Why Don’t Muslims Condemn Terrorism?: Western Violence and Scapegoating in an Age of Islamophobia

By Todd Green, 

Yaqeeninstitute.org

Dated: March 19, 2019

When President Obama addressed the National Prayer Breakfast in February 2015, he did so in the midst of a new global crisis: the rise and spread of ISIS. News stories of ISIS beheading Western journalists and burning alive a Jordanian pilot, along with widespread calls to condemn this violence, loomed heavily over the event as Obama devoted considerable time in his prayer breakfast remarks to exposing and condemning the horrors of ISIS.

But Obama was also sensitive to the possibility that ISIS’s crimes could fuel an anti-Muslim backlash in the United States. For this reason, Obama decided to take a two-sentence detour to remind his audience that violence in the name of religion was not something limited to Islam.

Obama’s remarks drew swift condemnation from religious leaders, politicians, and journalists. Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention labeled Obama’s comments “an unfortunate attempt at a wrongheaded moral comparison.” Jim Gilmore, the former governor of Virginia, called Obama’s comments “the most offensive I’ve ever heard a president make in my lifetime.” Rick Santorum, a GOP presidential hopeful at the time, insisted that Obama’s remarks were “insulting to every person of faith,” while his fellow GOP contender, Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, mockingly retorted that the “medieval Christian threat is under control, Mr. President.” 

On NBC’s Meet the Press the following Sunday, foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell rebuked Obama in no uncertain terms. “The week after a pilot is burned alive,” she said, “you don’t lean over backwards to be philosophical about the sins of the fathers.”

What did Obama do that was so bad? He talked about the wrong kind of violence. He talked about white Christian violence. He talked about the sins of the fathers. He didn’t talk about this for long. He devoted a whopping twenty-four seconds to this topic in a twenty-four minute speech. But it was clear that it was twenty-four seconds too many.

Islam’s most vocal critics, from Bill Maher to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, believe the West is too afraid to criticize Islam and to talk candidly about Islam’s relationship with violence. That’s not true. It’s violence perpetrated by whites and white Christians that we cannot have a frank discussion about. But linking Islam and violence? That’s pretty much the only show in town.

The Bush administration went to war linking Islam with violence, labeling the threat posed in the war on terror variously as “Islamic radicalism” and “Islamo-fascism” and infamously referring to the war as a “crusade.” Registration programs, detentions, deportations, extraordinary renditions, surveillance, profiling, Countering Violent Extremism initiatives, the Muslim ban, anti-sharia laws, and other government practices since 9/11 all assume violence is endemic to Islam and that Muslims must be treated as a suspect and securitized population that is predisposed to terrorism. 

Beyond state-sponsored policies, linking Islam with violence and terrorism seems to be the favorite pastime of journalists and politicians alike across the ideological spectrum. We see this at work most prominently when Muslims are asked (or otherwise commanded) to condemn terrorism.  

For example, Roger Cohen of the New York Times insists we will never be able to tackle the threat of terrorism “until moderate Muslims really speak out—really say, ‘This is not our religion.’”Sean Hannity of Fox News asks: “Will prominent Muslim leaders denounce and take on groups like ISIS, Hamas, and condemn and also fight against unthinkable acts of terrorism?” Cohen and Hannity represent left-leaning and right-leaning media outlets respectively, but they fundamentally agree that Muslims aren’t doing enough to repudiate terrorism. They have plenty of company among politicians. David Cameron, Scott Morrison, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, among others, have all called on Muslims publicly to say or do more to reject terrorism.

Why don’t Muslims condemn terrorism? When are moderate Muslims going to speak out against terrorism? These questions are ubiquitous. They’re also racist. But they’re not going away anytime soon. And that’s because they serve a larger, more insidious purpose. That purpose is distraction.

The eminent African American author, Toni Morrison, once said that “the function, the very serious function of racism, is distraction.” She was talking about anti-black racism in America, but her insights can be applied to anti-Muslim racism as well, because fundamentally, that’s what Islamophobia is—racism.

Asking Muslims to condemn terrorism is a distraction that prevents us from facing our violent histories and from coming to terms with our ongoing complicity in a violent world order. And for the purpose of this essay, when I use language such as “we,” “our,” and “us,” I primarily mean whites and white Christians. “We” are the ones who, by and large, have failed to recognize the utter hypocrisy involved in asking Muslims to condemn terrorism while doing so little to come to terms with our own violent legacy.

It’s telling that in the United States, white Americans have little difficulty publicly commemorating horrific violence, particularly if we see ourselves as victims of this violence. But if we see ourselves as the perpetrators of unjust violence, of violence targeting civilians, the innocent, or marginalized populations, we often go out of our way to sanitize the historical record or to erase this violence altogether from our collective memories.

We go to great lengths to remember 9/11. We have built monuments and memorials from coast to coast to remember this violence. The massive 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City was erected to commemorate that horrific day of violence. Mantras of “Never Forget” have penetrated every corner of the country and have been plastered on billboards, bumper stickers, and buildings so that we, in fact, “never forget” that the United States was attacked by Muslim extremists on that horrific day.

But white violence? Or white Christian violence? Particularly if it’s violence that has targeted civilians or marginalized peoples? We don’t typically construct memorials or conjure up mottos for this kind of violence. This is violence we work hard at forgetting. And we use Muslims to help us do this, with plenty of help from the mainstream media and its obsession with framing Islam as violent.

Studies indicate that the media overwhelmingly depict Islam in the context of violence and terrorism. In one 2017 study, researchers discovered that while Muslim extremists committed 12.4 percent of terrorist attacks in the United States between 2006 and 2015, those attacks were four and a half times more likely to receive media coverage than attacks by non-Muslims. Another study from 2015 revealed that the New York Times depicts Islam more negatively than alcohol, cancer, and cocaine, with many stories about Islam focusing on terrorism or extremism.

Along with the persistently negative media coverage comes explicit efforts by journalists to create an organic link between the horrors of ISIS and Islam. The most notable instance of this is Graeme Wood’s highly cited article in The Atlantic from 2015 titled “What ISIS Really Wants.” Wood argued that “the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic.” The implication was that the horrors of ISIS derive not primarily from political and social conditions, despite the general consensus of the scholarship on terrorism, but from something hardwired into the ideological DNA of Islam itself.

By extension, this means that the worst violence perpetrated by ISIS—slavery, torture, genocide—is something that all Muslims must explain because all Muslims are presumed guilty of harboring violent inclinations due to their connection to Islam. All Muslims therefore are kept on the defensive, distracted by questions and accusations about their supposed complicity with terrorism.

But it’s not only Muslims who are distracted. We are distracted as well. As long as Muslims are on the defensive, we need not consider that the horrors of ISIS—slavery, torture, genocide—characterize our history too. These three examples, among others, each constitute a chapter in the history of Western violence. It’s just that we don’t want to remember this history, nor do we want to consider the possibility that unjust violence continues to play a role in how Western nations engage with civilian and marginalized populations within and beyond our borders.

We are the ones who don’t want to remember that chattel slavery, with its utter brutality and subjugation of Africans based on assumptions of racial inferiority, forged modern America’s racial divide, a divide that continues to manifest itself in the killing of unarmed black men by law enforcement and in the system of mass incarceration. Slavery also paved the way for America to become a global economic power. Modern American capitalism was built on the backs of slaves, including Muslim slaves. The racism and violence that permeated slavery translated into other forms of racial terrorism and white supremacist violence after slavery, from lynchings to Jim Crow.

We are the ones who don’t want to remember the prominent role played by torture in our history. I’m not just talking the Crusades, the Inquisition, or the witch trials of the pre-modern era. I’m talking about modern history. I’m talking about the Nazis and their use of attack dogs, whippings, electrocutions, and water torture, not to mention their “scientific” experimentation on living human subjects.

I’m talking about torture in the French empire from Vietnam to Madagascar to Algeria. Paul Aussaresses, the French military officer who oversaw much of the torture used against the Algerian National Liberation Front during the Algerian War (1954–1962), said years later: “Only rarely were the prisoners we questioned during the night still alive the next morning.”

I’m talking about torture in the British empire from Malaysia to Kenya. In the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya (1952–1960), the British employed the widespread use of torture in detention camps as a means of suppressing colonial rebellions, relying on beatings, castration, rape, and forced labor to subdue dissidents. 

I’m talking about the US-sponsored Phoenix Program during the Vietnam War that targeted and tortured civilians to expose supposed Vietcong sympathies. The program possibly killed as many as forty thousand people, most of them innocent of the accusations leveled against them.

I’m talking about US-sponsored torture regimes and dictatorships in Latin America, with many of Latin America’s top military dictators and officers trained in the art of torture at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia.

I’m talking about torture in Abu Ghraib and at CIA black sites, the details of which have emerged more clearly in recent years. The types of torture victims were subjected to in these sites include sleep and sensory deprivation, ice water “baths,” forced rectal feeding, rape, mock executions, and waterboarding. Donald Rumsfeld once dismissively referred to some of this torture as the actions of a “few bad apples,” while years later, President Obama proclaimed that torture ran contrary to American values. Both Rumsfeld and Obama were wrong. Torture has been a widespread and systemic practice used by the United States in the name of the war on terror. In this sense, it’s very much reflective of our values. Much of this torture would not have been possible without the complicity of US allies, including the assistance provided by European countries in the extraordinary renditions of terrorist suspects.

And we are the ones who don’t want to remember that genocide occupies a central place in Western history. This includes the Holocaust in mid-twentieth-century Europe in which millions of Jews, among others, were deported, starved, tortured, gassed, and exterminated. But this also includes genocide in North America, particularly efforts to annihilate the continent’s indigenous populations. When Christopher Columbus first “discovered” America, the indigenous population numbered in the millions, with perhaps as many as 16 million living on the continent. By 1900, around 237,000 native peoples remained according to the census. Some of this decline was the result of deliberate efforts to cleanse the land of indigenous peoples, as seen in battles such as the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and in the systematic decimation of the Yuki of northern California in the late nineteenth century.

In all of this, we don’t want to remember that white Christians were central actors. White Christians justified chattel slavery by invoking biblical texts and themes, from the “Curse of Ham” story in the Old Testament (Genesis 9:25) to the New Testament command for slaves “to obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling” (Ephesians 6:5). White Christians developed and enforced the slave codes and the systemic violence that kept slaves “in line.” White Christians led the lynch mobs that beat, maimed, and killed over 4,000 African Americans between 1877 and 1950. White Christians fought to maintain Jim Crow segregation and to use violence if necessary to resist the nonviolent direct action of civil rights activists. It was white moderate Christians that Martin Luther King took to task in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” for standing by and mouthing “pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities” as African Americans suffered grave injustices and violence in their struggle for racial equality.

White Christians tortured Jews and Muslims, political opponents and prisoners, from the Middle Ages onward. White Christian support for torture persists to this day. In 2014, a Washington Post poll indicated that 66 percent of white Catholics, 69 percent of white evangelicals, and 75 percent of white mainline Protestants found CIA “enhanced interrogation techniques” justifiable.

White Christians in colonial America prayed to God that “our Israel” would prevail “over the cursed Amalek.” This is a reference to the Old Testament story from 1 Samuel 15 in which God commands King Saul to wipe out the Amalekites—women, men, and children. Puritan Christians had little difficulty conceiving of themselves as establishing the new Israel with a divine mandate to cleanse the new promised land of its indigenous populations (the new Amalekites).

White Christians invoked Manifest Destiny to justify their campaign “to Christianize and civilize, to command and to be obeyed, to conquer and to reign”over indigenous populations and to “hunt the red devils to their holes and bury them.” White Christians pursued cultural genocide by using Christian missionary schools to “civilize” indigenous population according to white, Christian standards.

White Christians in the form of the Deutsche Christen joined forces with the Nazis in Germany and provided the theological foundations that justified a genocidal state.They did this by drawing on German Christianity’s anti-Jewish heritage, including Martin Luther’s infamous treatise “On the Jews and Their Lies.”

Of course, this is not all that white Christians did. They also fought for abolition, marched on Selma, protested CIA torture, and resisted Nazi cooptation. But one cannot tell the full story of the violent episodes discussed here apart from the role played by white Christians.

What’s tragic is that this is a history we have worked so hard to whitewash or otherwise forget. After all, where is the equivalent of the 9/11 Memorial Museum for the genocide of indigenous populations? Where can I go inside the 9/11 Memorial Museum to visit the exhibit on CIA torture? Where are the bumper stickers and billboards in white Christian America commanding us to “never forget” slavery and lynchings?

Relentlessly asking Muslims to condemn terrorism is a distraction. It forces Muslims to explain themselves, to prove their innocence, to defend their humanity. Yet the rest of us remained unconvinced by their efforts. So we keep asking the same questions. Over and over.

But asking Muslims to condemn terrorism distracts us too. It keeps us from facing our own violent history and from recognizing that Western nations rose to prominence and power due to heinous, brutal violence. It keeps us from asking critical questions about how our current national security initiatives and foreign policies help to justify a violent world order, one that still bears the imprint of white supremacy and Western hegemony. It keeps us from using the word “terrorist” to describe violent people who look like me, share my cultural or religious background, or serve in my government.

When we are this distracted, we remain blind to the utter hypocrisy involved in demanding Muslims reject the kinds of violence that we are seldom, if ever, asked to reject, much less atone for.

In the end, Muslims don’t owe me, or people like me, or the United States government, or the political and media elite of Western nations any explanations, any defenses, when it comes to Islam and violence. None.

It’s we who need to explain ourselves to Muslims and to make amends for what we have said and done to Muslims in the name of national security, in the name of the war on terror, and in the name of empire.

It’s we who need to tell truths about our own history of violence and to face up to “the sins of the fathers”—and the sins of their children for that matter.  

It’s we who need to end the distractions and to focus our efforts on dismantling the military industrial complex, the war machine, and the regimes of torture that we have helped to create and that have fueled the conditions that breed so much violence and terrorism.

It’s we who need to find the courage to see Muslims not as our adversaries but as our allies and our fellow architects in the effort to tear down an old world order built on exploitation and greed, destruction and death, and to rebuild a new world order, one that reflects the best principles of both Islam and Christianity—justice, mercy, compassion, and peace.

About the Author:

Todd Green is an associate professor of religion at Luther College. A nationally recognized expert on Islamophobia, he served as a Franklin Fellow at the US State Department in 2016-17, where he offered his expertise on Islamophobia in Europe. He is the author of The Fear of Islam: An Introduction to Islamophobia in the West and Presumed Guilty: Why We Shouldn’t Ask Muslims to Condemn Terrorism. The following essay is based on the latter.

Reference:

https://yaqeeninstitute.org/toddgreen/why-dont-muslims-condemn-terrorism-western-violence-and-scapegoating-in-an-age-of-islamophobia/

Islamists and Salafists

By Ahmad Villasenor

http://journal.quilliaminternational.com

Dated: March 11, 2019

With religion having been largely relegated to the private sphere due in no small part to the secularising effect of the processes which culminated in the formation of the modern nation-state, this current state of affairs has given rise to concerns surrounding the assertive religious identities of many Muslim communities within the West. Chief among these concerns is the fear that gradual ‘Islamisation’ will result in a complete transmutation of the state and society. Amidst this discourse, the loose employment of terminology, specifically ‘Islamism’ and ‘Salafism’, has cultivated the negative perception in mainstream civil discourse that the two strands of thought correspond to a concerted effort by an overarching monolithic alien ideology to fundamentally reinvent society in the Islamic image. In his foundational work Sufis, Salafis and Islamists: The Contested Ground of British Islamic Activism, Sadek Hamid breaks down the three concepts that comprise the namesake of his book down to their constituent parts, revealing a rich history of conflict and debate within British Islamic activist organisations themselves with regards to their divergent aims and strategies. Utilising Sufis, Salafis and Islamists as the principal point of reference, this paper seeks to trace the contours of the intellectual landscape that Islamism and Salafism both occupy, with the aim of presenting the case that both philosophies have long been at loggerheads for supremacy in the Islamic marketplace of ideas, particularly in Britain where most of this paper’s analysis will be confined to. Furthermore, given that a clear demarcation of the relevant terms is a prerequisite for a holistic understanding of complex and contested concepts such as Islamism and Salafism, especially when it comes to the formulation of public policy, some clarification regarding definitions warrants considerable attention so that wider civil discourse is better equipped to address the issues raised by the influence of Islamism and Salafism British society.

Central to the Islamist worldview is the conviction that public life must revolve around Islamic law or Islamic principles. Consequently, Islamism is a proactive theo-political philosophy which places the re-establishment of an Islamic state as its raison d’être, and the pursuit of such a lofty goal has and continues to resonate with many Muslims both in the West and in the Muslim world. As Shadi Hamid and Rashid Dar point out, the “appeal to the past as a guide to the present is a powerful rhetorical device that forms a central strategy of Islamic groups who want to attract new members and inspire them to action”. However, harkening back and yearning for the halcyon days of the caliphate does not come without risk. Indeed, such an aspiration has aroused both suspicion and opposition from more secularised Muslim as well as non-Muslim societies that are understandably wary that such an assertive expression of religiosity carries the danger of radicalising Muslims of an Islamist persuasion. As a consequence, it has become and continues to be difficult, particularly in wider civil discourse, to disentangle the philosophy from the violent radicalisation that it has historically inspired. As Jonathan Brown succinctly puts it, the term “Islamist” “is thrown about loosely and clumsily because it is an amorphous and contested term that reflects the worldview… of whoever is using it more than any fixed reality”. This is not to say that Islamism is a pacifist philosophy; the historical record certainly suggests otherwise. However, its construction in the popular imagination as a violent societal menace, especially in the West, muddies the waters so as to obscure the reality that Islamists use wildly varying methods when attempting to promulgate their message and to pursue their agenda. To illustrate this point, Islamist political organisations such as the Ennahda Party in Tunisia work within the existing secular political framework to promote Islamic law and values. Conversely, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) seeks to forge an Islamic state through terror and force of arms. In light of this, it is more accurate to view the adherents of Islamism along a broad spectrum, wherein the “extremists may garner the most attention,” but “the vast majority of Islamists are not, in fact, violent”.

The Young Muslims UK (YM) is an Islamist reformist organisation launched in 1984 whose mission statement can be described as a ‘bottom-up’ approach of Islamisation through interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims by way of da’wah. As the man who is often regarded as the spiritual father of YM, Khurram Murad stated that the supremacy of Islam in Western society “shall not be realised unless the struggle is made by the locals. For it is only they who have the power to change the society into an Islamic society”. YM sought to inculcate a British Muslim cultural identity within its members and in so doing “reconcile the demands of faith, family and British society”.

Widely credited for “(re)introducing the concept of Khilafah into popular Muslim discourse,” it can be said that Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) takes a ‘top-down’ approach of Islamisation by prioritising the establishment of a modern Islamic state above all other considerations. Hamid notes that HT’s strategy revolved around creating “a socio-psychological dissonance between the idea of being a British citizen and a Muslim” and “presented itself as being the force that would eventually usher in a modern Caliphate”. As evidenced by the group’s popularity among the Muslim university student demographic, HT successfully presented a convincing plan of a future caliphate, thereby driving home the message that political Islam was the panacea for the ills of British society and the ideal candidate to supplant it.

The underlying premise of Salafism is the idea that Islam in its most authentic form is to be found in the lived example of the first three generations of Muslims (Salaf) who were closest in both time and proximity to the Prophet Muhammad. It is also considered a defense against the creeping influence of Western ideas in the Muslim world as a result of European colonialism. In this regard, the strict interpretation of scripture and the close imitation of the Prophet’s habits can be seen as an effort to reassert a distinct Islamic identity in the face of modernity. One of the principal appeals of the Salafi approach to Islam was that its ultraconservative approach to tradition and scripture effectively unmoored the faith from local cultural influences and “contaminants” that it has come into contact with throughout the course of history, resulting in “a de-ethnicised supranational identity.” As the Salafi convert Abdurraheem Green stated, “Salafi thinking was powerful because it exposed the discrepancies between religion and culture.” The Salafi perspective has the effect of greatly enhancing this specific interpretation’s claim to authenticity, as it operates on its own self-sustaining logic free from what Salafists would consider the inconveniences of innovation and interpretation.

Unlike Islamists, many Salafists eschew the political process, believing that close adherence to doctrine and ritual will suffice in maintaining Muslim identity in secularised Muslim and non-Muslim societies. Moreover, many Salafists do not organise themselves into hierarchical structures; instead belonging to nebulous networks “with clusters of scholars, students and followers”. Regardless, Jamiyyah Ihya’ Minhaj as Sunnah (JIMAS), founded in 1984 and under the leadership of Abu Mutasir, was instrumental in spreading Salafism to Britain in the early 1990s. By regularly challenging established religious practices and imposing their own interpretation of ritual worship, such as wearing shoes while praying inside the Mosque believing it was a Sunnah, “Salafis thought they were teaching non-Salafi Muslims the correct understanding of Sunnah and removing bid’a”.

Not only do Islamist and Salafist organisations compete with one another in the marketplace of ideas, but even factions within the same ideological camp disagree with each other and fracture and split as a consequence of internal disputes. To illustrate this point, Hamid notes that an ideological rift began to develop between the leadership of Young Muslims UK (YM) as some favoured the work of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) whereas others preferred the work of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Moreover, for Hizb ut-Tahrir, all other concerns are subordinate to the objective of re-establishing a modern Islamic state. Because of this, the group distanced itself from the Muslim Brotherhood, who it criticised for being far too concerned with morality and charity instead of striving to fundamentally change the socio-political order. In addition to this, YM and HT both shared the same target audience: young Muslims disillusioned with the status quo in their communities. However, thanks to the latter’s highly politicised agenda, Hamid argues that HT “seemed to hold an advantage over YM for its apparent intellectual sophistication and radical political analysis”.

By the same token, although the Salafist camp likes to project the image that it is only they who practise the pure distilled form of Islam, it is ironic then that Salafism as a school of thought is itself a house divided. According to Hamid, the “divergences stem from the different perspectives on how to respond to modernity and the socio-political challenges facing Muslims”. These differences are manifested in Quintan Wiktorowicz’s categorisation of the three main strands of Salafist thinking: ‘purists’, ‘politicos’ and ‘jihadis’. Given the level of disagreement between Islamists and Salafists that persists to this day, not to mention the disunity even among Islamists and Salafists themselves, the common perception that the two concepts represent a cohesive and coherent front to Islamise the state and society begins to lose much of its potency.

While there is plenty of evidence to show that Islamists and Salafists go to great lengths to distinguish themselves from one another, Hamid’s analysis of such organisations shows that, at least on the individual level, the two concepts share enough conceptual similarities that individuals can comfortably transition from being an Islamist to a Salafist and vice versa. The most notable example of this transition can be found in the case of Omar Bakri, who served as the leader of HT until 1996, when he was expelled from the organisation for his confrontational tactics and controversial stunts aimed at generating publicity for the group. Thereafter, he lead Al-Muhajiroun (AM) and made a concerted effort to distinguish himself and his new organisation from his previous associations by adopting a Salafi creed. Second, he argued that the re-establishment of the caliphate could take place in Britain. Third AM lent its support to the takfiri jihadism of Al-Qaeda. Finally, AM styled itself as an arbiter on the matter of ritual worship and interpretation of the sacred texts, which brought it into conflict with other Muslim groups as well as the British government. While the case of Bakri is not an explicit sign of cooperation, these individual transitions from one ideological camp to the other demonstrates the interchangeability and a semblance of similarity between the two ends of the conceptual totem pole.

Hamid’s analysis of the development of Islamist and Salafist activism in Britain paints an intellectual landscape that is in a state of constant flux. Moreover, his analysis provides ample reason to move beyond the simplistic notion pervasive within the wider discourse that the two concepts are monolithic forces. As such, a holistic understanding of Islamism and Salafism which takes into account the associated nuances demands the jettisoning of the negative connotations to terrorism and radicalism that have been deeply ingrained in the British psyche since the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks. This brief summary of the concepts of Islamism and Salafism as well as the constellation of organisations that orbit them puts forward a convincing case that they are competing against one another for supremacy in the marketplace of ideas. Nevertheless, Hamid’s analysis also makes clear that Islamism and Salafism are not hermetically sealed concepts, and in fact share enough similarities with one another to facilitate the transition of individuals from one end of the conceptual totem pole to the other, as the case of Omar Bakri shows.

Reference:

http://journal.quilliaminternational.com/2019/03/11/on-islamists-and-salafists/

Does the Islamic State still pose a threat?

The Hindu, March 11, 2019

While its era of territorial rule may be over for now, there is near universal agreement that the IS remains a threat. Islamic State (IS) looks about to lose its last foothold — on the banks of the Euphrates near the Iraq border. While its era of territorial rule may be over for now, there is near universal agreement that the IS remains a threat.

What has its territorial defeat accomplished?

Islamic State’s possession of land in Iraq and Syria set it apart from other like-minded groups such as Al Qaeda and became central to its mission when it declared a caliphate in 2014, claiming sovereignty over all Muslim lands and peoples.

The destruction of the quasi-state it built there has denied the group its most potent propaganda and recruiting tool as well as a logistical base from which it could train fighters and plan coordinated attacks overseas.

It also freed its former subjects from summary executions and draconian punishment for breaking its strict laws or, for some minorities, sexual slavery and slaughter.

Warfare wiped out thousands of its fighters. And, financially, its defeat deprives it of greater resources than any modern jihadist movement has enjoyed, including taxes on its inhabitants and the proceeds of oil sales.

What threat does the Islamic State still pose in Iraq and Syria?

In its previous guise as an Al Qaeda offshoot in Iraq a decade ago, IS navigated adversity by going underground, biding its time to rise suddenly again. Since suffering devastating territorial losses in 2017, IS has steadily turned again to such tactics. Sleeper cells in Iraq have staged a scatter-gun campaign of kidnappings and killings to undermine the Baghdad government.

The group has also carried out many bombings in northeast Syria, which is controlled by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces, including one that killed four Americans in January. Kurdish and U.S. officials say it remains a menace there.

In Syria, IS fighters are on the brink of losing their last foothold of Baghouz at the Iraqi border. But they still have a presence in sparsely populated territory west of the Euphrates River in an area otherwise held by the Syrian government.

What has happened to its leaders, fighters and followers?

The fate of the IS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, remains a mystery. The U.S. government’s top experts strongly believe he is alive and possibly hiding in Iraq, U.S. sources recently said. Other top-echelon leaders have been killed in air strikes. Thousands of Islamic State insurgents and civilian followers have also been killed and thousands more captured. An unknown number remain at large in both Syria and Iraq.

Iraq is putting on trial, imprisoning and often executing IS detainees. The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) holds many hundreds of Islamic State fighters and followers, but the numbers have ballooned as the SDF advanced into the area near Baghouz.

A senior U.S. defence official in Washington said in early March that about 20,000 Islamic State fighters and family members had come out of Baghouz. An SDF official said SDF forces were holding about 4,000 suspected Islamic State fighters from Iraq and Syria and more than 1,000 foreign fighters.

Many low-level local operatives have been released in Syria.

The SDF complains that Western states are reluctant to take back the foreign fighters, who are widely seen as a security threat at home but who might be hard to legally prosecute.

Can it still organise or inspire attacks overseas?

As Islamic State clung to its last scrap of land, the head of Britain’s spy agency MI6 warned that the group would return to “asymmetric” attacks. Even after it began losing ground militarily, IS still claimed responsibility for attacks made in different countries, though often these have been blamed on “lone wolves” without its direction.

It started years ago to call on followers abroad to plan their own attacks, rather than focusing purely on ones staged by trained operatives supported by the group’s hierarchy.

In early 2018 the head of U.S. military central command said Islamic State was resilient and remained capable of “inspiring attacks throughout the region and outside of the Middle East”.

What does its fall mean for the future of global jihad?

Although Islamic State’s core territory was in Iraq and Syria, jihadists fighting in other countries, notably Nigeria, Yemen and Afghanistan, pledged their allegiance to it.

Whether those groups will still wear its mantle, especially if Baghdadi is captured or killed, is an open question, but there seems little chance they will soon end their campaigns.

Al Qaeda also retains numerous franchises around the world, and other militant Islamist groups operate in countries where normal governance has broken down.

Jihadist ideology has long proven itself able to mutate as circumstances change, and there is no shortage of warfare, injustice, oppression, poverty, sectarianism and naked religious hatred for Islamist militants to exploit.

Reference:

https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/analysis-does-the-islamic-state-still-pose-a-threat/article26495485.ece

‘You are truly the enemies of Islam’: Indian Army ex officer’s open letter to Jaish-e-Mohammad

By Mohammad Ali Shah, Scroll.in

Dated: February 20, 2019

How dare you bunch of cowards think of calling yourselves believers of Islam?

My name is Major Mohommed Ali Shah (veteran). My family has had a tradition of soldiering for 200 years. My father retired as the deputy chief of Army Staff and was vice chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University thereafter. Because of his and his brilliant team’s back-breaking efforts, Aligarh Muslim University was ranked as India’s best university by the Times Higher Education Ranking, London, the most reliable ranking of universities in the world.

However, because of your ill actions, even such a fine university has to bear the brunt of having the word “Muslim” in its name. My father’s honest autobiography, The Sarkari Mussalman, which speaks very highly of the fine, secular organisation that is the Indian Army, was misunderstood because it had the word “Mussalman” in the title.

My ancestors were veterans of both the world wars. My family chose not to go to Pakistan during Partition but stay in India, for various reasons. We are the children of this soil. We are a family of proud Indians and have performed the pilgrimage of Haj.

So there cannot be a person more qualified to tell you cowards that nowhere in Islam does it say go kill anyone. You people are truly the enemies of Islam, giving it a bad name to the extent that the community is getting typecast. Today, every Hindi movie has a criminal or a gangster bearing a Muslim name.

I saw my father fight insurgency in Punjab in the early 1990s, in Manipur, Nagaland, and Jammu and Kashmir. I have risked my life on several occasions while serving in the Army in Jammu and Kashmir and the North East, in both Muslim and non-Muslim areas of insurgency. However, only one community is being branded as a terrorist community because of ignorant fools like you.

Peace-loving religion

My religion (I am not saying yours because you are not Muslims; you are terrorists and terror has no religion) is actually a very peace-loving religion and talks of unity in diversity. The term “jihad”, which actually means struggle and not terrorism, has been misunderstood and misinterpreted by non-Muslims to the extent that even the national media has started misrepresenting Islam, for which terror outfits like yours are responsible. Today, all good work the Muslim community is doing is being discredited because of the wrongdoings of a few misled, uneducated, disloyal enemies of humanity like you.

The brainless “fidayeen” you have been breeding are going to rot in hell and not to any heaven as you mislead and brainwash young, unemployed, ignorant youth who have absolutely no idea what the holy Quran says. Islam is a peace-loving, scientific, logical and simple religion. There has to be an end to this madness. You people have spoilt the name of such a beautiful religion that once even I, a right-thinking citizen of my motherland India, had to suffer personally. Fortunately, my parents had given me the best gift a parent can give to their child, the gift of education. I could stand tall and fight, and teach the perpetrators a lesson they would never forget in their life. Taking up arms and killing people is not the answer to anything.

Education is the only key to progress. I am a proud Muslim and a very proud Indian, and I am qualified enough, not only because I was educated at the best school and the best college or an Indian Institute of Management but because I understand the religion much better than you do. I appeal for peace in order to be a true Muslim. You might have recruited people with little intellect who might be PhDs. However, there is a huge difference between being literate and being educated. Members of terrorist outfits like you are uneducated and should make an effort to analyse yourself, and face and understand the reality that you are not only doing great disservice to a peace-loving religion but to humanity itself. Shame on you!

My reason for writing this open letter is that I hope it reaches you somehow and, maybe, makes a difference somewhere. I truly believe the society will not change unless and until we change ourselves. I hope it reaches you and you do serious introspection, and the change begins. Violence in any form is not the answer to anything.

As Martin Luther King once said, “Darkness cannot fight darkness, only light can do that, hate can not fight hate, only love can do that.” Muslim terror outfits must realise they inflict casualties, directly and indirectly, on Muslims themselves. Any sensible person can see it is not some cause you are fighting for, it is a racket you are running. You are manufacturers of hate. The “fidayeen” whose video I saw will certainly not be going to heaven to enjoy the hospitality of hoors as he claimed. He will rot in hell. To quote a line from the film Khuda ke Liye (which made a lot of sense to me as a Muslim) that was delivered by a great actor playing the character of a maulvi, “Deen mein daari hai, daari mein deen nahi.” There is no need to wear one’s religion or patriotism on one’s sleeve. People are intelligent enough to see what is inside a person’s mind.

Root cause

Having spent considerable time combating insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir and the North East, and having risked my life multiple times in the process, I strongly believe the root cause of the militancy in Kashmir is not religion or “jihad”, as is widely believed. The real cause is that unemployed youth are extremely vulnerable and easily susceptible to brainwashing by vested interests from across the border. Educating and empowering them, making them self-sustaining will help weed out this problem once and for all. The use of arms or a show of strength can defeat them only temporarily – you kill one and 10 more will be ready to take his place. Our only hope is to win them over.

The next big question that arises is about prejudices against the Muslim community. Yes, prejudices exist, not only towards Muslims or any other community in particular, but for those who are less educated. Why would anyone employ someone who is not educated enough, or capable or suitable for the job? We have to admit that Muslims in India are not educated enough and that is the cause of all our woes. The only way forward is to educate our children.

If our children don’t get good education, they won’t have good jobs, then they won’t be able to educate their children, and so on. We will never be able to rise above the poverty line and will always be discriminated against. Education does not mean merely sending them to school. Making sure they have the right mindset is also extremely important. As Allama Mohammad Iqbal, who did great service to the Muslim community, said,“Khudi ko kar buland itna ke har taqdeer se pehle, 

Khuda bande se khud pooche bata teri raza kya hai.”

If one is educated, one can stand tall.

Finally, if we forget all our differences, if India is united, if we stand together, we have the ability to be a superpower – and we surely will be. Jai Hind!

About Major Mohommed Ali Shah

Major Mohommed Ali Shah completed his short service commission in the Army in 2008, participating in counterinsurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir and the North East. He is currently a defence analyst. He has also worked on and acted in several films, including Haider, Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Agent Vinod.

Reference:

https://scroll.in/article/913940/you-are-truly-the-enemies-of-islam-indian-army-ex-officers-open-letter-to-jaish-e-mohammad

Time To Recall and Refute the Tahrik-e-Balakot, the First Jihadist Movement in the Indian Subcontinent

New Age Islam 

28 February 2019

New Age Islam has reproduced timely pieces on the Balakot-based jihadist movements which can be traced back to 1831 when the two Indian Sunni-origin Wahhabi clerics, Syed Ahmed Rai Barelvi Maulana Ismail Dehlawi were killed in a battle with the army of the Sikh emperor Ranjit Singh. In his article, Uday Mahurkar rightly points out that “Balakot’s symbolic and sentimental value for terror outfits, such as Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), has been there for almost two centuries now”.

Even the prominent Pakistani historian Ayesha Jalal wrote in her book “Partisans of Allah” that Balakot has been a site of great veneration not only for the Pak nationalists but also for the jihadists. At Balakot, Syed Ahmed Rai Barelvi and his 1300 hundred jihadist followers were slain to pieces. Part of the reason is that it houses the grave of the foremost jihadist ideologue in the Indian subcontinent: Syed Ahmed Rai-Barelwi.

The reason why Syed Ahmad who is greatly venerated as ‘shaheed’ (Islamic martyr) is that he went all the way from Rae Bareli of Uttar Pradesh (India) to Balakot through Balochistan and Afghanistan was to urge the Pashtuns to battle against the Sikh rulers whom they considered kafirs.

But when we closely look at Maulvi Syed Ahmad 'Shaheed' Rai Barelvi’s movement of jihad originally known as the ‘Tahrik-e-Balakot’, as several historians and contemporary scholars have noted, Rai Barelvi was not a freedom fighter. He was actually the chief exponent of the imported Wahhabism in India, an avid adherent of combatant and physical jihadism in place of spiritual jihad which the Sufis called jihad al-nafs or the struggle against the baser instincts and carnal desires. Even Rai Barelvi’s himself, in his earlier days, drew inspiration from the Sufi orders (silsilahs) like Naqshbandiyah, Chishtiyah and Qadriyah. But after he met the Wahhabi patrons in Saudi Arabia during his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1821, he was impressed by the Wahhabi clerics of the Arab peninsula. This dramatic conversion from Sufism to Wahhabism is evidenced in his famed book “Sirat e Mustaqeem” (straight path) in which he devoted an entire chapter to purge Sufism of the ‘cultural confluences’ and replace it with the same doctrines that were laid out in Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab's “Kitab al-Tawheed” (The Book of Monotheism). Similarly, his lieutenant cleric, Ismail Dehlwi wrote the book “Taqwiyat-ul-Iman” (Strengthening of the Faith) in order to castigate the Indianisation of Islam which was happening through the confluence of Sufism with the practices of India’s non-Muslims. Both the above books are taught today in not only the Salafi curriculums of the Ahle Hadis but also in most madrasas affiliated to Darul Uloom Deoband for at least 150 years.

Both Rai-Barelwi and Islami ‘Shaheed’ declared all mystically inclined Indian Muslims ‘polytheists’ (mushrik) with their beliefs and practices as antithetical to the pristine Islam. But deplorably, let alone the Wahhabised Indian madrasas, even the Islamic studies departments of a great many central and state universities in India portray Rai Barelvi and Ismail ‘Shaheed’ as the ‘leading figures of Islam in India’. This is being taught in their text books and the syllabi under the subjects of “Islamic movements” (Islami Tahrikaat) and “Islamic doctrines” (Islami Aqaid). For instance, the department of Islamic studies in Jamia Millia Islamia, a central university recommends the book written by Sheikh Muhammad Ikram, himself inspired by Rai-Barelvi, “Mauj-e-Kausar, Musalmanon Ki Mazhabi Aur Ilmi Tarikh Ka Daur-e-Jadid' (a history text book also included in many Wahhabi-Deobandi madrassas) as classical reference for India’s Islamic history. This book includes the texts written in glorification of the two jihadist ideologues— Syed Ahmed Rai Barelvi Maulana Ismail Dehlawi.

Beside the systematic bid to purge Indian Muslims of the inclusive, pluralistic and composite ethos, Rai-Barelwi the most conspicuous job in his ‘Mujahidin movement’ against the Sikhs of Punjab. Sheikh Muhammad Ikram writes about the tahrik-e-jihad launched by Rai-Barelvi under the sub-title in his book “Jihad”, in a detailed and descriptive manner. He notes: “Having reached his hometown, he [Rai Barelvi] began his full preparation for the jihad against the Sikh community and sent Maulana Ismail Shaheed and Maulana Abdul Hayy across the country to preach the cause of this jihad”… “On 17th January (1826), Maulana left Rai Bareli for his trip to Jihad. At that time, he had 5-7 thousand Indians with him, who were fully prepared for the jihad for the religious freedom of the Muslims in Punjab. They were well-determined to lay down their lives for this cause. Passing through Gawaliyar, Tonk, Ajmer, Marwar, Hyderabad, Sindh, Shikar Pur and Qandhar, the Maulana reached Kabul, from where he ventured into Peshawar via Khaibar”. (Mauj-e-Kausar, by Sheikh Muhammad Ikram, pp. 24-25, published by Adabi Duniya, Matia Mahal, Delhi).

Throughout his entire life, Rai-Barelwi remained active in his call for the religious puritanism in the entire subcontinent of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In fact, he is an apt example of how many Sufi Sunni scholars, who were at some time essentially inclusive because of their adherence to the Sufi orders, drastically changed their worldview and espoused exclusivist religious ideas. More astonishingly, this group of Islamist scholars in India left more active, impacting and prevailing ideology in the subcontinent than even the inclusivist Sufis who had originally introduced Islam to its people. Their adherents are far more energetic and practical than those who make tall claims to uphold the all-embracing cause of Indian Sufi saints.

Apparently, Syed Ahmad’s Mujahidin movement is now an age-old history for Indian Muslims, but many still get influenced by his religious exhortations for jihad as “an act of worship greater than spiritual prayer in merit and rewards”. Therefore, a movement of revival of Rai Barelvi’s Mujahidin movement is on the rails in the subcontinent as proclaimed by a number of extremist jihadist outfits.

For instance, in February 2011, the emir of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-S) party Maulvi Samiul Haq stressed ‘the need for revival of the Mujahidin movement of Syed Ahmed Shaheed Rai Barelvi’ against a religious minority in Pakistan, the Sikh community. Maulvi Samiul Haq argued that “the objectives of the jihad launched by our Islamic leader Syed Ahmed Shaheed against the British rule and the Sikhs in the 19th century have yet to be achieved”.

Today, the biggest irony is that the common perception among the Islamic studies students is that Rai-Barelwi was a freedom fighter. But the irrefutable historical accounts state that Rai Barelvi fought against the Sikhs rather than the British. In fact, Rai Barelvi’s armed disciples did not even declare Jihad against the British. The ‘Mujahidin movement’ was not the struggle against British imperialism. It was rather a religiously and politically motivated militancy against the Indian Sikh rulers.But with a willful ignorance of the ideological implications of the Mujahidin movement in the Islamic studies curriculums, students are not asked to study it in an objective and critical manner and, therefore, they end up glorifying the so-called “Shaheed” scholar of Islam.

Only a few Islamic scholars did a critical analysis of this first jihadist movement in India. A remarkable research work in this direction was produced by a contemporary classical Islamic scholar, Maulana Dr. Khushtar Noorani who authored a highly cited research work titled, “Tahreek-e-Jihad Aur British Government: Ek Tahqeeqi Mutala” (The jihad movement and the British government: A research study). This book came up with an entirely different perspective on the Mujahidin movement of Rai-Barelvi. Much against the sweeping statements and writings of the Wahhabi-Deobandi historians, he arrives at the conclusion that Rai Barelvi’s movement was not aimed at challenging the British imperialism; rather it was an armed militancy against the Sikh community of Punjab. He clearly states in this book that Syed Ahmad or his jihadi faction did not contribute to the freedom movement of India at all.

According to the Pakistani Studies text book which is taught in Class Nine, Rai Barelvi’s Mujahidin movement was started against the Sikh community. He came to Sindh in 1826 and sought to help Syed Sibghatullah Shah who sent a strong contingent of staunch followers called “Hurs”.The book continues: “Syed Ahmed Shaheed left his family under the protection of Pir Pagara and proceeded towards Jihad without any worry about his family. He reached Nowshehra after passing through Afghanistan, the Khyber Pass and Peshawar in December 1826 and made it his headquarter. The first battle against the Sikhs was fought on December 21, 1826 near Akora. The Sikhs were defeated. The second battle was fought at Hazro. It was also won by the Muslims. These victories inspired a number of Pathan tribes to join Jihad Movement. The number of Mujahideen rose to 80,000. Syed Ahmed Shaheed Barelvi was given the status of 'Amir-ul-Momineen'. Islamic laws were enforced in the area which was controlled by Syed Ahmed Shaheed Rai Barelvi”.

The epithet of "Rai-Barelvi" denotes that Ismail Ahmad belonged to the northern Indian town of Rai Bareilly, not to be confused with the current headquarters of the Barelvi school of thought propounded by Maulana Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi, also known as Ala Hazrat(1856-1921).

Reference:

http://newageislam.com/radical-islamism-and-jihad/new-age-islam-special-correspondent/time-to-recall-and-refute-the-tahrik-e-balakot,-the-first-jihadist-movement-in-the-indian-subcontinent/d/117882

The Myth of Muslim Condemnation of Terror

By By Ali Eteraz

www.huffingtonpost.com

Dated: October 10, 2007

The amount of disinformation about Muslims is disconcerting. One popular smear is that Muslims are in an alliance with the left to take over the West; it is an allegation that far right loves to use. The other, equally popular and equally absurd, idea is that Muslims do not condemn terrorism. This too makes its way into culture from the right (though judging by comments to my last post, its diffused to some members of the left). Though it is subtler, and argues from insinuation, it is no less pernicious. The implication is that every Muslim in the world who doesn’t engage in terrorism is nevertheless a latent supporter, or enabler, of terrorism because he doesn’t make loud proclamations against it. First, there is something dirty with the premise of this idea because it makes terrorism a problem of the entire Muslim collective. Perhaps those individuals who make this argument were in a coma during the 20th century when most of us realized that to treat all the people of any one religion, ideology, or race, as a collective is not only bigoted, but downright dangerous. Second, heaping an expectation on Muslims - to call out “their” criminals - is absurd when no similar expectation is placed on any other religious, ethnic, or ideological group. Is it appropriate for a white man to tell “the hispanics” to make proclamations against the drug trade? Why should a hispanic who has never even touched drugs speak out against drug lords? His abstention from engaging in the drug trade is condemnation enough. The same goes for Muslims and terrorism. If you want a Muslim to condemn terrorism, realize that he has done so by not engaging in it. Life becomes quite insufferable for Muslims if before speaking about any subject a Muslim is required to first “demonstrate” that he is not “on the side of the enemy.” This has had a huge chilling effect on artistic and intellectual production by Muslim youth. I know because I was silent from 2001 to 2006, saving all my writings on my hard-drive, not caring to share them with society at large. Third, in our digital age, it is an act of egregious ignorance for a human being to actually verbalize the words: “Do Muslims condemn terror?” Here is a suggestion from a lowly immigrant: try this thing called “googling.” Start with using the search terms “Muslims condemn terror.” This was the first hit for me, how about you? Finally, the reality is that condemnations of terrorism have been pouring in for years. The reasons that so many Americans are still ignorant about them are because they have willfully chosen not to pay attention. Having traveled internationally quite a few times since 2001, I can confidently say that our media has one of the lowest IQs about Islam anywhere in the world. It is - and should be - downright shameful that when I speak to British audiences, I am able to have intelligent discussions about complicated points of Islamic history; meanwhile, now six years since 9/11 and in the US I am still clarifying the simple point that Muslims soundly oppose terrorism. With awareness about Muslims at such a shameful nadir, it should be no surprise that our beloved President was able to convince us that Saddam was behind 9/11 and take us to war against “Islamofascism.” Naturally, media ignorance has diffused to the public. In the US we don’t have an idea who the Muslim leaders around the world are, much less how to access their opinion on terror. Bereft of such information we have latched onto a simple slogan fed to us by the far right, namely, why don’t we see parades and public demonstrations? Did we ever stop and think that asking Muslims to get together in a big public setting, unarmed, with women and children in tow, making loud gesticulations against suicide bombers and cold hearted murderers (who in their cowardice are not against cloaking themselves in veils), might be a rather stupid thing to demand? Did Americans forget how empty our streets were after 9/11 or how desolate Bethesda, Maryland, was during the days of DC sniper? Now try living in a society where suicide bombers are in every city and township and regularly attack group events like the Friday congregational prayers. In the US we have not had a suicide bombing since 9/11. Yet in Pakistan, 65 people - Muslims all of them - died in an attack by extremists yesterday. During the week before, there were two other suicide bombings. Is it reasonable to keep demanding that Muslims keep thronging out into the street at the whim of far away American masters? Then, when despite all these dangers, Muslims do gather to speak out against violence in their countries, it goes ignored by our media. Instead of taking to the streets, Muslims have relied upon their religious elders to make stark declarations against violence. Part of it has to do with the fact that the peaceful and not-extremist Muslims in the world today value religious authority a lot more than extremists and terrorists who value mob rule and mayhem. On September 12, 2001, one of the most learned Islamic scholars in the UK said the terrorists are “not Muslim.” A month later he called terrorism a “heresy” against Islam in a pre-eminent British paper. A Pakistani Islamic scholar whose followers are active in 81 countries called Bin Laden a “false prophet” and “coward” barely a week after 9/11. Another major Islamic scholar issued a pamphlet (in many languages) attacking the Islamic legal arguments that the terrorists used so that future recruits might not be so easily led astray. One of the eldest traditionalist scholar in Sunni Islam issued a fatwa against the extremist group Al Muhajiroun. Muslims in Spain issued a fatwa against Bin Laden. President Bush was informed enough to bring an American-Muslim Imam to the White House who decried terrorists; yet average liberals who so delight in demeaning Bush probably still don’t know that Imam’s name. (Since 2001, that Imam has gone further and condemned antisemitism and holocaust denial as well). In 2005 there was a massive consensus reached at the international level that forbade Muslims from engaging in something called takfir - which attacks the jihadist ability to recruit. Muslim scholars have gone so far as to engage in “Koranic duels” with jihadists. Just the other day Bin Laden’s former mentor condemned him for his violence. Nevermind the fact that before 9/11 it was a Muslim who warned our State department about monitoring certain mosques, or that it was a Muslim who tipped off the British authorities and helped prevent the 20 airliner hijacking in 2006. In the event someone wants more resources, try this and this. Many times people demand that Muslims must “do more” than just merely condemn. Well, when Muslim religious leaders, lodged in Muslim communities, give lectures to Muslims on these subjects and write public opinion pieces, they are doing precisely that. They are educating Muslims. Their work has had positive result. A song that condemns extremism is at the top of the charts in Pakistan, and a Middle Eastern news station for Muslims has produced an anti-extremist film, which has been quite a hit. Now the question is will a Western producer bring the film here? Of course, there are many who, even after being informed of such things, like to weasel their way out so they can continue badgering Muslims. In America, this is done by pointing the finger at the organization called CAIR, Council for Islamic Relations, and asking why CAIR doesn’t openly condemn Hamas and Hezbollah. Yet the fact is that CAIR is a political, lobbying group, with no theological or religious imperative. Anytime it appears to act like a religious organization, it gets severely rebuked by Muslims. It does not speak for all Muslims (though like all lobbying groups it pretends to). It doesn’t speak for the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who are not its members. In fact, its membership is down since 2001. Just as it is patently idiotic to point a finger at an American Jew and accuse him not condemning genocide because the Anti-Defamation League, one of the largest Jewish organizations, does not condemn the Armenian Holocaust, it is idiotic to point to a Muslim and accuse him of silence or complicity based on CAIR’s political agenda. This is not a difficult distinction to make — yet when it comes to Muslims, having selective myopia is acceptable. A recent trend among Americans has been to turn Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, the first Muslim in Congress, into some sort of Muslim Pope. It was my understanding that we separated religion from state. Are Christian Congressmen the leaders of the American Christian community? Again, there seems to be one standard for Muslims and another for other religious groups. Anyway, I reiterate my first point. There is something wrong with the basic premise of the idea that Muslims must condemn terrorism, because at the end of the day there is no such thing as The Muslim Collective. If we as a society are going to make collective demands on a group, then we are implying that collective punishment is appropriate as well. So while learning about all the Muslims who have condemned terrorism is nice; its nicer if we started to move beyond that point. Until we remain aware of our ignorance, we cannot ever get to ripping out the heart of extremism, nor can we realize the things we ourselves have done to help Muslim extremists. We need to be having more sophisticated discussions about Islam and Muslims, involving things like the Quran, the distinction between jihadism and islamism (political Islam), and the future of Islamic theocracy. The entire world is talking about such things, and we, the only ones who regularly take arms against Muslims or purport to bring them democracy, are not.

Reference:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-eteraz/the-myth-of-muslim-condem_b_67904.html

My Six-Point Fatwa Against Jihad

By Tufail Ahmad, Swarajya.com

Dated: December 16, 2015

Islamic scholars must realise that issuing fatwas against terrorism will be inconsequential unless key areas in the Sharia which allow the jihadis to thrive are attacked.

On 2 December, fourteen Americans were killed by self-motivated jihadis Tashfeen Malik and her husband Syed Rizwan Farook, at San Bernardino, California. The Pakistani couple carried out the attack in support of the Islamic State (ISIS). On 9 December, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealed that the duo discussed jihad and martyrdom a year ago. Some media reports said that the two were radicalized as early as 2012, when ISIS did not exist. Even the four youngsters from Mumbai who went to Iraq and joined ISIS had left India a few months before ISIS chief Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself as the Caliph of all Muslims on 30 June last year.

It is true that Deobandi madrassas in Pakistan radicalize Muslim youths towards jihad, but the same Deobandi madrassas in India do not do so. But this is not because Islamic scriptures do not teach jihad. It can be seen that on the Sharia’s theological principles regarding the apostates (those who leave Islam), blasphemy (criticisms of the life of Prophet Muhammad) and Shia Muslims (who are deemed infidels by some Islamic groups), there is no difference between the ISIS and Barelvi scholars across India. The reason Indian Muslims have generally not been attracted to the jihadi message of Al-Qaeda and ISIS is because India’s vibrant democracy, tolerance and co-existence are positively consequential on the life of all Indians, including Muslims.

On 9 December in the northern town of Bareilly, Barelvi clerics led by Mufti Mohammed Saleem Noori and Hazrat Subhan Raza Khan issued a fatwa against ISIS, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, saying these are “not Muslims.” Mufti Noori also said-

From Sunday [December 6] onwards, when the annual Urs began, members of Dargah Aala Hazrat have been distributing forms among followers seeking signatures to show that those signing stand against terrorism. Nearly 15 lakh Muslims have recorded their protest. Around 70,000 clerics from across the world, who were part of the event, passed the fatwa.

Such fatwas must be welcomed, but these fatwas cannot be consequential.

The message of such fatwas does not resonate with Muslim youngsters because such fatwas are against ISIS and Al-Qaeda, not against the Islamic theological principles that are taught to Muslims from madrassas, mosques and jalsas(religious congregations). So, instead of issuing fatwas against Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the ISIS, there is a need for Barelvi and Deobandi scholars to unite on a single platform and support my six-point fatwa against jihadis of all variety. My six-point fatwa declares the following-

1. We consider all Shias as Muslims. This point is especially important because Barelvi scholars in India consider Shias as infidels.
2. We consider all Ahmadis as Muslims.
3. Prophet Muhammad was a historical personality and therefore it is right for non-Muslim and Muslim journalists and academics to evaluate his teachings critically.
4. The Sharia law on apostasy is not relevant for modern times and Muslims who want to leave Islam will not be killed.
5. All non-Muslim citizens of a Muslims country will be allowed to become the head of the state. This is a vital point because many Islamic countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Maldives and others do not permit their own non-Muslim citizens to become the head of state. The Pakistani constitution expressly bars all non-Muslim Pakistanis from becoming the country’s president.
6. A Muslim woman will be allowed as per Islamic Sharia’s theological principles to become the head of a state.

These are the six key areas in the Sharia which allow the jihadis to thrive. A fatwa that does not address these six points means absolutely nothing. We know that Barelvi clerics teach the same theological principles for which jihadis attacked the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris, or in Pakistan, Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was killed by his Barelvi security guard Malik Mumtaz Qadri. Mumtaz Qadri belongs to Dawat-e-Islami, a Barelvi movement that has become popular recently in India.

It might look like that ISIS is new but the fact is otherwise: exactly for similar theological principles, the streets of Lahore witnessed the same kind of jihadi activities in the 1920s to 1930s that are being seen in the streets of Paris today. Ghazi Abdur Rasheed and Ghazi Ilmuddin were the lone wolf jihadis of that era. It is also the time that the Indian government banned the teaching of Allama Iqbal from universities because his writings spread jihadism.

Early this month, I was invited by the Afghan government to speak on how to counter religious extremism at a conference in Kabul. At the conference held on 2 December, I stressed the message that in modern times any Muslim country or society cannot hope to progress if women, half of their population, are left behind.

Modern civilization is characterized by the increasing role of women in public sphere of life. We are more civilized because every day more and more women enter schools and universities, shops, police forces and government departments. In this process of civilization, our efforts must be this: every shop, every madrassa and every college must have at least 50% women on staff. This cannot be achieved in one day, but this must be the goal.

Muslim leaders routinely blame the Indian government for their backwardness, but when it comes to our women, we prevent them from studying, from doing businesses, from running for political offices. It is sad that madrassas are occupied by Muslim men. It is extremely sad that all mosques are personal fiefdoms of Muslim men. It is worrying that all jalsas are addressed only by Muslim men. Unless Muslim women take control of mosques, madrassas and jalsas, Muslim communities in all countries will remain backward. At least 50 percent of all teachers in madrassas must be women. Male Islamic clerics are theological dictators who rule over the women’s life. It is essential to counter the role of men. If Indian Muslims want to progress, it is also necessary that all girls be taught mathematics, economics and sciences from first grade to 12. If you can teach the Quran from LKG, why not teach mathematics from Grade 1? To achieve this objective, all madrassas must hire teachers to teach mathematics, English and sciences.

About the Author:

Tufail Ahmad is Director, South Asia Studies Project at the Middle East Media Research Institute, Washington DC. 

Reference:

https://swarajyamag.com/books/my-six-point-fatwa-against-jihad