Egypt's 'secular' revolution

The western media's reporting of Egypt's recent uprising kept minimisingthe role of the Muslim Brotherhood in particular and militant Islam in general. So it was with no great surprise that I read in Al Arabiya that:

'For the first time since he was banned from leading weekly friday prayers in Egypt 30 years ago, prominent Muslim scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi will lead thousands in the weekly prayers from Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday.

Sources told Al Arabiya that a military force will accompany the head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars from his home to Tahrir Square, provide security for the prayers and accompany him back to his residence.

Al-Qaradawi last delivered a Friday prayer sermon in Egypt in 1981 after the assassination of former President Anwar el-Sadat.'

Al-Qaradawi, now what do we know of him? Here he is praising Hitler's anti-Semitism...


Al-Qaradawi's views on beating women and killing homosexuals are well known, except it seems to those at the BBC and to Ken Livingstone who refer to him as a moderate. Here's something about Al-Qaradawi that you may have missed; last year Harry's Place reported that, per The Elder of Zion,

'The 8th Annual Doha Conference on Interfaith Dialogue is to start tomorrow, but prominent Islamic Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi is boycotting the conference, according to Palestine Today.
The reason? Because there will be Jews there!
He participated in the first, second and third conferences because they were centered on Muslim/Christian dialogue. But he refuses to participate when Jews attend, quoting the Koran 29:46 ["The Spider"], “Do not argue with People of the Book….” [the verse goes on to make an exception of certain types of arguments, and then an exception to the exception, against those Jews who "oppress," if I am parsing the verse correctly.]
Qaradawi said, “So why should we dialogue with the Jews, who… shed blood, and violated the sanctities, and burned farms, and destroyed homes… .. to sit with them on a single platform?”
The article does not say “Zionist Jews” but merely “Jews.” He has met with the Neturei Karta in the past, though.
The rest of the Koranic verse makes clear that Islamic “dialogue” with other “divine” religions is limited to telling them about Islam. Which makes it more like a monologue.”'

 So how have the BBC reacted to the news that Yusuf al-Qaradawi will lead thousands in the weekly prayers from Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday, the square that so many BBC journalists have reported from over previous weeks? The answer is of course, by ignoring it.

For more about the delightful Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi take a read of some previous articles of mine.