An American response to the Grand Mufti of Egypt

Gary H. Johnson, Jr. comments on the Wall Street Journal article written by Sheik Ali Gomaa, Grand Mufti of Egypt. My attention about Gomaa was brought to me by Leslie Sacks in a post sent to SlantRight.com.

The Mainstream Media (MSM) has jumped on board Gomaa’s words for they are a claim to “Moderate Islam” from a Muslim residing in the Middle East. Sacks questioned that appellation and Johnson goes into detail as to why Gomaa is a typical Muslim supremacist. This should inspire the old Western grey cells to wonder what part of “Moderate Islam” is actually moderate by Western standards.

JRH 10/19/09
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An American response to the Grand Mufti of Egypt

Gary H. Johnson, Jr.
October 19, 2009

Sheikh Ali Gomaa’s October 7 Wall Street Journal think piece “Islam, Israel and the United States” is not a reasonable lesson in Islamic moderation; rather, it is an artfully crafted attack on the Sovereignty of the United States and Israel.

From the gun, the article shoots deceptively – America and the West are victims of Islamic Supremacism’s violent Jihadists, not extremists. Western officials and commentators are not consumed by the question “wherefore art thou moderate Muslims?” because the reasonable and studied in the West have realized that the evidence of the written record points to a world in which moderate Islam does not exist. Left-leaning progressive, multicultural, media talking heads pay lip service to the idea that such a realm of moderate Islam may exist and allows the Muslim Mafia of CAIR and its MSA and ISNA reps to spew their talking points over airwaves. This stealth jihad attempt to place a veil over the reality that Islam is a Supremacist Faith by design is not standing up to the internet’s capable independent researchers.

The reason Islam must be reconciled with modernity is precisely because its tenets declare the Koran to be the constitution of the world. Thus, sovereignty is the domain of Allah to all Muslims. All borders drawn, state constitutions created, and laws written that are not derived directly from the Koran, the accepted Hadith, the Sira of the Prophet Muhammad, or the ijma consensus are considered Jahaliya – derived from the age of ignorance, before the new knowledge of the Koran was bestowed upon humanity, that mankind might know that the purpose of their existence was to worship Allah. Islam, then, need not be reconciled with modernity…it must be reconciled with modern laws and borders and individual rights and individual liberties as derived from man’s reason. Islam is a Supremacist Faith which murders reason as a source of truth…lending all truth to Allah’s Pen – the pen which taught man what he knew not in the Mother Book.

One must ask the Grand Mufti of Egypt if the case of Professor Mark A. Gabriel is still fresh in his mind. Until the scholars at the Al-Azhar in Cairo reject The Sword on the Neck of the Unbeliever, which calls for Muslims to accept the teachings of Muhammad without question, moderate Islam will remain in the shadows if such an amalgam indeed exists. One need only read the first 20 pages of Mark A. Gabriel’s book Jesus and Muhammad to learn of the supremacist curriculum of Islam’s famed Cairo institution.

Would it not be a common decency to recognize that the constitutions of the United States and Israel supersede the sovereignty of Shariah Law within their sovereign borders? It seems, not only disingenuous, but militantly provocative in terms of American and Israeli sovereignty for the Mufti of Egypt to define Individual Liberty as bound up by Shariah Law when slavery was accepted as an institution by the founding Muslims, piracy was exhorted by the Muslim founder, and wholesale genocide has been practiced by the Islamic Conquerors throughout the last 1400 years – not to mention the fact that the sub-human categories of kafir, infidel, apostate, and dhimmi were established to guarantee the dominance of the sword of Islam and the identity based supremacy of the Muslim peoples.

The Sheikh’s discussion of fatwas issued from the Dar al Iftaa, Egypt’s supreme body for legal edicts, is veritably laughable. In Egypt, have the rights to freedom of conscience and freedom of expression not yielded a snitch society in which the “command the good and forbid the evil” injunctions of the Koran and the trespassing of Hisba laws are followed up by secret police street snatchings and spades of imprisonments based on the morality of Islam? An American diplomat with any sense whatsoever of reason must ask, “what is the measure of common decency, Grand Mufti, if you are truly seeking to come to a reconciliation with modernity – if not the individual liberty of men and women of reason to doubt in full, for their entire lives, the validity of the Koran, the supposed truths of the Hadith, or the accepted righteousness of the Salaf striving? What is the measure of common decency without the construct of the Islamic Umma, my Muslim friend? When Submission is not the measure of society and economics, where will you turn for common decency without the threat of force to back your spine’s resolve? Why have you not promoted the common ground between Islam and Hinduism? Or do your deep seated moral concerns over idolatry and polytheism override your sense of right and wrong when dealing with the Hindu faithful?”

The Grand Mufti suggests that his Islamic fatwa center underscores that governance is found in popular sovereignty and justice – is that the justice found in Muhammad’s siege catapults at Taif in 630? Is the Mufti’s drive toward populism not merely a rejection of the current Dictatorship Egypt has and an incitement of students who will move towards evolving the Egyptian state into a replica of Iran’s Islamic Establishment, with the Dar al Iftaa at the helm of a competing Sunni Salafi state, brought about by a radicalized Muslim Brotherhood uprising? Is the Grand Mufti’s desire for justice and popular sovereignty perhaps nothing but a geopolitical push for mass uprisings against Mubarak’s regime on behalf of Allah? If the Grand Mufti of Egypt is so committed to human liberty – why must he cage it within the supremacist bounds of Shariah Law? Human liberty beyond the bounds of Shariah Law – to this concept is the Mufti noncommittal, dismissive, derisive, resentful, or militantly opposed? Which is it? Do the Mufti’s credentials and finely crafted words not shout Supremacy when he acknowledges no human liberty beyond the bounds of Islamic Law? What’s more, is he not insulting American sovereignty, calling our liberties and rights – our Constitution – indecent, by default? Above all, the Mufti of Egypt should understand that there comes a point in any engagement with a suspected death cult leader in which resentment is reason’s only recourse.

The Grand Mufti states that the murder of “civilians” is a crime against humanity and Allah…are Israelis and Americans “civilians” by Gomaa’s reckoning? Is the murder of infidels in a jihad a crime against Allah? Did not Muhammad at Taif say that infidels will be killed and Muslims will be martyred in Jihad? It seems in the spirit of courage, Westerners must ask the Mufti, “Is it a crime to murder, harass, or imprison apostates? Is it not then a crime against Humanity to stone a woman to death for any reason whatsoever? Is it a crime against Allah to chop a man’s hand or foot off for theft?” It is interesting that the Mufti forces Islam’s judgment Hour down my infidel throat, saying that the crime of murdering a civilian is “punishable in this life and the next.” To this, he is presumptuous and supremacist in his domineering attitude.

Unfortunately, the Mufti’s attempt to reinforce the “values of moderation” in Islam is an empty claim, since there are no values that are not born of supremacy in the entirety of the faith. Therefore, to ask the United States to assume any responsibility for the sake of a better relationship is the equivalent of asking the United States to submit to the supremacy of Islam and kneel in dhimmitude, giving over sovereignty to Allah rather than the US Constitution in order to engender some sort of peaceful relationship, which history shows to have always represented one of sharecropping, slavery, piracy, genocide and blood. So, in the full course of events, it is the Muslim Mufti, Al Azhar University, and the Dar al Iftaa which must confront their fear of accepting the walls of a mosque as Islam’s sole sovereign domain, leaving politics and economics, and, most importantly, tyrannical control through judicial renderings out of their own power equation. Indeed, the Grand Mufti must not misunderstand the directed resentment of reasonable free men and women on this planet who will never submit to Islam or Allah’s jihads and must deal with that reality, accepting an individual’s right to personal sovereignty, to the natural individual rights to think freely and to retain completely, inflexibly, the unalienable right of reason, the right to doubt Allah and reject the teachings of the Koran without penalty.

However, it is not likely the Egyptian Grand Mufti has the courage to achieve this transformation in his ranks – for the scholars have primed the pump of supremacy for far too long to accept the fact that Western plumbing is a much more lucrative method of drawing water. Men and women of the United States have never accepted slavery, imperialism, conquest, or bully tactics – Islam’s acceptance and employ of these methods is not a basis for respectable differences of opinion. Coexistence begins with the Muslim acceptance of the laws, borders, and sovereignty of the individuals and countries of the world which have not yielded to Shariah Law’s tenets. The next step in coexistence for Muslims would be for its elite leaders to renounce Islam’s place in modern international and national law – removing Islamic lessons from state run curriculums, remanding them to their place in the mosques, as an accommodation.

Gomaa’s statement that “Islam and the West have distinct value systems” was the most accurate rendering of his message to the West – Islam is a supremacist Faith of multiple competing identities and the West bases its laws on reasonable and enfranchised discourse rather than theocratic decree from on high.

The Grand Mufti’s focus on rule of law and “sovereign equality” in international relations, on the other hand, is a rather savvy way of saying each country should be seen as equal in the UN. Moreover, the argument for sovereign equality holds that the United States should not have veto power in the UN Security Council. Sovereign inequality is a reality. If the argument for sovereign equality is to hold, the United States will be weak as a block, because it is “United”. There are 57 OIC nation states and there is 1 United States of America. Should not the United States receive 50 votes in the UN? Why is America penalized, democratically, for uniting under a constitution of liberty as a unified and capitalist sovereign state? Has the USA not served as the battery of the world? Placing the United States on an “equal” footing is the leveling of a playing field which already, in the non-aligned movement is building momentum to declare the United States and Israel terroristic countries. The October 1st UN Human Rights Commission addendum by Obama’s administration, which no doubt spawned this Mufti outreach at Georgetown, is a huge step towards submitting to Islam’s legitimate right to a political existence by the United States and at the same time a repudiation of Israel’s legitimate right to a sovereign existence…an appeasement to the non-aligned movement. In short, America’s involvement in the UNHRC is antithetical to American values on multiple levels, none higher than sovereignty itself.

When reading the Grand Mufti’s message relating to Israel, one can read it in one of two ways: either the continuation of Palestine’s occupation by Israel must end, or Israel’s continuation as a state (an affront to the fundamental tenets of justice and freedom) must end. This message when translated to Arabic and Persian will naturally be translated as “The state of Israel must be brought to an end.” Regardless of the double speak and lilt of emphasis in translation on the Israeli occupation question, though, for Sheikh Gomaa to lecture Westerners about getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan presumes to the easily swayed that the United States wants to be in the region as if it is a conquering colonialist empire. This is not only wrong, it is a fallacious misrepresentation whose revisionist narrative has infected the whole of the supposedly educated Muslim world to the point of absurdity.

Obama’s June 4 Cairo address gave voice to the concerns of Muslims; however, his speech did not legitimize the radical narrative of American Imperialist designs on the region. The failure of Obama’s address was in its lack of focus on liberty…and our liberation efforts. Much work needs to be done on both sides, yes…but this process begins with Muslims accepting that “infidels”, “kafirs”, “idolaters” and “apostates” are not subject to Islamic Law, and that Muslims are only subject to Islamic Law while they are within the walls of the Mosque. Muslims must accept that the United States Constitution, the current accepted borders of the international community, and the laws of men not under Islamic Law are not bound by Islamic Law.

Indeed, above all, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, must accept that the word “Allah” and the word “God” are not synonyms to free westerners who never hear Muslim leaders decrying terror, denouncing militant jihad, or cursing Osama bin Laden. The word “Allah” when it is spoken by a Muslim should never be translated to the English word “God”. I, as a free man of reason, find this singular translation to be a submission of convenience to Allah’s supremacy. Dhimmitude is anything but an institution of convenience.

With respect to the Grand Mufti, reason demands that the vigilant westerner remain resolved and stead fast if liberty is to be preserved when staring into the punishing teeth of Islam’s Supremacist push. Reason cannot be an Islamophobe, for it demands of Islam the freedom of its adherents to question and doubt, claiming its own right to follow suit. In America, we have an Establishment Clause in our Constitution. A brilliant Mufti, interested in peace and engagement and coexistence, would consider it a profound lesson in liberty and governance instead of an affront to Allah.
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Gary H. Johnson, Jr. writings often appear at The AfPak Reader and United Against Islamic Supremacism. Don’t be surprised if this essay shows up at there later.

© Gary H. Johnson, Jr.