Walid al-Kubaisi

Walid al-Kubaisi (9 February 1958 – 31 July 2018) was a Norwegian-Iraqi author, journalist, translator, film director and government scholar. He notably criticized Islamism in the documentary film Frihet, likhet og Det muslimske brorskap. He was an engineer by education.

Walid al-Kubaisi
Born(1958-02-09)9 February 1958
Baghdad, Iraq
Died31 July 2018(2018-07-31) (aged 60)
Oslo, Norway
CitizenshipNorwegian[1]
Alma materUniversity of Baghdad[2]
OccupationAuthor, civil engineer[3]
Known forCriticism of Islam
Notable work
Frihet, likhet og det muslimske brorskap (Freedom, Equality, and the Muslim Brotherhood) (2010)

Personal life and career

Al-Kubaisi was born in Baghdad, Iraq[2] where he received a degree in engineering at the University of Baghdad. He emigrated from the country to Norway as a political refugee in 1981 owing to war.[3] He regards himself as a "secular Muslim".[4]

In addition to writing non-fiction books, he translated Arabic poetry to Norwegian: poems by Faisal Hashmi in 2008 and by Eftikhar Ismaeil in 2010.[5][6]

He was nominated to the Brage Prize in 1996.[7]

He wrote the script for the 2010 film Freedom, Equality, and the Muslim Brotherhood which he directed together with Per Christian Magnus.[8]

Views

Al-Kubaisi argued that the hijab was a political uniform for the militant Islamist movement. He maintained, that if Islamists were to be successful in making the hijab synonymous with Islam, they would have achieved a victory in the West which they had not been able to accomplish in Muslim countries. He also claimed that the hijab was only created in the 1980s after Ayatollah Khomeini's Iranian revolution, and that it, unlike national Islamic dresses such as the burqa, is a dress exclusively created for the universal political Islamist movement.[9]

He claimed that Tariq Ramadan was an Islamist, who "spoke with two tongues": smoothly and articulate in the West, yet purely Islamist in the Muslim community and the suburbs. He held that Ramadan sought to Islamize the West, but in a more patient manner than the likes of Osama bin Laden.[4]

He believed that the Muslim Brotherhood was the "mother organization" for the world's Islamist political ideology. He said that the Muslim Brotherhood had a plan to conquer Europe by the hijab, high birth rates and democracy; Islamists were exploiting Western democracy to reach their own anti-democratic goals.[9] His 2010 documentary Frihet, likhet og det muslimske brorskap discussed this, in which he also interviewed several Arab intellectuals who espoused his views.[10] He also claimed that notable Norwegian Muslims such as Mohammad Usman Rana, Lena Larsen and Basim Ghozlan represented the ideology of the Brotherhood in Norway, and that Abid Raja of the Norwegian Liberal Party was a "running boy" for Islamists.[11]

Works

Books
  • Allahs lille brune : Koranen og profetens ord i utvalg, editors Walid al-Kubaisi and Ronnie Johanson, Religionskritisk forlag, 2004, ISBN 82-7265-015-0
  • Min tro, din myte. Aventura, 1996
  • Sinbads verden. Children's book. Pantagruel, 1997
  • Gleden er ikke mitt yrke. Pantagruel, 1998
  • Halvmånens hemmeligheter. Pantagruel, 1998
  • Rasisme forklart for barn : en bok for barn i alle aldre, og med alle hudfarger, Pantagruel, 2001, ISBN 82-7900-127-1

Documentary films
  • Frihet, likhet og Det muslimske brorskap, 2010

Articles (selection)

References
  1. Leer-Salvesen, Tarjei (12 April 2003). "Våger ikke å juble". Klassekampen (in Norwegian). Retrieved 19 December 2010.
  2. "Walid al-Kubaisi forfatter". Volapük Litteratur og Kulturforum (in Norwegian). Retrieved 19 December 2010.
  3. "Walid al-Kubaisi". Morgenbladet (in Norwegian). 3 December 2010. Retrieved 19 December 2010.
  4. Brandvold, Åse (12 February 2010). "- Ikke glem de sekulære". Klassekampen (in Norwegian). Retrieved 19 December 2010.
  5. Entry for Som en forvirret i en viss tid by Faisal Hashmi in BIBSYS
  6. Entry for De første dråper by Eftikhar Ismaeil in BIBSYS
  7. Walid al-Kubaisi Volapuk.no, retrieved 3 March 2013 (in Norwegian)
  8. Anne Grete Nilsen: Walid al-Kubaisi Store Norske Leksikon, retrieved 3 March 2013 (in Norwegian)
  9. al-Kubaisi, Walid (3 February 2004). "Den sanne historien om slør og skaut i islam". Aftenposten (in Norwegian). Retrieved 19 December 2010.
  10. Persen, Kjell (28 November 2010). "Muslimleder: – Vi vil danne en samlet islamsk stat". TV 2 (in Norwegian). Retrieved 19 December 2010.
  11. Bisgaard, Anders Breivik (3 December 2010). "Vil spre "sunn frykt"". Morgenbladet (in Norwegian). Retrieved 19 December 2010.
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