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Saturday, February 19, 2011

The occasional breath of fresh air

The term "moderate Muslim" is bandied about with carefree abandon, used to identify those Muslims who practice what the West wants to believe is a moderate, or tolerant form of Islam.  Most of the time these moderates are only that in word, their deeds belie what they tell us in public.  In this instance, it appears that indeed there are a few moderates, as we see them, in Saudi Arabia.

Will their words sooth the West, and make us less suspicious, or is it more taqiyya in the name of Allah?

I prefer to believe this is one of the few real reformers within Islam.  We shall see.


From alarabiya.net Feb 16

Muslim Brotherhood writings top the list

Extremist books withdrawn from Saudi schools

The Saudi Ministry of Education issued a resolution to withdraw from the libraries of public schools several books seen as inciting violence and prohibited book donations without prior approval.

Books accused of having a negative impact on school students like the writings of leaders of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood like Sheikh Hassan al-Banna, the group’s founder, and Sayyed Qotb, one of the group’s most leading thinkers, the London-based al-Hayat newspaper reported Tuesday.


The ministry announced its plan to conduct regular visits to school libraries to ensure that those and similar books are no longer available for students.

Dr. Mohammed al-Zulafi, former member of the Shura Council, said this step came too late.

(.)“School libraries have always contained books that promote violence and extremism,” he told Al Arabiya. “The writings of Muslim Brotherhood leaders have had a strong influence on education in Saudi Arabia for the past three decades.”


Yet in Egypt the MB looks like the winner of the Islamic horse-race, and no one bats an eye.

Read it all

1 comment:

Jay Knott said...

How patronising! Not only is it wrong to assume 'what the West wants to believe' is right, it's also counter-productive. Zionists and American reactionaries praising 'moderates' in Islamic countries obviously discredits these moderates, and gives grist to the mill of more 'extreme' elements. This site expresses the colonialist attitude of Western foreign policy whose failure was spectacularly demonstrated in September, 2001.