Political Forums

Rehmat

The book, The 500 Most Influential Muslims , is a joint venture of the well known Christian scholar, Dr. John Esposito and Dr. Ibrahim Kalin (both Professors at Georgetown University, USA). The study was sponsored by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center in Jordan.

The book is full of contradictions and laced with with the colonial political agenda and the sectarian divide. For example, the top-most influential Muslim leader is no other than the Saudi King Abdullah – not only because of his ‘good relations’ with all the world’s Islamophobe leaders – but check out the joke – though a non-practicing Muslim, he is also the religious leader of the Sunni Muslim world of over 1.3 billion. The King is a follower of the Wahhabi sect whose members don’t accept non-Wahhabi/Salaafi Muslims as “the Believers” – whether Sunni or Shias.

However, the other surprise ( a sort of anti-Semitism) is No.2 top-position given to Iran’s Spiritual Leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei – Who is accepted as a ‘religious authority’ amongst the 200 million Shia Muslims around the world – plus as a ‘political guide’ by hundreds of millions of Muslims and non-Muslims around the world.

The third top-position is awarded to King Mohammed VI of Morocco - who outside his country – is only known in Paris, Monte Carlo, Washington and Tel Aviv. The remaining top seven positions are as follow:

No.4 – King Abdullah II of Jordan, a western proxy.

No. 5 – Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Primr Minister of Turkey (East your heart Shimon Peres!!).

No.6 – Sultan Qaboos of Oman, a British colonial proxy.

No.7 – Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Hussein Sistani, Najaf (Iraq).

No. 8 – Sheikh Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi, head of Al-Azhar University (Hosni Mubbarak’s appointee).

No.9 – Sheikh Dr. Yusuf Qaradawi, head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (hated by both Zionists and Wahhabis for his fatwa in favor of defending Iran in case attacked by USrael).

No.10 - Sheikh Dr. Ali Goma, Official Mufti of Egypt (another Hosni Mubbarak’s appointee).

The other notable “Israel Threatening” Muslim leaders who made to the list, are – Sheikh Nasrallah, the leader of Hizb’Allah and a hero in the Arab world (No.17) and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal (No.34).

To the great relief of Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh – Iranian president Dr. Ahmadinejad did not make to the top ten list. However, Sheikh Osama Bin Laden did make to the list of “12 Radical Muslim Leaders”!

My pleasant surprise was to see Professor Dr. Mohamed Elmasry among those 500 influential Muslims. Dr. Elmasry is a former professor at University of Waterloo (Canada), founder of Canadian Muslim Congress, and the Canadian Charger, an online public-funded newspaper. His articles on Islam and microchip design are read in over 40 countries.

An finally, let us not forget the reviewer of the book at Zionist think tank, Foreign Policy (FP), published on November 20, 2009. The reviewer complained that how come the pro-Israel “intellectuals and good Muslims”, such as Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, CNN Islamophobe Fareed Zakaria, secularist Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh), etc. could not make to the list. The FP magazine was founded in 1970 by the Islamophobe, Samuel P. Huntington, the author of the notorious anti-Islam book ‘Clash of Civilizations’.

The 500 Most Influential Muslims – Book review Rehmat's World