> How widespread is this idea of Khelafa among Muslims? Have no idea. I'd bet very little. To try to establish a limited regime somewhere and call it so is one thing. To actually implement the concept at the grand scale of say the Ottoman khelafa/empire is another. That was the last one and it ended up with disastrously backward societies. I don't see this happening again in practice. I've never had any affiliations other than professional or intellectual, so it is out my circle of contacts. The common Arab Gulf Market, just announced following the progressive EC/EU model, is a good example of the current state of mind and likely the objective of most ordinary Arab people.
> why is it not being discussed more openly in the press > (at least the Arab press) that the so-called terrorists (I think it is > more appropriate to refer to them as insurgents or militant > opposition) are mostly well educated. I disagree with this as I mentioned in my previous posting, but that's my own perception/understanding. There are always few heads and mass followers. Not all the heads have degrees/skills, neither do at all the majority of the followers. The skills of those who executed 9/11 most likely do not represent all fundamentalist militants, not to mention that they received specialized covert training. I'd guess they must've been carefully selected as demonstrated by how cleverly yet irrationally they committed their assigned terrorist operation. You may want to propose the topic to any of the major international news channels. It's interesting but it needs research. > These are not stupid men. Well, any level of formal education does not preclude lack of a balanced intellect. And typically most of those don't really practice their intended professions. I do realize yet, that rationalism, pragmatism, and intelligence may be different things. Some illiterate people are very intuitively intelligent. > As a for instance, look at the credentials for the president of Iran. In spite of his very strong statements against the state of Israel, this is a properly democratically elected head of state and cannot be regarded as a terrorist. In my personal opinion, he is soliciting the moral support of many frustrated Moslems about the Palestinian problem, with his occasional flaming announcements. If that problem reached a fair resolution, again in my opinion, much of these concerns will go away. But that's another story. Cheers Khaled Hank Roth wrote: > > All good points. Thank you for posting them. And pursuant to this > informed posting by you have some questions which I would like you to > also address. How widespread is this idea of Khelafa among Muslims? > And secondly, why is it not being discussed more openly in the press > (at least the Arab press) that the so-called terrorists (I think it is > more appropriate to refer to them as insurgents or militant > opposition) are mostly well educated. Most of them are professionals > or have advanced degrees. These are not stupid men. As a for instance, > look at the credentials for the president of Iran. Look at the > credentials of most of the attackers on 9/11. The head of al-qaeda are > all educated. > > I think there was the exception of the former head of al-Qaeda in > Iraq, who was never really accepted by bin Laden as anything but a > rogue. Or am I wrong about him. I simply can't remember. > > I would appreciate your analysis and comments with regard to my query. > > Again, thanks for posting. > > Hank > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
