“Here’s the smell of blood still. And all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand!”
(Lady Macbeth)
And all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten the hands of Bush, Blair and the rest of the evil axis as they wage their unholy War on Islam!
And we are in no position to take a high moral cap line either! The Muslim Ummah, by its sins of omission and commission is actively partaking in this unholy campaign. No Muslim will be exonerated of his/her complicity in this crisis. History will hold the present-day Muslims guilty on three counts - disunity, perfidy and faithlessness!
First and foremost, we are guilty of being partners in crime to the genocide of our fellow Muslims. At a rough estimate, 9/11 will have to be statistically repeated 166 times to equal the death toll of Iraqi children caused by draconian economic sanctions. Still we agree that the US response to one WTC incident in the form of death, destruction and occupation of Muslim lands is justified; but any Muslim reaction to the far greater pain and misery is pure terrorism!
The plain truth is that, Muslim ‘extremists’ would not be waging “terrorism” if Muslim states had joined hands against Jewish and American state terrorism. The Palestinians would not be blowing themselves up into countless pieces if we could have formed a coalition to drive Israel out of the occupied Arab territories, the way we joined the US-led coalition to drive out Saddam from Kuwait.
It is ironical that, while the US has failed to present any concrete evidence of any Muslim complicity in the WTC bombing, its minions and puppets in the Islamic World do not tire of branding Muslims as “certified terrorists.” These “besieged moderates” amongst us are more guilty of the post-9/11 deaths in Afghanistan than that alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden, or that “emperor with no brain”, Bush Junior.
For, the US was emboldened to attack Afghanistan, in great measure because of our support for its agenda. We permitted the propaganda against Taliban without setting foot on Afghan soil, without meeting a single Talib, without trying to find out the truth for ourselves! We gave the US the pretext to build a coalition and occupy Afghanistan, for none of this would have come to pass, had we given political recognition to the Talibans, assisted them in developing a system of governance and helped them in running state institutions.
Disunity is thus, the first charge against us!
The second charge is Perfidy. We legitimise rancid Western stereotyping of Muslims. They pigeonhole us into “moderates,” “liberals,” and “fundamentalists”….. and we espouse this typecasting thereby, fulfilling the prediction of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). He (SAW) said: Near Qiyamah, the Muslims will become divided into three groups — one third supporting the enemies of Islam (as the self-proclaimed “moderate” Muslims do), one third comprising of sceptics (or the “silent majority” of our times), and one third remaining steadfast. The last is the group that has been dubbed “fundamentalist”.
It is this last group that is constantly vilified and demonised by the media. Fareed Zakaria gleefully writes about crushing this fundamentalist Islamic section of the population in the Washington Post thus: “The governments of Algeria, Egypt, Turkey and (to a lesser extent) Pakistan have all crushed their Islamic groups. Many feared that, as a result, the fundamentalists would become martyrs. In fact, they had to scramble to survive.” (2)
As opposed to this, moderation (read 'degeneration") is glorified. These moderates, the likes of Mona Eltahawy amongst us would say anything to be published in New York Times: “We are Muslims in America, not Egypt or Saudi Arabia, and as such, that identity must be firmly rooted in Michigan or New York, not Cairo or Riyadh. This has allowed us to tackle subjects (like homosexuality) that are taboo in many Islamic countries around the world.” (3)
Also, please read Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s article “Reformist Muslims are bringing new hope to Islam” in Independent of September 9, 2002, whereby she, as a reformist Muslim supports gay rights! Is this what reformation is all about?
The third count on which we stand guilty, stems from our collective faithlessness and scepticism towards Islam and the belief that, only science and technology will give us that, which our faith has not! It is this mindset and not, those expensive Western institutions that cause our PhDs to develop a warped approach towards Islam. For the Devil cannot take our souls unless we consent to it!
The result? These faithless PhDs become a bane, not a boon to the society. Eventually they come up with perverse ideas like, “Islam is too restrictive”, and “Jihad is all about getting 70 virgins in Paradise!” One starts doubting their mental health when they start giving “No compulsion in religion” (i.e., don’t convert to Islam by force) the contorted interpretation of “No compulsion on us” (i.e. no one has to follow any moral and ethical discipline!).
And so, we become guilty of producing pseudo-intellectuals who will willingly embrace the US doctrine of just war and pre-emptive strikes but reject injunctions of the Holy Qur’an as “ahistorical.” At a conference in Geneva earlier this year, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’am, a US-based Muslim had this to say about Sharia law: “While I believe Sharia notions of jihad were appropriate for that historical context, they are no longer acceptable or workable now … even the most restrictive view of its causes and manner are categorically illegal and politically untenable in the modern context.” (4)
We have more faith in the words of merchants of death and their daisy-cutters than in Allah (SWT). We believe in the interest-based economic theories of the World Bank and IMF than the clear instructions in Qur’an. Even our so-called religious leaders are more worried about democracy in Pakistan than our collective disregard for Qur’anic injunctions. This was recently demonstrated by our apathy during the Government’s latest ploy to legalise interest-based economy.
We are guilty of turning a religion, which came as a solution for all social, political and economic problems, into a problem in itself! We are now searching for a solution to the “problem” of Islam in decadent Western ideals of liberalism and secularism.
Whether we attribute our downfall to the tyranny of fate, or rationalize it using conspiracy theories, the verdict on us is out.
And the verdict is: “Guilty!”
Concluded.
October 10, 2001
Notes:
- Khalied Abou el Fadl, Moderate Muslims Under Siege, New York Times, July 01, 2002.
- Fareed Zakaria, The Extremists Are Losing, Washington Post, September 3, 2002; Page
- A17Mona Eltahawy, “Keeping Faith With Islam in a New World,” New York Times, September 03, 2002.
- Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s article, Independent, September 4.