The mental invasion and the current civilizational crisis of the Muslims

Dr. Firoz Mahboob Kamal

The civilizational issues

How the people live, how they educate their men and women, how they run states and societies, how they frame laws and run judiciary, how they run social and economic policies, how they build homes, villages, and cities, and how they promote their vision, mission and identities are indeed called civilization. Civilization is an inclusive package that gives a collective identity to a people. It is a marker of the progress and maturity of human beings. All civilizations are not the same and equal. Because the composite ingredients that build civilization are not the same and equal. There exist huge qualitative differences among civilizations. Those who worship one Almighty Allah and receive a roadmap from Him build civilization altogether different from those who worship cows, snakes, idols, or are secularised.

The quality of core philosophies, moral qualities of people, quality of education, quality of culture, quality of homes and environment, quality of laws and values, and the status of human rights are the key factors to decide the quality of civilization. A civilization can be impregnated with the practice of nationalism, racism, supremacism, ethnic cleansing, slavery, slave-trading, fascism, imperialism, war of occupation, world wars, and dropping nuclear bombs –as is the case of western civilization. The civilization that was built by the idol-worshipping Hindus in India has its own distinctive features, too. Not only it legitimized the division of people into different castes but also sanctioned the burning of living widows to death with the dead husbands. The Hindu widows were saved by an edict by the British colonial rulers. But the caste system that made about two hundred Indians untouchables and blocked social mobility still survives. Whereas the Islamic civilization also showed its own distinctiveness. These are the trans-ethnic fraternity and brotherhood, the emancipation of slaves, unrestricted social mobility, the rights of the women, survival rights as well as religious rights for all, the rule of Divine laws, and the holy war for enjoining the rights and eradicating the wrongs.

The birth of civilization and the Islamic perspectives

How a civilization comes to its existence is a debatable issue. The British Professor Arnold Toynbee postulates in his famous book “A Study of History” that civilization is the outcome of challenges and responses. Challenges work as a stimulus to make civilization. But the question arises that challenge is not specific to a certain group of people; it is universal. Almost every people faced challenges, but everyone didn’t build civilization. Most people lived with some tribal practices and then disappeared without leaving any trace of civilization. It is also confusing when Arnold Toynbee argues that mankind’s goal is “written largely in the constitution of human nature”. If it is true then every man must be a civilization builder. But that didn’t happen either. Except for a few, most people didn’t build any civilization. Many humans in Nicobar Island still live like animals in the jungle. Arnold Toynbee also confuses when he makes a dichotomy of humans into “pre-human ancestors” and civilization-making human beings like ourselves. He put great men of human history like Prophet Adam (peace be upon him) –the first man and Prophet Noah (peace be upon him) in the category of “pre-human ancestors”. As if they were not proper humans! Can a believer in one God –whether a Muslim, a Christian, or a Jew accept such a demeaning view?    

Although all humans live on the same planet, their intellectual, ideological, cultural, and political worlds are not the same. They differ in the vision, mission, and objective of survival. They differ in the philosophy of life. Hence they build different societies, cultures, states, and civilizations. The qualitative differences of civilizations don’t owe to skin colors, lands, languages, race, or tribes, but to the embedded beliefs, philosophies, and visions of life. The most common marker of the secularists is their profound inability to see any role of Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la in this world. So, they keep Almighty Creator outside the domain of humans’ worldly affairs like culture, education, laws, politics, wars, and social policies. Thus they deny Almighty Allah any role in the creation of civilization. And they define it as secularism.

Whereas Islam presents an altogether different world view. It is the core belief that everything depends on the wish of Allah Sub’hana wa Tala. He is the most decisive and the only invincible Power who can give victory even to the most powerless and destroy the most powerful in seconds. Guiding humans is the His sole responsibility (inna alainal huda). Every human has been given insight vis-à-vis the right and the wrong (fal’hama’ha fujura’ha wa taqwa’ha). Whoever He guides get the right path. And whoever disobeys His guidance goes down the road towards deviation and hellfire. And it is the methodology of Allah Sub’hana wa Tala that He guides people through His prophets, revelations, and holy Books.

Allah Sub’hana wa Tala plays a pivotal role in building a civilization that provides a conducive environment for a Muslim to practice full submission to Him. This is why the All-Wise Almighty Allah prescribes not only religious rituals, but also gives guidance to build society, state, culture, education, values, laws, and judiciary, and thereby a full-fledged civilization. In building such a civilization, the Holy Qur’an works as the book of guidance. It is the only uncorrupted Divine Book on the earth. The Holy Qur’an proved its potential to make the most revolutionary changes in people’s beliefs, behavior, character, culture, politics, and lifestyles. Because of Islam, Muslims could build the best civilization on the earth the whole human history. As a result, Islam could pull billions of people out of the path of hellfire. The moral, cultural and behavioral quality of Muslims proved much superior to that of any other people. Because of moral revolution, being a ruler of a state –larger than the whole continent of Europe, Caliph Omar (RA) -while making a journey from Medina to Jerusalem could walk with the rope of the camel in his hand while the servant was sitting on its back. The Caliph Omar used to carry food at midnight to poor families. And Caliph Omar (RA) was not alone with such high mortality, thousands excelled with the same moral standard. In the whole history, no other civilization could bring such a moral revolution.   

Such distinctiveness of the Islamic civilization owes to Muslims’ philosophy of life. Every moment of life is viewed as a Divine test that decides the fate in the indefinite life in the hereafter. There are two ways to add to the treasure in the hereafter: by worshiping Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la (haqqullah) and by serving mankind (haqqul ibad). Both are crucial. There are prescriptive ways to worship Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la. One can do it through learning Qur’an, five-time prayer, month-long fasting, zakat, and hajj. There also exists guidance to serve mankind. Giving money, building houses, delivering medical care are good ways to serve people. But the best way to serve mankind is to establish an Islamic state, Islamic societies, Qur’anic education, and enjoining the right and eradicating the wrong. Only this way one can save people from eternal life in hellfire. This is indeed a route towards making an Islamic civilization. Hence, every true Muslim is a civilization builder. In one way or other he or she invests his intellectual, physical, and financial capability to establish an Islamic state and civilization. Moreover, Muslims are the only people who are assigned to work as the Almighty’s viceroy amidst the whole mankind –as revealed in the Holy Qur’an. Hence, the civilization they build does not bear any racial, tribal to nationalist inclination, rather reflects the execution of vice-regency of the Almighty Creator.   

Muslims’ current civilizational failure woes to the fact that they no more work as the viceroys of Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la. Nor do they grow their children, build state, and run education, culture, and judiciary as per the Qur’anic guidance. They have abandoned to grow up with the Islamic or Muslim identities. They work not to please Allah Sub’hana wa Tala but to promote tribal, racial, linguistic, and national agendas. They build states, raise societies and make institutions to serve those parochial objectives. Their philosophy, ideology, dreams do not represent Islam. Their minds are invaded with western thoughts that are vitriolic to Islamic beliefs. This indeed owes to the toxic effect of long kuffar colonial rule in the Muslim World.

The colonial occupation and the catastrophic damage

The kuffar colonialists occupied not only the Muslim lands but also their minds. The enemies occupied Muslim lands with weapons. They invaded the Muslims’ minds by means of a corrupt colonial education system. The education system they implemented in occupied lands is far different from the education system in their own country. The prime objective of colonial education was to produce mental slaves for giving sustenance to their colonial rule. Hence the graduates of Kolkata, Punjab, Bombay, or other Indian universities were morally, intellectually, politically, and culturally altogether different from those of Oxford, Cambridge, and other western universities. The universities in western countries produced patriotic scientists, researchers, philosophers, historians, critics, and writers to serve their national interests. But the colleges and universities of the occupied lands produced mercenaries to serve the imperialist masters. As a result, to rule a vast country like India, the British didn’t need to import their own people in large numbers. The native Indian mercenaries trained in colonial colleges and universities amply did the job. Even today, the situation hasn’t changed. The education system that the colonialists introduced in the colonies still work with the same objectives. Hence the imperialists find no difficulty to recruit mercenaries from the former colonies to run their global economic and cultural empire. So, the brain drain from these colonies is a common phenomenon.

The prime objectives of the Muslims are not to build mere mosques, madrasas, or states. It is their obligation to raise powerful civilization to showcase Islam to the whole of mankind –as the early Muslims did in their golden days. Only this way they can take the message of Islam to the doorsteps of the people of different land, language, and race. Otherwise, Islam becomes captive in the pages of the Holy Qur’an. No healthy civilization can be built in caves and tents. It needs to build good cities, states, societies, educational institutions, administration, and the Army. It also needs philosophers, thinkers, writers, preachers, researchers, reformers, warriors, and many others. This is why a Muslim can’t confine himself in rituals, rather needs to be a hard-core civilization builder.

Muslims’ failure

Building civilization as per the Qur’anic roadmap is itself the most important work. It is called jihad in Islam. It is indeed the greatest ibada in Islam. Muslims rise or fall depending on people’s participation in this great ibada. If there is no jihad, there will be no Islamic state, no Islamic societies, no Islamic education, no Islamic judiciary, and no Islamic civilization. It is indeed the worst catastrophic failure that can only invite the worst disaster like the kuffar occupation. It comes as a Divine punishment for betraying the duty of His vice-regency. As a result of enemy occupation, the Muslims can’t practice full Islam. Islam gets restricted only to rituals like five-time prayers, month-long fasting, charity, and hajj. The Islamic obligations like the Qur’anic education and the practice of sharia, hudud, shura, and jihad remain captivated in the pages of the Holy Qur’an.

A fish needs water. Likewise, a Muslim needs an Islamic state. Hence, the absence of an Islamic state is highly detrimental to Islam and Muslims. To avoid such a catastrophe, Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) left the most important legacy for the Muslims. It is a state-building cum civilization-building Sunnah of the Prophet (peace be upon him). In fact, the Prophet (peace be upon him) played the pioneering role as a state builder from day one of his migration to Medina. Not only he built a state but also gave its laws, judiciary, and administration ethics. He also framed education policy, foreign policy, and political cum social policy. He built mosques, raised Army, made alliances, and led more than a dozen war campaigns. Without such an Islamic state, one can’t practice full Islam. It is the worst intellectual failure of the Muslims that they failed to understand the importance of such a prophetic legacy. It is the common problem of the Muslims that they feel high complacency in building mosques and madrasas, but ignores Islamic state and civilization building. They also failed badly to defend Muslim states against the kuffar invasion. Whereas, like building an Islamic state, defending an Islamic or Muslim state is also very crucial. This is why, as per prophetic narrative, spending few minutes defending the border of an Islamic state is more valuable than spending a whole night in supplementary prayers.     

If Muslims fail to develop a state and its education, culture, media, institutions around the Islamic beliefs, they fail to become true Muslims. Then they also fail to raise an Islamic civilization. More awfully, they may not escape extinction as a civilization force. This is indeed the most alarming issue of Muslims today. This owes to the deep invasion of the Muslim minds by the enemies’ manipulative and corruptive thoughts, narratives, and perspectives. True Islamic faith does not get any space to grow in their already occupied minds. Thus it proves that the geopolitical occupation by the enemies doesn’t come alone. It leads to a catastrophic mental occupation.

The real threat against Muslims and Islam

Enemies’ occupation of Muslims’ minds works like the real security threat against Islam, Muslims, and the Islamic civilization. The occupation of mind leads to cultural change, value-change, and political change. And more awfully it leads to conceptual damage vis-à-vis foes and friends, the right and the wrong, and the worldly life and the life after death. As a result, they lose the moral compass. The figure of highness in their mind also gets changed. As a result, the great Muslim heroes do not get recognized as heroes. Instead, they take the worst enemies as the figure of highness. Even perverted thoughts and ideologies of the enemies get followers among the Muslims. Hence in most Muslim countries, the number of secularists, nationalists, racists, monarchists, socialists is more than the Islamists. Such people grow up as enemies to their own faith, own state, and own civilization. In the past, most of the damage to the Muslim World is done by these internal enemies.  

The intellectual occupation is more damaging and lasting. Hence, the satanic forces do not work only for geopolitical occupation but for mental occupation. They use lies and temptation to allure people towards evils. In the past, most of the decisive wars didn’t take place in war fields but in the intellectual premise. Now, most of the Muslim children are being conceptually killed in this intellectual battle. Hence those who fight the war against the enemy’s intellectual invasions are great soldiers of Islam. It is also a holy jihad. The Holy Qur’an is the most powerful tool in this war.

The colonialists have rolled back their physical occupation, but they haven’t ended the mental occupation. So the occupation continues. The Army, the bureaucracy, the judiciary, and the media that were built by the enemies during their colonial rule still work as fortified bastions for Islam’s enemies. These mentally occupied people sabotage any civilization-building works of the Islamists. The case of Pakistan is an example of their great success. Pakistan –the largest Muslim country in the contemporary world was created by the Muslims of South Asia overcoming the sectarian, geographical, and linguistic barriers. But the whole project has been foiled by the embedded enemies that were produced by the colonial education system. They always work as Trojan horses for the enemies. In 2001, they worked as collaborators in the USA’s war in Afghanistan. Even now, their eyes are on Afghanistan. They are eager to dismantle the Islamisation project of Taleban in collaboration with the anti-Islamic coalition of the west. The same is true for Egypt, Sudan, Algeria, Syria, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and other former colonies. Now the true Muslims are left with no option but to fight the internal occupation of the home-grown enemies. It is indeed the survival issue of Islam and Muslims. 23/07/2021