Sayyid Imam will speak

aka Dr Fadl’s book is finished and  will be exclusively printed in Egypt’s Al-Masri Al-Youm newspaper starting this week. 

According to Al-Masri Al-Youm, he will reveal new secrets about Jihad operations in Pakistan, Europe and Arab countries, but this seems more of an attempt (by the paper) to generate readership interest.  I’m more interested in his theological development: to what extent is he going to move further towards the Islamic center?  When he spoke last, his ideas were pretty rigid.  He was against the use of violence mostly because it would only lead to fowda or fitna, not because it was particularly wrong and at no point did he say that the government isn’t infidel. Its a question of whats the best way to deal with the situation (in his mind).  Has he gone beyond this simplistic cost-benefit analysis equation? 

The Islamic Group (Al-Gama’a AL-Islamiyya) is  substantially further along in their revisions process, and is on the verge of making the jump to the Islamic centralism espoused by Qaradawi and the Brotherhood, although they still have some ways to go.   Read Khali Anani’s excellent article on why they are not quite there yet.   As of last December, when he last spoke, Sayyid Imam was a long way behind the Islamic Group but we will soon find out to what extent he has closed the gap.