The Islamist Take on the Financial Crisis

By Douglas Farah

Islamist terrorists are often portrayed as crazed and irrational actors who live in isolation from the real world, rather than individuals acting according to a coherent logic that makes sense if one understands the premise of the view.

This struck me in reading how the Islamists view the current financial crisis in the West. For Hamas, a part of the global Muslim Brotherhood, the crisis is divine punishment for the multiple sins of the non-Islamist world.

We see it as God's punishment for the criminals (U.S. and its Western allies). Nothing is more unjust than occupying an Islamic state. Nothing is more unjust than keeping the Palestinian people under occupation for over 60 years," Ismail Haniyeh told worshippers before Friday prayers in the Gaza Strip.

This view is shared by al Qaeda. In a recent statements al Qaeda has gloated over the meltdown.

Al-Qaida and other extremist groups have gloated in recent weeks about the West's financial woes, painting the crisis as either divine punishment for supposed wrongs or the last gasps of a dying empire.

An American al-Qaida member, Adam Gadahn, said in a video released this month that ``the enemies of Islam are facing a crushing defeat, which is beginning to manifest itself in the expanding crisis their economy is experiencing.''

The similarity of the sentiments shows what many of us have long said: That while Hamas and the larger Muslim Brotherhood are not the same as al Qaeda, they do share a similar world view. My full blog is here.

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