This is a stripped down version of our Web site. We suggest that you upgrade your Web browser so you can surf through our complete site. Thank you.
Can an Ex-Assassin Bring Peace to Egypt?
Commentary/Analysis, Franz Schurmann,
Pacific News Service, Jul 25, 2003
Editor's Note: A man in prison in Egypt for the assassination of Anwar Sadat just may become key to peace in Egypt and beyond.
A novel experiment for domestic and even world peace is happening in Egypt, where a prison inmate has stirred the Islamic world by citing the Quran and the Sunna (the sayings and doings of the prophet Mohammed) to argue that "killing Jews, Christians and Americans is wrong."
Egypt, an important player in several Middle Eastern and African peace processes, is considering releasing from prison Karam Zohdi, 50, a key figure in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. In fact, Zohdi has already served his 25-year sentence, because under Egyptian law nine prison months are considered equal to a calendar year.
Unlike American presidential assassins, who were mostly loners, Zohdi was a member of the Egyptian Jama'a al-Islamiya, a militant Islamic group founded in 1978, the same year the Camp David peace accords were signed between Israel and Egypt. Zohdi escaped the death sentence that took the lives of five of his Jama'a comrades for assassinating Sadat. While in prison he earned two law degrees, one from Cairo University.
More important, while in prison he immersed himself in Islam's canonical book and concluded that what he did in 1981 was a grave sin. But what has stirred Muslims is that he has not renounced the teachings that underlie the most radical of Muslim fundamentalist beliefs. He still remains loyal to the strict Hanbali school of religious thought, one of four major Sunni denominations.
Zohdi says that killing Anwar Sadat and the policeman who died defending him was a "grave sin." He holds that some members of Jama'a al-Islamiya were misguided and created "fitna" (civil strife) by insisting on the use of violence. However, he still refers to the recent suicide bombers who killed several people in the Saudi capital Riyadh as "his brothers," even though they made a "horrible" mistake. After much study of Islamic texts, he says he is convinced that fighting fitna without hatred must be the goal of every Muslim. And, he says, that means combating "jinsiya," the notion that people can be killed or harmed based on race, creed or national affiliation, as in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Until Egyptian officials allowed him to be extensively interviewed by the London-based authoritative Arab daily As-Sharq al-Awsat, few people outside of Egypt knew Zohdi's name. The interviews revealed a highly learned Muslim. The many photo-ops showed him talking in a friendly way with prison officials, or walking along in a typical white Egyptian gallabiya, similar to a Roman toga.
Why was this middle-aged prisoner allowed to move suddenly from obscurity to celebrity in Egypt and the Muslim world?
It is widely known that anything of political importance in Egypt must go through President Hosni Mubarak, who succeeded the slain Sadat. Mubarak is now playing a key role as America's ally in the search for peace in Israel/Palestine and in war-torn but oil- and water-rich Sudan to Egypt's south.
Just beyond Egypt's borders with Palestine and Israel, fitna reigns. During the time when Gamal Abdul Nasser ruled in Egypt, Hassan Al-Banna, the founder of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, was hung. But Nasser couldn't stop fundamentalist Islam in Egypt. Later, in the Camp David year of 1978, the Brotherhood would split into political groups that renounced violence and more radical ones that didn't. The Jama'a al-Islamiya, Zohdi's group, is an offshoot of the earlier, undivided Muslim Brotherhood, as is the powerful Palestinian Hamas.
What Mubarak fears most is that Middle Eastern fitna can easily overrun Egypt -- unless his nationalism can come to terms with a deeply rooted Islam.
Egyptian readers know what is behind the extensive, full-page, two-day coverage of Zohdi in As-Sharq al-Awsat. So do readers all over the Arabic world. They know that fitna only produces more fitna, which keeps on killing and degrading people -- as in Iraq today. Many are hopeful that President Mubarak can guide Egypt through its political and religious fault lines. It remains to be seen whether a former assassin's teachings will become a major force for peace in Egypt, the Middle East and beyond.
PNS Editor Franz Schurmann (fschurmann@pacificnews.org) is emeritus professor of history and sociology at U.C. Berkeley and author of numerous books. Photo courtesy of As-Sharq al-Awsat.
A novel experiment for domestic and even world peace is happening in Egypt, where a prison inmate has stirred the Islamic world by citing the Quran and the Sunna (the sayings and doings of the prophet Mohammed) to argue that "killing Jews, Christians and Americans is wrong."
 |
| Karam Zohdi, a key figure in the 1981 assasination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. |
Unlike American presidential assassins, who were mostly loners, Zohdi was a member of the Egyptian Jama'a al-Islamiya, a militant Islamic group founded in 1978, the same year the Camp David peace accords were signed between Israel and Egypt. Zohdi escaped the death sentence that took the lives of five of his Jama'a comrades for assassinating Sadat. While in prison he earned two law degrees, one from Cairo University.
More important, while in prison he immersed himself in Islam's canonical book and concluded that what he did in 1981 was a grave sin. But what has stirred Muslims is that he has not renounced the teachings that underlie the most radical of Muslim fundamentalist beliefs. He still remains loyal to the strict Hanbali school of religious thought, one of four major Sunni denominations.
Zohdi says that killing Anwar Sadat and the policeman who died defending him was a "grave sin." He holds that some members of Jama'a al-Islamiya were misguided and created "fitna" (civil strife) by insisting on the use of violence. However, he still refers to the recent suicide bombers who killed several people in the Saudi capital Riyadh as "his brothers," even though they made a "horrible" mistake. After much study of Islamic texts, he says he is convinced that fighting fitna without hatred must be the goal of every Muslim. And, he says, that means combating "jinsiya," the notion that people can be killed or harmed based on race, creed or national affiliation, as in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Until Egyptian officials allowed him to be extensively interviewed by the London-based authoritative Arab daily As-Sharq al-Awsat, few people outside of Egypt knew Zohdi's name. The interviews revealed a highly learned Muslim. The many photo-ops showed him talking in a friendly way with prison officials, or walking along in a typical white Egyptian gallabiya, similar to a Roman toga.
Why was this middle-aged prisoner allowed to move suddenly from obscurity to celebrity in Egypt and the Muslim world?
It is widely known that anything of political importance in Egypt must go through President Hosni Mubarak, who succeeded the slain Sadat. Mubarak is now playing a key role as America's ally in the search for peace in Israel/Palestine and in war-torn but oil- and water-rich Sudan to Egypt's south.
Just beyond Egypt's borders with Palestine and Israel, fitna reigns. During the time when Gamal Abdul Nasser ruled in Egypt, Hassan Al-Banna, the founder of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, was hung. But Nasser couldn't stop fundamentalist Islam in Egypt. Later, in the Camp David year of 1978, the Brotherhood would split into political groups that renounced violence and more radical ones that didn't. The Jama'a al-Islamiya, Zohdi's group, is an offshoot of the earlier, undivided Muslim Brotherhood, as is the powerful Palestinian Hamas.
What Mubarak fears most is that Middle Eastern fitna can easily overrun Egypt -- unless his nationalism can come to terms with a deeply rooted Islam.
Egyptian readers know what is behind the extensive, full-page, two-day coverage of Zohdi in As-Sharq al-Awsat. So do readers all over the Arabic world. They know that fitna only produces more fitna, which keeps on killing and degrading people -- as in Iraq today. Many are hopeful that President Mubarak can guide Egypt through its political and religious fault lines. It remains to be seen whether a former assassin's teachings will become a major force for peace in Egypt, the Middle East and beyond.
PNS Editor Franz Schurmann (fschurmann@pacificnews.org) is emeritus professor of history and sociology at U.C. Berkeley and author of numerous books. Photo courtesy of As-Sharq al-Awsat.
Comments
I believe Hasan al-Banna was shot in the street in 1948, prior to Nasser's ascension to power. Sayyid Qutb was imprisoned and subsequently hanged by Nasser.