Salahuddin Ayubi enters Quds (Jerusalam).

 

Introduction

 

This wonderful article is an accurate account of the remarkable Moumin warrior Salahuddin Ayubi (Ramat Allah Alay). It’s worth noting that both Salahuddin and his warrior uncle Sherkoh were not Arabs (although very many of their fighters were), but Kurds. And yet these Muslims forged themselves into an invincible army. How? Clearly because they based themselves only on Islam, not on Godless tribalism or nationalism. Consequently they feared only Almighty Allah, who made them invincible.

 

One recent article by complacent Muslims (the sort that ‘piously’ rattle their tezbihs all day but refuse to enjoin good and refuse evil), during the Gaza War praised Salahuddin, then concluded with a du’a for Almighty Allah to send us a new Salahuddin. This was their solution! Our sisters and brothers are being slaughtered and dishonoured, and these scoundrels say ‘do nothing; just leave it all up to Allah (SWT)’. I am reminded of a statement by Imam Khomeini, in his book Islamic Government:

 

If we do nothing but engage Muslims in the canonical prayer, petition God, and invoke His name, the imperialists and the oppressive governments allied with them will leave us alone. If we were to say, “Let us concentrate on the calling and saying our Azan prayers. Let them come rob us of everything we own —God will take care of them! There is no power or recourse except in Him, and God willing, we will be rewarded in the hereafter! “ — if this were our logic, they would not disturb us.

 

Once, during the occupation of Iraq, certain British officer asked: “What I hear the Azan being now called from the minaret harmful to British policy?” When he was told that it was harmless, he said: “Then let him call for prayer as much as he wants!”

 

If you pay no attention to the policies of the imperialists, and consider Islam to be simply the few topics you are always studying and never go beyond them, then the imperialists will leave you alone. Pray as much as you like, it is your oil they are after — why should they worry about your prayers? They are after our minerals, and want to turn our country into a market for their goods. That is the reason the puppet governments they have installed prevent us from industrializing, and instead, only establish assembly plants and industry that is dependent on the outside world.

 

They do not want us to be true human beings, for they are afraid of true human beings. Even if only one true human being appears, they fear him, because others will follow him and he will have an impact that can destroy the whole tyranny of foundation, imperialism, and government by puppets. So whenever some true human being has appeared, they have either killed or imprisoned him and exiled him, and tried to defame him by saying: “This is a political Akhund [mullah]! “Now the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was also a political person. This evil propaganda is undertaken by agents of the political imperialism only to make you shun politics, to prevent you from intervening in the affairs of society and struggling against governments and their treacherous anti-national and anti-Islamic policies. They want to will their work as they please, with no one to bar their way (In Islam and Revolution, pp. 38-38).

 

MFP has written about the Crusades, using them to illustrate the permanent War on Islam — including the attacks on Islam by the Pope and other Catholic hierarchy in recent times. See: ‘The Pope and Holy War’, at: http://www.mfp.org.au/?page_id=13.

 

Dr. Ali White, MFP Co-ordinator

 

Sultan Salahuddin Ayubi

 

Sultan Salahuddin Ayubi, the hero of hundreds of battles, was the person who for twenty years braved the storm of the Crusaders and ultimately pushed back the combined forces of Europe which had come to swarm the Holy Land. The world has hardly witnessed a more chivalrous and humane conqueror.

 

The Crusades represent the maddest and the longest war in the history of mankind,in which the storm of savage fanaticism of the Christian West burst in all its fury over western Asia. ‘The Crusades form’, says a Western writer, ‘one of the maddest episodes in history. Christianity hurled itself against Muhammadanism in expedition after expedition for nearly three centuries, until failure brought lassitude, and superstition itself was undermined by its own labour. Europe was drained of men and money, and threatened with social bankruptcy, if not with annihilation. Millions perished in battle, hunger or disease and every atrocity imagination can conceive disgraced the warrior of the Cross’. The Christian West was excited to a mad religious frenzy by Peter the Hermit, and his followers to liberate the Holy Land from the hands of the Muslims. ‘Every means’, says Hallam, ‘was used to excite an epidemical frenzy’. During the time that a Crusader bore the Cross, he was under the protection of the Church and exempted from all taxes as well as free to commit all sins.

 

Peter the Hermit himself led the second host of the Crusaders comprising forty thousand people. ‘Arriving at Mallevile, they avenged their precursors by assaulting the town, slaying seven thousand of the inhabitants, and abandoning themselves to every species of grossness and liberalism’. The savage hordes called Crusaders converted Hungary and Bulgaria into desolate regions. When they reached Asia Minor, they, according to Michaud, ‘committed crimes which made nature shudder’.

 

The third wave of the Crusaders commanded by a German monk, according to Gibbon,‘were comprised of the most stupid and savage refuse of people. They mingled with their devotion a brutal licence of rapine, prostitution and drunkenness’.‘They forgot Constantinople and Jerusalem’, says Michaud ‘in tumultuous scenes of debauchery, and pillage, violation and murder was everywhere left on the traces of their passage’.

 

The fourth horde of the Crusaders which had risen from western Europe was,according to Mill, ‘another herd of wild and desperate savages… The internal multitude hurried on the south in their usual career of carnage and rapine’.But, at last, they were annihilated by the infuriated Hungarian Army which had a foretaste of the madness of the earlier Crusaders.

 

Later the Crusaders met with initial success and conquered a major part of Syria and Palestine, including the Holy city of Jerusalem. But their victories were followed by such brutalities and massacres of innocent Muslims which eclipsed the massacres of Changiz and Hulaku. Mill, a Christian historian, testifies to this massacre of the Muslim population on the fall of the Muslim town of Autioch. He writes: ‘The dignity of age, the helplessness of youth and the beauty of the weaker sex were disregarded by the Latin savages. Houses were no sanctuaries, and the sign of a mosque added new virulence to cruelty’.According to Michaud: ‘if contemporary account can be credited, all the vices of the infamous Babylon prevailed among the liberators of Scion’. The Crusaders laid waste to flourishing towns of Syria, butchered their population in cold blood and burnt to ashes the invaluable treasures of art and learning including the world famous library of Tripolis (Syria) containing more than three million volumes. ‘The streets ran with blood until ferocity was tired out’, says Mill.‘Those who were vigorous or beautiful were reserved for the slave market at Antioch, but the aged and the infirm were immolated at the altar of cruelty’.

 

But in the second half of the 12th century, when the Crusaders were in their greatest fury and the emperors of Germany and France and Richard, the lion-hearted king of England, had taken the field in person for the conquest of the Holy Land,the Crusaders were met by Sultan Salahuddin Ayubi, a great warrior who pushed back the surging wave of Christianity out to engulf the Holy Land. He was notable to clear the gathering storm but in him the Crusaders met a man of indomitable will and dauntless courage who could accept the challenge of the Christian West.

 

Salahuddin was born in 1137. He got his early training under his illustrious father Najmuddin Ayub and his chivalrous uncle Asaduddin Sherkoh, who were the trusted lieutenants of Nooruddin Mahmud, the monarch of Syria. Asaduddin Sherkoh, a great warrior general was the commander of the Syrian force, which had defeated the Crusaders both in Syria and Egypt. Sherkoh entered Egypt in 1167 to meet the challenge of the Fatamide Minister Shawer who had allied himself with the French. The marches and counter-marches of the gallant Sherkoh and his ultimate victory at Babain over the allied force, according to Michaud, ‘show military capacity of the highest order’. Ibni Atheer writes about it: ‘Never has history recorded a more extraordinary event than the rout of the Egyptian force and the French at the littoral by only a thousand cavaliers’.

 

On January 8, 1169 Sherkoh arrived in Cairo and was appointed as the Minister and Commander-in-Chief by the Fatimid Caliph. But Sherkoh was not destined to enjoy the fruits of his high office long. He died two months later in 1169. On his death, his nephew Salahuddin Ayubi became the Prime Minister of Egypt. He soon won the hearts of the people by his liberality and justice and on the death of the Egyptian Caliph became the virtual ruler of Egypt.

 

In Syria too, the celebrated Nooruddin Mahmud died in 1174 and was succeeded by his eleven year old son, Malik-us-Saleh who became a tool in the hands of his courtiers, specially Gumushtagin. Salahuddin sent a message to Malik-us-Saleh offering his services and devotion. He even continued to keep his name in the‘Khutaba’ (Friday Sermons) and coinage. But all these considerations were of no avail for the young ruler and his ambitious courtiers. This state of affairs once more heartened the Crusaders who were kept down by the advice of Gumushtagin retired to Alippo, leaving Damascus exposed to a Frankish attack. The Crusaders instantly laid siege to the Capital city and released it only after being paid heavy ransom. This enraged Salahuddin who hurried to Damascus with a smallforce and took possession of it.

 

After occupying Damascus, he did not enter the palace of his patron, Nooruddin Mahmud, but stayed in his father’s house. The Muslims, on the other hand, were much dismayed by the activities of Malik-us-Saleh and invited him to rule over the area. But Salahuddin continued to rule on behalf of the young Malik-us-Saleh. On the death of Malik-us-Saleh in 1181-82, the authority of Salahuddin was acknowledged by all the sovereigns of western Asia.

 

There was a truce between the Sultan and the Franks in Palestine but, according to the French historian Michaud, ‘the Mussalmans respected their pledged faith,whilst the Christians gave the signal of a new war’. Contrary to the terms of the truce, the Christian ruler Renaud or Reginald of Chatillon attacked a Muslim caravan passing by his castle, massacred a large number of people and looted their property. The Sultan was now free to act. By a skilful manoeuvre, Salahuddin entrapped the powerful enemy forces near the hill of Hittin in 1187and routed them with heavy loses. The Sultan did not allow the Christians to recover and rapidly followed up his victory of Hittin. In a remarkably short time, he reoccupied a large number of cities which were in possession of the Christians including Nablus, Jericko, Ramlah, Caesarea, Arsuf, Jaffa and Beirut. Ascalon, too, submitted after a short siege and was granted generous terms by the kind-hearted Sultan.

 

The Sultan now turned his attention to Jerusalem which contained more than sixty thousand Crusaders. The Christians could not withstand the onslaught of the Sultan’s forces and capitulated in 1187. The humanity of the Sultan towards the defeated Christians of Jerusalem procures an unpleasant contrast to the massacre of the Muslims in Jerusalem when conquered by the Christians about ninety years before.

 

According to the French historian Michaud, on the conquest of Jerusalem by the Christians in 1099 ‘the Saracens were massacred in the streets and in the houses. Jerusalem had no refuge for the vanquished. Some fled from death by precipitating themselves from the ramparts; others crowded for shelter into the palaces, the towers and above all, in the mosques where they could not conceal themselves from the Christians.

 

The Crusaders, masters of the Mosque of Umar, where the Saracens defended themselves for sometime, renewed their deplorable scenes which disgraced the conquest of Titus. The infantry and the cavalry rushed pell-mell among the fugitives. Amid the most horrid tumult, nothing was heard but the groans and cries of death; the victors trod over heaps of corpses in pursuing those who vainly attempted to escape. Raymond d’Agiles who was an eye-witness, says that underthe portico of the mosque, the blood was knee-deep, and reached the horses’bridles.’

 

There was a short lull in the act of slaughter when the Crusaders assembled to offer their thanksgiving prayer for the victory they had achieved. But soon it was renewed with great ferocity. ‘All the captives’, says Michaud, ‘whom the lassitude of carnage had at first spared, all those who had been saved in the hope of rich ransom, were butchered in cold blood. The Saracens were forced to throw themselves from the tops of towers and houses; they were burnt alive;they were dragged from their subterranean retreats, they were hauled to the public places, and immolated on piles of the dead. Neither the tears of women nor the cries of little children — not even the sight of the place where Jesus Christ forgave his executioners, could mollify the victors’ passion… The carnage lasted for a week. The few who escaped were reduced to horrible servitude’.

 

Another Christian historian, Mill adds: ‘It was resolved that no pity should be shown to the Mussalmans. The subjugated people were, therefore, dragged into the public places, and slain as victims. Women with children at their breast, girls and boys, all were slaughtered. The squares, the streets and even the un-inhabited places of Jerusalem, were strewn with the dead bodies of men and women, and the mangled limbs of children. No heart melted in compassion, or expanded into benevolence’.

 

These are the graphic accounts of the massacre of the Muslims in Jerusalem about ninety years before the reoccupation of the Holy city by Sultan Salahuddin in which more than seventy thousand Muslims perished.

 

On the other hand, when the Sultan captured Jerusalem in 1187, he gave free pardon to the Christians living in the city. Only the combatants were asked to leave the city on payment of a nominal ransom. In most of the cases, the Sultan provided the ransom money from his own pocket and even provided them transport. A number of weeping Christian women carrying their children in their arms approached the Sultan and said ‘You see us on foot, the wives, mothers and dauthers of the warriors who are your prisoners; we are quitting forever this country; they aided us in our lives, in losing them we lose our last hope; if you give them to us, they can alleviate our miseries and we shall not be without support on earth’. The Sultan was highly moved with their appeal and set free their men. Those who left the city were allowed to carry all their bag and baggage. The humane and benevolent behaviour of the Sultan with the defeated Christians ofJerusalem provides a striking contrast to the butchery of the Muslims in this city at the hands of the Crusaders ninety years before. The commanders under the Sultan vied with each other in showing mercy to the defeated Crusaders.

 

The Christian refugees of Jerusalem were not given refuge by the cities ruled by the Christians. ‘Many of the Christians who left Jerusalem’, says Mill, ‘went to Antioch but Bohemond not only denied them hospitality, but even stripped them. They marched into the Saracenian country, and were well received’.Michaud gives a long account of the Christian inhumanity to the Christian refugees of Jerusalem. Tripoli shut its gates on them and, according to Michaud, ‘one woman, urged by despair, cast her infant into the sea, cursing the Christians who refused them succour’. But the Sultan was very considerate towards the defeated Christians. Respecting their feelings, he did not enter the city of Jerusalem until the Crusaders had left.

 

From Jerusalem, the Sultan marched upon Tyre, where the ungrateful Crusaders pardoned by Sultan in Jerusalem had organized to meet him. The Sultan captured a number of towns held by the Crusaders on the sea coast, including Laodicea,Jabala, Saihun, Becas, Bozair and Derbersak. The Sultan had set free Guy deLuginan on the promise that he would instantly leave for Europe. But, as soon as this ungrateful Christian Knight got freedom, he broke his pledged word and, collecting a large army, laid siege to Ptolemais.

 

The fall of Jerusalem into the hands of the Muslims threw Christendom into violent commotion and reinforcements began to pour in from all parts of Europe. The Emperors of Germany and France as well as Richard, the Lion-hearted, king of England, hurried with large armies to seize the Holy Land from the Muslims. They laid siege to Acre which lasted for several months. In several open combats against the Sultan, the Crusaders were routed with terrible losses.

 

The Sultan had now to face the combined might of Europe. Incessant reinforcements continued pouring in for the Crusaders and despite their heavy slaughter in combats against the Sultan, their number continued increasing. The besieged Muslims of Acre, who held on so long against the flower of the European army, and who had been crippled with famine, at last capitulated on the solemn promise that none would be killed and that they would pay 2,000,000 pieces of gold to the chiefs of the Crusaders. There was some delay in the payment of the ransom when the Lion-hearted king of England butchered the helpless Muslims in cold blood within the sight of their brethren.

 

This act of the king of England infuriated the Sultan. He vowed to avenge the blood of the innocent Muslims. Along the 150 miles of coastlines, in eleven Homeric battles, the Sultan inflicted heavy losses on the Christian forces.

 

At last the Lion-hearted king of England sued for peace, which was accepted by the Sultan. He had found facing him a man of indomitable will and boundless energy and had realized the futility of continuing the struggle against such a person.In September 1192, peace was concluded and the Crusaders left the Holy Land with bag and baggage, bound for their homes in Europe.

 

‘Thus ended the third Crusade’, writes Michaud, ‘in which the combined forces of the west could not gain more than the capture of Acre and the destruction of Ascalon. In it, Germany lost one of its greatest emperors and the flower of its army. More than six lakh Crusaders landed in front of Acre and hardly one lakh returned to their homes. Europe has more reasons to wail on the outcome of this Crusade as in it had participated the best armies of Europe. The flower of Western chivalry which Europe was proud of had fought in these wars’.

 

The Sultan devoted the rest of his life to public welfare activities and built hospitals, schools, colleges and mosques all over his dominion.

 

But he was not destined to live long to enjoy the fruits of peace. A few months later,he died on March 4, 1193 at Damascus. ‘The day of his death’ says a Muslim writer, ‘was for Islam and the Mussalmans, a misfortune such as they never suffered since they were deprived of the first four Caliphs. The palace, the empire, and the world was overwhelmed with grief, the whole city was plunged insorrow, and followed his bier weeping and crying’.

 

Thus died Sultan Salahuddin, one of the most humane and chivalrous monarchs in the annals of mankind. In him, nature had very harmoniously blended the benevolent and merciful heart of a Muslim with a matchless military genius. The messenger who took the news of his death to Baghdad brought the Sultan’s coat of mail, his horse one dinar and 36 dirhams, which was all the property he had left. His contemporaries and other historians are unanimous in acknowledging Salahuddin as a tender-hearted, kind, patient, affable person — a friend of the learned and the virtuous whom he treated with utmost respect and beneficence. ‘In Europe’, says Phillip K. Hitti, ‘he touched the fancy of the English minstrels as well as the modern novelists and is still considered the paragon of chivalry’.

http://crusades.org/

 

For another discussion of the Crusades, in the context of today’s War on Islam, read ‘The Pope and Holy War’, at: http://www.mfp.org.au/?page_id=13.

 

 

Copy the link below into your browser, to access one of the very best sources of information on the revitalised campaign to boycott the Israeli Muslim-killing machine:

 

http://www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-israel.php

 

Australia’s Labor Party Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, with Olmert, Tzipni and  Rice. Shame on the Muslims who insist that it’s Muslims’ so-called ‘responsibility’ to vote in Godless parliamentary elections.

 

 

Somewhere in America… recent demonstration against Starbucks, a major contributor to Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.

 

 

Below is a partial list of companies that contribute to Israel’s genocide.

 

 

 

The ongoing slaughter of our Muslim sisters and brothers in Gaza has exposed the sharp contrast between the believing, struggling Muslims in Gaza and their criminal leaders in the Muslim-majority lands. Indeed, it is now quite clear that the round of diplomatic meetings between Israel and many Arab leaders (including the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt) were not at all concerned about ‘peace’, but in fact were solely concerned about guaranteeing that these rulers and their illegitimate states did nothing in the face of the already-planned Israeli massacre in Gaza.

 

These Arab rulers are now shown to be what they always, in fact, have been: accomplices in the mass murder of their Muslim sisters and brothers. It is probably flattery to describe these rulers as mere hypocrites: they are apostate criminals of the worst order. As Allah decrees:

 

[4:93] And whoever kills a believer intentionally, his punishment is hell; he shall abide in it, and Allah will send His wrath on him and curse him and prepare for him a painful chastisement.

 

And Rasul Allah (S) states: ‘If anyone walks with an oppressor to strengthen him, knowing that he is an oppressor, he has gone forth from Islam’ (Baihaqi).

 

Iran’s spiritual leader Imam Khamanei, has issued a statement that accurately characterises these criminal Arab rulers, and, most vitally, declares:

 

All Palestinian combatants and all the Islamic world’s pious people are obliged to defend the defenseless women, children, and people in Gaza in any way possible. Whoever is killed in this legitimate defense is considered a martyr.

 

But these magnificent words must be backed by concrete, substantial action. Iran’s President Ahmedinajad has hinted vaguely that something might happen, but there is still nothing practical forthcoming. Similarly, Lebanon’s HizbAllah leader, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, has condemned the Arab rulers in similar terms. At the same time, his speech contains several worrying references to Israeli plots to draw Lebanon and HizbAllah into the conflict.

 

Let me be quite clear: words are cheap. The criminal Arab ‘Muslim’ rulers have been playing the game of denouncing Zionism — while simultaneously privately collaborating with it — for half a century. Those Muslim leaders who claim to be qualitatively different from the criminal Arab rulers must now back up their excellent rhetoric with appropriate deeds. It’s now or never. Our Palestinian sisters and brothers are being slaughtered NOW. So what, concretely, will their Muslim critics — who themselves dispose of formidable armed forces — do about it, right  here and now? How many more need to be slaughtered in Gaza, before they act against Israel, in defence of our Muslim sisters and brothers there? If they fail to do this, HOW are they different IN PRACTICE from the criminals they deservedly condemn?

 

The criticism might be offered that it is unrealistic to expect HizbAllah to act, since it is ‘only a militia’. The truth, of course, is that HizbAllah is the only military army that has ever defeated Israel — and not once, but twice.

 

Almighty Allah gives his verdict on those who refuse to do their duty in such circumstances:

 

[4:95] The holders back from among the believers, not having any injury, and those who strive hard in Allah’s way with their property and their persons are not equal; Allah has made the strivers with their property and their persons to excel the holders by a (high) degree, and to each (class) Allah has promised good; and Allah shall grant to the strivers above the holders back a mighty reward: [4.96] (High) degrees from Him and protection and mercy, and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. [4.97] Surely (as for) those whom the angels cause to die while they are unjust to their souls, they shall say: In what state were you? They shall say: We were weak in the earth. They shall say: Was not Allah’s earth spacious, so that you should have migrated therein? So these it is whose abode is hell, and it is an evil resort [4.98] Except the weak from among the men and the children who have not in their power the means nor can they find a way (to escape); [4.99] So these, it may be, Allah will pardon them, and Allah is Pardoning, Forgiving. [4.100] And whoever flies in Allah’s way, he will find in the earth many a place of refuge and abundant resources, and whoever goes forth from his house flying to Allah and His Apostle, and then death overtakes him, his reward is indeed with Allah and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

 

And Allah (SWT) knows best.

 

 

This man, a US national named Kenneth Haywood, has been shown to be the author of the emails purporting to be from the so-called ‘Indian Mujahideen’. Haywood, a Christian missionary, has not been charged, and is still free.

 By Yusuf Abdullah

 

In the 16-year period since the destruction on December 6, 1992 of the historic Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh (UP), by a Hindu mob, Hindu terrorism has grown alarmingly in India.Police and anti-terrorism experts have discovered an unholy alliance of so-called Hindu holy men and army personnel behind the terror campaign in India that has killed more than 150 people this year alone. Although the hapless Muslims are the immediate suspects after every incident, they have only marginal involvement. The terror campaign has now engulfed Christians as well, 600 of whom have been killed since the year 2000.

 

The arrests in mid-November of 10 people including a serving army officer, lieutenant colonel Shrikant Purohit,and Mahant Amritanand Dev alias Dayanand Pandey, a self-styled Hindu priest from Kanpur, by India’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) for their involvement in theMalegaon blast of September 29 has shocked India’s security establishment. Investigators discovered that it was under Pandey’s instructions that colonel Purohit procured RDX explosives from an army depot that were used in the Malegaon blast, a small town in Maharashtra state that killed five people.

 

“Pandey was present in all the pre-blast meetings in Bhopal, Jabalpur and Faridabad, monitored operations meticulously and was also responsible for arranging the finances that came in through illegal channels,” an ATS source revealed to the media. Pandey, a dropout from the National Defence Academy, has links with other military personnel as well. Investigators are now questioning suspects for the May 2007 blast at Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad that left 14 dead and 50 injured; the attack in February 2007 on the Samjhauta Express train between India and Pakistan that killed 68 people; and the April 2006 twin blasts at New Delhi’s Jama Masjid.

 

The Hindu terror campaign is not random; it is part of an organized campaign to force Muslims and Christians to convert to Hinduism. Hindu fascist outfits like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Rashtriya Swayemsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bhajrang Dal, whose ideologies are patterned on the Nazis’ concept of the “pure race”, operate freely terrorizing Muslims and Christians forcing them to become Hindus or face death. Not being a proselytizing religion, there is no established method of conversion so Hindu fascists have concocted a strange process: people must shave their heads as a sign of sacrifice, and drink from a foul mixture of water and cow dung. This is meant to purify them! Those who refuse are doused with kerosene and set on fire.

 

Historically, Muslims have suffered the brunt of the Hindu fanatics’ violent attacks. It does not matterwhat party is in power, Muslims are viewed as the enemy because India was partitioned into two states — India and Pakistan — in 1947. Hindu fascists view Muslims as Pakistan-sympathizers; more critically, they insist that they were born Hindus but converted to Islam, hence their campaign to bring them back “into the fold,” or to force them to leave India altogether. If Muslims do not accept either, then they must face death. It is not merely the ignorant Hindus that hold such views; Hindu leaders have propagated these ideas for decades.For them, India can only be a Hindu State: they use the name Hindustan (land ofthe Hindus) for India. Others, like Bal Thakeray, head of Shiv Sena, have openly called for acts of terror against Muslims.

 

The horrors that followed the destruction of the Babri Mosque in 1992 or the pogroms that were perpetrated in Gujrat in 2002 in which thousands of Muslims were burnt alive while the state government headed by Narendar Modi expressly forbade the police from helping, are still fresh in the minds of Muslims. Now several new twists have been added to this campaign. One is the fake encounters the police have with alleged terrorists. On September 19, for instance, two Muslim youth were executed in one such “encounter” near Jamia Milia University. Three other Muslims were arrested and deliberately covered in Arab headgear to conjure up the image of the “Arab/Muslim terrorists.” An enterprising photographer filmed this toexpose the dirty tricks the police, under instructions from the home ministry (responsible for law and order), were indulging in. The incident became a national scandal, more so because the two Muslim youths were executed at close range. This has been the case for hundreds of others — doctors, engineers, professors, technical experts — killed or swallowed up by the thousands of jails in India. And of course, the students’ group, the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) that was banned in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 in 2001, has been similarly targeted.

 

But these pale in insignificance to other, more troubling developments. Over the last year, a number of bomb blasts have been traced to Hindu terrorists even though they are the most vocal in demanding the arrest of the “perpetrators” that they insist are Muslims. For instance, the February 24 bomb blasts in the RSS office and the bus stand in Tenkasi (Tamil Nadu state) were blamed on Muslims. These were given wide coverage in the Indian media and the clear impression created by the demands of the Sangh Parivar was that “Muslim terrorists” were responsible. The Tamil Nadu police, however, did not fall for the bait. A special team led by Kannappan, DIG Tirunelveli range, arrested three persons, all of them Hindus: S RaviPandian, a cable TV operator, S Kumar, an auto driver, both from Tenkasi, and V Narayana Sharma of Sencottai, all Sangh Parivar activists. Sharma had assembled 14 pipe bombs in the office of Ravi Pandian, according to media reports.

 

Last April, the Malegaon police raided a pathology laboratory located in the basement of a private hospital.They recovered a revolver, RDX explosives and fake one thousand rupee notes. Three Hindu terrorists, Nitish Ashire, Sahab Rao Sukhdev Dhevre and Jitendar Kherna were arrested according to a report in the Bombay-based Urdu Times of April 18, 2008. Kherna is the owner of the Smith Pathology Laboratory that issituated in the basement of More Accident Hospital of Camp Area from where the explosives, a gun and fake currency were recovered.

 

Similarly, a series of bomb blasts in Jaipur on May 13 were traced to a Hindu woman named Meena who had promised Rs.100,000 to a rickshaw driver, Vijay, to carry out terror attacks. Apolice officer confirmed they were looking for the woman. On June 16, the Maharashtra Police arrested two people from Navi Mumbai in connection with aseries of bomb blasts in the area in which seven people were injured. The ATS swooped down on the Sanatan Ashram (a Hindu temple) and nabbed two men, identified as Hanumant Gadkari and Mahesh D. Nikam. Mumbai ATS chief Hemant Karkare said the two belonged to the Hindu Jan Jagriti Manch (HJJM) and between February and June were responsible for three bomb blasts in the Navi Mumbai area.

 

Then there was the email message claiming responsibility for the Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Surat bomb blasts that killed 49 people and injured more than 200 others last July, by a hitherto unknown group, the “Indian Mujahideen.” It was traced to an upper class apartment complex in Mumbai, where a 48-year-old American missionary, Kenneth Haywood, lived. The IP address for the “Indian Mujahideen” email was also traced by the police to Haywood’s laptop. He was merely questioned, not detained and he left the country. Who exactly was Haywood and what was his mission? Why was he allowed to leave the country without the police completingtheir investigation and charging those responsible for the multiple bomb blasts of July?

 

Even in light of these revelations, Hindu fascists have continued with their killing spree of innocent Muslims. On October 12, for instance, a Muslim family of six that included three children, one a two-year-old, were burnt alive in their mud hut in a village near Hyderabad. The attack occurred after clashes between Hindus and Muslims had left four people dead and 15 injured. “It is a beastly and barbaric act,” said Andhra Pradesh state Home Minister, K. Jana Reddy. Were the culprits arrested? Appeals by Muslim leaders for help have gone unheeded.

 

Such attacks have now extended tothe Christians as well but not because the American Christian missionary Haywood was responsible for an email following the July bomb blasts. They blame missionaries for converting low caste Hindus into Christians. The rigidly structured Hindu religion condemns people to a fixed status in life that they cannot change no matter how much progress or education they may acquire. At the top sit the tiny minority of Brahmins; at the lowest end of the social scaleare Shudras and Dalits, people that are forced to clean toilets and who because they are considered unclean, cannot use the utensils of the Brahmins or draw water from the same well.

 

When these oppressed people seek escape in other religions, whether Islam or Christianity, they are targeted byupper caste Hindus. In 1999, an Australian missionary Graham Steins, who had been working in Orissa for three decades treating lepers in remote tribal areas, was burnt alive with his two sons as they slept in their jeep. The boys were visiting their father at the time.

 

Last September and October, there were anti-Christian riots in six Indian states. “It was set off, people [inOrissa] say, by the killing on August 23 of a charismatic Hindu preacher knownas Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, who for 40 years had rallied the area’s peopleto choose Hinduism over Christianity,” according to Somini Sengupta of the NewYork Times (October 13). “The police have blamed Maoist guerrillas for the swami’s killing. But Hindu radicals continue to hold Christians responsible,” Sengupta wrote. “In Kandhamal, the district [in Orissa state] that has seen thegreatest violence, more than 30 people have been killed, 3,000 homes burned and over 130 churches destroyed, including the tin-roofed Baptist prayer hall.”Catholic priests and nuns have been dragged out of their homes, stripped nakedand the nuns gang-raped.

 

Despite such attacks, the Westernworld has remained largely silent over Hindu-perpetrated crimes. One can imagine the uproar that would have erupted if Muslims had indulged in such ghastly killings of Christians. Why is India being treated with such kidgloves? As it is an emerging economic power, with a 300-million people middle class flush with cash, the West wants to sell to this huge market. While India has joined the space race by landing a craft on the moon, down on earth, there are also 390 million Indians living in absolute poverty, according to the Indian government’s own figures in 2005. Indian rulers are not shy to go withthe begging bowl to international donors despite boasting a hi-tech industry that is earning billions of dollars annually.

 

India also has the fourth largest army in the world; its navy is larger than that of Australia’s. India is also a member of the G-20, a group of 20 countries that represent the industrialized as well as developing countries. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was in Washington to attend the G-20 summit on November 15. The West wants to cultivate India, hence not only the deference toward it but also the supply ofmilitary and nuclear material. The US, that leads the crusade against Iran’s peaceful nuclear program, has signed an agreement to supply nuclear fuel to Indian nuclear reactors without any of its military purpose reactors comingunder international inspection. 

 

It is because of India’s economic and military clout that countries like Britain refuse to bar Hindu fascists from visiting the country despite their well-established links with anti-Christian violence in India. Quoting Faiz Rahman, chairman of Good News India, the Times of London wrote on November 20, “The going price to kill apastor [in India] is $250 (£170).”

 

A spokesman for the All-India Christian Council said, “People are being offered rewards to kill, and todestroy churches and Christian properties. They are being offered foreign liquor, chicken, mutton and weapons. They are given petrol and kerosene.”

 

Crescent International, December 2008

  

 

By Larry Pinkney

“I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice, and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don’t think it will be based on the color of the skin…”

AL HAJJ MALIK EL SHABAZZ (RAHIM-ALLAH)

 

November 05, 2008 “BlackCommentator” — If the masses of people in this nation knew or had known the pertinent facts pertaining to the war mongering “we can fight the war better,” pro-apartheid Zionist, corporate Wall Street-backed, slippery-tongued Barack Obama, it is doubtful they would have been so thoroughly bamboozled and hoodwinked to their own detriment and that of the world. Wall Street and the corporate media, however, have, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, engaged in a relentless, ruthless, and absolutely unprecedented campaign of corporate branding and marketing on behalf of Barack Obama, with the peoples of the United States as their targets.

 

Assuming that the corporate Wall Street elite and its concomitant opinion-forming, omission, and misinformation machinery of the U.S. corporate media successfully installs their favorite choice — Democratic Party Republicrat Barack Obama — as the first colored President of the U.S. Empire, the majority of people in the United States are in for a rude awakening in the form of increased economic austerity, internal political repression, deepened racial disharmony, external U.S. military adventurism, and an endless stream of misleading disinformation from the corporate government. The peoples of the world will face intensified imperialistic and military assault and attempts at U.S. hegemony. This time, however, the imperialism of the U.S. Empire will be conveniently spearheaded, condoned and rationalized by its newest and most potent weapon: the dangerously double-talking “Emperor” in black face — Barack Obama. Moreover, in one fell and foul swoop, the corporate/military elite of the U.S. Empire intends to utilize Barack Obama as the “messiah” (created by none other than corporate America and its corporate media) to neutralize and destroy the ongoing Black liberation struggle for justice and equality in this nation, and in people’s liberation struggles throughout the world.

 

In relative short order — inside the United States itself — under a Barack Obama presidency, the living conditions of the majority of Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow peoples will continue to steadily and massively deteriorate while the corporate Wall Street barons prolong their glut of the every day people’s finances, resources, hopes, and dreams. Under an Obama presidency those non-Blacks who stand in opposition to Barack Obama’s de facto pro Wall Street backers and their blood-sucking policies will be branded as racists and traitors, while those Blacks who oppose Obama’s policies will be ignored and/or branded as fringe radicals and traitors. Thus, the horrors of the U.S. Empire will continue unabated, and in many respects, under Barack Obama, actually worsen. The blame for the deteriorating economy and continued war will of course quickly be laid by the Obama/Biden regime and the Democratic Party Republicrats on the previous Bush/Cheney regime, despite the fact that it was the complicity of the Democratic Party itself with the Bush/Cheney Republican Republicrat regime that facilitated the despicable policies and practices of the Bush/Cheney regime. The fact is that the Democratic and Republican Parties are de facto Republicrats with the objective of exploiting the majority of people and maintaining U.S. Empire abroad.

 

After the Democratic Party Republicrats so-called election euphoria and celebrating is over, the Obama/Biden Republicrat regime will get down to the business of placing the ongoing exploitation of the every day people of this nation on fast track. The masses of Black Americans, along with the oppressed and exploited Brown, Red, Yellow, and White peoples of this nation will learn first hand that, notwithstanding the deceptive Obama rhetoric, exploitation nationally and internationally will be intensified. The “clash between those who want freedom, justice, equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation” about which Malcolm X referred, will be intensified under Barack Obama, with Obama representing the interests of the oppressors. The political contradictions in this regard will also be increasingly obvious.

 

Those so-called leftist and progressives who were and are collaborators with U.S. Empire will, for a time, try to pretend that their support of Barack Obama was not a sell-out, and that they simply need more time to persuade the U.S. Empire’s colored corporate emperor to do the right thing. Meanwhile, Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, and White peoples will be enduring an unprecedented rate of economic and social suffering. The anger of the people will ultimately peak and explode, as a result of having bought into false hope and raised expectations. This is precisely why the U.S. corporate government has already made military contingency plans to contain and massively quash dissention within the United States. Barack Obama will serve to provide his corporate/military masters with colored political cover for political repression in this nation; and he will have already provided a small respite of wiggling room for them in this regard. Nevertheless, as brutal reality forces the proverbial scales of blindness to drop from eyes of the masses, it will become crystal clear that the supposed “change” to which Barack Obama referred in his campaign rhetoric, was nothing more than a vicious ruse of double-speak by him, backed by his corporate and military handlers. Indeed, the emperor will be shown to “have no clothes.” But what of the fate of millions of Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow peoples inside the U.S.? How many horrible sacrifices will have been, and will yet need to be made by the people in order to get the boot of economic blood-sucking and political repression off their/our necks?

 

The “clash,” to which Malcolm X referred, “between those who want freedom, justice, and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation” will deepen, as will repression and systemic contradictions. The “clash” will have, by necessity, as Malcolm X suggested, gone beyond “the color of the skin.” Notwithstanding his double speak rhetoric, it will become clear to people that a President Barack Obama supports and wants to “continue the system of exploitation” at home and abroad. Despite continued double speak and corporate disinformation and misinformation, it will be become undeniably clear that a President Barack Obama is the servant of the corporate/military/prison apparatus of U.S. Empire, and a key facilitator of exploitation and political repression inside and outside the United States.

 

Building a real, grassroots peoples’ movement inside the United States will then, in some respects, be more challenging but by no means impossible. Notwithstanding the political repression and incessant disinformation that for a certainty will be emanating from the Obama/Biden Democratic Republicrats and their cronies, a genuine peoples’ movement will be, of necessity, the order of the day.

 

It is no mere coincidence that Democratic Party Republicrat, Barack Obama, had the unheard of amount of approximately 600 million dollars in his political campaign coffer compared with fellow Republican Party Republicrat, John McCain’s, approximately 100 million campaign coffer dollars. This fact alone should give some crucial insight into the despicable financial role played by corporations, and their outrageous, unacceptable, and massively inordinate amount of influence and control over the electoral system in this so-called democracy. Most of this money is blood money, based upon exploitation from the corporate Wall Street and military corporate elite. This fact alone gives yet another good indication as to what to expect under an Obama presidency. It is totally reprehensible and unacceptable and an utter mockery of democracy.

 

 

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil/political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS NewsHour, formerly known as The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn].

 

 

 

By Dr. Perwez Shafi

The days of the American empire are over; even US elites are writing its obituaries. The world Capitalist System was established on such factors as greed, living beyond means, using other people’s wealth, compound interest and a rigid focus on short-term profit. The conservative Republican writer and policy analyst, Doug Bandow, author of several books and Fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance, who also served as special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, wrote:

 

The American empire is kaput. Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama realizes that fact yet, but the myth of the omnipotent unipower, the essential nation, the country which declares that what it says goes, has been exposed to all. The Iraq debacle sullied Washington’s reputation, but did not destroy the illusion of American indispensability. Assorted politicians, like McCain and Obama, promised to restore US primacy, either through more bluster or better diplomacy. But the financial crash has wrecked the economic basis of America’s imperial pretensions. Washington simply can’t afford to attempt to run the world any longer.

 

Even German Finance Minister Peer Steinbruck stated bluntly on September 26: “The US will lose its financial superpower status in the global financial system.” Similarly, British political philosopher, John Gray, wrote in The Observer that the world is witnessing “a historic geopolitical shift in which the balance of power in the world is being altered irrevocably.” He went on: “The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War, is over.”

 

For any country, even a relatively small one, to become an empire it must have the necessary economic and military pre-requisites. Exercising the right to protect one’s economic, political, human and social or even defense interests is natural but when it encroaches on others’ rights, especially exploiting them and their resources as well as dominating them in the process, that problems emerge. Dominating others becomes an expression and extension of power. Hence it becomes a hegemonic or imperialist power.

 

Like disease, imperialism also seeks to expand, and extend its power and domination over others to gain control of or influence, directly or indirectly, over their socio-political and economic life. Even a minor incident anywhere in the world immediately becomes a matter of pride and a “national security” issue for the empire. As it extends its commitments globally, the resources available to discharge its imperialist ambitions shrink. This is the classic overstretch which may be maintained or lengthened through various means but decline and collapse hasten or become inevitable when a determined adversary refuses to give up resistance to imperial designs.

 

The Soviet Union and the US were both broke in the 1980s

 

It is interesting to note that both the Soviet Union and the US were broke by the end of 1980s due to their Cold War rivalry as they carved up the world into their respective “spheres of influence” or “occupation zones” whether in Eastern or Western Europe or parts of Asia and Africa. In their scramble to grab others’ resources both headed toward bankruptcy and hoped the other would collapse first.

 

With massive haemorrhaging in Afghanistan the Soviets ceded defeat first. They relinquished their empire and gave up not only the far-flung zones of occupation and influence but also the contiguous mainland states in order to save the core: Russia. As in the period between 1917 and 1924, Moscow thought this would be a stopgap measure and these states would be re-integrated when conditions are conducive. The European parts became “independent” while the Muslim Central Asian states were left to the non-existent mercies of communist bosses from the Soviet era.

 

Soviet humiliation and defeat in 1991 made the West, especially the US euphoric. Thumping its chest the West proclaimed victory and boldly declared the “End of History”. Many somber Western scholars, however, merely heaved a sigh of relief that the Soviet Union had collapsed first because their own economies were as precarious as that of their erstwhile adversary. The signs and symptoms of American decline were there for those who cared to see. The voices of concern, however, were drowned in the frenzy of euphoria over the demise of the Soviet Union although the US also had accumulated trillions of dollars in debt and was heading for bankruptcy.

 

The economic bubble in terms of national debt was growing in America for the last two decades. China, Japan and the Middle Eastern Sheikdoms lent huge sums of money but since they were not going to demand payment against worthless American IOUs and Treasury Bills, as they were also part of the same corrupt global capitalist financial system, the crisis was delayed. When George Bush became president, America had already accumulated a debt of $5.8 trillion dollar. Each time the US was close to defaulting on its debt, according to its own debt watch website, Congress would quietly raise the public debt ceiling which permitted the printing of more US dollars. On one such occasion in January 2006, when the US government crossed the spending cap of $8.18 trillion and was technically bankrupt, the economist Dr. Chris Martenson sounded the klaxons and wondered over the criminal silence of the media: “But the silence is all the more troubling because there is an unprecedented level of government borrowing on the books for 1Q06 [First quarter of 2006] with next 2 weeks (Feb 1st to Feb 9th) an especially busy period of time. An ambitious $70-$80b in Treasury paper will hit the market.” He suggested emergency congressional action was needed to avoid a full-fledged default.

 

Using the latest figures, Doug Bandow said:

 

Even before the economic crisis spiraled out of control, the US government was effectively broke. The national debt currently stands at $9.8 trillion, up $4 trillion (about 72 percent) since George W. Bush took office. With the pre-bail-out federal deficit in 2009 expected to hit a half trillion dollars, earlier this year Congress upped the debt ceiling to $10.6 trillion. But truly frightening are the many liabilities yet to come due. Uncle Sam is an extraordinary wastrel and soft touch, like the person who co-signs notes for relatives, buys rounds of drinks for his friends, and promises everyone he knows that he’ll take care of them.

 

Thus to ease out of the debt limitation restrictions the US government pushed the debt ceiling upwards, borrowed more money globally and used unusual and immoral practices like “shuffling money among government pension funds to finance operations” and borrow more against non-existent funds. Banks and other financial institutions had already perfected this practice, eventually leading to the collapse.

 

Besides financial mismanagement and jugglery that keeps creating money out of thin air, other measures taken by the Bush administration were to launch pre-emptive strikes to control global resources and access routes. In an era of dwindling energy reserves and realizing cracks in the empire, Bush launched an offensive using the September 11, 2001 attacks as a pretext to shore up the empire. This was euphemistically called the “war on terror”. The basic strategy was simple: to create an enabling environment for US intervention and direct control by creating chaos, wars, drought, intrigues and socio-economic unrest. Since Muslims have most of the resources, the so-called war on terror is primarily a war against Islam and Muslims.

 

Soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and intoxicated by the euphoria of victory, the American Zionists had already set their sights on occupying Iraq when neither Osama bin Ladin nor Taliban was in the picture. They set up the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) in 1997 that became the first body to publicly call for Washington to pursue regime change in Iraq by military means and openly lobbied Congress to exert pressure on the government to pursue this agenda. But more important was the PNAC letter of September 20, 2001, signed by 38 members, most of them Zionists, sent to Bush just nine days after 9/11. In addition to calling for the ouster of the Taliban and war on al-Qaeda, the letter also called for a broader and more ambitious “war on terrorism” that would include cutting off the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat, taking on the Hizbullah, threatening Syria and Iran, and, most importantly, ousting Saddam Husain regardless of his relationship to the attacks or al-Qaeda.

 

Seven months later, the PNAC issued another letter signed by many of the same people, urging Bush to step up preparations for war against Iraq, sever all ties with the Palestinian Authority under Arafat and give full backing to then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s efforts to crush the Palestinian Intifada. But the momentum for war against Iraq was slow in building. Since this could not be accomplished in one step it needed a better pretext to go into the Middle East, especially Baghdad. With 9/11, Taliban and Osama bin Ladin became easy targets that generated enough war euphoria to continue the march on Baghdad. As Bandow has said:

 

The Iraq war continues. Nearly $600 billion so far have been wasted on Bush’s folly, and the total cost will exceed $2 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and maybe $3 trillion or even more, if [economists] Joseph Stiglitz’s and Linda Bilmes’s numbers come true.

 

The $12 billion a month expenditure on Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and financial mismanagement at home were the last straws and both were managed or mismanaged by the zionists. Finally when the world capitalist system reached its logical limit it collapsed on its own like a house of cards. It was inevitable that the American Empire would also decline and collapse.

 

Paths to American decline

 

The question is, what form or shape the decline of the American empire would take? Whether the whole empire has to be given up or some parts of it to make a truncated empire more efficient and manageable? There are three possible paths a declining empire can take to reduce its costs and global burden. The real question is how much of the empire and how much of the core—the continental USA—the Americans want to save?

 

The first and most extreme path is a complete breakup, like the Soviet Union. The Soviet leadership replaced everything: ideology, national anthem, political and economic structures, relations with powers of the world and gave up an entire way of life. Communist values, beliefs and norms were replaced with those from Czarist Russia or even borrowed from the West with greater emphasis on Russian nationalism. All territories around Russia were let go to ease the financial burden thus saving the Russian core.

 

Similarly to pay back its lenders the US may have to give up its overseas military bases and sell all the equipment. It has to relinquish its role as a global policeman but that will not be enough. Louisiana might be sold back to France; California, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona to Mexico. Worse, Mexico could seize these territories because wounds of the 1848 war imposed on Mexico in which these territories were illegally occupied are not fully healed yet. Russia has not forgotten the forced sale of Alaska and is willing to buy it back.

 

However, this may not be easy. In selling any of the above territories, the Native Americans might block such sales as they are the original inhabitants and owners of the land. The oppression and exploitation perpetrated against African-Americans is still a bleeding wound; they might also demand some land where they could be in the majority.

 

The US could drastically curtail its defense expenditure from the current $626 billion and bring it closer to Russia’s $50 billion. This would involve closing the 750 US bases worldwide and bringing the troops home from over 100 countries. The penchant for exotic weapons would have to be given up as well. All this might save the core, the continental USA east of Mississippi as was originally handed to the British colonies, but with a new name and ideology. This would be akin to the dismemberment of the Soviet Union.

 

The other extreme—the second path—is that somehow all the technical and financial measures might just succeed and the empire would remain intact except for shedding some of its global responsibilities. After paying minimal costs and a few years of retrenchment and economic crisis, the empire could be rejuvenated. Thus, after the initial trauma, not only the empire but more importantly, the continental USA is saved as well. Momentum is building for a fresh dose of economic bailout package in addition to the $700 billion already approved by Congress to weather the crisis. The hope is that the recession or even a depression would be short-lived. The Zionists are still preaching that even now both the core and the empire can be saved.

 

This is unlikely to happen and may be based on a superficial study of the financial meltdown and its worldwide effects. This view treats the symptoms and not the root causes and shows ignorance of the scale of the problem. In this view, whether naive or deliberate, the problem is considered as merely financial in nature that could be rectified by taking some remedial measures. In other words, closing a few unnecessary bases and recalling some overseas troops home, some reduction in defense and domestic budget, plus more financial bailout packages would suffice to keep the empire intact. The zionists in and out of government who have played havoc with US resources and policies earning global notoriety, are now telling Americans not to worry; both the US and its empire can be saved. But the financial resources available are far smaller than those required to dig it out of the hole or maintain the burden of empire. At the same time, the destroyed social fabric of society and the frail structural and moral foundations of institutions mean that revival of empire is mere wishful thinking.

 

The third path, which falls somewhere between the two extremes—the complete dismemberment of the empire and the US, or saving both at nominal costs—the trade off would be between the empire and its core. The third path is more realistic based on experience of the European colonial powers. Even saving the entire core may not be possible; some parts may have to be let go. In all colonial cases, whether Spain, the Netherlands, France, Portugal or Britain, they tried to save the core and reluctantly gave up the empire or were forced to abandon it. Saving Russia was more costly; not only the Soviet empire was abandoned, a number of countries and regions also gained independence from the core. So here the main question is: how much of the core can be saved after abandoning the US empire?

 

Several US analysts have expressed the hope that the entire continental USA can be saved by abandoning the empire. According to them when people are faced with a choice between their health, education and pension or maintaining empire, they would definitely choose the former. Faced with such stark choices, people do not care about the empire’s security problems in far off places like the Balkans, Darfur, the Korean Peninsula, Kuwait or Latvia and Lithuania. Some US analysts want to pursue this path in hopes of saving the entire core. Influential conservative Republican Patrick J. Buchanan in an October 14 column titled “Liquidating the Empire”, speculated what would go under the axe:

 

Social Security and Medicare are surely exempt… Medicaid and food stamps are untouchable. Interest on the debt cannot be cut. It is going up. Will a Democratic Congress slash unemployment benefits, welfare, education, student loans, veterans’ benefits – in a recession? No way. Yet, that is almost the entire US budget–except for defense, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and foreign aid. And this is where the axe will eventually fall. It is the American Empire that is going to be liquidated.

 

He continued about how much of the core i.e., the entire USA, should be saved by no longer taking responsibility for guaranteeing the security of other countries:

 

And, to be perfectly blunt, who cares if they [Bosnia and Kosovo] become real countries? We should be concerned about the mistreatment of people everywhere. But Washington has demonstrated no competence in setting foreign nations right, and ivory tower humanitarians have no right to risk the lives of our brave servicemen and women in the name of a glorious crusade for democracy in Mesopotamia, the Balkans, Caribbean, Africa, or anywhere else. War truly must be a last resort, which means no resort at all unless American society truly is at risk in some fundamental way. No wars of choice or convenience, no matter how easy and cheap they appear likely to be.

 

So as long as no one threatens the security of continental America, the US would not care about obligations of the empire. But is it realistic to assume that the entire continental America could be saved?

 

As mentioned earlier, the cost of maintaining the empire on an ongoing basis year after year is huge compared to financial bailout packages and other costly measures. Therefore, the cost has to be taken out from the empire as well as the core. In other words, after discarding the trappings of empire, closing bases, recalling troops home, drastic reduction in defense budget, more financial bailout packages, technical and financial measures would be sufficient to save the pre-World War II continental USA which sits happy, aloof and isolated from events in the world. From that point, it may one day again aspire to become a big power or even an empire.

 


This rosy scenario may still become reality. The exact portion of core area chopped off depends on numerous factors and conditions that are difficult to predict at present. It is possible that the US might save two-thirds of its core—everything east of the Colorado Rocky Mountains—and everything west of it has to be put up for sale to whom it owes debt. The Chinese may be interested in buying the northern west coast to retire its debt, and the Southwest—the five states Arizona land–may be legitimately claimed back or given to Mexico to avoid flooding the US with Latino immigrants. Hence, some portion of the core has to be sacrificed to save the rest, almost like severing a limb to save the body.

 

Sometimes even the best-conceived plans go awry. Additionally, there is still reluctance to find out the real scope and depth of the financial crisis to save the role of wealthy bankers, large capitalist investors and Zionist manipulators who benefited before and after the crisis. The solution proposed would not work if the scope of the problem is not fully known.

 

Social cohesion and fault lines

 

In all these scenarios, the values and social cohesion have not been discussed which come under severe pressure during times of crises. Events could go out of control when people’s interests and values are at stake. Drastic cuts in social programs and defense expenditure may lead to civil and social unrest, chaos and breakdown of society. This explains the sudden powers granted to the President to deploy troops on mainland United States to control crowds in case of massive unrest. Besides, there are numerous fault lines in the US. One is based on race and color that runs throughout US society. The reaction of African-Americans to various cutbacks may be different than that of Native Americans or Latinos. Anglo-Saxons of the East Coast may feel threatened differently than mid-westerners of German ancestry.

 

Another fault line runs parallel to the length of the country from Washington, DC, to San Francisco that divides it into North-South. In 1860, 11 southern states seceded from the US on the question of continuing slavery. After five years of Civil War that killed millions, the industrialized North defeated the agrarian South. The Southerners have not forgotten the bloodshed and humiliation and they still fly their confederacy flag on their public buildings—a symbol of the act of remembrance and defiance—along with the US flag. Any financial and economic pressure resulting in social breakdown might open up the North-South divide.

 

In the end it will depend on the US elite’s ability to adopt the right solutions and implement them, giving up on imperial ambitions and a willingness to work with multilateral institutions. But since it will be a great shock psychologically to be brought down from superpower status to an ordinary country, mistakes will be made and social unrest may follow in addition to other unknowns. Other powers might nibble at the core so it does not again become a threat in the future. Only time and conditions will tell how much of the core Americans are able to save.

 

For Muslims the fundamental question is whether the decline and collapse of superpowers would automatically lead to a renaissance and resurgence of Islamic civilization? The sad truth is it will not. Renaissance and resurgence depend on other factors. These can be summarized as resistance to foreign occupation and ideological domination; rediscovering the roots of Islam and re-evaluating re-assessing and reconstructing Muslim philosophical and historical evolution by discarding the baggage of malukiyya.

 

(Dr. Perwez Shafi is Director, Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought, Pakistan).

 

Crescent International, November 2008

 

 

There are many unknown victims of the US’s global war on Islamic dissidence. The plight of one of them hit the headlines earlier this summer, after years in which nothing was known of her. FAHAD ANSARI reports on the case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Muslimah now in US custody after disappearing in Pakistan in 2003.

 

During the time of the ’Abbasids, news reached al-Mu’tasim, the khaleefah of the time, that a noble Muslim woman who was held captive by a Roman king in ‘Amouriyyah had been slapped by her captors, upon which she cried out, “O Mu’tasim!” Al-Mu’tasim responded to her cry with the words, “I am coming to respond to your plea, O sister, I am coming to respond to your plea.”  He warned the Romans, “If you do not release that woman, I promise you, I will send an army against you.  And my army will be so big that when the first soldiers reach your gates, the last ones will not have left my palace!”  Al-Mu’tasim launched his attack upon which commenced the Battle of ’Amouriyyah, in which this Muslim woman was rescued and in which the Muslims scored a decisive victory.

 

A thousand years later, we have uncounted sisters being held in the prisons of tyrannical rulers all over the world, in both the West and the Muslim world.  Their tormented cries go unheard by an ’Ummah whose deafening silence is symbolic of its deadened hearts.  There is one Muslim woman, however, whose captivity has caught the attention of the entire world and who has become a symbol of the global system of oppression that has come to be known as the ‘war on terror’. The harrowing case of MIT-educated Pakistani neuroscientist Dr Aafia Siddiqui has shaken the Muslim world like the case of no other prisoner.  From seasoned activists to secular apolitical elders, the case has had a ripple effect throughout the Muslim community and may indeed be the catalyst that radicalises people and awakens the sleeping giant.

 

Background

 

Aafia Siddiqui was born in Karachi, Pakistan, on 2 March 1972, and spent much of her life in the US after moving to Texas in 1990 before enrolling at MIT. While at MIT she was heavily involved in da’awah work on campus. After her graduation, she continued to be actively involved in community and charity work, notably assisting prisoners and raising awareness and funds for the Muslims in Bosnia during the Balkan conflict in the mid-90s. After the attacks in September 2001, she and her family became victims of the American profiling system and were subjected to harassment by the US authorities.  During this period in the US, she was also the victim of domestic violence by her abusive husband.  Unable to tolerate the harassment any further, her husband moved the family back to Pakistan in 2002.  Soon after their return to Pakistan, the couple became estranged. In December 2002 she decided to leave her children with her family in order to work in the US. She moved to the Baltimore area, where her sister was working.

 

The name Aafia Siddiqui first came to public attention on March 18, 2003, when the FBI issued an alert requesting information about her. On approximately 28 March 2003, while on a short trip back to Pakistan, Aafia Siddiqui was on her way to Karachi airport with her three children, then aged 6 years, 5 years and 6 months, in order to catch a flight to Islamabad.  It was at this point that the family disappeared. The Pakistani papers mentioned reports that she had been “picked up in Karachi by an intelligence agency” and “shifted to an unknown place for questioning.” Days later, however, Pakistani and US officials mysteriously backtracked, saying it was unlikely that she was in custody and denying any knowledge of or involvement in her disappearance.

 

Various theories about her disappearance started to appear in international and local publications.  The first of these was on 23 June 2003, three months after her disappearance, in Newsweek. An investigative report, falsely calling her a microbiologist, said that she and her husband were part of an al-Qa’ida sleeper cell.  In Baltimore she is alleged to have opened a mailbox for a suspected al-Qa’ida operative who is now in Guantanamo Bay.

 

In 2004 Pakistani papers quoted a Pakistani government spokesman who said that she had been handed over to US authorities in 2003. On 26 May 2004, US attorney general John Ashcroft and FBI director Robert Mueller III announced at a news conference that Aafia Siddiqui was one of seven suspects whom the FBI was looking for with suspected ties to al-Qa’ida. She was accused of being an al-Qa’ida operative and facilitator.  In July 2004, publications such as Newsweek quoted the FBI as stating that she had visited Liberia in 2001 to buy conflict diamonds (also known as blood diamonds) in order to finance al-Qa’ida’s biological and chemical weapons programme.

 

Siddiqui and her children remained missing and nothing was heard about them for four more years. It was only in July, after her case had started gaining political notoriety, that she suddenly reappeared in Afghanistan.

 

The Grey Lady of Bagram

 

On 7 July, at a press conference in Islamabad, British journalist and Cageprisoners patron Yvonne Ridley claimed that an unidentified Pakistani woman was being held in solitary confinement at the US-run detention centre on Bagram airbase (Afghanistan) since 2004.  Ridley said that the woman’s prison number was 650, adding that other prisoners had spoken of hearing the bloodcurdling terrified screams of a woman in the male-only prison.

 

“I call her the Grey Lady of Bagram because she is almost a ghost, a spectre whose cries and screams continue to haunt those who heard her,” Ridley said. “We don’t know her identity, we don’t know her state of mind and we don’t know the extent of the abuse or torture she has been subjected to.”

 

Although the identity of Prisoner 650 remains a mystery, Ridley’s speculation that she might be Aafia Siddiqui triggered waves of demonstrations, letters to newspaper editors, and inquiries by politicians into the matter. The Pakistan foreign ministry was emphatic about its information from the US government that it was not holding any Pakistani woman at Bagram. But the issue refused to die down and received international media coverage; for Pakistanis, their ’izzat (honour) was at stake. This was unlike all the previous prisoners “renditioned” to the US as part of the war on terror: this was a helpless Pakistani Muslim woman with three young children.

 

Re-emergence

 

On 4 August, the US government announced that Aafia Siddiqui had been extradited to the US from Afghanistan to face charges of attempting to kill US officers and employees and of assaulting US officers and employees. Federal prosecutors alleged that on 17 July, Afghan police officers noticed her loitering outside the compound of the governor of Ghazi.  The federal indictment against her states that the Afghan police officers who arrested her found suspicious items in her handbag, including notes referring “to the construction of ‘dirty bombs,’ chemical and biological weapons, and other explosives” as well as descriptions of various landmarks in the United States, and “substances that were sealed in bottles and glass jars.”

 

US federal prosecutors further allege that, the day after her arrest, while still in Afghan custody, she grabbed a US army M-4 rifle that a soldier had left lying around, and fired it at a team of US soldiers and federal intelligence agents who were visiting the Afghan police compound where she was being held. Nobody was killed in the scuffle, but she was shot and wounded by a US officer. Prosecutors allege that despite being wounded she continued to struggle with officers, and struck and kicked them before losing consciousness.

 

She was then held for a further two weeks before being extradited to the US.

 

Kidnapping and Torture?

 

The alternative version of events put forward by Aafia Siddiqui and her lawyers, which is rapidly gaining credence, is that she and her children were kidnapped by the Pakistani ISI in March 2003 and transferred to US custody, where they have been ever since. While in custody, she claims that she was repeatedly tortured and raped.

 

This has been the account consistently given by her family since March 2003. Her mother, Ismet, claimed at the time that a few days after her disappearance a man on a motorcycle arrived at her house in a leather suit and helmet and told her that her daughter was being held and that she should keep quiet if she ever wanted to see her daughter and grandchildren again. Aafia’s sister Fauzia says that in 2004 she was told by Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat, then interior minister, that her sister had been released and would return home shortly.

 

For five years Cageprisoners, a London-based Islamic human-rights organisation, has spearheaded the campaign to free Aafia Siddiqui and her children.  It seems highly coincidental that, within two weeks of the press conference in Islamabad of Cageprisoners’ patron Yvonne Ridley, Aafia Siddiqui was apprehended after allegedly avoiding captivity for five years, despite tremendous interest from both Pakistani and American intelligence agencies.

 

The charges against her also appear to be a sham. It is ridiculous to suppose that an individual as intelligent as Aafia Siddiqui, someone accused of being al-Qa’ida’s microbiologist, would loiter outside a governor’s compound with her son and a mobile explosives kit.  It is also highly improbable, as former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg points out, that a woman as frail and small as she is could lift a US M-4 rifle without anyone noticing, and then put up such a struggle against American soldiers whom he describes as “huge”.

 

Further, it is notable that despite being accused of being a senior al-Qa’ida operative and being allegedly apprehended with the material it is claimed she had, she has not been charged with any terrorism-related offences. At a time and in a country where to be even suspected of being connected to a terror suspect can get one a twenty-year sentence, this omission gives rise to a reasonable suspicion that all is not as it seems.

 

One must also consider the fact that other suspects to whom she was linked, such as Majid Khan and Ali ’Abd al-’Aziz Ali, also disappeared from Karachi at almost precisely the same time as she did. They did not reappear until September 2006, after their transfer to Guantanamo Bay from CIA custody.  For more than three years they had been secretly held by the CIA or one of the CIA’s proxies. Like many others, they had been arrested by the Pakistani intelligence services and handed over to CIA.  When one realizes that the people she was allegedly linked to were themselves held in secret detention, and that the Pakistani intelligence services were covertly arresting dozens of people in Karachi during this period, Aafia Siddiqui’s own version of events gains plausibility.

 

Children

 

One particularly worrying aspect of this case is the whereabouts of Siddiqui’s children, who are all US citizens.  To date the whereabouts of the two youngest children, who should now be about 5 and 10 years old, are unknown. The oldest, Ahmed (11), was recently released from Afghan custody into his aunt’s care.  According to an Afghan interior ministry official quoted in the Washington Post, Ahmed Siddiqui was held briefly by the interior ministry after he was arrested with his mother, and then transferred to the custody of the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS), the country’s intelligence agency, which is notorious for its brutal treatment of detainees. Aafia Siddiqui has said that her younger son died in custody; her five-year-old daughter remains unaccounted for.

 

Medical Condition

 

Siddiqui’s lawyers say that she has been physically and psychologically scarred. After she was shot, more than a week passed before she received any medical treatment. She has suffered multiple bullet wounds and extensive surgical incisions, resulting in multiple layers of external and internal stitching.  She had also been told that she lost part of her intestine during the surgery to remove the bullets. One of her kidneys was also removed while in US custody. She is now refusing to attend court hearings or see her lawyers, because she is unhappy with the prospect of invasive strip-searches.

 

Conclusion

 

Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s situation is a badge of shame which we must all wear.  For her there is no al-Mu’tasim to cry out to. There is no army to go out to rescue her and no state in which she can seek refuge.  Even a demonstration in support of her on a Friday evening at iftar time during Ramadan, the month of action and victory, only drew a few hundred Muslims out to express their solidarity with their sister who has had to spend yet another Ramadan alone in US custody.

 

This sister has only has her iman to keep her steadfast. In a brilliant piece on her plight by American Muslim writer Abu Sabaya who attended her court hearing (‘The Aafia Siddiqui I Saw’), the classical scholar Ibn al-Qayyim is quoted as saying that a person rises in his closeness to Allah until:

 

… there remains only one obstacle from which the enemy calls him from, and this is an obstacle that he must face.  If anyone were to be saved from this obstacle, it would have been the Messengers and Prophets of Allah, and the noblest of His Creation.  This is the obstacle of Satan unleashing his troops upon the believer with various types of harm: by way of the hand, the tongue and the heart. This occurs in accordance with the degree of goodness that exists within the believer. So, the higher he is in degree, the more the enemy unleashes his troops and helps them against him, and overwhelms him with his followers and allies in various ways.  There is no way around this obstacle, because the firmer he is in calling to Allah and fulfilling His commands, the more the enemy becomes intent upon deceiving him with foolish people. So he has essentially put on his body armor in this obstacle, and has taken it upon himself to confront the enemy for Allah’s Sake and in His Name, and his worship in doing so is the worship of the best of worshippers.

 

Abu Sabaya concludes his piece with the following observation:

 

Despite Aafia’s apparent physical weakness and frailty, there was a certain ’izzah (honor) and strength that I felt emanating from her the entire time.  Everything from the way she forcefully shook her hand at the judge when the prosecutor would lie, to how she was keen to wear her hijab on top of her prison garments despite horrible circumstances that would make hijab the last thing on most people’s minds, to the number of FBI agents, US Marshals, reporters, officials, etc. who were all stuffed in this small room to observe this frail, weak, short, quiet, female “security risk” — everything pointed to the conclusion that the only thing all of these people were afraid of was the strength of this sister’s iman.

Crescent International, October 2008 

 

 The latest target: Godless Chinese Police arrest Muslim Uighur, China

 

The last few years have been a period of exceptional turbulence in the Muslim world, even by the standards of an Ummah that has become accustomed to the buffets of history during the period of colonialist imperialism.  In this extended essay, ZAFAR BANGASH, the Director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT), reflects upon the nature of social change and lessons for Muslims today.

 

Change is endemic in human nature.  Both humans and societies undergo continual change.  The biological process of ageing, for instance, occurs all the time and is irreversible.  Similarly, millions of cells in the human body die each day while millions of new ones are produced.  Some cells are never replaced; these processes can be described as natural change. 

 

Natural change of a physical type is generally predictable largely because physical processes are regular, consistent and constant.  The predictable motion of the stars and planets, for instance, has motivated the development of calendars that help us manage necessary activities such as agricultural cycles; similarly, the predictable flow of blood and the functioning of organs in the human body have helped medical science develop diagnostic procedures that determine a departure from normality; and lastly, understanding the predictable flow of electrons from a high energy-level to a lower energy-level has helped us distribute hydroelectric power across wide networks in space.

Change at the social level is more complex because human behavior is neither consistent nor constant, and thus not amenable to easy prediction.  For thousands of years philosophers, social scientists, sages and others have tried in vain to model human behavior such that a degree of predictability can result in a modicum of stability in society.  Reining in complexity to begin to address the solution to such a problem is beyond the aggregate capabilities of human beings.   We need help. 

To this end, Allah subhanahu wa ta‘ala in His infinite mercy, all-encompassing knowledge and wisdom, has continuously sent guidance for mankind, culminating with the final revelation to Muhammad (saws): “Social laws have been revealed before your time.  Go, then, about the earth and behold what happened in the end to those who gave the lie to the truth…” (3:137).  Humanity needs guidance; without it, we are prone to tyranny and corruption: “Verily, man is prone to tyranny, whenever he sees [his own deeds, actions] as impressive” (96:6-7).  In a sense guidance, for those who are firmly committed to it, can be viewed as a set of rules, commands, observations and guidelines that can reduce complexity in the social dynamic and assign predictability where none existed before.  This gives those who are committed to Allah subhanahu wa ta‘ala a significant advantage, though most Muslims have not yet come to terms with this competitive edge.

One significant aspect of Allah’s guidance is immunity against corruption.  Just as He has endowed the human body with an immune system or a defense mechanism, to ward off viruses, bacteria, disease and even death, He has equipped societies with certain defense mechanisms.  Those that are governed by principles such as ‘adl, fairness and freedom from exploitation and oppression are better able to meet internal and external challenges compared with those who manage their affairs with rampant criminality and corruption. 

Unfortunately, in the world today, societies are managed less by the proximity of ideas to fairness and justice than by concentrated power centers pursuing various selfish interests.  For instance, ruling elites in most societies promise to usher in certain policies to improve people’s lives, but such improvements are defined only by material gains: better jobs, more income, better houses and so on.  Some changes are discouraged or even suppressed.  If people attempt to curtail the power or wealth of the ruling elites, or try to change the imposed political system, they are actively opposed and their efforts suppressed.  Most Muslims want their societies to be governed by Islamic principles of social and economic justice, but such aspirations are vetoed by the ruling elites.     

This is not dissimilar to the opposition the noble Messenger of Allah (saws) faced when he proclaimed the message of Islam in Makkah.  The ruling elites viewed Islam’s teachings as a direct challenge to their privileges in the prevailing system; hence their violent reaction to it, even though Islam’s message, like that of all the earlier Prophets, was to bring humanity back to its pure fitrah of submission to the one God, Allah.  Throughout history, no exploiters have ever given up their privileges voluntarily; the Makkan mushriks were no exception.  This struggle between haqq (truth) and batil (falsehood) can be traced back all the way to the creation of Adam (as).  The Qur’an tells us that when Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala created Adam (as), He commanded the angels and Iblis to bow down to him.  The angels complied immediately but Iblis, puffed up by arrogance, refused (2:30-32).  His rebellion was based on elitism; Iblis argued that because he was made of fire he was “superior” to Adam (as), who was made of clay.  Condemned for disobeying Allah’s command, Satan then decided to ambush Adam (as) and his spouse, misleading them while they resided in Paradise. 

But Adam (as) and his progeny were bound to spend a portion of their life on earth for a divinely prescribed period of time before their return to Allah.  Adam (as), and by extension human beings in general, despite all of their divinely endowed abilities, still do not have the capacity to create a harmonious set of rules to manage their own behavior.  Thus Allah in His infinite care, love and generosity created what we could not: a perfect, comprehensive and balanced set of guidelines and rules to manage our earthly existence.  Those who abide by Allah’s commands are promised generous reward in the hereafter (17:9 and numerous other ayaat), while transgressors are warned of a painful doom (17:10 and many other ayaat).  Unlike angels, human beings have also been endowed with free choice: to accept or reject Allah’s commands, thus determining their station in life and death.  Conformity to Allah’s power presence is the natural state for humans, but there is always the Satanic temptation to violate these rules and fall to the lowest depths (95:5). Similarly, there are individuals and systems, guided by ambition and personal greed, that attempt to distance human beings from the divinely prescribed path.  The Qur’an has identified such figures, guided as they are by their baser instincts, as Pharaoh, Qaroon, Nimrod and others, collectively referred to as mustakbireen.  In today’s world the obvious examples are the imperialist powers.  Imperialists attempt to impose conformity on target societies by aggression, the primary objective being the facilitation of their own narrow-minded agendas, achieved by exploitation of the labor and efforts of the dispossessed majority.  They also use force to thwart the type of actionable change that would challenge their plans.

On the other hand, the vast majority of human beings, given the opportunity to choose freely, would find certain changes highly desirable: changes designed to achieve certain pre-set goals. The Muslims’ quest to return their societies to Islamic values from the present Western-imposed systems would be one such change.  At times there are also sudden upheavals; they can be both positive—like an Islamic revolution overthrowing a corrupt imposed order, as happened in Iran—or negative, such as a foreign invasion that the victim society may have little capacity to withstand, such as the zionist occupation of Palestine and the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq.  This last category can be characterized as imposed change.   

How victim societies react to such imposed change determines the nature and outcome of their struggle.  Victim societies may not be able to resist the initial onslaught, but if they are led by muttaqi leaders they can gradually neutralize the invaders’ advantage.  By the judicious use of force the resistance can control change in a manner that imposes overwhelming costs on the invaders.  When the losses in material, manpower or morale exceed the benefits that accrue to the invaders, the balance is tipped, forcing them to abandon their quest for domination.  Hizbullah’s resistance to the zionist occupation of Lebanon is a good example.  It escalated to a point where the zionists could no longer afford it.  The Afghans did the same to the Soviets in the 1980s.  The Americans and their allies are close to reaching a similar tipping-point through the resistance they face in Afghanistan and Iraq today.  Thus the overwhelming firepower of the invaders may not be the insurmountable obstacle that many fear. 

Having lost the edge more than 200 years ago, Muslims today are forced to react to the policies and plans of predatory powers, often by means of military aggression.  The suffering inflicted on the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Chechnya, and now increasingly in Pakistan andLebanon, reflects this grim reality.  Muslim societies are targeted and affected in many different ways, undermining their growth and development and frustrating their aspirations for dignified existence.  Most Muslims feel helpless because of this onslaught, especially one directed at them by the US, but they need not feel completely powerless.  Power and powerlessness are first and foremost states of mind.  In the Qur’an, Allah narrates the story of the confrontation of Daud (as) with Goliath (2:251).  While the soldiers in Saul’s army refused to confront Goliath because they felt that he was too big, Daud (as) saw his size as an opportunity: he was too big to miss!  In contemporary terms, America is too big to miss or, to use America’s own words, it is a target-rich country.  America’s size and military power need not necessarily be considered as a competitive advantage. 

There is also a need to move beyond defining power merely as the possession of brute force.  A coach cannot match the physical strength and skill of a highly trained professional athlete; however the coach has “power” over the athlete because he decides which player will play and which will not.  This is because the proper exercise of power is related to important factors, of which physical strength is but one.  On the world stage, it is in the interest of the dominant powers to make the vast majority of people uncomfortable with power and its manifestations; given this discomfort and unfamiliarity with power, people in general display a Pavlovian response to force: fear.  Because of the non-existence of stable representative political institutions in much of the Muslim world, the fact that the judicious exercise of political power is interwoven into the Islamic social conscience is lost on them.  They feel that the only way for them to re-emerge on the world stage is with the force of nuclear technology, bombs and warplanes.  This is first and foremost a conditioned response, not a reasoned one.

When states attempt to project power, they consider military and financial weight or even a large population-base as important factors, although these do not automatically guarantee success.  If military might and abundant wealth were the only determining factors, the French would still be inAlgeria, the Americans in Vietnam, the Russians in Afghanistan and the zionists in Lebanon. Empirical evidence from history shows that even small numbers of people have been able to defeat much larger forces using ingenuity, determination and creativity.  The most crucial factor in any struggle is morale.  It helps one party withstand the greater firepower of the other or find creative ways to avoid it.  Morale can be enhanced by patriotic fervor, belief in the righteousness of one’s cause, and iman—the most crucial factor for Muslims in any struggle.  From the pace-setting days of the first generation of Muslims to our present unsettled times, iman has played a crucial role in enabling Muslims to overcome enormous odds.  There is a hadith of the noble messenger of Allah (saws) in which he states: “Iman is the source of my power.”  Implied beyond the obvious message of this hadith is that Allah wants man, His chosen ruling species on earth, to exercise power justly.  Therefore, attuned to the divine power culture, man has to be comfortable with the idea of power — quite the opposite frame of reference from the taghuti-imposed systems in vogue today. 

In addition to divine guidance, the other important factor in managing change is leadership.  If the leadership is muttaqi, the Muslims’ or (to use the correct term) the Islamic movement’s chances of success are greatly enhanced.  The first generation of Muslims, led by the Prophet (saws), repeatedly defeated foes many times larger and better armed in almost every battle.  This is because winning on the battlefield requires extensive alignment to the leadership culture off the battlefield.  Just as individual acts of devotion (prayer, fasting, etc.) are redeemed by social activism, so Islamic social integration into the fabric of affected societies (municipal, civic and economic services), along with direction-setting activities geared towards a balance of social justice, are validated by a measured, unified and determined engagement on the field of military battle.  Winning on the battlefield is all about execution (of plans and strategies, not people); it should be a matter of fact.  Similarly, successful leadership separates itself from those who simply give orders or issue commands by what it accomplishes in the stages of preparation.

In this area, great leadership helps societies to manage change by doing several important things, two of which are direction-setting and motivation through informal networks.  Both of these serve to integrate the leadership into the social fabric of society at all levels, so that when a major sacrifice is demanded (e.g.  the loss of life in war), the leaders and the led are prepared to make it.  Results from these types of activities do not accrue overnight; they take time, maybe decades of dedicated work in the way that this work ought to be done.  Individuals and their leaders who have demonstrated the patience and fortitude to go through this slow but necessary tempering process have not often lived long enough to see the fruits of their efforts, but the associated gains have benefited their societies for hundreds of years.

Direction-setting consists of establishing a sense of urgency, setting a vision of the future and satisfying the needs of important constituencies (as long as such satisfaction is not outside the bounds of Allah’s guidance).  An overwhelming ambiance of injustice brings about its own sense of urgency.  All of Allah’s prophets focused their societies’ attention on the imbalance of justice in their daily lives, and on the forces responsible for maintaining this degrading status quo.  The ordinary people who committed to the prophetic programmes yearned for a more just society responsive to their aspirations and needs.  To this end, consider the vision that Allah’s final Messenger painted for his people: “The time will come when a woman will be able to travel from Sham [Syria] to Hadramaut [Yemen] having no fear other than the fear of Allah.” Now this is a vision—a vision to look forward to.  It is about a traditionally powerless element in society having recognition on par with all other human elements of society; it is something tangible about a geostrategic area whose social characteristics and norms are well understood; it is about integrating security into the cultural mindset and expectation of a people; it is about the kind of conscious socialization that replaces human protection, usually at a huge cost, with the only protection that matters: free courtesy of Allah.  Compare this to the pablum that regularly issues forth from Muslim mouthpieces for Western social-engineering propaganda. 

Long before Allah’s Prophet (saws) migrated to Madinah, he, through the three bay’ahs, began to satisfy the needs of the two power blocs in Madinah: the Aws and Khazraj.  When he reached Madinah, he even satisfied the needs of the Madani Jews, entering into a constitutional arrangement with them and others through the Pact of Madinah.  This was the first-ever written Islamic constitution, outlining the rights and responsibilities of the state and its member constituencies.  And from this groundwork emerges one of the greatest lessons of Islamic warfare; for without the painstaking effort engendered in the Prophet’s leadership, Muslims might never have learned it.  The stress of war separates those who give mere lipservice to Allah (swt) and His Messenger (saws) from those who commit their life-service to Him.  This was proved over and over again through the Islamic military engagements in Uhud, Mu’tah, Khandaq, Yarmuk, Khaybar and Hunayn. 

Effective leadership motivates people to overcome obstacles to change.  One way of achieving this is to energize them into satisfying basic human needs such as a sense of accomplishment, a sense of control over their lives, and the confidence to live up to Islamic ideals.  Coping with change demands initiatives from people at all levels of society.  Initiative-taking is a leadership activity. Multiple leadership activities could easily conflict and be at cross-purposes were it not for coordination through strong networks of informal relationships.  Once again, consider the approach of Allah’s Prophet.  When he arrived in Madinah, he immediately established the Ansar and Muhajirun as brothers in every household.  This inculcated the essential qualities of trust, accommodation and adaptation, helping to resolve conflicts that inevitably emerge in human relationships.  In Madinah, he built the first masjid outside of Makkah after the five daily salahs were institutionalized.  Although salah is a required activity of Muslims, congregating and going to the masjid does not require any formal preparation.  Muslim merchants were encouraged to establish their own marketplace, governed by Allah’s principles of economic engagement.

Communities were required to know the poor and destitute in their environs and address their needs before they were asked.  All of this activity was taking place through informal networks as only the salah and the Pact of Madinah had been formally institutionalized.  This helped to bind historically dispossessed elements in that society to the dominant power culture in the city.  Was such enfranchisement worthy of protection by the sacrifice of life for one who was traditionally on the margins?  Certainly!  Contrast this with today’s world, in which the Muslims’ obsession to build masajid in places where there is no Islamic state and the five-times salah is divorced from its vital imperative of anchoring Islamic leadership culture in the salah attendees.  Building strong networks of informal relationships that coordinate leadership activities is an essential act of leadership.  During the time of Allah’s Messenger (saw), most direction-setting activities and the development of informal networks took place before a single sword was lifted, a single arrow fired or a single spear aimed.  This is the kind of leadership that helps societies of ordinary people to manage continual  change extraordinarily.

In the contemporary age, we have witnessed similar achievements by Muslim activists.  Whenever attacked by vastly larger and better-armed enemy forces, Muslims have frequently defied the odds and done better than expected.  Although they have been forced to react to external aggression, their resilience has frustrated their enemies’ plans.  Further, while Muslims will not be able to match the weapons of their enemies in the near or even distant future, in most struggles they have given a good account of themselves.  One cannot say the same about the mercenary armies of Muslim nation-states, which do not fight on the basis of iman but for low-level loyalties such as nationalism.  They have done more to integrate themselves into the social fabric of special interests dominated by corrupt opportunistic power blocs, rather than establish a meaningful social presence in their own populations; hence their dismal performance in almost every major battle. No military confrontation proceeds to a successful outcome as long as the people are unwilling to commit their lives for the cause.  Allah’s promised help does not extend to Muslims fighting for nationalism, which is a form of shirk, or for personal glory or wealth.  A glance at some contemporary conflicts imposed on Muslims will clarify this point.

When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, most analysts predicted that the Afghans would have little chance against the world’s second most powerful military machine.  The Soviet army had never been defeated, and once it entered a country it did not leave, they argued. A comparative analysis of Soviet and Afghan weaponry and manpower also clearly indicated that the Red Army would not only prevail against the Afghans but would also extend its reach beyond the borders into neighboring countries.  The Afghans were viewed as ragtag bands of brave but foolish warriors who were no match for the Soviet Union’s military might.  Ten years later, when the Red Army was driven out of Afghanistan, there was no Soviet Union left for the Reds to return to.  The ragtag Afghan bands had prevailed, contrary to experts’ analyses, not because of their superior weapons but on the strength of their iman. 

While the Soviet army was busy slaughtering the Afghans, the Ba‘athists of Iraq were instigated by the Americans and neighboring Arab states to invade Islamic Iran, then in the throes of an Islamic Revolution.  They thought that the Revolutionary government would quickly collapse and that the old order would be restored to the “safe hands” of such figures as Abolhassan Bani Sadr and Sadeq Qutbzadeh, who had managed to penetrate the inner circle of Imam Khomeini and become president and foreign minister respectively in the Revolutionary government.  A few weeks into the Ba‘athist-imposed war, Bani Sadr as president and, therefore, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, went to the Imam and advised him that without foreign backing and military support Iran was in no position to continue fighting and that it should accept the UN-proposed ceasefire.  The Imam dismissed such defeatist talk; instead he mobilized Iran’s Revolutionary youth to confront the grand conspiracy of the international warmongers financed by Arab regimes.  Soon thereafter, Bani Sadr fled and Qutbzadeh was arrested, tried and executed for attempting to overthrow the Islamic government by means of a coup that included a diabolical plot to assassinate the Imam.

Islamic Iran single-handedly stood against the combined might of international kufr and for eight years valiantly defended the Revolution.  When the war ended in August 1988, Iran had achieved two of its three objectives: successful defense of the Revolution and liberation of every inch of its territory.  The only objective it did not achieve was to put Saddam Husain on trial as a war criminal.  The Americans themselves arranged the execution of Saddam 18 years later, partly because he had failed in the task assigned to him: destruction of the Islamic Revolution.  He was not only provided with arms and intelligence data but also given chemical and biological weapons that he used freely against Iran’s forces, sending thousands of Iranians to painful death. Ultimately, the Americans turned against Saddam.  But it was Islamic Iran that frustrated their plans by refusing to react in the manner expected by its enemies.  Imam Khomeini (ra) inspired millions of young and old Iranians to defend the Revolution, thereby writing a wonderful chapter in the history of Islam.  Could the Imam have been nearly as effective without developing a strong directional course (wilayat faqih)?  Could he have been as effective without bypassing the imperial state communication channels by energizing informal associations of students in the hawzah networks?  Could he have been as successful without first spending nearly twenty years infusing key elements of Iranian society with the culture of Islamic leadership, thereby enabling them to take control of their destiny?

The Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine have similarly demonstrated great resilience and thus achieved notable successes against enormous odds.  Hizbullah’s story is especially remarkable, given the fact that it consists of the most oppressed and downtrodden people of Lebanon.  These are not the typical characteristics of a people who might be expected to stand up to Israel’s military might, which is technically the most powerful military machine in theMiddle East.  Hizbullah operated in an environment where both the Lebanese government and the Israeli-allied Phalangist Christian militia were hostile to it and at every turn tried to undermine its resistance.  Further, Hizbullah operated against the backdrop of repeated failures of Arab armies to throttle the zionist military machine.  Nor did Hizbullah possess sophisticated weapons, such as aircraft or long-range artillery, to confront the zionists’ American-supplied arsenal; its fighters only had AK-47 rifles and Kytusha rockets.  Despite its lack of weapons, Hizbullah demonstrated that it was and is possible to defeat the invaders.  From its birth in October 1983 to May 2000, when it drove the zionist occupation army out of much of Lebanon (except the Sheba’ah Farms), Hizbullah showed how lightly armed fighters can defeat a regular army possessing vastly superior weapons. It achieved a similar success in the 34-day war in July-August 2006, frustrating the zionists’ plans to destroy it and install a puppet government in Beirut.      

What is the secret of Hizbullah’s success? Hizbullah leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah himself has explained the movement’s strategy: to avoid, as much as possible, the zionists’ strong points—air force, long-range missiles and artillery—and use its own strength against their weak points.  This was best demonstrated in the summer of 2006.  Hizbullah had no anti-aircraft or surface-to-air missiles to shoot down Israeli planes.  Thus its only recourse was to seek shelter from Israeli aerial bombardment in underground bunkers.  Hizbullah had built a vast network of underground bunkers in Southern Lebanon in utmost secrecy.  For nearly twenty years, Hizbullah has integrated itself into its constituency by providing vital social services such as health-care, schooling, distribution of aid, etc.  It is now well-known the world over that for any foreign aid to reach the people in Lebanon and occupied Palestine who need it most, it must go through Hizbullah or Hamas.  Formal institutional networks have been subverted by the enemies of Allah, the people and justice; thus in this type of environment Hizbullah has deftly constructed strong networks of informal relationships that are efficiently and unselfishly managed by the leaders of Hizbullah. Hizbullah provides vital services for its people, and the people in turn are willing to make sacrifices to protect the security and stability they have gained.  This is another one of Hizbullah’s strengths, leading to its success. 

Hizbullah’s example, like that of Iran and the Afghan mujahideen, points to what needs to be done when confronted by external aggression.  Every aggressor attempts to impose change on the victim society to achieve his nefarious designs.  It is important for victims not to react in a manner that will facilitate the aggressors’ intended purpose.  A successful defense must include taking the initiative away from the enemy.  By changing the rules of the game, such as waging asymmetrical warfare,  even small numbers of lightly-armed fighters can frustrate the enemy’s plans and inflict defeat.  

In the foreseeable future, Muslims will not be able to acquire the kinds of sophisticated weapons our enemies possess.  Our only recourse is to establish our own rules of engagement.  When confronted by external aggression, people often improvise.  Self-preservation and self-defense are not crimes under any law, no matter how much the West may denounce them as terrorism.  It is Western governments led by the US, not the struggling Muslims, that indulge in crimes against humanity.  What is important for us to keep in mind is not to play by the enemy’s rules.  The tide in global politics is slowly but surely turning in favor of the Islamic movement.  This is something we can all rejoice in and build on.  There is still a long struggle ahead but we can at last see light at the end of the tunnel, especially with the US and its surrogate, Israel, facing such great difficulties.

From: Crescent International, August 2008