Egypt, the Middle East, and Elsewhere: Religion and Development in the Arab World

Dear friends,

I know we all wish and hope for Egypt to transition from a recent historic dark period to a bright and flourishing one. This analysis will articulate why I strongly believe that a religious state (as opposed to a secular state, a civil society) has exactly zero chance of achieving for its people a democratic, free, just and prosperous state.

Of course, my focus will be the Arab world. I postulate here that if Arab nations like Saudi Arabia continue to be, or choose following a revolution like in Egypt to become, an Islamic state as opposed to a secular state, Islamic extremist groups, such as the Salafists, the Wahhabis, and the Muslim Brotherhood, will take hold of the nation's affairs and its society. Once secure in their numbers, power and authority over the nation they will demand that Sharia law become the law of the land. This way extremists' views, interpretations and misunderstandings of Islam will dominate the nation's strategies, policies, programs and standards.

With history of mankind as a witness, with today's globalization, together with the components of modern life, the chances that such a nation will achieve development are simply non-existent. Furthermore, I contend that the outcome for a such a nation will be a decisive movement in the other direction, that of backwardness, grossly unfulfilled needs, and a constant state of misery, unrest and turmoil.

It is crucial to note that I am addressing the Islamic state, and not the religion of Islam, the Islamic institutions or the unquestionable right of Muslims to worship. In fact, in a secular state, with separation of religion and state, religion thrives. People of all religions in increasing numbers flock to their respective houses of worship, seeking spiritual guidance and refuge and praying for wisdom, principles and morals to see them through life and its rigors.

A secular state does not mean an atheist state. An atheist state is simply a different flavor of the religious state, of the state imposing a particular religious view on its citizenry. A secular state, by contrast, is a democratic state, an inclusive state, a flexible state, a pragmatic state, a state that can adapt and effect necessary changes in an ever forward-moving world, a state where the rule of law guarantees the rights of every single individual, regardless of religion, belief, gender, race, or ethnicity. A secular state, where all religions are assured protection from state intervention, where all worshipers are safe and respected, liberty can flourish. A secular state is also a state where the non-believer has same rights as anyone else, where no one has the right to judge him/her, that is a matter ONLY between him/her and God.

In a state where one group's interpretation of God's will and wishes can be enforced on others, development and democracy will cease to be a possibility. This should never be the norm in any society. The laws of the land should ensure that such interpretations remain up to the individual and never imposed on public life.

Now, let us consider the exceedingly critical relationship for a nation between (i) a nation's social, economic and political development, and (ii) religion and religious extremism, a relationship that is fraught with issues and concerns, a relationship that has prompted me to undertake this analysis.

A Nation's Development Framework

All humankind seeks to secure the very best opportunity for a life of health, safety, justice, reasonable prosperity and the prospect of growth.

Taking this reality a step further, all humankind should dearly love and sacrifice a great deal to live in a nation that respects human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, for all of its citizenry without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion -- a nation that respects the equal rights of people and their right to self-determination.

Newsweek first-ever Best Countries special issue, August 23&30, 2010

Newsweek's study yielded an overall list of the world's top 100 countries. The list like any list is not perfect but it tells some important things about the world.

Newsweek's five measures of national well-being are:

Education, literacy rate and average years of schooling. In Egypt, some 30 million are illiterate.
Health, healthy life expectancy at birth, overall efficacy of health system.
Quality of Life,

Disparity in family income, the degree of economic, health, education and political inequality between the sexes, and overall level of social, economic and gender inequality.
Extreme poverty, percentage of the population living on less than $2/day. In Egypt, 40 per cent of the total population live on less than $2 a day.
Standard of living, availability of goods and services.
Physical environment, drugs and crime, environmental health (air/water pollution and disease, as measured by the Environmental Performance Index).
Economic security, unemployment rate, rate of joblessness and its correlation with economic depression.

Economic Dynamism,

Productive growth, growth in GDP per capita, capturing the forward momentum of developing countries.
Diversification, not heavily reliant upon agriculture and/or natural resources.
Innovation, a country’s willingness to invest in knowledge-building efforts.
Business vitality, the openness of the market to new business entrants, time to start a new business and ease of doing business.
Stock market capitalization, the size and breadth of a country’s corporate sector.

Political Environment,

Democratic freedom, real or perceived: electoral process, political participation, functioning government, freedom of expression and belief, associational and organizational rights, rule of law, and personal autonomy and individual rights.
Political participation, citizens' engagement in political processes.
Political risk, relative risk faced by governments, corporations/businesses and investors/individuals.

In Newsweek's overall ranking of the world's best countries based on the above five measures, the only two religious states in the top 50 are Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, ranked 40 and 43 respectively. These two countries are ranked there because of oil wealth, very small populations and a high reliance on foreign labor in all sectors. Otherwise, of the other 48 countries, none could be considered a religious state.

The study also characterizes the very best of nations as follows:

Finland, best overall
Australia, best medium-sized nation
Japan, best large nation
Albania, best low-income nation
Poland, best upper-middle-income
Ukraine, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Japan, best education
Tunisia, China, Chile, Switzerland, Spain, Australia, best health care
Norway, Ukraine, Cuba, Australia, Germany, best quality of life
Singapore, China, Malaysia, South Korea, United States, best economic dynamism
Sweden, Ghana, Poland, Australia, Germany, best political environment.

One cannot help but note that no religious state is among these nations.

Here is the link for the study: http://www.newsweek.com/feature/2010/the-world-s-best-countries.html

The Tiger Economies

The Four Asian Tigers or Asian Dragons are the highly developed economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. They offer yet another model for and another approach to development.

Explanations for these four countries' high rates of growth include:

the development of effective policies for education and training,
the creation of a skilled workforce, and
sensible and effective policies.

Also, politically, the tiger economies have a recent history of military rule. However, a number of them have liberalized in recent years and Taiwan, Thailand, and South Korea are now among the most democratic countries in Asia. This political liberalization may make it more difficult for the tiger governments to resist demands to expand the size of their higher education systems still further. While the military may want to limit what they provide, the people's yearning for development, once tapped, is inexorable.

Again, none of these Asian dragons could be considered a religious state.

The Turkey Model

Turkey is a Muslim nation and is considered a developed country. Therefore, it is highly pertinent to analyze it.

Sami El-Behiri in his article in Ilaf, the electronic daily, March 23, outlines as follows the reasons why it would be difficult for an Arab state to emulate the Turkey model (I have translated El-Behiri's Arabic):

"Turkey is a very important member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and NATO exercises some rules as to Turkey's territory. The main reason is that NATO and not the Turkish people funds most of Turkey's national defense needs.

"Turkey is a much more advanced nation than the Arab states in many respects, including education, industry, agriculture, human rights, especially women's rights. Turkey does not suffer from the religious intellectual terror that plagues Arab nations. In Egypt for instance, such terror has been in effect now for more than a quarter of a century.

"Turkey has a long history of secularism since the days of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk at the end of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. Today, secularism is rooted in Turkey. For contrast, secularism is a word with bad reputation in the Arab world.

"The Turkish army is the protector of secularism in Turkey, while armies in the Arab world mainly serve the regimes in power, and if that means harmonious coordination with Islamic extremists groups so be it, as is the case today in Egypt between the ruling military and the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafists and other ultra-conservative religious groups.

"Turkey is eager to join the European common market, and is therefore keen to maintain a liberal, secular and civil state.

"Turkey's special relationship with Israel is much stronger than that of any Arab nation, with economic and political relations between the two countries . It is believed that this is important for Turkey's continued membership in the NATO. Overall, Turkey's partnership with Israel is far stronger than that of any Arab nation, mainly because the partnership of Turkey and Israel with the West is also far stronger than that of any Arab nation."

One can readily see that Turkey is a Muslim nation and a secular state. Turkey's focus and priorities are on development, political, economic and social development, and not on religion. In Turkey, Islam is for people's spirituality, to be practiced in mosques or in the privacy of their homes.

Social Development - Historically

Without meaningful, progressive and sustained social development, a nation's development, in all of its concepts, requirements and components as outlined above, will face a difficult if not insurmountable road ahead.

Social development is defined by Ian Morris in his book Why the West Rules--For Now as a society's abilities to master its physical and intellectual environment, a community's ability to get things done. With today's globalization, I contend that such environment is the whole world.

In his book, Morris notes the following historic developments across the globe with regard to social development over many centuries:

"Some eighteenth-century intellectuals argued that two and half thousand years ago, the ancient Greeks created a culture of inventiveness and freedom. This set Europe on a different trajectory than the rest of the world. The East had its learning too, but its traditions were too muddled, too conservative and too hierarchical to compete with Western thought.
"On the whole, across hundreds of years and thousand of miles, those who took baby steps and crept forward multiplied, those who clung to their old ways dwindled.
"The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) devised the index to measure how well each nation is doing at giving its citizens opportunities to realize their innate potential. UNDP's economists boiled down the meaning of human development to three core traits: average life expectancy, average education and average income. Other economists include employment rates, nutrition and housing. Others still would like to add literature and art as useful measures of social development. In any case, despite criticism of the index, it proved enormously useful.
"During the Renaissance, the apparently reactionary struggle to recreate antiquity in fact produced a wildly nontraditional culture of innovation and open-minded inquiry. There certainly were conservative voices banishing radical thinkers such as Machiavelli and intimidating others such as Galileo into silence, but they barely blunted the thrust of new ideas. "Renaissance Men" such as Michelangelo, Leon Batista Alberti and Leonardo da Vinci revolutionized, theorized, created and excelled at everything from scholarship, art, crafts, to mathematics.
"China made particularly rapid scientific and technological advances when its social development pressed against the hard ceiling in the eleventh century.
"Reading books makes people more modern than telling stories and playing computer games apparently makes us more modern still."

Morris discusses the social development stagnation in Islamic lands, obviously very relevant to my analysis. He contends, "It is certainly true that not all cultures are equally responsive to changing circumstances. The Islamic lands, for instance, have produced notoriously few democracies, Nobel Prize-winning scientists, or diversified modern economies. Some non-Muslims conclude that Islam must be a benighted creed, miring millions in superstition. But if that were true it would be hard to explain why a thousand years ago many of the world's best scientists, philosophers, and engineers were Muslims or why Muslim astronomers outperformed all comers until the sixteenth century.

"The real explanation, I suspect, is that since 1700 many Muslims have turned inward in response to military and political defeat, just as many Chinese Confucians did in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Islam remains a broad tent. At one extreme is Turkey, which has modernized so effectively that it is a plausible candidate to join the European Union; at the other we find people such as some of the Taliban, who would kill women for showing their faces in public. Overall, though, as the Muslim world slid from being the core of the West to being an exploited periphery, its social development stagnated in a sense of victimhood. Ending that is Islam's great burden; and who knows what advantages the Muslim world might then discover in its backwardness."

Development Status in the Arab World

The Arab Human Development Report 2002

Published by the United Nations Development Programme's Regional Bureau of Arab States (RBAS), it is the first regional report of its kind. Focusing exclusively on the Arab world, the report carefully dissects and analyzes the region's strengths and failings and explains why the region has fallen behind so much of the world. Written by a team of elite Arab intellectuals and policymakers, the report concludes that the Arab world today is a civilization bypassed by global trade, democracy, technology, and by women's rights. Scrutinizing the 22 member states of the Arab League and their 280 million people, the report argues that the root cause for Arab underdevelopment is threefold:

a deficit of freedom,
a deficit of women's rights ("Sadly, the Arab world is largely depriving itself of the creativity and productivity of half its citizens"), and
a deficit of knowledge.

The report probes the causes of these deficits and identifies three areas where Arab institutional structures are hindering performance and crippling human development: governance, women's empowerment, and knowledge.

The report is blunt in its warning that Arab societies are being crippled by a lack of political freedom, the repression of women and an isolation from the world of ideas that stifles creativity. The report notes that while oil income has transformed the landscapes of some Arab countries, the region remains "richer than it is developed." Per capita income growth has shrunk in the last twenty years to a level just above that of sub-Saharan Africa. The report cites a World Bank estimate for the Middle East and North Africa that the Arab countries have the lowest level of dire poverty in the (developing) world, with one out of every five people living on less than $2 per day.

The report found that in the Arab countries:

Productivity is declining.
Research and development are weak or nonexistent.
Science and technology are dormant.
Intellectuals flee a stultifying — if not repressive — political and social environment.
Arab women are almost universally denied advancement. Half of them still cannot read or write. The maternal mortality rate is double that of Latin America and four times that of East Asia.

The report also points out a major education shortfall. It indicates that while Arab countries have made great strides in education, particularly since the middle of the twentieth century, educational achievement in the Arab countries as a whole is still modest when compared to elsewhere in the world, even in developing countries. In an age of knowledge intensity, poor knowledge acquisition, let alone its production, is a serious shortfall. A telling indicator of the poor level of educational attainment in the Arab countries is the persistence of illiteracy rates that are higher, and educational enrollment rates that are lower, than those of dynamic less developed countries in East Asia and Latin America.

Here is the link for the report: http://www.arab-hdr.org/publications/other/ahdr/ahdr2002e.pdf

World Bank President

Robert B. Zoellick, President of the World Bank Group (WBG), speaking at the Peterson Institute for International Economics on the Middle East and North Africa, April 6, 2011, said that in speaking to the WBG's Annual Meeting in 2007, he had said, "One of the most notable challenges of our time is how to support those seeking to advance development and opportunities in the Arab World. In the past, these lands have been at the center of trade and learning, suggesting the potential if they can move beyond strife and barriers to growth and social development. Without broad-based growth, these countries will struggle with social tensions and a large number of young people who cannot find jobs."

Zoellick went on to outline how two weeks prior, the WBG had convened a conference "to listen to Arab voices, youth groups, women's groups and change agents. They all indicated that they wanted opportunity, justice and a job. They wanted rules and laws that are fair, predictable and transparent, they want food and shelter for their families, good schools for their children, and neighborhoods. As for women, they want these same things."

Zoellick then went on to say: "There are some in this audience who will say: Yes, that may be what they want, but that’s politics not economics ... I am here to say: Some of that may be what we think of as politics, but most of it is also what we know is good economics; most of it is what we know is good for fighting corruption; most of it is what we know is good for inclusive and sustainable development."

Zoellick then indicated that "in Egypt, for example, even many basic economic statistics have not been public. A few years ago, the World Bank worked with Egyptian reformers to draft a Freedom of Information Act, only to have it stuck in a sluggish system. And in Tunisia, authorities are now taking steps to recover stolen assets, domestically and internationally, and to enhance freedom of association and access to information."

Zoellick concluded by highlighting the indispensability of:

"Strengthening legitimate institutions and governance for citizen security, justice and jobs is crucial to avoid repeat cycles of instability and violence. The need for more than heroic individuals and reformed bureaucracies, mainly citizens’ participation – and clear communication between society and government.
"A robust civil society can check on budgets, seek and publish information, challenge stifling bureaucracies, protect private property, and monitor service delivery. Civil society can insist on respect for the rights of citizens. And civil society can assume responsibilities, too. An empowered public is the foundation for a stronger society, more effective government, and a more successful state.
"Drastically reducing nepotism, cronyism and corruption, replacing them with meritocracy, competency, competitiveness and capitalism.
"Transparent, fast and inclusive policy reforms.
"Cutting red tape, speeding licensing approvals, reforming bankruptcy laws, and easing regulators’ rigidities.
"Create jobs, add to productivity, and better integrate with the global economy, by being open to importing know-how, technologies, and manufacturing and logistics systems, whether through foreign investment, licensing, or other business ties to overcome insularity.
"Education will need to match with jobs. Technical education can quicken the pace of absorption of ideas and best practices."

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB)

IFC and IsDB collaborated to produce the "Education For Employment: Realizing Arab Youth Potential" report, April, 2011. This report addresses the extraordinary challenges facing the Arab World. "In a region with the world’s highest youth unemployment rate, millions are frustrated by their job prospects–a frustration born of education that often leaves them unprepared for the marketplace. Educational shortcomings pose serious economic and social risks in the Arab World. The solution to this challenge will require the involvement of a broad array of stakeholders–not only students, but also governments, employers, education providers, and civil society. No one entity alone can be held responsible, increasing the difficulty of delivering a comprehensive remedy."

The report aims to find a way forward. It shows that the private sector can be a powerful force for positive change by complementing public efforts to ensure that the region’s youth gain the right skills for the jobs being created.

The report outlines the perspectives of multiple stakeholders toward education for employment, called e4e by report developers. It identifies areas for private sector investment and the incentives needed for businesses to seize them. At the same time, it emphasizes the vital role to be played by e4e’s relevant stakeholders. The need for e4e programs is vast. Yet the region’s e4e providers are relatively few in number. In addition, the region needs better standards, more access to financial aid for students, and stronger matchmaking between students and potential employers.

The report, with particular focus on Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine/West Bank and Gaza, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen, concludes by pointing out that it is clear that the Arab World’s e4e system, as it currently stands, is not living up to the urgent demands being made of it today; and that it is going to face future demands as the system comes under increasing pressures from the region’s employment requirements, as well as global competitive pressures. The need to act decisively, jointly and promptly is a must -- the region depends on it.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) roundtable

The issue of the dire need for development in the Arab world is not a mystery, it does not lack interest or focus from the world community. As recently as April 15, 2011, the IMF held a roundtable, the topic: Youth, Jobs, and Inclusive Growth in the Middle East and North Africa.

The moderator: Abderrahim Foukara, Al Jazeera. The panelists: Dominique Strauss Kahn, Managing Director IMF; Mustafa Nabli, Central Bank Governor, Tunisia; Wael Ghonim, Internet Activist; Nada Al-Nashif, Regional Director, ILO Regional Office for Arab States; Rashid Khalidi, Professor, Columbia University.

Here is the link for the roundtable: http://www.imf.org/external/mmedia/view.aspx?vid=906008188001

Religion and Religious Extremism in the Arab World

Of course a nation's lack of development, particularly its social development, could be attributed to geography, broad incompetency, widespread corruption, oppression, weight of history of years of neglect and misguided governments and national policies, as well as unfortunate woefully inadequate leaderships and self-serving outside foreign meddling. However, the focus of my analysis is on religion, the lack of separation of mosque and state and with it the overbearing focus of a nation and its people on religion, related ideologies and ideas and exclusionary policies, the rejection of modern life as a life dominated by infidels and their decadent ways, etc.

The last group any modern society would need or want to be governed by is a religious group where extremism, if not already its ideology, is lurking around the corner. We know that when a number of Islamic extremists move into an area, sooner or later, they ask that Sharia law be implemented. What's ironic about that is that asking to be governed in a particular way because people want it, well, that's a democratic way of looking at things, isn't it? But it takes advantage of the population that is not well informed, that has a low literacy rate. The answer to that is to give the moderates a chance to organize, to campaign, to educate the public about their positions and about the advantages of a moderate, secular government... then, hold elections.

Let us examine some specifics of why that is, the logical and objective reasons why this should never be allowed to happen if a nation cares about its people and their fundamental right to a life well-lived.

Religious extremism and social development are mutually exclusive. They do not mix and are fundamentally on opposite sides of the continuum. And, without social development, development of a nation proves impossible. Therefore, religious extremism should never be allowed to run a government or govern a society.

There simply is no alternative, it is an absolute must, for Arab nations to include in their constitutions the principle of separation of mosque and state.

Religion should be a private matter, between the individual and God. There should be no place for religion on the street. Religion in public life severely inhibits, and in some milieus in the world completely freezes, the flow of ideas, imagination, creativity, inclusiveness, freedom of thought, exploration, experimentation, trial and error, flexibility, emulation or import of success, diverse solutions, risk-taking, and entrepreneurship. An extreme irony here is that religion practiced in private may very well enhance the individual to bring forth into the public life all of these traits necessary for development; it could inspire and motivate the individual. It is only when religion is out in public life that individuals of a certain belief find themselves stronger in numbers, power or authority and then find it impossible to resist forcing their beliefs onto their fellow citizens, thus depriving the nation of those traits so critical for development.

The separation of mosque and state would constitute a formidable obstacle to religious extremism. It would make it, while never impossible, very difficult for extremists to spread their destructive ideologies, their backward thinking, their disregard for the rights of all people, their unreformed, misguided and erroneous emphasis and priorities with regard to life on earth as we know it. If nations in the Arab world do not embrace the separation of mosque and state, they will be fertile ground for religious extremists to gain control of governments, parliaments and courts, controlling and influencing society to the detriment of the life of its citizens.

Around the world, there are fantastic examples of nations realizing the critical import of this principle for freedom, justice and prosperity. The United States constitution, Amendment I, ratified on December 15, 1791, states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Other nations, enjoying a high state of development and as diverse as Germany and Singapore, have adopted one form or another of that first Amendment of the US constitution.

Now, let us consider the issues, the concerns and the varied manifestations of religious extremism, outlining in the process associated risks, dangers, current and potential impact in public life. (These points are pulled from various articles in Wikipedia.)

The Law of the State: Reformers consider traditional Islamic legal views unacceptable. They believe that new Islamic legal theories can produce modernized Islamic law and lead to acceptable opinions in areas such as women's rights. However, traditionalists believe that any departure from the legal teachings of the Quran as explained by the Prophet Muhammad and put into practice by him is an alien concept that cannot properly be attributed to Islam.
Democracy and Sharia law: On the one hand, there is much common ground between Sharia and democracy: for example, both value electoral procedure. On the other hand, official institutions in democratic countries, such as the European Court of Human Rights, argue that Sharia is incompatible with a democratic state. Legal scholar L. Ali Khan concludes "that constitutional orders founded on the principles of Sharia are fully compatible with democracy, provided that religious minorities are protected and the incumbent Islamic leadership remains committed to the right to recall."
Human Rights: In 1990 the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, a group representing all Muslim majority nations, adopted the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam. Subsequently, notable absences from the Cairo Declaration were pointed out by Ann Elizabeth Mayer: "provisions for democratic principles, protection for religious freedom, freedom of association and freedom of the press, as well as equality in rights and equal protection under the law." Article 24 of the Cairo declaration states that "all the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Sharia." Moreover, many secularist, human rights, and leading organizations have criticized Islamic states' stance on human rights. In 2009, the journal Free Inquiry summarized this criticism in an editorial: "We are deeply concerned with the changes to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by a coalition of Islamic states within the United Nations that wishes to prohibit any criticism of religion and would thus protect Islam's limited view of human rights. In view of the conditions inside the Islamic Republic of Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, Syria, Bangladesh, Iraq, and Afghanistan, we should expect that at the top of their human rights agenda would be to rectify the legal inequality of women, the suppression of political dissent, the curtailment of free expression, the persecution of ethnic minorities and religious dissenters — in short, protecting their citizens from egregious human rights violations. Instead, they are worrying about protecting Islam."
Freedom of Speech: Qadi 'Iyad argues that Sharia does not allow freedom of speech in such matters as criticism of Muhammad. Such criticism is blasphemy and punishable by death. Slander, gossip, and backbiting, or "ghiba" is regarded as a major sin.
Homosexuality: Homosexual activity is illegal under Sharia; however, the prescribed penalties differ from one school of jurisprudence to another. For example, these Muslim-majority countries may impose the death penalty for sodomy and homosexual activities: Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia. In contrast, in some Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia (outside of Aceh province), Jordan, Turkey, Egypt and Iraq, same-sex sexual acts are not illegal.
Sharia and non-Muslims: Classical Sharia attributes different legal rights and obligations to different religious groups; in practice, this consisted of curbs on the rights and freedoms of non-Muslims.
Political parties are unnecessary, they should be abolished since there are only two parties in Islam, God's party and the devil's party.
Concept of a nation: the nationality of a Muslim is Islam. There is no such thing as a nation or national affiliation, the citizen in the religion of Islam has no specific geography. Geographically-based nationality is an idea from the infidel West, created to demolish the Muslim nation. Loyalty is to Islam and not to the homeland, and is not permissible for a Muslim to acquire a nationality other than Islam.
Muslim woman: Muslim woman is a home to her man, a pillar of the family, and to honor her she should not do society's work, she is obliged to obey her husband, pleasure and service him, educate her children to piety, she should not go outside of her home except with her husband's permission.

Ms. Nonie Darwish, named the 2008 Clare Boothe Luce "Woman of Exceptional Courage" wrote couple of books on the subject. A review of one of Darwish's books states that "the author provides an unsettling catalogue of Sharia-based practices: the subjugation and brutalization of women, the persecution of homosexuals, honour killings, the beheading of apostates and the stoning of adulterers.... Darwish is careful to distinguish between people and ideas: 'The purpose of this book is not to spread hatred of a people but to tell the truth about the wickedness of Islamic Sharia law...'
"Darwish analyzes the dire consequences -- for both the individual and the society -- of such practices as polygamy, 'temporary marriages' (prostitution), divorce (the husband repeats 'I divorce you' three times) and child marriage (pedophilia). But most horrific of all is the Sharia-endorsed practice of honour killing. Women who bring shame and disgrace to their families (for such 'crimes' as being raped, or for talking to a male in public without a chaperone) are killed to restore the family's honour --in the name of Allah.
"Darwish is unequivocal: Wherever it has been instituted, Sharia law has resulted in a morally repugnant, codified misogyny. For Muslim apologists to suggest otherwise is casuistry, pure and simple. Simply put, Sharia is incompatible with any state that has as a foundational principle the equality of the sexes before the law. She condemns those who perpetuate the Sharia-endorsed hatred of women, and rebukes those who, faced with the status of women under Sharia, are complicit by their silence."
In Egypt: (Cairo, March 28, 2011) The Egyptian Center for Women's Rights received the news of an incident in Minufiya governate, for it witnessed a dangerous incident for the first time: 350 Salafists confronted the state law and surrounded a house of a woman in Sadat City, forced her out of her house, threw her furniture on the street, burned the house and threatened to kill her if she returned to her home. They did so claiming that her conduct was immoral and dishonorable. When they broke into the house, she was alone; they terrified her and took her out of the house by force. This is a dangerous incident, especially as it is not the first time something like this happened. The Egyptian Center for Women's Rights received a number of complaints from several women who had received threats on Facebook that they would be "punished" if they did not dress more modestly. The threats mentioned a time limit of Tuesday, March 29, 2011. This matter raised panic among a large number of women in Egypt. They asked whether it would be safe to go to school, university and work or whether they would be attacked. This is a breach of law, the beliefs of the Salafists challenging the law of the state, an application of punishment without charges, due process, or judicial decision, and an imposition of a state of terror in the name of religion as well as a dangerous threat to democracy and the rule of law.

Also in Egypt: before this recent attack on the woman in Sadat City, tens of Salafists had committed a violent act against one of the Copts in Quena: they burned his car and the flat that he rented to a Muslim man, cut his ear and caused a cut at the back of his neck. They claimed that he had turned his flat into a brothel.
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and the 25 January Revolution, an article by Dalal Bizri published 2 April, 2011, "Perspectives, the Arab World in Revolt." In the article, Bizri states "Each new day in Egypt brings with it signs that contradict the – purely tactical – electoral humility shown by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists. ...In a recent talk conducted by the promoters of the amendment of the second article of the constitution (Islamic Sharia is the principal source of legislation), the Ikhwan (the Brotherhood) defended their position, which regarded the second article as an 'Islamic gain.' Issam al-Erian, a leader of the Ikhwan, participated in that discussion and summarized his party’s stance by saying: The constitution’s second article was 'above the constitution.'"

In my view, there is great danger in enforcing religious law as stated in holy books over democratically legislated law. First, religious law, while its adherents may characterize it as "God's law," has always been interpreted by people. These people interpreting religious law may have political or power aspirations, which cannot help but influence their interpretation. Furthermore, those interpretations will not be representative; several groups' interpretations are likely to be excluded, to wit: women, the illiterate who cannot read the holy book, people who do not happen to speak the language in which the holy book was written, and indeed anyone who has chosen a career path other than clerical.

Also, religious law requires a much more difficult, possibly traumatic path for being updated to reflect current or local thinking. I cite the Great Schism that divided Western and Eastern Catholicism, and Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. These were huge, dramatic events that were far more stressful than the legislative activities of a democratically elected law-making body. Democracy by definition updates itself, taking current ideas and local differences into account.

Anwar Sadat and the Muslim Brotherhood

Below is the link to a six-minute video of Anwar Sadat, former President of Egypt (1970-1981), assassinated in 1981 by an offshoot group of the Brotherhood, the Islamic Jihad, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, later the late Osama bin Laden’s number-two man. In his speech, Sadat outlines the ideas and beliefs of the Muslim Brotherhood. He is visibly upset and baffled by the mentality and thought process behind such ideas, but more importantly by the fact that they were propagating them to the kids of Egypt.

For those who do not speak Arabic, here are some of the Muslim Brotherhood's ideas as listed by Sadat:

"No law but God's law. Therefore civilian courts are not legitimate, they are a product of an ignorant society.
"The believers should seek to clash with authorities and the ignorant society, seeking to destroy them.
"No loyalty to the state, only to God.
"Reject education because the curriculum is controlled by the state and its ignorant infidel officials, a curriculum full of science material about nuclear energy, chemistry, nature, etc.
"No private ownership since God owns everything.
"No work or education for women, their role is only to raise the young and keep house.
"Ban television, movies and other forms of media, they only spread decadence."

Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vUaWTUfFf8&feature=player_embedded

Tarek Heggy and the Muslim Brotherhood

Tarek Heggy, an Egyptian liberal intellectual, one of the most quoted Arab thinkers on the Web, posted on February 12, 2011 an analysis well worth your reading. In summary, Heggy states that the Brotherhood remains extremely opposed to Western civilization and to a political peaceful settlement for the Arab-Israeli conflict. Hamas is a Palestinian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Heggy also states that progress in today's world is realized by two tools, "science and modern management"; two qualities that the Muslim Brotherhood have neither access to nor interest in.

See full analysis in the link below, where Heggy outlines the Muslim Brotherhood's political thought with regard to:

political freedoms
freedom of belief
personal freedoms
women's rights
the economy
system of government
civil society
government
political freedoms
the Arab-Israeli conflict
religious minority
the legal system
violence against civilians

http://www.crethiplethi.com/egypt-the-reality-of-the-muslim-brotherhood/global-islam/2011/

Also, below a 42 minute video of an interview in Arabic with Heggy. In this interview, Heggy offers an extremely well-informed, intellectually sharp and remarkably frank criticism of the Muslim Brotherhood. Heggy argues that the Brotherhood cannot speak for the Sharia, only their interpretations and understanding of it, and ask them to join in a discussion the outcome of which is for them to understand that their agenda is categorically not applicable to the people of the 21st century and therefore unacceptable. He articulates that laws and doctrines for the seventh and eighth centuries cannot address problems and issues of modern times, contending that it is ludicrous to expect that one common political, economic and social ideology could serve nations worldwide.

In the interview Heggy outlines these well-established positions and thoughts of the Muslim Brotherhood:

Modernity is despised
Sharia law should be the law of the land, it contains the answers to humankind's problems until Resurrection day
Democracy is contrary to following God's will
God is the only ruler of humankind
Islam should be the religion of the whole world
There is only one way to life, the Islamic way of the seventh and eighth centuries
Women are evil and devious by nature

http://www.islameyat.com/video_player.php?id=5992

For Doubters of the above Religious Extremism analysis Only

Anyone doubting that Islamic extremists are intractable, and opposed to development, need merely consider the position of these groups on these straightforward, realistic, legitimate and highly logical and appropriate propositions:

Islam is but one of many religions in the world, not better or worse than any other faith.
Separation of religion and state is an integral article of any effective constitution.
A religious state and democracy are mutually exclusive; they do not mix.
Believers of other religions are not infidels.
A person has the absolute right to renounce or abandon a religious belief.
A person has the absolute right not to believe at all.
All citizens of a country have the same rights, they are to have the same opportunities based only on merit, competency, and drive.
Women have exactly the same rights as men, they are their complete equals.
Women and Copts if qualified can be President.
A woman's testimony in court is equivalent to that of a man.
In divorce, a woman gets 50% of the couple's assets, and not a one year alimony then thrown to the street..
Gay people (homosexuals) have the same rights as all other people in a nation.
Universal literacy for all, male and female, is a vital goal for a society.
Science and technology should be heavily funded and strongly supported as the best way forward.
Each individual's opinions, including religious opinions, are respected provided that their manifestation does not trouble the public order established by the law.
Tolerance, coexistence, and peace is not an option, it is a must for citizens, as well as guests, of a nation.
The law of the state should be based on secular principles, not on Islamic legal doctrines. The laws of the land cannot be based on any one particular faith, they must be devised based on the needs and interests of all people living in the land, allowing for the inescapable (and desirable) diversity of people in today's nations.
New Islamic legal theories can produce modernized Islamic law.
Complete and unconditional stoppage of targeting and burning of churches, destruction of property, dismembering of people of other faiths, gender or sexual orientation.
Complete and unconditional stoppage of tactics and practices of censorship, disapproval of and objection to opening up the curriculum of various levels of education, particularly for girls, of intimidation and harassment of writers, thinkers and educators, journalists as they work to shed light on modern life and its demands.
Freedom of the media in all of its forms.
Freedom of literature, allowing different thoughts and ideas.
Freedom of the art, music, and dance.
In Egypt: the Salafists will have full disclosure and accounting of their foreign ties and funding, including with Saudi Arabia; and the Muslim Brotherhood will do the same as regards Qatar, which fully funds and supports the Brotherhood.

Religious Extremism in My Blog

I have written other analyses about religious extremism, an alarming factor and a lurking danger. These analyses address:

Separation of mosque and state
Copts in Egypt
Women in Egypt
Scientific research and technology development
Lack of acceptance of secularism
Lack of equality under the law
Freedom of opinion and expression
Freedom of belief
The danger of extreme Islamists
The morality of equality of men and women
Women and fundamentalism
Women's rights and liberties
Women and the economy
Democracy and women

To read these analyses, please refer to my blog, husseinamin45.blogspot.com - Egypt and the Middle East: Analyses of the situation in Egypt, the Middle East and other topics of interest.

Conclusion

"You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into." author unknown. This applies to religious extremists perfectly.

In my opinion, an Islamic state is a state where most certainly Muslim extremists, the radicalized elements of Islam, will assume control of government, parliament and courts, thus controlling the society, subjecting all of its people to their ideology, their ways and means of life and thinking, and endeavoring to impose Sharia law. I base my opinion on my above analysis and a lifelong of learning across the world and by living with and among men and women of all walks of life, all religions, all ethnic backgrounds, all races, all sexual persuasions, all everything.

It is beyond the shadow of the doubt that God, Allah subhanuh ta'ala, wants the Arab world to lead a prosperous and happy life and stand tall and proud among all nations on earth. Well, this would be very difficult to achieve with the ideology of religious extremism, an ideology that engenders a culture of exclusion, of denial of facts of life, of rejection of the new and different without offering comparable alternatives, of censoring new ideas and evolutionary thinking.

It is downright blasphemous to think that God would want for the Arab world to stay put, in a constant state of paralysis, going around in circles. This kind of thinking and belief demonstrates with blinding clarity a total lack of understanding of what God must want for the world He created. God would want the Arab world to work hard to achieve a life of fulfillment for its people, compete in a healthy way with the rest of the world, adapt to changing conditions, reform existing doctrines, learn from friends and adversaries alike, whatever it takes within the confines of laws and ethics. And if this would require the Arab world to change or alter its various constitutions and national policies, not to mention its ways of life and the role and meaning of religion, so be it.

To think that God meant for the Arab world not to succeed on earth, to hide behind the concept of the simple life and to wait for the afterlife to enjoy what other people from East to West have already achieved is also blasphemous. The question I have for such people is why then did God put us Muslims here on earth, to declare everything that humankind has introduced to life as sinful, anti-religion and everybody but Muslims infidels, all 5.5 billions of them, and basically waste our lives waiting for the afterlife, that is preposterous, the height of absurdity, that is the most anti-religion thinking humankind can muster!!! It would mean that God wishes Muslims ill.

Knowing that about extremists, the best a society can do is contain them as a minority. For if we do not, we can forget about development for the Arab world, because among these Islamic extremist groups some of their leaders and intellectuals know about development, its requirements and components, but they simply do not care, since pursuing development clashes with their interpretation of the Quran and its Islamic doctrines. They have written off life on earth as the vast majority of humans know it, and convinced themselves that they are here for the sole purpose to worship God.

It is crucial to note that the human rights of these Islamic extremist groups must be respected and guaranteed. Any other way is indefensible.

It is way past time to look at Islam and its holy book, the Quran, in light of our modern world, with interpretations (legal doctrines) consistent with its glorious verses and at the same time dealing with a changing world that continually introduces new issues, problems and circumstances, interpretations conducive to development, thus securing for the Muslim people a life of freedom, justice and ever-increasing prosperity.

There always will be religions, that is a necessity for the spirituality of humankind. However, religion is for the house of worship, privately held between the believer and God.

There is a natural and historically tested mutual exclusivity between democracy (where every individual's rights are safeguarded) and extreme religion, thus between development and extreme religion. The main reason in the case of the Arab world is that establishing representative governments using Islamic law for their national law is impossible.

The question to be asked is this: Can people in a Muslim nation, pursuing their various beliefs or non-beliefs, live an honorable life, a life of ethics, principles, morals, decency, integrity and dignity and still aspire to achieve an advanced nation not only for today but for generations to come? Can the Arab world be home to nations as developed, as enjoyable and pleasurable to live in as any in the world? The answer should be a resounding YES, and there is definitely no need to reinvent the wheel here, the road to development may not easy but it has certainly been well-traveled. It is my fervent hope that this analysis has outlined the various ways Arab nations can embark on such journey, each accommodating its special character as a nation and that of its mosaic of people.

Each Arab nation should be the fertile ground where all of its people live an honorable life, a life of prosperity and comfort, putting the afterlife in useful perspective.

Hussein

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Religion and Development in the Arab World