Who Speaks For Islam?

arsa · #1 Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Iqbal Latif

The irreducible folly of terrorism has shown itself in the latest news streaming in from the troubled corner of the world; North Western Frontier Province. In Dera Ismail Khan there was a hand grenade lobbed at a local mosque, resulting in the injury of 6 worshippers. Islam is being held hostage by its own lunatics who want to avenge their losing battleground on the blood of innocents. This is the age of making new schools for girls not destroying schools by invoking writ of Allah. "We Ask Taliban To Spare Our Schools"

Now the holy name of "Allah" is invoked to perpetuate all sorts of inhuman atrocities against their fellow Muslims. How come "Muslim blood" is being targeted, becoming collateral damage in the jihad against infidels? The present set of suicide bombings are aimed at maiming terrorists own ideological next of kin; Muslims, killed by their own Muslim brothers in the name of Jihad! What kind of Jihad is this? The moderates lament with pain, " Et Tu Allah?."

Defeatism has become prevalent in the Islamic World and self-inflicted pain has become pleasure. Forbearance, fortitude, patience - key qualities to make any nation great, has been sacrificed on the altar of hostility towards the US. The famous Khomeinite slogan of "murg bey Amerika" has become the clarion call of the extremist Shiites and OBL faction of the extremist Wahabbis alike. The commonality of purpose to establish a medieval order and arrest the lightening progress of mankind has taken precedence over traditional sectarian disputes of the centuries.

The goal of the orthodox clerics and the Shiite "Marjaiiya" is to establish Najaf as the next Vatican of Islam, dethroning Qom and Mecca along the way. This should put them at odds with the Wahabbis who take pride and seek legitimacy from their custodianship of the two holies mosques in Islam; Mecca and Medina. However the two seek to “cleanse” the "cradle of Islam" from the "threat" of freedom, democracy and dissent in the region. The unholy troika of Shiite Qom, Alqaeda and Allawite Syria have buried their dissimilarities for their own continued existence; they very well realize that the new emerging "waft of freedom" in the Middle east like the recent peaceful Iraqi elections will mark these 'extremists' as first casualty. Bogged minds cannot sustain freedom; freedom of expression is an antidote for the poison they endorse.

Elected government in Iraq, emerging from the ashes of war and destruction, will offer a new form of moral governance parallel to the controlled "mullah-infested" kangaroo democracy of Iran, where those able to contest have to have a certification from an Allah-guided clerical institution. The hurdles to keep opponents out using the name of Allah have turned elections into a farce. The nightmarish scenario of outing sham democracies, as freedom is unchained, has sent tremors down the spines of leaders who have ruled masses without consent. They anticipate the "waft of freedom" as a poison chalice and a death warrant for terror infested tyrannies; to extinguish this waft of freedom, every possible act of terror would be unleashed.

The threat of possibility of "pluralistic governance" in the regions that are at the heart of the Islamic world has changed the course of politics. The extreme Shiite and Wahabbi elements have graduated from a collision course to cohabitation and cooperation. Hamas and Hezbollah collaboration is classic example of political expediency. Wahabbis, who financially bankrolled the internecine Iraqi war in the 80's on Iran through their proxies, have now in the face of this "waft of freedom" donned new colors.

Millions were lost in that battle of egos and ideological purities where on the one side was the might of the Arabs and on the other, the entire "Sunni petrolsitan" supporting Saddam; "the secular" seeking emulation of Qadesia, to crush the Iranian brand of Shiite revolution being exported by Khomeini to the Gulf. The threat alone was enough to destroy the precarious balance of power between minority Sunni rulers and majority Shiites ruled in the Peninsula. Present temporary "burial of the hatchet" between the two extreme sectarian forces of Islam does not signal a new era of permanent cooperation rather, it is a convenient approach to destroy the "common enemy" that seeks to annihilate draconian controls on which the two extremes thrive and flourish. The "orgy of blood" will once again begin between the Iraqi Shiite South and the Sunni triangle, or between the Northern alliance and Kandahar, once the US withdraws. The only obstacle that saves this ugly spectre from unveiling is the possibility of emergence of democratic governments, but that freedom will travel across porous borders fast; the last sigh of political Islam to destroy the ray of hope.

The disease to find a cause and moral equivalence for crimes against humanity is a disease inflicting most extremists. Those who wake up to a breakfast of Kellogg's frosted wheat, wear Gap jeans, work on a Cisco-Intel-Microsoft-based technology to surf the Internet whilst sipping Starbucks coffee and gulp down a double Mac for lunch, also lash out at the American way of life. This is primarily envy for America's accomplishments and its hard-won freedoms. It is nothing more than passive aggression egged on by the sense of abject failure and the underachievement of a leadership that has failed its people.

The Islamic world today faces new questions, questions that need to be answered by the main body politic of Islam - How come "Muslim blood" has been targeted, becoming collateral damage in the jihad against infidels? Islam is supposed to be a religion of peace and constructive thought. It helped start a new era in a period when "jahaliyyah" was prevalent. To now use Islam as symbol of carnage is "munafiqat."

The recent attacks by extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan have opened a lot of eyes; the questions that should have been asked after 9/11 (as most of the people that died in the US were "infidels") are now being asked. What is the point of such attacks? What purpose do they serve? Killing serving policeman who happen to be Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan only make more Muslims mothers weep for their loved ones or more Muslim children weep for their beloved fathers.

The spree of killing people in the line of duty by blind suicide bombs through indiscriminate targeting shows the wantonness of these medieval ideologues. When Western blood is spilled, there is gleeful silence; when Western interests are hurt, there is a sense of accomplishment in the fringe elements of Islamic communities. But now insensitivities have risen to such a level that even indiscriminate killings of their own next of kin raises no condemnation. Blind killing of innocent Iraqis or Afghans who are sacrificing their lives for the sake of free rule is credited as big success of terrorists' outfits against usurping forces. It does not matter as long as the "waft of freedom and free elections" can be stalled; how many are sacrificed also does not matter if they are Muslims! A Muslim who yearns for freedom is a Yankee - that is the new language of the death warrant signed by these extremists.

Elections instead of mass killings in Iraq are a great stride forward. Humanity naturally fights fascism that is code inscribed within ourselves, we have paid a price for it with millions of sacrifices, a ex-jungle law Iraq today goes through regular elections in a short span of ten years, is that not vindication of fallen soldiers and sacrifices, as heartland of Sunni and Shiite Islam these freedom movements cannot be undermined, they are having a reconciling effect on the mind and souls of the hinterland, renaissance that had missed region of Islam is now slowly but steadily making its contact.

Every Muslim would say Saddam was an evil and should have been removed. How? That was a million-dollar question everyone seems to be mum about! Under this dispensation of skewed logic, Muslims, whatever they do, even mass abuse of human rights against their own people, should be left alone! In this interconnected world where life of an individual is precious and cared about, mass spree of killing in Muslim lands or mass human rights abuse is a tolerable injunction. Forces who tend to free the woman of Kabul dying out of breach pregnancy, since Taliban rule allowed no male doctors to attend a delivering mother, have no reprieve from the long night of unbridled campaign of inhuman treatments. The blood spewed by Saddam in the Iraq-Iran war, in Halebja and in Marshlands was all that of Muslims, the unmarked three hundred thousand dead, buried in mass grave sites are not to be worried about since the mass killer was a Muslim, a Muslim tyrant feasting on a free blood orgy can continue to rape and chain its populace.

A medieval ideologue cannot be compared to an Oxbridge graduate. This is the biggest failure of Islam accumulated over centuries. "Innovation of thought" was denounced by Imam Al-Ghazali as heresy. Ibn Khuldoon, Ibn Sina, Ibn Ishaq, Khayyam, Biruni or Farabi, for one reason or the other, were declared heretics by the clergy of the time. The efforts to arrest free thought in Muslim societies have always succeeded thanks to the clergy. The silent majority spirit has always been ignored as the clergy kept the masses in check. The inability to keep pace with time has left the Islamic world directionless. As backward as Afghanistan is today, the continuous fighting in this country has led to untold sufferings for its people. Al Qaeda is in the forefront of efforts to achieve more "failures" like Afghanistan across the Islamic lands. Countries that are integrating with the rest of the world are their primary targets. Turkey is a case in point since it symbolizes the ability of Islam to co-exist with democracy and freedom.

Palestinians may have been the victims of Israeli aggression but their leadership also failed them during the course of this century by aligning themselves with losers. The issue of Palestine would not have risen had the Ottomans not aligned themselves with the Germans in the First World War. Had the Sheriff of Mecca not overthrown the rule of Ottomans in Hijaz, the geographical map of the Middle East might have been different.

The break up of the Ottoman Empire was the result of realignments within the world and the refusal of Nejd and Hijaz to be ruled by an Osmani caliph. If the ummah had been united, external interference could not have destroyed the Caliphate! In the Second World War that followed, Mufti Al Husseini made efforts to recruit Muslims for the German army. This was also an error of extraordinary proportions. Why do we become aligned with losers? Why don't we have the vision to support the winners? The Palestinian issue is the core issue for the Islamic world. However this too is a tale of intransigence and self-inflicted pain. It was intransigence and the desire to annihilate Israel in 1967 that prevented compromise; similarly in 1973 it was the desire to take back what was lost in 1967.Hamas, Hezb and Taliban have to forsake for the sake of their own children to live in this 'new age of optimism and age knowledge.' the backwardness and medievalism that they prospered in now a history. The challenge for the Muslim world is to leave the dark ages behind. Muslims must take a giant step forward and encourage debate and dissent in their societies. The way forward is no to 'blood' and 'yes' to freedom.

The world wants to know who speaks for Islam. When will the silent majority unambiguously condemn this carnage without moral equivalence? These are the blazing questions that faithful have to address; no one else is our adversary the enemy is within.

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