Hamza Yusuf

How the UAE weaponised western fears of Islam to crush dissent
Abu Dhabi has capitalised on orientalist fears in the West to stigmatise "Islamism" as a catch-all phrase encompassing any form of extremist ideology coming out of Islam

The recent spike in terrorist attacks perpetrated by religious extremists in France and Austria has led to an increased receptiveness of European audiences to the Islamist bogeyman.

Under the banner of defending civil liberties, illiberal liberals have declared a war on "Islamism"– a term that originally referred to non-violent Islamic activism and has now been deliberately conflated into a derogative label of "Islamic fundamentalism" and "terrorism".

Islamist bogeyman

French President Emmanuel Macron has been widely criticised for his divisive language over Islamism, borrowing orientalist narratives trying to subordinate Islam to a false sense of French civil superiority, the masterminds who conceived the Islamist bogeyman are not western but Arab authoritarians.

At the forefront of the crusade against "Islamism" are the United Arab Emirates, an absolutist tribal monarchy where civil liberties are absent and where Islamic scholarship has been subordinated to religiously justify the oppression of civil society, freedom of speech and any form of political activism.

The Emirati Fatwa Council has developed into a powerful tool of state control domestically and strategic communication internationally. Led by Sufi scholar Sheikh Abdallah bin Bayyah, the Fatwa Council has become a political means for the regime in Abu Dhabi to reshape Islamic discourse based on an empty narrative of "tolerance" that only applies to those who submit to quietist political obedience to the regime.

Thereby, while the pursuit of genuine tolerance would be commendable to fight extremism in all its shapes and forms, the Emirati concept remains hollow as it does not allow for any open-minded, theological discourse on the role of Islam in 21st century socio-politics.

State repression

Although claiming to de-politicise religion as a means of moderation, the Emirati version of Sufism paradoxically re-politicises religion not as an instrument of the public sphere but as an instrument of state repression.

The recent statement by the UAE’s Fatwa Council that declares the Muslim Brotherhood a "terrorist organisation" draws upon a highly political concept that is preeminent in the scholarship of bin Bayyah and his followers: wali al-amr – the idea that obedience to the political ruler is absolute.

Sufi Sheikh Abdallah bin Bayyah head of the UAE's Fatwa Council  (via twitter)'s Fatwa Council  (via twitter)


Bin Bayyah’s interpretation of this obedience is in itself extreme, placing ordinary citizens under a form of tutelage of an omnipotent ruling elite, be they tyrants or benevolent autocrats. As such this interpretation of the wali al-amr has become the theological foundation for the UAE’s counterrevolutionary campaign across the Arab world since the Arab Spring.


It vilifies political activism outside state control, it undermines civil society in any form and outlaws dissent and revolution. In the Emirates, it has arguably even created a theological void that allows for the deification of crown prince and de facto ruler Mohammad bin Zayed (MbZ).

"Islamism" that traditionally encompassed democratically oriented Islamic movements – such as the Muslim Brotherhood – has become the antithesis of the Emirati interpretation of the wali al-amr.

Authoritarianism's nemesis

The Brotherhood’s stance against political oppression, social injustice and authoritarianism in many ways made it the nemesis of the region’s authoritarians. And seeing members and affiliates of this movement riding the wave of revolution in the region in 2011, often with western endorsement, exacerbated regime security paranoia not least in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

What the UAE’s state-run Fatwa Council has been able to do is merge the seemingly theological debate about Islamic values and virtues with the "tolerance" narrative that the UAE projects overseas and increasingly falls on fertile ground in Europe and the United States, where audiences have been subjected to the Islamist bogeyman for two decades.

Abu Dhabi has managed to capitalise on orientalist fears in the West to stigmatise "Islamism" as a catch-all phrase, encompassing any form of extremist ideology coming out of Islam. Thereby, "the" Muslim Brotherhood has become the broad-brush scarecrow of choice to describe liberal activists on one end and Islamic State group death squads on the other end of a scientifically debunked myth of a continuum.

Saying that a democratically motivated activist who happens to be a sympathiser of the Muslim Brotherhood finds himself on a conveyer belt to Salafi-jihadism is like stating that liberalism in Europe led to Nazism – both are "Western" ideologies emerging out of the Enlightenment and uphold secular values.

Exploiting western fears

Merging the narratives about "Islamism" with "terrorism" has been part of the UAE’s strategic communication vis-à-vis Europe and the United States, which exploits western fears and paranoia post-9/11 to not only justify political authoritarianism in the Emirates but to justify violent authoritarianism in Libya, Egypt and Yemen.

The UAE’s counterrevolutionary grand strategy has been sold to the West in whole or in part as a campaign to fight "terrorism" – a narrative that helped Macron justify his support for the UAE’s henchman Khalifa Haftar in Libya.

It serves as justification for Sisi’s violent repression of dissent and opposition in Egypt. And it provides a justification for the torture camps set up in Yemen by the UAE’s local proxy, the Southern Transitional Council (STC).

Hence, just as many of the Islamophobic narratives coming out of the debate about civil liberties and Islam in Europe are illiberal, the "tolerance" the UAE propagates at home and across the region proves intolerant towards civil society, theological and political pluralism.

Yet there is a growing danger that under the false pretext of tolerance, not only authoritarian become stronger but extremist ideologies flourish in the shadow of disenfranchisement, alienation and exclusion.

 
Interesting. This was his response to the issue.



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My guess is this was because of the backlash. He has a long history of backing UAE and praising its leadership and all its roles. He is on the council who issued and blessed that agreement and his teacher heads it. So naturally, people would assume he too (as usual) endorses it.
 
The UAE the Hamza Yusuf works for demonizes and marks as terrorists any group of organized Muslims in the west, who start charities or fight to protect the rights of Muslims because they fear it will eventually negatively effect them.

They want Muslims subjugated and silenced everywhere. They fund right wing extremists group in the west for this reason.

 
Also, a very close ally of UAE is Erik Prince. Who has called himself a crusader who loves killing muslims and wants to wipe them out. When he was exposed in the US guess who took him in? The UAE of course. They fund his private army of retired soldiers from US and other countries who want to continue the "crusade".

 
Imam Suhaib Webb praises RIS for dropping Shaykh bin Bayyah

The prominent American imam, Suhaib Webb, praises the Canadian Islamic convention RIS for uninviting Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah after he signed a fatwa criminalising the Muslim Brotherhood movement as a terrorist organisation.



BTW the racist remarks he said were made at RIS a couple years ago, was by UAE funded Hamza Yusuf, student of Bin Bayyah.

 
Influential Muslim scholar Hamza Yusuf criticised for backing UAE-Israel deal
Academics say Yusuf's endorsement of the Israel-UAE deal is part of a long history of condoning the actions of the UAE government

Hamza Yusuf, a prominent Muslim scholar based in the United States, is facing a deluge of criticism after publicly endorsing the United Arab Emirates' decision to normalise ties with Israel - a move which has in large part been condemned by Muslim religious leaders.

Yusuf, once dubbed "the most influential Muslim scholar in the western world," endorsed normalisation in a statement released by the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies (FPPMS), an organisation led by his Saudi-based teacher, Abdullah bin Bayyah, on Thursday.

The statement, which begins by heaping praise on Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed and the country's foreign minister, Abdullah bin Zayed, says normalisation "stopped Israel from extending its sovereignty over Palestinian lands," and was a means to "promote peace and stability across the world".

While Emirati officials have hailed normalisation as a successful means to stave off annexation and save the two-state solution, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stressed that he remains "committed to annexing parts of the West Bank".

Usaama al-Azami, a lecturer in Contemporary Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford, told Middle East Eye that the "bizarre statement" closely aligned with the forum's history of legitimising the decisions of the UAE government. Azami also described the statement as "in keeping with the strategy of the UAE to get scholars on board and have them rubber stamp [state positions]".

On 7 June 2017, less than 48 hours after Saudi Arabia and the UAE launched a blockade against Gulf neighbour Qatar, the FPPMS issued a strongly worded statement accusing Doha of "supporting terrorist groups, inciting political instability in safe countries, and inflaming sectarian conflict".

Walaa Quisay, whose PhD focused on Islamic neo-traditionalism in the West, told MEE that the FPPMS used interfaith initiatives as a trojan horse for creating a strategic alliance between the UAE and Israeli organisations.

"In fact, if you look closely at the peace forum, there's been a constant attendance of Israeli and Zionist organisations in the peace forum with the underlying premise of tolerance, but you can obviously see from the subtext it was about promoting certain political views," Quisay said.

'Preparing for this moment'

Yusuf has previously courted controversy by positing blame on the Palestinians for their suffering, mocking the Syrian uprising, and for having referred to the UAE as country that was "committed to tolerance". In July 2019, Yusuf was criticised for agreeing to become a human rights adviser to the Trump administration.

Yusuf did not respond to MEE's request for comment or clarification.

Still, Abdullah bin Hamid Ali, a professor at Zaytuna College, an institution founded by Yusuf, said that the statement was "not intentionally undermining the rights and hopes of Palestinians".

"It's one thing to say you disagree with his stance or think he's naive. It's another to claim him to be a hypocrite, heretic, or other demeaning terms," Ali said in a Facebook post, referring to Yusuf's teacher bin Bayyah.

"No one can deny that his dealings are risky and that his views challenge the dominant political orthodoxy among Muslims. But, to say he is intentionally undermining the rights and hopes of Palestinians is a step too far in my opinion."

Raja Abdulhaq, a Muslim Palestinian activist based in New York, said Yusuf and the forum were pawns, willingly used by the UAE to further the Gulf state's regional agenda.

"It's obvious now that for the past few years, when people like Hamza Yusuf, Shaykh Abdullah bin Bayyah have been defending the leadership of the UAE, it has been to prepare for this moment," Abdulhaq told MEE.

"And so when the time comes for [the UAE] to make such a very shameful step, the people would be ready to accept it," he said, adding that Yusuf and the other signatories to the statement "have been justifying all of [the UAE's] actions against Muslims around the world, specifically in the Arab region".
 
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So, it is wrong to claim that HY is a quietist. If only he were promoting quietism. In reality, he is loudly pushing legitimization of tyrants. Why? What compels him to constantly do PR for these secularist tyrants and attend their Orwellian “peace” fora? Can’t he stay silent instead of blaming Syrians for their plight and all-but-explicitly telling Muslims around the world to be thankful for secular dictators?

Isn’t the danger and harm of siding with tyrants obvious? I have addressed this before. These tyrants are Western imperial agents meant to suppress the Muslim world for the interests of Western powers. This has undeniable perils for millions of Muslims. But there is also the religious danger. These tyrants are actively aiming to transform Islam, distort it for their purposes. Scholars who side with tyrants are lending legitimacy to such projects. And, furthermore, when respectable scholars are seen associating and defending blood-thirsty tyrants, many in the Muslim community become increasingly disillusioned with scholars, thinking that ulama are corrupt. Many have admitted recently of their disappointment with HY for his recent pro-tyrant statements despite having been dedicated students of his for many years. These are all major harms.

So, HY should address these concerns that so much of the community has with his actions. These are the community’s questions, not mine. So he should answer them. And why don’t his loudest defenders and closest students pressure him to answer, instead of bending over backwards with all kinds of ridiculous justifications for what is seen as unjustifiable? What’s going on there?

And to those who want to defend HY’s position on revolution and uprising, what about this:

The most blatant contradiction from the UAE-backed “anti-rebellion” camp of HY and others is their deafening silence when it came to the UAE inciting revolt against Muhammad Morsi in Egypt. Where was their concern for law and order then? Where was their concern for chaos and loss of innocent life at that crucial time? This is clear inconsistency.

PS – Excerpt from HY’s The Prayer of the Oppressed, published in 2010:

“The modern Muslim obsession with so-called Islamic governance is a dangerous fantasy. It has led to a politicization of Islam that has eviscerated its spiritual power and exalted indiscriminate violence as a ‘justifiable means’ to Islamic ends.”


Philosophically, HY is completely opposed to the idea that Islam can have anything to do with government legislation. He says to think otherwise is “delusion.” He forcefully spells this out here.

 
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