Arab Spring's fallout: Rise of Islam

A recent Barnabas Aid prayer alert calls Christians to pray for the tenuous situation in Tunisia and Egypt, two of the countries involved in the "Arab Spring."

The Barnabas Aid appeal says hostility to Christianity is on the increase and asks for God to give wisdom to the voters in North Africa. The prayer alert is aimed at getting intercession for what some are seeing as an escalation of Islamism in the Middle East.

Tunisians ousted long-time leader Zine el-Abidine ben Ali and elected a jihadist regime in their first-ever free elections, while a Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist-controlled government appears to have taken control in Egypt at the end of the first round of parliamentary elections.

The winning parties in both countries have indicated their desire to impose Shariah law, a development which prompts Middle East watchers to speculate that the much-heralded "Arab Spring" was a platform for an al-Qaida and Muslim Brotherhood power grab.

Center for Security Policy analyst Clare Lopez believes those asking if the world is seeing the rise of Shariah in that region are "obviously onto the reality of the disaster that's unfolding in front of us in the Middle East."

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Lopez said the chain of events was a coordinated effort: "The so-called 'Arab Spring,' long planned and well-executed by jihadist forces, with deliberate and knowing assistance from the current national security leadership of the [U.S.], is nothing more than the implementation by Islamic powers of Phase Five of the plan for global domination."

Lopez was referring to a document introduced as evidence in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror funding trial.

"Although unquestionably there were both naive and spontaneous elements to uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya," Lopez claimed, "the actual course of those revolutions and especially now, their aftermaths, were and are being managed carefully and professionally by the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda allies."

Lopez said there is a traceable timeline leading to the present results in Tunisia and Egypt: "In July 2010, al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula published its first issue of the online magazine, 'Inspire.' In it, Al-Qaeda explicitly called on the Muslim world, and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular, to rise up in jihad and turn the page 'from Mecca to Medina,'" Lopez said.

"In Oct 2010, Mohammad Badie, the new Secretary General of the Muslim Brotherhood, responded with a declaration of war. It was a declared jihad against the U.S., U.K., Israel, Jews and 'corrupt' Arab rulers," Lopez also said.

"U.S. national security leadership, of course, ignored it, just as they had in 1996 and 1998 when Osama bin Laden declared war against us," Lopez said.

The last link in the chain of events, Lopez claimed, was in January 2011: "In January 2011, Al-Azhar chimed in with a 'fatwa' stipulating that both offensive and defensive jihad are legitimate. The alignment was complete, and the revolutions began shortly thereafter."

In Lopez's analysis, the carefully planned series of events implemented by al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood rallied the radicals, who then effectively crushed the aspirations for true democracy by any remaining "moderates" in Tunisia and Egypt.

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"Within days, the Google kids and any so-called 'moderates' that might have existed were gone from the scene. So was Egypt's tourism industry," Lopez said. "Without international aid, the country faces famine, and, by the way, as its foreign currency reserves are dwindling, capital flight is accelerating, and new foreign investment is non-existent."

She added, "The Muslim Brotherhood emerged from decades in the oppressed shadows and took over decisively in both Egypt and Tunisia with massive popular support. Exiled leaders such as Rachid Gannouchi and Yousef al-Qaradawi returned from exile to rapturous welcomes reminiscent of 1979 Khomeini return to Iran."

International Christian Concern's Middle East specialist Aidan Clay agrees and says that Tunisia's election result has blunted Christian hope for reform in the Middle East.

"Widely seen as the most secular country of those inflamed in revolutions that deposed long-standing leaders, many believed that Tunisia had the greatest opportunity to elect a moderate government concerned with democratic principles," Clay said. "However, the hopes of many Christians were dashed last month when the Islamist Ennahda party won 41 percent of the votes for a national constitutional assembly, a one-year body charged with writing a constitution and appointing an interim president."

Clay says that Ennahda Party leader Rashid Ghannouchi's public statements have further eroded hope that Tunisia might remain a moderate Arab country.

"Ennahda had been outlawed under former President Zine El Abedine Ben Ali on the grounds that it was planning an Islamist takeover of the country. Rashid Ghannouchi, the party's chairman, once described himself as the pupil of Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini and defended the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979," Clay said.

He continued, "In a speech given in Khartoum in 1990 just before war erupted in Kuwait, [Ghannouchi] said, 'We must wage unceasing war against the Americans until they leave the land of Islam, or we will burn and destroy all their interests across the entire Islamic world.'"

Clay added, "In 2001, [Ghannouchi] extolled Palestinian suicide bombers and advocated anti-American violence on an Al-Jazeera broadcast. He also said, 'The greatest danger to civilization, religion and world peace is the United States administration. It is the Great Satan.'"

Clay says Tunisia's new leadership is fully committed to Islam, Shariah and a return of the Islamic Caliphate. He says the new constitution will likely reflect that desire.

"Similar to what will occur in Egypt, Tunisia's elected assembly will soon draft a new constitution. There is grave fear that the constitution will be centered on Islamic Shariah law," Clay said.

"According to Larbi Sadiki, who hosted Ghannouchi during his 22-year exile in London during Ben Ali's rule, 'Ghannouchi's only condition for Muslim democracy to flourish is the sharing of the immutable principles of Islam as a shared set of values,'" Clay said.

"Hamadi Jebali, the newly appointed Prime Minister with the Ennahda Party, raised more eyebrows in mid-November when he implied that he sought a return of the Muslim caliphate. He further stated, 'The liberation of Tunisia will, God willing, bring about the liberation of Jerusalem.' Secularists in Tunisia were agitated to say the least," Clay said.

Lopez says those statements from Tunisia's new leaders are evidence that Tunisia was simply the first ripple of a jihad tsunami.

"Elections now unfolding are certifying what anyone with two grey cells to rub together knew months ago: The forces of Islam, al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood in the lead will take over North Africa. They will impose Shariah (Islamic law) to the broad majority approval of their devout Muslim populations," Lopez said.

In spite of the statements from Tunisian leaders, Western analysts still insist that comments coming from Ennahda Party leader Samir Dilou offer a glimmer of hope that a moderate regime could prevail in Tunisia. Clay says that hope rests on how Tunisia's regime applies Dilou's "principles of the Quran" statement.

"Samir Dilou, spokesman for the Ennahda Party, said in an interview on May 18, 'We do not want a theocracy. We want a democratic state that is characterized by the idea of freedom. The people must decide for themselves how they live,'" Clay said.

"'We are not an Islamist party, we are an Islamic party, which gets its direction from the principles of the Quran,'" Dilou said, quoted by Clay.

Clay said the future of Tunisia's small Christian minority hangs in the balance.

"Can an Islamic party governed by the principles of the Quran value the freedoms of the country's religious minority, including Christians who make up 1 percent of the population?" Clay asked.

"There are many Muslims who are democratic and liberal minded," Clay said. "However, for a party to say that they will rule a democratic nation on the principles of the Quran is contravening. The Quran and democracy are not compatible. There must be separation between religion and state, and all the countries involved in the Arab Spring have a long and arduous road ahead before they come to that realization."

Lopez says the reality will be severe and that Christians and other minorities will suffer.

"Minorities such as Egypt's Copts and, of course, any dissidents will be slaughtered, oppressed and exiled, all of which is perfectly legal according to Shariah law. A good reference for this is the Pact of Umar on treatment of Dhimmis in a Muslim-dominated society," Lopez said.