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War of
Language and Culture: Islamism vis-à-vis Americanism Dr. Maimul Ahsan Khan [Please note- This is a draft-chapter of an
upcoming book and no one should cite/quote anything from this article until it
appears in its final form in the book. Comments/Suggestions regarding the
constructs and any other issues are welcome. Email- maimulkhan@msn.com] “This is not a just peace,
but it is more just than continuation of the war. In the situation as it is,
and in the world as it is, a better peace could not be achieved.” – by Alija Izetbegovic
just after the signing the accord,
Dayton Peace Treaty, 1995 Conflicting
Perception of Right and Wrong: Paradigm Problems After If ten percent of
Americans face economic hardship in their life, then ninety percent Arabs
have been suffering endemic economic problems in their life. Muslims and
Arabs in general take most Americans as extremely promiscuous in their sexual
behavior unacceptable for any “decent human being.” On the other
hand, Americans think that most Arabs are polygamous and abusers of their
Muslim women. Moreover, both sides actively propagate “formulas of
sexual relations” to solve the problems of their perceived enemies in
culture and way of life. Both sides have their own conflicting approach to
consumerism. President George W.
Bush has declared many times that the Arab and Muslim terrorists had attacked
in the soil of There is no
hesitation in the mind of the In the ideological
battles between the American government and Muslim masses, the identity of
“enemy-terrorist” has been lost long ago. Because of
“ill-fated” Muslim governments and their unwise and subservient
position in global and regional politics, identity of “enemy-combatant”
was suppressed. Moreover, if you wish to fight your enemies in
somebody’s house you need to get some kind of permission from the
inhabitants of that house. The For most Muslims,
“Western modernization” programs in the Muslim world fall short
of any genuine democratization and many Muslims strongly believe that
Westerners have either been suffering from colonial mentality or perverted
promiscuous sexuality or vulgar consumerism. On the other hand, Westerners
accuse Muslims for being polygamous or abuser of their own women folk. With
such a dramatically opposite perception of right and wrong, no amount of
Arabic or English language knowledge would be helpful to mitigate any
conflicting issues between the US and Arabs. Most attackers of September 11
were well verse of English language and Western culture than any group of
Arabs and Muslims living in the Muslim world. Issues of conflicts here are
not of literary character as many official spokesmen tend to believe or
explain. If a Muslim would
preach “Islamic polygamy or Quranic criminal
justice” to solve all sexually related problems, crimes, and diseases
in any Western country, he or she might be persecuted for violation of the
law of the land. But in most Muslim countries “Muslim
secularists” insist both at official and unofficial levels that
“Western promiscuous sexual way of life” would solve all problems
and crimes in the Muslim societies. Leader like Saddam and his sons had
become the symbol of that “persistent Western behavior” in
traditional Muslim society like No type of
Islamists or radical Islamic group, including Al Qaeda
never had been supportive to Bathism of any kind.
Organization like Al Qaeda was a serious enemy for Bathism both in religious and political terms. There was
no way for Ayatullahs or any Usama-like
groups that they would subscribe something common ideologically with Bathism or Arab nationalism of any kind. But because of
so-called American pragmatism, the When Ariel Sharon
declares that Israel has every right to attack anywhere in the Arab and
Muslim world to safeguard his country and government, then Arabs retaliate by
saying that they have every right to use any means to hit back the aggressor
or enemy. This dangerous strategy of Ariel At different stages
of history, especially during 1960s and 1970s small African countries like Most Third World
countries has been facing challenges in reforming existing legal and economic
systems and Muslims were blamed for stagnation because of absence of
“religious reformation” in the Muslim world. Religious
reformation is the West has give birth to a rise of Protestantism in many
countries in the Christian world. But Protestantism alone can not explain
“religious reformation” or revitalization process in the
Christian communities around the world. Many aspects of Christian reformism
are deeply related to the basic “Western religious dogmas and world-view”
of Christian churches. “To be sure,
many of the trends in Western civilization worked adversely to Protestantism,
as they did to other forms of the faith. Some of the programmes
for the reorganization of society, such as anarchism and Marxist socialism,
were frankly anti-Christian. The drift of intellectuals away from the faith
was seen in traditionally Protestant peoples as well as those of Roman
Catholic and Orthodox background. ….The reason for the greater success
of Protestantism in the nineteenth century were complex. Some of them are in
part conjectural or at lest debatable. One of them obviously was the fact, to
which we have already called attention, that it was the predominantly
Protestant Great Britain and United States which had the largest increase in
wealth, population, and territory.” [2] Dramatic increase
in wealth and territory of most Western powers and governments has resulted
from industrial revolution and colonized systems introduced and sustained by
them. All Since Christianity
lost its appeal as a state ideology to most Westerners, colonial powers could
not play “Christian card” aggressively in politics of From the period of
Christian reformism to the Bolshevik Revolution, Christianity had lost its
domineering role in public affairs of the West gradually. It did not happen
just because of some new articulation of Christian ideas of God and church.
Religious reformative process cannot succeed in any sociopolitical and
economic vacuum; it proceeds from one step to another. Some religious reform
succeeds in the face of great lose of the followers within their own
communities. Religious reformism within the Christian communities is not an exception
to that general rule. Step by step Christian religious reformism has passed
through different stages to empower Westerners and defeat others in
ideological battles and trade wars. “They were in
territories which had not been submerged by the Moslem wave which had reached
a fresh crest in fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Moreover, they were in
the regions from which the discoveries, growth in commerce, and colonial
empire-building were to come during the same era….Thus Spain was the
earliest to feel the full impact of the Catholic Reformation, and the height
of the Spanish reformation coincided with the period when that real was the
foremost European state in military might and in territorial expansion in the
New World….in France the Catholic Reformation reached its crest about
the time when French hegemony was attained in Western Europe, in England the
Protestant Reformation roughly paralleled advances in commerce, the
beginnings of overseas colonization, ….in Russia the most stirring religious
movements were when that country was recovering from its Time of
Trouble….” [3] Describing
Christian religious reformation as a rosy and easy, many Western and Muslim
secular observers demand a quick and dramatic “Islamic religious
reformation” in the Muslim world. The fifteenth century was very
important for Christian reformation and we can regard the Spanish Inquisition
against Jews and Muslims also a part and problem of Christian religious
reformation. Forceful conversion of Jews and Muslims into Christianity did
not bring any real success for Christians. But Muslim dominated History does not
claim that Muslim rulers in “The Easter
shores of the Doctrinally Islam
does not endorse any form of Papacy or institutionalized clergy; according to
the main teaching of the Quran, Islamic societies
must be egalitarian with a loose kind of federal or confederate system of
governance for all. That is why, until recent time institutional corruption
within the Muslim communities was not a great concern for reformers.
Moreover, individually many Muslim religious leaders could voice the dissent
and opposition to the rulers. Even the colonial rule in the Muslim world did
not make Muslim nations completely corrupted. It is the nation-state-system,
which brought Muslim societies under institutionalized corrupted system. Financial
corruption is almost a universal phenomenon in the present-day Muslim world.
Institutional corruption is so endemic in most Muslim countries that state
machinery has become dysfunctional. Not the secular circles, but religious
groups have started to voice against the visible corruption of the Muslim
elite. Military takeover of state powers in many Muslim countries has been
orchestrated with a slogan of anti-corruption drive against seating
government. Thus Muslim world came to an age of governance can be called
“militarily-controlled democracy.” From When both secular
and religious militarily-controlled regime has failed in most Muslim countries
to bring any substantial change in any important Muslim government and public
life, then the appeal for “Islamic revolution” has surfaced
within religiously oriented Muslim political parties. Westerners were quite
unaware about that appeal of Islamic revolution to the minds of many Million
Muslims around the world. The 1979 Islamic revolution of During the
nineteenth century, students of many religious educational institutions had
protested against the Ottoman rulers in the present-day Islamic legitimacy
has received more prominence than political justification of power.
Discredited and corrupted political and judicial systems have crated a
greater opportunity to appeal to the causes of Islamization
of prevailing rundown Muslim systems. As a result, most Muslim politicians
have been increasingly using Islamic justification to popularize their
policies. But that does not mean that sociopolitical and economic factors are
less important then religious notions for reformation of any state system.
“The techniques through which Shari’a
was derived from the divine sources and the ways in which its fundamental
concepts and principles were formulated are clearly the product of the
intellectual, social, and political processes of Muslim history.” [5] Economic and
political disputes between Islamic and secular political forces within Muslim
communities have been playing much more important role than religious
disputes. Student demonstrations against government of Islamic “The modern
history of the Middle East, according to a convention accepted by most
historians of the region, begins in 1798, when the French Revolution, in the
persons of General Napolean Bonaparte and his
expedition, arrived in Egypt, and for the first time subjected one of the
heartlands of Islam to the rule of a Western power and the direct impact of
Western attitude and ideas. Interestingly, this aspect of the French
occupation was seen immediately in Apparently here all
historical facts and explanations are correct. But the Egyptians nor Ottomans
were not concerned or did not have time to think about revolutionary ideas
coming from French or Frenchmen, as Muslims in general were already deeply
perturbed by the foreign military aggression in their traditional lands.
Moreover, it was not the lesson of the French Revolution to occupy Muslim
peoples and their resources to liberate and emancipate Frenchmen or
Christians under the rule of monarchial absolutism. Napolean
Bonaparte himself rejected most of the lessons of the French revolution and
in bailing out his country from endemic economic crisis and political
instability did used his military attack on Napolean Bonaparte did warn the Egyptians that
the British colonial empire would occupy Egypt as London did in Muslim India
and declared himself as a liberator of Egypt and printed the entire Quran from modern press brought with him from Paris. Many
gestures of Napolean Bonaparte to the Egyptians
might be genuine. But how Muslims in general and the Egyptians in particular
would accept a foreign military occupier as liberator? Muslims have never got
any credible answer to this question from any Western military or colonial powers.
Muslims needed to know the answer to the question through the dynamics of
military and ideological battles against the Western powers. Napolean Bonaparte’s easy military victory over The Egyptian
military commanders at the time did not understand the formidable force led
by Napolean Bonaparte that they had been facing in
their own land. Muslim causalities in the warfront with Napolean’s
army were many thousand times more than in French army. Since then
configuration between Muslim and Western military forces and causalities in
any given conflicts have never changed. Muslim armies have always been
defeated and humiliated in all battles against non-Muslim armies around the
world. But every time Muslim army was defeated, ordinary Muslim folks have
suffered from colossal damages of war and a section of Muslim elite have
joined their Western counterparts to share the war booties in the Muslim
world. And subsequently, with unprecedented sacrifices of Muslim lives and
resources, Muslim masses have driven out the foreign military forces from
their traditional lands. This cycle of military battles and violent way of
settling disputes between Muslims and westerners have ultimately made the
Muslim world impoverished and dependent on the West. Muslim nations
could escape from such eventuality if they were united on the question of
military attacks and violence between themselves. After the withdrawal of Napolean’s army from Who is the Enemy of
Democracy and Islam? “Islam does
appear to provide a practical political alternative as well as secure
spiritual niche and psychological anchor in a turbulent world.” –
by Hrair Dekmejian in The
Anatomy of Islamic Revival Both Islamists and Muslim secularists are quick to find
their enemies at home and abroad. Warring ideological fractions within Muslim
societies see their own perceived ideological state as an enemy for people of
other faiths and ideologies. Muslim secularists demand democratic state, but
don’t see any place for Islamists in their proposed system of
governance. Similarly Islamists call for an Islamic State and fail to give an
idea how secular political forces in the country would be accommodated in the
system. Very often Muslim secularists and Islamists share the same fear of
extinction and persecution leading to their physical elimination from public
institutions. Neither democratic nor Islamic system of governance in the
Muslim world did receive any strong harmonization process to reconcile
political disputes between rival groups.
A typical Western democratic system not necessarily
indicates to any definite ideological statehood. All rival political forces
under different constitutional systems are allowed to fight for power through
elections. The rules for political games are very similar to that of
playgrounds, theaters, and circuses. Competing parties are allowed to have
plain fields and make use of same rules to demonstrate their capabilities and
defeat the rival. Once game is over and the scores are established, rival
parties go home with their result and take preparation for the next game. In
the West politics is neither a religious war nor battles for existence; it is
a process of power sharing at governmental levels. “With a little imagination one may discern the
same feature in other aspects of Western culture – in democratic
politics and in team games, both of which require the cooperation, in harmony
if not in unison, of different performers playing different parts in a common
purpose. In parliamentary politics and team games, there is a further
cooperation in conflict – rival parties or teams, striving to defeat
their opponents, but nevertheless acting under an agreed set of rules, and in
an agreed interval of time.” [7] Though this democratic culture has become part and parcel
of Western politics, but it has never been practiced at international arena
to resolve disputes between states. In international relations between the
states, military force has remained the most important factor to resolve any
dispute. The practice of the principle of “Might is Right” was
and is so prevalent that international institutions have failed to make
democratic and diplomatic means a viable alternation to military method of
conflict resolution. The outbreak of two world wars was the outcome of that
phenomenon. But the emergence of the League of Nation and United Nations is
also can be regarded as one of the consequences of world war. Turkish
involvement in the First World War was one of the last unwise decisions of
the Ottomans, who had failed to figure out their military and diplomatic
position at the global stage. Since then Muslim states either are incapable of
formulating their own political and diplomatic strategies at global and
regional levels or miscalculate their military strength vis-à-vis their
enemies. Most Muslim governments don’t have any genuine popular mandate
to govern their own people and thus use arbitrary power over state
institutions and public treasures. This prevailing situation provides ample
opportunities for Western powers and business circles to manipulate Muslim
affairs and resources around the world. A genuine interest to uphold
democratic institutions and values in the Muslim states by the Western world
could make a lot of difference in this undemocratic practice at national and
international levels. “Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
declined on Thursday to criticize a senior Pentagon intelligence official who
has told evangelical gatherings that Muslims worship an “idol”
and not “a real God,” and instead praised the general’s
“outstanding” military record. Lt. Gen. William Boykin of the
Army, deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence and war-fighting
support, has used speeches at churches and prayer breakfasts to portray the
American battle with Muslim radicals as a fight against “Satan,”
saying militant Islamists sought to destroy General Boykin is not only a three star general, he is a
deputy under secretary of defense of the “Not long ago Since the Such a conspiracy theory is nothing new. During the Soviet
era, Russian Communist leaders used to scare their people by telling that
Western capitalists had infiltrated at every stage of the Soviet society,
while “communist corruption” was the main reason of the rise of
“wild capitalism” in Collaborating with Muslim ruling elite, Westerner leaders
have been blaming Muslims for being hostile to the Western and US policies.
Many unwise and shortsighted Western and U.S foreign policies are the main
cause of the rise of “Islamic fundamentalism” in many Muslim
countries. Instead of changing foreign policies, Western leaders tend to get
away with their divisive policies against Muslims and condemn the Muslim
world for its growing fanaticism and extremism. On other hand, Muslim leaders
are not addressing their own societal, political, religious, and economic
problems to defuse tensions within their countries.[13]
For Muslims, this is not a new strategy at all; they are
very familiar with such a political strategy. Most Muslim secular and
autocratic governments charge opposition forces as being unpatriotic and
treasonous. Muslim religious leaders also do the same mistake in their
judgment of opposition forces. This is a propaganda ploy shared by both
religious and secular leaders of many Muslim countries. In the Muslim world,
if you don’t support any “Islamic political party” you
might be labeled as anti-Islamic, while if you are a member of any
religiously oriented group, you would be regarded as fanatic and extremist.
Just wearing any Muslim dress might be symbolized as being fanatic or
terrorist. “The four women were originally charged with
attempting to overthrow the Turkish government, but the charges were changed
to “violating the gathering and demonstration act”. Turkish law
upholds a ban on the hijab
in universities, higher educational establishments and Islamic colleges.
Harassment of women workers who wear the headscarf is also common in public
offices, hospitals and government buildings.” [14] Muslims have never imagined that they might have to
embrace similar eventuality in the West as well. In the West, for a quite
while, officially government did not try to divide people in ethnic,
religious, and racial lines. Though racism all along remained an underlying
social and political phenomenon in many Western societies, including the Most Muslim societies do not have any apparent problems
with racism as religious and political philosophy. But institutional
discrimination against the political opponents is a common place in the
Muslim world. Along with endemic economic problems and state-sponsored
corruption, now minorities have been facing many difficulties unknown in the
past. Secularism in the hands of Muslim nationalist governments has failed to
bring any remarkable success in any Muslim country. In contrast to that,
secularism in many Western countries has contributed positively in bringing
together peoples of different faiths and ethnicity to the common places of
productivity and consumption. Muslim secularists have failed to popularize a
Western-type democracy in the Muslim world because they characterized Islam
as an anti-democratic religious and political ideology. Under President G. W.
Bush, During the entire colonial ear Unlike the Europeans and Russians, Americans got directly
involved in Muslim affairs without any necessary home works to be done for
the job. Moreover, American direct involvement in Muslim affairs around the
world is of very recent origin. A very few Americans had direct encounters
with Muslim masses. American leaders had only direct contact with ruling
Muslim elite, who is incapable of presenting Muslim case to Westerners.
Moreover, being placed in vantage position, Muslim rulers did not feel any
necessity to represent Muslim peoples in any credible and genuine ways. For
the European colonialists, Muslim peoples and lands were the softest targets
for the implementation of colonial rule and Americans had found Muslims even
far more vulnerable during post-Cold war period and thought it would be
easier for For most Arabs, military might of the Israeli army
is indeed a formidable force, but for the Palestinians it became an
imperative to fight the Israelis to safeguard their lives, liberty, and
dignity.[16]
At the beginning the Israel-Palestine conflict had very little to do with
religious issues; it its core it was a territorial dispute.[17]
The same is true with India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmiri territories.
Religious explanations of such conflicts help the conflicting parties to
generate public support and sacrifice for their causes. “It is hard to know what is more
alarming — a toxic statement of hatred of Jews by the Malaysian prime
minister at an Islamic summit meeting this week or the unanimous applause it
engendered from the kings, presidents and emirs in the audience….When
Israeli officials noted that such talk brought Hitler to mind, the assembled
leaders were mystified….Sympathy for the Muslims’ plight must not
be confused with the acceptance of racism. Most Muslims have indeed been
shoddily treated — by their own leaders, who gather at feckless summit
meetings instead of offering their people what they most need: human rights,
education and democracy.” [18] As Muslims Malaysian are probably the most moderate
people and compare to many other Muslims, they were well served by their
leaders for last few decades. Along with many other Muslim nations,
Malaysians got so angry and surprised that most Westerners don’t
understand the agony and sufferings of the Muslims around the world. It is
true that many religious circles within Muslim communities have mystified
many Islamic doctrines to be used against their perceived enemies. Religious
leaders of non-Islamic nations also can be blamed for such indoctrination
process within their communities. Moreover, racism, anti-Semitism, and
Hitlerism are much more prevalent in other nations than in the Muslims.
Muslims are deprived of human rights, education, and democratic rule, and as
a result there is now a serious backlash of Muslim nations against the West.
Muslims don’t believe that Hitlerism or Stalinism can inspire them or
can bring any benefit to their struggle for emancipation, they rather feel
strongly that many Western leaders such as Rumsfeld
and General Boykin are real shadows of Hitler and Stalin. In fact, after
American-led military action in For many Muslims, quality of leadership of President G.
W. Bush and Saddam Hussein is not of that sharp contrast as many might have
thought in the West. But there is a great distinction between the two. G. W.
Bush could not take his presidency granted or made it as a life-long gift
from God. But G. W. Bush and his folks at White Houses could claim that as a
devoted Christian he was destined to lead wars in We are not asking
right question to find out pathways for Muslim states towards democracy and
rule of law. Very often Westerners and Muslim secularists try to impose or
replace a system by another imported from outside. The very virtue of the
democratic rule is that in the name of democracy no system of governance can
be imposed on any country or people. Islam as a religion does not allow
anybody to force others to accept any religion, including itself. But Muslims
very often does not want to grant right to its own co-worshippers to reject
this or that branch of religiosity. But the fact remains that a Muslim cannot
be a shia
and sunni
at the same time. Rejection of either or both cannot make a follower of Islam
less Muslim than a Shia
or Sunn. But the problem has not been
resolved once for all and disputes over different “Islamic political
ideologies” still remain within the domain of religiosity, while some
of these political issues needed to be transferred in the areas of legality
and other to be kept in the domain of morality. “If Scandinavians can combine liberal democracy with
socialist principles, and the English can combine a formal Protestant
theocracy with a practical liberal democracy, can Muslims combine liberal
democracy with Islamic principles? Can islamocracy be a new vision of
governance?… What is the difference between Islamocracy
and Islamic theocracy? We view the concept of “Islamocracy”
as a synthesis between Islam and democracy. The segment “Isla” is from Islam. The segment of “ocracy” is from democracy. The letter
“m” is shared by the words Islam and demos. The phenomenon of islamocracy has been evolving for centuries.
Today the Islamic Republic of Iran as a system of government has received
less attention from democratic thinkers than it deserves. It is true that the
theocratic element is still top heavy, and the powers of the clerics
excessive; the Islamic Republic's system is still a fascinating combination
of mass electoral politics and theocratic governance. Is the theocracy in The so-called Islamocracy is
viewed as Islamic democracy. In the past we heard a lot about Islamic
socialism in the writings of Muslim intellectuals, who have failed to bring
any long lasting substance to human rights and rule of law. As a result,
Islamic socialism has created more problems than it solved. The socialist
pattern of government and economy put many Muslim countries in shamble and
disarray. The Scandinavian or Canadian system of democracy does not
propagate any overly socialist principles of governance and economy, but
accommodate some positive aspects of socialism in distributing national
wealth and public good among citizens. For example, in a Scandinavian system
the ration between the highest and lowest wage is strictly controlled, and
thus gap between the rich and poor is very low. On the other hand, such a
ration is not controlled at all in most developed countries, and now the
highest paid jobs in the Most democratic slogans in the Muslim world still remain
rhetoric in the speeches of politicians, who maintain their exploitative
economic agenda to be fulfilled for their vested interests in the resources
of Muslim states and peoples. At present countries like “The question now facing Afghans is: how to devise a
constitution that combines the country’s deep-rooted Islamic traditions
and its aspirations for democracy?… The country will be governed by
civil laws as long as they are in keeping with Islam. The draft contains the
same language as the country's 1964 Constitution to guarantee that “in During the post-colonial ear, Muslims had to recognize
Islam as one of the vital ingredients of their state ideology. Giving
recognition to Islam as a state religion, Muslims wanted to give a loud and
clear signal to outsiders, especially to the former European colonialists,
that they were no more subjugated by alien military forces. But slogans for
“dar al Islam” have created more
confusion than they had solved. Creating a country like Pakistan in 1947,
British educated Indian Muslims resorted Islam to justify their political
power and pretended that they were the founders of a newly established dar al Islam, while as a reality
nation-state is very antithetical to the concept of Caliphate. The Saudi statehood had faced similar problem since
its inception in 1934. Arguments against and for a Wahhabi
state had overshadowed the confusion shrouded the Saudi statehood. There was and is a serious dilemma in the minds of many
million Muslims how to strike balance between the reality brought by
nation-state ear and conceptualized universal Islamic brotherhood. In most
cases, modern Muslim rulers has been using Islam as a propaganda ploy to
deceive their constituents from a fundamental basic right to accept and
reject governing policies and their proponents. Taking their ruling status as
a life long privilege and “God-gifted” prize, Muslim ruling elite
has been violating a very fundamental teaching of Islam, which is very
categorical in rejecting hereditary or monarchial and totalitarian or
dictatorial system of governance. As a cover up of their religious propaganda
ploy, Muslim rulers declared themselves as protectors and custodians of Islam
and its cities or holy places. Muslim leaders did promised to their people
that Muslim nation states would serve the interests of perceived united
Muslim polity prescribed by Shariah. Muslim nation-states neither have evolved nor created to
adapt or adjust religious postulates in a contemporary state system of
governance. They were established to defuse unmanageable tension between
colonialists and aspiring Muslim leaders to be the masters of their people.
Ideologically Islam does not allow Muslim rulers to be the masters of their
people; rulers were told to be the servants of the people. Here again reality
of nation-state system of governance sharply differs from pious religious
desire to be freed from all bondage imposed by a group of people over others.
The tension and conflict between religious commitment to universal Islamic polity
and divisive character of nation-state uphold by ruling elite is so intense
that political life of many Muslim countries has been becoming a source
“religious ideological inferno” for all living there. “Despite the supposed religious unity of all Muslims
and the consequent theoretical universal application of Shari’a
throughout the Muslim world, the Muslim peoples are now organized in
nation-states and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.” [21] Apart from political deception and religious pretension of
modern Muslim leaders, much talked Islamization
process stumbled with endemic corruption and economic crisis. So many Muslim
governments and institutions made the Muslim governance costly and
unmanageable state machinery led governments to resort violence against one
another. Domestically that policy led to a creation of police states in the
Muslim world. Without solving the autocratic character of Muslim states,
Muslims were advised to separate state organs form church. Muslim masses did
not understand what does it means to have a secular state. Does it mean that
government can ignore more vigorously the demand of the people to make
governmental authorities honest and dedicated to the causes of the people?
For the Muslims, only way they could keep some influence over their state
policies is to keep the ruling elite in the line of Islamic obedience to
decency and humility. This is one of the reasons why Western secularism has
never witness any remarkable popularity in any Muslim country. Not the conflicts between Islamism and secularism were the
major issues in the Muslim polity, dichotomies over the issues of the public
law of shariah
and individual rights needed to be addressed first. To resolve this problem
some Muslim authors try to draw some definite separating lines between the
doctrinal legal issues from changeable Shariah prescriptions. But
keeping the domain of the Public law of Shariah wide and rigid, no dividing lines between different schools of
law within Muslim communities would help to resolve this problem. Mistakenly,
it is widely believed that democratization and Islamization
are the process diametrically opposite to each other. That is the key source
of tension within the Muslim states and beyond. Misgivings and grievances of
Muslim peoples against the former colonialists and Westerners are much deeper
and wider than one can perceive in the West. “I wish I could say that general understanding of
the Sudden collapse of Muslim government or military regime is
nothing new in Muslim history. In 750 c.e. the Abbassids being fearful of political instability had
moved the seat of Caliphate from Post-Saddam history witnessed a quite different story. But
the Bathist military general also tried to avoid
fighting with the How to Understand:
You are Either with Us or with Terrorists? AS the elephant is
powerless to think in terms of the ant, is spite of the best intentions in
the world, even so is the Englishman powerless to think in the terms of or
legislate for, the Indian.” – by Gandhi in Autobiography Much Western
scholarship about Muslims has undeniably come in connection with various
projects of colonial, imperial, or, nowadays, superpower influence. – by Noah Feldman in After Jihad: In the past only religious fanatics used to declare
that they fight their religious wars against the enemies of God and
ultimately God who gave the order to go to war. Thus success and failure does
not really matter for the warring parties. In modern days military forces do
not believe in any order from God and calculate their war strategy long
before any military operation. After Hitler’s army possibly again for
the first time the US-led army occupied Iraq in 2003 without any exist
strategy and definite plan to end the occupation. Hitler did not have any exist strategy or policy for his
military mission in other countries as he presumably prepared his army to
govern occupied territories. History could witness that in the process of
German occupation of If Muslims could be labeled as the supporters of Hitler,
then it is much easier job to make them supporters of Usama
and Saddam. Most credible surveys conducted in the Muslim world showed that
President Bush’s military mission in “The major influences on George W Bush’s
Pentagon and National Security Council were men such as Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, experts on the
Arab and Islamic world who helped the American hawks to think about such
preposterous phenomena as the Arab mind and the centuries-old Islamic decline
which only American power could reverse. Today bookstores in the Th US-led military mission in Since the time of the declaration of war against Taliban,
just after Usama and Saddam are two sides
of “Arab phenomenon” of modern Muslim exigency. There is very
little common between them except that they speak Arabic and none of them had
any “Islamic education and upbringing.” Of course, their journey
to anti-American bloc had started with a close cooperation and collaboration
with CIA and powerful circles in In the past, MI5 or CIA could brush people like Usama and Saddam aside physically, politically or
otherwise according to any design set forth for their elimination. But
recently situation has changed. Despite the lose of many hundreds Iranian
Islamists during the 1979 Islamic revolution, a good number of Iranian
prominent religious leaders could successfully survived against American
policies of reversing the political development in that country. Usama and Saddam had never get
along with Shia
leaders of any kind. Like many Sunni
leaders, Usama did not buy any of the shiite
interpretation of Islamic doctrines. Usama’s
rejection to shiism
based on his religious beliefs and convictions. For Saddam neither Sunnism nor Shiism did
matter much, if no Iraqi used those “ideological Islam”[27]
against his regime. It came with a big surprise to Usama
and Saddam that Both Usama and Saddam used very
simple logic in their strategy and thought that they would never buy American
support for Muslims as Usama was an insignificant enemy
for the Americans. He did not have much credibility as a religious leader. As
a Mujahid-commander Usama
got some prominence in the inner circles of Pakistani military intelligence
and Afghan religious circles. Wahhabi leaders did
not like him for two reasons. Firstly, for the traditional Wahhabi religious circles he had no right to approach the
Quran and Sunnah directly
and was not entitled to give interpretations of those primary sources or
could not derive any fatwah
(religious edicts). Secondly, being Arab he did not give any special
attention to Arab problems, but rather saw Muslim problem in a more universal
way. For example, Usama was deeply concern about
the fate of dismantled Ottoman political seat for Muslim ummah, while present-day Arab
religious leaders take the Ottoman leaders as perverted Muslims. Until
American direct military mission in Neither Usama nor Saddam had any
legitimate rights to speak on behalf of ummah (world Muslim population). But because of American unpopular
military actions in Very often a Westerner asks how a peace loving Muslim can support Usama or Saddam? Not many Muslims were supporters of them. It is the American foreign policy drove millions of Muslims to the side of Usama or Saddam. For a long time prevailing international order and inter-state Muslim politics did not allow to grow moderate Islamic leadership in the Muslim world. Moreover, major |