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 September 11, 2001, mainstream Americans have realized that they don’t really understand Muslims and Arabs. The US government has started to tell its citizens that not enough number of Americans speaks Arabic language and that is why there is a problem of communication between Americans and Arabs. But problem is not of literary language, but the perception of life and death, religion and culture, ways and means of livelihood.

 

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 America to destroy American way of life and freedom. The terrorists being the fringe group of Muslim societies could hardly think that destroying some American buildings or killing some innocent Americans they would be able to pose any serious threat to American way of life and liberty. It is indeed a very difficult task to ascertain exactly what was the motive and intention of the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. But the US administration took it as a declaration of war on American and sought revenge of all kinds in the Muslim world. The idea is that instead of fighting terrorists in the boundaries of the US, it is better to destroy Muslim terrorists in their homelands. It sounds very attractive, prudent, and wise strategy. But such a strategy has serious loophole provoking 1.3 billion people to join in radical ranks to fight enemies in religion, culture, and so forth.

 

There is no hesitation in the mind of the US government to name Muslims as it enemies when Muslim don’t want to agree with US policies. But Arabs and Muslims wonder why they have to agree with the US policies. Muslim masses did not have any say in formulating domestic or foreign policies of their own governments for a long time and they had serious grievances against Western policymakers incapable of appreciating Muslim predicaments around the world. Now all of a sudden Muslims were told that thy had to obey American instructions fully to combat “enemies of humanity and civilization.”

 

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 US government could not define its “Islamic terrorist enemies” for Muslims in any convincing way and had ignored completely Muslim public opinion around the world.

 

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 Iraq.  Saddam was fighting for a “Western way of life” to defeat Islamists, shias, and many diverse religious and political forces in and around Iraq.

 

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 US administration has served itself as an ally of all conflicting parties in the Arab and Muslim world at different times. Both Usama and Saddam were great allies of the US administration in the wars against the Soviets and Iranian Ayatullahs respectively. To topple Saddam from the power, Washington took active help from Iraqi Ayatullahs, but failed to save the life of Head Iraq Shia leader, Ayatullah Hakim.[1] Apparently the US had no choice but to join all these conflicting parties in the Muslim world and do not have any capability to save any Muslim leaders and politicians fighting against “Evil forces” there. How come the wealthiest and mightiest country in the world is always find itself in “extremely helpless situation” in dealing with the weakest countries of the world, the Muslim states and every time is under “compulsive syndrome” to change sides?

 

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 Sharon has started in 1982 when he attacked deep inside of Lebanon and justified that pre-empted military attack for security reason of Israel. Ultimately that strategy have paid very well to Ariel Sharon and made him Prime Minister of Israel in 2001. But did this military strategy of Ariel Sharon made Israel more secure and safer? Why Ariel Sharon had to attack Syria on October 5, 2001? American support for such military attack is now very simple: Israel has its right to defend itself and reserves right to attack militarily any Arab or Muslim country to ensure Israel’s safely and security. If this is the acceptable paradigm for national security for every state, then there is no place for international law and institutions, and the organization like UN should be abolished.

 

At different stages of history, especially during 1960s and 1970s small African countries like Libya and Uganda characterized the UN as a tool in the hands of Western powers to exploit smaller countries of the world. Anti-UN ideas were defeated by the strong support for the “Universal principles of Human Rights” for all.

 

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 Third World countries, including Muslim states, are the biggest losers of that worldwide phenomenon. As winners of that worldwide colonial process, Western powers did not play any overt ideological game up to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. With the emergence of the Soviet Union and its role in World World II, rivalry between two superpowers had received more apparent ideological features. The features of Cold War made the reformative Christian legacy an active agent of ideological war against the Communist world. By that time Christianity had lost its domineering feature in public life of Western societies.

 

Since Christianity lost its appeal as a state ideology to most Westerners, colonial powers could not play “Christian card” aggressively in politics of Third World and Muslim countries. Muslims had to use “Islamic card” vigorously to defeat Western colonizers in their lands. Using the features of industrial revolution and colonial system, Westerns got upper hands over Muslims and Arabs at all levels of international and regional politics and economic diplomacy. But that conflict did not have much ideological bearing for the Westerners and during the course of Cold War era Muslim world was divided over the issues of communism and socialist pattern of governance.

 

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 Spain had lost all its Muslim population and today Muslim population constitutes about 1% per cent of total Spanish population there. On the other hand, a Christian can compare Muslim occupation of Constantinople with the Spanish Inquisition.

 

History does not claim that Muslim rulers in Istanbul had converted Christian population into Islam forcefully. Conquering Jerusalem from Christian Crusaders, Saladin did not adopt any forceful conversion policy there in fourth quarter of the twelfth century. Many authors claim that as the Quran prohibits forceful conversion of people of other faiths into Islam that is why Muslim rulers did not try to follow the religious conversion policy of their Christian counterparts. Only religious scripture alone could not make that difference if there was no real difference in sociopolitical and economic systems. Very often, we forget that to initiate and sustain some significant religious reforms, positive economic and legal environment is a must. But it is also true that right kind of religious reforms can accelerate ongoing political, economic, and legal reforms. To claim that Christian religious reforms made the Western world too powerful as we find it today would a very silly and untrue statement.

 

“The Easter shores of the Mediterranean, where once had been the chief scenes of Christian thought and activity, were ruled by Moslems. Of the five historic patriarchal sees of the Catholic Church, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Rome, all but the last were now under the Crescent. Even in Western Europe, where those who professed the Christian faith remained politically in the ascendant, the threat was sobering. The institutions which had been erected as bulwarks of the faith – monasteries, the clergy, and especially the Papacy – were honeycombed  with corruption.” [4]

 

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 Algeria to Indonesia or from Egypt to Pakistan very often we can observe the pattern of “military democracy” upheld by the Western powers. The so-called military controlled Muslim democracy has become so popular that recently some military leaders have started to use the slogan for Islamization of government and public life.

 

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 Iran was unacceptable and unexplainable to the mainstream Westerners. As a solution to find out an acceptable explanation of the passion of Islamic revolution it was told that shias are mainly revolutionary and sunnis are traditional religious force and do not like radicalism. Attraction for and repulsion to Islamic revolution cannot be explained by shia-sunni dichotomies; the degrees of popularity and unpopularity largely based on the severity of corruption of the seating governmental machinery. For example, after two decades of Islamic revolution in Iran, corruption in governmental and religious institutions is the main cause of protest of student uprising in Tehran.

 

During the nineteenth century, students of many religious educational institutions had protested against the Ottoman rulers in the present-day Turkey and beyond. Even the Wahhabism itself is an outcome of such anti-governmental protest. Initially those anti-governmental demonstrations against the Ottomans did not have any serious Islamic or religious articulation. The same is true for Iranian protest against the Shah’s rule of Iran. But gradually those anti-Shah demonstrations had received Islamic articulation and objectives. The ruling Iranian clergy and Saudi or Pakistani ruling elite thought that they would not come under similar scrutiny as their predecessors. Now many Muslim countries with meager economic resources cannot afford to continue to have corrupted economic and political system. 

 

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 Iran have many things to do with rising material aspiration of the Iranian youth. When Iranian government has been discussing to privatize all public universities of the country, the Iranian youth got angry and has demanded more resources for the universities. Similar educational reform policies put forward by the Japanese government did not provoke serious disputes there as Japanese students are already familiar with private university system. Of course, the domineering voice of the Iranian clergy over educational policy of the country is one of the reasons of student protest against the government. Not only in regard to the educational policies, in all other areas of Muslim affairs, no single reason can determine the nature of ideological battle between Islamic and secular forces of a Muslim society.

 

“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 Istanbul, where the sultan, as a suzerian of Egypt, was much concerned about the seditious effect of these ideas on his subjects. A proclamation was therefore prepared and distributed both in Turkish and in Arabic throughout the Ottoman lands, refuting the doctrines of revolutionary France.” [6] 

 

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 Egypt. Brief military occupation of Egypt (1798-1802) by Napolean Bonaparte had served him very well and he could emerge as an Emperor of French in 1805. Napolean Bonaparte’s military attack against Egypt and his emergence as an Emperor of French were indeed serious refutations of the messages of the French Revolution. Now Western authors have been blaming Muslims for the refutation of the ideas of French Revolution as Muslims had been fighting against the foreign military occupation.

 

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 Egypt has failed to give any serious lessons to the Muslim rulers.

 

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 Egypt, Muslims had started to resort violence between themselves more vigorously than every before. During the early decades of nineteenth century the Ottoman army fought against the Wahhabis in the Arabian Peninsula. Without the help of the Egyptian army, Ottomans could not crush the Wahhabis insurgencies in and around the holiest mosque of Islam, the Kaaba. But soon after that the suppression of Wahhabi uprisings, the Ottomans plunged into conflicts with the Egyptians army led by Muhammad Ali. The Egyptian army fought relentlessly against the Ottomans a decade-long war during second quarter of the nineteenth century. That phenomenon still exists in the Muslim world. Battles between Muslim governments have created better opportunity for Western powers to win any war against the Muslim armies. Fighting Muslim governmental armies was always easy for Westerners, but to stand against the Muslim popular resistance for a long period of time was and is very difficult task for any particular Western government. This process of violent resistance against Western military occupation of Muslim land has ultimately led the Muslim world to religious radicalism and frequent militant insurgencies against any establishment.   

 

 

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 America “because we're a Christian nation.” NBC News broadcast videotapes of General Boykin, an evangelical Christian, giving a number of speeches while wearing his military uniform at religious functions around the country…. “Well, you know what I knew — that my God was bigger than his,” General Boykin told his audience. “I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.” [8]

 

 

 

General Boykin is not only a three star general, he is a deputy under secretary of defense of the US. His statement about Islam demonstrates his anger and hatred against Muslims and Islamic religious beliefs. His views are extreme and provoke the extremists of other side. A neutral reading of his number of speeches delivered in official military dress proves clearly that he holds very extreme views about Muslims and a proven evangelical zealot willing to wage a religious war against Islam and Muslims. General Boykin did declare in public on number of occasions that he believed that Muslims worship “idol or Satan” and Christian God is the only real God.  But later on in a written statement he denies to be a Christian zealot or extremist by saying: “I do believe that radical extremists have tried to use Islam as a cause for attacks on America. As I have stated before, they are not true followers of Islam.” [9]  Even the language of apology shows that he is neither sincere nor generous in his so-called apology statement.

 

 

“Not long ago Washington was talking about Malaysia as an important partner in the war on terror. Now Mr. Mahathir thinks that to cover his domestic flank, he must insert hateful words into a speech mainly about Muslim reform. That tells you, more accurately than any poll, just how strong the rising tide of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism among Muslims in Southeast Asia has become. Thanks to its war in Iraq and its unconditional support for Ariel Sharon, Washington has squandered post-9/11 sympathy and brought relations with the Muslim world to a new low. And bear in mind that Mr. Mahathir's remarks were written before the world learned about the views of Lt. Gen. William Boykin "My God Is Bigger Than Yours". By making it clear that he sees nothing wrong with giving an important post in the war on terror to someone who believes, and says openly, that Allah is a false idol — General Boykin denies that's what he meant, but his denial was implausible even by current standards — Donald Rumsfeld has gone a long way toward confirming the Muslim world's worst fears.” [10]

 

 

Since the September 11, 2003, many Western leaders have been engaging in dividing the lines between the moderate and extremist Muslims theoretically and use those lines to crack down “Islamic terrorists.” Western leaders were supposed to be mindful about their own religious fundamentalism first and to figure out the role they have been playing in the rise of religious fundamentalism around the world. Instead of doing that many American politicians and numerous so-called specialists of Islam and terrorism only try to find more “Islamic terrorist-sleepers” everywhere. Many authors like Daniel Pipes asks a vital question: “Do Moderate Islamists Exist?” and find a strong categorical no to that question by blaming Muslims of all kinds for terrorist acts against their enemies.[11]  Daniel Pipes, dreaming to find catch “Sleeper-Muslim terrorists” in every corner of the U.S., claims that Islamists with all kinds of terrorist record are hiding at all levels of American society and provides an incomplete list of characteristics of “Sleeper-Muslim Terrorists.”[12] If Daniel Pipes cannot complete a list of Islamic characteristics to be regarded as Muslim terrorist, then who would be able to do that?

 

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 Russia. Many religious leaders in the Muslim world also think that “Westerner conspirators” have been acting against Muslims both within Muslim countries and abroad to destroy Islam. In reality Muslim leaders of all kinds are the main contributors to the good and bad image of Islamic social, economic, political and legal doctrines.

 

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 US, yet legally a remarkable achievement has recorded in the recent history. Under the constitutional equality, all minority groups have been allowed to voice their grievances against official and institutional discrimination and racism.

 

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, Washington has undertaken an aggressive policy to sell American democracy to Muslims and Arabs, and leader like Rumsfeld has given full power and opportunity to do the marketing for democracy in militarily occupied Iraq. As a public relations ploy Washington was careful not to level Islam as a terrorist ideology and all Muslims as fundamentalists. Military occupation in Iraq was not officially characterized as religious battle against Iraqis or Arabs, but unofficially it has been viewed as a result of conflicts between Islamic and Christian doctrines of God and religion. Leaders like Pat Robertson and the Rev. Jerry Falwell always say that Muslims want to destroy America because it is a Christian nation. Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin has just joined them officially in uniform with his speeches to Christian audiences.

 

During the entire colonial ear European Church leaders had viewed the Prophet of Islam as a false religious leader and described the Quran a book full of stolen storied from Bible and other religious scriptures. After the military departure of European colonialists from the Muslim world, Christian church has stopped such overly anti-Islamic propaganda and accepted the Prophet of Islam as the true founder of Islam and the Quran as a recognized holy book of Muslims at least in a subtle way. The process of that apparent reconciliation between former European colonialists and colonized Muslim population had undergone many ups and downs. The Cold War had put a dusty and think cloud over that fragile reconciliation process and with the ferocity of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians “crusade” mentality has surfaced again in the Middle East. During post-Cold war era, most Europeans leaders became very reluctant to be exposed as direct or indirect parties to Arab-Israeli conflicts. 

 

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 Washington to dictate it policies to the Muslims around the world. Observing the helpless condition of Arab governments in the face of the emergence of Israel as the strongest army in the Middle East, an American mind would like to see Arabs to follow American foreign policy without raising any serious question to it. In a horrible situation like that even the Israeli pilots have raised the question of legality and morality to their military mission to destroy houses and killing of innocent civilians as collective punishment. [15]

 

 

 

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 Iraq in 2003, some German and Canadian leaders compare President G. W. Bush with Hitler.

 

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 Afghanistan, Iraq, and many other Muslim countries. How different is that ideological stand from the religious stand of Usama against the U.S. and Israel?

 

 

 

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 Iran getting democratized?” [19]

 

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 US has crossed a ration of earning one thousand times in relation to the lowest wages. Muslim countries cannot afford to follow the American system of distribution of national wealth and public good because the system of trickled down economy would not give any substantial economic benefit to the impoverished Muslim masses around the world.  But that does not mean that Muslim nations should and can follow a socialist command economic system, which has already been proven unworthy to be practiced to bring emancipation to masses.

 

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 Pakistan, Indonesia, Afghanistan, and Iraq are the test cases for Islamic and Western democracy. Monarchial regimes in the Arab world have to decide quickly how they would minimize their role in government or to embrace a revolutionary situation leading to the collapse of absolutist governmental power. Mixing or combining Islamic principles with Western democratic values is indeed a very challenging task to be accomplished.

 

“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 Afghanistan no law will be made which will oppose Islamic principles.”” [20]

 

 

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 Middle East, the Arabs and Islam in the US has improved, but alas, it really hasn’t. For all kinds of reasons, the situation in Europe seems to be considerably better. What American leaders and their intellectual lackeys seem incapable of understanding is that history cannot be swept clean like a blackboard, so that “we” might inscribe our own future there and impose our own forms of life for these lesser people to follow. It is quite common to hear high officials in Washington and elsewhere speak of changing the map of the Middle East, as if ancient societies and myriad peoples can be shaken up like so many peanuts in a jar. But this has often happened with the “orient”, that semi-mythical construct which since Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in the late 18th century has been made and remade countless times. In the process the uncountable sediments of history, a dizzying variety of peoples, languages, experiences, and cultures, are swept aside or ignored, relegated to the sandheap along with the treasures ground into meaningless fragments that were taken out of Baghdad.” [22]

 

 

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 Damascus to Baghdad. But they had to protect the city militarily all the way up to their total collapse in 1258 c.e. Up to the early decades of thirteenth century, the Abbasids thought that Baghdad would remain unconquerable to non-Muslim armies. Relatively a smaller and weaker Mongol army did conquer Baghdad without much resistance. Muslim army practically did not fight and wanted to avoid atrocities and destruction of their capital city. But Mongols tried to destroy as much as they could and burned all the libraries. But the destructive power of the Mongol army was not that great and Muslims did not participate in any destructive activities of Baghdad.

 

Post-Saddam history witnessed a quite different story. But the Bathist military general also tried to avoid fighting with the US army. Arabs in general believed that the Saddam’s military Generals were bribed not to fight against the invading foreign army. No one can say for sure that it was the case. But British invading force in Muslim India had adopted a wide bribe system to buy the Muslim Generals not to fight British army there. In fact, institutionalized bribe system did remain all along as an integral part of colonial administration all over Muslim world. As British government was actively involved in designing the occupation of Iraq in 2003, so bribing of Bathist Generals could be expected well before the military operation. But this time British was so skeptical of a long lasting success that the Tony Blair’s government decided to limit its military operation in and around Basra. This is the third time British army had occupied Basra and declared the British army this time also would not stay there for long.  

 

 

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: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy 

 

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 France and hand over of Paris from German army to Allied forces did not led any massive destruction there.  Paris practically remained in tact throughout the World War II. Such an objective reading of history can “make” a person a supporter of Hitler as one can see how contemporary English historian Roger Scruton tries to say that Muslims were guilty of supporting Hitler’s army. [23]

 

 

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 Afghanistan and Iraq did not have any popular Muslim support.[24] Washington did not care for any Muslim popular opinion as it thought that an overwhelming military victory would change Muslim mind in favor of Washington. Moreover, Muslim public opinion was not regarded as an important agenda for the war itself in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

 

“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 US are filled with shabby screeds bearing screaming headlines about Islam and terror, the Arab threat and the Muslim menace, all of them written by political polemicists pretending to knowledge imparted by experts who have supposedly penetrated to the heart of these strange oriental peoples. CNN and Fox, plus myriad evangelical and rightwing radio hosts, innumerable tabloids and even middle-brow journals, have recycled the same unverifiable fictions and vast generalisations so as to stir up “America” against the foreign devil. Without a well-organised sense that the people over there were not like “us” and didn’t appreciate “our” values - the very core of traditional orientalist dogma - there would have been no war.” [25]

 

 

 Th US-led military mission in Iraq in 2003 was not a sudden army crackdown of Saddam’s regime. Saddam was given ample opportunity to surrender to the “lone and benign Superpower Will on Earth”. Maintaining no fly zone over Iraq and imposing a decade long comprehensive embargo over Iraqis, Washington made it clear that Saddam’s army was condemned to crush at any time. But it took a longer time to declare Saddam an enemy as bad as Usama bin Laden because he had a state and people at his disposal. Moreover, Washington had to manage many of his Arab allies in the helms of Arab capitals.

 

Since the time of the declaration of war against Taliban, just after September 11, 2003, President G.W. Bush made it clear that whoever did not support his military mission in Afghanistan and Iraq can be regarded as his opponent in war fronts. An American can have some constitutional protection of his or her “ineffective rights to protest”[26] against President Bush’s war in Afghanistan and Iraq. But a Muslim cannot even “think effectively” to have any liberty to stand up against Bush’s military plan or foreign policy because that would make him or her practically enemy combatant.

 

 

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 Washington. Among Muslims, possibly these two persons were aware of deeper dynamics of Arab-American friendship than anybody else. Once being very trustworthy to Washingtom, they ultimately become the staunchest enemies of American administration. But they could not form any alliance against American foreign policies in the Middle East.

 

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 Moscow and Washington ultimately could not defeat the Afghans and Iranians respectively. Their firsthand knowledge about the success of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iran made them to think about the continuous humiliation of Arabs in the hands of their enemy armies during last two centuries. Ultimately they got more concerned about the main problem at hand i.e., how to resist American domination and influence in the Arab and Muslim world.

 

Both Usama and Saddam used very simple logic in their strategy and thought that they would never buy American support for Muslims as Washington was all along sincere to its commitment to Israel. They knew very well that time was running out for them to hit any strong American targets and they were looking for softer and unprotected targets. It was easy to fight Saddam and his conventional army that they could be located easily in the American military radar. Once Saddam lost his power, he also was lost from the military radar and had become a “hidden and unknown” target for the Americans.

 

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 Iraq in 2003, Usama-type Muslim organizations did not put much attention to the question of Palestine or Kashmir and thought that fighting against their own autocratic governments and their foreign allies they would liberate the entire Muslim world.

 

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 Afghanistan and Iraq, Muslims turned into the sympathizers to Usama and Saddam.

 

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