Watch Before It Gets Deleted: The Shocking Truth behind Islam Yaken

I did not understand the media’s bewilderment with Islam Yaken. I saw no reason why this bewilderment should reach the extent that they affixed to his name the phrase “a graduate of the French Lycée” as if it were his family name, or as if the Lycée is a factory churning out terrorists and killers. Everyone was wondering and affecting astonishment at how such a “cute” boy could transform into a terrorist who cuts off heads.

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Egypt is first in producing terrorists of every specialization, starting with sheikhs who are specialists at declaring others to be infidels[WW1] . They are the pride of Egypt’s crop of terrorists.

We produce them with all the quality of poisoned meat, but that does not prevent them from spreading their poison, no matter the political conditions and trends. They are part of the same retrograde movement, whether it is the Muslim Brotherhood that guides it or the military. They drag us all down to a serpent filled hell.

There is no end to such sheikhs through coup d’état nor through successive waves of revolution. They remain at their pulpits and inside al-Azhar, which now opens its pulpit to cast accusations of unbelief against anyone who disputes its views, even if such a person is close to the current regime, as in the case of Ibrahim Eissa. So what would happen to someone who does not possess Eissa’s immunity? Al-Azhar is the institution that granted a doctorate to the “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel Rahman for his exegesis of the Surat al-Tawba, as a reward for his contempt for other religions — including Christians — and his judgment that their possessions were lawful to plunder. This is the same institution that has not declared any of ISIS’ criminal/jihadist acts to be forbidden, and did nothing more than just issue a statement criticizing the “displacement of Iraq’s Christians.”

There is nothing bewildering in Islam Yaken’s case. For the most part, terrorists and killers do not come from the poorer classes, but rather are educated individuals from the middle class and above. In Egypt in particular, terrorists are doctors, engineers and army officers – the latter category being the most surprising one that no one is surprised at. From Lt. Col. Abboud al-Zumar to Hesham al-Ashmawy, how do any of them enter the Military Academy at the age of sixteen, sleep, eat and drink inside the military institution while monitored by its internal intelligence apparatus, then renounce the nation-state and the military and transform into fugitives dreaming of jihad and a lasting state with limitless borders that fights against the Sykes-Picot agreement?

An officer who turns is more dangerous than a young man who works out in a gym, and a sheikh ensconced in a pulpit who spreads poison that takes root in people’s minds and plants hatred in people’s hearts toward anyone who disagrees with him is more barbaric than tweets from Abu Salma bin Yaken showing photos of heads chopped off.

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On the surface, the dispute with Islam Yaken and ISIS is a disagreement over how to apply Islamic hudud punishments. No Islamic sheikhs or al-Azhar preachers are declaring ISIS to be heretical, even though ISIS accuses them of immorality and unbelief. As Islam Yaken claims, when Egypt is conquered, the heads of apostate sheikhs will be the first to roll. The sheikhs do not consider ISIS to be killers or infidels, but jihadists who used their independent judgment and who might disagree with them on details of orientation, rulings concerning decapitation and the permissibility of destroying the tombs and shrines of saints.

How could they when the sheikhs themselves have not decided about hudud punishments or the meaning of Islamic rule? They have not declared explicitly that secularism is a necessity if we want to overcome terrorism and the Islamic State.

Below the surface, we see a group of countries that were previously under European occupation and before that were part of the Ottoman Empire – a state that enshrined religious identity at its core and which was an extension of the Islamic Caliphate, the bygone pride of Muslims that they have been trying to recover till this day. During this protracted quest from the time of Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida, the people of this country have gone and chosen a substitute for the religious caliphate in the form of the nation-state, which is based on geography and patriotism. In place of the Levant, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq emerged and the Kurds’ state disappeared. However, because the identities of these nation-states were forged under threat of arms and the terror of the Baath Party, it was an identity imposed by fait accompli. Meanwhile, the Arab communities still adhere to the values of tribalism and ruling families, and their rebellious youth dream of recovering the defunct caliphate.

Islam Yaken clearly chose which side he is on and took a stance. On his Twitter account, he tweeted, “Do not debate anyone who disagrees with you on the fundamentals.” The man is at ease and all his statements are consistent. We are the ones who suffer from weakness on the internal front, sitting on the fence in a country that does not know where it is or what it wants, leaving its pulpits, schools and al-Azhar itself in the hands of people who look with a favorable eye on the caliphate and the Islamic State but who prefer to serve its ideas from here.

On the occasion of Laylat al-Qadr, Egypt’s president said that the ones who kill our troops also memorize the Quran, but that the important thing is to understand it. But the same president who is unable to take any political decision partial to an understanding of the Quran believes that the caliphate is not a duty and jihad is currently just a profession for killers. He should be partial toward the side that denies the torment of the grave and that strives to rescue Islam from fables of terror and control in order to create a radical, secular discourse, because those who sit on the fence are destined to fall. At one time, in response to the rise of Islamist-jihadist discourse, president Sadat gave himself the nickname, “the believing president,” and the prayer mark on his forehead grew to be three centimeters long – but this did not stop them from killing him.