MEMRI May 19, 2016 Special Dispatch No.6437
Jordanian Journalist: The State's Religious Establishment Manufactures
Extremism, Wastes Public Funds
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/9204.htm

In an article in the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat, Jordanian
journalist Ibrahim Ghuraibeh came out against the religious establishments
in Jordan and other Arab countries. He wrote that Jordan and other Arab
regimes spend millions in public funds on employing full-time functionaries
in the religious sector, and that, by funding and sponsoring various
religious institutions, these regimes encourage and preserve the extremism
that many of these institutions promote.

He called for giving communities autonomy in the handling their religious
affairs and for relying mainly on volunteers for providing religious
services. This, he argued, will reduce extremism and save public funds,
which can then be invested in improving people's standards of living.

The following are excerpts from the article:[1]

Ibrahim Ghuraibeh (Image: Mominoun.com, October 15, 2015)

"Jordan employs 50,000 full-time workers in the sector of religion,
including university lecturers, shari'a court judges and clerks, teachers of
[Islamic] religion and culture in schools, imams, muezzins, endowments
[ministry] workers, jurisprudents, and workers in non-governmental
[religious] associations.

"In practice, there is no need for more than 1,000 full-time lecturers and
judges, and even that is a lot. Society can provide volunteers to perform
the roles of teachers, imams, preachers and jurisprudents, and there is no
need for full-time employees. [Alternatively], society can employ a small
number of full-time workers, whose wages will be paid out of the community's
income, not public funds. There is need for [only] one academic college that
will offer four tracks of study and award degrees in them: Muslim law and
jurisprudence... general religious education... religious studies, including
philosophy, sociology, and culture... and professional training for imams,
preachers and jurisprudents.

"Religious education and activity will not be affected one whit if
government religious posts are abolished. They will not suffer or be in any
kind of danger, because local communities can manage, plan and organize
their own religious affairs, spending far less than the government but
producing better [results in terms of] quality, [client] satisfaction and
suitability [to the client] than the state authorities.

"The [services] provided by the official religious institutions can be
better provided by other qualified [state] institutions, such as the
courts... The Finance Ministry and municipalities can manage, use and
administer the religious endowments and their funds, just as they handle the
state's funds and assets.

"When the government is in charge of religious [services] it wastes public
funds, sets itself up as the people's patron and as the patron of their
conscience and soul, and manufactures extremism and fanaticism. If the state
stops fulfilling [this] role in religion, extremism will lose most, if not
all, of its financial and ideological sources and its safe havens. [At the
same time,] moderate religious trends that meet the people's needs will
develop, as well as religious organizations and methods that will realize
people's spiritual aspirations, [like] the Sufi orders and various
[religious] social movements that operated throughout history. [Independent]
religious bodies will also develop, like the jurisprudential schools that
emerged [in the past] without any involvement of the political authorities.

"Jordan's ministry of religious endowments and holy places was established
in 1967, but for centuries before that people were and remained observant
Muslims. The ministry of endowments contributed nothing to the religious
domain except for extremism, fanaticism and waste [of resources]. It looks
like its establishment, and its appointment as the patron of the religious
domain... were attended by an increase in fanaticism, the advent of
political and military Islam organizations, and the emergence of takfir and
violence in the name of religion.

"50,000 people are paid salaries out of the public coffers and the
taxpayer's money, and give nothing in return. Volunteers and social
organizations can competently perform the duties that these people perform.
Had these [civil servants] performed genuine and productive jobs [instead of
the jobs they now preform], it would have been possible to improve standards
of living [in the country] and promote development, or at least save a
billion dollars annually in public expenditures.

"The Jordanian example can obviously be applied to all [Arab] states, so we
are talking of 1.5 million civil servants [throughout the Arab world] who
perform superfluous jobs, at an annual [cost of] 30 billion dollars. [This
money] could potentially be used to fund substantial achievements in the
domains of education, health and welfare, and in the development of arable
land, of [our] meagre water sources, and of cheap and minimally polluting
renewable energy [sources] – while at the same time automatically and
effortlessly eliminating extremism and hatred."

Endnotes:

[1] Al-Hayat (London), December 25, 2015.

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