 Eyes of Totalitarian Islam, Lecture 2 Good morning everybody. Yesterday we talked about the Muslim Brotherhood just to review very quickly. Hassan al-Bana founded Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, grew the organization to a peak in 1949 of 500,000 members, 2,000 branches throughout Egypt. It was a capitalizing to a large extent on the frustration within Egypt with colonialism, with the nihilism and the hedonism prevalent in the culture and of course in the poverty and the fact that Egypt was going nowhere. It was stuck. There was nothing happening. As we said, Abana was assassinated in 1949 by the Egyptian government because he was attaining such power, because he was becoming such a threat to the central government. 1952, the offices revolution, Arab nationalism comes to the forefront, Nasr takes over and very quickly in spite of the fact that Muslim Brotherhoods were allies of his and in the revolution itself tries to eliminate them by arresting thousands of them, hanging I think six members, sending the rest of them to jail. And as we said last time, many people looking at the phenomena at the time. And you have to remember the attitude at the time was also nationalism, socialism are going to work. That was the attitude of most academics studying this. This great experiment in the Arab world, this is going to change the Middle East. This is the wave of the future. Islam as people in the 60s believe generally about I think religion. Islam is dead. Religion is dead. We are in this age of socialism, communism, communism was growing. Religion was seen as a, if you go back and read kind of historians I think of the period, religion was finished. It was over with. There was no religious movement. I think they're still trying to absorb the idea that religion is a growing force in America and in other places in the world today. But certainly in the 60s and 70s, nobody wanted to talk or write about religion. And yet there was this, certainly this undercurrent in the Muslim world. Islam was still a powerful force. I want to review quickly what it is that the Muslim Brotherhood at this point, 1954, 1956, what are they stand for? Because what happens later, what happens with Sa'id Khud and others is just building on this foundation. The foundation of these ideas is a constant all the way to today's bin Laden. So what are the ideas that motivated the Muslim Brotherhood? Let's start with the way they look at history, the way they look at their own history, Islamic history. In their view, again they ask the question that Muslims have been asking since maybe the 17th, 18th century, what happened? Why are we in decline? Why are we losing out to the West? And their conclusion is that look, the decline really started quite, you know, almost immediately after Muhammad died. The only truly Islamic culture they've ever existed in their mind was the period from when Muhammad starts his, you know, starts getting revelations from God to the death of the fourth Khalif, the fourth leader following Muhammad. That's it. That was the period and they call it the righteous four Khalifs. You know, that is the period of Islamic greatness and from there there's deterioration. Even though politically, militarily they are successful, they would argue underlying that success, behind that success there's a what? There's a corruption right under the surface that is ultimately going to lead to the destruction of Islam and of the Khalifa. Indeed what we view as the height of Islamic civilization, anywhere from 700 to 1200 when they're translating the Greeks, when they're building libraries, when they've achieved empire status in terms of militarily conquering more than half of the known world at the time, they view as the complete corruption of Islam. To them Islam is being corrupted by Greek ideas. Islam was corrupted by reason. You know, back to El Ghazali. Reason is out. Now they would never call it reason. They would say pagan ideas from the Greeks and so on. But they would never, because they claim to be, you know, they use the word reason. They claim to be that there's no conflict and so on. But what they really talk about is a corruption of reason from their perspective, corruption of Greece, and that is where Islam starts the real decline. So it's philosophy and it's influence on Islam which destroyed Islam. And indeed in this setting, they view the first big catastrophes for Islam, the Crusades, the Christian Crusades, the Mongol invasions, and then Europe's push of Islam out of Spain, then Europe's push of Islam out of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Greece, and ultimately the complete capitulation in World War I, where the Ottoman Empire is completely overrun by the colonial powers, primarily the French and the British. To them, the Ottomans' success early on as a result of the fact that early on the Ottomans were relatively pious and then got corrupted again by Western ideas and fell apart. So it's all about the more rigid, the more consistent you are as a follower of Islam, the more successful you're going to be. More successful you're going to be. So by the end of World War I, the enemies of Islam had basically wrecked the Islamic state, had ensured its impotence, had imported in a massive way Western values and Western ideas, this idea of cultural imperialism. And then by supporting Zionism, by putting in a state of Israel, that was just horrific from their perspective. Here is this implantation of a Western civilization in the heart of a Muslim area, in the heart of the Middle East. It's not even that the Jews, it's the fact that they're not Muslims. This to them, and they really view this, this is the Crusades again. If you remember the Crusades are about these Christians coming and taking over what is today Israel and going to Jerusalem. This is just another form of the Crusade. That the Europeans sent these Jews over to take away a piece of Islam as part of this imperialistic, as part of this ongoing war between Islam and the West. And so Israel to them is a symbol, more than anything else, it is a symbol of their own decline and of this Crusaders, these infidels coming in and taking over from them. Relationship with the rest of the Islamic establishment, they believe that most of the official imams, the official, you know, there are no priests really in Islam, but the official preachers in the mosque, the official schools, they were all being co-opted by money and power and the political regimes. So they were not to be trusted, they were to be thrown out. And indeed it was Al-Azhar in Egypt, this university, this scholarly place where Islam was studied was responsible in their view for allowing the corruption of Egypt. The scholars of Al-Azhar never stood up and said, no to the Westerners, no to the secular ideas, no to nationalism, no to socialism. They let it happen and they bear the moral responsibility for what happened. So the enemy is the existing religious establishment, one enemy. They place a big emphasis on this idea of unity. The Muslim world needs to be unified. It needs to have one set of ideas. They need to all speak with one voice. This unity is a sin. Muslims are supposed to come together, you know, as if there's one consciousness driving them. It's why they advocate for one ruler. And they're very much against political parties because that emphasizes this disunity. The Muslims are all supposed to share one goal. Think alike. Have the same basic values. Speak with one voice. And for example, the Muslim Brotherhood, who are Sunnis, and we'll talk more about Sunnis versus Shiites, have no animosity or there's nothing in their writings that's anti-Shiite. They indeed view, they want to see the Sunnis and Shiites coming to unite against all these challenges, against all these funds. We'll talk about where the splits later occur with the Shiites and even what's going on today. To what extent is Bin Laden anti-Shiite versus Zakkawi in Iraq? And I think there was a split there between them in terms of the attitude to Shiites. To a large extent because of Iranian support. The Iranians I think are supporting Bin Laden and have been for a long time. So they were against political parties. One thing where you can see a direct Western influence of socialism and indeed communism and the language of communism, we'll keep seeing this because this is a feature of the Iranian Revolution, is that the Muslim Brotherhood and many of these Islamic groups pick up the concept of social justice. They become big advocates of social justice in those terms, in the terms of the left. And social justice of course to them means the more equal redistribution of wealth. Resentment towards the gap between the rich and the poor. Resentment of course that under totalitarian regimes there's some basis for, because of course the rich are rich because they're corrupt, not because they've earned it. But they don't see of course that distinction and their criticism of capitalism is this difference between the rich and the poor, this gap between wealth. And they speak a lot in the terminology of social justice. To them democracy is a corruption. Why would democracy be a corruption? Because it places the will of the people above the will of God. It is the people who now are responsible for legislation. It is the people who are sovereign. Whereas according to Islam only God is sovereign. And his laws are already written. You don't need a vote to figure out what the laws are going to be. The laws are in the Quran, they're in the traditions. They're in Islam already. You don't need the sanction of the people in order to prove God's laws. I mean they've done. We're finished. There is no role for even for legislature. There's nothing to legislate. It's all being done. Now you can tinker with it. There's certainly aspects of modern society that need new laws based on the Quran. So you need some legislature. But basically the laws are there. They're done. All you need now to make sure in the future if there is legislation you just need to make sure that everything they do pass is consistent with those laws. But for them the Quran is their constitution. It is their constitution. And they have one ruler with a constitution. They don't view it as a dictator, as a totalitarian. Because we're all Muslims. We want to live under these laws. This is not forced on us. This is just our will expressing itself. As we said, the ultimate is the imposition of Islamic law. Viewing the Quran as a constitution. 500 verses in the Quran I think out of 2000. Deal with legislation. Deal with crimes, punishments. How to deal with different issues relating to laws. So to them there's some legitimacy in viewing it as a form of basic law. Muslim Brotherhood don't spend a lot of time on how a Muslim state will be structured ultimately. We'll see that Khomeini on the other hand spends a lot of time on that. And it becomes a big deal because they of course gain political power. So they have to structure an Islamic state. But generally Quran is a constitution. We need one person who is going to rule. That person should be kind of elected through consultation with the elders of the community. The smart people in the community are going to choose this person. The ones he's elected, he's there for life. And he needs to be elected based on the fact that he's going to be virtuous. He's going to be a good Muslim. He knows the Quran. He's knowledgeable. He doesn't have to be according to the Muslim Brotherhood. He does not have to be a religious scholar. Again a difference as we'll see with Iran where it does need to be a religious scholar. He doesn't have to be a religious scholar. He just has to know the Quran and then the religious scholars will be his advisors. They will advise him on how to rule. He has to be virtuous, pious. And most important to them as we talked last time, there's no separation of church and state. Banna actually quoted a saying, quote, Caesar and what belongs to Caesar is for God Almighty alone. So again direct relating to the comment, you know, the Christian saying about what is for Caesar, Lee for Caesar and what's God's God's. To quote Banna again, there was no authority in Islam except the authority of the state which protects the teaching of Islam and guides the nation to the fruits of both religion and the world. Islam does now recognize the conflict which occurred in Europe between the spiritual and the temporal powers between church and the state. Okay, now they talk about freedom a lot. What do they mean by freedom? Well, in one sense freedom means to them not being under western rule. So it means independence in some sense, you know, having an independent state. So freedom is never, from their perspective as we understand it, freedom of the individual farm coercion. It has nothing to do with the individual. It has to do with the Islamic nation. Freedom, when they talk about freedom, they're talking about freedom from infidels. Infidels from the west. Freedom to do, to impose Islam on everybody in that Islamic state. Freedom of religion for them, for example, means yeah, everybody has a right to decide what religion they have. Absolutely. And then we have a right to decide what to do with them. If they're Muslims, they're first class citizens. If there happen to be Christians or Jews, they're second class citizens. If they're atheists or pagan or something else, then they're third class citizens or maybe just dead. But you can choose, in front of God, you have the Quran says, there's no compulsion in religion. And then it tells you what to do with the people who decide otherwise. Freedom of expression is the same thing. Everybody can say whatever they want according to al-Bana. You can publish what you want and so on, as long as it's consistent with Islam. So he actually talks about the existence of freedom of expression. But you can't offend Islam. We discovered that with the cartoons, right? And the Muslim publishers who published elements of the cartoons, sometimes even crossed out, are all in jail today. There was a publisher in Jordan who published them just to show the Muslim world what was going on in Denmark and how horrible it was. I mean, he was anti. And he actually crossed out elements within the cartoons. He still landed up in jail. As did many others, or had to go into hiding. So I think the important thing here to get is that Islam is all-encompassing. It covers everything that you do. There are rules about every type of behavior that you have. And this is what needs to be imposed. Let me just mention the attitude towards property. Again, they have this mixture. On the one hand, they believe in private property. On the other hand, they say, well, yeah, you can have private property as long as it's good for society. And as long as God is okay with it. Ultimately to them, all wealth, all property, all our lives, everything belongs to God. And then it's just any question of how you interpret what God's intentions are and who gets to make those interpretations. So there are no individuals, and therefore there is no private property. Of course, in the economic realm, they're very, very, very anti-usery. You know, if you think that Christians were anti-usery, they're much more adamant about this. So they have their own Islamic banks. They don't pay interest and they don't charge interest. And they find ways around it. You know, you're buying shares, you're getting dividends. But there are a lot of these banks in the Gulf states today, even in Egypt, there are some very large Islamic banks and all across the Middle East. And even, actually, not just in the Middle East, if you go to Indonesia and Malaysia, there are a lot of these Islamic banks that practice Islamic economics without interest. It is a duty to pay a tax to help the poor. It's one of the four pillars of Islam. So again, the social, this notion of social justice in modern terms. And then the last thing in terms of the ideas that I want to just mention is their attitude towards women. And again, there's a little difference here between the way the Muslim Brotherhood view it and then the way it develops later on. You know, they would be the first to say, men and women are equal, except the fact that they're different. Men are generally smarter and more emotionally stable than women. And therefore, they have a different role in society. And therefore, women need to be protected in some way. But this is for their own good. It's not, you know, other than that, they're equal. They're the same. We just have to be realistic and we have to take into account the mental and emotional differences between the sexes. We also have to take into account the fact that at least when it comes to sex, men are incredibly weak and therefore can be thrown into a, you know, can be distracted, if you will, by an elbow or knee or even just a face. So we just have to take our nature into account and develop laws around that. Ultimately, women exist from God's perspective to reproduce for the purpose of reproduction. That's why there are places in the home, there are places to educate the kids. They can go out and get an education and earn a living and get a job, that's fine. But that's always going to be secondary to the primary responsibility of staying in the home and taking care of the kids. So if they can manage both, okay. The Muslim Brotherhood would not insist on what we've seen on television, you know, the Taliban type, all black, everything, they have looser rules, you know, elbows, knees have to be covered. Some kind of head covering, but it doesn't have to be the whole face. So they're clearly more influenced by the contemporary, you know, Egyptian culture of the time, which was much more modern. And you have to, because of men's attitude, that's so oriented towards sex, you have to control the interaction between the sexes. You never leave a woman and a man together alone. What will happen? And animals, ultimately. But they're also smarter and more mentally stable somehow. So you certainly a married woman would never be, you know, unless her husband was there to protect her, you know, of having exposure to a male who wasn't part of the family. So, you know, there's no rules here like in Saudi Arabia today where women can't drive and women can't work. There's certainly none of that. But there is this clear distinction of the role of women, where they need to be most of the time and what they need to be protected from. And in all these cases, they need to be protected from men, from sex. That's what they need to be protected from. According to Islam, according to Muhammad, men allowed four wives, which in those days was a huge step forward because before that they could have as many as they wanted. So the woman's rights movement in 600 was really happy, it was just four. Islam also says that the male has to treat them all fairly and equally, which modern Muslims would say, modern Islamists would say, since that is impossible, it boils down to you can only have one wife. And that's how they justify monogamy in many of these Muslim countries, basically by the practicality of it. Four wives, you can't treat them all the same, which is what the Quran says you have to do, and therefore one is just kind of the default. But they are in every Muslim country that's ruled by some form of Islamic law. You can still have four wives. There's a question of whether the first wife has that, whether she has moved other wives or not, and that varies from country to country. Indeed, the Muslim brotherhood would claim that monogamy in the West is the cause of unhappy marriages and is the cause of the high-divorcery. And it's why men in the West seek prostitutes and all you have to do is just allow for four wives and you get a happy, blissful marriage. I don't know where they live, but... So you get a sense of kind of the medieval nature of these ideas. They want to go back, literally go back to 600, 700 when the four caliphs ruled where these were the attitudes towards women, where these were the attitudes towards politics, these were the attitudes towards religion. Religion is the primary. God is the primary. There is no sense of the individual, of the value of the individual's life other than as a servant to God. Remember, Islam means... I don't think I mentioned this, but Islam means submission. That's what the word means. And it means submission to God, submission to authority. You are nothing as an individual. And you can see why, out of this, suicide bombings is not a big deal because you as an individual are nothing. And it's not even this selfish motivation of virgins and the afterlife. But it's not even that. It's that these people are nothing and they know they're nothing. And they have to serve a greater good and if God has called on them to blow themselves up, then God has called on them to blow themselves up. I think it's even wrong to assume that they are doing it for the virgins. They're doing it because they do it. Because they don't exist, then, nobody's. There is no such thing as an individual. This is part of this big collective that is Islam and it's all for the glory of God. And romance is alive on the 101. Got another one on them. And romance is alive on the 101. Okay. Any questions on kind of their ideas where they're coming from? Yeah. Is the notion of Muhammad being the perfect man for all time forever and ever? Yes. Repeat the question. Yeah, the question is about the view that Muhammad is the perfect man forever and ever. And Muhammad is a man, first of all. He's not a God. He is a man. He is a prophet. He communicates directly with God. And he is perfect. And some of them would say he is so perfect that all his actions, his literal concrete actions should be emulated. And the way he brought about a Muslim nation needs to be emulated. So the fact, for example, that he left Mecca and went to Medina and then returned to Mecca means to them that they have to be exiled and they have to form their unity in exile and then come back to the origins. Ibn Laden viewed the Taliban in Afghanistan. As his Medina, he still wanted to go back to Saudi Arabia and Mecca. So he viewed that as a necessary kind of transition. Originally he thought Sudan was going to be at that and work out, so he shifted to Afghanistan. But they're looking for this first establishment, for the first Medina where they can bring all the troops together, where they can start their Christian would, their crusade to go back and take over Saudi Arabia, which is the heart of their religious empire. But all of Muhammad's actions, all of his little sayings are all documented and they're all law because he was perfection. Everything he did was true and right. And when they behead people, when we see these videos of beheading, Muhammad after one battle, it decides that this one Jewish tribe in Medina had betrayed him and was the reason for the number of dead that he had in this battle. He basically went back and beheaded every male and enslaved every woman and child. This is the religion of peace. And they take that beheading as some kind of ritualistic, you need to do this with people who are betrayers, people who are infidels. This is an appropriate way to send a message because of course the other Jewish tribes very quickly got in tow. You don't upset this guy. It worked then and they're going to try it again today. Yeah, you had a question? I was just going to ask, do you think that without the oil money? Well, we'll get to oil money. Haven't gotten to oil money yet. Will you be talking about Saudi Arabia? Yeah, we'll be talking about Saudi Arabia in a little while. Yeah, John. As you described the Muslim Brotherhood, I couldn't help but see parallels between what they were saying ideologically and what Martin Luther said ideologically. Both reactionaries who thought that the current leadership that appeared away from the principles of 1400 years earlier, we need to get back to that. Any thoughts on that comparison? I don't know enough about Martin Luther. And I'd say part of the differences is that they were rebelling against, Martin Luther was rebelling against a clear, there was much more of a clear enemy in the sense of a Catholic church that was clearly structured, that was at a particular political entity. The rebellion against the religious authority is not quite as structured and rigid and politically powerful. They're politically, I'd say they're politically weak and that's one of the criticisms of them, that they are basically go along with whatever the regime wants them to do and that's the criticism. The other difference is, based on my very partial understanding of Martin Luther, Martin Luther very much said, what happens in this earth doesn't matter. This earth is scum, it's horrible. You want to charge usury, charge usury, it doesn't matter. And by doing that kind of freed people up to do kind of whatever they wanted, which was probably a positive. Muslims, and then he said, what really matters is only having, only some of you are going to make it anyway and it's already predetermined, maybe some kind of bizarre way. So it kind of freed people up in some sense. The Muslims are the exact opposite. Here they're saying, what happens in this world is what really matters. Everything is the same. You've got to be really, really, really, it's as if everybody was a Protestant and now the Catholics are revolting against the Protestants and trying to establish a rigid, so it's kind of the reverse. Yeah, maybe it's the reverse. I never thought of that. Okay, two more, yeah. I started to get the impression from what you were saying that the particular hatred towards the Jews of the Muslim people in the Middle East is more a consequence of the fact that Israel was instated there. Is there something more historical that the hatred towards the Jews per se or is it basically that Israel is created? Yeah, so the question is, is the hatred of the Jews, is there something historical that relates to the hatred of the Jews that's primarily motivated by the establishment of Israel there? There's quite a bit in the Quran about the Jews. Early in the Quran, there's a lot of positive stuff about the Jews. For example, when Muhammad first establishes his religion and they have to pray five times a day and they have to face Mecca. Well, originally they faced Jerusalem because he thought politically the Jews on board, if they faced Jerusalem, he showed them that it was consistent with Judaism and they could all face Jerusalem and they'd all join his religion. When they didn't, he got really upset and he figured that politically if they faced Mecca where there were very wealthy merchants where he could now get and if you take my course on the history of the Middle East, I go into this in more detail, why politically, he was a real, really smart Muhammad in the game and the political game and the religious game really well and why Mecca and why those shrines in Mecca are so holy has nothing to do with God and everything to do with trade and how to get the merchants on board because when you create those shrines as these shrines of Islam and you make it one of the four pillars of Islam that every Muslim in the world has to come there, what does it do to trade in Mecca? I mean, you just created a bunch of really wealthy merchants and they were happy and that's how he got them. That's how he got them to join. But there is some animosity towards the Jews related to them not joining related to this tribe that he had but ultimately, Jews are like Christians. They're better than the rest of the non-Muslims. They're second-class citizens in the sense that they have to pay a special tax. But if you look at Islamic history, now there's some revisionist history being written these days that I don't know if it's true or not. I have to go back and see. But my understanding of that at least until the 19th century, Jews were treated much better in the Muslim lands than they were in Europe. Now there's some, again, revisionists where they're saying that's not true but I'm not convinced of that. Again, not the first-class citizens but much, much better than they were by the Christians in Europe. And indeed, much of the anti-Semitism, much of the the horrific anti-Semitism that we see today in our world, the stories about Jews drinking blood and sacrificing a Passover and all that stuff, came to them from Europe, was imported with the Christian missionaries who came in in the 19th century and brought that form of anti-Semitism in with them. The establishment of Israel really set all that off. Because to them it is again, it's a crusade. It's taking over Muslim land and giving it into the hands of an infidel. So that has really coalesced that anti-Semitism, made it much more vehement, much more urgent. Whereas the Jews weren't significant up until that point. And today it's out of, I mean it's the Nazis had nothing on these guys today. And the last question was back there. Yeah. You said that the people who commit suicide think that they are nothing. Isn't it hard to believe that there's actually nothing in it for them to do this? Well, sure. A sense of pride or a false sense of pride. Their families admire them. They get something out of it. Yes, but think about it this way. I mean, what does a nihilist get out of blowing stuff up? Yeah, I mean there's a certain sixth sense of satisfaction. They get that and it's certainly they think, I mean put it this way, they think that they are doing the right thing. They think and are convinced that they are moral heroes. Not because they're going to see the virgins, but because they're doing the right thing. They're killing the right people in the name of God. So yes, there's that sense. But their individual lives, individual human beings are insignificant. That's the only thing that could allow them to do that. So yes, they suddenly are committed and get a sense of false pride and false satisfaction for knowing that they are doing what's right. And psychologically, maybe that's why they're doing it, but it's not the ideological motivation. They are true religionists. They truly believe in us. They're not faking. Okay, we're going to get back to Muslim Brotherhood in jail and back to Egyptian history, modern Egyptian history. As I said, revolution happens in 52. Nasser comes to power. He cleans it up. He gets rid of some of his other officers that he doesn't like that much. Consolidates control over Egypt and really becomes a hero in 1956 in the entire Arab world because in 1956 he basically kicks the French through English out. He nationalizes the Suez Canal. If you know a little bit about this history, the French and the British actually stand up for themselves. They paratroop troops into the Suez Canal. They do a military blockade. They align themselves with Israel that takes over the Sinai Peninsula. And it is Eisenhower who pushes them all back home. And says Nasser has every right to nationalize it. Leave him alone. Get out of the way. So it is America that actually stops the Europeans. The Europeans last stand stops them from taking that position. And forces Israel to retreat from Sinai only to have to retake it 11 years later. This is 56. They retake it in 67 and sends the French and the British home. They could have held the Suez Canal. The Egyptians did not have the military force to take them out. Israel easily took over the Sinai Peninsula and stopped. Just short of the Suez Canal because the French and the English wanted a seam as if they were somewhat remote from the Israelis even though it was all a coordinated attack. Nasser is then a hero. He has repelled the West. He becomes a hero throughout the Arab world. A unifying force under the name of Arabism. Under this idea of nationalism the Arabs will all unite. They will become a mighty force. He aligns himself strongly with military regimes in Syria and ultimately in Iraq where nationalist forces are on the rise. There is a treaty between Syria and Egypt that kind of creates a pseudo one nation. It gets broken several times. It gets re-signed and broken because there is this illusion and there is this real energy within the Arab world that this is it. Again, if you read Western scholars of the time they are convinced that this is the future of the Middle East. It is this nationalism. Nasser is a wonderful person. Of course he is an incredibly brutal authoritarian. He is a complete socialist. One of the reasons Eisenhower does this one of the reasons Eisenhower pulls the French and the English out is communism. He thinks that by doing this Nasser will become a friend of America. He thinks that by doing this he will show that he is against colonialism too and that the Arab world will rally to the west. Indeed what happens to Nasser immediately after 1956 is he cuts off his relationship with the US and Europe and establishes strong ties with the Soviet Union. The big dam that's built on the Nile River which was a symbolic project the contract is given to the Soviets. The Americans are completely shut out of the building of the Answa dam. So much here for a newborn. We need to start planning his baptism and his holiday outfit and his birthday party. Sure, but um how long are you planning to stay? If you're one of those who goes to meet your newborn nephew and stays until his first birthday party, switch to Cricut Wireless. Use your phone as many days as you want in Mexico without extra cost. Smile, you're on Cricut. Requires eligible plan minimum $55 per month data speed usage and other restrictions supply coverage not available everywhere see store for details. So much here for a newborn. We need to start planning his baptism and his holiday outfit and his birthday party. How long are you planning to stay? If you're one of those who goes to meet your newborn nephew and stays until his first birthday party, switch to Cricut Wireless. Use your phone as many days as you want in Mexico without extra cost. Smile, you're on Cricut. Requires eligible plan minimum $55 per month data speed usage and other restrictions supply coverage not available everywhere see store for details. So this is really the 1950s, late 50s 1960s are the height of Arab nationalism. Nationalists take over in Algeria in Tunisia in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Libya. Muammar Gaddafi comes about as a nationalist, as an Arab unifier, not as an Islamic leader. I mean he's a pretty good chameleon in the way he has changed over the years. The Syrian, the new military leader in Syria in 1949 again under the Nationalist banner declares, give me five years and I will make Syria as prosperous and enlightened as Switzerland. They're convinced that, you know, they have it all that they are going to and they bought into these western ideas about nationalism and about socialism. Colonialism pretty much comes to an end with the Suez Canal. There's still one last battle to be fought and that's in Algeria. There's no dependence against the French but that's all resolved by the 60s. The French out and really the era of colonialism is finished. Socialism sweeps the entire all these nationalist countries. Iraq clearly becomes socialist Syria becomes socialist, Egypt everything is nationalized much of the private enterprise that existed in Egypt is nationalized. A noted French sociologist writes in 1964 quote, almost every everyone professes adherence to socialism in the Middle East. Liberalism is deeply rooted in the urban life of the Arab East. Now what I think these sociologists don't see is that they're interacting with the small minority of intellectuals in Cairo, in Damascus in Beirut in these major cities. But fundamentally and this is why the Muslim Brotherhood could have been successful, fundamentally the Arab world is Muslim. The common person in the Arab world is religious very religious. What's common to all these countries and you conclude Saudi Arabian include all the way to Pakistan and Afghanistan is that the majority of the people the overwhelming majority of the people are Muslim and even the nationalists when they come to party they have these, originally they have these ideas that we don't need religion kick a religion out very quickly they come to adopt an Islamic face they for example Nasir very quickly what he does is he restructures Al-Azhar to support him and to come up with Fatwa saying what a great leader he is, he needs Islam in order to control the people in order to get legitimacy from the people. This world is a fundamentally Muslim world and that's what the Muslim Brotherhood capitalizes on. Their appeal is not to a secular country that's been converted into Islam or into this radical force in Islam. You know what we would call every day Muslims who are not very intellectual, not very philosophical don't really think about it but they pray five times a day and they go to mosque and they hear the preachers and Islam has an enormous influence on their lives. And I would argue Egypt is the most westernized of all Middle East countries and it is not very westernized. It is only in the Cairo intelligentsia that you see real influences of the west. The dominant majority of people are still Muslims. So as I said NASA is a brutal dictator of course the economy flounders and we'll see that by the end of the 1960s nationalism in the Arab world is dead. In the meantime in prison the Muslim Brotherhood are organizing into small cells study groups sitting around writing and studying and while you know they are executions there's a massacre of 21 of them lying in their cells at some point but NASA is trying to kill them even in prison to try to suppress their influence. They are still intellectually active. Now one of the phenomena that happens in 1954 and we'll return to this in a little while is that some of them go to jail thousands of them go to jail but many of the Muslim Brotherhood escape. They escape Egypt they go to Saudi Arabia others go to Kuwait, Bahrain Jordan, Syria but many many of them go to Saudi Arabia and we'll see the link back to Saudi Arabia in a minute Saudi Arabia doesn't like nationalism and they don't like NASA it's a kingdom nationalism is very against monarchy they don't believe in monarchies they have a different version of dictators and at least Saudi Arabia is a Muslim monarchy they've declared themselves we'll talk about the Wahhabis in a little bit so they're committed to Islam and they're committed to monarchy and they start funding the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. So money starts flowing from Saudi Arabia to small groups outside of prison that are being formed to study not politically active but just to study to talk to start reorganizing from the ruins of 1954 and indeed what happens is that you start getting site codes writings being smuggled out of jail into apartments into small group meetings where people are sitting and reading them as they are being written they are then being photocopied sent to other groups and you've got this whole underground network funded to a large extent by the Saudis and primarily these Muslim Brotherhoods go to Saudi Arabia they find jobs, there's money in Saudi Arabia there are indeed jobs there in the oil industry and other industries and they're sending money back and they're also getting the Saudi regime itself to be supported so between 1956 and 1964 these small groups are reading these books written by Qud the most important of these is a book called you could translate it as a signpost or milestones I've seen different translations of it this is site Qud's last book and becomes the manifesto of the reconstituted Muslim Brotherhood and indeed the manifesto of nearly every Islamic totalitarian group that follows inspired by signposts young activists start agitating for violence against the regime and for the overthrow of Nasser indeed this will become the most important influential substantial book in the Middle East it was officially published in 1965, I think I told you the story last time Nasser, it was banned Nasser read it and then released the ban and then a year later banned it again so it was being distributed in 1964 being reprinted and spreading throughout the Muslim world in 1964 Qud was released as a as a kind of Nasser again was trying to appease his Muslim population, released some of the Muslim Brothers but as a call as the Muslim Brothers became more agitated, more confident more violent by 1965 everybody was re-arrested and back in jail indeed both Qud and his brother along with hundreds of others were arrested and in August 29, 1966 site Qud was hanged nine days after his trial they had a sentence and they quickly hanged him they did not want him hanging around hanging around that was not, I didn't mean that they want to get rid of him he was hanged very quickly and of course he became a legend at that point he became a martyr for the cause he became the giant of for Islamic Tertillatorians everyone I'm in Glendale and found love in the south bay yes I find myself in an LA long distance thing guess who helped make it work AT&T I bought one phone got another one on them and romance is alive on the 101 come into an AT&T store buy a smart phone and get one on us more for your thing that's our thing limited time in areas select devices each requires up to $900 on installment agreement requires one new line of minimum $75 per month service three after credits over 30 months starting within three bills if cancel service device balances due $30 activation additional fees taxes and restrictions apply see your local AT&T store for details well the mainstream condemned him wrote him off as a heretic he was adopted by a significant portion of the population particularly the radicalized Muslim brotherhood and many other groups now who was this guy who was said could born in 1906 to a again a well educated family he had a relatively secular education in spite of that fact he by the age of 10 had memorized the entire Quran but he did that out of his own initiative his family was relatively secular anti-British and nationalist Egyptian Arab Nationalism he was very widely read particularly of western press and and western literature he landed being employed by the ministry of public instruction which was responsible for all education and he was responsible for some of the westernization of the Egyptian public schools he was in charge of reforming the schools he was a act of support of liberal democratic nationalist ideas and he wrote he was a prolific writer but he wrote literary criticism his subject was literature that's what he had studied again he was very widely read in western literature now he became quite active in 1945 politically active for nationalism and as a consequence the existing regime Egypt was still a monarchy decided to ship him out decided that he was too agitating for too much trouble and indeed in 1948 he was shipped out for a sabbatical a three-year sabbatical to the United States where he was supposed to come here and study the educational system in the US now according to everything that I've written that I've read Saigud went through some kind of religious experience on the boat trip from Egypt to the US he rededicated himself to Islam started praying five times a day and became a committed Muslim on this trip now for that reason I think among others his stay in America was quite traumatic he found this country to be bizarre decadent just horrific now think about this this is 48 to 51 the biggest thing he found outrageous was the sexual promiscuity of Americans we think back in the 50's as kind of conservative to him he founded disgusting the kind of stuff the relationships between men and women if you want to get into psychology some of these books do he had a bunch of bad relationships who knows for example he went to some churches to witness services and he founded mind numbing that they were singing that there was music and men and women were mingling freely at these churches now remember this is a westernized Egyptian this is somebody who was reading western lit who was in the circles in Cairo of the more western Egyptians he returned to Egypt after staying in the United States for three years and he returned to Egypt as a hater of America a hater of the west and a hater of capitalism he later wrote that he was born in 1951 on his return to Egypt everything before that was meaningless he joined the Muslim brotherhood in 51 and in 52 was already elected to the leadership council he was during the revolution a prime context in his previous days as a nationalist a prime contact with the offices with the revolution but once it was clear that the Muslim brothers were being used that they were not going to have any real political power he quit the nationalist cause completely and devoted himself totally to the Muslim brotherhood in his first political book was titled the struggle between Islam the title of the book in 1952 in which he writes this capitalism predicated as it is on monopoly and interest taking money grubbing and exploitation this individualism which lacks any sense of solidarity and social responsibility other than that laid down by law that crass and vacatious materialistic perception of life called permissiveness that to him was capitalism as I said in 54 he was arrested sentenced to 25 years of hard labor he was tortured in jail by the Nasser regime and started writing first book was his commentaries in the Quran in 30 volumes and in 1962 he began drafting the first chapters of signpost so what are his key concepts what could's contribution here well first somebody who knew the west at least presented himself as somebody who knew the west he was a huge critic of western what he viewed western materialism of the idea that the west followed the rules of man rather than the rules of god that the rules of man therefore were necessarily arbitrary they lacked the objectivity of mystical revelation supposed to be funny in the intro to signpost he writes quote humanity today stands on the brink of the abyss not because of the threat of destruction that hangs over its head this is the nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the US which everybody was talking about in the 50s right for this is merely a symptom of the evil not the evil itself but because of its bankruptcy in the domain of values under which man could have lived and developed harmoniously so if man had the right values we would all live harmoniously in this paradise but we don't have those values and that's the cause of all the problems he writes quote or in the final analysis both individualist and collectivist ideologies have failed it is the turn of Islam in other words capitalism has failed communism has failed the only alternative is Islam Islam is the solution to all the world's problems and the need is for an Islamic nation with Islam the reason the Muslim brotherhood could not rally millions and millions or tens of millions or hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world is there was no model for an Islamic state what we need is an Islamic state what we need is a state ruled by Sharia one and once that Islamic state is there it'll serve as inspiration all the Muslims people rally towards it and the world is ours is his logic and the key for him here is this is contribution the thing that he that he adds to what the Muslim brothers already have is this idea that if there is no rule of Islamic law if there is no country truly ruled by Islamic law then there is no Islam there are no Muslims everybody in a sense now is a pagan he calls this in Arabic he calls it Jahlia and Jahlia is the stage that people had that the world existed as before the appearance of Muhammad yes J-A-H-I-L-I-Y-Y-A and by the way these spellings are from one book but other books both are definitely same with a lot of the names so this is the barbaric stage of pre-Muhammad pre-Islam and as long as there is no Islamic law somewhere everybody is in a state of barbarism and the political leaders of the country cannot therefore be viewed as Muslims at all they're not Muslims and from this day on for example in the Talatarian circles the rule of Egypt is called Pharaoh because that's what the rule of Egypt was pre-Islam it was the Pharaoh and when they kill Sadat in 1981 they talk about murdering the Pharaoh we didn't kill a Muslim he was not a Muslim because he is not living under Islamic law he's not imposing Islamic law therefore he doesn't count say he could legitimize this the concept of revolution of overthrow of the existing rulers he legitimizes both this concept of killing of Muslims he legitimizes any action necessary in order to establish an Islamic state now he in his writings never talks about violence because he knows the consequences he knows he'll be killed immediately so this is all kind of in code but by using this term this barbaric stage he basically defines everybody as an apostate everyone is an apostate everybody who doesn't advocate right now for Islamic law is an apostate and apostate is the worst thing in Islam it's better to be a Christian than you apostates are Muslims that have turned their back on Islam but that is the lowest of all they've had the truth they've known it and they've consciously rejected it that's why in Afghanistan this guy who converted from Islam to Christianity was worse than Christians that's why they wanted to kill him because that is the ultimate sin is to turn your back on Islam and if all the world is apostate if all the Muslim world all violence is permitted against them calls for a vanguard says the way to bring about a truly Islamic state is what we need as a vanguard a small group of dedicated intellectuals and soldiers who will create their own who will live under Islamic law even if it's not the political state of the world and who will work to spread to establish Islam over all Islamic lands he says this vanguard is going to be small again even the word vanguard even that terminology this guy is red-lending he's red-western the communism had this notion of a vanguard that goes out and spreads the word and establishes a foothold and gets everything going what we need as a vanguard to find a state and establish a state the best state to do this in is Egypt says Egypt is always being at the heart of Islam it's the most intellectual it's the most powerful it has the most people but it could be anyway we need to start somewhere and notice by the way that nobody then or now consider Saudi Arabia to be an Islamic state there are compromises we'll get to that so to him that's not a model the model is this new state that needs to come about so the vanguard needs and this vanguard in order to know what to do in order to know how to establish it needs signposts it needs a path and this book that I'm writing quid says is going to illustrate going to give you the milestones the signposts on how to do this and how to go about bringing about this wonderful state and again that's why it becomes this manifesto indeed Muhammad and his small group who leave Mecca and go to Medina and establish Islam and he says that's what we need to emulate we need to emulate what Muhammad did and how he acted remember the only sovereignty is God everything you do in the name of God is legitimate the restoration of Islam is a revolution and the vanguard must focus first on understanding and contemplating the Quran themselves becoming complete Muslims and denying the entire Greek and Persian and philosophical and western ideas they have to deny all of that, they reject all of it and return to the very foundations and what you need is change indeed not in word at all not in words only that could cause for Jihad and he criticizes those in Islam that claim that Jihad is just a personal you've probably all heard of this because the moderate Muslims come out and say this Jihad really means just the personal struggle that we all have between the temptations of the flesh and the teachings of the Quran and that's ridiculous and he also rejects the notion that Jihad is defensive only that is only to protect Islam now he says Jihad is also offensive it is our responsibility to bring Islam and the truth to the world Jihad also he says without specifying the details cannot be waged through words alone cannot be waged through words alone so we need a vanguard and it better be prepared for violence now notice that could in a sense excommunicate all Muslims and all Muslim regimes that are not living under Sharia and in a sense converts the Muslim Brotherhood from a movement that's mainly pious civilians with a political agenda trying to move within political services political system establishing welfare and schools and mosques to a movement with self-conscious conscript soldiers ready for battle ready for a revolution use your phone as many days as you want in Mexico without extra cost smile you're on cricket requires eligible plan minimum $55 per month data speed usage and other restrictions supply coverage not available everywhere see store for details ooh so much here for a newborn we need to start planning his baptism and his holiday outfit and ooh his birthday party sure but um how long are you planning to stay if you're one of those who goes to meet your newborn nephew and stays until his first birthday party switch to cricket wireless use your phone as many days as you want in Mexico without extra cost smile you're on cricket requires eligible plan minimum $55 per month data speed usage and other restrictions supply coverage not available everywhere see store for details now could relies on at least two thinkers in establishing these ideas contemporary of his name is Said Abdul Allah Maududi M-A-W-D-U-D-I Indian Muslim born in India forced to leave India and go to Pakistan when India and Pakistan are separated and to a large extent Maududi is very similar to could and his influence is very similar to could's influence in Pakistan and one of the reasons Pakistan is so radical and why it's such a breeding ground for this form of radical Islam today is Maududi's activism and teachings and he had a kind of a real relationship could was reading him and he was reading could I mean they were influencing each other constantly and a lot of the network established in Pakistan was established by him he built schools he built social networks he established the foundations for what we see today in Pakistan for the radical Islamic nature of much of that country was that this Maududi's doing could is at least according to the sources I read is a much better writer than Maududi is a much better popularizer of these ideas and is a much more powerful voice and that's why he is really at the heart of this and he's read in Pakistan Maududi out there but is responsible for the state of Pakistan today to a large extent the second source of all these people really is a Muslim thinker from the Middle Ages by the name of Ibn Taymiyyah and I'm just going to say a few words about Ibn Taymiyyah I talk about him more in my history of the Middle East class but Ibn Taymiyyah lived in Egypt during the period of the Mongol invasions the Mongols had taken over Iraq and Syria and there was a constant struggle between Muslims in Egypt and the Mongols now at some point the Mongols all converted to Islam but they imposed Mongol laws while ruling a so called Muslims and Ibn Taymiyyah came up with this concept that they are apostates and in spite of being Muslims because they weren't imposing Sharia they were apostates and Ibn Taymiyyah was popularized by Rashid Reeder who we talked about yesterday and who Bana read and then he directly influenced this idea of the barbaric state pre-Islam and this apostasy of all Muslims who didn't live under Sharia was definitely a strong influence on site Qud and when you read Bin Laden if you read I mean I don't know if you do but if you ever read his long statements he quotes Ibn Taymiyyah extensively so this is the kind of the intellectual source of a lot of this but really gets becomes a powerful voice through site Qud many commentators comment on the fact that Qud's book for totalitarian Islam was what Lenin's what is to be done now was for communism it was the manual signpost it was the call for action now with Qud's death in 1966 and Nasr's strongly anchored in power and oppressing the Muslim brotherhood again people thought this was dead people thought it was finished whatever hopes people might have had in Egypt in the late 50's and early 60's for the resurrection of the brotherhood was done Qud was killed the brotherhood was in jail again and what's interesting is another huge migration happened Muslim brothers leave Egypt again again they're being oppressed and they leave and they go again to primarily Saudi Arabia and here we arrive at the really at the end of the nationalist as an ideal era in the Arab world and that happens in June of 1967 Nasr the all powerful Arab nationalists the Syrians to some extent the Jordanians to war with Israel he invades the Sinai masses his troops on the border with Israel the Sinai after the 56 war was declared a non militarized zone there were no Egyptian troops there there was UN troops stationed he tells the UN to get out the UN says ok and they run away Nasr comes in he closes off the straits that don't allow shipping into Israel's southern port of Elat the Syrians amass on the Golan Heights start shooting down into the valleys below the Jordanians in spite of being asked by the Israelis not to intervene and not again to this participate in the war Israel demolishes all three armies including the additional troops from Iraq and Lebanon and other countries that join in demolishes them in six days and six days is an overstatement because they actually do away with the Sinai in like three and a half days and then they busy cleaning up stuff in the Golan Heights and the Golan Heights means climbing like this to go fight at the top of them if you've been to the Golan Heights it's this and it just drops into the valleys into this big valley in Israel and they have to climb up demolish the Syrians the Jordanians participate lose the entire West Bank and this is just horrific in the Arab world I mean their hopes their dreams are shattered they thought nationalism was the solution that NASA would bring about victory 1948 when Israel gets established is just a shock to them that Israel could win in 1948 but then in 67 after the rise of NASA and the promises and all these armies aligned against the Israelis to lose basically destroyed the ideal of nationalism in the Middle East and what you have from then on you still have nationalistic governments like the Baath Party in Syria and the Baath Party in Iraq at that point the idealism is gone the utopian notion of Arab unity is gone from that point these are just brutal dictators oppressing their people even the people see it that way whereas beforehand yeah they were brutal dictators oppressing their people but the people viewed it as this is good for us this is for the greater good of the Arab you know that is demolished in 1967 and indeed it creates this huge intellectual ideological vacuum because if nationalism didn't work we tried that now another way you know we tried this western ideal this was brought to us by the west right socialism nationalism those are not Muslim or Arab concepts these are concepts we borrowed from Europe and that has crashed and failed what now what do we do now the west has failed us, the Ottomans failed us everything seems to fail us so that becomes a really key opportunity as we'll see for the Muslim Brotherhood huge disillusionment disillusionment you've got a very literate generation one of the things the nationalists to do is they expanded education dramatically you've got a lot of people who are well read who know what's going on and just you know have no clue where to turn to indeed what's interesting is in the 1960s you have the first generation of Muslims the first time that Muslims can overwhelmingly read the Quran for themselves previously most of them were literate and had to understand all the understanding of the Quran came from the scholars came from the religious leaders and one of the things that happens and notice that Bana is not a religious leader Qut was secular until he started writing interpretations of the Quran and one of the things that becomes popular is personal interpretation of the Quran everybody since we can all read it we can all now interpret it we'll see that is not something that for example Aitul Khomeini likes and we'll challenge there's also demographic explosion in the Arab world you know health care is better than it was in the 19th century money has flowed in the oil wealth that is all over the Arab world and yet unemployment is huge and Arabs are looking around and saying what have we gained since we kicked out the colonialists and we don't have the colonias to blame anymore we did this we lost the war it wasn't and the French and the British didn't even come to Israel's aid and up until 1967 Israel received no military or financial help from the US nothing, zero, zilch they're playing some fans and tanks from Britain no help from the US they couldn't blame their defeat on the west it was Israel, these Jews beat them and that was just bizarre wasn't there Arab power support from the US or if I get the wrong war's mixed up didn't they threaten to drop the bomb in less than US back them up with the promised no, your mixing war is a little bit and even that's not completely true even if the war that you mean it for that was 73 and even there that's not completely true but there is some in 1973 there was a massive airlift of weaponry into Israel from the United States and there was an issue of the bomb but that had more to do with the fact that Israel was getting very close to Cairo and very close to Damascus and as a consequence the Soviet Union said if Israel gets any closer with sending troops and there was a nuclear load because this could have turned into the stage of a nuclear confrontation between the US and that's where the bomb was talked about and Israel in 1973 I believe there's no evidence there's no proof of this but I believe in 1973 Israel had its nuclear capacity up in the air that is they had nuclear bombs up in their planes because they thought they might lose they came this close to losing and they were not going to go down without using their nuclear capacity so for the first time maybe since he was human well the US has nuclear capacity up in the air regularly but here was ready to be used in 1973 but it wasn't as a threat for the US to come and help them it was just as an existential necessity because they came very close to losing their war on the first two or three days after that it was over for the Arabs there was another question yeah how could such a force be destroyed in six days a massive underestimate what happened? well motivation fight these kids from the Nile a station at Sinai told to kill these people for what why? well but NASA wasn't using Allah to do it so they weren't inspired by religion and nationalism there was a lot of this now how much further it's my life am I dying exactly four? I think so that's part of it the Jews on the other hand the Israelis were motivated by survival they were fighting for their farms for their homes, for their children the Egyptians hadn't seen their family in weeks or months they were a thousand miles away hundreds of miles away it wasn't going to invade Egypt it wasn't personal for the Israelis it was personal it was their lives you know Israel is a free country generally in war free countries beat out unfree countries you know it might take longer than six days typically you know I tell you just one story about a six day war and then we'll move on the Egyptians turned and ran and they wanted to run so fast that their boots were slowing them down so they took their boots off and ran barefoot and when you see aerial photographs of the Sinai you know close up from planes what you see is trails of boots they were literally running taking off their boots and continuing to run in my dad I was living in London at the time my dad flew back to Israel to be in the war and he got when he landed he got Egyptian boots the way because the Israelis were collecting them and using them Israel had brilliant tactics they were smart they knew what they were doing they did a blitzkrieg basically on the Sinai they didn't stop to clean and mop things up they just went and took the whole thing and I think the second thing was air power Israel surprised them Israel actually started the war in the sense of the first shot Israel preempted them destroyed the entire air force of the Egyptians on the ground they never took off so Israel had complete air superiority throughout the war so there are many strategic and tactical reasons why it happened but motivation has a big fact and just it was a fascinating exchange between the king of Jordan and Egypt where they were both communicating with each other about how to lose face and they both were declaring we destroyed 85% of the Zionist airplanes and it kind of went back and forth and they're both saying our guys are doing great so you keep going and they were both retreating it was just interesting now I think that's right and even in the papers during the 6 day war they were reporting victory until then and then they had to somehow explain why they were completely defeated because the soldiers were coming back from the front and it was obvious indeed Nasser never recovered from that loss and died in 1970 a broken man and nowhere near as politically powerful as he was in 1967 this is considered a huge mistake of his but of course what do you expect from a dictator like that and you could also argue that he was finished anyway because the economy of Egypt was crumbling just crumbling from all his nationalization of socialism and some would say that this was a diversion he was hoping that victory in Israel would help divert Egyptians attention away from that with Nasser's death Sadat comes to power Anwar Sadat Sadat launches a war against Israel in 1973 which he loses but is spin as a success partially by the way because the United States intervened to prevent Israel from crushing the Egyptian forces stopped that and negotiated an end to the war I mean one of the biggest foreign policy mistakes the US made but Sadat managed to spin it because his forces managed to cross the Suez Canal and actually established footholds on the other side of Suez Canal and any little victory over Israel was considered wow Sadat also cuts ties with the Soviet Union and befriends the United States he begins economic liberalization in 1975 and indeed in an historical act goes to Jerusalem in 1977 and speaks in front of the Israeli parliament the Knesset and signs a peace deal with Israel in 1979 by which Israel gives back the entire Sinai peninsula except for Gaza he didn't want it I mean he didn't Israel would have loved to give back the Gaza Strip but the Egyptians did not want Gaza he also starting in 71 releases jailed Muslim brothers claims to be their friend tries to Islamize the state kind of slowly even to the extent in 1977 of promising the Muslim brothers that he will impose Sharia never does but he kind of makes that promise now once the Muslims brothers out of prison they start getting active again one of the phenomena that happens in the 70s is a split into multiple groups the more militant groups inspired directly by Qut go underground many of the more mainstream Muslim brothers reject aspects of Qut primarily those leading to violence but still committed to the ultimate goal both types of Muslim brothers place a renewed emphasis on the universities and indeed an Islamist student union is established student group is established called the Jamat Ismail which by the mid 1970s controls the student union at every major Egyptian university they become the dominant force on Egyptian campuses preaching this radical form of Islam more and more women Jamat J-A-M-A-A-T S-L-A-M-I-Y-Y-A they become such a dominant force on campuses that Sadat starts rethinking his openness to the Muslim brother do you remember I said they release them they prison them they release them they prison them they need them because it's a way to appease the masses of Muslims because the country is fundamentally Islamic but they can't tolerate them because they're a threat to the regime while mainstream Muslim brother tries to moderate tries to reject Kurds more radical views it can't really escape the logic of its own cause other splinter groups start wanting Sadat even more because they are advocating for violence and indeed particularly after the war after the he goes to Jerusalem the Muslim brotherhoods just reject him completely I mean this is just an act of massive betrayal to sign a peace treaty with the enemies with the crusaders in Jerusalem this is just terrific and then of course he also betrays them by not imposing Sharia as he promises them in 1977 so Sadat is building himself up to be a major enemy of the Muslim brothers a major he is considered Pharaoh considered an apostate now we will rejoin the Muslim brothers tomorrow talk a little bit more about them in Egypt I'll give you a sense of what moderate Muslim brotherhoods means through their attitude to some some issues and then we're going to turn for a little while to the beach head the Muslim brotherhoods have now established starting in the 1950s in Saudi Arabia and the resulting mixture of Muslim brotherhood and Wahhabis and what that results with the combination of the Wahhabis and the Muslim brothers and then I really hope that tomorrow we will also have time to cover the Iranian revolution because I'm running out of time very quickly here yeah quickly because we got like one minute you explained who issues them and then the impact or the obligation of a fucked way is a religious ruling it can be issued by any religious leader anybody who's educated in interpreting the Quran and indeed in the modern view of these Islamists anybody can issue a fatwa who is considered by the community a leader a well educated in Islam and it commits the community to it now you've got contradicting fatwas going on all the time and indeed different people are going to follow different fatwas and the thing about Islam particularly the Sunni form of Islam is there is no religious hierarchy there is no pope and therefore any religious leader can issue any fatwa and again they view since all Muslims are supposed to be one and have one consciousness and understand the Quran and everything in the same way they should all know which fatwas to follow and which ones are corrupt but that's why you get Bin Laden issue in fatwas because he's a leader and recognized as an Islamic knows the Islam by his followers and then you get a fatwa out of Saudi Arabia that contradicts it or a fatwa out of Egypt that contradicts those two and literally Zakkawi can issue fatwas and then you know the El Azar can issue fatwas so fatwas can be issued but pretty much anyone and you know today you get to choose which ones you want to follow and which ones you don't there's no way to enforce the use of fatwas other than if you upset al-Qaeda they'll kill you so you want to so within their circles you have to follow those fatwas because there is an enforce mechanism to force and this is it but yeah quickly Communism viewed differently in the 50s Middle East and it was kind of a heyday here Communism was viewed positively by the nationalists in the 50s and 60s by the Islamists it was never viewed positively yeah he was already saying that in the 50s he said communism is a failure look at how it's become so oppressive and so well he's pointing to the Soviet Union I mean people knew what was going on it wasn't a secret it just took the west western intellectuals a while to recognize what they were already seeing with their eyes it wasn't a mystery in the 50s what Stalin was doing particularly in the late 50s early 60s thank you I'll see you all tomorrow morning I'm in Glendale and found love in the south bay yes I find myself in an LA long distance thing guess who helped make it work AT&T I bought one phone got another one on them and romance is alive on the 101