Qaradawi is Back (Yawn)

Yusuf al-Qaradawi has returned to Egypt from exile, and given the main speech at the large rally in a-Tahrir Square in Cairo today. If you're willing to accept the top media outlets as your guides to what's happening in the world, this isn't much of an event. Here's the BBC, one of the topmost media outlets anywhere:

Correspondents say there is a festive atmosphere, with a military band playing and people waving flags.
Leading Friday prayers at the square, a senior cleric called on Arab leaders to listen to their people...
Television pictures showed Tahrir Square full of people. People sang songs and chanted: "The army and people are united!"
Influential Egyptian Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi said the Arab world had changed and leaders should listen to their people.
He also called for the release of all political prisoners and for Egypt's new military leaders to form a new government.
"I call on the Egyptian army to liberate us from the government that Mubarak formed," Mr Qaradawi said.

That's it. The rest of the report is regurgitated verbiage from previous reports, and a very brief quotation from one of the demonstrators about how things need to get better.
CNN is another important and influential media organ. Here's their report, which is marginally better than that of the BBC:

Waving flags and beating drums, thousands gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday for a "Day of Victory" rally to celebrate the one-week anniversary of the ouster of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
In what was a symbol of the dramatic change taking hold across the society, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, a Muslim cleric banned from entering the country during the Mubarak years, delivered the Friday sermon to the throng and the startling appearance was broadcast on state television.
"O Egyptians, Coptic Christians and Muslims, this is your day, all of you. January 25 was your revolution," said Qaradawi, who has a program called "Shariah and Life" on the Al-Jazeera television network.
Qaradawi -- who returned to his Egyptian homeland on Thursday -- said the "youth of the revolution has lifted the head of this country and made us proud once again."
"They are the new partisans of God. These are the young people of Egypt. The revolution is not over yet. The revolution just began. We need to rebuild Egypt. Be aware of those who want to take it away from you," he said.
Qaradawi insisted that the money "stolen" by the Mubarak regime be returned to the Egyptian people and praised the "martyrs" who died in the upheaval and for the sake of the religion.

The New York Times, being a daily not a blog, hasn't reported on the matter yet; the Guardian has put up some pictures, including one that shows Qaradawi at the rally.

You'd expect top-notch news organizations to have someone in their editorial rooms who know something. Even if not, however, there's always Google, which might send one to this informative page about Qaradawi, as posted by the respectable Investigative Project on Terrorism. He has been banned from entering the United States, for example, and in the past two years alone he has publicly said all sorts of unsavory things. (For some reason I'm not managing to cut and paste, but you ought to read the whole thing anyway.)


Years ago I accepted that the media almost never gets its reports about Israel right. It's becoming increasingly clear that they have no particular interest in getting Egypt right, either, not the parts they might easily check, such as who this Qaradawi fellow is, not the parts that cry out to be explained, such as why he, of all possible religious people in Egypt is the main speaker at the event, and not the slightly deeper parts of the story, such as what cultural messages was he choosing when he chose those particular words; what his audience heard him say, rather than what CNN heard him say.

Meanwhile, over at the Economist, they've got this sentence in their Leader on the Arab uprisings, which explains why in spite of some obvious handicaps, liberal democracy may be about to bloom:

Society is suffused by contempt for the West and hatred of Israel.

Israel? Not the Jews, by any means? The hatred is merely of Israel? How does the Economist know this?

• Called on Muslims to acquire nuclear weapons "to terrorize their enemies."
• Called jihad an Islamic moral duty and said Muslims are permitted to kill Israeli women because they serve in the army.
• Affirmed his support for suicide bombings. "I supported martyrdom operations," he said, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). "This is a necessary thing, as I told them in London. Give the Palestinians tanks, airplanes, and missiles, and they won't carry out martyrdom operations. They are forced to turn themselves into human bombs, in order to defend their land, their honor, and their homeland."
• Called the Holocaust a divine punishment of Jews "for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them - even though they exaggerated this issue - he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hands of the believers."
• Prayed for the opportunity to kill a Jew before his death. "The only thing that I hope for is that as my life approaches its end, Allah will give me an opportunity to go to the land of Jihad and resistance, even if in a wheelchair. I will shoot Allah's enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life with martyrdom. Praise be to Allah."

This week, a Brotherhood official was among eight people named to a panel charged with recommending changes to Egypt's suspended constitution. As the IPT has noted, the Brotherhood's bylaws continue to call for it "to establish Allah's law in the land by achieving the spiritual goals of Islam and the true religion." That includes "the need to work on establishing the Islamic State, which seeks to effectively implement the provisions of Islam and its teachings."
Der Spiegel reports that Qaradawi envisions a "United Muslim Nations" as a contemporary form of the caliphate. In its statement on the Revolution, the International Union of Muslim Scholars advocated something much broader. It called for "all components of the Egyptian people, Muslims and Copts, alike to stand as one to reach a consultative democratic government which represents the Egyptian people and its values and principles."
Images of a triumphant Qaradawi in leading prayer at the spot that triggered Egypt's revolution might trigger memories of Ayatollah Khomeini's return to Iran months after the Shah fled. Though analysts at the time did not anticipate him seizing power, the Islamic Republic was born just two months later.
Analysts today say differences in Egypt's uprising and in the Brotherhood's following make a repeat unlikely. Qaradawi's following is nowhere near as deep or committed as was Khomeini's, said Ian Johnson, author of A Mosque in Munich, But his presence in Cairo complicates Egypt's fledgling move toward democracy. "Qaradawi has been a troubling specter in global Islam for the past couple of decades," Johnson said in an email. "He has taken some reformist positions but also advocates extremist, anti-democratic views. His injecting himself into the fragile Egyptian revolution cannot be helpful to that process."
In an interview on National Public Radio, Stanford University director of Iranian studies Abbas Milani also said the Brotherhood has no charismatic leader of Khomeini's stature. But he remained skeptical of the organization's claims that it is not interested in making Egypt's revolution into an Islamic one.
"Do you believe them?" asked Steve Inskeep. "No, I don't, to be honest with you," Milani said. "I think Muslim Brotherhood has an established record of wanting to create a government based on Sharia."

Read More: Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Hosni Mubarak, Ayatollah Khomeini, Der Spiegel

Reader comments on this item

who calls him a moderate

Submitted by lord garth, Feb 17, 2011 17:14

The article said some call him a moderate.
This should be more specific. I have found that religious scholar John Esposito and CAIR national director Nihad Awad have called him moderate. I suppose there are others.

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Read more at: http://www.investigativeproject.org/2603/qaradawi-ominous-return-to-egypt

This week, a Brotherhood official was among eight people named to a panel charged with recommending changes to Egypt's suspended constitution. As the IPT has noted, the Brotherhood's bylaws continue to call for it "to establish Allah's law in the land by achieving the spiritual goals of Islam and the true religion." That includes "the need to work on establishing the Islamic State,

Read more at: http://www.investigativeproject.org/2603/qaradawi-ominous-return-to-egyptPrayed for the opportunity to kill a Jew before his death. "The only thing that I hope for is that as my life approaches its end, Allah will give me an opportunity to go to the land of Jihad and resistance, even if in a wheelchair. I will shoot Allah's enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life with martyrdom. Praise be to Allah."

Read more at: http://www.investigativeproject.org/2603/qaradawi-ominous-return-to-egypt

Called on Muslims to acquire nuclear weapons "to terrorize their enemies."

Called jihad an Islamic moral duty and said Muslims are permitted to kill Israeli women because they serve in the army.

Affirmed his support for suicide bombings. "I supported martyrdom operations," he said, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). "This is a necessary thing, as I told them in London. Give the Palestinians tanks, airplanes, and missiles, and they won't carry out martyrdom operations. They are forced to turn themselves into human bombs, in order to defend their land, their honor, and their homeland."

Called the Holocaust a divine punishment of Jews "for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them - even though they exaggerated this issue - he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hands of the believers."

Prayed for the opportunity to kill a Jew before his death. "The only thing that I hope for is that as my life approaches its end, Allah will give me an opportunity to go to the land of Jihad and resistance, even if in a wheelchair. I will shoot Allah's enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life with martyrdom. Praise be to Allah

Read more at: http://www.investigativeproject.org/2603/qaradawi-ominous-return-to-egypt

Called on Muslims to acquire nuclear weapons "to terrorize their enemies."

Called jihad an Islamic moral duty and said Muslims are permitted to kill Israeli women because they serve in the army.

Affirmed his support for suicide bombings. "I supported martyrdom operations," he said, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). "This is a necessary thing, as I told them in London. Give the Palestinians tanks, airplanes, and missiles, and they won't carry out martyrdom operations. They are forced to turn themselves into human bombs, in order to defend their land, their honor, and their homeland."

Called the Holocaust a divine punishment of Jews "for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them - even though they exaggerated this issue - he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hands of the believers."

Prayed for the opportunity to kill a Jew before his death. "The only thing that I hope for is that as my life approaches its end, Allah will give me an opportunity to go to the land of Jihad and resistance, even if in a wheelchair. I will shoot Allah's enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life with martyrdom. Praise be to Allah

Read more at: http://www.investigativeproject.org/2603/qaradawi-ominous-return-to-egypt