The Salafi Threat

By the way Babbu, The U.S started the initiative and the Western governments said to the Arabs that you ought to match our numbers 1 to 1. :)

Stuka is right. Babu, you Indian or Pakistani?

Stuka is right. Babu, you Indian or Pakistani?

But what about this Hanfi threat. In this connection please read my letter sent to the daily News as reproduced bellow:-

Terrorism and Religion

This refers to the letter of Kh. Mohammad Bashir Butt titled ‘Terrorism has no religion’ – vide News of 11.1.05.

The writer has quoted a verse of Quran, as usual, out of context, to support his contention that Islam forbids terrorism involving killing of innocent human beings. I quote the full verse 5/32 below: -

“For that cause (murder of a son of Adam by his brother) We decreed for the Children of Israel that whosoever killeth a human being (Nafsa) for other than manslaughter (?) or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind. Our messengers came unto them of old with clear proofs (of Allah’s sovereignty), but afterwards lo! Many of them became prodigals in the earth. (Translation by Pickthall).

In the first place, as is obvious from the above quotation, the decree was meant expressly for the children of Israel and as such why should the non-Israeli Muslims consider it binding on them. Secondly, for the Muslims the Quran does allow, albeit under certain conditions, the killing of human beings if they are considered to be ‘Kafirs’ (non-believers). And what about the sectarian ‘Fatwas’ galore according to which some sects declare members of some other sects as kafirs, murtad, wajibulqatl and what not. And if the poor human being escapes all these fatwas there is the all pervading fatwa of branding one a‘Zindeeq’ (a person who professes to be a Muslim but conceals his kufr). And my God! What name will you give to the killing of a human being in compliance with the fatwa of Imam Abu Hanifa who says, “A Zindeeq should be killed secretly whenever opportunity comes to hand as his ‘Toubah’ (repentance) is not acceptable. And Imam Malik says, Zindeeqs shall be killed and they would not be called upon to repent (to submit touba). (Ahkaamul Quran liljasas 286 J 2)

My dear Khawaja Sahib what will you call all these edicts exhorting killing of human beings if not religious terrorism. Terrorism may have no religion but sectarian religion does have terrorism as it is sin qua non-for its existence and struggle for dominance.

bbabu:

The text for books to be used in Madarsas was developed at the University of Nebraska in Omaha. I think Haroon has it right. Reagen invited Mujahideen to the White House and portryaed their fight as religious people fighting godless communists.

haroonellahi #7

`` No Babu, I am going to blame the West and I`m going to blame elements within our society as well. What was the source? The money... who gave the money? I think you can guess that on your own.``

The West is only a partial source of funds. Pakistani elites had a choice on how to channel the money. Afghanistan is a land locked country. Pakistan had geographical and financial leverage dealing with Afghanistan. It is easy to blame others for the bad decisions we make.

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my, my, my.............these new age terrorists are sure gaining a reputation of mythical proportions.
i was just getting used to terms like al-qaeda and the taliban (unheard of names even in muslim circles before american imagination started to work on them) and now we have salafis. i thought they were the companions of the Prophet who died within a hundred years after the Prophets death. yes, we had small groups of people who claimed to be folllowing the salafi way and would every now and then cause minor disruptions with their intolerance of pictures in the masjid classrooms but now you tell me that they are something like the description in nuclear physics of atoms which can be percieved as particles or as waves, but never both at the same time.
now i call that impressive.

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So what`s your point? Are you trying to say Muslims have no insecurities and that Al-Qaeda and the modern Salafist problem is just manifestations of fundo muslims fantasieis? Dude, insecurities lead to every thing.

Insecurities of the German people towards the rest of Europe led towards the rise of Adolf Hitler. Insecurity also got Bush all but one vote of the senators to go to war with Iraq, insecurity of the American people also got bush re-elected. Insecurity...

No Babu, I am going to blame the West and I`m going to blame elements within our society as well. What was the source? The money... who gave the money? I think you can guess that on your own.

haroonellahi #3


`` The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan caused billions and billions of dollars of American, Saudi, Arab, and European money to flow into Afghanistan in the shape of guns, tactical help, intelligence, and more notoriously known stinger missiles. It during this era we saw the complete and total militanization of Afghanistan`s society, the beginnings of the true Klashin-kov culture. A retrogressive backwards religious government was brought into power by the West and Pakistan in Afghanistan. This was one of the actions by the North, in relation to each other and in relation to the Muslims, which made the Muslim world be insecure. Do note, during this time peirod, one of the only Muslim countries not getting insecure was Pakistan as it was being given all sorts of gifts by the U.S. This caused our neigbhors to our South East get upset. ``

Do not blame the West. Zia made sure the only Afghan groups that received money were Islamic fundamentalists.

`` Any hows, the Iranian Revolution was a backlash agaisnt the ultra-liberal fanatical policies of Reza Shah Pelvi. The revolution came about naturally, as the Iranian people were bieng pushed to the edge. At this time, the U.S sent Donald Rumsfeld to Iraq and Mr. Donald Rumsfeld and the supposedly secular President Saddam Hussein of the Baath party dined together. The U.S said it would support Iraq in a war agaisnt Iran, promised Mr. So Damn Insane economic and military aid and also promised that it would pump up it`s Arab allies to help Iraq. At this time we saw Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab nations aid Iraq fully in it`s rather pointless war agaisnt Iran. This was a recipe for diaster as Iraq technically did not recognize Kuwait as a seperate nation. Due to the war between the Arab-Muslims and the Iranians, there was again alot of insecurity and alot of anger was directed towards America and the North. When Kuwait demanded that Iraq give Kuwait the money Kuwait had lent Iraq, Mr. Saddam`s fantasy got the better of him and he started the invasion of Kuwait. If you do recall, Iraq has always claimed Kuwait to be an inseperable part of the Iraqi nation, which must sooner or later fall under the jurisdiction of Iraq again. Under that pretext, Iraq invaded Kuwait. This again spured insecurity and by this time, Frankenstein which the U.S and all of us had created decided to bite our own hands.``

Saddam attacked Iran to settle his own scores. He did it to settle scores with Iran. He was pissed off at Iran for using the Kurds as a proxy to undermine his regime. Iraq used to be a Soviet client state. Iraq achieved a lot of early successes. Slowly Iranians started winning. Rumsfield visit to Iraq in 1983 was an attempt by USA to prevent Iranian victory over Iraq.
Iranian government was extremely disliked by entire Arab world minus Syria and Libya.
USA and the West had nothing to do with Kuwaiti and Saudi support for Saddam. They did it out of their own self interest.

On a side note nothing stopped Zia or Pakistan from supplying nukes or conventional weapons to Iran. Pakistan did not do it for the fear for pissing out Saudis or Americans. It is noteworthy that all allegations of nuclear transfers by AQ Khan date to the early 1990s. This is after the end of the Iran-Iraq war. Pakistan had a nuclear capability since 1983.

`` The Kuwaiti-Iraqi conflict again caused insecurity to reach new heights and the 1st Gulf War again caused insecurity in the Muslim populations. America decided to station troops in the Gulf Region and most notablly in Saudi Arabia under the pretext that it wwas there to protect the Saudi establishment. This not only fanned the flames of Islamic fanaticism, it ignited Muslim anger.``

The Kuwaiti-Iraqi war affected the Kuwaitis, Iraqis and Palestinians in Kuwait. It had no impact on the rest of the Arab world, Pakistan or Africa. It is not like USA went around attack Muslim countries in the 1990s.

`` The Chechnian conflict, Palestinian conflict, Kashmir conflict, East Timor conflict, Aceh conflict, East Timor conflict and a multitude of other conflicts have also been fueling this insecurity, which has been brewing at precedent setting levels. Other issues of friction would be the seperatisit tendencies of the Muslims in Western China, the crisis in the Balkans and of course Muslim minorities feeling persecuted in non-Muslim majority countries.``

The violence in Sudan and mess in Afghanistan caused by Taliban dwarf any human suffering from the above conflicts.

Pakistan has no problem with the Burmese government slaughtering its Muslim minority. I doubt they have ever raised the issue at any international body. Pakistan-China friendship has been described as all-weather. I do not think Pakistan or Pakistanis care about Chechenya. If the Russians decide to supply advanced conventional weapons the Pakistani media will be as silent as a pussy cat about the Chechen conflict. Pakistan has never raised the Aceh conflict with Indonesia. More recently Thailand killed 100-200 Muslim youths by packing them like sardines. The Palestinian problem has festered for 50+ years. If Pakistan could live with American support for Israel through 1990 I doubt anything has changed in the 1990s. If anything Israelis and PLO have been talking to each other post Oslo.

You do seem to have some valid arguements but your bias agaisnt Arabs in general and Muslims in paticular are clearly self-evident in your article. You seem to be mudslinging the so called Salafists and seem to be quick at gunning down the Saudi Arabians for nurturing Islamic fanaticism. You have also presented all sorts of views on how the so-called Salafists want Muslim nations to return to the Caliphate system and also want to practice Islam in the way the prophet practised it(and the two generations after). You see, the Islamic faith is not rigid at all and Islam as a religion is not ritualistic at all. Mind you, the Sharia system does have some room for interpetation and there is also some merit in the Sharia Law system, if imposed correctly with full acountability. We are not here to discuss the positives and the negatives of the system, therefore I will talk about some issues, which really need to be addressed in your article.


The Salafists, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, and all these dogmatic `religious` transnational movements are a reaction to the Western, Arab, and Pakistani actions in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. Please, I do not seem to be able to understand why you would not even add one paragraph about how `we` created all of this. The current transnational pan-islamic movements taking place are a result of certain groups appealing to the insecurity of the Muslims because of the actions of the North and West. By North, I simply mean all of the West including Russia.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan caused billions and billions of dollars of American, Saudi, Arab, and European money to flow into Afghanistan in the shape of guns, tactical help, intelligence, and more notoriously known stinger missiles. It during this era we saw the complete and total militanization of Afghanistan`s society, the beginnings of the true Klashin-kov culture. A retrogressive backwards religious government was brought into power by the West and Pakistan in Afghanistan. This was one of the actions by the North, in relation to each other and in relation to the Muslims, which made the Muslim world be insecure. Do note, during this time peirod, one of the only Muslim countries not getting insecure was Pakistan as it was being given all sorts of gifts by the U.S. This caused our neigbhors to our South East get upset.

Any hows, the Iranian Revolution was a backlash agaisnt the ultra-liberal fanatical policies of Reza Shah Pelvi. The revolution came about naturally, as the Iranian people were bieng pushed to the edge. At this time, the U.S sent Donald Rumsfeld to Iraq and Mr. Donald Rumsfeld and the supposedly secular President Saddam Hussein of the Baath party dined together. The U.S said it would support Iraq in a war agaisnt Iran, promised Mr. So Damn Insane economic and military aid and also promised that it would pump up it`s Arab allies to help Iraq. At this time we saw Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab nations aid Iraq fully in it`s rather pointless war agaisnt Iran. This was a recipe for diaster as Iraq technically did not recognize Kuwait as a seperate nation. Due to the war between the Arab-Muslims and the Iranians, there was again alot of insecurity and alot of anger was directed towards America and the North. When Kuwait demanded that Iraq give Kuwait the money Kuwait had lent Iraq, Mr. Saddam`s fantasy got the better of him and he started the invasion of Kuwait. If you do recall, Iraq has always claimed Kuwait to be an inseperable part of the Iraqi nation, which must sooner or later fall under the jurisdiction of Iraq again. Under that pretext, Iraq invaded Kuwait. This again spured insecurity and by this time, Frankenstein which the U.S and all of us had created decided to bite our own hands.

The Kuwaiti-Iraqi conflict again caused insecurity to reach new heights and the 1st Gulf War again caused insecurity in the Muslim populations. America decided to station troops in the Gulf Region and most notablly in Saudi Arabia under the pretext that it wwas there to protect the Saudi establishment. This not only fanned the flames of Islamic fanaticism, it ignited Muslim anger.

The Chechnian conflict, Palestinian conflict, Kashmir conflict, East Timor conflict, Aceh conflict, East Timor conflict and a multitude of other conflicts have also been fueling this insecurity, which has been brewing at precedent setting levels. Other issues of friction would be the seperatisit tendencies of the Muslims in Western China, the crisis in the Balkans and of course Muslim minorities feeling persecuted in non-Muslim majority countries.

Even though your article was very well written and it was a very interesting read, I would suggest you learn to look at the bigger picture and try to think `outside the box`. My countries president also requested your countries prime minister to do the same, however there was little or no sucess. I am more than sure that you know more about all the issues I have outlined but you failed to alot even two lines to it. Underling the root of the problem and solving the Action-Reaction Gordian knot will only ensure that everything is fixed and that every one can live in peace and harmony.

....... now who the heck are salafis ?......... i thought it was the wahabis who were causing all this trouble ?.......... do i really have to read this article to find out ?....... do salafis have beards too ?....... if they do, is it longer than a wahabi`s ?.......... as temporal suggested, i thought we had all this figured out ............ can we just go back to blaming al-qaida and the muslim brotherhood ?......... life used to be so simple

Dr. Isma`il had failed to state that Iran is in fact a democracy (albeit a flawed one),
and is light years ahead of Egypt on the political and developmental front.

If the so-called Muslim Brotherhood wants to emulate Iran...more power to them.