O sermão no sopé das pirâmides

Muito se tem escrito sobre o discurso do presidente Obama no Cairo. Aqui vou limitar-me a fazer eco daqueles que se apressaram a corrigir algumas das muitas imprecisões e falsidades que o presidente proferiu, algumas das quais já fazem parte de uma certa cultura popular, e que, caso não sejam desmentidas, se enraizarão ainda mais no fundo da nossa ignorância. Comecemos pelas primeiras palavras do presidente, pela honra que disse sentir por se encontrar na milenar Universidade Al—Azhar, segundo o presidente, um farol do ensino islâmico, a qual, em conjunto com a Universidade do Cairo, é a fonte da evolução do Egipto. Andrew Bostom sai a terreiro para dar a conhecer este farol, começando por reconhecer a importância da universidade:

«Indeed, for over a thousand years, since its founding in 792 C.E., Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, has served as the academic shrine—much as Mecca is the religious shrine—of the global Muslim community. Al Azhar University (and its mosque) represent the pinnacle of Islamic religious education. »

Prossegue dando conta dos achados feitos por alguém que lá se dirigiu para conhecer melhor os ensinamentos aí ministrados:

«John Roy Carlson traveled to the Middle East shortly after WWII to pursue his investigative reporting on Fascist/Nazi movements—he had gone undercover in the US to expose domestic Nazism during the war, and the trail lead him overseas following the war. Egypt became a major sanctuary for Nazis by the mid-1950s under Nasser, but almost a decade earlier Carlson documented widespread Nazi sympathy coupled to Islamic religious fanaticism at Al Azhar itself. Carlson provided this apt description (in his book “Cairo to Damascus”) of Al Azhar’s “tradition”—“Every year Al Azhar graduated hundreds of missionaries who preached its fanatic doctrine throughout Asia, Africa, and the islands of the Pacific…” He goes on to comment, “…though Muhammad [the Muslim prophet] died in 632, I found that Al Azhar his preachments were considered fresh and applicable today—with absolutely no modifications.” Carlson then describes his meeting with rector of Al Azhar University Sheikh Shinawi, who preached Jihad—Holy War—against Zionism, and was a friend of the Jihadist, Nazi collaborating ex-Mufti of Jerusalem and Godfather of the Palestinian movement, Hajj Amin el-Husseini, who also found sanctuary in Cairo after WWII.»

Já no século XXI, um sociólogo egípcio lamentava, num apelo publicado em Julho de 2004, o facto das ancestrais doutrinas islâmicas da jihad e da subjugação dos infiéis sob a sharia ainda serem ensinadas em Al-Azhar e perguntava:

“What kind of thinking are we teaching our next generation, that it has the right to attack other countries in order to convert them to Islam?…And we wonder where terror comes from?”

Bostom prossegue analisando algumas manifestações do proverbial anti-semitismo muçulmano permanentemente veiculado em Al-Azhar, desta feita pela pena de Tantawi:

«[The] Koran describes the Jews with their own particular degenerate characteristics, i.e. killing the prophets of Allah [Koran 2:61/ 3:112], [and see Sheikh Saqr’s Koranic citations, above] corrupting His words by putting them in the wrong places, consuming the people’s wealth frivolously, refusal to distance themselves from the evil they do, and other ugly characteristics caused by their deep-rooted lasciviousness…only a minority of the Jews keep their word…[A]ll Jews are not the same. The good ones become Muslims [Koran3:113], the bad ones do not.»

A excelência académica de Tantawi foi reconhecida com a nomeação para o posto de Grande Iman de Al-Azhar, posto que mantém desde 2006, com cuja autoridade veio a proferir mais algumas pérolas de sabedoria islâmica, nomeadamente qualificando os judeus de inimigos de Alá e filhos de macacos e porcos e defendendo a legitimidade do seu homicídio através de pia prática de ataques suicidas. Para além da sabedoria que lhe é reconhecida nesta área tão peculiar do saber humano - na qual só encontra rivais, fora do mundo islâmico, entre os socialistas (sejam internacionalistas, sejam nacionalistas) - que é o anti-semitismo, Tantawi é também um reconhecido teórico da jihad, à qual apelou, no início de 2003, contra as tropas americanas no Iraque:

«The American aggression against Iraq is not acceptable to Islamic law, and to the [Shari’a] law; The Iraqi people must defend itself, its land, and its homeland with all means of defense at its disposal, because it is a Jihad that is permitted by Islamic law. Jihad is an obligation for every Muslim when Muslim countries are subject to aggression. The gates of Jihad are open until the Day of Judgment, and he who denies this is an infidel or one who abandons his religion. This is an obligation applying to the nation now, in order to respond to the aggression.»

Ao fim e ao cabo, Bostom acaba por reconhecer a veracidade das palavras de Obama. Com efeito, Al-Azhar é um farol para o mundo islâmico, mas pelas piores razões. Addendum: num artigo publicado na National Review, Alex Alexiev faz a seguinte declaração a propósito do contributo de Al-Azhar para a cultura e progresso egípcio: «Mubarak then appointed the mullahs of Al-Azhar as the sole arbiters of what books should be published in or imported into Egypt. Predictably, anything that does not meet their medieval criteria is being censored, while books that discuss how many angels could be recruited for a war against Israel (120 million) are encouraged.»