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Islam
Longs for Its Lost Empire
by George Irbe
Introduction
It is high time that the ordinary people of the
Western democracies understood what is really
eating at Islam, what is generating the Muslim
discontent and their intense hostility towards the
West. It is high time that the elected leaders of
the democracies, who order the men and women of
their armed forces into harm's way in what can be
reasonably characterized as the seething cauldron
of the Muslim world, acknowledge what the fight is
about and against whom the fight is being
waged.
Since the attack on 11 September, 2001, only a
few scholars and journalists have identified Islam
itself as our enemy. Our political leaders and
statesmen have not dared to inform citizens
publicly of that fact. They stubbornly maintain
that the West is fighting only against terrorists,
allowing only that there might be liaison and
occasional co-operation between various terrorist
groups, and that some of the terrorist groups are
motivated by antiquated Islamic
fundamentalism.
So long as the official government message to
the average citizen continues to misidentify the
enemy as being merely amorphous "terrorism," the
citizenry cannot be fully united and mobilized to
fight the actual enemy.
It is difficult to persuade the citizens of
democracies that any war is worth the sacrifice: In
a democracy there are always legitimate arguments
against war and for negotiated resolution of
conflicts. It is even more difficult to persuade
them to fight a war on ideological grounds, such as
was the case with the wars fought during most of
the 20th century, because in a democracy there will
always be many people who either do not see the
aggressive ideology as threatening their own
democracy, or they themselves believe in the
rightness of that ideology and would actually
prefer to have it supplant the system they are
living under at present. Considering, then, that it
is very difficult to mobilize a democracy to fight
against an ideology, perhaps the leaders of liberal
Western democracies are fearful that their citizens
would be even more unwilling, and very likely
outraged, if they were asked to go to war against a
religion, because freedom of religion is, next to
freedom of speech, a sacrosanct article of every
charter of human rights and of every constitution
in the West. The citizens could scarcely
countenance the thought of engaging in a religious
war in this the 21st century, and therefore their
leaders avoid using the term "religious war" like
the plague, although they know full well in their
heart of hearts that that is indeed the kind of
conflict they are engaged in at present.
In the Western democracies, religion -- any
religion -- is to be respected and not to be spoken
ill of. That is why there are not supposed to be
any religious wars; the most that can be admitted
to is "sectarian violence," which occurs between
adherents of the same religion with differing
opinions about dogma. The facile (and false)
explanation usually offered for wars between
adherents of different religions is that the wars
are never over religion as such; we are told that
the reasons for these conflicts are mostly
socio-economic. Thus we continue to tiptoe around
the rosebush of political correctness. As Robert
Spencer puts it:
- In Western Europe and North America, the
fact that Islam at its core contains elements
that are not peaceful or benign has become the
truth that dares not speak its name. Instead,
the news media indulges in puerile and
outrageously inaccurate comparisons [of
Islam and Christianity]. . . . Such
statements and intentions betray an appalling
ignorance both of Islam and of our own culture
and heritage. [7] p. 174.
-
- These days it's considered bad taste to
point out that the Qur'an and the Bible do not
teach identical moral precepts, or that the
Muhammad of Islam and the Jesus of Christianity
are not interchangeable. [7] p.
175.
In this essay I intend to break both taboos. I
will discuss the rather brutal characteristics of
the religion of Islam and the blunt historical
truth that the Muslims have waged a religious war
against the rest of the world since the days of
Muhammad. That war has at times intensified and at
times abated during the course of its 1300-year
duration; its character has varied from battles
between large massed armies to ignominious acts of
blatant piracy and brigandage; its latest current
manifestation is as global terrorism.
The Nature of
Islam
1. Islam is a fusion of religion and
ideology
Quite a few scholars and historians who have
studied Islam at depth have concluded that it is
not just a religion in the conventional sense of
the word. Islam appears to be a mix of a very
stringent religious dogma and an aggressive
political ideology. The goal of Islam's founder,
Muhammad, was primarily geo-political. What makes
Muhammad exceptional among the founders of
religions is that he conceived of the truly
brilliant (and practical) idea to interweave into
one bundle of beliefs religious tenets (mostly
rehashed Judeo-Christian ones) with the politics of
brute conquest.
As Paul Fregosi describes Muhammad,
- He was a man of his times, with its faults
and qualities. He was a brave warrior but also a
devoted husband (to his eleven wives), a loving
father, and a charismatic political leader of
the Arab people. Muhammad was a great Arab
patriot, highly intelligent, undoubtedly cruel
and brutal, too. In our day and age, like other
great men whatever their religion or
nationality, he might have been regarded as a
criminal, perhaps a war criminal or a mass
murderer. . . He is also an ideological leader,
a conqueror, and the founder of one of the
world's great accredited religions. It makes any
objective examination of the person a difficult
task . . . [8] p. 26.
Significantly, Maxime Rodinson, includes the
term "totalitarian" in his characterization of
Muhammad and his new religion:
- In Medina the Prophet had found himself in a
position which enabled -- indeed even compelled
-- him to play a part in the struggle for power
within the oasis. He found himself the leader of
a party. Little by little this party, partly
religious and partly political, had grown. By
nature and by origin, it was bound to become a
totalitarian party. It had acquired an
independent army and its own treasury while at
the same time eliminating those elements it was
unable to assimilate and silencing opposition
within the fold. [4] p. 215.
-
- Sometimes the ideologist or the religious
leader has had to run in harness with a man of
action familiar with the difficult art of
manipulating people and making things happen.
But Muhammad found within himself all the
resources necessary to fulfillment of this dual
role. [4] p. 216.
-
- In Medina . . . What was needed above all
was to mobilize men's energies for immediate
action, to denounce the enemy, reassure the
armies of the faithful, justify the decisions
taken, brand traitors and irresolute people for
what the were, and give the community of the
Faithful some rules by which to live. . . . the
Koran became a kind of newspaper, publishing the
orders of the day to the troops, passing
judgments on domestic affairs and explaining the
ups and downs of the conflict. [4] p.
217.
. . . and Fregosi notes throughout Jihad the
religious and ideological mix that is Islam; for
example,
- . . . one cannot stress enough the
importance of the ideological side of Islam,
with which this religion is permeated as is none
of the other great religions. It infiltrates,
and even sometimes governs, often down to the
tiniest detail of everyday life, the way of life
of its millions of adherents in the world of
today. [8] p. 27.
-
- The teachings of the Prophet have spread far
beyond the worship of Allah to Muhammad's own
political and imperial vision which has been
given, in the Koran, the divine imprimatur.
Islam was already more than a religion. It was
already an international political force, as it
still is today . . . [8] p. 91.
-
- It is not possible to dissociate the Jihad
from its political environment, for politics and
religion form one in Islamic life. [8]
p. 123.
-
- Let us never forget the ideological
dimension of Islam. [8] p.
411.
2. Islam is a totalitarian
system
Since the dawn of mankind, all religions have
maintained an elite priestly class who control and
administer the religion's dogma and often
manipulate it for their own material gain and
perhaps that of their secular rulers. The mass of
the gullible subject people receive continuous
mental conditioning by the priestly elite to ensure
that they live by, and carry out, the dictates of
the dogma. In most societies, however, the domains
of the priestly class and of the secular ruling
class have usually been kept separate, at least in
the appearance. In Western societies, separation of
church and state has been one of the dictums of
democracy for a long time.
Muhammad's innovative concept of fusing the
religious and secular powers into an indivisible
whole and placing it in the hands of a single
authority proved to be a spectacularly successful
recipe for the exercise of power and for conquest.
It is also this fusion of religion and will to
power that makes Islam a totalitarian political
ideology. In Arabic, "Islam" means "submission".
The name is very appropriate, because a
totalitarian ideology demands complete submission
and compliance from its followers. Faithful
obedience to orders and unquestioning loyalty to
the supreme commander (the caliph) in attaining his
political goals was precisely what Muhammad
demanded from his followers. In Muhammad's
totalitarian system there are only two classes of
people. There are the rulers, who exercise their
own free will and discretion to interpret Islam's
religious dogma and to order their subjects into
war against other people and states. The rest of
the Muslim population belong in the lower class,
subservient to the rulers.
Of necessity, totalitarian rule requires
thorough indoctrination of the masses. The
individual must be relieved of the need to make
decisions and choices of his or her own free will
as much as possible, down to even the smallest
details of everyday existence. Muhammad's system
more than fits the pattern. Whether by conscious
design or not, already in the early days of Islam,
the Prophet and his newly-formed ruling elite, the
"Companions of the Prophet," started to compile
what eventually grew into a large body of "Islamic
sacred law." It has been translated from the Arabic
into English; the title of it is Reliance of the
Traveller [sic]: A Classic Manual of
Islamic Sacred Law [9]. It literally
dictates the daily life of a Muslim down to the
most ridiculous (to an un-believer) details. While
the Sacred Law covers the traditional (secular)
areas of law as we understand it, it also deals in
great detail with things like, for instance, the
correct procedures to be used by men and women when
defecating and urinating. ([9] Section
e9.0).
Sections of the Reliance of the Traveller
read like a manual of conduct for a military
organization, and that is precisely one of its
uses: to indoctrinate, discipline and condition the
mass of Muslims in order to make them into soldiers
for Jihad in the service of Allah.
This is what Reliance has to say about
Jihad in Book "O" - Justice:
- o9.0 Jihad
-
- (O: Jihad means to war against
non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from
the word mujahada, signifying warfare to
establish the religion. And it is the lesser
jihad. As for the greater jihad, it is spiritual
warfare against the lower self (nafs), which is
why the Prophet said as he was returning from
jihad,
-
- "We have returned from the lesser jihad to
the greater jihad."
-
- The scriptural basis for jihad, prior to
scholarly consensus (def: b7) is such Koranic
verses as:
-
- "Fighting is prescribed for you" (Koran
2:216);
-
- "Slay them wherever you find them" (Koran
4:89);
-
- "Fight the idolators utterly" (Koran
9:36)
-
- and such hadiths as the one related by
Bukhari and Muslim that the Prophet said:
-
- "I have been commanded to fight people until
they testify that there is no god but Allah and
that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and
perform the prayer, and pay zakat. If they say
it, they have saved their blood and possessions
from me, except for the rights of Islam over
them. And their final reckoning is with
Allah";
-
- and the hadith reported by Muslim,
-
- "To go forth in the morning or evening to
fight in the path of Allah is better than the
whole world and everything in it."
-
- Details concerning jihad are found in the
accounts of the military expeditions of the
Prophet, including his own martial forays and
those on which he dispatched others. The former
consist of the ones he personally attended, some
twenty-seven (others say twenty-nine) of them.
He fought in eight of them, and killed only one
person with his noble hand, Ubayy ibn Khalaf, at
the battle of Uhud. On the latter expeditions he
sent others to fight, himself remaining at
Medina, and these were forty-seven in
number.
-
-
- The obligatory character of
jihad
-
- o9.1 Jihad is a communal obligation
(def: c3.2). When enough people perform it to
successfully accomplish it, it is no longer
obligatory upon others (O: the evidence for
which the Prophet's saying,
-
- "He who provides the equipment for a soldier
in jihad has himself performed jihad,"
-
- and Allah Most High having said:
-
- "Those of the believers who are unhurt but
sit behind are not equal to those who fight in
Allah's path with their property and lives.
Allah has preferred those who fight with their
property and lives a whole degree above those
who sit behind. And to each, Allah has promised
great good" (Koran 4:95).
-
- If none of those concerned perform jihad,
and it does not happen at all, then everyone who
is aware that it is obligatory is guilty of sin,
if there was a possibility of having performed
it. In the time of the Prophet jihad was a
communal obligation after his emigration (hijra)
to Medina. As for subsequent times, there are
two possible states in respect to
non-Muslims.
-
- The first is when they are in their own
countries, in which case jihad (def: o9.8) is a
communal obligation, and this is what our author
is speaking off when he says, "Jihad is a
communal obligation," meaning upon the Muslims
each year.
-
- The second state is when non-Muslims invade
a Muslim country or near to one, in which case
jihad is personally obligatory (def: c3.2) upon
the inhabitants of that country, who must repel
the non-Muslims with whatever they can).
-
- o9.2 Jihad is personally obligatory
upon all those present in the battle lines (A:
and to flee is an enormity (dis: p11)) (O:
provided one is able to fight. If unable,
because of illness or the death of one's mount
when not able to fight on foot, or because one
no longer has a weapon, then one may leave. One
may also leave if the opposing non-Muslim army
is more than twice the size of the Muslim
force).
-
- o9.3 Jihad is also (O: personally)
obligatory for everyone (O: able to perform it,
male or females, old or young) when the enemy
has surrounded the Muslims (O: on every side,
having entered our territory, even if the land
consists of ruins, wilderness, or mountains, for
non-Muslim forces entering Muslim lands is a
weighty matter that cannot be ignored, but must
be met with effort and struggle to repel them by
every possible means. All of which is if
conditions permit gathering (A: the
above-mentioned) people, provisioning them, and
readying them for war. If conditions do not
permit this, as when the enemy has overrun the
Muslims such that they are unable to provision
or prepare themselves for war, then whoever is
found by a non-Muslim and knows he will be
killed if captured is obliged to defend himself
in whatever way possible. But if not certain
that he will be killed, meaning that he might or
might not be, as when he might merely be taken
captive, and he knows that he will be killed if
he does not surrender, then he may either
surrender or fight. A woman too has a choice
between fighting or surrendering if she is
certain that she will not be subjected to an
indecent act if captured. If uncertain that she
will be safe from such an act, she is obliged to
fight, and surrender is not
permissible.
-
- Who is obliged to fight in jihad
-
- o9.4 Those called upon (O: to perform
jihad when it is a communal obligation) are
every able-bodied man who has reached puberty
and is sane.
-
- o9.5 The following may not fight in
jihad:
-
- someone in debt, unless his creditor gives
him leave;
-
- or someone with at least one Muslim parent,
until they give their permission;
-
- unless the Muslims are surrounded by the
enemy, in which case it is permissible for them
to fight without permission.
-
- o9.6 It is offensive to conduct a
military expedition against hostile non-Muslims
without the caliph's permission (A: though if
there is no caliph (def: o25), no permission is
required).
-
- o9.7 Muslims may not seek help from
non-Muslim allies unless the Muslims are
considerably outnumbered and the allies are of
goodwill towards the Muslims.
-
- The objectives of jihad
-
- o9.8 The caliph (o25) makes war upon
Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians (N: provided
he has first invited them to enter Islam in
faith and practice, and if they will not, then
invite them to enter the social order of Islam
by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya, def:
o11.4) -- which is the significance of their
paying it, not the money itself -- while
remaining in their ancestral religions) (O: and
the war continues) until they become Muslim or
else pay the non-Muslim poll tax (O: in
accordance with the word of Allah Most
High,
-
- "Fight those who do not believe in Allah and
the Last Day and who forbid not what Allah and
His messenger have forbidden -- who do not
practice the religion of truth, being of those
who have been given the Book -- until they pay
the poll tax out of hand and are humbled" (Koran
9:29),
-
- the time and place for which is before the
final descent of Jesus. After his final coming,
nothing but Islam will be accepted from them,
for taking the poll tax is only effective until
Jesus' descent, which is the divinely revealed
law of Muhammad. The coming of Jesus does not
entail a separate divinely revealed law, for he
will rule by the law of Muhammad. As for the
Prophet's saying,
-
- "I am the last, there will be no prophet
after me,"
-
- this does not contradict the final coming of
Jesus, since he will not rule according to the
Evangel, but as a follower of our Prophet.
-
- o9.9 The caliph fights all other
peoples until they become Muslim (O: because
they are not a people with a Book, nor honored
as such, and are not permitted to settle with
paying the poll tax (jizya)) (n: although
according to the Hanafi school, peoples of all
other religions, even idol worshippers, are
permitted to live under the protection of the
Islamic state if they either become Muslim or
agree to pay the poll tax, the sole exceptions
of which are apostates from Islam and idol
worshipers who are Arabs, neither of whom has
any choice but becoming Muslim (al-Hidaya
sharh Bidaya al-mubtadi' (y21),
6.48-49)).
The Muslim soldier is also indoctrinated into
believing that if he dies in battle against the
infidels he will immediately go to Muslim paradise.
The Koran describes this paradise (most often
called a "garden") in several Suras; here are
examples from three of them:
- 37:40-49
- But the sincere (and devoted) servants of
Allah, for them is a sustenance determined,
fruits (delights); and they (shall enjoy) honor
and dignity, in gardens of felicity, facing each
other on thrones (of dignity); round will be
passed to them a cup from a clear-flowing
fountain, crystal-white, of a taste delicious to
those who drink (thereof), free from headiness;
nor will they suffer intoxication therefrom. And
besides them will be chaste women, restraining
their glances, with big eyes (of wonder and
beauty), as if they were (delicate) eggs closely
guarded.
-
- 55:51-58
- Then which of the favors of your Lord will
ye deny? In them will be fruits of every kind,
two and two. Then which of the favors of your
Lord will ye deny? They will recline on carpets,
whose inner linings will be of rich brocade: the
fruit of the gardens will be near (and easy of
reach). Then which of the favors of your Lord
will ye deny? In them will be (maidens), chaste,
restraining their glances, whom no man or Jinn
before them has touched; as though they were
rubies and pearls.
-
- 56:07-40
- And ye shall be sorted out into three
classes. Then (there will be) the Companions of
the Right Hand; what will be the Companions of
the Right Hand? And the Companions of the Left
Hand; what will be the Companions of the Left
Hand? And those foremost (in faith) will be
foremost (in the hereafter). These will be those
nearest to Allah: in gardens of bliss; a number
of people from those of old, and a few from
those of later times. (They will be) on thrones
encrusted (with gold and precious stones),
reclining on them, facing each other. Round
about them will (serve) youths of perpetual
(freshness), with goblets, (shining) beakers,
and cups (filled) out of clear-flowing
fountains. No after-ache will they receive
therefrom, nor will they suffer intoxication.
And with fruits, any that they may select, and
the flesh of fowls, any that they may desire.
And (there will be) Companions with beautiful,
big, and lustrous eyes, like unto pearls
well-guarded, a reward for the deeds of their
past (life). Not frivolity will they hear
therein, nor any taint of ill, only the saying,
"Peace! Peace". The Companions of the Right
Hand, what will be the Companions of the Right
Hand? (They will be) among Lote-trees without
thorns, among Talh trees with flowers (or
fruits) piled one above another, in shade
long-extended, by water flowing constantly, and
fruit in abundance, whose season is not limited,
nor (supply) forbidden, and on thrones (of
dignity), raised high. We have created (their
Companions) of special creation and made them
virgin - pure (and undefiled), beloved (by
nature), equal in age, for the Companions of the
Right Hand. A (goodly) number from those of old,
and a (goodly) number from those of later
times.
As is evident in the Suras above, the Koran
promises the fallen Muslim warrior all imaginable
pleasures that he will enjoy in paradise, including
perpetually virgin women companions. The Koran and
the Islamic sacred laws thus ensure that every
Muslim is totally devoted to the dictates of Islam
through every hour of every day, and seeks death
joyfully in battle against the infidels.
It was explained above that the ruling class in
the two-class Islamic system is not subject to any
of the strictures imposed on the lower class by the
Koran and Islamic sacred laws. The rulers can and
always have acted amorally and pragmatically,
solely in the interests of their self-preservation.
They compete among themselves ruthlessly for power
and leadership, just like the individuals who
competed for the top position in totalitarian
states in the 20th century. Muhammad himself was
not at all squeamish about eliminating his
opposition by less than honorable means:
- Muhammad desired to have his implacable
Umayyad enemy Abu Sufyan assassinated. The task
was assigned to a disciple, a semi-professional
part-time executioner whom Muhammad sent to
Mecca to carry out the killing. [8] p.
54.
-
- [Muhammad's] enemies sometimes had
their hands and feet cut off and their eyes
gouged out. We read of torture and enemies
impaled. . . He ordered political opponents,
even young women who wrote mockingly about him,
to be executed. [8] p. 57.
The murderous struggle for power started
immediately after Muhammad's death, and has
continued in similar fashion to present times. The
following are samples of the early, pre-Ottoman,
struggles for the Caliphate:
- . . Muawiya is the man who deprived
Muhammad's descendants of what they considered
their hereditary right to the caliphate and
passed it on instead to his own Umayyad dynasty
that, in the early days of Islam, originally had
been, through Abu Sufyan, the most bitter enemy
of Muhammad and Islam. . . the clash between
Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law, and Muawiya, Abu
Sufyan's son . . . set the course Islam has
followed ever since. . . Three of the first four
caliphs were murdered. They all had been
disciples and personal friends of Muhammad, and
they are known in Muslim history as "the rightly
guided." Their assassinations set a pattern that
has never diverged and still continues today.
[8] p. 77.
-
- After the Prophet's death his ahl al-bayt
and their supporters suffered oppression. Fatima
was denied her right to inherit from the
Prophet. 'Ali's right to the caliphate was
denied until later. Hasan was poisoned. Husayn
b. 'Ali, his family and companions, were killed
at Karbala and the survivors of the tragedy were
taken prisoner. Muslim b. 'Aqil and Hani b.
'Urwa were killed mercilessly after being
granted amnesty. Abu Dharr Ghiffari was deported
to Rabdha. Hujr b. 'Adi, 'Amr b. Humq, Maytham
Tammar, Sa'id b. Jubayr, Kumal b. Ziyad, and
hundreds of other supporters of the Prophet's
family were executed. Under orders received from
Yazid, the Ummayad, Madina was sacked and
hundreds of its residents killed. [11]
p. 50.
-
- The Abbasids believed that as descendants of
the Prophet's family, they had more right to the
Muslim throne than the descendants of the
Prophets long and stubborn enemy Abu Sufyan. At
the same time they also disregarded whatever
right the descendants of Muhammad's daughter
Fatima and Muhammad's son-in-law Ali might have
had. . . It is not possible to dissociate the
Jihad from its political environment, for
politics and religion form one in Islamic life.
. . . the passing of the century-old Umayyad
caliphate (651 -- 750) in Damascus to the
Abbasids in Baghdad . . . was an operation that
was carried out in a massive blood-bath by the
first Abbasid ruler, Abu al-Abbas
[descendant of Abbas, Muhammad's uncle]
. . . [8] p. 123.
During the Ottoman caliphate it became standard
practice for the son who succeeded to the throne to
have all his rival siblings and closest male
relatives murdered as quickly as possible. Fregosi
recounts one of the most horrid of these
murders:
- The acme of atrocity was reached with
Mahomet II who, when he became sultan in 1595,
ordered his nineteen brothers to be immediately
strangled; and three concubines, pregnant with
his brothers' children, to be summarily
decapitated and their bodies thrown into the
Bosphorus. [8] p. 229.
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