract which ensured for the wife economic independence through an agreed dowry in arrears in case of divorce.

It is unfortunate that wahhabism, through enforced separation of women from male public life, had distorted those rules. By his oppressive behavior as a husband, Mateen adhered to rules which do not exist in either Islamic jurisprudence, or Islamic practices.

What a contrast between a world champion who saw in his adopted faith the common bonds between humans everywhere, and a world scumbag, who prided himself on living the gutter values of ISIS. Eulogies for Ali gushed forth on June 10 from a priest, an imam, a rabbi, a monk, former President Clinton, and an indigenous American Indian chief, and a famous comedian.

Through his heinous mass murder, Mateen united the whole world in his condemnation. Even the UN Security Council issued on June 14 a statement of condemnation, proposed by the US, and joined by Russian and Egypt.

Ali's coffin traveled through 20 miles of Louisville, cheered, saluted by thousands of people chanting his name: Ali, Ali, Ali. Ali had scripted his funeral as he had scripted his life. Saw in his leave-taking from this world a chance befitting the inclusiveness of his faith.

From the lookout on Islam through the summit of Muhammad Ali, it is difficult to transition to the lookout on Islam from the gutter of Omar Mateen. For the latter gloried in the debauchery of mass murder in the name of ISIS. An occasion for uniting the fractured Islamophobic tendencies in the US.

As is guaranteed by the US constitution, freedom of faith is a basic precept in Islamic Law. The Quran states:"Say, 'O people, surely there has come to you the truth from your Lord. Whoever is guided, is guided only for his own soul. And whoever goes astray, he is astray only for his soul, and I (meaning the Prophet Muhammad) am not a trustee over you.'" (Chapter II, verse 108).

These are the spiritual links between faith, every kind of faith, and human conduct. Epitomized at its best by Muhammad Ali whose faith was a bridge across all continents!!

Assessing An Act of Gargantuan Leadership: Saving Egypt Three Years Ago From A Seismic Civil War

That was a one historic act by El-Sisi, responding to 35 million voices calling on June 30, 2013 for deliverance. From every public square in that pivotal country, called Egypt, the chant against Morsi and the Brotherhood to leave was thunderous. But it needed a protective mechanism. The only mechanism was the national army.

But the chant of "IRHAL" (Begone!!) had a constitutional reason. The Islamic Constitution of 2012 was drafted by Brotherhood hands. The liberals, including the Copts, were forced out of the drafting. No provision was there in that document allowing for recalling the President. A Brotherhood overreach meant to last, but was destined to collapse.

Deposing Morsi was not planned. It was the result of the obduracy of an ideologically-fossilized organization, the Muslim Brotherhood. Such a group does not understand the art of political compromise. From June 30, 2013 to July 3, 2013, the national conversation begun by El-Sisi, as Minister of Defense, to have the process of choosing a President begun again, went nowhere.

The Brotherhood Guidance Bureau, the actual ruler of Egypt, was determined to fight back and keep a sham process going on. Legitimacy (Shariyah) for the Islamists was above practicality -a practical compromise, advocated by El-Sisi to avert civil war.

The Brotherhood's claim rang hollow. The contest for the presidency between Morsi, the Brotherhood's second choice for office after El-Shatter was disqualified, and General Shafiq produced a doubtful result. 51% for Morsi, 49% for Shafiq was a non-verifiable statistic. And the choice of President preceded the drafting of a constitution. Talk about putting the cart before the horse!!

Prior to the plebiscite on that defective constitution, where Coptic rights to citizenship parity were nowhere, Morsi had declared himself to be above the Constitution. A determined dictatorship in the making. Morsi was another name for Mussolini. That fascist formula was then taken one step further. A parliament dissolved by the Supreme Constitutional Court on a technicality was ordered by the President to reconvene.

The agenda of that reconvened Parliament was one item to be enacted in 20 minutes. An enactment that delegated to the Executive (the President) legislative powers. An anomaly that alarmed a nation which since 1923 had luxuriated prior to the Nasser coup of 1952 in constitutional democracy. 80 years of practice, which anteceded the Brotherhood's birth in 1928.

With the collapse of El-Sisi-led negotiations, the threat of civil war loomed as a certainty. Morsi had to go; a road map in which the liberal leadership of Egypt concurred, including the Coptic Church, was at hand; a transitional government was formed; an interim president, Judge Adly Mansour, chief of the harassed Supreme Constitutional Court, was installed; and preparations for the redrafting of a new and secular Constitution began in earnest.

In all of this, there was no coup by El-Sisi. The process meant the undoing of the Brotherhood's coup which followed installing Morsi as President. The core problem of that Islamic presidency was complex: The Brotherhood regarded Egypt as a spring board to a mythical Islamic State; force was the first option in dealing with Ethiopia; Sinai was to be the hinterland for Hamas; The copts and the shiis were smitten into submission. Turkey and Qatar were eager funders for the new Islamic order in Cairo; and a wahhabi-like theocracy was seen as Egypt of the future!!

These were all realities of the one-year rule by the Brotherhood. A year which also saw in the Islamic Republic of Iran a role model. So parallel security forces were formed: from a replica of the Revolutionary Guards, to the militias patterned along the lines of the Iranian Basig, created by Khomeini. How could such developments escape the attention of the proud non-sectarian huge Egyptian army?

With the corrective revolution of June 30, 2013, came the physical proof of the Brotherhood's determination to collapse the national will. The occupation by unruly and gangs of street roughs trained in urban warfare occupying the Cairo squares of Rabaa and Al-Nahdha.

Weddings were performed, so was the storing of armaments. Bread was baked, and calls for soldiers and policemen to defect were issued. Foreign intervention was urged, and a mighty propaganda machine was put to work on a Brotherhood signal!! The two squares in the heart of Cairo were declared Islamic emirates.

And I was told that the Brotherhood would never leave!! Without heeding the lesson of refusing to compromise from June 30 to July 3, their tactic was that the Rabaa and Al-Nahda rebellions would spark a conflagration. The enemy of the Islamists was, and continues to be the June 30 Revolution. So for six weeks, the entreaties by the Government for peaceful disbanding were responded to by more violence. God was believed to be on the side of collapsing the modern secular State. It was a suicidal belief. Spun out of the inherent hypocrisy of using faith for the ends of unjust power.

It was not a conflict between two opponents, with each of them holding to values common to historic Egypt. It was the onset of a conflagration of existential proportions for the very soul of Egypt. With the Brotherhood aiming at the upending of a secular Egypt, and the majority of the population aiming at continuity. Egypt's DNA has never carried theocratic chromosomes. Nor has that DNA ever carried in it the germ of civil war. This has always been a cohesive and inclusive society.

For since 7000 years, the State produced the faith, not the faith the State; the Pyramids representing the lofty stability of the State cast their huge shadow on the temples below; even the army was a State-creation, unlike in Israel, for example, where the army created the State.

Thus in the fight for the soul of Egypt, the views of a noisy minority were no more than an echo chamber within the Guidance Bureau,the Islamic Politburo. Whereas the security forces, as of July 3, 2013 were reflective of Egypt's DNA. With only the megaphones of the Brotherhood globally blaring nonsense about phony legitimacy, the Egyptian street, whose only protection from a fascist putsch was the national army, was asserting its sovereign primacy.

El-Sisi's assumption of the presidency was not through the armed forces. As universally witnessed, it was through the ballot boxes.

Let us now peer into the Brotherhood's ideology. In one word, their "ideology" translates into "hypocrisy." For they are not about "faith;" they are about "power;" dressed up as "faith." For evidence, here are examples:

• In 1947, they murdered in cold blood, Egypt's Prime Minister, Al-Nokrashi Pasha. An act precipitating the Government of Abdel-Hadi murdering their Supreme Guide and Founder, Hassan El-Banna in 1948 in Cairo;
• Having infiltrated the officers corps of the Egyptian armed forces, they played a crucial role in the Nasser coup of 1952. Nasser had used them, and in return, they thought that they could use him. With Nasser having the bigger and more disciplined guns on his side, he outfoxed the Brotherhood. Manipulated the so-called Alexandria assassination attempt on his life in 1954. A golden occasion, whether true or contrived, to ban them.
• Treachery, deceit and cunning beget the same. What goes in at one end, comes out of the other end. With the hanging of Sayed Qutb, the spiritual father of terrorism in the name of Islam, in the mid 1960s the Brotherhood laid low, focusing on social work. It was its means for grass-roots infiltration. 
• But never abandoning its core values represented by its logo: Two swords, framing the Quran, with the words "And Prepare" (Wa Aaedou). The first Quranic words for the verse beginning with: "And prepare for them with whatever force you can..." (Chapter 5/Verse 60).
• In that combative logo,defining Muslims into "we and the others," is a departure from Islamic jurisprudence. A system based on Quran, Muhammad's tradition, and ijtihad (interpretation), with the emphasis on TAWHEED - God is One. As the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Dr. Ahmed Al-Taiyeb had declared last May in Germany, Nigeria and France: "A Muslim means any human being of whatever faith who makes his will subservient to God's will."
• No wonder that the Brotherhood's celebration in June 2012 of Morsi's taking the oath of office as President (for the third time) at Cairo University, gave Dr. Al-Taiyeb a back seat. Al-Taiyeb walked away from that deliberate humiliation.
• And no wonder that Muhammad Ali, the great boxing champion and an Afro-American, was eulogized on June 10 by an array of leaders of every faith on earth. For Ali the convert held bibles which he purchased close to his bosom. Both Muhammad Ali and Ahmed Al-Taiyeb are on the same side of an Islam as the expression of faith in a Creator for all of humanity. An Islam which stands on the world stage respected for tolerance, not feared for terrorism.

That is the litmus test which the Brotherhood could never pass. Claiming victim-hood at both Rabaa and Al-Nahdha in consequence of that rebellion against the Egypt of Adly Mansour as of August 14, 2013 reflects only one face. The face of hypocrisy.

From all indications, both Rabaa and Al-Nahda represented a counter-revolution which sought self-sacrifice. A tenet of the Brotherhood's Charter. That Charter proclaims: "Death for the Sake of Allah is our most cherished aspiration." Its secondary mission is an invitation for foreign intervention.

The Quran implicates the Brotherhood in bringing about that bloodshed upon itself and upon Egypt's security forces. "Whatever good comes to you, it is from God. And whatever misfortune befalls you, it is your own doing..." (Chapter IV, Verse 79).

Now fast forward to El-Sisi's reign, and a cursory review of its accomplishments in a country saved by him from civil war:

With the secular Constitution approved, then promulgated in 2014, presidential elections followed. The result was a first for the New Egypt: El-Sisi became the first President in the history of modern Egypt to be voted for the highest office through fair, open, and scrupulously-monitored elections. The man who is now embodying the true DNA, of his country.

The oldest nation on earth was now ready for rebuilding from the bottom up. That is in spite of an economic decline, and two wars on terrorism going on in Sinai and at the Libyan borders.

• A second Suez Canal;
• Rebuilding the naval forces through the purchase of French aircraft carriers. While keeping an American excess of armed vehicles flowing at no cost to combat terrorism. Armored vehicles shielding troops from roadside bombs; A total of 762 such vehicles called MRAP, which stands for mine-resistant, ambush-protected;
• Reclaiming 1.5 million acres from the Egyptian desert, while ensuring an adequate supply of surface and underground water;
• Returning Egypt to the African Union, and to its natural allies and sources of emergency funding in the Gulf;
• Ensuring energy sufficiency through German technology, and the return to atomic programs for peaceful purposes through Russian know-how;
• Pursuit of the new Religious Revolution through Al-Azhar, and the banning of the preachers of hate and anti-coptism through laws. Meaningful presidential participation in celebrations at the Coptic St. Mark's Cathedral at Abbasiya, Cairo;
• Declaring the reconstruction of a new administrative capital, east of Cairo;
• The utilization of the "Tahiya Misr Fund" in new zoning for roads, housing, refuse removal, bridges, and grain silos;
• Revamping the creaky educational and health systems;
• Resorting to summitry and presidential visits to newly emerging mega economies, to rebuild tourism, and to borrow from the east its new techniques for mass transfer to the 21st century; 
• Refocusing on Egypt, while avoiding intervention in the affairs of sister Arab States, shunning the old interventionist propaganda line of "Egypt knows best!!"
• Involving the Italians and the Americans in harnessing the natural gas discoveries; 
• And harnessing the huge demographics in the arduous task of national production.

Let us hear El-Sisi advocating his presidential line of thought.

In a TV interview with Osama Kamal of the Egyptian TV, he produces his own report card. With characteristic humility, he speaks of: "We" as a collective leadership: (my translation from the Arabic).

• "Exerting before June 30 all efforts at reconciling between the Rulers and Society. Efforts emanating from fears of a rupture between the State and the people;"
• "The evil-doers are those who intentionally aim at hurting Egypt. Whether the Egyptian people or the Egyptian State;"
• "The Egyptian people know who are the practitioners of evil, internally and externally;"
• "For as long as the Egyptian people are united, we experience no fear. We only experience anxiety if the Egyptian public does not act as one;"
• "What goes on now is nothing more than futile attempts to destroy the State from within;"
• "I did not agonize over whether to compete for the presidency of Egypt. But there were measures which had to be in place prior to my taking that step;"
• "My goal remains to protect the State from collapse. If this shall be my only achievement, I would see in it a great mission accomplished;"
• "Today we have State institutions, a Constitution, mechanisms, and a State in the process of being restored with a renewed spirit."

This is a theory of confidence, expressed in an understated manner. A manner that harks back to the early Arab literature which uses the diminutive as a style of describing the huge.

Here we note:

• The Sinai terror, exaggerated in the press internally and externally as a force determining Egypt of the future. That is in spite of the fact that terror space is confined to 2% to 3% of the Sinai land mass between Gaza and El-Arish;
• That there exists in the Arab region a vacuum. Forcing Egypt to act. For what objective? El-Sisi says it best in that TV interview: "We must be able to effect a balance, not aiming at neither hidden agendas or coveting land or wealth. Our only agenda is to repel those who aim at harming us or our neighbors."
• That the Egyptian press of today has a zero role in public education. Its focus confuses between "the freedom of expression," and "the freedom for malicious rendering of the news." Offering daily admonition to El-Sisi regarding their own perception of what should and should not be done. The depth of their shame is to be measured by their calling the islands of Tiran and Sanafir a territorial Saudi grab.

No wonder that the world press of today has pivoted in a new direction. Their main headlines are: "Doom and Gloom Merchants Wrong Again." So wrote Linda S. Heard of Gulf News after a recent visit to Egypt.

As Egypt enters this phase of accelerated reconstruction, confidence-building trends multiply:

• In the rejection of the neo-imperialism of foreign non-governmental organizations like "Amnesty International." Trying to measure the status of freedom of expression in Egypt with the same yardstick applicable to western States which did not suffer the ravages of the Arab Spring;
• The rise of many indigenous NGOs. Examples: "Naebat Qademat" (women legislators in the making), headed by Dr. Nahid Shaker. And the "Organization for Constitutional Protection," headed by Amre Moussa;
• The rise of the movement for local administrations, decentralized for quick response on the ground:
• The responsiveness to the Coptic Church, while calling for revamping the archaic laws impeding church construction and repairs;
• The emphasis on projects where there exists a direct relationship between cost and benefit and a time budget for completion;
• Bringing up the rear of Egypt's geographic surface, for far too long neglected, like Sinai, Nubia, and the huge western Egyptian dessert;
• The realignment of foreign relations in order to better serve the parity of sovereignty among States, the possible revision of the Charter of the League of Arab States; and 
• Adherence to the laws for public demonstrations within its promulgated provisions, the respect for judicial independence, and for women empowerment. 

This is a challenging process of rebirth of the oldest State on earth. A process wearing proudly and visibly an ANKH -a key-like ancient Egyptian cross as a symbol for an enduring life and generative energy. A country worth saving from civil war, by historic leaders like El-Sisi. A leader for whom tomorrow starts today!!

On behalf of history, Thank you CC!! Your Egypt is no Syria!!