伊斯蘭與中東事務觀察

I was asked to translate the note I made in Arabic about the Egyptian situation. Here it is. The situation in Egypt is quite complex and I thought it was a wise choice not to comment on the many details . However, reading and watching many other comments and even fatwas, made me decide to state -for the record- my own stance on the Islamic issues and concepts related to these events. I will do that in quick points and avoid details and names, etc.   - Politics in the Islamic paradigm is by and large not subject to fixed rules from the shariah. Political decisions are made on the basis of achieving public interest/good (maslahah). In this current situation, it is imperative to be open minded and flexible in assessing what is public good and what is harmful to the public, as well as what is possible and what is impossible. What is possible today is for the Islamist groups to continue to be part of the Egyptian political scene, and what is impossible logically is to return to the...

It is a pretty good analysis on the history of Political Islam over 1300 years and the modern time respectively. Although this author indicates why the Islamic movement in general would be failed nowadays, it seems that he misses some point regarding the non-political elements in the Islamic movement. TAREK OSMAN   5 July 2013 Irrespective of the popular and military moves against political Islam in Egypt this week, the prospect of establishing an Islamic state in the Arab world has always been extremely unlikely. 
 Over the past 1,352 years, since the death of Imam Ali (Prophet Mohammed’s cousin and the fourth “Rightly Guided Caliph”), not a single state that emerged in the Arab World has been Islamic . None had a legislative structure based exclusively on Koranic jurisprudence; none was ruled by a leader who was selected based on a theological basis; and all were conspicuously based on national, tribal, or familial foundations, with Islam only an overarching frame of re...