Pasha Muhammed Ali Quotes

Mehmet’s father Murat had just died. There was a custom in Islam that the new Sultan have all his brothers executed so that there would be absolute certainty who was the legitimate Sultan and that dissenting forces should not rally around another son of the old Sultan to have a regime change and/or a civil war. Stability and certainty in the line of succession was critical to the Muslims in that the Sultan was not only the civil ruler, but the highest religious authority as well. He had the power of the Christian Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor together. The struggle between the Sunnis and the Shiites which has overwhelmed Islamic unity was originally all about who the successor to Muhammad would be.

Peter was totally unusual as a Russian monarch in that he personally worked very hard at being a ruler. He read profusely, traveled to get new ideas, talked to learned people throughout Europe, did not trust heavy drinkers. His son, brought up in the Kremlin was more like the traditional Russian nobility—alcoholic spendthrifts. When Peter threatened to disinherit his son, Alexis fell in with plotters against the Czar. When Peter discovered this, he had his own son executed in July 1718.

Played the President in the NBC Network West Wing

His hope that the elite intelligentsia would lead the nation was thwarted by Islamic fundamentalism which destroyed most of Pakistan education by only teaching religion in its Madrassas and not allowing the leadership to have compulsory education. There has been an enormous brain drain with a huge number of the Pakistani intelligentsia on which Jinnah pinned his hopes, had no opportunity in Pakistan and emigrated to the United Kingdom and America.

The example that is often given is Singapore of the late 20th century.

The papyrus appears to be an instruction booklet for government officials.

This is a very important quotation. It explains in great part, why there have been so few internal revolutions in Muslim countries. Al-Ghazi’s interpretation of Islamic Law and Theology concluded that even if the ruler is incompetent, corrupt, or destructive he should be supported and obeyed by all good Muslim citizens. The reason was that anarchy and/or chaos was an evil much worse for the Islamic community. There was one exception in the case of a ruler who was blasphemous or did not follow Islam. Then it was the duty of good Muslims. Since then, the ruler of an Islamic state, first seeks to ingratiated himself with the clergy. In Saudi Arabia, for example, the Royal Family gives enormous sums to all the clerics. They then urge dissidents and would be revolutionaries to accept the Royal Family with its flaws and shortcomings and accept their lack of freedom and human rights. And they tell all that the King and his family are all religious and support Islam. Therefore any revolt would be a tantamount to a sin. The Christian world had a different technique for inhibiting Revolution. Christian rulers claimed the Devine Right of Kings—that God had selected and ordained the king to lead. Regime change was contrary to the word of God. In a sense, the Islamic approach is more intellectually honest and seems to have worked much better than the Christians who have had so many revolutions. Better that is from the rulers point of view. From a democratic, Jeffersonian point of view revolting against an evil ruler was almost a moral obligation, and Al-Ghazali’s principle is all wrong and is keeping the Muslim countries from reaching democracy.

He was only 29 years old when elected Governor.

SCAF: Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. This quotation illustrates how difficult it is to establish a real democracy in Egypt in particular and most Middle Eastern countries in general. Essentially, the General wants to be sure that there is no check or control on the military in the new dupposedly democratic system. In a democracy, there are only two elements that the people have selected and who represent them—the President and the Parliament. If neither of these can command and control the military, then the people have no control over the military which then becomes a de facto aristocracy that has a veto on everything in the country. Making the situation more difficult is the fact that in Egypt (as in many non democratic nations) the military owns and controls a very large segment of businesses throughout the economy—more than any corporation or wealthy family. The civilian control of the military—one of the most fundamental aspects of the United States and every other true democracy—will not likely be possible in Egypt in the next decade or so.