Maximum Authority.

By: Ahmed M. ElNahhas – Montopoli, June 8^th 2015.

The Sant’Egidio Community, organiser and coordinator of the International Convention on “East & West – A Civilisations’ Dialogue”; invited Al Azhar Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmad A’Tayyeb to participate. According to the founder of the Community, Andrea Riccardi, “A’Tayyeb, being the Maximum Religious Authority over the Muslim Sunni World; is the only credible authority to take part in the event and with whom a confrontation would be fruitful”.

Despite the tight schedules on the convention’s agenda, having involved, in a short lap of time, various seminars, presentations, workshops and round tables; A’Tayyeb conceded 10 minutes to European Media reporters.. Here is the outcome.

Q. Today, Islam is being shaken by an extremely hard Intestinal War. There is a group, that by its own name – Islamic State – sustains its interpreting the truest essence of your religion. How would you respond?

A. I don’t approve the definition of Islamic State; those are a group outcast from Islam.. They represent a challenge to all the Islamic Thought. We are a Scientific Institution aiming to arm the young ones not with guns but with the correct reading of Islam.

Q. In the Muslim World, the overlapping between Religion and Politics is a factor of major contribution in this confusion. Do you think it would be possible separating them?

A. They are already two different methodologies. In politics, often interests condition the decisions; whereby for the Religion Ethic is inalienable. If we’d refer to High Politics, the one that establish Justice and Protect the Weak; then YES, religion invades the Politics’ arena to intervene in support of such Supreme Values.

Q. Turkey is a case of superimposition, or overlapping, combining Religion and State Politics; what do you think of the latest election’s outcome?

A. I don’t make politics, then I can’t give an answer. But certainly what is seen today must be observed in its overall situation by which appears a kind of ‘Tense Encounter’ between Eastern and Western Civilisations.

Q. How are the relations with Pope Francis’ Church?

A. Pope Francis is a person whose heart cherishes respect for other Faiths and the problems of the poor. There is a convergence toeing the objectives of Al Azhar and those of the Church’s new course.

I don’t know what you’d make of that or how would you describe A’Tayyeb’s statements; but I believe that he roamed around the most important issue aroused by the first question.. The issue that discomfort major part of the Western Public Opinion, as well as the entire Western Intellectual Community; concerning whether or not the self-proclaimed Islamic State do interpret the true essence of Islam! He simply discarded the matter by the cliché “a group outcast from Islam”.

Even though he affirmed that “they represent a challenge to all the Islamic Thought”; I hoped that he would’ve elaborated more.. Like saying that Al Azhar is, or will, invite Muslim scholars and intellectuals, from every Islamic Sect to an International Islamic Reconciliation Council, to be held in Cairo; aiming to review that challenge. And that all united would work together to refine, or update, the Islamic Thoughts; clearing them from the sharp edges of rust glued on them, over centuries of uncontrolled interpretations and infiltrations.

Obviously his professional formation and conservative culture forced him to remain vague.. Or maybe he refrained from deepening the subject, leaving that to the closed doors debates of the conference.

On another occasion, knowing that he always claimed that Al Azhar is an Independent Institution, he wasn’t convincing at all in trying to address the Religion Politics Overlapping issue. Naturally, he couldn’t admit the complete dependency of Al Azhar on the State; being a waged subordinate to its Executive Authority.

Pass On The Word.

Humanity? A hopeless case.

By: Ahmed M. ElNahas – Firenze, May 27th 2015.

Terror, fear, torture, mutilation, rape, extortion, enslavement, desperation or death.. The horrors of man’s worst invention: WAR. The reasons for which hundreds of thousands men, women and children have been, and still are, fleeing their homelands each in search for a dream: safety, wealth, opportunity, job, marriage, freedom, liberty, education…etc.. Yet the majority of them, along with their dreams, die!

They cross the deserts and they die.. They cross the seas and they die.. Meetings are held in New York, in Geneva and in Brussels yet still they continue to die.. Politicians talk, tweet and chat while they die.. The EU Commission recommend welcoming norms and they die.. Italian Parliament legislate for their delinquency and they die.. Maltese and Spanish Cost Guards shoots on their fortune boats and they die.. African leaders dispense free promises and they die.. European farming firms enslave them and they die.. They are dying by the thousands while a handful of “Businessmen and Women” on both sides of the Mediterranean are making their life’s fortunes.

They are so desperate as to bet their lives on taking chances between:

·         dying in the desert, or

·         dying at sea, or

·         being locked up for months or years in jails falsely named “Welcoming Centres”, or

·         getting extradited back to the starting point and losing everything, or

·         somehow acquiring the luck to work like slaves in European farms, or

·         getting really lucky to obtain an Exile Permit after several years of humiliation and exclusions.

Anyhow, if not their lives are at stake; they will lose all what they have risked for in the first place.. Their Dreams.

Since the early 20^th century until now, the Mediterranean have swallowed over 20000 of them; and only God knows how many have perished while crossing the deserts on foot or on trucks.. Even inside the Libyan “Recovery Centres” (jails financed by the European Community) duly converted into ‘State Subsidised’ transit zones in their desperate ordeal waiting to board the floating coffins.

Parliaments and Governments do not hesitate for a glimpse of an eye while voting in favour of war; and their belligerent financial and logistic contributions are ready to go at a moment’s notice.. But when it comes to saving lives (others of course) they take all the time in the world, and the topics helming their agendas’ priority list become “Domestic Unease and Security Hazards”.

Recent experiences proved that most, if not all, of the international timid and slim Humanitarian Aid efforts, other than being politically manipulated and officially mismanaged, were targeting explicitly the prevalent superiority of one part of a given conflict over the other(s)!! See the difficulties and bureaucratic obstacles implanted before all the UN Organisations and NGOs operating in the fields of Refugees, Aid and Relief in every part of our planet.

As today’s world is swerving towards ‘Right’, and National Parties from every colour are winning grounds all over the globe; dividing and discriminating entire populations has become the moment’s socio-politico-cultural vogue carried over various racial, ethnic, sectarian and religious perceptions, and all are commonly blinded by the “US vs. THEM”  spotlights; unable to see the fading light of a candlelight called “TOGETHER”.

Therefor, an inevitable “Regression Backward” is likely the most logic opposed reaction to cripple our existence. I think that many tangible present facts do support this conclusion of mine.

Pass On The Word.

Once upon a time, there was the “Separation Of Powers”..*

By: Peter Gomez; translated By: Ahmed M. ElNahas.. Firenze, May 23^rd 2015.

In his usual elegant style, the Italian constitutionalist Michele Ainis writes: “In these times of crisis, even the old separation between powers has become a Lux; to the Juridical power serve major Political Sensibility as much as major juridical sensibility would serve to the Political power.. There are also a need for communication channels and structures for liaisons”.

In an attempt to discredit the Constitutional Court sentence, which blocked the Pensions Indexation Bill announcing it unconstitutional; Carlo Padoan, the Italian Minister of Economy, argued that “The Court didn’t carefully evaluated the financial hole that the sentence will create”; and that he finds himself “puzzled because the Judges sustain themselves not obliged to make any sort of economic analysis regarding the consequences of their measures”; the Minister, while tracing his view of a way out from the crisis, promoted the idea of “a dialogue” between the ‘Independent Organs of the State’; he also see the answer in “sharing information concerning the accounts of the State with the Court”!

To defend these claims, the Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, stepped forward and with an apparent reasonability said: “The Constitutional Court has made its sentence, we have respected it; now it is a question of working together so as the recovery signals in sight may grow stronger and consolidate”.

However, having a Constitution in force, the Constitutional Court does not have to work together with no one. Its judges remain in their seats exclusively to control the total respect of the Chart. They must verify what the political power is doing, even though it nominates them in part. “Channels of Communication” or “Structures for Liaisons” are not admitted or even supposed to be allowed.

They have overlooked the fact that a sentence which foiled the robbery of pensions, has left for the legislator the possibility to beat many other ways. If, for example, the pension is a “Postponed Retribution” then it is logic to ask ourselves whether it’s right or not treating in the same way and measure, a person who receives a pension based upon the Contributions Actually Deposited and a the one who, instead, is pocketing the pension on the basis of the Average Retributions Received through the last working years?!

Because, in the end, in order to avoid crossing out the law and economise; there is no need for “Channels of Communication”.. Only little preparation and lots of common sense are best needed.

Pass On The Word.

* The article appeared on ‘La Repubblica’ of May 23^rd 2015.

Social Seismic Events.

Excerpts from Mr. Vittorio Zucconi’s “Warning to the White House”.

Translated by: Ahmed M. ElNahas – Montopoli, April 30^th 2015.

Dear Friends,

I have chosen for you today few paragraphs from an impressive article published on yesterday’s edition of ‘La Repubblica’ simultaneously with the ‘Guardian’, in which Mr. Zucconi is trying to comprehend what is really going on in an “Intestinal War” that could overwhelm the entire American society.. The kind of war(s)* that Uncle Sam have already engineered and exported towards many parts of our planet.

a)      “It is absolutely futile saying whether what occurred in Baltimore last Monday night could be another ground settling tremor of the same earthquake or the aggravation of the same social and racial seism; indeed because the geologic metaphor should be applied to what is happening at the Urban War Front. Where under the crust of Racial Pacification, beneath the strong and evident flourishing of a New Social Class of successful Afro-Americans that, right here in Washington with President Obama and in Baltimore with Mayor Stephanie Blake, the Tectonic Plaques of hate and incomprehension continue to press one against the other producing periodic, yet inevitable, stirring movements”.

b)      “The success attributed to new social classes of Afro-Americans, together with other advancing populations of Latinos and Asian recent emigrants, has made it more splitting the condition of those who have lost the train of opportunities forged from the great battle for Civil Rights back in the 60s and 70s of last century”.

c)      “The desperate sense of being condemned to remain at the bottom of the social barrel, not important by own or others’ responsibility, renders every contact with the harsh and immediate expression of Power, for those castaways and refugees of the Ethnic Revolution, a confirmation to Inequity by now entrusted to the ones who seem, but aren’t anymore, Brothers and Sisters of the Colour”.

d)      “Nothing could be more atrocious then feeling emarginated not by the usual bad slaver, but by one’s own equals.. In those Cotton Fields that today have been turned into Cement Deserts”.

Pass On The Word.

*The present US social conflict is still contained within an ETHNIC perspective and haven’t yet reached the Civil War event; while elsewhere the nature of the conflict has turned out to be a Civil War type reasons of which vary from Ethnic to Sectarian to Religious to Doctrinal to Cultural to Social to Economic..

Conclusion:

What I want from our Ulemàa ﻋﻟﻣﺎﺀ

By: Ahmed M. ElNahas – Castelfiorentino , May 4^th 2015.

“Soldatessa Del Califfato – il racconto della miliziana fuggita dall’ISIS”* (lietrally: Woman Soldier of the Caliphate – The accounts of a Militant who escaped from ISIS), an interesting book that, just few days ago, came to light in most of Italy’s libraries and news-stands. The authors, a couple of investigative journalists, were able to meet and interview the young Tunisian woman who went to Syria hoping to assist her beloved husband building a “Perfect New World”; but shortly after decided to escape being unable to match hopes with means.

Aisha, a fictitious name chosen by the authors for the young woman as not to disclose her real identity, was a young beautiful strong intelligent Tunisian girl from a moderate middle class family with a Sunni observance. She graduated in Information Technology with perfect practical knowledge of French and English languages.

Bekir, also Tunisian Sunni, the beautiful young man with a promising soccer player career and a brilliant student, was her true love but also her perdition.. He suddenly disappeared, and after several months reappeared via chat explaining his new life as a soldier of the Caliphate.

Let’s hear what Aisha said: “…he asked me to follow him in Syria where we shall marry and live in the best possible world.. A world that he is contributing in building under the guidance of the Caliph Al Baghdadi”. At that point of her life, Aisha decided to become a Pilgrim Spouse.. A Muhajirah.. Who’d transfer to Syria where she“.. discovered hell”.

I will not go into all the details of her accounts, regarding the atrocities she met and saw; but in few lines I can synthesise her confessions after defecting from the ranks of ISIS (or ISIL if you wish).

“In Tunisia, I could have never found a stable professional engagement; and I had no intention to migrate like my sister who’s working as a slave in European restaurants for a morsel of bread…”. After reaching Syria, through a distressing, dangerous and adventurous voyage, she finally met her love Bekir who became “…ugly, black his bearded and black the outfit he’s wearing.. We got married without a ceremony and I’ve lost the joy of that event because of the Caliphate”.

At first, after getting married, she was “assigned to Al Khansàa Brigade as adept to Digital Warfare for $200.ₒₒ/month; the Caliphate procured us a house (confiscated from a Christian family) and guaranteed a $20,000.ₒₒ compensation in case of my husband’s death..”. Money was not a problem to the Caliphate since fluently and constantly pouring in from Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Libya, Russia and even from the Chechen Republic. Every recruiter, head hunting in North Africa and other parts of the world, gets between $3,000.ₒₒ to $10,000.ₒₒ for each new entry.. A flourishing business.

When Aisha discovered that among the tasks assigned to her, as part of the work routine of Al Khansàa Brigade, was exercising the role of “Moral Police” (which reminded me of George Orwell’s 1984) where the soldier women, says Aisha “all fully covered inside black dress showing only cruel cold menacing eyes,  unexpressive and heartlessly without a soul, would march the streets in platoon formation; to entre homes and schools to control that students and teachers are wearing the Veil adequately.. We battered women and girls caught smoking or listening to music”.

But according to Aisha, her worst nightmare materialised when she had to join in the inspection of what she called “..the sex camps where female Infidel prisoners were forced to submit to rape by, or consensually give free sexual performance(s) to, the Caliphate Soldiers.. Many of them preferred death and committed suicide, that’s why they were obliged to remain completely nude at all times.. The Yazidi women were sold as slaves in those camps to the soldiers for no more than $30.ₒₒ.. They were just abandoned lacerated corps and meat piles..”.

The day when Bekir told her the details of the “Children Massacre” as per the Mosul scenario, where Christian families who refuse to convert were lined up in the main square and exterminated, was “..the moment when I immediately desired to break away from him. I didn’t have any wish to hug him or sleep in his arms and feel his breathing on my hair”.

These are the excerpts I chose here. Statements of an average Arab Muslim girl, innocent in her dreams and hopes who couldn’t understand why she was thrown into that crucible of unlimited and immeasurable violence.

At this point, I prefer to pass on to our most esteemed religious references (Ulemàa) the following interrogatives:

a)      In a modern world where life has become so complicated yet interlaced by Globalisation and Information Revolution; a world where the issues to debate are the ‘New Ideas’ of Human Rights, Transparency, Abolition of Death Penalty, Sexual Liberties and Orientations, Gender Equality, Scientific Research, Adoption, Assisted Fecundation, Co-Living as a substitute to Marriage, Equal Sexes Matrimonies, the Secular vs. Religious… Etc.; a world that has already made amends for its past crimes (The Massacres committed by the Christian Inquisition all over the world; the blood shed among Eastern and Western Churches; the atrocities of wars, slave trade, and many Crimes Against Humanity catalogued or not made by the hands of those who follow every faith or belief); in such a world as ours today,  a world that has finally discovered ways by which Science and Religion would peacefully co-exist, is it considered legitimate or even reasonable the call to return to the Middle Ages? ISIS, by their practices incompatible with Modern Age as we conceive it, is actually opting for that particular aim: bring the entire world back 15 centuries to a new era of conquest and conflict for dominance.

b)      Moreover, how would you,  our most esteemed religious references, judge Aisha? That average Muslim young girl, modestly educated, who passed directly to womanhood without living the hopes and goals of her adolescence, when she says: “Today I live in misery.. My soul has become a desert the moment I decided to help a mad world.. I think that my God will not condemn me when I’ll stand before Him. Because I am already serving my punishment here in life”.

Having said that, here is a statement I’d like to partake with you just as a reminder:

While addressing the seminar of Human Rights NGO ‘Oasis Foundation’ held in Tunis the Capital last month, Mr. Moncef Al Marzouqi – former President of Tunisia – said:

“The Tunisian Revolution can be distinguished for having been neither a Religious Revolution nor a Secular one; it has out-fashioned those sterile oppositions for the sake of Dignity and for Liberty.. The issue of Religious Liberty shouldn’t be thought of separately from the Citizenship issue hence from Democracy itself and its ensemble of values and mechanisms helmed by Freedom Of Expression. Challenges are numerous and the sources for worry are many, nonetheless the pessimistic manner by which most preoccupied western commentators offer to the Arab World should vanish away. The debates over Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Belief or even the Sense of The Sacred itself are not a Tunisian or an Islamic exclusivity”.

Pass On the Word.

*Published by Imprimatur editors; interviewed, reported and written by Giuseppe Iannini and Simone De Meo.

Crime and Punishment.

By: Ahmed M. ElNahas – Pisa, April 15^th 2015.

“Criminal Acts must be firmly and swiftly met by the adequate means; and punished, in correspondence with their gravity onto the security, health and peaceful co-existence among members of the society and the level of jeopardy they impose on the sovereignty of the State; in appliance with the agreed and established sources of legislation as set by the Constitution”.

This is what Jurisprudence is all about.. Ever since the Ancient Civilisations. Even the first documented sources for Civil and Penal Codes, as the Hammurabi Code, were carefully and meticulously designed to control and protect the Society.. Whereby all members of the Society, collectively, would stand equal before the LAW.

Today, each society living on our planet has established, to a certain extent, these principles and ensured, more or less, their compliance with its own understanding of Justice!

But, some questions are still unanswered:

a)      Are all Crimes indictable?

b)      Are they really punishable by Law?

c)      Are all criminals liable to prosecution?

The answer to these interrogatives, in my opinion and according to practical observation, is NO!! If you’re surprised, let me give you some hints and examples that I assume we all know, and that many of us have had some sort of contact with one or more of:

Ø  Those who imported for years radioactive wheat from the country(ies) contaminated by the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor’s disaster..

Ø  Those who allowed the cultivation of Genetically Modified corn and cereals seeds..

Ø  Those who monopolised the stocking and distribution of harmful fertilisers and pesticides..

Ø  Those who turned the other side while toxic industrial waste have been (and still is) freely disposed in rivers and irrigation canals..

Ø  Those who allowed the construction of Petro-Chemical plants and Oil Refineries close to urban areas or over fertile cultivable lands..

Ø  Those who knew, by profession, that Powder Milk is not only inadequate to child’s healthy growing and instead obliged the mothers to use it as the best alternative to Natural Breast Feeding..

Ø  Those who build housing and business structures against the established measures for safety norms or abusive of documentation, and contrary to the approved specifications..

Ø  Those who reduce their business expenses by cutting on maintenance, wages and training thus crediting their profits..

Ø  Those who abuse of the Nation’s Resources..

Ø  Those who manipulated the legislative procedures to provide laws, decrees and regulations suitable only for the prosperity of certain private interests; in complete consciousness of harming the majority and its collective good..

And many more examples that one can still detect in many domains, and would consume large encyclopedic volumes to compute; as in: school, media, health-care, administration, finance, politics, employment, industry, trade, tourism, transport..etc.

They all are causing damage on the individual and the society; because of “the gravity of their activities onto the security, health and co-existence among members of the society”; also because of the inestimable “level of jeopardy they impose on the Sovereignty of the State”.

So, aren’t we talking here about Crimes and Criminals? Criminals who committed, with persistence and utmost certainty of their impunity, Crimes causing lethal diseases with elevated death rate and engaging burdening high curing costs (Cancer, Hepatitis, Kidney Dialysis, Child Rickety, Embryonic Malformation…etc.); and they are still unidentifiable, non-indictable, non-punishable by law, and non-liable to prosecution!!

And how about those who accepted to be bribed, in any way*, for decades to let similar Crimes prevail and those Criminals free?

Pass On The Word.

583200mns of airing time for a hand shake??

By: Ahmed M. ElNahas – Firenze, April 12^th 2015

9720hrs (and counting) of airing time on 135 TV networks around the planet, other than the net streaming chronometer mark, to show, analyse, praise and critic the hand shake between Barak Obama and Raul Castro.. Some say it’s a good move, many say it’s an irresponsible one!! I say it’s never too late to do the right thing.

Obama’s hand shake with Raul Castro marked a new chapter in both the New World Order’s agenda and the World’s History Log. Personally, I can’t tell for certain if that chapter would be the preface to a sequel or the epilogue of an absurd thriller.. One that most people think has started with the ‘Bay Of Pigs’ disaster and the ‘Missiles Crisis’, back in the late fifties and early sixties of last century.

Well, it started much earlier my friends.. To be precise in 1823 with the declaration of what became known as the ‘Monroe Doctrine’ (named after President James Monroe); at first it seemed an anthem for anti-colonialist ideals; as by that time many Latin American states were gaining their independence, and the United States have just slipped off the grasp of the British Crown; so it wanted to prevent that the sub-continent becomes a war zone where the European Empires could freely run about for conquest.

There were always the risk that the territories lost by the Spanish and Portuguese crowns could turn into an easy prey to the British or French; hence the famous warning of Monroe while addressing the nation yet turning his looks towards the European Crowns “…lay down your hands from Latin America.. Whomever would intervene militarily in that area, will be declaring an aggression on the United States of America”.

However, by the closure of the 19^th century and the rapid growth of the US economic and financial muscles, the Monroe doctrine became twisted and distorted to satisfy America’s hunger for new markets.. In 1898 President William McKinley launched a war against Spain; he won but and instead of guaranteeing the independence of Cuba, he declared it a US protectorate.

Ever since then, the United States never seized to intervene in Latin America, sometimes openly by its marines and most of the time by its CIA agents, turning it into its own “Back-Yard”.. Ted Roosevelt used to say in private and in public  that “one must protect and defend his own back-yard”!!

Nevertheless, the moment Obama shook the hand of Raul Castro, all western media said that this historic moment ended years of aggression!! Very few did talk about the 50 years of international embargo against a poor nation with no resources.

Cuba never posed a direct threat on the USA; the Soviet Union did..  Using Cuban lands.. The Soviet Bear exits no more since three decades, yet the embargo remained sealing the fate of the few million Cubans still living on that Caribbean island.. Not because it slipped the hands of the United States the day Fidel Castro declared his revolution liberating Cuba from the hands of a Marionette President placed by US National Security Agency, but because Fidel was a communist, and “the US cannot afford a communist règime in its own back-yard”.

For two centuries, all states south of the Rio Grande were ‘monitored and controlled’ by the American Hawk.. Ever since the fifties of last century, Latin American countries were restrained to a sort of “Limited Sovereignty”, same as the Soviet Satellite States in East Europe; though the Americans, contrary to Soviets who almost always deploy their war machine, use a much softer methods.. They just sponsor, impose and endorse Dictators that are both loyal and proven anti-communist; or using the CIA and similar agencies to convince, substitute or even eliminate (physically if needed) those who refuse or resist.

We’ll soon know for sure if that historic hand shake was a good move or an irresponsible one.. All we need to do is wait and observe the coming Presidential Race to the White House.

Pass On The Word.

Wounds may heal.. Scars remain.

By: Ahmed M. ELNAHAS – Montopoli, April 10^th 2015.

Objectively speaking.. What’s really at stake?

Dr. Bernard Haykel (scholar of Princeton University) reflects a common western vision when stating that “…people want to absolve Islam repeating like a Mantra that Islam is a religion of PEACE.. As if you could speak of Islam.. Islam is what Muslims do and the way they interpret their tests.. Tests that are common to All Muslims”..

Same as how other faiths are interpreted and applied by their followers I assume.. But today, debating that is of no prior concern of mine, because what I do fear the most is that we, the simple modern moderate Muslims, will keep on suffering as our esteemed religious and political references continue liquidating the entire matter of ISIL – as well as all the other groups more or less fanatic or cruel - as “NON-ISLAMIC” just to calm the waters by repeating that those have distorted and twisted the tests. (For more focus on the subject I refer you to Mr. Graeme Wood analysis ‘What ISIS really Want’.. Just search your web browser for Graeme Wood or the article itself).

Focussing on the acts while excluding the ideology will never give us a fair chance to confront that danger; and would allow that conflict to slide quickly into my worst nightmare: Global Islamic Slaughter.. Where everybody kills everybody in the name of whatever reason: liquidating apostates, defending minorities, alienating fanatic ideologies, fighting terrorism, humanitarian intervention, protecting cultural heritage, establishing democracy, upholding Human & Civil Rights…Etc. There are an infinity of reasons that can, and will, be used and preached to endorse the Business Of War!

In the end of the day, one cannot still say that the ongoing wars are against “Terror, Terrorists and Terrorism”; because by now it is quit obvious that the parties directly engaged in killing each other, regardless of what they stand for or believe in, are: the Shia (Iran, Hezb’Allah, the Houthi rebels in Yemen and their sponsors), the so called Moderate Sunni (Suadi Arabia’s conservative Wahabi  régime and its Arab Allies mostly liberal, laics and/or seculars) and the Radical Sunni and Shia movements (ISIL, Houthi and part of Al QAEDA along with many other emulators who consider all other but themselves as apostates “INFEDELS” and must be judged as such according to the rulings of the Holy Quran)!! Yet they are all Muslims!! More or less believers.. More or less practising.. More or less independent!!

Having said that, I couldn’t free my tired mind from the thought that the ongoing fierce and bloody conflict, in its very abstract nature, is a blunt confrontation that opposes the sacred natural “DIVINE LAW” to the profane man-made “POSITIVE LAW”.. A clear cut confrontation into the core definition of each..

Whereby the first, representing the supreme expression of “Justice”, remains immutable as it regulates the entire complexity of both individual and collective “LIVING”; but above all depends, as to its subject matter, on the opinions or superstitions of each human being whom, through these cultural and intellectual filters, will interpret and consequently apply it..

Instead the second, right or wrong it may be, regulates single aspects of the social life, stating objective and non ambiguous rules and norms that are obligatory to all citizens. As such, it can be modified or abrogated in function with the society’s social, political and economic evolution.

The radical Islamic fanatics (ISIL and other similar or affiliated groups) are implementing to the letter all the laws as described by the verses of the Holy Quran, especially with regard to war and conquest. And the Moderate Muslim references wear their forces finding ways to contrast that fact liquidating it by simply saying “.. it is not Islam”! While the rest of the world stands idly not knowing exactly who’s right and who’s wrong.. Which part do represent the last Monotheist Divine Doctrine and hold high its banner.

Western intellectuals, scholars and critics alike share a vision in that regard, that can be synthesized as follows: “Sharia being a divine law no doubt, thus immutable; it is interpreted and applied by the ministers* of God who has emanated it in the first place, and as such it coincides with the law of the Most Powerful, who have the concrete possibility to impose ‘his’ natural law on the others”. (*Imams, Emirs, Mullah, Sheikh…etc.)   

At this point, I’d forward my quest to the international Muslim society, Muslim Intellectuals, Muslim Scholars, Muslim Hierarchies and Muslim References everywhere in the world from each side of the three parts that are actually tearing each other in a war that is resuscitating old wounds from a far unburied tribal rivalries that will lead to nothing but an epical pause in human history made of painful regret, because the signs are not just alarming, they are horrifying!!

Here is my quest:

Shouldn’t you find in yourselves what may be left of Moral Courage to address this pressing issue (divine law vs. man law) instead of brainstorming ways to excommunicate and condemn each other?

You have for long abandoned your role and duty.. The heavy burden of teaching, tutoring and informing by adequately examining the timely evolution of the world and that of your societies; and to provide an indisputable demonstration that ISLAM as a constitutional set of social, political, economic and civil rules and norms, is adequately suitable for Modern Liberal Times.

For too long you have denied, for your own political and survival reasons, the importance of transparent teaching; by keeping the most important and significant transcriptions heritage of the elders in secret custody where only the lucky few of your ‘Cast’ have access to (just consider the shallowness of the intellectual and cultural levels that Imams in the mosques and their Ritual Callers enjoy to realise the enormity of the damage**); as such you’ve allowed ignorance and superficiality to reign over the individual interpretations of Islam as a way of life, reducing it to the mere practicing of certain rituals related to Islam’s five pillars of belief.

By such neglect you’ve procured an irreversible involution to your societies, thus offering a huge cultural void to be filled by too many adventurers and many more ignorant rulers; a lethal mix that hatched this present disaster.

But then again I suppose that it’s not wise to seek a solution to a problem from the ones who caused it in the first place.. Don’t you think??

Pass On The Word.

**From the contemporaneous Arabic Library I’d like to refer you to the late Mr. Yahia Haqqy’s master piece “Qandeel Om Hashem”; as well as to the Dean Of Arabic Literature Mr. Taha Hussein’s “Al Ayam”; just as a sample because in those works you’ll find the impact of our teachers’ ignorance on our life and living.. And still today, if you go to the inside villages of Egypt, or any other Muslim country, you’ll find the same traditional prepotency of folkloric and superstitious interpretation of the Doctrine.