Not only has the virus of terrorist extremism of political Islamists extended its power over the Arab region, but it has also proliferated to other countries of the world that had enjoyed security, justice and peace. Canada and Switzerland, for instance, are two countries that received a wakeup call when they discovered some terrorist cells on their territory. It is regrettably true that the members of these cells are youth of Arab origin whose ages do not exceed some seventeen years. If we quickly analyze the roots of the phenomenon and its results, we find that Egypt bears great responsibility for the its direction. Egypt presents itself as the heart of the Arab and Islamic worlds and of Islamic thinking. The biggest institution of official Islamic religious learning is Egypt’s Al-Azhar and its annexes—from the learning centers and institutes and branches to its associations that go beyond Egypt’s geographic borders to neighboring countries like Palestine (institutes and the University of Al-Azhar’s Palestine branch), to the invocations of its preachers from the minbars of mosques in most countries of the world.

These preachers have contributed in direct or indirect form to the dissemination of extremist terrorist thinking around the world on the basis of what they have learned and studied from an obsolete curriculum that divides the world into two zones: the Zone of Peace (Dar al-Salam) and the Zone of War (Dar al-Harb). It in turn divides the citizens of the Zone of Peace into freemen and vassals, as is the case with Egypt’s Copts, the Shi’a of the Gulf countries, the Kurds of Syria, and those in Kuwait who are called “without” (bidoun), i.e. without any nationality. This obsolete extremist thinking is implanted via the teaching of everything that contravenes Islamic law (Shari’a), the backbone of justice and mercy and peace and equality between people. In its place, they have substituted a heritage that knows no justice or freedom or peace or equality between people. But it is devoted to and rooted in demonic values that call for despotism, tyranny and a curtailment of human rights such as the right to life. According to their curriculum, it is the right of the ruler to kill a third of his subjects for the benefit of thirty. They affirm in their sermons that it is not the right of the individual to oppose the ruler and his advisors, nor to revolt against him under any circumstances—all under the banner of justice and freedom. In their educational curriculum, they have scaled back the mental and physical rights of women to the point where there is no job for them in the vast universe except as receptacles for sperm. They have advanced such views in stories that depict women, who they deem deficient in intellect and religion, as the greatest inhabitants of hell in the Hereafter. In other words, they obstruct the paths of women in life and death.

We should not downplay the nature of this antiquated thinking; its results are spreading its negative influence on the entire world through the activism of its adherents. Indeed, because of flawed religious interpretations, extremist political Islamist organizations make use of any cheap means to arrive at their goals in ascending to the chairs of power. They rear their members on the lowest jurisprudence, and force them to bow down and submit to the prince (emir) of the organization at first, and later to the prince of the believers (emir al-momenin). Following the religious interpretation of their spiritual guides, they throw

themselves into wars with the Other: at times in the name of Jihad, at other times in the name of spreading Islam, or simply by killing those who disagree with or obstruct them in their goals—under the pretext of killing “apostates.”

This sinful thinking has proliferated geographically to the borders of the Arab nation and to other regions under the call of Al-Qaeda, which is working to establish a world Islamic government. This group has mobilized its troops, establishing cells and spreading extremist ideas to all corners of the world, in the process unleashing destruction from America to Britain to Spain, and now to Canada and Switzerland. Not even Muslim countries such as Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, have been spared. Behind all of these events, we find the same ideology that Muslim Brotherhood has called and worked for, which began in Egypt with the curriculum supplied by Al-Azhar and the financing by Saudi Arabia. It has spread all over the planet, inspiring extremist movements and destruction in places like Yemen, Algeria, and in non-Arab countries like Pakistan, where it is flourishing.