To the Muslims, Be Ready Here We Come!
News:
- An Egyptian court sentences Mohammad Morsi, the only freely elected president in the history of Egypt, to death.
- Three Egyptian judges shot to death and three others injured in the Sinai desert.
- Secretly recorded conversations between top Egyptian generals unveil conspiracy to overthrow the Morsi government, a conspiracy bank-rolled by the Persian Gulf countries.
- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry issues a statement (August 1, 2013), while on a visit to Pakistan, supporting the coup-d’état in Egypt.
Keep those news items in the
perspective and see Egypt’s agony pulsating in front. Its future is being
written in blood, by script writers beyond its borders, in which the Egyptians,
as usual, are silent onlookers. Military dictatorships in the Muslim World have
had a morbid influence on society in general but in Egypt it has an extra
dimension. In every country the military is maintained with money and resources
to fight wars when ordered by the government. Some militaries are motivated by
ideological or patriotic fervor to fight and put their lives on the line but
most do so because they are paid. They have no choice in this respect but what
if the military itself is the controlling authority and there is an absence of
commitment to any cause; when it has the opportunity to loot the nation’s
resources, relinquish warfare and create a safe haven for itself? Reason
dictates that it would avail itself of this opportunity. In Egypt this is exactly
the case. It wipes out conflicts by making friends with the existing and
potential enemies. If you look at the history of the performance of Egyptian
generals in each of its wars, you are left with no doubt that they are ever so
eager to seek shelters.
The global war between sects, which we had
previously labeled as looming, has now begun to incinerate reason. Syria, Iraq,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and the countries of the Persian Gulf are already
inflamed. The fire is beginning to consume not only bodies but souls. The
Iranian Revolution of 1979 had fired the imagination of even sleeping minds
amongst Muslims and had ushered in a new era of Islamism, reviving the dreams
of Jamaluddin Afghani, Hassan Al-Banna and Abul-Ala Maudoodi --- Imam Khomeini’s
references to these dreamers would support the assertion. Except for a few
individuals in the Sunni World, notably in Saudi Arabia, the majority of Sunnis
never gave a second thought to the sectarian divide and supported the
Revolution wholeheartedly, whereas the Islamic Republic of Iran supported
Islamic causes all over the world including Palestine, Kashmir, Philippines,
Bosnia and Kosovo. In fact Bosnia owes its existence to the material support
provided by Iran. That was then, what of today? Today, it seems that we have
woken up from a dream. There isn’t much of pan-Islamism in the air. Iran is
reverting back to sectarian nationalism and the waters of the Persian Gulf are
parted like the Red Sea at the hand of Moses, between Persia and Arabia. This dichotomy,
reminiscent of the times of the Safawis: Shah Ismail and Shah Abbas is
catastrophic, to say the least. Iran and its post-Khomeini clergy are
determined to see Bashar Al-Assad survive even if the whole of Syria is turned
into a wasteland. The reason, as we understand is to protect the conduit of
arms to Hezbollah. (This illogically presupposes that a representative
government in Syria would be hostile to Iran). In doing so Iran has, in a big
way, contributed to the defeat of the “Arab Spring”, which the coming
generations of Arabs will neither forget nor forgive. Not even this! Iran’s
flawed diplomacy has contributed to its own myriad problems. It is unbecoming
of the head of the government to talk about Holocaust, an utterly unnecessary
diatribe, notwithstanding the merits and demerits of the case. In civilized societies such issues are left
to one or two chattering politicians or academics and not to the president of a
country with a glorious history of sophisticated civilization.
The Takfiri destructiveness
born and bred in the unscholarly madrasas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which
manufacture murderers, is on the other side of the picture. These demons kill
and kill and kill, in mosques, in churches, in schools in busses and everywhere.
There is no respite from their ghoulishness in spite of the presence of one of
the largest armies in the world enjoying its perks and devouring the foreign
aid. This is a monster with many heads which proliferates multifariously and
morphs into many forms. Its franchises exist in many countries. There is no
stopping this macabre dance of death.
Islamic State or Khilafa are terms
which evoke nostalgia, anticipation and hope among a majority of aggrieved
Muslims who are disappointed and dejected by the animosity of the West towards
them. Hitherto, many an organizations had talked about khilafa, a seemingly
unachievable goal given the modern realities. None had control over any
territory, an essential requirement of a state. When vast swaths of land in
Iraq and Syria came under the control of an authority declaring itself to be khilafa
with amazing speed and astounding efficiency and organization, all of a sudden
what had seemed impossible was seen to be entering the realm of reality. The
success of the ISIS in Syria and Iraq is owing to the fact that the Sunni
population of the area under its control, dispossessed of political power and
feeling menaced by the perceptible ascendency of the Shia militias, either
joined it or gave it tacit support overlooking its flaws. Muslim youth in
distant places on earth were awakened by the call and they went, leaving their
schools, their parents, their clubs and yes, their gangs behind to fight for
the cause. They were attracted by the slogan, the name, without knowing the
dynamics and the requisites of the Islamic state. We are hoping against hope
that the images seen on the internet of the atrocities, the killings and the
beheadings are doctored by our enemies and that in reality what we are being
told is a big lie but evidence is mounting day by day to confirm our worst
fears. Even after subtracting revenge killings (revenge against enemy
collaborators) a significant portion of unjustified killings remains. Questions
arise as to when and where in the khilafa of Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman and Ali
(May Allah’s mercy be upon them) were the religious minorities unsafe, let
alone murdered. Extend the history into the Umayyad, Abbasid and Ottoman
periods, you cannot find examples of any such acts.
If there was to be an Islamic state
in the Twenty-first century, it had to contain all the elements of evolutionary
culture, a culture with comprehensive and competitive education, high
achievements and in which you could see your mothers, your daughters and
sisters standing alongside the men folk with dignity they deserved and not as
subservient and degraded human beings. The million dollar question is: do I
want to live in a state where all the non-Muslims and Shias have been murdered
and women are subjected to proprietary exploitation? Hell No! I believe that an
Islamic state would survive only if it was competitive in every legitimate
field, competitive with the West and with South and south-east Asia. Otherwise
it would be a barren island in the sea of civilization and will gradually fade
away. It is imperative that we impress this reality upon the minds of our
youth, whom we teach the Quran, the Hadith and the Seearah and not miss-educate
them into believing that what they are learning is exclusively ordained and is sufficient.
I met with a new-Muslim lady, an ex-Catholic, who told me that her priest had
advised her that she should not think for herself but let the Church think for
her. She rejected this requirement; thought and thought for herself and then
chose Islam over all other religions, despite nine-eleven and all the negative
propaganda which ensued since. Do I tell her that now that she is here she
should let my masjid imam think for her? This would be a travesty. I want to
live in a state where people think and appreciate the letter and the spirit of
the Qur’an, a state which is capable of producing Ibn Sinas, Razis and
Al-Khwarizmis and from where scientists are not exiled for non-conformity with
the majority doctrines and where archeological remains of ancient civilizations
are not smashed which had previously been sustained during one and a half
millennia of Islamic khilafas, dynasties and sultanates.
Palestine is the key to all the
problems in the Muslim World and beyond. The Arab armies and Israel fought
several battles over the issue. The Arab armies were defeated. Fearing
annihilation, they withdrew into their own chaotic political arenas and
dissociated themselves from Palestine, an unprecedented treachery! This dealt a
severe blow to Nasserism and Arabism which for ever changed the political
landscape of the region. The Palestinians, destitute and orphaned are looking
hither and thither, sometimes to the East, sometimes to the West and sometimes
within for answers. They have been told that a possible answer could be a
“Two-State Solution”. Eureka! The scattered lands in which they are confined
now would be called ”state” rather than “authority”. Mahmoud Abbas will
undisputedly assume the title of President and the Palestinian police will be
called its defense force. Nothing else would change including the nature of
relationship between the occupiers and the occupied. The Palestinians will have
a status similar to the native tribes in the United States of America. (Even
the black Jews do not have equal rights in Israel) This is the maximum that the
Israelis may agree to. Will the Palestinians take this or wait for “one state”,
which one day will be bound to happen, provided they remain cohesive and the
Israeli power wanes?
So, what does the future hold for
Muslims in the world? It is obvious to anybody who is not blind that the road
to the future is fraught with danger. Internally, backward thinking, propagation
of and preference for ignorance and the preponderance of killers are some of
the self-inflicted wounds that are making us bleed to death. As for external
dangers suffice it to quote the transcript of Amy Goodman’s interview with Gen.
Wesley Clark, the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, published on March
5, 2007:
Gen Clark: “About ten days
after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy
Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on
the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in.
He said ‘Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me second.’ I said, ‘well
you’re too busy.’ He said, No, no.’ He says, ‘We’ve made a decision to go to
war with Iraq.’ --- ‘I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about
terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.’
--- So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were
bombing in Afghanistan. I said, ‘Are we still going to war with Iraq?’ And he
said, ‘Oh, it is worse than that.’ He reached over on his desk. He picked up a
piece of paper. And he said, ‘I just got this down from upstairs’ – meaning the
Secretary of Defense’s office – ‘today.’ And he said, ‘This is a memo that describes
how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq,
and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” Tony
Blair, the British prime minister at that time had also alluded to this scheme
at that time. He too was in it.
Well, almost all the countries on
that list have already been taken care of plus Egypt and Yemen. Others, be
ready. Here we come!
Waheeduddin Ahmed
May 28, 2015
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