A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Monday, May 13, 2013

Egyptian Salafi: "Shi‘a Are More Dangerous Than Naked Women"

Add to the "[Stuff] Salafis Say" file this wondrous quote from a Salafi Nour Party MP in Egypt, according to Ahram Online
 "The Shi[‘]as are more dangerous than naked [women]," MP Tharwat Attallah of the Salafist Nour Party said during the meeting. "They are a danger to Egypt's national security; Egyptians could be deceived into [converting to] Shi[‘]ism, giving it a chance to spread in Egypt," he added.
 Oh, my. What to say? We've previously discussed the odd Salafi preoccupation with Shi‘ism in a country which has very few, and, well, I guess I probably don't have to cite chapter and verse on how Salafis feel about naked women.

I hope you don't mind the bracketed ‘ayns. I'm not always pedantic, but I refuse to omit consonants.

Now, there are no doubt some dangerous Shia. I'm not, personally, a great lover of Hizbullah or the Iranian Revolution Guards Corps, but I've known plenty of Lebanese and Iraqi Shia who were fine people. Similarly, I suppose naked women can be dangerous, since it was just last month that, during the so-called International Topless Jihad Day, the Ukrainian feminist group Femen proclaimed that their bare breasts (they actually said "tits" but I'm euphemizing)  "are deadlier than your stones," and "deadly" = "dangerous" seems fair. But I'm not sure these are really comparable threats. (Or, well, threats at all.)

But then, since this was a case of the Shura Council questioning the Tourism Ministry, by "naked women" the Salafi speaker may have meant "tourists in bikinis," a perennial threat to Salafism, since in Egypt, actual naked women are as thin on the ground as actual Shi‘a. Aliaa Elmahdy left the country some time back (and has most recently gotten naked in Sweden, but I don't think it's considered dangerous there), easing the terrible danger of anyone being naked in Egypt.

My own answer to the "Shi‘a" versus "naked women" debate is, "why can't we have both?"

Though I read Ahram Online daily I nearly missed this gem, so a hat tip to Khalil Al-anani for linking to it, though he has absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for my comments on said link.

1 comment:

xoussef said...

Indeed, why not both? Forget the nuclear stuff, Iran is obviously preparing revolutionary brigades of Shi'a naked women to bring Egypt to its knees. The only reason IDF has abandoned a similar program is demographics. They couldn't find enough naked Israeli women to cover all the Nile valley, let alone other fronts. Now, if only Egypt could storm Israel by surprise with naked women, everyone will be happy :)