The Muslim Brothers and their heretics

One of the more significant developments taking place in Egyptian politics in the last few years is the fragmentation of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is perhaps part of a wider erosion of its monopoly on non-violent political Islam in Egypt. The rise of the Salafis may be a cause for concern, but the movement of young Muslim Brothers who left the Brotherhood to form their own movement, joined by major former leaders such as Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh and Mohammed Habib, is telling of the creation of a wider Islamist identity. And I think that's a good thing, because it dampens the authoritarianism that exists in the Brotherhood's tradition of discipline and hierarchy.

This testimony by a young former Brother is excellent, especially when talking about why he's not tempted to rejoin now that the Brotherhood is in a position to have real influence on society.

Overdoing Islamist panic

John Bradley, a British journalist who has written books about Egypt and Saudi Arabia, has a new book out. And it's all about how the Arab uprisings were the most horrible thing ever to happen, how the Islamists have taken over everything, and everyone is stupid for hoping that some form of democracy might finally come to the Arab world.

Bradley's book on Egypt captured well the sense that things were coming to an end, and being subtitled "The land of the pharaohs on the brink of a revolution," he can claim uncanny prescience. But in fact, the book did not really predict anything specific other than the exhaustion of the legitimacy of the Mubarak regime, and had other problems. One of them was a very hostile treatment of Islamists — not that they don't deserve a cautious approach, but it was very much over the top — I remember for instance an odd passage in which Bradley gets pissed off with the then Deputy General Guide of the Muslim Brothers, Muhammad Habib, for speaking polished fusha rather than aamiya.

Since the Arab Spring — which Bradley has taken to calling the Salafi Spring — he has been resoundly negative and pessimistic, and often alarmist about the electoral victories of Islamist parties in Tunisia and Egypt. I downloaded the first chapter of his new book, After the Arab Spring: How Islamist have hijacked the Middle East revolts and found him resolutely negative about Tunisia (Tunisia for Pete's sake!), only citing Tunisians who worry about the victory of Ennahda (in my experience a minority) and taking incidents that were likely political manipulations like the whole Persepolis affair of last summer as signs of an impending totalitarian imposition of Sharia law. He almost sounds nostalgic about the supposed liberalism of Ben Ali! 

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Olivier Roy and post-islamism

les matins - Olivier Roy by franceculture

The above video, from the morning talk show on France Culture (a radio channel where the intellectual level is so high it is tantamount to being completely alien to typical US talk radio), features the "Islamologue" Olivier Roy, one of the best of the French school of academic specialists on Islamism. Roy is known for having coined, some 20 years ago, the failure of political Islam. In this show he discusses the post-uprising Arab world, making the following points:

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Hamid on the MB's "Arab Calvinism"

Shadi Hamid of Brookings-Doha does some great research, but I tend to disagree with what he has written over the past year about the Muslim Brothers — I think they are much more conservative and less democratic than he gives them credit for, and strongly oppose any special relationship or particular "engagement" between the US and the MB, which he seemed to advocate in this piece last May. And I don't think they're interested in the Turkish model in any meaningful manner. But Shadi has a very nice turn of phrase in his latest Foreign Affairs piece:

In years past, the Brotherhood distanced itself from the Turkish Islamists under Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan, whom they saw as unfaithful to the Islamist program, morphing into little more than European-style conservative democrats. But having emerged from Mubarak's repression with a real chance of ruling, the Brotherhood is increasingly looking toward the Turkish model. What the Brotherhood has absorbed from Erdogan's Justice and Development Party is that strong economic growth makes everything else easier. If you raise people's living standards, they are more likely to listen to you on noneconomic matters. Perhaps more important, the Brotherhood believes Egyptians will associate any such economic success with the "Islamic project" -- a sort of Arab Calvinist dream.  

He goes on about the potential for the MB to use parliament as a counter-weight to SCAF and, eventually, the presidency as well as their institutional culture. But I find what's interesting about the economic ideas of the Brothers is actually taking place away from parliament (although they did try to introduce a business court reform bill in 2006 I believe) and in their discreet reaching out to the business community since Mubarak's overthrow. As a group of mostly economic liberals that has many entrepreneurs in its higher echelons, the MB has been experimenting with business incubators and sending reassuring messages to the business community. But it also has some odd economic ideas with roots in an Egyptian tradition of populism that cuts across the political spectrum and makes little sense today, such as, in the FJP's program, "Achieving self-sufficiency in strategic commodities, particularly of wheat and cotton."

But in many other respects they favor free entreprise, economic rule of law, help to boost SMEs and other very reasonable ideas, interwoven with some religious concepts such as makign zakat more effective, reforming the awqaf charitable foundation system and more. Do check out their program, which we've made available in English and Arabic in our documents section.

Update on Jan 1, 2012 at 17:27 by Issandr El Amrani

Faithful reader SP send this article on "Islamic Calvinism" in Turkey, showing the term has a long pedigree. Thanks!

Islamic Calvinists [PDF, 1MB]

Egypt's Islamists and tourism

Halal tourism: summer fling anyone?

Read the passages below and you'll see a fundamental miscomprehension of what most European tourists (the bulk of those who visit Egypt) like to do on holiday:

"Tourists don't need to drink alcohol when they come to Egypt; they have plenty at home," a veiled Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Azza al-Jarf, told a cheering crowd of supporters on Sunday across the street from the Pyramids.

"They came to see the ancient civilization, not to drink alcohol," she said, her voice booming through a set of loudspeakers at a campaign event dubbed "Let's encourage tourism." The crowd chanted, "Tourism will be at its best under Freedom and Justice," the Brotherhood's party and the most influential political group to emerge from the fall of Hosni Mubarak.

. . .

Also, clerics like Yasser Bourhami, influential among hard-line Salafis, are presenting ideas for restrictions on tourism. Bourhami calls it "halal tourism," using the term for food that is ritually fit under Islamic law.

"A five-star hotel with no alcohol, a beach for women — sisters — separated from men in a bay where the two sides can enjoy a vacation for a week without sins," he said in an interview with private television network Dream TV. "The tourist doesn't have to swim with a bikini and harm our youth."

A leading member of Al-Nour, Tarek Shalaan, stumbled through a recent TV interview when asked about his views on the display of nude pharaonic statues like those depicting fertility gods.

"The antiquities that we have will be put under a different light to focus on historical events," he said, without explaining further.

If they truly feel that their religion really doesn't allow the sale of alcohol or use of beaches in swimsuits, fine — although I'd still like to see the whole religious argument for it, with sources, and particularly when it concerns non-Muslims. But at least be honest about the impact on a major source of revenue for the country. We are now at a point when the comfortable role of opposition no longer holds for Islamists, it's time to be serious about one's positions and their consequences.

A few years ago, for instance, the Muslim Brotherhood MPs in parliament opposed a law that would tighten the ban on Female Genital Mutilation (a practice that has absolutely no basis in Islam, it's largely a Nile Valley thing) and also opposed a law banning child beatings. If they are just traditionalists, let them say that. But if they want to invoke religion, they better make their case with full theological and scriptural backing.

Salafists are not the Tea Party, they're Shas

Sheikh Yasser Burhami, one of Egypt's most influential SalafistsRabbi Ovida Youssef, spiritual head of Shas

This morning's WSJ makes the Salafist - Tea Party comparison:

Political analysts don't expect the Nour Party and their allies to win more than 5% to 10% of the incoming Parliament. By comparison, leaders of the Brotherhood-aligned Freedom and Justice Party have said they aim for about 35% of the incoming legislature.

But the Salafis' popularity could create a "tea-party effect" on the Brotherhood, said Shadi Hamid, an expert on Egypt at the Brooking's Institution Doha Center. Likening the Salafis to the American conservatives whose electoral gains have helped move the Republican Party to the right, Mr. Hamid said these Islamists have the potential to alter the political platform of the Brotherhood, which has been comparatively more moderate.

"It's very likely that Salafis will be the second-largest bloc in Parliament behind the Brotherhood," said Mr. Hamid. "Down the road, the Salafi competition could...drag the rest of the political spectrum rightwards."

As we await the results, what may be more important than the size of the Salafist presence in the next parliament is their results compared to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Salafists pose a problem for Egyptian society overall, but also pose a particular problem for the Brotherhood in two ways: first, they are competitors for "the Islamist vote" (whatever that is), but secondly and more importantly, they have an internal impact in a Brotherhood that is partly Salafist-oriented itself. Hence a big question is whether Salafists, who are more intellectually innovative than the Brotherhood has been in years (at least in that they produce a lot of cultural, theoretical and theological output whereas the Brothers largely stick to Hassan al-Banna) might not drag the Brotherhood their way — rather than the entire political spectrum.

If the Salafists remain under 10%, the Brothers can afford to make alliances with centrist forces knowing that the Salafists will have their back on social conservative issues. If they start to rival the Brotherhood itself, it becomes more complicated, especially if both the Brotherhood and Salafists do well, because it will freak out the rest of the political spectrum. But we should also remember that politically, the MB and the Salafists are different political animals. The MB have a political project, whereas good parts of the Salafist movement (which is diverse) might have more narrow interests related to the role of religion in public life, social mores, education and similar issues. They've shown in the past that they could be quietist about who holds power, and the Salafi movement has a strong tradition of defference to the rulers. They are not necessarily upstart radicals out to change the political system, which is how the Tea Party presents itself. They might be more like the Israeli party Shas, focusing on a narrow range of issues. It might not be getting funding for Yeshivas (or madrassas), but rather fighting the culture wars they've been fighting for decades: influencing education, state-backed religious and cultural production (al-Azhar, the Ministry of Awqaf, the Ministry of Culture, etc.), and laws having to do with women and family.

Interview with a FJP candidate

I ran into this candidate for the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party in the working class district of Sayeda Zeinab, near a polling station. He is running as an individual candidate.

The Muslim Brothers are left behind, again

One of the interesting things about the gigantic turnout on Tahrir Square is that it is happening even as the Muslim Brotherhood has officially opposed the protests and most Salafists done the same, in the name of calming the streets before the elections. This decision is very reminiscent of January 25, when they refused to take part in the first protests leading to the overthrow of the Mubarak regime. The same goes for the Salafists, who apart from Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, have opposed protests and even tried to intervene to stop them in Alexandria yesterday.

This is not to say there are no Muslim Brothers or Salafists, or other religiously-inclined people in Tahrir today. There are.

But their leadership has failed them once more. Once again the Muslim Brotherhood has shown that its basic essence has not changed: just as its leader in 2009 said he had no problems with a Gamal Mubarak presidency and had much respect for Hosni Mubarak, just as they rushed ton negotiate with president-apparent Omar Suleiman in late January, just like they preferred to cut a deal with the military in the transition's early days and accepted a slapdash referendum and constitutional declaration, the Brothers are once again swimming against the prevailing tide of the Egyptian people. They prefer to negotiate for their own maximum advantage rather take a principled position.

I often think the Brothers' biggest problem is not that they are fundamentalist, or out of touch with the Egyptian mainstream, or too radical. It's that they are perceived, rightly, as schemers by average people. It's true of their leaders, at least, and it's what has made so many bright young people leave them in recent years and so many others doubt their intentions.

In Translation: Alaa al-Aswany on bigotry

As every week, we bring a selected commentary piece from the Arabic press translated into English, courtesy of Industry Arabic, a full-service translation company founded  by two long-time Arabist readers.

Alaa al-AswanyThere was not enough time to wait for the reaction to the sad events of October 9 — and in any case many commentators are simply speechless, as are so many Egyptians — so instead we picked an op-ed by the novelist Alaa al-Aswany published last week. It touched on the issue that motivated last week’s Coptic protest: a lack of government reaction to an attack on a church in Aswan governorate by local Islamists, with the governor preferring to impose a negotiated solution between the Salafists and Christians rather than impose the rule of law, which would have protected the Christians.

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Egypt: worrying about the wrong foreign funding

In July, a mini-crisis of sorts erupted between Egypt and the United States over foreign funding. The spark was probably the congressional testimony of the new US ambassador to Cairo, Anne Patterson, in June, in which she said that the US was earmarking $40m for USAID democracy and governance spending.

By late July, the $40m figure was being cited in the Egyptian media, and sometimes was inflated to $60m, the figure that the US State Dept. had considered spending earlier in the year. Public records showed that most of the money went to the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the International Federation for Electoral Systems (IFES) — some of which they no doubt redistributed to local partners. The media began to raise up a storm, while the government demanded clarifications from the US.

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Erdogan vs. Egyptian Islamists

Among the interesting things that came out of Recep Erdogan's visit to Egypt (a topic on which I'm writing a longer piece) was the furore he caused among Egyptian Islamists when he endorsed secularism. Erdogan had a busy schedule, and did spend some of it meeting with religious figures such as Pope Shenouda and Sheikh al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayeb, as well as Islamist politicians, including MB General Guide Mohamed Badie, former MB and presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh (for some, the MB's stealth candidate). I think that's a first for any foreign head of government.

In his keynote speech at the Opera House, he reportedly made a statement in favor of a secular state as the only basis for social progress and economic development. I don't have a transcript of the speech to verify (and besides don't understand Turkish), but this bit in Erdogan's speech is causing quite a stir. The Muslim Brothers slammed Erdogan for "foreign intervention" — the classic infantile Egyptian reaction to any foreign leaders' statement on their country, as if saying something meant interfering — and the new Salafist party al-Fadila attacked him for favoring secularists over Islamists. Other Islamist leaders said  that the Turkish model is not reproducible in Egypt, but some talking heads think Erdogan's statement boosted the secularists' chances in the current debate over "Egypt's identity" and the future constitution.

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Egypt: The Sharia debate... in 1985

Hosni Mubarak in 1985

Here is a little item from history worth reconsidering in light of the growing Islamist-secularist debate in Egypt over the future constitution and the application of Sharia (referenced in Ursula’s hilarious post yesterday). From a Wikileaks State Dept. cable dated from March 1985, we get a little insight in how the American Embassy in Cairo saw Egyptian politics: a democratizing Mubarak set against retrogade political foes.

¶2. BEGIN SUMMARY. MOMENTUM IS BEGINNING TO BUILD TOWARD A MAY DEBATE IN THE PEOPLES ASSEMBLY ON ISLAMIC SHARIA (KORANIC LAW). IN RECENT DAYS, KEY OPPOSITION FIGURES FUAD SIRAJ AL-DIN (CHAIRMAN OF THE NEW WAFD PARTY) AND OMAR TALMASSANI (GENERAL GUIDE OF THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD) APPEARED BEFORE THE ASSEMBLY’S RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS COMMITTEE TO EXPRESS SUPPORT FOR PURGING OF EXISTING LEGISLATION NOT IN ACCORDANCE WITH SHARIA. THE SPEAKER OF THE ASSEMBLY, RIFAAT EL MAHGOUB, WHILE SUPPORTING THE OVERALL OBJECTIVE, LEFT DELIBERATELY VAGUE THE TIMING AND EXTENT OF THE PURGE. THE ADVOCATES DOUBTLESS KNOW THE PROCESS OF IMPLEMENTING “FULL SHARIA” WILL BE PROTRACTED; INDEED, MUBARAK IS PERCEIVED AS UNCOMPROMISING IN OPPOSITION TO “THE FULL IMPLEMENTATION OF SHARIA.” IN ADVANCE OF THE MAY DEBATE PUBLIC DISCUSSION OF, AND MANEUVERING ABOUT, SHARIA ISSUES IS ALREADY UNDERWAY. END SUMMARY.

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What Islamists say a secular Egypt will look like

In the (extremely unlikely, not to say nearly unimaginable) event that Egypt took a strong turn towards militant secularism, Islamists here have put together a video (linked to by the Muslim Brotherhood's twitter feed) showing what the future of the country will look like. 

Some highlights:

It all starts when in a new constitution in 2012, Egypt no longer designates Islam as the religion of state and removes the references to Sharia as the main source of its legislation. 

• In 2013, the Egyptian parliament outlaws poligamy.
• In 2014, women's rights organizations celebrate a new law that gives women equal inheritance rights. 
• In 2015, women are prohibited from wearing the hegab in public buildings.
• In 2017, the first movie theater "specializing in porno films" opens.

Obviously sexual freedom spreads, and tourism declines due to the spread of sexual harassment (Ed. Note: This is particularly ironic for those of us aware of the current rates of sexual harassment).

I don't know what's funnier about this video: the hysterically ominous music; the fact that women's rights groups are represented by a grinning blonde drinking a beer; or the way it ends up describing Bizarro Egypt, where up is down, left is right and Islam doesn't dominate every aspect of public life (politicians get in trouble for opening their speeches with "in the name of God.")

It just goes to show that playing on feelings of fear and indignation (even if you are ascendant and everyone is actually scared of you) is at the basis of most politics. More about the video's predictions after the jump.

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The fall of Tripoli in the Islamist imagination

Reza Pankhurst, of New Civilisation, an interesting UK-based Islamist website (apparently close to Hizb ut-Tahrir), on the parallels between the conquests of Mecca and Tripoli:

The fall of much of Tripoli on Sunday was greeted with joy by many, especially the crowds of thousands who were gathered in Liberation Square in Benghazi. The chants in unison were the calls “There is no God except Allah” and “We hear and Obey O Allah”. The revolutionary commander in Tripoli linked the event to the victory of the Prophet Mohammad over his tribe that had rejected his message and fought against him more than 14 centuries earlier which is known literally as the opening or conquest of Mecca. The parallels mentioned were numerous, from the timing (both the opening of Mecca and that of Tripoli occurred during the last ten nights of the holy month of Ramadan, just one day separating the two), the nature of the vanquished (the Prophet Mohammad and his companions faced oppression, torture, and death at the hands of those they came to conquer, and the abuses of the Gaddafi regime are open knowledge in Libya where thousands of mostly Islamic opposition have been tortured and killed while in captivity over the years), and the morality of the victors (in line with the Prophet’s general amnesty, the Libyan rebel official position is that those of the former regime who do not resist will not be killed).

That's probably what at least some Libyan Islamists are thinking, and no doubt they will be building a narrative around these lines.

An interview with the MB's Mohamed Morsy

Mohamed MorsyFollowing a symposium in London organized by the Egyptian Community in the United Kingdom, a diaspora association of Egyptian Muslims in Britain, Arabist reader Dalia Malek had the chance to follow up with Muslim Brotherhood Guidance Council member and president of Justice and Freedom Party Mohamed Morsy and ask further questions about his lecture. She sent in this transcript of the interview and her notes on Morsy's lecture. 

As Egypt heads toward  parliamentary elections in September, the Muslim Brotherhood is spreading the word about its new party’s ideology. Justice and Freeom portray itself as working within an Islamic framework that is open to Egypt’s religious diversity, emphasizing its compatibility with religious minorities, women’s rights, and human rights.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s legislative body has delegated Mohamed Morsy to be the President of its Freedom and Justice Party, whose ambiguous distinction from the Muslim Brotherhood has been debated. Morsy is also the media spokesman and member of the Guidance Bureau.

In the lecture, Morsy repeated the Brotherhood’s claim that the party does not seek to promote a presidential candidate for the upcoming election and that it aims to gain no more than 50% of seats in Parliament.

Surprisingly, and in contrast with the recent claim that the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists have unified, Morsy stated that the party and the Salafists are distinct, noting the Salafists’ lack of political experience, and that he disagrees with the majority of their views. He referenced a Salafist leaflet that used the word “infidels” four times, depicting use of this language in a negative light.

Dalia Malek (DM): You mentioned in the lecture that an Islamic state that applies Islam properly does not currently exist. But we have seen other countries that purport to have Islamic governments implement un-Islamic ideologies and have poor human rights records. In addition to the diversity of religions in Egypt, even Muslims in Egypt cannot agree. Why do you think that this will work in Egypt?

Mohamed Morsy (MM): I was saying that in general, there is no such religious state based on a theocratic concept. There is no state in the world now that applies the meaning of “theocratic state.” What we have now is the civic state. Whether it does or does not have the flavor of religion is something else.

We cannot in reality call Muslim countries “Islamic states.” As you said, we see violations of the constitutions of those countries. But an Islamic state is by definition a modern state. It’s a civic state. You have three completely independent authorities: the parliament, the judges, and the government. Islam confirms these authorities to be independent. Also, the people are the source of power. This is also by definition Islamic.

When people have accepted the notion of Islam as a framework, violations within it will be minimized. It cannot be imposed on the people and it cannot be done from the top. It has to be initiated, created, and agreed upon by the people.  

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Tunisia's Nahda and Islamists post-revolutions

There's a good piece on Nahda, the Tunisian Islamist party, by Graham Usher at MERIP which is a good antidote to some of the more alarmist "the Islamists are coming!" stuff:

Compared with other parts of Tunisia’s new political order, however, Nahda looks well placed. Analysts say the movement came out well from the tumult of Tunisia’s second revolution. Its national structure gives it an edge over the dispersal of votes likely to be caused by the spread of new parties. “Nahda has a base,” says the trade unionist Abdelkifi, who is no Islamist. “Tunisians are religious. It will attract those who do not know where to go.” Ghannouchi says if Nahda "gets a 30-35 percent vote for the constituent assembly, we’ll be very happy." Others will be alarmed by such a proportion, and not only in Tunisia. The 35 percent figure is probably hype, say observers, though 25 percent is possible. But the truth is that nobody really knows the depth of Nahda’s base, or that of any other party, due to the extreme de-politicization of Tunisian society during the Ben Ali era.

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Haenni and Tammam on #jan25 and religion

Two of my favorite commentators on religion and religious movement, Patrick Haenni and Hossam Tammam, collaborate on an excellent summary of various religious movements and institutions desultory participation in the Egyptian protest movement:

The Salafist movement condemned the protests; the Muslim Brothers first retreated, then got sucked in by the dynamism of the dispute, then tried to open up a negotiation process which the demonstrators, bolder in their demands, didn't want. Though that was not necessarily the position of all Egyptians, many of whom would have settled for a compromise, with Mubarak running the transition and the demand for democracy postponed until the next elections: the voice of the street isn't necessarily the will of the people. The Islamist groups were without doubt the most detached. Among these, various parts of the Salafist movement condemned the demonstrators very clearly from the time of the first appeals.

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Jordan's parliamentary elections and the Islamist boycott

Arabist reader André Bank sent me the following analysis of Jordan's recent parliamentary elections and the decision of the Islamic Action Front (a Muslim Brotherhood affiliated party) to boycott. I reproduce here for the benefit of others. His views, of course, are his own — but they certainly have shed some light for me on a subject I don't know much about.

Jordan’s parliamentary elections and the Islamist boycott 

By André Bank

3 January 2011

André Bank is a research fellow at the GIGA Institute of Middle East Studies in Hamburg, Germany. His main areas of expertise are regional conflict, foreign and domestic politics in the Middle East, with a focus on Jordan, Syria and Palestine.

Introduction

On November 9, Jordan held its sixth parliamentary elections after the partial political opening of the authoritarian regime in 1989. In the recent elections, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and the Islamic Action Front (IAF) as its affiliated party successfully boycotted, leading to an elected Lower House without any parliamentarians from the traditionally largest and only really relevant political party in Jordan. The government’s maintenance of the highly controversial “one-man, one vote” electoral system of 1993, which despite some cosmetic changes in May 2010 still highly discriminates against urban areas and clearly favours the rural, tribally dominated parts of Jordan, has been the obvious reason behind the Islamists’ decision not to participate in this year’s “election game”, thereby pushing through the second electoral boycott since the first one in 1997.  

In order to adequately understand the Islamists’ current electoral boycott, I hold that we should look beyond the specifics and minimal changes of the maintained “sawt wahid” electoral law and locate the boycott in its wider political and also historical context. This bigger picture of the politics of Islamists and elections in Jordan, I would argue, can be adequately grasped along three axes – or analytical lenses: First, the relationship between the MB/IAF and the Hashemite government. Second, the connections between Islamist politics in Jordan and the wider Arab region and in particular the Palestinian arena. And thirdly, internal politics and the dynamics within the MB/IAF itself, which – again – are also in various ways interlinked with the other two dimensions. 

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The Infidel (trailer)

This film, The Infidel, is about a British muslim fundie who finds out he was adopted and that his biological parents were Jewish. It looks potentially quite funny, although I'm not a fan of director David Baddiel generally speaking. Chris Morris, the genius comedian behind the classic fake news series Brass Eye, is also making a comedy about British Muslim fundamentalists called Four Lions.

Links for 11.12.09 to 11.15.09

✪ Violence Flares Ahead of Algeria-Egypt Soccer Match - The Lede Blog - NYTimes.com | The NYT's blog The Lede has a nice post about the Algeria-Egypt, game, so I don't have to do it as I don't even like football. ✪ Daily News Egypt - Egypt Among States Attempting To Weaken Un Anti-Corruption Convention Enforcement Mechanism | Egypt and others against review mechanism for corruption convention. ✪ The Young Brotherhood in Search of a New Path | Khalil al-Anani. ✪ The Brotherhood vs. Al-Qaeda: A Moment Of Truth? | Jean-Pierre Filiu. ✪ The Saturday Profile - An Arms Dealer Returns, Now Selling an Image - Biography - NYTimes.com | Profile of arms dealer Adnan al-Khashoggi, who apparently has fallen on hard times. Still, I'd like to know why he met with Richard Perle in 2002. ✪ Blogging Imam Who Knew Fort Hood Gunman and 9/11 Hijacker Goes Silent - The Lede Blog - NYTimes.com | Can't believe this guy has not been arrested prior to leaving the US. ✪ 'Going Muslim' - Forbes.com | NYU professor "goes desi" after Texas massacre. Is this just Indian (I assume the professor is originally Indian or Sri Lankan) prejudice against Muslims? I wonder if the next time an Asian shoots people at a college we'll say, "going oriental"... Shame on you, Forbes. ✪ Palestine: Salvaging Fatah | ICG's new report on Palestine. [PDF]

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