Egypt’s Khomeini Cometh Friday
Muslim Brotherhood cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi is to give the sermon at a massive prayer gathering tomorrow in Egypt's Tahrir Square ...
Friday, February 18 may be a turning point in Egyptian history. On that day Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the best-known Muslim Brotherhood cleric in the world and one of the most famous Islamist thinkers, will address a mass rally in Cairo.
Up until now, the Egyptian revolution generally, and the Brotherhood in particular, has lacked a charismatic thinker, someone who could really mobilize the masses. Qaradawi is that man. Long resident in the Gulf, he is returning to his homeland in triumph. Through internet, radio, his 100 books, and his weekly satellite television program, Qaradawi has been an articulate voice for revolutionary Islamism. He is literally a living legend.
Under the old regime, Qaradawi was banned from the country. He is now 84 years old -- two years older than the fallen President Husni Mubarak--but he is tremendously energetic and clear-minded.
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Symbolically, he will give the Friday prayer sermon to be held in Tahrir Square, the center of the revolutionary movement. The massing of hundreds of thousands of people in the square to hear Islamic services and a sermon by a radical Islamist is not the kind of thing that's been going on under the 60-year-old military regime that was recently overthrown.
The context is also the thanking of Qaradawi for his support of the revolution, an implication that he is somehow its spiritual father.
Qaradawi, though some in the West view him as a moderate, supports the straight Islamist line: anti-American, anti-Western, wipe Israel off the map, foment Jihad, stone homosexuals, in short the works.
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Have no doubt. It is Qaradawi, not bin Ladin, who is the most dangerous revolutionary Islamist in the world, and he is about to unleash the full force of his power and persuasion on Egypt.
Who are you going to bet on being more influential, a Google executive and an unorganized band of well-intentioned liberal Egyptians or the world champion radical Islamist cleric?
WHAT could possibly go wrong?
Corre la bola | 
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In the context of the Islamic Middle East, this cleric is relatively less extreme and over-the-top than Jeremiah Wright was/is in the US, yet our current president had no problem with Wright until he became a campaign issue. I trust you all catch my drift.
"Who are you going to bet on being more influential, a Google executive and an unorganized band of well-intentioned liberal Egyptians or the world champion radical Islamist cleric?"
The question itself is a type of logical fallacy wherein only two alternatives are considered. ...a false choice. I would suggest to you, as I have previously, that the military, an institution respected by all classes and groups in Egypt, will guide a transition that will be very different than the fearful picture you continue to paint for us.
Scott, you sound exactly like those folks we tried to warn in 2008 about you-know-who...
True. After reading Alexander Maistrovoy's apocalyptic column, even I'm beginning to get scared.
"The current events are not similar to French and Russian revolutions, which had even if utopian, but ideological orientations. They are equivalents of bloody uprisings of the Middle Ages: The Jacquerie, the rebellions of Wat Tyler, Jan Žižka and Stepan (Sten'ka) Razin."
"...any elections will bring to power the Muslim Brotherhood."
Ziva reposts his column here at Babalu. I want to cry "Crazy man!" Maistrovoy and many others are concluding that the absolute ascendency of the MB is a fait accompli. I'm not yet buying "the first and the last" election theory. I don't believe the military will stand for it. ...and I just don't think the MB would win a majority. But I would hope we are working with NGOs on the ground to create the space that would allow for other parties to grow.