All Entries Tagged With: "ikhwanweb"

Meet Radical Islam’s Tech Guru

by Sarah A. Topol | Source

CAIRO—Abdul-Jalil Al-Sharnouby, a bespectacled tech guru, talks a mile a minute about the Internet, often ruminating on unique visitors, Web hosts, and how to evade government censors. And though Al-Sharnouby would be in his element at a sleek Silicon Valley tech company, he works out of a decrepit building on a litter-strewn downtown Cairo street.
Al-Sharnouby is the director of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Internet Committee and the editor of Ikhwanonline.com. The Islamist group, which is officially banned, but begrudgingly tolerated in Egypt, currently has hundreds of thousands of followers and is expanding thanks to Al-Sharnouby and his cybercounterparts.

For the last 10 years, the Brotherhood, whose goal is to spread conservative Muslim values into Egyptian society, has transformed from a shadowy social organization with power bases in mosques and charities, to a media and tech-savvy machine. In Egypt’s political wasteland, the strongest opposition to the secular regime not only owns the street—today, they dominate the Web.

And though the Egyptian regime accuses the Brotherhood of trying to overthrow the government and frequently cracks down on the organization, Al-Sharnouby’s site employs a full-time team of 30 and a freelance network of 45—a fairly big staff in the world of small start-ups. They work around the clock to promote the Brotherhood in cyberspace, with a contingency plan for what to do if the government raids their headquarters.
Ikhwanonline is just one of many cyberfronts maintained by the organization—among them is an English-language website that aggregates Western reporting on the group; an Islamic Facebook called Ikhwanbook; Ikhwanwtube, and Ikhwanwiki. (Ikhwan means Brotherhood in Arabic.) In real time, Brothers tweet through multiple feeds and post countless Facebook pages.

“Out of all the political groupings in Egypt, the Brotherhood has been one of the most aggressive in terms of… using the Internet as a platform to get their views across,” says Shadi Hamid, research director of Brookings Doha Center who studies the group.
“The Brotherhood has always been paranoid about how people view it. It’s an organization that’s very sensitive to outside criticism … And they’ll use any means possible to try to shift public opinion more in their direction,” Hamid said.

Unlike in the Egyptian parliament, where Brotherhood-affiliated members held a 20 percent bloc of seats until contested elections last month forced them out, the group is hedging its bets on the freewheeling atmosphere of cyberspace as a way to communicate their message and rectify their image without depending on the whims of the Egyptian regime.
One of the group’s newer sites, Islamophobia is dedicated solely to the task of debunking myths surrounding the Brotherhood and changing popular perceptions abroad. Chief Editor Omar Mazin explains its mission to “respond to the ‘bashers’ … and to clarify the fact that Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate Muslim group, with no terrorism relations and with no anti-Western agenda.” And according to the Brothers, their campaign is working.

They report their Arabic news portal sees an average of a quarter of a million unique visitors a day. They are one of the top 100 websites in Egypt. On a politically sensitive day, viewership of the Arabic site spikes to around 450,000. The English language portal sees about 4,000 unique visitors per day, while there are approximately 22,000 Ikhwanbook members around the world.

But despite the relative freedom online, the Brotherhood remains wary of the regime’s ability to stymie their Web presence, hence the copycat sites. “We don’t want to put all of our stock in the big companies like Facebook, which can block our users,” says Khaled Hamza, an Internet supervisor and editor of the English language website.

Hamza explains Brotherhood users of Facebook and YouTube are frequently reported and blocked for inappropriate posting or religious incitement. If the regime suddenly clamped down on the major sites, the Brothers want backups. “They are parallel websites, not replacements,” he says.

And perhaps they’re right to be worried; the religious group’s Web prowess has not been lost on Egypt’s secular regime. Most of their sites were blocked during Egypt’s last two rounds of parliamentary elections.

Although the group’s leading members are adamant they are not using the Web to attract converts to the cause—just set the record straight about the group—they admit it’s an added bonus. Their own sites allow them to promote their preachers and religious interpretations, intermixed with news.

The Brotherhood is known for its traditional face-to-face recruitment techniques executed by a loyal network of foot soldiers. But as younger members join the ranks, the Internet has become another avenue to execute the group’s well-honed strategy, albeit adapted to a new generation.

All Brotherhood members have a duty to preach to friends, but for college students like Mohammad Al-Aqsa these days that includes virtual ones.

“My personal belief is in the Brotherhood,” Al-Aqsa says. He wants to make it clear he’s acting alone, without direction from the Brotherhood’s organized leadership. “The same way I would try to convince my [hypothetical] friend Ahmed by talking to him, I would tell someone about the Brotherhood online by starting a conversation with them.”

To get things moving, Al-Aqsa explains he posts pictures and religious sermons on Facebook, then tags his friends, so that their Facebook friends will see it on their newsfeeds. This way people contact him if they want to discuss what he posts; and he tries to convince them of the Brotherhood’s worth.

“It’s just a conversation,” he says, smiling. “If they agree, the rest is up to them.”

Sarah A. Topol is a Cairo-based journalist. She has reported from Yemen, Libya, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. Her writing has appeared in the Atlantic, Foreign Policy, Newsweek, the New Republic, and Slate, among others.

Ikhwanweb Archive: Truth About the Global Muslim Brotherhood

by Khaled Salam
The ongoing controversy in the U.S. surrounding resignation of Mr. Mazen Asbahi, Muslim-outreach advisor to presumptive democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama, is quite intriguing. Mr. Asbahi is an Arab American corporate attorney who resigned last week amidst allegations of old loose ties with individuals associated with organizations thought to be linked to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Mr. Asbahi’s crime is that he also appeared as a guest speaker before such organizations allegedly linked to the MB. Islamic organizations in the U.S. described the campaign against Mr. Asbahi as “nationwide efforts by Islamophobes who seek to deny Muslims access to the political process.”

The MB has repeatedly denied it has any representation in the U.S., nor does it maintain any links with any of the Islamic or charitable organizations in the U.S. We have previously clarified that moderate and pragmatic Islamic thought is not exclusive of the MB, however, there are many other Islamic movements and organizations throughout the world that have the same mainstream principles as the MB but not necessarily part of its organizational structure.

In this regard, the MB confirmed that it absolutely has no organizational links, ties, or associations with any of the Islamic organizations in the U.S., including but not limited to: The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the Muslim Student Association (MSA), the Muslim American Society (MAS), and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).

There are however, ideological similarities between the MB and most of above mentioned Islamic organizations for the fact that these ideologies represent mainstream moderate Islamic thinking. However, some of the founders or members of these organizations were at some point in their lives either members or sympathizers of the MB in their native countries before they migrate to the U.S. or other countries.

During the 1960s, many members of the MB have fled Egypt to escape persecution by the Egyptian regime. Most of them settled in European countries or the U.S. and benefited from the atmosphere of freedom and prosperity in these countries and continued to practice and promote moderate Islamic thought. Thus, several local Islamic organizations were created to help Muslims integrate within their local communities and engage in charitable work mandates by Islam. Islamic work worldwide was also enriched by Muslim students who studied abroad and were keen on practicing their religion. In the U..S, several of these local active groups have merged and created large national organizations widely known throughout the country.

Most of the alleged ties between the MB and any of the U.S. based organizations were extensively scrutinized during the Holy Land Foundation trial and were found groundless by the juries in court case that ended in mistrial. The prosecution in this case failed to establish any evidence that link the MB as an organization with any of the Islamic organizations in the U.S., but instead presented the court with notes, diaries and minutes of meetings among individuals who were not in any form or shape part of the MB and were not representing it, although they might of shared its ideology as we previously alluded to.

The so called Global Network of the Muslim Brotherhood is merely a Hollywood fiction that only exists in the minds of those who created it as part of their scare tactics to insight fears among the public and instigate government hostilities. There is no “global network” for the Muslim Brotherhood, but rather coordination among the different MB chapters in various countries, in which the MB has formal presence or representation, which clearly does not apply to the U.S. This coordination among international MB chapters mainly revolves around political issues, sharing experiences in the field of public Islamic work and exchange new ideas.

We call on the public to carefully examine any allegations spread by special interest groups in the U.S. to smear certain individuals or groups for political gain in a heated presidential campaign season. These radical special interest groups and lobbies are driven by extreme hate towards Muslims and feel that Islamic moderation and the presence of strong Islamic organizations in the U.S is a major threat to their extreme ideology of hate and evil.

Intellectuals and the Brotherhood phobia..!

Alaa Al-Nadi, Islamonline

Although fears overwhelmed many Egyptian Elites and some people as a result of Muslim Brotherhood group’s rise in the recent parliamentary elections, yet the most who were more panicked and awe-stricken were the intellectual elite; without exaggeration, it became a state of phobia!!

Many people were surprised to find this panicked reaction from intellectuals’ part. The fact is that all expectations and first results for Muslim Brotherhood never expected this smashing success for them to the extent they would be decision –makers in society. Being decision-makers implicates that Brotherhood would interfere in molding the Egyptian social reality in all aspects in accordance with their views and methodologies.

Predictions spike

There could be many interpretations for this overwhelming panic from the intellectuals’ part, perhaps because they shared other elites in predictions for elections. There predictions for Muslim Brotherhood never exceeded the fifty parliamentary seats along with the assertions of Muslim Brotherhood themselves who declared their minor predictions.

When the results of the first electoral phase was declared predictions changed to prospects of winning more than one hundred seats. Intellectuals observed closely that it is shockingly a lack of expectations.

These electoral elections incited a deduction from intellectuals which unmasked their views and blew up their preconceptions for reality and the horizons of the future.

It is evident that this category of society always gambled that there is a big hiatus between the political Islamic project and the possibilities of bringing it into effect. The extensions of hiatus-according to intellectuals- between the political projects for the Islamists and the reality are attributed to the social opposition for this option and not only according to the regime practices against Islamists.

Friends………. But!!

All the results of the electoral process and its repercussions caused much revisionism; as the intellectual elite rather than any elites feel the threat and believe that the objective reality was handed over to the interests of Muslim Brotherhood besides the elections have proved that Muslim Brotherhood have great competitive political qualifications and they can be a fierce rival for the ruling party along with the absence of other parties and powers who showed very weak turn out. This implicates that the distance separating between reality and political Islamic projects narrowed.

This interprets the change in stances for some elite figures who were in good terms with Muslim Brotherhood according to the fact that there is nothing that can spoil relations with Brotherhood as they are still far from decision-making besides there were no predictions that Brotherhood hardly can approach the political domain.

Threats for culture

Among reasons that forced the intellectual elite to form its own stance; their fears about the artistic and cultural production and the threats against it from the part of Islamists who are indulged in the political work through their presence in many representative bodies and associations, like the Parliament. Therefore, it represents a threat as Parliament is the only body concerned with making laws, issuing resolutions and assumes the role of censorship. Accordingly, the intellectual elite are obsessed by the past stances taken by the Islamic trends and their calls to confiscate many cultural and artistic works.

The intellectual elite perhaps have future outlooks about the siege that will enclave culture and arts on the hands of Islamic trend. Since these pressures and confiscations were carried out when the number of Muslim Brotherhood was less than 25%, therefore, the state of siege and pressures will increase since their representation in parliament increased as well.

The great evident writing that reveals such worries and fears was that article by the Egyptian novelist Bahaa Tahir in the “Al-Arabi Al-Nasseri newspaper”. Without any compliments or flattering, Bahaa Tahir describes it as an “upheaval” and the fact lies in the upheaval that occurred in the methods of thinking of the Egyptian citizen. “This change was a planned one and was carried out wittingly and with leisure over three decades. All bewaring voices and warnings were unable to neither stop it nor mobilize powers against its growing threat.”

Bahaa Tahir stroke an example from the past to prove the seriousness of his fears that Muslim Brotherhood representative would use their political posts to increase siege over cultural domains.

He says,” The decision made by Brotherhood representatives concerning the issue of “the three novels” has sparked off a great turmoil, and the result was confiscating these novels from market and sacking the employees who permitted the novels’ publishing.” He added, “I really have serious fears, because those brotherhoods do not intend to appeal before judiciary or any body as they did so before, but the real danger lies in masses who are aside with them also brotherhood might stir masses with fake moral claims to burn books and may be the writers as well.”

Red line Zone

There is a crisis of credibility between cultural elites and Islamists. This relation can be found in all corners of Earth. This is based on the concept of “the red line zone”, according to the attribute by Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. Cultural elite still look upon the thesis of Islamists in this issue as still full of ambiguity because the Islamic pattern that is propounded by Islamic trends is a theocratic pattern which will be based on monopolizing the truth and confiscating the social work.

Although Muslim Brotherhood endeavor continuously to extinguish these fears but many intellectuals still are not convinced. They say that these assertions from brotherhoods are tactful replies and is not based on clear knowledge through which one can feel ease.

Where is the Position of Culture?

If we solved the problematic of religious government then still the problematic of culture as it is. Intellectual elites are trying to prove their truth behind their concerns trough giving examples about their previous experiences especially the clashes among religion, culture and policy. Some regard this point as an exposing one because it shows that Islamists are dealing with culture and arts on textual literary basis that are  bare from any kind of awareness and specialization in this field. This cause the decisions of brother to be based on a policy of abolishment that is full of lurk and confiscation.

Some believe that the political Islamic trend lacks awareness for history. Islamic civilization abounds in many periods where the levels of freedom were very high that allowed bringing forth hot issues no one of Muslim intellects nowadays can never propound it. No body dared at that time to confiscate such works and hinder them.

It is noticeable that recently some statements came from some brotherhood figures pointing to the issues of arts and culture. Despite their response, yet they failed to bridge the hiatus and restore trust. Some observers believed that that is kind of gamble imposed by political and they describe the Brotherhood discourse as in lack for balance between the respect of freedoms, the call for releasing all creative faculties and their discourse about measures which is considered as the “red line zone” that result in confusion and misunderstanding.

At the same time Muslim Brotherhood regard their statements as calling for freedom and expressing familiarity with culture and arts. The scope of measures, as they meant, target only keeping absolutes and decorum. Intellectual elites believe that these statements hide behind a spirit of confiscation and censorship. Intellectuals call for the necessity of releasing freedoms for creativity and inventiveness and the privacy of standardization   measures related to the realm of culture and arts.

Blockage in connectedness

There is a clear state of blockage in connectedness between cultural elites and Muslim Brotherhood. This may be related to the great responsibilities Muslim Brotherhood are assuming besides there are heavy confrontations against them leaving no room to detail their statements in especially what is related to the cultural issue. Noteworthy, Muslim Brotherhood is always surviving under pressures and this justifies their trials to devise some elusive statements in this issue.

Many intellectuals do not believe in these justifications as they interpret the weak connectedness from The Brotherhood part as they have weak cultural background because they are indulged in political and preaching activities. The Brotherhood stance reflects the poor views of the group towards the realm of culture and their weakness in possessing the faculties of connectedness in this vital and important field. This result in a great hiatus and dissention that will pave way in front of stereotyping and the inability to abandon previous views.

From an objective point of view we can say that the views of cultural elites about Muslim Brotherhood abound in exaggeration and extremism in many objective aspects. Without going into the battle of ups and owns between both parties; all related to this issue heralds for a state of phobia from the part of cultural and intellectual elites after the rise of Muslim Brotherhood. At the same time Brotherhood are trying to appease panic and tension. Perhaps this may lead to activating the dialogue between both parties in order to penetrate the taboos between them and deduce points where they can intersect. However, predictions for connectedness seem to be weak, at least on short-term.