Mullahs, Terrorism and Islam

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'As a Muslim, it is my duty to sacrifice my life for oppressed Palestinian children,' said Maryam Partovi, a 31-year-old mother of two.

The above was reported by a newspaper item in Daily Mail, London that appeared on April 22, 2005 under the title “Women Queue Up to Be Suicide Bombers; It Is My Duty as a Muslim to Sacrifice My Life, Says Mother”

The newspaper was reporting about a gathering in Tehran which was held to recruit volunteers for suicide attacks in “occupied Islamic countries”. This registration session was held by a group called “Committee for the commemoration of martyrs of the Global Islamic Campaign”, and claimed at that time that it had recruited 35000 volunteers during last one year. The event that was one in the series of such registration events went ahead smoothly despite the fact that the Iran insisted that it does not allow such attacks. Interesting was the presence of President Khatemi’s advisor on women affairs and a representative of supreme leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which flies in the face of Iranian claim that it does not allow such attacks.

Now let us come to present, and we find an interesting news item published in Daily Times, Pakistan on March 10, 2008. According to newspaper, one Maulana Faqir Muhammad of United Taliban Movement of Pakistan, an organization established for the purpose of uniting Taliban activities in semi autonomous tribal belts and part of northwestern Pakistan, addressed a public rally near Khar - the main town of Bajaur tribal district bordering Afghanistan. Following are some of the excerpts from his address produced by the newspaper:

“America is the biggest terrorist in the world and the current war in Pakistan has been imposed as a consequence of American policy.”

“As compared to Pakistani rulers, Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar are the biggest well-wishers of Pakistan. They are not enemies of Pakistan.”

“US President Bush is the biggest enemy of Pakistan ... Pakistani rulers’ backing of Bush has caused grave harm to the country.”

“The mujahedeen have the right to wage jihad against the rulers in the nooks and corners of the country as a result of continued operations against them. We do not want to capture the government, but we want imposition of an Islamic system in the country.”

Please note that Maulana failed to mention that US presence in the region is due to Osama Bin Laden and his one eyed master Mullah Omar.

Further note the catch when he said that they do not want to capture the government, but want imposition of Islamic system in the country. Though he failed to mention, but I am sure by Islamic system he meant the golden rules of policing and justice that prevailed during Taliban era in Afghanistan.

Maulana also failed to realize that the right to declare Jihad is prerogative of a state, and which state I may ask he represents?

Today two bombs exploded in Lahore and the death toll in both explosions is twenty two till the writing of these lines apart from more than hundred and seventy injured. Indeed maulana will be much happier at his successful waging of Jihad.

Jihad has become like a prostitute which is used by mindless Jihadists for their own political agenda of assumed supremacy, which they otherwise cannot pursue because they have refused to compete the modern world on the basis of modern institutions. Reason is simple viz. that they have refused to bring themselves forward in the fields of modern learning. Now the million dollar question is that from where they have got this inability to move forward. There are multiple factors to this, and I will try to enumerate few of them.

1. First one is the absence of tolerance to free thought. This started during late Abbasid period, when the Greek philosophy and free thinking threatened the rule of orthodoxy. An intellectual battle was fought among intellectual forces of the time in Islamic circles with establishment of the day changing sides at various occasions. But this fight was ultimately won by orthodox segment in the form of Ghazali, who used forces of logic to destroy the tolerant free thinking stream of Islamic thought. Since then free thought have never been tolerated to the desired level.

2. Then came Ibn-e-Taimiyya, who forcefully advocated Salafism. He basically advocated that for each and every matter reference has to be made to the prevailing explanation of religion during Salafi times i.e. during the era of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), his Companion and the next generation. Hence all the Islamic jurisprudence and thought was made prison of temporal period of Salafi era. No Islamic scholar has come out of this mental shackle since then.

3. Due to rise of European colonial powers, when Muslims could not compete with them in industry, sciences and ideas, the Islamic intelligentsia shut themselves to any outer stimulus and refused to walk along the modern thought. Just to give you a hint, Mufti of Jamia Ashrafia in Lahore, which is one of major Islamic centre of Pakistan, TV is still referred to as ‘shaitan ka charkha’ (devil’s spinning wheal).

The above are few factors which are responsible for Islamic Scholar’s refusal to accept any modern discipline in their traditional centers of learning.

During the colonial era, Islamic world witnessed the coming of secular education introduced by the colonial rulers. This in no way penetrated the traditional Islamic centers of learning or madrassas. Further, students who came out of these secular institutions, though educated on secular basis, still had a hangover of traditional Islamic bias, and this is the stage that a moral hypocrisy started to develop among newly educated Muslims. They recognized the virtues and benefits of modern education but were not able to come out of the spell of thirteen century mind set, and regarded the new education as dunyawi taleem (worldly education) and invariably considered it inferior to deeni taleem i.e. religious education.

Any new movement of reforms in Islam is considered at one level as going against the spirit of salafi doctrine, which directly or indirectly is the backbone of all Sunnis, and is opposed at other level perhaps because of its challenge to the power of Islamic scholar who is the product of traditional Islamic centers of learning.

So, these are the reason any Muslim whether modernly educated or traditionally educated goes into intellectual quarantine, when any question is raised regarding the role of Islam or reform movement in it. By going into this intellectual quarantine, any matter that somehow pertains to Muslims and their interaction with non Muslims is equated with attack on Islam and the war cry of ‘Islam in danger’ is raised. Current world situation with some unresolved political issue relating to Islamic areas further aggravates the notion of ‘Islam in danger’ as a convenient scapegoat for own weakness in all avenues of influence, where more muscle power is held by non Muslims. Otherwise, until Muslims were ruling their countries with might and power till the time of colonization, Islam was never in danger, although Islamic world started to be backward from the time of European powers’ reawakening in sixteenth century onward. So, a political and intellectual backwardness is conveniently garbed in the religious agenda because other alternative of soul searching is either very painful, or sometime not even provoked under the influence of Salafist influence.

Hence we see for any conceivable problem that concern Islamic world, the justification of Jewish or Western conspiracy. This habit is not restricted to illiterates or lowly educated but even find acceptance among highly educated including those who are born and raised in west. Recent proclamation of independence by Kosovo, and predominantly Muslim country and its acceptance by EU and others is not even mentioned in Islamic countries because they just can’t understand how West would allow it to happen.

Case in example is of Osama Bin Laden. He had a problem with Saudi Government regarding presence of US forces in first gulf war. Instead of fighting the Saudi Royal family, he started his Jihad against US. In the same way his comrade Ayman Al Zahrawi had his political agenda against Egyptian Government but chose to fight against US. These are the two most notorious terrorists of today and their reason to fight against West or US even defies the simple common sense. Why don’t they fight against the governments with which they have problem in the first place and save Saudis or Egyptians from the tyrants that are ruling them?

During last few years this madness has gone to several leagues further even than before, and has reached dangerous levels. I remember when I was watching TV and was dumbfounded at the loss of so much innocent life on that fateful day of September 11, 2001, I received a SMS on my mobile phone, which read “Allah-o-Akbar, Amrika ko ab maza ayay ga” (God is great, now America will have the taste i.e. of vengeance). Mind you the person sending SMS was not someone who is illiterate or less educated but was a qualified chartered accountant who now works for a multinational, and I think has realized the folly of his previous thoughts.

Islam is a political force, no doubt about it but it has been high jacked by mind set that refuse to comprehend the realities of modern world. And the culprits are our thirteen century backward Mullahs who have become hypocrites of first degree by refusing to search the causes of backwardness of Islamic population. Had their refusal was restricted to their group only, there would have not much problem but they have not chosen to loose their grip on the sentiments and emotions of general population. So the situation is that they want to live in thirteen century and insist others also to live in that era.

If they have any sense of humanity, which is the root of Islamic faith, they would have come forward with condemnation of terrorism. Instead of that by keeping silent, they have filtered their hypocrisy in general populace also and that is the reason we do not see any public protest when a bomb goes off. Agreed that some scholars have come up with fatwas against it, but it is far too late and far too less. By keeping silent, they have implicitly given their consent in favor of terrorism and suicide bombing, but what else they can do. They are still living in thirteen century, where Ibn-e-Taimiyya declared that jihad upon the Mongols is not only permissible, but obligatory as the Mongols were not true Muslims. He based this ruling on the grounds that although the Mongols had converted to Sunni Islam they ruled using 'man-made laws' (their traditional Yassa Code thought to be formulated and promulgated by Genghis Khan) rather than Islamic law or Shariah, and thus were living in a state of jahiliyyah (ignorance).