Why an Islamic Government in Egypt Might Not Be So Terrible - New America Media
The current unrest in Egypt is once again raising the specter of a potential “Islamic republic” as the fortunes of the nearly century-old Muslim Brotherhood and its role in a possible post-Mubarak state there are weighed in the minds of Egyptians and non-Egyptians alike. This prospect is met with a great deal of consternation and hand-wringing in the United States and Europe. However, the idea of an Islamic republic in the minds of Western observers is far worse than the reality.
The symbolic value of “Islamic governance” is of critical importance for Muslims, since as a matter of faith, Islam is supposed to be the governing principle for all of human life. However, theologically speaking, even if a nation labels itself as an Islamic republic, all government structures would not necessarily be determined by Islamic Shari'a (sacred law). Moreover, even those aspects of governance that appear to be directly determined by Shari'a principles are subject to interpretation by religious officials, many of whom disagree on their application.
Beyond this, Islamic government incorporates a broad set of ethical principles that few in the West would disagree with, namely that public resources should be used for the good of all, that honesty should be a hallmark of public life, and that the poor, sick and disadvantaged should be provided for.
Most Americans look at the term “Islamic republic” and immediately think of Iran, with clerical rule, mandatory head covering for women, and prohibitions on various forms of public and private behavior. However, the Iranian government is in some ways an anomaly in the Muslim world because it is very specifically based on a bedrock principle of the Velayat-e Faqih, or “rule of the chief jurisprudent,” which mandates a hierarchy of clerical decision-making with the chief cleric being the last word on all decisions. The Iranian state structure is a miracle of complexity with interlocking leadership positions, staggered election terms, and baroque combinations of direct and indirect election of leadership posts.
In other countries where Shari’a principles are included in the law, this doctrine is anathema, though clerical authority is nonetheless imperative. Thus, it is highly unlikely that any emerging Islamic state would mandate total clerical jurisprudence as in Iran.
Of course, Islam does have a specific set of laws that pious Muslims want to see an Islamic state preserve and protect. These include family law (including custody of children), inheritance law, laws against charging interest, laws governing certain aspects of personal behavior (such as personal dress), and specific punishments for certain crimes. These are frequently the battleground areas for those who want to protect the Islamic nature of the state, and those who want to approximate the secular laws of Europe and North America.
However, most people who object to Shari'a law have no idea how it is applied in the Islamic world. The laws are modified differently from country to country depending on who is making the religious determination and how strongly they are imbedded in the constitution and other legal documents of the state. For example, in some Muslim countries, the law that allows a man to have four wives is modified by the equally important religious demand that he prove that he will be able to treat all of his wives equally. In some Muslim countries, devices such as requiring written permission from the earlier wives before a second, third or fourth marriage can take place keep this practice in check, while still preserving the Islamic law.
Naturally, many in the United States and Israel are afraid that an Islamic government in Egypt would spell renewed hostilities with Israel. This depends entirely on the ability of moderate Muslims, of which there are millions in Egypt, to exert political control over the small minority of rabid extremists in the state. It is thus a political, not a religious question. The benefits of peace with Israel have been very great, and a sensible Muslim citizenry realizes that this is not something to renege on lightly.
It is also important to understand that under religious law, an Islamic government must be in place in order to protect religious minorities. Jews and Christians are all "people of the book," whose religious practices must be respected under Islamic law. This protection has been logically extended to Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, and Taoists in South and East Asia in de facto observance. For example, in Iran, Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians are allowed to manufacture, sell and consume alcoholic beverages, even though alcohol is prohibited for Muslims.
It is somewhat odd that Western commentators find it difficult to accept the desire to preserve a small number of characteristic religious structures in the laws of the state, when many of their countries already do so. Israeli law accommodates Orthodox Jewish religious practice. European nations until recently had prohibitions against divorce and abortion to uphold Catholic Canon Law. The opposition to same-sex marriage on religious grounds is a reality in American politics today, having resulted in legal prohibition in the laws of the majority of states. In fact, many religious-minded people in the United States would find such laws welcome, and regularly lobby for them.
There should be no interference to impose some imagined set of secular Western values on Egypt, given the serious problems that legislators would have to face. The United States in particular would do well not to obsess over the potential Islamic nature of the Egyptian state.
William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the department of anthropology at the University of Minnesota. He has lived and worked in the Middle East for more than 30 years. His most recent book is “The ‘Great Satan’ vs. the ‘Mad Mullahs’: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other” (Chicago).
Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Hamas is Not Iran's Puppet--William O. Beeman (New America Media)
Hamas is Not Iran's Puppet
New America Media, Commentary, William O. Beeman, Posted: Dec 31, 2008
Editor’s Note: The popular wisdom that Iran is pulling the strings behind
Hamas doesn’t take into account the geography of Gaza argues William O.
Beeman. Beeman is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at
the University of Minnesota and past-president of the Middle East Section
of the American Anthropological Association. He is the author of “The
‘Great Satan’ vs. the ‘Mad Mullahs’: How the United States and Iran
Demonize Each Other,” published by the University of Chicago Press
(2008).
________________________
The conflict between Israel and Hamas is not a proxy war between Israel and
Iran. This is a myth that has grown up during the Bush administration, and
is now widely promulgated with little or no support.
Iran has, it is true, been sympathetic to the Hamas situation, particularly
since the U.S.-endorsed Palestinian elections of 2006, when Hamas won a
plurality of votes, allowing it to form a government. Subsequently, the new
Palestinian government was rejected by Israel and the United States, and an
economic embargo plunged the Palestinians into economic chaos. At that
point Iran provided substantial humanitarian aid.
In the present conflict, Iran is also sending two ships to provide
humanitarian assistance.
However, American and Israeli analysts would have the world believe that
Hamas could not carry out any actions against Israel if they were not
directed by Iran. As George Joffee of the Cambridge Centre of International
Studies maintained in 2006 in an interview with U.S.-based Radio Free
Europe and Radio Liberty, “The Israeli government has alleged that
indirectly through Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran is engaged in trying to
control the events inside the Occupied Territories and there have been
allegations with no proof at all, of involvement in some of the more
violent activities there. Those links I suspect are largely Israeli
propaganda and don't really carry water.”
The same is true today.
No one promulgating the theory that Hamas’s attacks on Israel are
directed by Iran bothers to think much about geography. Hamas has been
effectively sealed off from the world by Israel, and by Egypt. The Israelis
have essentially controlled the import of food and medical supplies. The
idea of Iran shipping arms to Hamas under these conditions is patently
absurd. The rockets launched against Israel that started the current
conflict were clearly homemade, low-level weapons, not sophisticated arms.
A parallel claim is that Iranians are providing training to Hamas. Given
the rhetoric, one would imagine that this is being done on a massive scale.
However, on March 9, 2008 the Times of London reported that 150 Hamas
fighters were being trained in Tehran. Hamas itself claims to have 15,000
fighters, and Israel has millions of potential fighters at its command.
Thus training for a team of 150, if the facts are correct, is hardly much
of a threat to Israel.
Hezbollah in Lebanon is sometimes cited as an Iranian cat’s-paw in the
region, but Hezbollah has no geographical access to Gaza. Therefore they
are limited to leading protests in Lebanon. Timur Goksel, former adviser to
U.N. Peacekeepers in Lebanon, told Reuters News Agency on Dec. 30, “With
all their rhetoric about Palestine, there is not much [Hezbollah] can do
about Gaza, short of getting Lebanon involved in another disaster. So they
are leading the popular reaction.”
Egypt is not a conduit for Iranian arms either. President Hosni Mubarak is
caught in a dilemma with regard to Gaza. He receives aid from the United
States, and has a long-standing peace treaty with Israel. Moreover, his
secular government is desperately afraid of Islamic extremism, which they
see as a threat. Because Hamas has a religious base, not a secular one like
Fatah, its rival for power in the Palestinian community, they are seen as
dangerous. For this reason, Egypt has kept the border crossing to Gaza
firmly closed except for humanitarian emergencies.
Why then does the myth of Iranian military support persist? One reason is
that it has been a long-standing American foreign policy belief that
resistance movements cannot exist without state support. Before Iran was
targeted as the source for support, Libya was the U.S. bogeyman. It is
instructive to look at rhetoric against Libya from the 1980s and see that
exactly the same accusations that were leveled at Libya then are being
hurled at Iran today.
Finally, Iran does not help matters. The rhetoric of the original Iranian
revolution is still alive and well in some segments of Iranian political
life. Iran ousted a Western-supported leader, the Shah, and tried in the
early days of the revolution to promulgate this action elsewhere in the
Middle East. Hezbollah and Hamas were sympathetic rhetorical partners. Iran
supported Hezbollah in its early days, but no longer controls its
operations. Iran had nothing to do with the founding of Hamas, but sees its
conflict with Israel as sympathetic with its revolutionary ideals. This
does not mean that Iran is controlling the action.
The more apoplectic visions of Iranian involvement see Iran developing
nuclear weapons and supplying them to both Hezbollah and Hamas. However,
not only is there no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program; the
simple logistics of transfer of such weapons to a place like Gaza are
virtually impossible.
For Israel, and the world, blaming Iran for its troubles with Hamas does
not advance the peace process. Nor would attacking Iran mitigate in any way
the tensions that exist between Israel and its neighbors.
(Note: Please consult the original article for links to references and footnotes to quoted sources)
New America Media, Commentary, William O. Beeman, Posted: Dec 31, 2008
Editor’s Note: The popular wisdom that Iran is pulling the strings behind
Hamas doesn’t take into account the geography of Gaza argues William O.
Beeman. Beeman is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at
the University of Minnesota and past-president of the Middle East Section
of the American Anthropological Association. He is the author of “The
‘Great Satan’ vs. the ‘Mad Mullahs’: How the United States and Iran
Demonize Each Other,” published by the University of Chicago Press
(2008).
________________________
The conflict between Israel and Hamas is not a proxy war between Israel and
Iran. This is a myth that has grown up during the Bush administration, and
is now widely promulgated with little or no support.
Iran has, it is true, been sympathetic to the Hamas situation, particularly
since the U.S.-endorsed Palestinian elections of 2006, when Hamas won a
plurality of votes, allowing it to form a government. Subsequently, the new
Palestinian government was rejected by Israel and the United States, and an
economic embargo plunged the Palestinians into economic chaos. At that
point Iran provided substantial humanitarian aid.
In the present conflict, Iran is also sending two ships to provide
humanitarian assistance.
However, American and Israeli analysts would have the world believe that
Hamas could not carry out any actions against Israel if they were not
directed by Iran. As George Joffee of the Cambridge Centre of International
Studies maintained in 2006 in an interview with U.S.-based Radio Free
Europe and Radio Liberty, “The Israeli government has alleged that
indirectly through Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran is engaged in trying to
control the events inside the Occupied Territories and there have been
allegations with no proof at all, of involvement in some of the more
violent activities there. Those links I suspect are largely Israeli
propaganda and don't really carry water.”
The same is true today.
No one promulgating the theory that Hamas’s attacks on Israel are
directed by Iran bothers to think much about geography. Hamas has been
effectively sealed off from the world by Israel, and by Egypt. The Israelis
have essentially controlled the import of food and medical supplies. The
idea of Iran shipping arms to Hamas under these conditions is patently
absurd. The rockets launched against Israel that started the current
conflict were clearly homemade, low-level weapons, not sophisticated arms.
A parallel claim is that Iranians are providing training to Hamas. Given
the rhetoric, one would imagine that this is being done on a massive scale.
However, on March 9, 2008 the Times of London reported that 150 Hamas
fighters were being trained in Tehran. Hamas itself claims to have 15,000
fighters, and Israel has millions of potential fighters at its command.
Thus training for a team of 150, if the facts are correct, is hardly much
of a threat to Israel.
Hezbollah in Lebanon is sometimes cited as an Iranian cat’s-paw in the
region, but Hezbollah has no geographical access to Gaza. Therefore they
are limited to leading protests in Lebanon. Timur Goksel, former adviser to
U.N. Peacekeepers in Lebanon, told Reuters News Agency on Dec. 30, “With
all their rhetoric about Palestine, there is not much [Hezbollah] can do
about Gaza, short of getting Lebanon involved in another disaster. So they
are leading the popular reaction.”
Egypt is not a conduit for Iranian arms either. President Hosni Mubarak is
caught in a dilemma with regard to Gaza. He receives aid from the United
States, and has a long-standing peace treaty with Israel. Moreover, his
secular government is desperately afraid of Islamic extremism, which they
see as a threat. Because Hamas has a religious base, not a secular one like
Fatah, its rival for power in the Palestinian community, they are seen as
dangerous. For this reason, Egypt has kept the border crossing to Gaza
firmly closed except for humanitarian emergencies.
Why then does the myth of Iranian military support persist? One reason is
that it has been a long-standing American foreign policy belief that
resistance movements cannot exist without state support. Before Iran was
targeted as the source for support, Libya was the U.S. bogeyman. It is
instructive to look at rhetoric against Libya from the 1980s and see that
exactly the same accusations that were leveled at Libya then are being
hurled at Iran today.
Finally, Iran does not help matters. The rhetoric of the original Iranian
revolution is still alive and well in some segments of Iranian political
life. Iran ousted a Western-supported leader, the Shah, and tried in the
early days of the revolution to promulgate this action elsewhere in the
Middle East. Hezbollah and Hamas were sympathetic rhetorical partners. Iran
supported Hezbollah in its early days, but no longer controls its
operations. Iran had nothing to do with the founding of Hamas, but sees its
conflict with Israel as sympathetic with its revolutionary ideals. This
does not mean that Iran is controlling the action.
The more apoplectic visions of Iranian involvement see Iran developing
nuclear weapons and supplying them to both Hezbollah and Hamas. However,
not only is there no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program; the
simple logistics of transfer of such weapons to a place like Gaza are
virtually impossible.
For Israel, and the world, blaming Iran for its troubles with Hamas does
not advance the peace process. Nor would attacking Iran mitigate in any way
the tensions that exist between Israel and its neighbors.
(Note: Please consult the original article for links to references and footnotes to quoted sources)
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