Napoleon also knew that the Grande Armee was not enough to effectively control the population, so it was necessary to garner the support of Egypt’s most influential religious establishment: Al-Azhar University. He invited 60 such imams, muftis, and scholars to his headquarters and told them of his great admiration for the Prophet Mohamed and the Islamic tradition, and that he was there only to protect Islam. He gave all the scholars military honours among other gifts, and was well versed enough in the Qur’an to convince them all of his pure intentions. Other scholars were marginalized, and he had strict orders that dealings with the people should always be conducted through the religious establishment. It worked like a charm.Two hundred years later, and things in Egypt have hardly changed. As a participant of the Gaza Freedom March that was prevented entry into Gaza by Egyptian authorities, I can attest to this firsthand. After realizing the march was stuck in Egypt, we planned several marches and demonstrations in Egypt, and tried to connect with Egyptian civil society. I went to al-Azhar University to see if they were willing to support the march, seeing as the Palestinians are their brothers and sisters in Islam.
In total I spoke with about 3 scholars before being physically prevented by security men from speaking to the head scholar Mohamed Sayyid al-Tantawi. I recorded one discussion with a scholar who said “We are men of religion, and we do not involve ourselves in politics…these matters are left to the state to administer.” This is simply not true. On that very day, Tantawi was in a committee meeting with several government ministers and other scholars totaling 25, discussing the Islamic legality of a monstrous steel barrier being constructed to further suffocate the open-air prison known as the Gaza strip; an area still suffering the effects of operation Cast Lead launched by Israel in late 2008.
The modern face of colonialism is now the clean shaven, suit and tie clad black haired (dyed of course, to give the 80 year-old an illusion of immortality) Arab despots, acting in the interest of foreign entities and their own personal fortunes. In the tradition of their predecessors, the committee headed by Tantawi declared that the abominable barrier and the siege it is meant to bolster is not only Islamically legal, but those who oppose it are “violating the Islamic Sharia.” And while the people of Gaza are desperately out of fuel, Egypt sells natural gas to Israel at a 60% discount; but that couldn’t be in violation of Islamic Sharia.
The following Friday, Al-Azhar imams around the country in approximately 140,000 went to the pulpits lambasting in classical Arabic style the Hamas government after clashes at the border with Galloway’s Viva Palestina convoy ended with an Egyptian soldier getting killed by a Hamas sniper. It seems what the cleric meant to tell me is that men of religion do not involve themselves in politics if it has the slightest scent of opposition to their infallible government.
Unfortunately, these plots have worked for centuries, and I fear will continue to work for decades to come. The scholars who stand against such things are silenced, discredited, or imprisoned. From police officers asking for bribes at every roadblock and metal detector, to the highest offices of government and religion, Egypt, like many parts of Africa and the Middle East, is suffering from a dangerous degree of corruption. {w}
