Al-Azhar, Egypt, Europe, France, Human Right, Islam, Sectarian, Shi'as

Marine Le Pen Meets Egyptian Islamic Hypocrisy at Al Azhar: J’Accuse au Caire……..

May 31, 2015 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

“French far-right leader Marine Le Pen held talks in Egypt with Al-Azhar that broached the top Sunni Muslim body’s “serious concerns” over her party’s stance on Islam, it said. National Front president Le Pen met late Thursday with Ahmed al-Tayeb, grand imam of Al-Azhar, at its Cairo headquarters during which he questioned her organisation’s “hostile opinions towards Islam and Muslims”, an Al-Azhar statement said. Tayeb added that the National Front’s “opinions must be reviewed and corrected”. The National Front, which had a strong showing in local elections in March, has campaigned on politically explosive issues of immigration and the integration of Islam into French society after the Paris Islamist attacks……………..”

“For decades, Egyptian regimes have robbed the Shiite Muslim minority of their right to practice their religion freely and publicly. Egyptian Shiites have been subject to persecution, detention and imprisonment. On May 18, the prosecution accused Shiite leader Al-Taher al-Hashimy of attempting to spread Shiism, disturbing social peace and conducting covert activities……….. On May 12, a physician was sentenced to six months in prison for practicing Shiism, according to a statement released by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). He was found guilty of blasphemy, attempting to cause sectarian strife, as well as threatening national security by attempting to spread Shiite ideology…………..”

J’accuse au Caire……….

Interesting to see the self righteous shaikh (now Imam) of Al-Azhar exuding hypocritic piety. From the picture of the meeting (above) it is easy to spot the more honest and more intelligent person at that meeting: she is wearing high-heels, not a turban.

So who do you think has more freedom, Muslims of France or Muslims of Egypt (especially Shi’a Muslims)? And where do Muslims have more freedom of religion especially: in France or in Egypt?
No, let me rephrase this: who has no freedom to worship at all, Muslims of France or ~~Shi’a~~ Muslims of Egypt?
Let me rephrase it again: who is more hypocritical and repressive, the government and religious establishment in Egypt or the French far right like Front National?
Let me phrase it differently: which country is more repressive of other sects and religions, including other Muslims: Egypt or Israel?
In which city is a taxi driver very likely to tell you to get out of his car if you tell him you’re a Shi’a: in Cairo or in Tel Aviv?

This is not to deny the existence of Islamophobia and bigotry in Europe. But why ignore and deny the worse cases of inter-Islamic bigotry and repression of religious freedom at home?
Now try to be honest about your answers, if you can………….

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
[email protected]

Al-Qaeda, Arabian Peninsula, Bible, Jihadis, Osama Bin Laden, Saudi Arabia

Prodigal Sons of the Arabian Peninsula: Jihadis Coming Home………

May 30, 2015 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

““‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. ³²But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32)

“In the 13-minute-long recording, the speaker said Islamic State had ordered its followers everywhere to “kill enemies of Islam, especially Shi’ites”, according to SITE. “What then if they live with their disbelief in the Peninsula of Mohammad,” SITE quoted the speaker as saying, referring to the Arabian Peninsula, birthplace of Islam and where Saudi Arabia is located. “They are disbelievers and apostates, and their blood is permissible to be shed, and their money is permissible to be taken. It is a duty upon us to kill them … and even to purify the land from their filth,” he said…………”

The nom de guerre (nom de terrorisme) of the suicide bomber was Abu ‘Amer Al Najdi, indicating he came from the Najd region of Central Arabia. Home and birthplace and power center of the Wahhabi sect and the House of Saud.

These are not the old Al Qaeda, another Saudi prodigal son, many of whose members were forgiven, re-educated, and bribed with jobs and wives. A clever method: presumably a wife would dull the violent edge of fundamentalism by reducing their sexual frustration in the grim Wahhabi society. But that was/is the old Al Qaeda (or AQAP). ISIS or DAESH is a whole new animal, a mutation of the old Jihadism that is uncompromising, which is really the true Wahhabism.

This new prodigal son is coming home in a different fashion. Not hungry and starved and contrite like the Biblical one. This son is resurgent, seeking to destroy the Saudi father and supplant him. Returning to its birthplace and its geographical and ideological roots. Leaner and meaner than the Bin Laden-ites who were careful of committing violence in the Arabian Peninsula, their original home base.

They are opening a new home front for the Al Saud who are now multitasking, engaged in the destruction of Yemen and allying themselves with the old Al Qaeda (Al Nusra) in Syria, while also actively engaged in the politics and wars of Lebanon and western Iraq and the Gulf.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
[email protected]

Elections, Fatwa, U.S. Politics

Fatwa on Dynastic US 2016 Election ……….

May 29, 2015 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

My Fatwa for the US Election 2016?
Old Corporate Money vs. New Corporate Money = Jeb Bush vs. Hillary Clinton
New Corporate Money Wins…….

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
[email protected]

Blockade of Iran, Education, Iran, nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia

Prince Turki as a Nuclear Flying Dutchman: Is he Aiming to Learn Persian?………..

May 29, 2015 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

““Whatever the Iranians have, we will have, too,” Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief, warned at a conference in South Korea last month. Under the emerging deal, instead of ending Iran’s nuclear program outright, Tehran might be allowed to keep up to 5,000 centrifuges to produce nuclear fuel for energy and medical purposes. Saudi Arabia’s leaders are fixated on containing Iranian power throughout the Middle East, whether real or perceived. The Saudis worry that, once economic sanctions are lifted under a nuclear deal, Iran would gain access to tens of billions of dollars in frozen funds and new oil revenue…………”

The Prince stated something that does not need to be stated, almost inane: “Whatever the Iranians have, we will have, too,”
Iranians also speak Persian: does this mean the Al Saud plan to all learn the Persian language? Anyway, a sovereign country can do whatever it wants at home. Which is exactly what the ruling mullahs of Iran have been saying (or claiming, if you prefer).

As I and others have posted and wisely opined, there is more to it. The Saudi princes want to keep their financial near-monopoly in the Middle East, while starving their neighbors. They feel entitled to keep their potential rivals (mainly Iran and possibly also Iraq) economically weak, and they want the Western powers to help them do it. It is a legitimate power play for the very short term, but it doesn’t work beyond that. You can’t starve national interest and sovereignty and scientific knowledge out of a society.

Of course nobody is stopping the Saudis from developing their own peaceful nuclear program, so there is no need for this Flying Dutchman Prince Turki to perpetually circumnavigate the world screaming about it. The prince is now competing on this issue with his alleged ally Netanyahu, and he sounds as stale: an alliance of convenience between the ultimate anti-semites and the Israelis.
Just do it: you can print it on a new T-shirt. Pull down your universities and colleges, restructure than away from all the Salafi Shariah “stuff” and focus on science.

If not, they can always buy a program, they are good at buying wars and Western weapons and Jihadis for Syria and terrorists for Iraq. It is all apparently legitimate……..

Nuclear Inscrutable Iranians, PrinceTurki as a Nuclear Wandering Semite………

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
[email protected]

Arab Media, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Media Wars: Can Saudis and Qataris Buy the Hearts and Minds of the Arab World?……….

May 28, 2015 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

“As with its military operation in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is throwing a great deal of money and resources into media backing for the government of President Abd-Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. In short order, it has helped equip and launch two satellite TV channels supporting the exiled president, as well as an alternative version of Yemen’s official news agency. Meanwhile, TV channels sympathetic to the Huthi movement are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain their broadcasts via satellite as the main regional operators suspend their transmissions…………… At the regional level, the two leading pan-Arab TV news channels – the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya and Qatar’s Al-Jazeera – have put aside their differences over Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood and are both running a similar anti-Huthi, and sometimes anti-Iranian, line on Yemen, as is the Abu-Dhabi-based Sky News Arabia…………..”

The Yemenis can defeat, truly trounce, the Saudi forces and their hired allies in any battle. But they don’t have a chance in the media war, almost nobody in the region does. The potentates certainly have not held back on spending money on acquiring old Arab media and establishing new ones. Nobody in the Middle East has such unrestricted access to financial resources, and they have been buying.

Two undemocratic anti-democratic absolute tribal dynasties now dominate the Arab media, both old media and new media. The two Wahhabi regimes, the little one in Qatar and the bigger one in Riyadh are almost in control of much Arab media narrative. Their message is heavily sectarian, not always subtle, the best way to divert attention away from royal corruption and the natural human demands for freedom and self determination. The two Wahhabi financial powers seek to dominate the majority non-Wahhabi Sunni Arab minds while marginalizing and often demonizing Shi’a Arabs (and non-Arabs).

Can they win, nay buy, the hearts and minds in the vast Arab region that extends from Baghdad to Morocco? They can only influence some minds, but they can’t win, nor buy, any hearts. Hearts cannot be bought. The princes and potentates can’t win any outside their own domain.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
[email protected]

Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Salafi, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy

Salafi Taqiyya: Syrian Jihadist Claims Jeffersonian Ideals, Seek American Weapons……….

May 28, 2015 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

“War is deception………..” Hadith

“From the pulpit at a mosque in the besieged Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Syrian rebel leader Zahran Alloush denounced democracy last December as a corrupt system and left no doubt that he seeks an Islamic state to succeed the government of President Bashar Assad. But in his first interview with U.S. news media, Alloush was the model of pragmatism. Gone were his previous calls to expel members of the ruling Alawite sect from Damascus. In the interview he called them “part of the Syrian people” and said that only those with blood on their hands should be held accountable………………”

He is head of Jaysh al-Islam (Army of Islam) one component of the Islamic Front, currently the last best Jihadi hope of the Syrian opposition and its Persian Gulf supporters and financiers. The whole bunch of them are now led by Al Nusra Front, the Al Qaeda branch in Syria. Al Nusra does the real fighting and dominates among the alleged ‘moderates’ in Syria. Nusra and its allies already get American and other Western advanced weapons through Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Almost certainly with U.S. consent, otherwise there would be some noise from Washington about supplying third parties. There isn’t any noise from washington.
It is telling that some prominent Salafis in the Persian Gulf region, strong advocates and enablers of Al Qaeda and even ISIS, are now suggesting, politely, that maybe Nusra Front should repudiate its ties to Al Qaeda, at least in the open. They are being pragmatic: “War is deception”.

They have discovered the secret to getting more American weapons and support. I have often written that the Salafis, especially the Gulf variety, can be pragmatic, to the extent that some of them would “throw their own mothers under the bus” if needed for the cause. Egyptian Salafis famously did that in a breathtaking fashion: they shifted allegiance from Mubarak to the Muslim Brotherhood before quickly supporting the military coup and Al Sisi. That does not mean they have given up on the goals of Al Qaeda or the Caliphate of ISIS. It is the true but fake Salafi Taqiyya: hiding your true colors in order to achieve your goals.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
[email protected]

Culture, Education, Islam, Religion, Sex

Urban Legend of the Turkish Pregnant Hand…….

May 26, 2015 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

“A Turkish televangelist has warned male Muslims away from masturbation – because it may leave their hands pregnant in the afterlife. Mücahid Cihad Han supposedly made the claim in response to a call from a man who “kept masturbating, although he was married, and even during the Umrah”, a pilgrimage similar to the Hajj. Hearing the man’s plight, Han stated that masturbation is forbidden in Islam and went on to say: “Moreover, one hadith states that those who have sexual intercourse with their hands will find their hands pregnant in the afterlife…………”

Nothing new here. Years ago when I was in Middle School (Junior High) back home on the shores of the Gulf a teacher of Islamic religion told our class the same thing. He claimed the “pregnant hand” would file a sexual assault complaint with God.
Scared the hell out of many students. Probably not me………..
Besides, my young skeptical mind suspected that he himself indulged…….

P.S.: It is not just in Islam. There are also the Christian ( and probably Jewish) equivalent of this Turkish cleric who spread similar nonsense.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
[email protected]

Anti-Semitism, Egypt, Jews

Moses Without GPS: a Jew in Cairo………

May 26, 2015 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

“An Egyptian journalist conducted an experiment in which he dressed up as a Jew and asked passersby on the streets of Cairo for directions to a nearby synagogue – with nearly serious consequences for his physical safety. The Cairo-based Internet news site DOTMSR sent the journalist to the streets of Cairo dressed in overtly Hassidic garb – sidecurls, skullcap, beard, and a hat. The “Jewish” journalist was then subjected to threats of violence, epithets, slurs, and shoving from hostile locals. In one scene of the video, the journalist shows an Egyptian a note with Hebrew writing on it. When asked if he is an Israeli journalist, he responds in the affirmative, prompting the Egyptian to hurriedly walk away without responding to his request for directions…………”

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
[email protected]

Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Salafi, Sex, Slavery, Syria, Turkey

Love Song of ISIS: Salafi Meets Tunisian Chick, Invites her to Raqqa………

May 26, 2015 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

“The honeymoon was a brief moment for love, away from the front lines of Syria’s war. In the capital of Daesh’s self-proclaimed “caliphate,” Syrian fighter Abu Bilal Al Homsi was united with his Tunisian bride for the first time after months chatting online. They married, then passed the days dining on grilled meats in Raqqa’s restaurants, strolling along the Euphrates River and eating ice cream. It was all made possible by the marriage bonus he received from Daesh: $1,500 (Dh5,509) for him and his wife to get started on a new home, a family — and a honeymoon……………..”

How Salafi-romantic “they married, then passed the days dining on grilled meats in Raqqa“. How Wahhabi-chic, almost as good as the last week’s Paris second (or third) honeymoon of young Saudi Prince Whatishisface.

No doubt she made it across the Turkish border into Syria. That is Mr. Erdogan’s gift to the Wahhabi Jihadis and their Arab and European brides and their concubines. In effect he is the one who “gives the bride away”, no dowry required. It has been Erdogan’s gift to all those who seek to join the Jihad in Syria, probably including John McCain. At least this Salafi made her into an ‘honest’ woman, as they say. Others get sold on the slave market and are traded frequently. Either one: marital bliss or blissful concubinage with a North African or a European chick is no doubt one attraction of this new jihad for many starved and frustrated Wahhabi youth, especially those that don’t come out of the West.
Whatever happened to Hayat Boumedienne………..

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
[email protected]

Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Plan B for Failed Storm: From Bay of Pigs to Bay of Goats……….

May 26, 2015 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

In 1961 the CIA financed, trained, and armed a bunch of Cuban exiles and launched them into Cuba. The goal was to overthrow the revolutionary socialist regime of Fidel Castro. Needless to say, the invasion of Bay of Pigs was a total failure and its failure also deterred other such future attempts. It was a Hail Mary try that apparently did not have the backing of Mary nor of Jesus, not on that day. It did not work.

Now Yemen in the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula is not in the same situation as Cuba in 1961. The Saudis and their rented Sudanese-Moroccan-Senegalese forces are directly bombing and shelling the cities and towns of Yemen. The country itself is fighting several civil wars among its various factions. The Houthis and army units are fighting the Southern Independence Movement as well as Al Qaeda- AQAP- and some tribal elements. The Houthis and the army are also trying to repel the Saudi air and artillery assault (which is supported by Western planning and logistical and intelligence support). Whoever wins, if anyone, will have to fight again against secession in South Yemen.

The air war, mainly one-sided and which has resulted in thousands of casualties, has failed during its first two months. The richest and best equipped force in the Arab world, supported by foreign mercenaries and the strongest world powers, has failed to defeat the poorest and weakest-armed Arab country. Now they are trying to insert the escaped former president Hadi (Bin Zombie) into their new strategy.

They are reported by Arab media as trying to form a Yemeni military force to the east near the Saudi border with Hadramout Province. This force is allegedly Yemeni but commanded by Saudis from across the border. They will try to pass it off as a force loyal to Hadi. That comes after an apparent earlier attempt to land Arab and Yemeni agents into Aden failed.
It is hard to imagine anyone in Yemen being loyal to Hadi, other than maybe his family, not without a price to be paid by the Saudis. Just try landing him down into Sanaa or Aden and the degree of loyalty to him becomes clear. A la Gaddafi in 2011.

Anyway this new Hadramout invasion has signs of desperation all over it, but it is a logical Plan B. It could be inspired by the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Saudis don’t cotton up to pigs, so we can’t call this attempt Bay of Pigs II. It is more appropriate to call it Bay of Goats.
Given that the consensus opinion is that pigs are somewhat smarter than goats, we probably know how this plan will fare.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
[email protected]

Arabia Deserta: MENA Focus

Monthly Archives: May 2015

Marine Le Pen Meets Egyptian Islamic Hypocrisy at Al Azhar: J’Accuse au Caire……..

Prodigal Sons of the Arabian Peninsula: Jihadis Coming Home………

Fatwa on Dynastic US 2016 Election ……….

Prince Turki as a Nuclear Flying Dutchman: Is he Aiming to Learn Persian?………..

Media Wars: Can Saudis and Qataris Buy the Hearts and Minds of the Arab World?……….

Salafi Taqiyya: Syrian Jihadist Claims Jeffersonian Ideals, Seek American Weapons……….

Urban Legend of the Turkish Pregnant Hand…….

Moses Without GPS: a Jew in Cairo………

Love Song of ISIS: Salafi Meets Tunisian Chick, Invites her to Raqqa………

Plan B for Failed Storm: From Bay of Pigs to Bay of Goats……….

Multidisciplinary: Middle East, North Africa, Gulf, GCC, World, Cosmos…..