Public Mass Modern Education, Religion, and Human Capital in Twentieth-Century Egypt

People faff around with educational systems at their peril because the impact of even minor changes are felt 2-3 generations ahead. But people dont listen and as the quote goes, fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

See this example from Egypt

Abstract

Public mass modern education was a major pillar of state-led development in the post-Colonial period. I examine the impact of Egypt's transformation in 1951–1953 of traditional elementary schools (kuttabs) into modern primary schools on the Christian-Muslim educational and occupational differentials, which were in favor of Christians. The reform granted kuttabs' graduates (where Muslim students were over-represented) access to higher stages of education that were previously confined to primary schools' graduates. Exploiting the variation in exposure to the reform across cohorts and districts of birth among males in 1986, I find that the reform benefited Muslims but not Christians.

What Europe is suffering from is the result of generalizing education among all levels of society… they have no chance of avoiding what happened [Europe's 1848 revolutions]. So if this is an example in front of us, our duty is simply to teach them how to read and write to a certain limit in order to encourage satisfactory work and not to spread education beyond that point.

Muhammad Ali Pasha, Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt (1805–1848), in a private letter to his son, Ibrahim Pasha (in Judith Cochran 1986, p. 6)

Education is like the water we drink and the air we breathe.

Taha Hussein, Egyptian liberal intellectual and Egypt's Minister of Education (1950–1952)

The poor go to heaven, but can't they have a share on Earth too? They are willing to give up a share in heaven in exchange for a share on Earth.

Gamal Abdul-Nasser, President of Egypt (1956–1970) (Excerpt from a public speech)

Book review. Ibn Khaldun Muqaddimah

I can't believe I haven't read this book before. And that too so late in my life. Reading this was quite interesting. It's a book written by a very opinionated Islamic scholar in 1400ad. This is few centuries after Islam was born and had two of the empires born and died already. It had expanded to close to its maximum. But before the ottomans expanded much more and a bit more before the Mughals would expand in South Asia and South east Asia will fall under the sway.
What I read was an abridged one volume version of a three volume translation of the original. So much water has flowed under the bridge and all these translations and abridgements have obviously caused much loss of clarity.
But that said it's an amazing book. You can see how he influenced people like Toynbee and Huntingdon and Carr and Robert Kennedy who were the stalwarts in the 20th century history and trying to draw broad sweeps in history.
IK doesn't talk about history as a dry enumeration of facts. Or a sequential series of dates and events like say a Thucydides or Herotodus.
Hey writes about themes. Like how dynasties rise and fall. Or about natural resources. Or economies. Or sciences. He is a great believer in cycles. That things happen in cycles. Things start in the desert like with the Arabs and bedu. And then they capture urban lands. And third generation becomes sedentary and too wide and big to control. And fourth generation is decay.
He is a believer. Don't make the mistake of thinking he's a dispassionate secular reporter. Nope. He believes in Allah Quran and Mohammad. But he's very clear headed and tells off crap like alchemy or magic. Or the shia. Or older historians.
It's not something you'll want to read if you wanted to read about the history of the Abbasids or the Spanish moorish kingdoms . More recent books will give a better picture. But you want to read this just because you want to read Josephus or Thucydides or Herodotus. How history developed. And you will be amazed at the sheer audacity intelligence and passion of this man. His thinking is missing even now. What an amazing man. Read up his biography as well.

Getting the team mobilised to help the school

So the project is slowly spinning up. One of my close friends put me in touch with this school which requires fund-raising and other assistance. This is a fascinating place, a school associated with a madrassah providing secular information in a poor area of Delhi. The key element of charity and institutional building is sustainability. Its too easy to just give money, but to make the charity self sustaining, to make it work long term, to have proper governance, that requires people, time, money, energy and direction.

So what I did was to introduce the Enactus team at LSE to them. We have some great people in here. Very smart and intelligent chaps. Very driven and full of passion and enthusiasm. They have created a project team and are now in contact with the school.

By the way, the school has a new website, do check it out. Very good work that these brilliant chaps are doing.

Getting the team mobilised to help the school

So the project is slowly spinning up. One of my close friends put me in touch with this school which requires fund-raising and other assistance. This is a fascinating place, a school associated with a madrassah providing secular information in a poor area of Delhi. The key element of charity and institutional building is sustainability. Its too easy to just give money, but to make the charity self sustaining, to make it work long term, to have proper governance, that requires people, time, money, energy and direction.

So what I did was to introduce the Enactus team at LSE to them. We have some great people in here. Very smart and intelligent chaps. Very driven and full of passion and enthusiasm. They have created a project team and are now in contact with the school.

By the way, the school has a new website, do check it out. Very good work that these brilliant chaps are doing.

When India invaded Hyderabad

This was a fascinating article dating back to 1950 which I read recently. It talks about how the state of Hyderabad merged into India after independence. Its amazing how much has changed since then. The state of Hyderabad is going to be bifurcated by Telengana being born. I didn't realise how much communism had its roots in this area and how much Nehru worried that it can become the source of a Maoist central hub..Also how many Muslims were killed by the Hindu’s after the “police action”. Estimates range between 50,000-200,000 and some even higher. But I would like to quote the last section intoto.

It would seem beyond all cavil that the new regime was both
welcomed, and justly welcomed, by the great majority of the
population of Hyderabad. Even for the Muslim minority, the
regime is on paper fair, substantially undiscriminating. But it
would, indeed, be hardly human if at least the lower Hindu
officials took no advantage of their new power to deviate from
the ideal of impartiality. More calamitous is the plight of the
village Muslim, who probably was not personally implicated
in Razakar activities, but, glad enough to escape with his life,
lost his home and goods at the time of the invasion and has but
the little man's chance of getting them back. On a larger scale,
the entire Muslim community suffered at once from insecurity,
from the social and economic revolution which dislodged it as
the ruling class. The Muslims' status as a community had been
intimately bound up with an antique social structure which was
now being discarded. In the new society their problem is not
that of being given a status that they can call unjust, but the
difficulty of building up for themselves any status at all. The
loss of privilege is itself a downfall, in which legal justice may
go with economic disaster. No social revolution, however neces-
sary or just, can fail to disrupt the group which it abruptly ousts
from power. In theory, the Hyderabad Muslims in the new
order took their place indiscriminately along with everyone else;
in practice, they, who had been seated as it were on the platform,
have had to find themselves places on the floor already fully
occupied by firmly established, and defiant, crowds. Even in a
democracy the position, economic and other, of a small minority
depends not only on the justice of the laws but also on the degree
to which that minority is accepted by the major group. And in
Hyderabad, although the laws be democratic, society will be
Hindu.
Apart from the initial blow and the long-term readjustment
to the loss of social integration and of function, the Muslims

suffered also an inner dismay. It is too early yet to say whether
this psychological upheaval may not prove in the end the most
significant. It is part of the spiritual crisis through which Islam
is passing in the modern world. The two chief factors in this
crisis were both acute in the Hyderabad instance: the impact of
an unassimilated modernity on an old-world way of life and its
Weltanschauung; and the loss of power.
One wonders how the group, or anyway its leaders, could have
lost their heads so starkly as they did before the invasion.
Originally, the Nizam apparently felt that the British with-
drawal from India, coupled with partition, would lead to chaos;
and that out of the confusion he, with an army, wealth and
prestige, stood a fair chance of emerging as a major power in a
Balkanized India. The hope was not at first absurd, but should
have faded within six months. After this, he made, as to power
dynamics, a series of astonishing miscalculations, both interna-
tionally and in home affairs; until he allowed a vicious group of
men within the state to acquire power to a point where he could
no longer control them. He emerges as a clever man utterly desti-
tute of wisdom. The Razakar leaders were ruthless fanatics and
criminals who played for sordid stakes and lost. The mass of
Muslims was poor and ignorant, leading lives in which there
was little of significance except their religion and its social
solidarity. They are traditionally gullible, ardent but easily
misled. Several hundred thousand, however, had nothing to do
with the Nizam or the Razakars; but the innocent, too, suffer
for the mistakes of their community's leaders. The most signifi-
cant blundering was that of the middle classes, the one group
who might have saved the situation but failed utterly in both
understanding and judgment.
Brought up in an isolated, anachronistic society, with a point
of view that throughout much of the world would have seemed
normal only a few centuries back, the Muslims of Hyderabad
sincerely believed that their group's portion was to rule, the
Hindus' portion to learn to be content. The Muslims reposed,
too, a remarkably blind faith in the legal validity of their posi-
tion, and it will be generally conceded that in the dispute with
India, Hyderabad's case was on the whole considerably the

stronger in law. Along with their false sense of traditional and
legalistic security went perhaps the opposite - a subconscious
fear. They were frightened by what, in the explosive weeks fol-
lowing partition, had happened to millions of their coreligion-
ists in northern India; frightened, perhaps, by the awareness of
what would happen to them, once they lost supremacy at home.
Such a dread, growing more intense and irrational, may have
inhibited them from facing facts, as well as driven them to
aggression. Or, more rationally, there were those who felt that
any concession to Hindu India would in any case eventuate in
their doom; and that therefore resistance, at whatever cost, could
not be wrong. Also, there was present that curious confusion
between the moral and material strength of Islam which besets
many Muslims.
However it may have arisen, the Muslims' hybris, the over-
weening pride that led them to extravagant folly, brought them,
as in a Greek drama, to disaster. That their fate was to some
degree deserved, their suffering therefore self-inflicted, is in-
tegral to the tragedy.

We have a definition of an Expert on Islam

There are so many people who purport to speak for Islam. So how do you determine who is an expert and who isn't? Well, now we have a definition. You are supposed to have a formal academic qualification from an accredited institution of Higher education in the West or an institution of higher education in a Muslim Majority Country that ranks amongst the world’s top 500 universities.

heh. that basically counts out pretty much everybody, eh? Most of the sheikhs, all the mullah’s, all the chaps will be disqualified. Heck, did you know that Al Azhar isnt on the list of 500 universities either? King Saud, King Abdulaziz and King Fahd Universities are there. And we know what’s coming out of there.

Why do people do this? its like stupid…instead of engaging with the substantive parts of Islamophobia (which does exist), they go for these ad hominem attacks. Idiots. There is a very good reason why the Prophet did not allow or put into operation or Islam allows a priestly class. Every person is allowed his own relationship with God and speak of that.

HUMAN CAPITAL AND THE S UPPLY OF HOME-GROWN IS LAMIC TERRORIS TS IN THE UK

One of my friends passed this paper across to me. I am constantly surprised at the usual image of terrorists being from poor families. No, I am afraid not. People who want to commit violence for a political or religious reason are NOT poor or illiterate, you need to be fairly smart to get over the usual threshold of violence, be able to rationalise violence and be intelligent enough to understand that you need to do extraordinary stuff to get out of the way of the law.

Here in the UK, a comparison was done between UK Muslims and UK Muslims convicted of terrorist offences (77). To no surprise, they find that the terrorists are significantly higher educated than the usual population. Curiously and strangely, there is also a statistical significance if you are male, unemployed, married and UK citizen. Go figure. A facetious comment was that your wife is going to make your life so difficult at home when you are unemployed that you take up terrorism? Also, curiously, “

Ethnic origin is also a statistically significant predictor of being convicted, with this most likely if
UK Muslims are of African and mixed Southeast Asia-White ethnic origin

Hmmm, not sure what one can say about this. But one should keep a beady eye out on those universities.

Belonging to a religion doesn't make you a race

It was amusing, in an online debate about Mahatir Mohammad, who is an out and out anti Semite and discriminatory chap, somebody said I was an anti Muslim racist because I said a Muslim was an Anti Semite. Leaving aside the bizarre logical argument, I queried the notion that Muslims are a race. Then some other worthy piped up and said that Muslims can be a race. And threw in an anthropological angle to it. No references at all.

Well, here’s the currently understood meaning of race and racism. I am afraid none of the references quote anything to do with race or racism having anything to do with religion. I am not quoting academic references because they are usually not available publicly, but happy to get other references and be corrected.

So what happened to the debate? Somebody said that they dont care about Mahatir’s anti semitic and discriminatory comments because he developed Malaysia. When I pointed out that that is exactly what Modi is also trying to say in Gujarat and India, come to me for development – forget about the riots and murders, that sort of went up their noses. Heh. This is what happens when one doesn't draw the right conclusions.

After some spluttering about anti Muslim bigot and vague accusations here and there about annoying comments, it went to a grinding and silent halt. Nothing more annoying than arguing with a man who knows what he is arguing about, eh? :P

Very amusing interlude.

A statue of books is idolatrous?

The mind boggles. First the story:

A council member of Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) today filed a case at the police over "importing and keeping idols" for the SAARC Summit that wrapped up recently in Addu.

Speaking to journalists after submitting the case, Maz Saleem said the police were asked to look into how the "idols" were imported into the Maldives through Customs and the police "standing guard" around the idols.

PPM Council member, Ilham Ahmed said Customs failed to carry out its legal responsibility of preventing the import of items such as "idols" into the country.

Seems like the recent South Asian association met and the countries donated stuff to Maldives. Sri Lanka presented a statue of a lion while Pakistan, surprisingly, presented a monument shaped like a pile of books on a brick plinth. Guess what? People thought it was idolatrous and burnt it.

Sighs, what a bunch of morons. Do they not know what the first word of the Quran is? it says IQRA. or READ.

Do you think these guys are heading towards a Darwin Award?

Morons.

An update on Assyrians

I wrote about Assyrians before in an essay. Got some comments there as well. I suggest you might want to read that first if interested in the background to this fascinating community.

Was reminded of this when I read this. The Kurds, however much sympathy I have for them, are frankly a bunch of nincompoops. They should know how they have been treated and one would have expected the Kurds to welcome minorities, but no, they are behaving in the same barbaric manner as Saddam Hussein and other barbarians did in Iran, Turkey, Syria and Iraq. I quote:

Inspired by the violent exhortations of a preacher during Friday prayers earlier this month, hundreds of young Kurdish men in the northern Iraqi town of Zakho went on a riot. Over four days, they set dozens of liquor stores alight, later threatening proprietors with further violence if they dared reopen their businesses. They also attacked an Assyrian church and homes in the neighbouring village of Mansouriyah and destroyed property including four hotels, a health club and an Assyrian social club in Dohuk.

The victims were Assyrians – an ethnically and linguistically discrete people also known as Chaldeans or Syriacs according to denomination – and Yazidis, members of two ancient communities who, like all the vulnerable elements of Iraqi society, have suffered disproportionately in the aftermath of the war.

The staggering upheaval and violence faced by Assyrians has led to a drop in their numbers from at least 800,000 in 2003 to 400,000 today. They represent 35% of Iraqi refugees since the war, as well as an enormous number of Iraq's internally displaced persons.

The sheer ethnic cleansing of Christians from much of what’s the Muslim nations is not mentioned politely but the numbers do not lie. In every country, you will see this happening. Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Iran, etc. etc. Maybe India should offer these Assyrians a refuge, India has a long history of offering refuge to people from the Middle East. If these nincompoops want to kick out their most productive, educated and intelligent lot, then hey, India could help no?

The sad thing is, this pressure on minorities is not going to cease once the Christians have left. These people are cannibals, they devour their own. Once they don't have the Assyrians to go after, they will go after the Druze, the Kurds, the other minorities. When they are gone, they will go after the minority Islamic sects such as the Shia. Oh! I am sorry, they are already doing that (Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan etc.), their behaviour towards the other minorities such as women, gays and the like is already well known. And the Arab Spring has already brought forward the Salafis to the fore.

I welcome this step actually. This Islamism and basic illiberal thought is a boil in the body of Muslims. This shouldn't be lanced before it has gotten seriously ripe and the infection has run its course. So yes, I welcome the Brotherhood and the Islamist Parties taking power and trying to rule their countries with their perverted and bizarre philosophy. Let people know what they are asking for. Let them live in that pressure cooker of religious fanatics and then know that religion is NOT an answer. At this moment, if you go to a cook in a town or a farmer in a village, they will bang their chest and say Islam is the answer because their neighbourhood Mullah has said so (see above on how the pogrom happened).

Iran provides a classic example. See how a bunch of religious morons can drive their country into a ever restrictive circle of hell (Israel provides another example). But rest of the religious sheep need to understand that religion is about you and God. Not about you and the State. When you allow religion to rule your state, then you end up taking the logical step and kicking out or killing everybody who doesn't follow an increasingly narrow interpretation.

You can see when you take the argument ad absurdum infinitum. There will be one man standing in a field filled with empty houses and dead bodies proudly claiming that they have removed all impurity from his society.

Bah!

Mera Bharat Mahan

One of the things that I am currently doing is to finish reading the Dharma Shastras. Its a monumental work, and will take the rest of my life to finish. But here’s a small thing which I found very nice in an electronic copy of the Ramayana. See the screen print.

The book is published by RamNarayan Lal but printed by Ramzan Ali Shah. Now there’s your inter faith work right there. One of the holiest books of Hinduism, printed by a Muslim. This is why, despite the assorted morons in both Muslim and Hindu fundamentalist and idiotic groups, India will succeed. You are welcome. Mera Bharat Mahan.

Can you statistically model Mysticism?

I would never have imagined this but looks like you can. Amazing.

Hood developed a Mysticism Scale based on the theoretical work of Stace. The scale was tested by Hood and others in a comparative perspective. Using an abridged version of Hood's Mysticism Scale, we join the debate with a study of a much larger number of Christian, Muslim, and Hindu respondents (1,920 college students) living in Tamil Nadu, India. Our empirical analysis yields a moderately reliable model of mystical experience that permits comparison between the three religious traditions. We argue for the usefulness of a comparative model of vertical mysticism that combines with the complementary common characteristics of noetic quality and ineffability. Vertical mysticism has a revelatory, ineffable character and is comparable in the experience of adherents of the Christian, Islamic, and Hindu traditions.

So what’s this scale, eh? I quote:

Hood's Mysticism Scale is based in part on the conceptual framework of mysticism propounded by Stace. Stace (1961) outlines a conceptualization of mysticism that is cross-cultural, a-historical, and unbiased by religious ideology. His conceptual framework rests on three constructs: (a) a distinction between mystical consciousness and its interpretation; (b) a distinction between the core characteristics of extrovertive and introvertive mysticism; and (c) identification of universal common characteristics…….Hood's Mysticism Scale comprises 32 items, half of which are formulated negatively to prevent response set. Eight common core characteristics were operationalized with four items each from Stace's concept of mystical experience.

Some very interesting results came up: For example:

We found that item 12 (“Did you ever have an experience in which you realized the oneness of yourself with all things?”) yielded low commonality for Christians and Muslims. The factor loading for Hindus, by contrast, was quite high (.51).

Looks like, well, as the numbers say, Hindu’s have a greater affinity to Mysticism. Agreed. All those bloody rules and regulations in Christianity and Islam, heh. Next one:

Are there significant differences in the levels of mystical experiences between Christian, Muslim, and Hindu students?

As shown in Table 3, the experience of vertical mysticism reported by Hindus tends slightly toward ambivalence (mean 2.89), whereas Christians and Muslims affirm it as “probably yes” (means 3.13 and 3.05, respectively).

While saying that, this tends to mean that Hindu’s are more blasé about it as its more part of their worldview and day to day experience??

Next question:

Which personal (sociocultural, socioeconomic, and socioreligious) characteristics are related to the level of mystical experiences among Christian, Muslim, and Hindu college students?

Among Christian students, female students report a higher level of vertical mysticism (r  = .12). Four socioreligious characteristics are also associated with vertical mysticism: perceived favorable influence of friends, religious community, teachers/professors, and media. The association between the influence of teachers/professors on the religiosity of Christians and vertical mysticism is strongest (r = .19).

Among the Muslim students, only the socioreligious characteristics are associated with vertical mysticism: influence of relatives, religious community, teachers/professors, and media. The strongest associations are with regard to the favorable influence of relatives (r = .23) and of media (r = .20).

Among Hindu students, female respondents report a higher level of vertical mysticism (r = .10) as do those who speak the Tamil language (r  = .09). In the case of Hindus all socioreligious characteristics are significantly connected with vertical mysticism. The strongest association refers to the perceived favorable influence of teachers/professors on the religiosity of Hindu students (r = .18).

Curious divergences, eh?

Fascinating study, maybe one day I can delve deeper into this area.

Support for Suicide Terrorism

So what is the relationship between the support for terrorism in public opinion and the relationship with terrorist attacks? Guess what these researchers found?

We find that justification in public opinion for suicide terrorism increases terror attacks on people in countries that are unfavorably regarded. There is a robust positive relationship between the share of the population in a country that at the same time justifies suicide bombings and has an unfavorable opinion of another country, and terrorism originating from the former country.

In other words, there is statistically significant evidence that public opinion does encourage terrorism. In a way, this is a d’oh statement. Terrorism thrives on the oxygen of publicity and then there are various assorted morons and idiots who will support terror as a way to punish other countries. What they do not understand (well, not surprising because its usually religious nutters and other ideologically screwed up people who do this) is that terrorism usually devours them.

So what do people from s Bangladesh, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Morocco, Senegal, Tanzania, Mali, Jordan, Lebanon, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Palestine and Nigeria respond to the PEW survey question?

Some people think that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets
are justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies. Other people believe that, no matter
what the reason, this kind of violence is never justified. Do you personally feel that this kind
of violence is often justified to defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never
justified?

On average 23% justified suicide terrorism, with a minimum of 8% support and an astonishingly high 70% maximum support. Highest was in Palestine, Nigeria and Mali, Lowest up was in Egypt, Pakistan and Indonesia. Surprising eh? Palestine I can understand, but Nigeria, Mali, Egypt, Pakistan and Indonesia? The last 3 countries are like factories for terrorists. Some other facets, Nigerian Women were showing more support for suicide bombing compared to men. Here’s the graph

There was another question which was asked, about which countries are most unfavourable to the respondents. Some of the results for the most unfavourable and least unfavourable are amazing and bewildering.

So Bangladesh actually has the lowest unfavourable opinion towards India! and highest towards USA. And what on earth is happening in Ethiopia with least Japan and high Iran? USA seems to be the most hated country across these muslim nations. Extraordinary but what is worrying is the extraordinarily high level of support for suicide bombing and terrorism in all these countries. The next time somebody says that terrorist support in Muslim countries relate only to a very small minority, do ask about the definition of a very small minority because a minority which ranges from 8-70% with an average of 23% aint such a small minority by any stretch of imagination.

Gold Dinar for Islamic Countries

The Dinar has long since has had exotic and evocative images, starting from piles of dinar’s in the pots in Alladin’s cave to the very fact that its gold. Anyway, one Malaysian state has gone and launched the Gold Dinar and Silver Dirham as its currency, apparently in a bid to be more Arab than the Arabs. Besides the fact that the actual Arabs think these wannabe Arabs are clowns and look down upon them, but when you wrap these things in religion, then everything is all right, its a one large happy family and and and. So what are the chances that the OIC suddenly goes into a collective huddle and decides that all countries will suddenly adopt the Dinar and Dirham. Well, ummm, no, not according to this research.

I quote the research highlights:

► This study suggests the lack of broad linkages within the entire OIC. ► Given OIC’s diversity, the idea of a Gold Dinar for the entire OIC may be stillborn. ► There exists scope among some smaller clusters for potential monetary union. ► Bahrain/ Saudi, Qatar/ Kuwait of the GCC states show symmetrical supply shocks. ► Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi, UAE have same response of GDP and prices to supply shocks.

Give it some more time, guys, then it could potentially work. But the areas concerned are just too different. Still, the OIC has its work cut out for it if it wants to evolve this monetary system. Although why on earth would anybody take anything that the OIC says seriously is beyond me, that organisation is about as useful as a bladeless knife with no handle.

Citizenship questions for Saudi Arabia

Two interesting questions, here and here.

In an alternative universe in Egypt

I got this translation in my in-box. This was very sarcastic and just brilliant. But for religious meatheads, the sarcasm and brilliance will just pass over their heads. Its my firm belief that these muttheads are nuts and the fact that everybody and his dog is now getting on the in-your-face religiousity is really sad. But check it out.

The diary of Mister Abd Rabbo (slave to his god), the Muslim in Coptic Egypt
Try to imagine if these things would happen to you as a Muslim one day, how would you feel?

If you got woken up at dawn by the sounds of a very loud microphone that tears your sleep away and fills your ears with a program from CTV broadcast a mass service from church and national TV would be broadcasting it too, and you find a hoarse voice yelling "glory to god, glory to god, come to church to pray to your lord"
of course after that you would fail in sleeping again and would remain awake until you have to get up to go to work.
you wave to a cab and the driver is a Copt who has a tape playing at the loudest possible volume. The tape is a sermon by a fanatic priest saying those who believe in the Prophet Muhammad are infidels, they need to be killed, so you get scared and ask the driver to drop you off and you decide to take the underground
you find a place and sit down in the underground carriage and your are flanked from both sides by pious Copts reading from  their bibles loudly all the way till you get a headache
you are in the minority, almost everyone around you is a Copt so you cannot say anything because if you do the answer you get will be: are you objecting to God's words? and this will lead to a discussion, which will end up with a problem that will require the police, but then you know that most of the police force are Copts, which is another bigger problem, so you just shut up and keep quiet to avoid problems and get to work
So you reach your place of employment and by now you are very tense and nervous because you did not sleep enough, were awoken rudely and got aggravated by the taxi-driver and have a headache from the underground, so you are not feeling happy and still you wish your co-workers a good morning and peace, and they reply back to you, the Lord's morning and Jesus' peace, so you just shut up and get to your desk
you start to work and in a little while you find your colleagues telling you that they will go pray to the Lord and they gather in the corridor and pray together to secure more rewards and after prayer they take out their little booklets with "dua" (that's kind of personal prayers specially formulated using words from the holy book). You feel like using the restroom and you cannot because the corridor is blocked and you cannot interrupt their prayers, so you try very hard to keep it in till they finish
after that you resume your work and your colleague Girgis (George) comes and asks you why don't you convert to the true religion, it is the majority religion, so it is the right one, instead of remaining a heretic and ending up in hell. You are a good person, and we like you, so we want you to be with us on the right path. Because you want to avoid problems you will have to reply to him diplomatically and politely and say, I like my own religion and even if it is the wrong one, I would rather be in it but thank you for your concern about my wellbeing in the afterlife, so he will get very upset with you and a fight will start
so you appreciate that the working day is over and you can go home, so you remember the cab driver and the neighbours in the underground and you decide that your day has already had enough problems so you walk home.
After all that walking you reach home at sunset and that is the timing of the next prayer and you find your small street blocked by those praying. Even the small grocery store has been converted to a small church and you squeeze between the wall and those praying so you can reach your house and you cant help but hear the sermon given by the priest that true religion is Christianity, that the Copts will prevail, that all others are non-believers and need to be killed or repent and adopt the true religion and that those who believe in Muhammad the false prophet are doomed. SO you swallow your words and go home only to find your wife in a state
she tells you that she was walking in the street and your neighbour's son was telling her that the way she is dressed is all wrong because she is creating temptation and she will burn in hell for it and that she is doomed
so you bite your tongue because you do not want any problems because if you complained the Copts would come and torch your house or torch the Muslim shops in the street and the small old mosque, the only one in the neighbourhood, and the police will come and arrest you for inciting disobedience and you might get slapped with a court case for insulting the true religion and then you will go to jail, and if you keep silent your wife will no longer respect you for being a coward and a weakling so you just tell her, malesh, all will be good eventually and they are just misguided, Allah will help them see the light some day, and you hug your wife and you try to sleep only to find the microphones staring again ....

Veiling doesnt seem to stop harassment

One of the most frequent reasons given by Muslim women who are veiled or want to veil is that it allows them to affirm their faith, follow the strictures of Islam and basically stop themselves being looked as objects of lust. Dress modestly so to say, dont allow your hair to be seen and and and. So when I read this, I was a bit bewildered. I quote:

The Egyptian media reported that about 300 cases of sexual harassment against women occurred over the recent Adha holiday. The cases, which the Interior Ministry would not confirm or deny, varied from verbal taunts to assaults. Al Destour newspaper said the number of incidents was higher than what was reported during the Fitr feast in September.

Sexual harassment in Egyptian cities has become an disturbing phenomenon of late. It recently became associated with feast holidays, where thousands enjoy spending their free time outdoors. Younger generations face less-strict scrutiny from their parents, who tend to allow their daughters to go out without parental supervision during feasts. Police security is usually softer than it is throughout the rest of the year.

The biggest incident came during last year's Fitr, when 150 men and boys were arrested for going on a harassing spree in the streets of Mohandeseen in Cairo. A few of the defendants, who assaulted girls and cut their clothes, were taken to court and one was sentenced to a year in jail.

The number of harassment cases during the feasts echoes a study carried out by the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights (ECWR) last July, showing that 83% of Egyptian women and 98% of foreign females residing in the country reported being harassed.

Egypt's penal code sets imprisonment punishments for anyone who sexually assaults minors, but many assaulted women have seen their cases blocked as judges and prosecutors blamed similar incidents on the "provocative" way some girls are dressed. But the ECWR's study refutes such allegations, saying that 71.5% of women who reported sexual harassment were wearing veils (head scarves) and non-revealing clothes, and 19.6% of them were even wearing niqabs (face veils).

I am not really sure that veiling is really helping out here. And as usual, the problem is with the men. Without veils, you are accused of dressing provocatively and acting whorishly. Seriously, so many debates that i have followed in mailing lists or newspapers or elsewhere, the women who are veiled (and the men who support them) talk about bikini clad women, scantily clad women and how that doesnt give rise to dignity of the women. But seems like if you veil, you are in bigger danger of being groped and harassed. When I spoke to somebody who was Egyptian, their response was that the men think that veiled women are easy, they would not complain, they will simply take the harassment and walk on. Once a woman finds that her body is shameful and has to be hidden away, well, there you go, if you cover the meat, you will get handled, if you uncover the meat, you will be called as uncovered meat.

The problem is not going to be resolved by wearing burqa’s or the veil, the problem is that men are defining what women are and aren't. Look at what happened in New York. I quote:

Scantily clad hipster cyclists attracted to the Brooklyn neighborhood made it difficult, the Hasids said, to obey religious laws forbidding them from staring at members of the opposite sex in various states of undress. These riders also were disobeying the traffic laws, they complained

See? the men are the weak lot, they cannot control their lust and emotions. While I am fully in favour of what you wear and what not to wear, these internal contradictions need to be thought through a bit more. Given that Europe is moving towards banning the veil, does this mean that women’s harassment in Europe will be lessened?

Jihad and the Indian Home Minister

Sometimes I worry about our chattering political classes, specially about their grasp of basic funda’s relating to history, culture, politics and religion. Anyway, seems like our Indian Home Minister Chidambaram spoke (here is another report from a Muslim newspaper) at the Intelligence Bureau Centenary celebrations. The main bits which bewildered me are, and I quote:

The home minister also referred to the rise of a new kind of threat. He said, "Just as the Cold War came to an end, we witnessed the emergence of another kind of war, namely, jihad. Jihad is a war or struggle against non-believers and, currently, it is waged by a number of groups owing allegiance to Islam. Unlike the original Crusades, jihad is not fought like conventional war. Jihad employs terror as an instrument to achieve its objectives. The tactics of jihadis have been copied by militants belonging to other groups too, not excluding militants professing the Hindu faith."

There are so many things wrong with this statement (if correct, I have not been able to access a transcript of his speech). Let's see where all he went off the rails.

1. Jihad is not a war, it can only be termed as a religiously mandated observance. To confuse it with a political and military phenomena, which is the commonly known western sense of the word i.e. war, is seriously deficient and lacking. The word itself is a noun, meaning Struggle and you are supposed to struggle against your own weaknesses of the self (meaning to become better), to guard against bad or false utterances, guard against violence and the struggle with the sword. One can wage war based upon strict criteria (although these criteria can vary and this is the crux of the matter) against apostates, criminals, to defend the Islamic state, to expand the state, rebel against bad rulers, etc. etc. The wiki entry is a reasonably good overview of this topic.

2. The Crusades. Ah, another spectacular silly comment. The crusades were not war. If at all, then that was the Christian Jihad. At least as far as the religious angle is concerned. Various Christian Popes and rulers went about saying that the holy land had to be liberated and it was the Christian duty of the faithful to go about chucking out the infidels. Then the Muslims waged their Muslim Jihad on the Christian Jihad. Very confusing but war it wasn't. This was two religions having it out based upon their respective religious rulings. Here is a good site on how the Muslims viewed Crusades and this is a good book on it. Here’s a nice site from the Christian side.

3. War as we understand it is carried out between two recognised entities, and can be a civil war between two populaces, a war against something like drugs, a war against an idea like poverty or illiteracy, etc. etc. But we generally recognise wars between two countries or states, waged by armies in uniform, with a relatively formal beginning (with firing of a shot) and end (like signing a surrender or ceasefire agreement). It has force of law based upon what cannot be done rather than what its components are. The whole legal paraphernalia and edifice around war crimes (Hague, Geneva, Nuremberg, UN Tribunals and now the International Criminal Court) defines what cannot be done in terms of war. And the crusades definitely were not war, even if you want to apply current thinking to a medieval phenomena like the Crusades.

4. Terror. Again a silly formulation by the minister. Terrorism has 10.2 million definitions at the last count. By and large, they contain words like “use of violence”, “for political or religious or or or purposes”, “against a state or civilians”, etc. etc. But what actually counts on the ground is the definition as included in the Law of the various countries. See here for a good list of these laws.

5. Jihad utilising terror as an instrument. Now this is quite contentious. But if the understanding is that of #4 above, then by and large, that is not agreed upon by the majority of Muslim Jurists as shown by a very large number of jurists who have expressed their views on this. It is pretty much clear that the majority of Jurists do not think that terrorism (as defined by modern day law and usage) is allowed under Jihad.

So you might as well as ask, where on earth are these fundamentalists getting their religious justification from? Well, if one has to point to one source (and believe you me, there are tons of other sources), the original root lies in the time when the Mongols rampaged through the Middle East. A chap called as Imam Ibn Taymiyyah released his famous fatwa on Jihad. Here is the English version of the same and this fatwa, via Banna, Qutb, Maududi and others have come down to the current fundos in Al Queda, LeT and other assorted Mujahedeen’s. The main section is and I quote:

Since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God’s entirely [2:189, 8:39] and God’s word is uppermost [9:40], therefore, according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought. As for those who cannot offer resistance or cannot fight, such as women, children, monks, old people, the blind, handicapped and their likes, they shall not be killed, unless they actually fight with words [e.g. by propaganda] and acts [e.g. by spying or otherwise assisting in the warfare]. Some [jurists] are of the opinion that all of them may be killed, on the mere ground that they are unbelievers, but they make an exception for women and children since the constitute property for Muslims. However, the first opinion is the correct one, because we may only fight those who fight us when we want to make God’s religious victorious. God, Who is exalted, has said in this respect: "And fight in the way of God those who fight you, but transgress not: God loves not the transgressors." [The Qur’aan, 2:190]……………….

The Sharee`a [shari'a] enjoins fighting the unbelievers, but not the killing of those who have been captured. If a male unbeliever is taken captive during warfare or otherwise, e.g. as a result of a shipwreck, or because he lost his way, or as a result of a ruse, then the head of state (imam) may do whatever he deems appropriate: killing him, enslaving him, releasing him or setting him free for a ransom consisting in either property or people [freeing Muslim captives in return]. This is the view of most jurists and it is supported by the Koran and the Sunna.

As you can see, there are some exclusions and the terrorists use it to appeal to their supporters. Here’s a very good overview of how Ibn Taymiyyah’s fatwa and work has fed its way down to the fundos. But there is obviously a tension between the mainstream view and the terrorists view. Here’s a good overview of this tension. And in particular, if by this time you have not fallen asleep and are still facing problems in comprehending, read this rebuttal from Zawahiri. Warning, it's a book and pretty heavy going. That said, fatwas like this can cause confusion amongst the ranks. Coming from Darul Uloom Deoband means that it is respected.

Now, not having view of the transcript, I cannot say if the minister was right or wrong, but he was speaking from the perspective of the terrorist groups, well, then from their perspective, Jihad does have elements of terror, I am afraid.

6. Finally we come to the point he is making in terms of Hindu militants copying the tactics. Now this is a bit ambivalent. Reading for example Sarvarkar’s book Hindutva (which presumably would be the closest you can get to an ideological book), he talks about Hindutva relying on geographical unity, racial unity and common culture. But while he bangs on about Hinduism, nowhere does he reference any actual religious book to bolster his arguments, thereby giving me the impression that he is talking culture rather than religion, which applies to the notion of Jihad then as well. So that’s a crucial difference but on the other hand, terrorist tactics relating to propaganda, funding, violence against civilians, for political purposes, yes, he totally brought that on board. Here’s a good overview of the ideology and tactics underlying this Hindutva business.

But his other comments were weird and for such a sensitive topic, I am surprised that he spoke so loosely.

The early Christian insurgency in Islamic Spain and impact on today’s terrorists

I was having a chat about Arabic conquests with an Egyptian friend and said, well, you are an Arab. He got very upset about it and said he aint Arab, no way Jose. (He is..). Anyway, so we got talking about early Islamic history and we discussed how the edges of the Islamic Empire generally fought off the imperialistic shackles. Here’s an example of the geographic spread.

It's in the area of southern Europe and India where the resistance seems to be most ferocious and ultimately they did throw off the imperialistic yoke to “assume” their older civilisation. But Northern Africa, the Middle East, Iran and Central Asia became Muslim. I remembered reading an interesting paper on this topic, specially related to Spain and thought of giving a quick overview.

The loss of Spain and India seems to have seared the psyche somehow as you can still hear the fundos complain bitterly about the loss of these two territories and maintain that they will win them back again (see below). But while the story of India is well known, it's only the loss of the Spanish kingdom by the Moors that is known. Nobody knows much about what happened after the invincible armies of the Moors rolled over North Africa into Spain and then into southern France till they were stopped by Charles Martel. After the Islamic kingdom was created and formed in Spain, what then? What happened in the immediate aftermath? We know about the reconquista, but what about the intervening period? 

     

This paper sheds some more light on what happened. The first reason for the success of the resistance was the negation of the use of cavalry by the Muslim forces up in the mountainous region. Without the quick ability to move around the battlefield, the Muslim forces suffered serious casualties and were simply unable to push through to their ultimate conquest of the total peninsula. Also waging war in the mountains is a disaster for the attacking forces and all the advantages lie with the defenders.

The second problem was the inequitable distribution of booty and this caused severe fighting amongst the Muslim nobles. Booty and looting is an accepted part of the Islamic laws of warfare, but then those lovely laws cannot deal with the normal human greed. Time after time, whether in Spain or in the Ottoman Empire or in India, you find that the seeds for the disaster or downfall of the Islamic empire can be related to this factor. Also one has to remember that succession in most Muslim empires and kingdoms was a very bloody affair with siblings being slaughtered regularly. One can see this in the Moorish Kingdoms, in Ottoman times, in Egypt, in the Arab regimes or in the various assorted empires or kingdoms in South Asia. Not that the Christian kingdoms were not better with revolts, but they were less afflicted than the Muslims due to the steadily accepted primogeniture rule, which made the crucial difference.

It took 800 years or so before the Moors were pushed out, but push out they did. Time seems to have moved differently at that time. But then, this kind of time frame isn't surprising. Take Greece for example, the Ottomans went in by about the 13th century and were not chucked out till the 19th century. 


How about the Mughal Empire? It started around 1500 and frankly didn't end till 1857 or so. Mind you, I just read an article which claimed that the British were responsible for the demise of the Mughal Empire. Actually, the Mughal Empire was pretty much dead much before the East India Company had anything to do with it, not least because of Aurangzeb’s administration and activities. What was left by 1857 was a pimple on the rump of the grand empire which was soon pricked.

 
So it takes time. The Christian rebels in Spain also benefited from the proximity of other Christian kingdoms from where they got their sustenance and support as well. Also, the Spanish resistance maintained their northern Christian kingdoms which ultimately provided the bedrock and bedspring from which the reconquista started.

The other factor which is common in these countries such as Spain, Greece and India was the strength of their respective beliefs. In other words, the local populace didn't give in to the blandishments of the Muslim conquerors and retained their faith. It is this factor which allowed the native population to resist and ultimately overthrow the Imperialistic invaders unlike in Arab and other lands where they gave up. Quite an interesting paper which sheds light on the very early days of the reconquista. Without this period of resistance, one can well imagine that Spain could well have followed in the same footsteps of Algeria, Egypt, etc. who became Muslim countries (although that comment about Egyptians not being Arab is interesting, I might return to that argument sometime)

Which leads me to the second interesting paper. Why is Spain so important to the fuglies? The abstract quotes:

The purpose of this article is to look at the importance and treatment that Spain receives in jihadist propaganda. This study offers a series of empirical observations based on a content analysis of a sample of propaganda produced by jihadist groups between January 1994 and September 2008. The analysis of this material, the context in which it was spread, and a comparison with other Western countries leads to the conclusion that the role played by this country in jihadist propaganda can only be understood by taking into account “structural factors” that have little to do with a greater or lesser level of interference in “Islamic affairs.”

Out of the 2233 documents that the researchers studied, Spain appeared in 2.3% of them, USA in 67%, UK in 5%, Russia in 3%, France in 2.7% and Israel in 14.2%. In particular, the issue of Al Andalus seems to be seared into their psyche. I quote:

In this category have been grouped all the mentions made that refer to the period of Muslim occupation of the Iberian peninsula, understood as between the invasion begun from the north of Africa in 711 until the elimination of the last Islamic redoubt in Spain in 1492 with the taking of the Kingdom of Granada by the Catholic Monarchs. This is a period of history with a profound evocative power in the Muslim collective imaginary. To use the term “Al Andalus” implies speaking about a past of artistic, architectural, literary, and scientific brilliance, but also implies speaking of a period of greater Islamic political power. Said term forms part of the conceptual baggage for all of the world's Islamic population, independently of the degree of religious practice, political affiliation, or attitudes toward terrorist violence. This remembrance has a character of yearning, of lament and pain for the loss of a territory that symbolized the highest level of splendor of Muslim civilization.
This remembrance of a painful episode for Islam is present in jihadist discourse. It is significant that the first mention of Spain on the part of bin Laden was precisely in these terms: “Let the whole world know that we shall never accept that the tragedy of Al Andalus will be repeated in Palestine.”
However, for Al Qaeda these allusions, far from constituting a mere rhetorical resource, acquire the character of an aggressive claim. For jihadist terrorism, the Iberian Peninsula is “dar al islam,” a land pertaining to the ummah, an Islamic land, taken and occupied by infidels. Jihadist terrorism incorporates among its objectives the “return” to Muslims of any land that at some time was under the control of Islam; it is a fight that must lead to the restoration of the original borders of the medieval Caliphate. According to Ayman al-Zawahiri: “Jihad seeks the liberation of Palestine, the entire country of Palestine and to liberate every land that used to be a territory of Islam, from Spain to Iraq.” This defining of the original and immovable boundaries of Islam has become a true “mantra” for Al Qaeda. Although it is true that this objective is seen as a long-term goal, and that first it will be necessary to complete a series of prior objectives of great importance, its repetition is replete with meaning in the sense that it sets out an unrenounceable goal for the jihadist movement. In fact, the “obsession” of Al Qaeda to recover the “lost Al Andalus” now forms a part of the discourse of the rest of the networks that integrate the jihadist constellation. Thus, for example, in a communiqu from April 2007 produced by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb the following can be read: “By Allah, we will neither return our sword into its scabbard nor enjoy life until we liberate every Islamic land from [the hands of] the Crusaders, the apostates, and the collaborators, and until our ritually cleansed feet walk [once again] in the stolen [land of] Al Andalus and in desecrated Jerusalem.”…….
……Of equal importance is seeing how this aggressive demand has been incorporated into the ideology of groups geographically distant from Al Andalus, such as the Afghan Taliban. In June of that same year, the prominent Taliban leader Mansour Dadallah stated the following in an interview broadcast by Al-Jazeera: “Jihad will remain an individual duty incumbent upon us, until we regain Al Andalus and all the countries occupied by the infidels.” Regarding the Al Andalus category, it is an authentic exception among the “far enemy.” The jihadists make no territorial claims on any other Western nation, which leads to the amplification of the presence of Spain within the totality of communicative activity of jihadism.
The weight of history in the Muslim imaginary means that the mention of Al Andalus is full of implicit meaning. The targeted public understands perfectly not only to what is being referred to, but also what is the approach of the jihadist groups. Accordingly, the jihad against Spain is justified, not only for Spain's military presence in Afghanistan or its clear support for the U.S. enemy, but also as a legitimate struggle to liberate Islamic land from its Christian occupier. In this sense, the confrontation with Spain goes beyond Spain's policies toward the Muslim world and has a structural character, given that the nation is situated over a territory that by right belongs to Islam and its peoples.

The researchers note that it’s only in the case of Spain that they call it as Al Andalus, the rest of the benighted infidel countries are usually referred to in their current usage names like America, Israel, etc. etc. What really worried me was the ending of the paper and I quote:

In short, one can conclude through analysis of the presence of Spain in jihadist propaganda that independently of the degree of implication of this country in the Islamic world, Spain must endure a threat of structural character that converts it into a perennial target of jihadist terrorism.

While I do not have the data-set, looking at the fulminations that happen in Pakistan and the assorted beards in Pakistan, Kashmir and other unsavoury locations and the arguments made for Spain, there is a chance that India will face threats of a structural character of this ilk. The keyword is stolen. In other words, even if the Kashmir problem is resolved, the threat will only be diminished, not fully removed as long as Al Queda and its compatriots exist. See for example the explanation made for LET at the CFR site. As the BBC reports:

Lashkar's professed ideology went beyond merely challenging Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir. In a pamphlet entitled "Why Are We Waging Jihad?" the group defined its agenda as the restoration of Islamic rule over all parts of India.

See the word “restoration”? this is what is the operative word. And if more corroboration is required, read this report by Husain Haqqani, the current Pakistani Ambassador to the the Court of Saint Obama.  This report talks about the ideologies of South Asian Jihadi Groups.

Egyptian Government doing nutty things

It's obvious that the Muslim governments who got excited about Switzerland’s banning of the minarets (that stupid vote) forgot a few things themselves. This was indeed a democracy, despite the voting being an islamophobic one. Secondly, these Muslim governments are rarely democratic themselves. Take Egypt for example. It's not democratic by any stretch of the imagination. It even diverted its upset populace’s attention by going on and on about the Algerian – Egyptian football match, go figure. Anyway, so what does it do now? I quote:

CAIRO, DECEMBER 9 - The Egyptian parliament will be carrying out a scientific research to prove that mosque minarets, which a recent Swiss referendum okayed their ban, are important to Muslims, MENA reported. The religious affairs committee of the Peoples Assembly has been assigned with the job: to issue a statement to be delivered as a letter to the presidents of the Swiss parliament, the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly, protesting the outcome of the poll. Ahmed Fathi Sorour, the speaker of the Peoplés Assembly, said the Swiss government and parliament were against the referendum, whose results came to reflect a growing sense of Islamophobia in the European country.

I started laughing helplessly when I read this. They are important to Muslims? D’oh. Yes they are. They are also important to other people, you doofus. They are also important to the construction industry, the broadcasting industry, the academic industry and and and. And just what scientific research will be carried out? On what basis? What fun, what stupidity, lol. I am firmly of the belief that the greatest danger to Islam is not from the crusaders, zionists or the west, but it is from their own leaders, politicians and religious leaders such as these dorks mentioned above.

On a separate note, did you know that the chap who is the architect of the Swiss referendum is a Turkish Muslim, I quote:

One of the architects of the controversial Swiss referendum that resulted in a ban on the construction of minarets has a Turkish heritage, daily Milliyet reported on Wednesday. Born in the Aegean province of Izmir to a Turkish father and a Swiss mother, Soli Pardos family moved to Switzerland when he was 5 years old, the daily said. Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on minarets on November 29, barring construction of the iconic mosque towers in a surprise vote that put Switzerland at the forefront of a European backlash against a growing Muslim population. Muslim groups in Switzerland and abroad condemned the vote as biased and anti-Islamic.
The referendum by the nationalist Swiss Peoplés Party, or SVP, labeled minarets as symbols of rising Muslim political power that could one day transform Switzerland into an Islamic nation. Pardo also said minarets are used as symbols in Europe, but added: I do not have any reactions against Muslims, and I do not accept that there is Islamaphobia in Switzerland.
Pardo, who is the leader of the Geneva Canton for the SVP, said his father was a small-scale industrialist and passed away in 1976 when Pardo was 21. Regarding the referendum, he said: We do not believe that the minarets are linked to worship because no calls to prayer are made from the minarets. We are not against building mosques but against 5- to 6-meter-tall minarets. The initiative was approved 57.5 to 42.5% by some 2.67 million voters.

So here we go, official confirmation from Switzerland, there is no connection between Islam and Muslims and Minarets, lol. So what then is the official position? An interesting op-ed from a Professor in Islamic Art History from Arab News can help. I quote the relevant bits here, but do read the full piece:

Minarets were introduced in the process of conquest such as in the earliest surviving imperial mosque — the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus — in the beginning of the 8th century. Minarets were in this case an appropriation of a Byzantine church’s bell towers.
Slowly minarets became one of the elements asserting the grandeur and influence of big mosques financed by the early Islamic states, notably between the 8th and the 10th centuries. The Damascus Mosque’s minarets seem to have been imitated later in the 10th century when the rulers of Andalusian Cordoba were aspiring to rival the major Islamic eastern caliphates. The helicoidal 9th century minarets in the mosques of the Abbasid city of Samarra, which are the largest mosques in pre-modern history, seem to have been imitated in Egypt in the same century. Yet minarets were not a constant element. In the eastern Islamic lands, especially within the Persian space, minarets seem to play a minor role. At some point in the 14th century minarets in Iran were simply decorative accessories for huge portals with big domes in the background.
It is probably with the Turkic dynasties, culminating with the Ottomans since the 15th century, that minarets would be equated with Islamic images in the Western European imaginaire. It has been widely reported in the European travelogues that one of the first acts of Ottomans after conquering Constantinople in 1453 was the insertion of a minaret at one of the corners of the Byzantine church of Haghia Sophia. In fact, the Ottomans seemed to have used the minaret as one of the elements to visually appropriate conquered Byzantine churches and convert them to mosques. They tended also to build monumental minarets, sometimes four, in their new mosques.
Whatever its meaning in the premodern era, the minaret’s signification seems to have been reshaped starting from the end of the 19th century.

It's curious, and before I finish this, I thought of looking around the OIC and how they react to the presence of other religions. Whether we are talking about Mauritania, Iran, Iraq, Turkey or Egypt etc. etc. they all have much bigger problems with other religions. So it's a spot of major hypocrisy for them to moan about Switzerland. Then again, its Switzerland who should be ashamed of lowering themselves to the abysmal standards that the OIC hold themselves to. Esphoks.