من وحي الخاطر

أترى تصون هواك إذ تهواكا أم بالهوان تتيحه لسواكا برزت إليك من الضحى مختالة سبحان ربي هل رأيت ملاكا أبهى وأحسن أذ يسير تبخطرا أو ينثني كالغصن مال أراكا ترمي العيون بأعين قتالة لا تستطيع إذا رمتك فكاكا حلفت برب البيت أنك صدتها وتسائلت ألذا نصبت شباكا؟ هذه الدموع تريقها و تنهد عمق وجسم لا يطيق حراكا أدلائل للحب ما تبدي هنا أم خدعة بدلالها تلقاكا؟ كي تستمال إلى الهوى من بعدما أغلقت عنه الباب و الشباكا ؟ أترى تصون هواك إذ تهواكا أم بالهوان تتيحه لسواكا؟

The narrative of decline and reality of ascension   Before discussing what I believe to be the predicament of the Muslim Brothers, a few words on the dominant narratives about the Islamists are in order. It has become a habit in certain circles of Arab intelligentsia after the recent coup in Egypt to promote the idea of a fatal mistake that the Muslims Brothers has committed. The ‘mistake’ is thought to be so fatal that it not only precipitated the fall of Morsi’s regime, but also made possible for one to speak of a dawn of post-Islamists era. Of course, preaching either an imminent collapse of Islamism or declaring it a fait-accompli is nothing new. These assertions were in vogue for much of late 1990s and early 2000s (one gets a sense of this from the number of books with titles such as ‘Islamist impasse’, ‘Islamist Dilemma’ and the ‘Failure of Political Islam’). But all these assertions  were wrong. They were wrong because (although some of the preachers of this Islamis...

تابعت قبل أيام محاضرة للعالم الأمريكي نعوم تشومسكي ركزت على الموضوع المصري. لفتت إنتباهي عدة مسائل وردت في صلب المحاضرة و كذلك في فترة الأسئلة و الأجوبة التي أعقبتها أولا، لفت إنتباهي مع أنني لم أستغرب حقيقة، كون العالم أبدى بعض العتب و الإستغراب من من سماهم أصدقائه المصريين الذين قابلوا الإنقلاب بالترحاب و مازالوا يدعمونه رغم كل العنف الذي أرتكبه العسكر. طبعا هذه مسألة لا مناص لعاقل من التعجب منها. إن أناسا إضطهدهم العسكر لعقود من الزمن يصعب على الأمر تصور مساندتهم لحكمه. طبعا تشومسكي يرى أن الكثير من "أصدقائه الجيدين" يختلفون معه في هذا الطرح و يرى أنهم مخطؤون في تقديرهم. و رغم إنتقاده لحكم مرسي فهو يرى أن الإطاحة به لم تكن الخيار الأوحد وأنه كانت ثمة بدائل أكثر تحضرا لمعارضته و لتغيير الحكم و الضغط من أجل رفع سقف الحريات و إستفادة الفقراء. ثم رأى أن مسألة إستدعاء العسكر كانت ذنبا جسيما   في ثنايا الخطاب تحدث تشومسكي-- ذو الميول اللبرالية اليسارية، و المعارض الشديد للهيمنة الأمريكية و السياسات الأمريكية الكولونيالية، و المعارض أيضا لليمين بحكم ميوله الأديولوجي...

I am at the moment reading Wael Hallaq's book, The Impossible State . In the early chapters in which he talks about the characteristics of the modern state, I realized that he described the state in a manner not unlike my own conception of it below a year ago in a response to a Stoler's Along the Archival Grain . Apparently, many have seen and understood the state as resembling god in the manner it is conceived in modern nation states, just as I tried to argue below. When I came to the same conclusion, without reading these works, I thought I was a little bit exaggerating this and the professor of the class made note that I should change 'god' and 'ungodly' with 'legitimate' and 'illegitimate' respectively. Seeing that Hallaq and others have used the same frame to portray it, I feel vindicated at some level. Now I repost this to indirectly comment on the new revelation about torture in the US. The point here should it be lost on my dear rea...

  The story is everywhere. It is taking place in Tunisia, in Syria, in Egypt and who knows where else. Of course, it is not taking place and of course it is a baseless lie. There has never been any statement of any recognizable Muslim scholar endorsing or giving permission to what is now known as 'sex Jihad' and widely reported by certain Western media outlets, who are mostly fed by some Arabs with certain mind bent, history and interests. Both groups share an interest in looking for tabloid materials in the Arab world. But while Westerners in this relationship simply do the sloppy reporting (i.e., don't respect journalistic integrity) and some spicing, their Arab nurses concoct these stories out of thin air.   From a baby lie to a mature one! The history of this lie is perhaps similar to many present lies. It started from the social interactive networks on the cyberspace with a few fake twitter and facebook accounts attributed to known or mysterious scholars making sta...

(The original text of the email underwent some slight modifications, including taking out the name of the person). Thanks for sharing this article . I finally had a chance to read it. I hate to mention this to you, but this article suffers from serious problems and the ideas contained therein look neither innovative nor sincere. Here are the aspects that I find troubling: 1- That he decided to speak 'sincerely' to the MB youth, who have just seen thousands of their friends either killed or injured and failed to address that is revealing of the pervasive illness that plagues a considerable segment of the Egyptian intelligentsia. That he would call the seismic events in Egypt (the culmination of a year of planning to undermine Egyptian democracy which led, among other things, to the kidnapping of an elected president, the dismissal of the higher chamber of Egypt parliament, the voiding of a constitution approved by 63% of the voters after mere 6 months of its pa...