Shadi Hamid Quotes
Liberalism cannot hold within it Islamism. Liberal secularists and Islamists hold irreconcilable worldviews.
Shadi Hamid, Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution, Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East, 2014
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Journalists and writers are among the most persecuted people in Islamic nations and even writers in non-Muslim nations have been murdered and intimidated for writing material that fundamentalist Muslims thought was heresy.
In 2005 Rose published a number of cartoons some of which depicted the Muslim Prophet, Muhammad which offended many fundamentalist Muslims who had a tradition who had a tradition of never depicting the visage of the Prophet. A delegation of clerics demanded an apology from Rose and the country of Denmark, claiming that they and Islam, like other religions, were entitled to respect.
On the surface, this reform seems to contradict Sharia – Islamic religious law -- where religion permeates all of politics.
Bangladesh had fared very poorly as a part of Pakistan. When it revolted and became independent, it adopted a secular government whereas Pakistan had been, and is, a heavily Islamic state. However, the vast majority of Bengalis were Muslim and some were extreme fundamentalists. Rahman was under constant pressure to make the government more “Islamic” and while he did so somewhat, he tried to advocate for separation of church and state. Bangladesh is not as extreme as Pakistan which is not yet a theocracy but religious forces dominate every aspect of the society.
Ahmad denied saying this although the reporter who wrote the original story insists that he did and she wrote it down at the time. Ahmad did not deny the statement when it first appeared in the Fremont Argus, but only did so several years later.
The Torah comprises the first 5 books of the Bible (Old Testament). The Arab countries of the Middle East are not alone in having to content with ultra-religious clerics who want to control the government and use it to impose religious law on the entire population. Israel also has the problem. In the Arab countries to deny being religion is to put yourself in danger including risking your life. So no one really knows what proportion of the population supports the religious imposition from the government. In Israel, however, this is easily determined by polls. The majority of Israelis are secular Jews. Of the religious Jews, the majority of them believe in extensive separation between the state and the religion. But there is a minority of ultra-orthodox which would have Israel to be a Theocracy. They are a minority but they are politically very strong. They receive large financial support from extremely wealthy Americans, have religious political parties, are extremely passionate advocates, and are willing to devote huge amounts of time to make Israel a more religious state and ideally a theocracy. Ironically, there is a great religious and philosophical similarity between the extremist Jews of Israel and the extremists Muslims in many of the Arab nations. They both want a theocracy. The only difference is which religion should the Theocracy represent.
In most of the concentrations or Muslim refugees in the 2010 to 2020 period, Islamists attempted to organize and dominate the refugees and promote their anti democratic views.
Most Americans and Europeans and their governments feel that Muslim leaders and organizations have not done very much in terms of “drawing the line” and publicly condemning terrorism. However many of the critics did not understand the intimidation that exists in most Islamic communities where the fascist fundamentalists target any Muslim public critics as heretics and apostates themselves. Many have been killed or injured in assassination attempts.
He wrote this in the midst of the Salmon Rushdie affair where some Muslim clerics had issued a fatwa calling for the murder of the author because in this view his writings offended Islam.
Dr. Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of the new book Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World (St. Martin’s Press). Hamid is a contributing writer for The Atlantic. His previous book Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East was named a Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2014. An expert on Islam and politics, Hamid served as director of research at the Brookings Doha Center until January 2014. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The National Interest, and many other publications. He has been a guest on such programs as the PBS NewsHour, The Charlie Rose Show, NBC Nightly News, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” CNN GPS with Fareed Zakaria, and CNN’s Amanpour. Hamid received his B.S. and M.A. from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and his Ph.D. in political science from Oxford University.
