The war on Islam and the Muslim collaborators

Dr. Firoz Mahboob Kamal 

The unending war on Islam

The enemies’ war on Islam and Muslims never ends. It parallelly exists since the emergence of Islam about 14 hundred years ago. It only changes its targets, strategies and war fronts. The history gives full testimony to that. The imperialists led by the USA and its allies are already on a warpath against Islam and Muslims. The former US President George W. Bush coined his war on Iraq as a crusade. And crusade has a special historical connotation. It aims only against the Muslims and is always genocidal. The USA has another well-known identity; it is now the flagship of global imperialism. And imperialism needs invasion, occupation, and exploitation of foreign lands to sustain its survival. Hence it needs war.

It is the most manifest symptom of imperialism that the imperialists invent their national interest inside every other country of the world. It was true for British imperialism in the recent past and it is equally true for US imperialism now. This is why the USA from another end of the globe gets incorrigible obsession to cross the whole Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean to bomb Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lybia, and other countries. The western imperialists’ war caused the greatest and the worst catastrophe for the whole of mankind. Their wars inflicted more deaths and destructions than were caused by all the earthquakes, cyclones, tsunamis, and wild animals in the whole span of human history. They killed more than 75 million people only in two World Wars. The World Wars stopped, but the catalog of wars never stopped. The USA spent several trillion dollars to keep its occupation only in the Middle East and spent more than a trillion only in Afghanistan.

The US-led killing and destruction still continue with more lethal weapons of mass destruction. The USA killed about 2 million in Vietnam and about 1 million in Iraq and Afghanistan. A small European country like Belgium killed 10 million people only in Congo during its colonial rule there. France killed 1.5 million people only in one country like Algeria. The European colonialists almost ethnically cleansed the Red Indians from North America, the Aborigines from Australia, and the Maories from New Zealand. The western imperialists cum colonialists thus stand as the worst evil force in the whole human history. The imperialist also runs many proxy wars in various parts of the world. The total deaths and destructions caused by all the brands of the anti-imperialist militants –Islamists or secular all over the world are indeed peanuts in comparison to that caused by the western imperialists.

The imperialists’ current war clearly differ from their old wars. In two World Wars, the imperialists killed each other. But now, all the killing machines of the imperialists are aimed only at Muslims. The Europeans were never united in any of the previous wars. Russia and the USA-led coalition of the west never bombed jointly any Muslim land before. But now they bomb jointly in Syria. All the imperialists are now united on one issue: that is to undo Islamic resurgence in any part of the world. Hence, after the humiliating defeat in Afghanistan in the eighties, the Russian bomber jets, tanks, artilleries and missiles are now back in Syria with more aggressive ferocity. As if, they are taking revenge for the defeat in Afghanistan. The US imperialism didn’t die in Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq either. It carried out an intensive bombing campaign in Syria and Lybia. The old colonialists like the UK and France too flexed their muscles by dropping bombs in Syria and Iraq. Now the imperialists of all kinds and of all brands have found a common enemy and a common agenda. The common enemy is Islam. And the common agenda is to destroy Islam as an ideological, political and military force. The western powers have turned the war truly into a civilizational war –as envisaged by the US Professor Huntington in his book “The Clash of Civilisation”.

The bombing campaign and the celebration

The US-led coalition has already committed enough genocidal crimes in recent years. But that didn’t quench their thirst for more crimes. Over the last 20 years, the US has dropped thousands of tons of bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq and has flattened numerous cities, villages, houses, and institutions to the ground. Even after 20 years, the war didn’t end in Afghanistan. Although the USA has withdrawn most of its forces from Afghanistan, is still bombing the Taleban positions to save its own stooges from an imminent defeat. As long as the Taleban people carry the Islamic agenda and there remain the US-breed stooges in Afghanistan, the USA’s war is not going to end. The USA and its allies have invested a lot in the field of ideological, educational, cultural, and political engineering in Afghanistan. They can’t afford to lose that. Therefore the US’s war will also remain. Only the strategies and the tactics will change.

The USA, Russia, the UK, France and many other countries displayed their true motive in Syria. As if, every Muslim man, every woman, every child, every house, and every physical structure in Syria is a high-value military target for them. Hence, cities, villages, hospitals, schools, even wedding or funeral gatherings were not spared. The Russians fired Cruise missiles from the naval ships stationed in the Caspian Sea. These missiles and bomber jets did not need to be accurate; hitting anyone in any village or any city is considered a great success. And they claimed that their bombers and the long-range missiles were hitting the designated targets in Syria. When the objective is destructive and genocidal, they have enough reason to celebrate such successes. For the same reason, the US-led coalition could celebrate such successes in Afghanistan and Iraq from day one of their invasion. Now they want to protect the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Whoever fights against this killer autocrat of Syria is labelled an Islamist terrorist, hence a valid target for the bombing.

Muslims’ coalition with the war criminal

President Bashar al-Assad is at war against his people. In ongoing 10 years’ war, he has already killed about 300,000 people. More than 5 million people have been driven out of the country. Another 4 million are internally displaced. The Syrian army is using barrel bombs, chemical bombs, tanks, missiles and artilleries against unarmed men, women, and children. These are heinous war crimes. But still, he is considered a high-value strategic partner in the war against the Islamists – not only by Russia but also by the US-led coalition. So, he remains untouched. The genocidal killing and the destruction of cities by Assad’s Army are not considered a punishable crime either; neither considered a threat to peace in Syria. Rather the Islamists who are fighting against his killer regime are labeled as terrorists, even amplified as the west’s greatest civilizational threat.

A wolf doesn’t attack another wolf. The imperialists, too, don’t harm killer Bashar al-Assad. Rather, they want to protect him from the Islamists’ campaign. For the same reason, in Egypt, they quickly supported the Army’s coup against Islamist President Dr Mohammad Morsi. And the coup-leader General Abdel Fatah al-Sissi –more brutal than all previous Egyptian tyrants has been taken as a partner in their war on Islam. In Syria, the sole purpose of the Russian air campaign is to protect this brutal killer –while the regime was on the edge of collapse. The US-led coalition, too, only bombed on the Islamists’ positions. The criminal records of the imperialists are not better than Bashar al-Assad either. They killed people on an industrial scale. For that, they used weapons of mass destruction and took the war on the civilian population centers. The mindset that could drop nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, deploy gas chambers against Jews and engineer ethnic cleansing in America, Australia and New Zealand now work against the Muslims. This is why the imperialists could take killers like General Abdul Fattah Sissi of Egypt, King Abdullah of Jordan, King Salman of Saudi Arabia, and Shaikhs of the Gulf States are taken as coalition partners. Because of such moral ill-health, they make themselves incompatible with the Islamists. Therefore, the Islamists became the potential targets of their bombing campaign? This is why the USA Air Force could find it morally quite permissible to flatten the Muslim cities of Mossul, Ramady, Fallujah, Kobani, Aleppo, Raqqa, Dera Zour, and many others rather than throwing even a stone at Bashar al-Assad. As of 4:59 p.m. on September 8, 2015, the USA and the coalition conducted a total of 6,700 airstrikes (4,198 in Iraq and 2,502 in Syria). (Source: US Department of Defence website). 

 The coalition in crime

The imperialists of both the East and the West have sharp differences on many issues. They quarrel on Ukraine’s internal war, Russia’s occupation of Crimea, China’s occupation of Tibet and South China Sea islands, and so many other issues. But they have no difference of opinion on the war on Islam and occupying the Muslim lands and killing the Muslims. Hence the imperialists of all colors and all denominations easily find a common agenda to support the occupation of Palestine and drive out its original people to establish the illegal state of Israel. They are also united to support Israel’s bombing campaigns at any time on any Muslim lands and expand the occupation. Because of such an anti-Muslim agenda, the US lead imperialists could quickly occupy Afghanistan and Iraq and kill millions of Muslims there. With the same anti-Islamic objective, President Putin of Russia could launch a genocidal war in Chechnya and could flatten the Muslim city of Grozny in the year 2000. In 2003, the UNO declared Grozny the most devastated city on the earth. But Putin received full Western support for his criminal war against the Chechen Muslims. Shortly after the massacre in Grozny, both the USA and the UK warmly welcomed Putin in their capitals. The same Putin joined the war on Islam side by side with the US coalition. He is now carrying out another Grozny-like destruction in Syria.

The war on Islam

The imperialists of all brands have their own inherent incompatibility with Islam –hence finds a ground for a long war. They are compatible only with the fully de-Islamised Muslims. So they hunt for such people in Muslim countries to take them as partners in the war on Islam. Due to long colonial occupation, the Muslim World hasn’t any shortage of such Trojan horses. Hence Egypt’s elected Islamist President Muhammad Morsi –even after his promise that he will not implement sharia, couldn’t fit into their political agenda. The imperialists’ enmity is not against any particular tribe, language or skin colour -only against the Islamic element of a Muslim. If Islam is fully discarded from political belief and shows complete readiness to work against Islam’s revival, only then any Abdullah or any Abdur Rahman gets readily accepted by the imperialists as their trusted comrade. This is why the Egyptian General Abdul Fattah Sisi, the Jordanian King Abdullah, the Saudi King Salman and the alike in the Muslim World are very close to them. Thus, their war on Islam gets its true expression –although they tell a lot of lies to hide the real agenda. 

The concept of khalifa, sharia, hudud, shura, and jihad is not acceptable to the imperialists; although, these are the most fundamental elements of Islam and got implemented by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) himself and by the early Muslims. If it was not bad or barbaric during the Prophet (peace be upon him)’s days, why should it be a problem today to return back to that? Being a Muslim means full adherence to such basics. But the imperialists call such adherence to the Qur’anic prescriptions medieval barbarism. How a believer can be compatible with such corrosive beliefs? A man or woman can swallow such an anti-Islamic concept only after full de-Islamisation of his or her faith. And those who want to sustain the basics of the Islamic faith are labeled as a threat to their own vision of the world.

It is the declared policy of the imperialists –most unambiguously articulated by the former US President Donald Trump that they will not tolerate any attempt of the Islamists to establish an Islamic state and implementation of sharia in any part of the world. This is why wherever they discover such effort of the Islamists, they start indiscriminate bombing. It doesn’t need to possess any weapon of mass destruction or set a state to invite the war of the imperialists, the intent for implementation of sharia or belief in sharia is enough. They even label the unarmed men, women and children with an Islamic vision as their arch enemies. They call them extremists, fundamentalists and Islamic militants. With such a concocted perception, they have already launched an unending war against Islamists in almost every corner of the Muslims World. Therefore what else does it require to prove that the ongoing war of the US-led imperialists is not a war on Islam?

The terrorism of the state-terrorists

The worst terrorising forces in history have always been the state-owned armies, the police and the ruling party’s political thugs. Sometimes the war turns very genocidal. None of the non-state agents or any militant outfit can match their terrorising killing power. In their colonial days, the western imperialists used terrorism as a tool to steal wealth, men and women of the weaker countries to increase their affluence. The last two World Wars are indeed the works of these state-run terrorists. Even today, these killers run the worst bloodbaths in different corners of the world. Those who kill people can also lie. In fact, lying has turned into a political necessity for them. They tell a lie with a political purpose -not only to hide their own crimes but also to justify their further crimes. War is a bread and butter issue for the imperialists. Like a wolf, they, too, look for new prey and new hunting ground. Hence the USA’s war didn’t end in two World Wars, Korean War, Vietnam War, and in wars in Panama, Afghanistan and Iraq. The war continues. But these invaders, occupiers, killers and warmongers are very vocal to blame others as killers. If terrorism is defined as the use of violence to terrorise people for a political, economic and imperial cause, then a war of occupation is the worst form of terrorism. State terrorists are the real threat to global peace. Those who blame Islamists as the terrorist, what do they do to stop these state actors of terrorism? 

The USA and its allies couldn’t deliver any peace or solution in the countries they occupied. They could only promote state terrorism and sectarian bloodshed. The case of Afghanistan and Iraq is the best example. Most of the deaths and destruction in Afghanistan and Iraq are caused by these state terrorists. The USA dropped more bombs on Afghanistan than that are dropped on Vietnam. They did everything in Iraq and Afghanistan to start sectarian feuds and bloodshed there. In Iraq, they armed Shias to kill Sunnis. In Afghanistan, they gave arms to the non-Pashtun Tajiks and Uzbeks of the Northern Alliance to kill the Pashtuns. In Afghanistan and Iraq, they took partners only to kill, and not to make peace. They did the same crime in Syria. They gave heavy arms and training to the Kurds to kill Islamists.

Islamophobia of the Muslims

The enemy’s war not only causes physical deaths but also kills people’s beliefs and confidence. To cause such damage, Muslims have no shortage of external as well as internal enemies. The internal enemies take Muslims away from the basic teachings of Islam. They cause moral death and turn people into more fearful and cowardly. Such morally defeated people grow only in number, but not in faith, power and confidence. Such cowardice was seen in the Muslim World during the Mongol invasion and again during the European colonialists’ occupation. In those days, the Muslims didn’t fight the enemy invasion. Whereas fighting the enemy invasion is the best ibada in Islam –called jihad. They disengaged from warfare and searched satisfaction only in religious rituals, Sufi mysticism and visiting graveyards. Now, the same mood prevails in the Muslim World. Hence the courses on Dajjal, jinn, Sufism, Sufi songs, mysticism and competition in the recitation of the Holy Qur’an are getting increasingly more popular among the Muslims. In such a milieu of cowardice and dissociation from Islam’s basics, the occupying forces recruit more Muslim collaborators for their expansionist cause. In India, the British imperialists could recruit thousands of Muslims as foot soldiers to occupy more Muslim lands and to rule India for 190 years. The Arab World was not an exception either. More than a million Arab Muslims joined the British, French and Italian Armies as mercenaries. When the British Army occupied Iraq and Palestine in 1917, the majority of the soldiers were non-British. A huge number of them were Muslim. This was only possible due to the deep de-Islamisation of the Muslims. Otherwise, how can a Muslim undertake such a haram act? The situation now runs worst. Because of the large number of collaborators in the Muslim lands, the imperialists could use the Muslim lands to bomb Muslims. They used Arab and Turkish soil to drop bombs in Syria. They also used Pakistani soil to kill Muslims in Afghanistan.

With the imperialists’ bombing campaign runs high in any Muslim land, the cowardice of the Muslims also gets new heights. As a result, Muslims now suffer more from Islamophobia than non-Muslims. The enemies do not look at their skin colour or language, but at their faith, behaviour, and political agenda. Keeping faith in Islam’s basic beliefs like sharia, hudud, khalifa, shura and jihad make them immediate targets for the enemy bombs. Hence these turn taboo words in the Muslim World. So, the Muslims are now distancing themselves from the obligatory elements of the Islamic faith and making themselves more compatible with the enemy agenda. Even the leaders of Islamic organisations, the imams of mosques and the Muslim intellectuals are reluctant to use such Islamic jargon like sharia, hudud, khalifa, shura and jihad. They are more fearful of the enemies and not of Allah. They pay little heed to Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la’s order: “la takhshao’hum akhshao’ni (don’t fear them, fear Me).”

The disgrace

How can a Muslim remain Muslim without the practice of Islam’s obligatory basics like sharia, hudud, khalifa, shura, and jihad? Is it not sharia obligatory on every Muslim? Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la declares, “..and those who do not run judiciary according to the revealed law (sharia) they are kafir (denier of Islam), ….they are zaleem (oppressor) and ….they are fasiq (sinner)” –(Sura Maida, verse 44, 45 and 47). Is it not jihad obligatory for every Muslim too? How can they defend Islam and Muslims without engaging in Jihad? Jihad is the defensive arm of Islam. If there is no jihad, there is no defence. Then the occupation by the enemies becomes inevitable.

Jihad is an integral part of Muslims’ iman (faith). In order to give the most comprehensive definition of a believer (mu’min) Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la reveals, “The believers (mu’min) are only those who believe in Allah and His Apostle and then doubt not and engage in jihad with their wealth and their lives in the way of Allah; they are indeed truthful in their claim of faith.”–(Sura Hujrat, verse 15). Jihad is a life-long struggle to implement Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la’s Qur’anic guidance in every private and public affair of life. It is to encounter enemies’ every effort against Islam and Muslims. Therefore, to become a true believer (mu’min), there exists no option in Islam to stay out of jihad. Those who stay out of jihad and claim to be Muslim, according to the Qur’an, are not really truthful in their claim.

Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la gives a clear command: “Say (O Muhammad), I advise you only of one thing, that you rise up for Allah either in pair or alone..” –(Sura Saba, verse 46). Therefore, can a Muslim sit idle or remain complacent only with the religious rituals like five times prayers, month-long fasting and hajj while the Muslim lands stay occupied by the enemies of Islam and sharia remains unimplemented in the judiciary? Should he still look for an excuse to justify his inactivity and silence? Does he think that his tongue, his intellect, his wealth, his body and other blessing are only for promoting his personal, familial or party agenda? Every believer is designated as the khalifa (viceroy) of Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la, and whoever discharge his or her duty as His devoted khalifa (viceroy) will be rewarded with the pleasures of paradise in the hereafter.

How can one dare expect that Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la will fill His paradise with the cowards making a coalition with the kuffars or stay silent in the face of enemy occupation?  Did any companion of the prophet display such inaction or betrayal against the Qur’anic dictate? But such betrayal has become the norm of modern Muslims! Inaction and distancing from the basic obligations of Islam don’t bring any benefit or honour –neither in this world nor in the hereafter. This way one can only embrace the worldly disgrace and the infinite hellfire in the hereafter. Due to inaction and silence, the Muslims have already earned a lot of disgrace in the world. About 1.5 Billion Muslims have no say or role on the World stage. Most of the Muslim countries stay occupied by the internal or the external enemies of Islam. Can they expect a better fate in the hereafter? 03/08/2021