| #1 Tamim Ansary talks about the three responses of the Muslim world to being conquered by Christendom: retreat to the legendary pure faith of the founding generation (the Salafists), adopt the ways of the conquerers in the hope of eventually doing unto them what they'd done unto the Muslims (the secularists and the Arab nationalists like the Ba'ath party and the military rulers of Egypt through Hosni Mubarak), or the third way, which comes down to the religious fascism of the Muslim Brotherhood -- using the tools of modernity to buttress the eventual expansion of the MB caliphate. This article addresses the Muslim Brotherhood's view of their strand of Egyptian history. Because what happened to Egypt wasn't colonialism, despite MB claims -- it was not colonized by British people pushing the natives to the periphery of their own society, but straightforward conquest, or so it seems to me. |