Long before European powers redrew Middle Eastern borders, separation of church and state was recognized by Western thinkers to be an integral part of democracy. If democracy vests power in the masses, they thought, how can any form of religious authority engage in a democratic society?
The likes of Thomas Jefferson and John Locke may have been right, but if religion is inseparable from humanity, so is it inseparable from government. In other words, if democracy is to be spread throughout the world, support of religious authority must be carefully calculated.
Enter Egypt, now in the birth pangs of democracy — a democracy that will likely plunge its government into the sectarian strife that plagues both Lebanon and Iraq.
Major news sources, including the Los Angeles Times, report that 34 Muslim Brotherhood inmates have escaped an Egyptian prison. And, according to the New York Times, the extremist group has begun to support the political candidacy of Muhammaed El Baredei, the former head of the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency, aiming to gain political power in a new Egyptian government.
Hammam Saeed, a leader of the extremist group in Jordan, told Jordanian protestors Saturday that an Egyptian revolution will likely lead to the elimination of U.S. influence in the Middle East.
“The Americans and [President Barack] Obama must be losing sleep over the popular revolt in Egypt,” he said. “Now, Obama must understand that the people have woken up and are ready to unseat the tyrant leaders who remained in power because of U.S. backing.”
But is Islam really responsible for political unrest in the Middle East, anti-American sentiment and terrorism abroad? The answer to this question is both historical and theological.
The Muslim Brotherhood, founded by Hassan al-Banna in 1928, harbors a narrow and radical interpretation of Islam. According to Jamaluddin Hoffman, a member of the Islamic Supreme Council of America, Saudi or Wahhabist teachings influenced al-Banna and the development of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In fact, Wahhabism has been the crux of pseudo-Islamic terrorism, influencing the likes of Osama bin Laden, a self-proclaimed Wahhabi and exile of Saudi Arabia. Fifteen of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi and it is on the back of their country’s oil wealth that so-called Islamic terrorism is exported around the world. Wahhabi interpretations of Islam are official in Saudi Arabia.
From Afghanistan to Uzbekistan to the U.S., Saudi money has spread terrorism in the form of Islamic teachings that aren’t so Islamic.
Moderate Islam for centuries had endured all forms of government, from caliphates to kingdoms, but it seems like oil wealth has presented its most difficult challenge.
“Leading Muslims outside the U.S. denounce Wahhabism. Unfortunately, however, most of U.S. media is completely incompetent in finding, listening to, or understanding these voices. U.S. media does not interview anti-Wahhabi sheikhs or imams or muftis in the Islamic world,” Stephen Schwartz, author of The Two Faces of Islam, told National Review in 2002.
If the U.S. has interests in the Middle East it must give a voice to the majority of Muslims and not to Saudi oil money. If it does not support traditional Islam, the spread of democracy in the Middle East and worldwide will be in vain.
Just like U.S. support of the Shah lead to the Iran of today and the Hezbolllah of Lebanon, so will the support of Saudi Arabia lead to continued sectarian strife in Egypt and terrorism abroad.
Zien Halwani is junior philosophy and biology double major and an assistant city editor for the Daily 49er.
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