The Enemy Obsession of War & the Islamic Option

 The decisive factor

The fate of Islam or the Muslims has never been decided on the prayer mat or by mere supplication.  Nor by recitation or memorization of the holy Book. It has always been decided in the war field. The combat zone against enemies is the only place where Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la examine the believers’ iman and scrutinize their commitment for His cause. So, the most successful prophet of Islam (peace be upon him) had to build his army and needed to make the most successful war strategies. He needed to lead many wars, too. It is also the harsh reality of the history that if the Muslims do not make any war, the enemy’s brutal war still visits them. A Muslim mind must be embedded with the historical truth that the enemies of Islam are either on a constant war or on a preparation for a war against the Muslims. Hence, the prophet of Islam (peace be upon him) didn’t need to launch any war against the kuffars of Arabia, they came again and again on the edge of Medina to annihilate the newly established Islamic State. Likewise, the Indian or the Arab Muslims didn’t need to invade England to invite the British colonial occupation in the Muslim empires. Similarly, the Afghan and Iraqi Muslims didn’t need to bomb any USA territory to invite the US bombers to flatten their cities to rubbles and kill millions of Muslim men, women and children.

Such enemy invasion has always been the expression of the imperialists’ war obsession. A wolf needs to run for a new prey each day; it is its survival option. The imperialists too have their own survival need. So, they always plan for new invasion in a new land. So, the US imperialistic invasion didn’t end in Philippines, Korea, Vietnam or Panama; nor did end with the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Now they plan to bomb North Korea, Iran and Venezuela. To keep such imperialistic dominance alive, they want to keep their global monopoly in warfare. So, they eulogise every bloody war of occupation in every land but condemn every war of resistance as terrorism. In order to keep such monopoly of war, they want to keep the weaker people permanently weaker and de-militarised. So the Muslims need to be all time war-ready too. There exists no other option.

Since Islam has a social, cultural, political and civilizational objectives, easily become the target of all evil forces on earth. They can’t tolerate Islam as a civilizational force. Hence, they want to restrict Islam only within the premises of mosques or people’s private life. In order to give sustenance to their corruptive rule, they annihilate teachings of Islam from all political, judicial, cultural and educational arenas. In such coercive context, the Muslims must know their own options. Surrender to such evil forces can only make them ideologically, politically and culturally extinct; thus become incompetent to add any glory to Islam and the Muslims. In fact, such a surrender puts the Muslims’ own survival at a risk -as has been the case of Muslims of Russia, China, India and many other countries under kuffar occupation. For the same reason, the Muslims met a catastrophic mass extinction in Spain even after more than 700 years’ of Muslim rule. Even under the coercive occupation of the home-grown secularists, monarchists, or nationalists with the Muslim names, the Muslims face more or less the same fate. Islam loses the ground as the dominant political, ideological, spiritual and cultural force. In fact, the Muslims’ current calamities owe to these home-grown enemies with Muslim names. They give sustenance to the same old colonial legacy. Hence, surrender to anti-Islamic forces –of whatever name or denominator, can never be an option for a believer.

 Absence of war-readiness & the failure

The Muslims need to be not only prayer-ready, but also all-time war-ready against the invading enemies. The enemies always search for a moment when the Muslims look lazy or unmindful in defending their borders. Hence, in Islam, unintentional omission in five-time prayer can be compensated in other times; but the crime of unmindful omission in war-readiness is unforgiveable. There is no qada for it; hence can’t be done in other times. All the consequent calamities of the enemy occupation of the Muslim World indeed owe to such lack of war-readiness against the enemy invasion. The early Muslims are known for their moral highness and many great attributes. But the virtue that played the most pivotal role to make them the closest friends of Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la was the all-time war-readiness against His enemies. It worked as the pivotal key to all of their miraculous successes. Such war-readiness brought down His greatest blessing on their side in any war. As a result, the Army of angels descended in the war fields.

Every war of a believer is nothing else but a jihad in the way of Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la. In fact, a Muslim can’t engage in any war other than jihad. Hence, his war-readiness is indeed the readiness for the highest level of ibadah. The people of Israel failed to show such readiness for a holy war; therefore met the Divine wrath. They were asked to conquer Palestine and establish an Islamic state to practise sharia -revealed to Prophet Musa. They had many fold manpower than the number of Muslims at the time of Badr, Uhud, Khandaq and Makkah expedition. They were several hundred thousand in number when they left Egypt and took shelter in the Sinai Peninsula. But still, they showed extreme arrogance and cowardice incompetence. They failed badly in the test. They told: “O Musa! You and your Allah go forth to war; we stay in waiting!” Such disobedience against Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la’s Command earned for them the wrathful punishment. In the holy Qur’an, Allah Sub’hana Ta’la narrated the stories of these failed students of the Divine religion to warn the Muslims against such betrayal. Warning of such punishment comes in the following verse: “If you do not go forth (in war in the way of Allah), He will punish you with a painful punishment and bring in your place a people other than you..”–(Sura Taubah, verse 39). As the part of punishment, the people of Israel were made stateless vagabond on earth. If they had obeyed the Command of Allha Subhana wa Ta’la, they would have received thousands of angels on their side and could defeat any power on earth. Thus, they could emerge as the most powerful Islamic civilizational force in the life time of Prophet Musa (peace be upon him) –as happened in the time of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the early Muslims. But very disobediently they missed such a golden opportunity. Freedom from the clutches of Pharaoh didn’t help them attain any further success.

Even a hypocrite may shows readiness for prayer. Hundreds of hypocrites used to pray behind the prophet (peace be upon him) in Medina. But they failed to show any war-readiness against the enemies of Islam. Three hundreds of them withdrew from an army of only 1,000 while approaching the warfront at Ohud. All-time war-readiness in the way of Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la thus plays as the most visible marker of the true faith. The companions of the prophet (peace be upon him) excelled in such readiness; hence could emerge as the proper Army of Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la. All of their wars were the true jihad in His way. Who wants the defeat of his own army? Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la doesn’t wish it either. Therefore, they were not left alone in any war against the kuffars; the Army of angels came down to their side as the part of the same extra-terrestrial Islamic coalition. The crucial war of Badr is an example. In that decisive war against the kuffars, the Muslims were fewer in number, poorly armed and less trained. But they received a thousand of angels on their side. Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la gives His Own narrative: “When you sought aid from your Lord, so He answered, “I will assist you with a thousand of angels following one another.”–(Sura Anfal, verse 9). According to a prophetic narration, Shaitan always gets frustrated on the day of Arafah for huge blessing from Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la. But His blessing on the day of Badar surpassed even the blessing on the great day of Arafah.

The only option

Because of decisive help from Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la, the early Muslims turned invincible. As a result, less than one million poor Arab Muslims could defeat the two contemporary World Powers like the Roman and the Persian empires. Hence, could emerge quickly as the most powerful civilizational force on earth. Whereas today, the defeat of the Muslims is huge and humiliating. More than 1,600 million Muslims can’t protect even Islam’s holy lands; the first kibla of the Muslims stays occupied by few million Jews. What a disgrace that entrance to Al-Aqsa mosque -the historic house of Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la, stays under the Israeli control! And, the heart lands of Islam like Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen stands also occupied by the kuffar armies. In many parts of the world –like Kashmir, Rakhine, Mindanao, Xinxiang, Chechnya, the Muslim cities and villages are now used as the killing fields by the enemies. The Muslims are now visible only as the silent spectators of the crimes: not as protestors even in the Muslim majority countries.

What a shame that the largest protest against the USA’s Iraq invasion didn’t take place in Jakarta, Karachi, Dhaka, Cairo or Istanbul, but in London, Paris or Rome.  Such awful state of today’s Muslim owes to lack of the most fundamental virtue of the early Muslims. Their incompetence as well reluctance to be the Army of Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’ala is shocking. Such incompetence indeed works as the mother of all other failures. They have failed to show any readiness or willingness to fight any war in the way Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la. They show their readiness to fight, support or die for wars only for their tribal, national or evil ideologies. In the early days of Islam, such failure used to be recognised as a marker of hypocrisy.

Victory over an enemy comes only through blessing from Almighty Allah Sub’hana wa Tala. The holy Qur’an is very explicit on such issue. So it is revealed: “Victory is only from Allah” –(Sura Anfal, verse 10). Therefore, the Muslims can’t expect to win any war relying on the numerical strength, strong economy or arsenal. Such an expectation is a sin of unpardonable shirk. In absence of such blessing, more than 1.6 billion people are destined to lose a war. Moreover, blessing comes in a war if qualified for that. So, the entire focus of the Muslims must be to qualify for His blessing. It needs total commitment for His cause. The Army of angels never arrive in any war if the Muslims do not show their own presence there. Likewise, supplication for Divine help only works if made standing face to face against the enemy. Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la wants to see such war-readiness of the Muslims against the invading enemies. Hence the command comes: “(O Muslims!) Keep yourself ready against them (the enemy of Islam and the Muslims) in all possible means that you can manage as to military power and war-horse garrisons; through which you strike fear in the heart of the enemy of Allah and your enemy and others beside them whom you do not know but whom Allah knows.”–(Sura Anfal, verse 60).

In Islam, absence or running away from a war against an invading enemy is not an option. He must show his war-readiness. For war-readiness, a Muslim needs spiritual, intellectual and conceptual build-up. It needs deep taqwa. It needs constant urge to save his life from an infinite hellfire. It needs Islamisation thoughts through Qur’anic learnings. Those who are infatuated with secular dogmas, thoughts or ideologies and oblivious of hellfire can’t get such moral fitness. Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la started such Islamisation of beliefs and thoughts from day one of prophet’s prophet hood, obligatory rituals like 5 time prayers, month-long fasting, zakat, and haj came much letter. But such Islamisation was totally reversed by the colonial occupiers; rather they started a state-run process of full de-Islamisation. The educational institutions, the political organisations and the administrative machineries are used as powerful instruments for such an objective through centuries. Indeed, the Muslims have reached the current awful state as a result of such deep de-Islamisation. More awfully, the Muslims still show little sense to come out of the devastating route!