Heroes in Egypt Confront Islamist Ideology

by Michael Armanious • March 7, 2015 at 5:00 am

What made Egyptian President Sisi's speech remarkable is that he pointed to the problem within and did not blame a Western or Jewish conspiracy for the problems facing Muslims.

The sad fact, which Western leaders and peaceful Muslims do not want to know or publicly acknowledge, is that when Western and other leaders say that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam, they are simply flat wrong.

About a month after Sisi said "We must revolutionize our religion," Ibrahim Eissa, an Egyptian journalist and another hero of the Middle East backed him up, saying, "when the people of ISIS perpetrate slaughter, murder, rape, immolation, and all those barbaric crimes, they say that they are relying on the sharia. They say that this is based on a certain hadith, on a certain Quranic chapter, on a certain saying of Ibn Taymiyyah, or on some historical event. To tell the truth, everything that ISIS says is correct."

Sisi wants to defeat extremism, not use it as a tool of statecraft. He understands the importance of defeating this expansionist ideology, and deserves the full support of America and the international community in this struggle.

Egypt's President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, delivered a historic speech to top Islamic scholars and clergy at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, December 28, 2014. (Image source: MEMRI)

For years, intellectuals have called on Cairo's Al-Azhar University to change its pre-medieval mindset of jihadism, without any success. This time might be different.

In December 2014, Egypt's President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, gave a speech at Al-Azhar and told clerics there that it is time to modernize the Muslim faith, which has put itself at odds with the rest of humanity.

It was the perfect venue for the speech. Al-Azhar is the pinnacle of Sunni Islam's education system. It is influential not just in Egypt, but throughout the world. Al-Azhar has educated many of the leaders of Islamic fundamentalist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi groups.

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