Increasingly strong, increasingly insane. Recep Tayyip Erdogan enthroned himself as the “second conqueror” of Hagia Sophia after Mehmet II in 1453. He proclaimed it in his “message to the nation” broadcast on television on that funeral day – July 10, 2020 – when Ataturk’s 1934 decree transforming the building into a museum was rescinded. Mustapha Kemal had given back to humanity the basilica, jewel of Christianity for 916 years, then flagship mosque of the Ottoman Empire for five centuries. He wanted to put an end to the Islam-Western divide and ease conflicts. Erdogan, on the other hand, is turning them back on.
Beylik: that’s the word we don’t want to hear anymore in Tunis. Beylik, domain of the bey, vassal of the sultan. Beylik, province or Ottoman “regency”. A word that comes from the well of the centuries, a return of the historical repressed. It was furiously written in the country’s media after the unexpected visit to Tunis of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who came to ask President Kais Saied to support a Turkish intervention in Libya in support of the ill-named “Government of National Accord” of Faiez Sarraj against General Khalifa Haftar. By opening Matmata airport to Turkish military aircraft. But yes, of course, it made sense: the tiny and strategic Tunisia could not but acquiesce to Ankara’s desires. In the spirit of the neo-Great Turk, it had to become again the vassal of the old days.
Under the leadership of the new head of the World Islamic League, Mohammed Bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, a close to the crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, Saudi Arabia announced in January that it would separate from the mosques it control in the West and which have long served to spread the Wahhabi ideology. But five months later, Riyadh did not find takers. And this Saudi disengagement raises fears of a takeover of these mosques by even more radical actors. The mosques in question are coveted by some disreputable states, such as Erdogan’s Turkey, and by non-state groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafist movements.
According to Islamic ideology, no way of life is valid or deserves to be experienced, other than the one defined by the Koran. And so, even if all problems were solved, fundamentalism would remain. The long-awaited, long-desired Islam of Light, this dreamed Islam, is an “impossible”. It only diverts young people away from universal values, attracting them more to Islam, then to fundamentalism, and eventually to terrorism. There’s no hope of change other than destroying this whole system. But Muslims in Europe are taking the opposite approach by exploiting the multicultural environment in order to demand that host countries adapt to their religious requirements.
Almost three decades ago, in the winter of 1991, the Kashmir Valley was in the grip of a full-fledged islamist militancy. Kalashnikov-wielding terrorists roamed the streets in the neighbourhoods of Srinagar and the valley’s other areas from north to south.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been established in Europe more than 60 years ago. It is the result of three successive generations of activists and preachers. But the European influence of the Brotherhood has increased considerably since the mid-1990s. Thanks, in particular, to the accession to power of the former Emir of Qatar, Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, who sealed a strategic alliance with one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s masterminds, the infamous Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi…
For a long time, the Islamist branch of the Muslim Brotherhood benefited from kindness of the authorities and extensive legislation on political asylum in European countries.
A double aberration has long dominated in this respect. First of all, there is this striking semantic contradiction called “moderate Islamism”. Because, how can one be “moderate”, or even tolerant, while claiming a divine truth which is impervious to any criticism or examination of consciousness?
Asia has finally been able to flee Asia. Asia Bibi, a Christian Pakistani, left her native country after ten years of nightmare. Ten years on death row in the prison where she was thrown in 2009 for “blasphemy”. In Pakistan, “blasphemy” is a crime: it allows everyone to accuse their neighbour of insulting Islam and its prophet.
From the book “Qatar Papers”, written by Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, readers have mainly retained the financial importance of the projects developed by the gas emirate in Europe through the NGO Qatar Charity. And also the salary of 35,000 euros paid each month to Tariq Ramadan by Qatar Foundation, created by Sheikha Moza, the mother of Tamim ben Hamad Al Thani, 38 years old and the Emir of Qatar since 2013.
