The American Corruption of Arab Modernists

The RAND Corporation is an American research institution with a lot of influence over American decision-making. It has been concerned with Islamic and Muslim issues, and in 2004 — the year America’s attack on the Muslim world, via the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, ended — RAND prepared a report translated and published under the title “Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies.” Within this report, all of Muslim thought is divided into four currents. They are:

1. Fundamentalism: Fundamentalists reject western cultural values.
2. Traditionalism: Traditionalists want a conservative society and are suspicious of modernity and change.
3. Secularism: Secularists want the Muslim world to accept separation of religion and the state.
4. Modernism: Modernists want the Muslim world to be part of Western modernity and want to update Islam to keep up with the times.

This report then demanded of American opinion-makers that they support Arab modernists, because they are most dedicated to nurturing the values and spirit of a modern, Western society, and because modernists — along with the Arab secularists — are closest to the West in terms of values and political views. One method proposed for American support was encouraging a literal interpretation of the Quran’s words that we (i.e., the Americans) consider history and legend! The detailed list of methods for American support of these Arab modernists, as indicated in the report, is as follows:

A. Publishing and distributing works dissecting and rejecting Islam at a subsidized cost.
B. Encouraging modernists to write for the masses and the youth.
C. Presenting modernist opinions in the Muslim school curriculum.
D. Giving modernists popular platforms to communicate with the masses.
E. Making modernist opinions and judgments on important issues of religious interpretation available to the masses until they can rival the opinions and judgments of the fundamentalists and traditionalists.
F. Facilitating and encouraging awareness of Islam’s history and non-Islamic culture.
G. Encouraging a literal interpretation of the Quran’s words that we consider to be history and legend.

This American report ends with the Arab modernists’ positions and contemporary American imperialist schemes — namely, the necessity of rebuilding the Muslim religion. So, Islam, according to this report, is no more impregnable than the world’s other religions, and the consensus among civilizations is that they are able to change their values, but Islam is not!

This is what the American RAND Corporation planned, decided, and announced, while having great power over American decision-makers. Thus, the modernists’ positions were uncovered and publicized, and a scheme was hatched for the interpretation of the Quran to become history and myth, to change Islam’s values, and to merge the Muslim world with Western values and policies. American mechanisms for supporting these Arab modernists were announced as: spreading modernist writings amongst the masses and the youth, presenting modernist opinions in the educational curricula, and encouraging modernist writings about previous stages of Islamic history and non-Muslim cultures.

This American report has also revealed the American employment of Arab modernists in an imperialist plan that wants — this from the report’s text — Western values and policies to be inserted into the Muslim world! In other words, to corrupt the Muslim religion and the Muslim world!

The introduction to this American report called for cooperation between the Arab modernists and secularists in pitting the Arab traditionalists against the Arab and Muslim fundamentalists. The meaning of Islamic fundamentalism, and Muslim fundamentalism, in the American imperialist dictionary, was seen during the era of former American President Richard Nixon (1913-1994).* He was a strategic thinker in his writings, in which he said that these Islamic fundamentalists are planning the recovery of a former Islamic civilization from the past. They are taking a vision for the future from the past, and so they are not conservatives, but revolutionaries! So, says the American strategist Francis Fukuyama, these Islamic fundamentalists are enemies of America and enemies of the Arab modernists. They not only reject Western policies, but also Western modernity and its basic principle: secularism!

These are the American goals: to recruit Arab modernists and secularists to interpret the Quran so that it becomes just history and myth, and to change the values of Islam in order to insert Western values and policies into the Muslim world. This was announced in the American report at the beginning of the 21st century, but is reminiscent of colonial purposes that were revealed in the reports of French consuls in Beirut in the 19th century, when they wrote to the French foreign minister in Paris for financial support of French missionary schools. The consuls said that the goal of the schools was to make Syria into an important ally rather than a colony. To accomplish this, they aimed to convert the Maronites into an army dedicated only to the service of France, and to make the Arab Berbers bend their desires to those of European, Christian civilization!

French missionary schools were created in the 19th century for the same purposes that Arab modernists are being recruited for today: to convert the Quran into myth, to change Muslim values, and to insert Western values and policies into the Muslim world!

*Editor’s Note: The dates listed in the original source are for Nixon’s entire life. Nixon served as president from 1969-1974.