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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (120984)	12/4/2003 11:55:21 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I still don’t see how anyone familiar with the development of Islam as a political force in SE Asia can call it a “contagion” that spread from the Middle East If it emanates from Saudi-funded mosques and madrassas whose mission is to convert SE Asia to Wahabbi Islam, they can. re: the definition of Islamism. I think Neocon is using Daniel Pipe's definition of Islamism, by which he means a twentieth century ideology with a totalitarian bent, not the 14 century-old religion of Islam. Here's an essay where he explains the difference: Islam and Islamism - Faith and Ideology danielpipes.org

To: Dayuhan who wrote (120984)	12/5/2003 10:39:07 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Muslim Brotherhood From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The Muslim Brotherhood (jamiat al-Ikhwan al-muslimun, literally Society of Muslim Brothers) is an Islamic organization with a political approach to Islam. It was founded in 1928 by Hassan al Banna in Egypt after the collapse of Ottoman Empire. Table of contents [showhide] 1 Ideology 2 Structure 3 History 4 External Links Ideology The Muslim Brotherhood opposes secular tendencies of Islamic nations and wants return to the precepts of the Qur'an, and rejection of Western influences. They also reject Sufi influences. They organize events from prayer meetings to sport clubs for socializing. The organization's motto is as follows: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope” Structure The Brotherhood has branches in 70 countries. They claim to have taken part in most pro-Islamic conflicts, from the Arab-Israeli Wars and the Algerian War of Independence to recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Currently, the Egyptian Brotherhood exists as a militant clandestine group, and has been connected to many underground political operations. In other countries, they have more prominent roles, including parliamentary seats. They have supported (and founded) movements like al-Jihad and al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya in Egypt and mujahedeen groups in Afghanistan. They have also supported establishment of Muslim communities in Europe and America. History The Muslim Brotherhood begun as a youth organization aimed at moral and social reform in Egypt. They regarded Islam as a way of life. Many of its Syrian supporters founded their own branches in their country. One of these was the Aleppo branch, founded in 1935, which became the Brotherhood's Syrian headquarters. The Brotherhood grew as a popular movement as the Party of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimoon. During the 1930s, the Brotherhood became more political in nature and an officially political group in 1939. In 1942, during World War II, Hassan al Banna set up more Brotherhood branches in Transjordan and Palestine. The headquarters of the Syrian branch moved to Damascus in 1944. After World War Two, Egyptian members took violent action against King Farouk’s government. When the organization was banned in Egypt, hundreds moved to Transjordan. Many also participated in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-1949, on the Arab side. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood initially supported Gamal Abd an-Nasser’s secular government and cooperated with it, but resisted left-wing influences. A Muslim Brother assassinated Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi Nokrashi on December 28, 1948. The Brotherhood was banned, and Al Banna himself was killed by government agents in Cairo in February 1949. Muslim Brother Abdul Munim Abdul Rauf tried to kill Nasser on October 26, 1954. The Brotherhood was outlawed again and over 4000 of its members were imprisoned, including Sayed Qutb, the most influential intellectual of the group. He wrote influential books while in prison. More members moved to Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. The organization opposed the alliance Egypt had with the USSR at the time, and opposed the communist influence in Egypt, to the extent that it was reportedly supported by the CIA during the 1960s. In the 1950s, Jordanian members supported King Hussein of Jordan against political opposition and against Nasser’s attempts to overthrow him. When the King banned political parties in Jordan in 1957, the Brotherhood was exempted. The Syrian branch was the next to be banned when Syria joined Egypt in the United Arab Republic (UAR) in 1958. The Brotherhood went underground. When Syria left the UAR 1961, the Brotherhood won 10 seats in the next elections. However, the Ba’th coup in 1963 forced them underground once more, alongside all the other political groups. The Saudi Arabian branch convinced king Ibn Saud to let them start the Islamic University in Medina in 1961. After the Six-Day War in 1967, the movement as a whole split into moderates and radicals. The latter faction in Syria declared jihad against the Ba’th party leaders. King Hussein allowed the Jordanian branch to give military training to Brotherhood rebels in Jordan. Nasser legalized the Brotherhood again in 1964, and released all prisoners. The result was more assassination attempts against him. He had leaders executed in 1966 and imprisoned most others again. The appointment of Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite Muslim, as the Syrian president in 1971 angered the Brotherhood even more because they did not consider Alawites true Muslims at all. Assad initially tried to placate them, but made very little progress. Assad’s support of Maronites in the Lebanese Civil War made the Brotherhood re-declare its jihad. They began a campaign of strikes and terrorist actions. In 1979, they killed 83 Alawite cadets in the Aleppo artillery school. Assad’s attempts to calm them by changing officials and releasing political prisoners did not help. Eventually the army was used to restore order by force. An assassination attempt against Assad on June 25, 1980 was the last straw. Assad made the Syrian parliament declare Brotherhood membership a capital offense and sent the army against them. In the operation, which lasted until February of 1982, the Syrian army practically wiped out the Brotherhood, killing maybe 10,000 to 25,000 people. The Syrian branch disappeared, and the survivors fled to join Islamic organizations in other countries. Nasser’s successor in Egypt, Anwar Sadat, promised reforms, and that he would implement Sharia. However, Sadat’s peace treaty with Israel in 1979 angered the Brotherhood again, and they apparently had a hand in his assassination in 1981. In 1973, the Israeli government allowed local leader Ahmad Yassin to run social, religious and welfare institutions among Palestinian Muslims. In 1983, he was arrested for illegal possession of firearms and sentenced to prison. When he was released 1985, he became more popular then ever. When the first Intifada begun in 1987, he became one of the founders of Hamas. In 1984, the Muslim Brotherhood was partially reaccepted in Egypt as a religious organization, but was placed under heavy scrutiny by security forces. It remains a source of friction. In 1989, the Jordanian Brotherhood’s political wing, the Islamic Action Front, won 23 out of 80 seats in Jordan’s parliament. King Hussein tried to limit their influence by changing the election laws, but in the 1993 elections, they became the largest group in the parliament. They strongly opposed the Jordanian-Israeli Peace Treaty in 1994. In the early days of the Soviet-Afghan war, the Muslim Brotherhood was seen as a constituent part of the Afghan anti-communist opposition. The resistance movement in Afghanistan formed in opposition to the leftist policies of King Zahir Shah. The movement had connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Russian government alleges that the Muslim Brotherhood is a key force in the ongoing Chechen revolt. Russian officials accused the Muslim Brotherhood of planning the December 27, 2002 suicide car bombing of the headquarters of the Russian-backed government in Grozny, Chechnya. en2.wikipedia.org

To: Dayuhan who wrote (120984)	12/5/2003 10:43:24 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Ruhollah Khomeini (Redirected from Ayatollah Khomeini) The neutrality of this page is disputed. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (May 17, 1900 - June 3, 1989) was an Iranian Shiite fundamentalist cleric and the political and spiritual leader of the 1979 revolution that overthrew Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the then Shah of Iran. He is considered to be the founder of the modern Shiite State and ruled Iran from the Shah's overthrow to his death in 1989. The Ayatollah KhomeiniHe was born in the town of Khomein as Ruhollah Mousavi in 1902. Khomeini was named an ayatollah in the 1950s. In 1964 he was exiled from Iran for his constant criticisms of the government. He fled to Iraq, where he stayed until being forced to leave in 1978, after which he went to France. He returned to Iran on February 1, 1979, invited by a revolution already in progress against the Shah, and seized power on February 11 (it was later claimed by his supporters that over 98% of the population were in favour of it, though independent observers question the number). From then on an Islamic Republic was formed in which a president is elected every 4 years. Only those candidates approved by the ayatollahs may run for the office. Khomeni himself became Head of State for life, as "Leader of the Revolution," and later "Supreme Spiritual Leader." On February 4, 1980 Khomeini named Abolhassan Bani-Sadr as the first president of Iran. Khomeini's rule quickly ended the westernized society that had existed under the Shah. Shia Islamic Law was instituted, strict dress code became the law and enforced for both men and women. Women lost many of their rights as equal citizens, and freedom of speech and press continued to be curtailed. Khomeni became the center of a large personality cult, and opposition to the religous rule or Islam in general was often met with very harsh punishments. In the immediate aftermath of the revolution there were widespread allegations of systematic human rights abuses, including torture. Early in the revolution in the years of 1979 - 1981, Khomeini's followers held 52 Americans captive in Tehran's US embassy, holding them hostage for 444 days. Khomeini stated on February 23, 1980 that Iran's parliament would decide the fate of the American embassy hostages. President Jimmy Carter attempted to rescue the hostages, but this failed when the helicopters sent on this mission failed under desert conditions. Some Iranians considered this to be a miracle. Many commentators point to this failure as a major cause of Carter's loss in the following elections to Ronald Reagan. Shortly after taking power, Khomeini began calling for similar Islamic revolutions across the Middle East. Fearful of the threat of the spread of Khomeini's militant brand of Shiism, the republic of Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein, invaded Iran, effectively starting what would become a decade-long Iran-Iraq war. In early 1989 Khomeini ordered the killing of Salman Rushdie for blasphemy (the religious crime of prohibited speech). The Satanic Verses, Rushdie's novelistic examination of the integration of Indian characters into modern Western culture, contains passages which can be read as implying, amongst other things, that the Koran has not been preserved perfectly. This event caused many Western leftists, who had been generally in favor of the revolution against the Shah, to reconsider their support of Khomeini. After eleven days in a hospital for an operation to stop internal bleeding, Khomeini died. A crowd of more than a million Iranians gathered around the burial location which was not supposed to be revealed at the time. Khomeini is considered by some as one of the most influential men (for good or bad) of the 20th century, and was name Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1980. Quotes concerning Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic revolution Michel Foucault speculated at the time of the Iranian revolution that "Islamic government" could initiate a new "political spirituality" and herald a "transfiguration" of the world, the sort unknown in the West since the rise of modernity. "The Islamic Revolution of Iran presented a new example of perfect human beings and society... This is the reason behind the West's enmity towards it. Khomeini gave a new meaning to the lives of the Iranians." - Roger Garaudy, French intellectual and Holocaust denier "The ideological monopoly of Marxism among Third World liberation movements seems to dissolve. ... The Persian Revolution strikes into the heart of the Western belief in progress. ... In Persia, the people try to elude from a process at whose beginning they stand; in contrast we try the same from the peak of this development. And from this peak of developement, something essential in our lifes comes to the fore: Im speaking about religion and the Holy. ... Too much is asked where this will lead and what to do, and there I don't know an answer, and don't even want to know one." - Joschka Fischer, German Foreign Minister, before starting his political career in 1979 [1] "Imam Khomeini and the Iranian nation performed a great historical act. In my opinion, as a western and non-Muslim person, I believe, it is a miracle that a divine revolution in today's world takes place in such a manner." - Robert Kalson, Canadian scientist "The Islamic Revolution of Iran is honourable for it is the cry which has its origin in Ayatullah Khomeini's conscience." - William Wersey, American author and journalist "One should express his viewpoint regarding what he performed in his country and in a vast part of the world with great respect and deep thought." - Pope John Paul II "The name of Khomeini will always remain in the new chapter of Iranian history." - Erich Honecker, East German Communist Leader "What he [Stalin] did in Russia we have to do in Iran. We, too, have to do a lot of killing. A lot." - Behzad, Iranian interpreter for Western journalist V.S. Naipaul "Khomeini has offered us the opportunity to regain our frail religion ... faith in the power of words." - Norman Mailer, at a meeting of authors regarding the fatwa, New York City, February 1989 "The freedom-lovers of the world mourn the sad demise of Imam Khomeini." - Ernesto Cardinal, Nicaraguan combatant scholar "I thought using the Ayatollah's money to support the Nicaraguan resistance was a neat idea." - Oliver North Quotes from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini "Americans are the great Satan, the wounded snake. " "In Islam, the legislative power and competence to establish laws belong exclusively to God Almighty." "The author of the Satanic Verses book, which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran, and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death. I ask all Moslems to execute them wherever they find them." "If one permits an infidel to continue in his role as a corrupter of the earth, his moral suffering will be all the worse. If one kills the infidel, and this stops him from perpetrating his misdeeds, his death will be a blessing to him." "Familiarize the people with the truth of Islam so that the young generation may not think that the men of religion in the mosques of Qum and al-Najaf believe in the separation of church from state, that they study nothing other than menstruation and childbirth and that they have nothing to do with politics. Christian, Jewish and Baha'i missionary centers are spread in Tehran to deceive people and to lead them away from the teachings and principles of religion. Isn't it a duty to destroy these centers?" "All those against the revolution must disappear and quickly be executed" (as reported by dissident cleric Agha Hossein Ali Montazeri, once in line to be Iran's supreme leader) en2.wikipedia.org

To: Dayuhan who wrote (120984)	12/5/2003 10:46:28 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Indonesia Darul Islam Darul Islam spokesman, Al Chaidar, openly claims to have strong links with the Taleban in Afghanistan. "Every year since 1989, there has been co-operation in military training, and we have sent between 100 to 200 people each year to Afghanistan, to be trained to be good soldiers for Islam. He says that assistance from an international network of Muslim extremists - including al-Qaeda - flows into Indonesia. This, he says, is primarily to help local Muslim fighters continue their Jihad or holy war against the Christian community in the Moluccan islands in eastern Indonesia. 11/01 rantburg.com

To: Dayuhan who wrote (120984)	12/5/2003 11:11:09 AM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 281500

Darul Islam is not the only group that was transformed by Afghanistan and the emergence of Al Qaeda. Although it is true that there is not a strong hierarchy, many of these groups received training, including indoctrination in more radical ideas, and financial support from Al Qaeda and others. Also, the Muslim Bortherhood had been operating in 70 countries promoting pan- Islamicism, and the Saudis had been promoting the creation of fundamentalist religious schools throughout the Muslim world. Although Shi'ite, Khomeini was widely admired and looked upon as a model by those leaning in his direction..........