A reader has passed me a translation from BBC Monitoring, of a report published today on the Muslim Brotherhood website, IkhwanOnline.
It gives you a very clear insight into the mindset of this political party.
When reading this report, remember that this is the organisation which sections of the Left in this country regard as the standard bearer of global anti-imperialism, whose little foibles are to be excused in the interests of supporting global resistance against capitalism.
The Religious Affairs Committee at the People’s Assembly has discussed questions tabled by MB [Muslim Brotherhood] deputies al-Sayyid Askar and Ali Laban on the action taken by the Awqaf Ministry of printing and distributing booklets on the female circumcision. The two deputies made strong accusations to the Awqaf Ministry of squandering public funds by printing and distributing thousands of copies of a booklet that has already been printed twice under the provocative title of “female circumcision is not part of the Islamic rites.”
The two deputies have also accused the Awqaf Ministry of violation of the constitution and law. MB Deputy Askar said that this title was in conflict with the consensus of the fiqh experts [Islamic jurisprudents] that female circumcision was one of Islam’s rites. [Passage omitted, noting that the decision on female circumcision is within the purview of the Islamic Research Academy, not any other institution]
Askar pointed out that suspect foreign bodies, some of which are Christian evangelical while the others were Jewish, were behind the financing of the campaign against female circumcision. There are also local people who have declared war against female circumcision in line with the foreign agenda on this issue.
The two MB deputies described the decisions issued by Health Minister Dr Hatim al-Jabali as null and void because he depended in his decision on the personal fatwas made by the Mufti of Egypt and the Awqaf Minister, not by the Islamic Research Academy.
They said that the Minister of Health has issued penal decisions from behind the back of the People’s Assembly, which is the competent party that has the jurisdiction to enact legislation. Unfortunately, the government seeks from this campaign to uproot Islam in order to please the West and to appease the suspect Zionist-US organizations.
They added: our government has allowed Jewish Rabbi Robin Firestone to spread his lies against the Holy Koran and the Prophet Muhammad in a lecture he made at Ayn Shams University on 5 July 2007 at a time when senior clerics were not allowed to speak in these universities.
Deputy Alam-al-Din al-Sakhawi, member of the parliamentary bloc of the MB Group at the People’s Assembly, asked about the real reasons and motives behind this campaign against female circumcision. He said: three girls who underwent circumcision died at the Basyun village in the al-Gharbiyah Governorate after receiving an excessive dose of anesthesia. During the funeral, we were surprised with the attendance of a delegation of the health Ministry and the media to interview the families of the girls in order to scare the Egyptian families of female circumcision operations. The deputy asked: what is the reason for this awakening? He also asked about the reasons for recruiting the al-Azhar and al-Awqaf clerics to publish a booklet calling for non-shari’ah matters. He also asked: Why hasn’t a book been issued against torture and corruption?
Another member of the MB Parliamentary bloc Mahir Aql has warned against the danger of this campaign which seeks to undermine the Islamic Shari’ah. He pointed out that female circumcision is allowed, but within specific constraints. He said: there is a US agenda which wants to impose its trusteeship on us.
The Muslim Brotherhood and the Socialist Workers’ Party sit together in the Cairo Conference.
