The importance of recognising and identifying the enemies of Islam and Muslims

Abu Dharr

That the Islamic movement has venomous and ruthless enemies appears to be among the most difficult lessons for Muslims to learn. In all the Islamic movement literature that we are familiar with, from that of the docile tablighis to that of the revolutionary jihadis, we have never seen a book (or even a booklet) called “Know Your Enemy”.

That the Islamic movement has venomous and ruthless enemies appears to be among the most difficult lessons for Muslims to learn. In all the Islamic movement literature that we are familiar with, from that of the docile tablighis to that of the revolutionary jihadis, we have never seen a book (or even a booklet) called “Know Your Enemy”. That unfortunate but inescapable reality is that Muslims have numerous enemies, both working together and competing to be the most effective in attacking us. The antagonism and revulsion now seen towards the Islamic movement (which is basically the attempts of Muslims to implement Islam) have become the headlines of newspapers, the talking-points of commentaries, and the breaking news of our times. And still large parts of the Muslim Ummah carry on as if the world around is friendly, congenial and – in the particularly fabulous fantasies of some day-dreamers – “sympathetic” to Islam and Muslims. This maladroit inability to recognize and publicize our obvious enemies is perhaps the most disabling shortcoming in all the programmes of the Islamic movement.

Not so with Islamic Iran; or at least not until recently. Imam Khomeini and his followers were never too shy or apprehensive to call an enemy an enemy. But who is this enemy, and how can he be identified? And the answer is simple. Imam Khomeini – as is the case with the Islamic movement in the world at large – stood for freedom from imperialism, liberation from zionism, and the independence of thought and action of Muslims and oppressed peoples everywhere. He took this position a step forward by rallying the Muslims in Iran around these Islamic principles, and then by ending the rule of self-defeatism represented by the Shah and his underlings, by terminating American intrusion in the affairs of Muslims in Iran, and ultimately by expelling Israel and its agents, who provided a crucial element in the relationship between the Shah’s regime and the US. Imam Khomeini and the clear-sighted Muslims around him did not send their military on a mission to conquer America, nor did they formulate a national liberation movement to overthrow the Shah; they did not throw even one grenade in occupied Palestine. All they did was to cleanse Iran of all traces of imperialism, zionism, and authoritarianism.

OVERVIEW

The Islamic Uprising in Iran a quarter of a century ago is too important and too special for Muslims to simply watch it wander from its original and true course. We remember all too clearly the impact this breakthrough had on Muslims everywhere. For the first time in modern history, Muslims had risen against a corrupt government and its imperialist and zionist sponsors, and were able to take control of their own country, and begin to show the rest of us how things should be done.

Of course, the road forward was not likely to be smooth. The sponsors of the Pahlavi regime could not be expected to sit and watch a people shape their own future on the basis of their Islamic faith and commitment. Throughout the last 25 years, America and Israel have been working to bring the Islamic government in Iran to its knees, with the support of their Western allies, Iran’s pro-Western neighbours and even supporters within Iran. Iran’s borders amount to some 8,000 kilometers; American troops are now based across six thousand kilometers of this border. This grim scenario has been gradually built over 25 years, and has passed almost unnoticed by most Muslims, and even most Iranians. There has never been any cessation of hostilities between the followers of the line of Imam Khomeini (r.a.), who refuse to compromise when it comes to the independence and sovereignty of the Islamic state, and the numerous other interests wanting to shape the state on their terms.

Part of our object in this new column is to look at some of the gaps that have developed since the passing of Imam Khomeini (r.a.), many of which are rooted in earlier events, and how these gaps have caused serious problems about which we can no longer remain silent. But before we walk into this sensitive area, one point needs to be made absolutely clear. This is that none of the points we make are intended to express any criticism of Imam Sayyid Ali Khamenei, the successor to Imam Khomeini (r.a.) as Rahbar of the Islamic State. Many of the points we make will be highlighting natural processes in the evolution of post-Revolutionary state and society. Others will indeed involve criticism of errors and failures in Iran, mainly on the part of those who have been responsible for aspects of Iranian government and policy at the executive level. It was inevitable that such errors and failures should emerge over a quarter of a century in an unprecedented and highly-pressured historical situation; unfortunately they have contributed greatly to what many now see as the Islamic experiment’s current stagnation.

Sometimes frank statements of truth can be bitter pills to swallow; we hope no-one will consider this column to be too bitter a pill. We say what we say only to express our honest understanding of the issues. If we are correct, we appeal earnestly to Allah to accept our humble words to our humble readers. If not, we request Allah’s forgiveness and correction from anyone able to do so; without, we hope, descending into personal issues or hidden agendas. Ameen.

It was at this point that the enemies emerged and began to reveal their true colors; and it was at this point that Imam Khomeini did not hesitate to stand firm and identify those enemies in clear, unequivocal terms: the governments of the the United States and the Soviet Union, the Ba’athists and Saddam, the munafiqeen inside Iran, those who opposed the Islamic Revolution and Islamic State, and Israel. This is a long and daunting list of enemies, but it is also a true expression of the reality Islamic Iran faced. With several enemies to confront, it is not wise to launch into war with all of them; the war must be against those who pose the most immediate threat. For Iran, the immediate aggressor was Saddam Hussein, the Ba’ath regime, and their military, which was of course backed also by other enemies. The war imposed on the Islamic State by Iraq ground on for eight long years, and still the Imam showed no sign of accommodating or compromising with the enemy. Iran’s Muslims fought with courage, commitment and strategies that shocked the technologically superior Iraqis and their backers, and tens of thousands of Iranian Muslims gave their lives for unwavering principles and firm belief in the justness of their cause.

And yet, even then, there were constant whisperings of doubt from diplomats, obfuscation from opportunists, even murmurs from committed “revolutionaries” asking ‘is there any end to this senseless war? The Iranians are out of their minds sending ‘children’ to the warfront’ ; and mata nasr Allah? – when shall God’s victory come? At that time no one could understand the mystical dimension of this pursuit of justice, but as the years went by the answer began to unfold. There were two attitudes in Islamic Iran to the enemy. One attitude was that of the late Imam and the fearless and death-conquering mujahideen, many of whom achieved shahada (martyrdom); the other attitude was that of quietist scholars, careerist diplomats, and the ever-present holier-than-thou traditionalists. (The last of whom are the most formidable obstacle of the three; we will have more to say about them in future, insha’Allah.)

There was no decisive victory at the warfront because a large infusion of disingenuousness had permeated the decision-making body in Islamic Iran, from the lower ranks of government to the highest places in the religious institutions. At the same time that Imam Khomeini was saying, in effect, that the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia formed a core of enmity towards the Muslims and the oppressed, others inside Iran’s governmental departments, religious circles and commercial interests refused to accept that to be the case. They did not say so at the time; but now they feel it is safe to express themselves, and they say such things as: “Khomeini miscalculated”; or “Khomeini made mistakes”, or even “Khomeini was a disaster”! These are the same people who just a decade and a half ago were beating their chests and acclaiming the Imam. Today you look at them and they are “revolutionary ghosts.” These were the zealous followers of the Imam; now they have joined the elitists. They are content with paper-shuffling jobs, and some of them have filed their “revolutionary” pasts as a history to be recalled occasionally perhaps, but certainly not repeated. To them, Imam Khomeini’s days were a close call. And their behavior speaks volumes; they are no longer to be found at public gatherings; they are satisfied with an abridged ‘Shi’i’ version of Islam, one that throws off the ‘idealistic’ and ‘impractical’ issue of Islamic unity and the impossible identification with the affairs of the oppressed.

Allah’s victory comes at a high price. Many people were not willing to pay it. So victory was suspended at the warfront a decade and a half ago. To drive the point home, Saudi Arabia, the United States and (embedded in them) Israel – clearly identified as enemies in Imam Khomeini’s dictionary – have become numbers in the diplomatic directories of those who began this whole process by clamoring for a ‘dialogue of civilizations.’ You can almost hear them in Tehran’s Foggy Bottom, saying: “Let us begin to normalize our relations with Saudi Arabia. Later we can begin normalizing our relations with the United States. We cannot think about normalizing our relations with Israel, but if the Palestinians, one day in the future, reach an accommodation with the Israelis, then who are we to be more Palestinian than the Palestinians?”

Where is Islam in all this? Where are the Islamic principles for which Islamic Iran and the ‘Khomeini generation’ gave their precious sons, their best and brightest? We, the sons of the Islamic movement, are like a family. Some of us turn out to be obedient and others stray from the principles we hold. The weak and rebellious among us are those who railed against Saudi Arabia, the US and Israel yesterday, yet today are buddy-buddy with the Saudis, so-so with the Americans, and “can’t figure it out” with the Israelis. The temptations to deviate are obvious; our enemies offer attractive and seductive faces alongside their hostile ones, and tempt with promises of sweet rewards, even as they also issue dire threats. Many of their inducements and sweet words are proffered by Muslims who, however sincerely, are in effect working for our enemies rather than for Islam and Muslims. The oppressed of the world have little to offer but the promise of righteous struggles ahead, which can look very like problems and troubles to those whose eyes are clouded by pragmatism and dazzled by the mirages offered by our enemies.

But Muslims and Islamic movements of the world: take heed. You cannot have an enemy and a friend in the same entity at the same time. It is either your enemy or your friend. And if you cannot distinguish an enemy from a friend, how can you expect Allah to grant you victory?

Wahhabism and the Illusion of a Golden Age

By Sadik H. Kassim

Thu 14 Oct 2004

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'Wahhabis are often described in clichéd terms as being the “Puritans” of the Muslim world. An analogy I have never liked. True the Puritans espoused a literal interpretation of scriptural texts; beyond that, however the similarities are minimal. The Puritans were intellectual heavyweights coupling Renaissance humanism with knowledge of scriptures and divinity. They complemented their religious readings with the Greek classics of Cicero, Virgil, Terence and Ovid. In addition to writing the first children books, they emphasized public schooling for all and founded Harvard, the first American university. For them, religion provided a stimulus and prelude for scientific thought. Among their members, they could count numerous fellows of the Royal Society of London. Most importantly, the Puritans were political and religious outcasts.

The Wahhabis certainly are not Puritans in any true sense of the word. The more apt comparison, I believe, is the evangelical Christian movement in modern times. Both the Wahhabis and the Evangelicals champion an ultra-literalist interpretation of the holy texts, casting them both at odds with the precedents set by their ancestors and with their co-religionists in modern times. Both Evangelicals and Wahhabis shun scientific/rational thought and treat the idea of a renewed interpretation of religious texts as anathema. Both groups have tremendous financial resources enabling the rapid spread of their beliefs. Most importantly, both have disproportionate access to the corridors of power—the Evangelicals and their incestuous relationship with the Bush administration, the Wahhabis and the Saudi royal family, although the latter is in a state of flux.'

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In recent years, much has been written about Wahhabism in the mainstream press. Just to see how much newsprint has been expended on the subject, I did a Lexis Nexis database search covering the archives of hundreds of major international newspapers, magazines and journals, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Newsweek, Time, and The Economist. The results of the search are depicted graphically below. As can be seen, Wahhabism was barely a blip on the screen during the late 70’s, the entirety of the 80’s and most of the 90’s.

This period, it will be recalled, was the height of American government support for the reactionary Wahhabi-inspired Islamist movements of Afghanistan, whose members Ronald Reagan dubbed “freedom fighters”. These were America’s guys. Critical analysis of their specific beliefs, methods, or financial backing by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and America were off limits to the sycophantic press. In fact, of the 305 articles that turned up, 241 of them or 79% of total articles were written post 9/11. After September 11, when their utility had expired, the Wahhabists and the offshoots they produced were discarded into history’s waste bin of American allies gone bad (see Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, etc.). It was now proper to write about them. Even the fashion magazine Interior Design got into the game, scoring a hit for a December 1, 2001 article making a snide reference to Wahhabism.

Despite the upsurge in the number of articles, the topic is still treated very superficially. Wahhabis are often described in clichéd terms as being the “Puritans” of the Muslim world. An analogy I have never liked. True the Puritans espoused a literal interpretation of scriptural texts; beyond that, however the similarities are minimal. The Puritans were intellectual heavyweights coupling Renaissance humanism with knowledge of scriptures and divinity. They complemented their religious readings with the Greek classics of Cicero, Virgil, Terence and Ovid. In addition to writing the first children books, they emphasized public schooling for all and founded Harvard, the first American university. For them, religion provided a stimulus and prelude for scientific thought. Among their members, they could count numerous fellows of the Royal Society of London. Most importantly, the Puritans were political and religious outcasts.

The Wahhabis certainly are not Puritans in any true sense of the word. The more apt comparison, I believe, is the evangelical Christian movement in modern times. Both the Wahhabis and the Evangelicals champion an ultra-literalist interpretation of the holy texts, casting them both at odds with the precedents set by their ancestors and with their co-religionists in modern times. Both Evangelicals and Wahhabis shun scientific/rational thought and treat the idea of a renewed interpretation of religious texts as anathema. Both groups have tremendous financial resources enabling the rapid spread of their beliefs. Most importantly, both have disproportionate access to the corridors of power—the Evangelicals and their incestuous relationship with the Bush administration, the Wahhabis and the Saudi royal family, although the latter is in a state of flux.

Another problem with the recent spate of articles is the lack of mention of the West’s implicit support for Wahhabism via its alliance with the Saudis. This was one of the problems with Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 as well, which depicts strong support for Saudi Arabia as being characteristic of the Bush family dynasty only.

The relationship in fact had its genesis in 1915 with the successful signing of the Anglo-Saudi treaty. Upon signing the treaty, Abdul Aziz Ibn Sa’ud, the founder of the modern nation of Saudi Arabia, received 1,000 rifles, a £20,000 signing bonus, a monthly subsidy of £5,000 and regular shipment of machine guns and rifles. The deferential treatment given to Ibn Sa’ud by the British helped the Sa’ud family defeat the other tribes of Arabia and consolidate their rule in the Peninsula. In return, Ibn Sa’ud agreed not to “enter into any correspondence, agreement or treaty with any foreign nation or power” and to refrain from aggression in the British held areas of Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman. The relationship continued until 1924.

After World War I and with the discovery of oil in the Arabian Peninsula, both the British and Americans started courting Ibn Sa’ud. The oil concession was signed over to American Standard Oil of California (SOCAL) in 1933. In 1943, the American-Saudi alliance was further solidified with Franklin Roosevelt’s declaration of the kingdom as being “vital for the defense of the USA,” qualifying it to receive American aid under the Lend-Lease Act. The final nail in the Saudi-British alliance came in 1945 when Ibn Sa’ud personally met with Roosevelt aboard the USS Quincy and guaranteed American access to the Peninsula’s vast oil resources. The rest of the western relationship with the family of Sa’ud is well-documented in the public record, and will not be detailed here.

With all of this in mind, I was very excited to receive Hamid Algar’s new book, actually pamphlet, entitled Wahhabism; A Critical Essay for review. I had high expectations that Algar would blast away the clichés and superficialities and get to the essence of Wahhabism. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Although well written, the work suffers from several major flaws. Algar omits or barely covers key historical events in the development of Wahhabism, does little to put the subject within a relevant modern context, and most importantly, underestimates the ubiquity of Wahhabi thoughts and practices in the Muslim world today.

Hamid Algar, a Cambridge trained professor of Islamic Studies at Berkley, starts his essay with a brief biographical sketch of the founder and namesake of Wahhabism, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, a man whom the British explorer/Standard Oil agent, Harry St. John Philby, dubbed the “co-founder” of Saudi Arabia.

Born in the small town of al-Uyaynah in the eastern part of modern day Saudi Arabia in 1703 to a family of religious scholars, Abd al-Wahhab spent most of his early years traveling in the pursuit of a religious education. He was particularly fond of the works of Ibn Taymiyya, a medieval Syrian scholar who delighted in writing polemics against Christianity, Shi’ism and Sufism. Yet unlike Abd al-Wahhab, Ibn Taymiyya was in the words of Algar “a notable figure in the history of Islam…a far more rigorous and careful thinker and an infinitely more prolific scholar.” Abd al-Wahhab’s scholarly output was scant and simple. His masterpiece, a slim collection of hadiths with no original analysis or commentary entitled Kitab al-Tawhid, has “the appearance of a student’s notes.”

Eventually Abd al-Wahhab made his way back to Uyaynah where he joined his father, a notable religious judge at the time, and began to preach against the religiously aberrant practices he had seen during his travels. Among other things, Abd al-Wahhab inveighed against smoking tobacco and declared trees to be Haram (religiously objectionable), as an appreciation of their beauty could lead to kufr (unbelief).

Particularly galling to Abd al-Wahhab was the visitation of tombs, especially those of sacred personages. Although initially sympathetic to the ideas of Abd al-Wahhab, the leader of Uyaynah was eventually compelled to expel him out of the village because his teachings and behavior began to antagonize the people of the town. Specifically, Abd al-Wahhab’s public stoning of a local woman accused of adultery angered many of the villagers. The expulsion however would prove to be fortuitous.

Abd al-Wahhab arrived in Dir’iyyah, a village forty miles away from Uyaynah, where the tribal chief Muhammad ibn Sa’ud welcomed him. This was a major turning point in the history of Wahhabism, yet Algar brushes over the events at Dir’iyyah. As Madawi Al-Rasheed reminds us in her excellent A History of Saudi Arabia, it was here that Abd al-Wahhab and Ibn Sa’ud formed an alliance. Specifically, Ibn Sau’d pledged to protect Abd al-Wahhab if he paid allegiance to the tribe of Ibn Sa’ud. Abd al-Wahhab agreed, and with that the scene was set for the emergence of a religious emirate in central Arabia. Abd al-Wahhab’s teachings "impregnated the Saudi leadership with a new force, which proved to be crucial for the consolidation and expansion of Saudi rule." Wahhabism promised the Saudi leadership clear benefits in the form of “political and religious authority and material rewards, without which the conquest of Arabia would not have been possible.”

Under the banner of religious purification, the nascent Wahhabi-Saudi alliance formally declared jihad against the “nonbelievers” in 1746: the “nonbelievers” being all who did not adhere to the precise doctrines of Wahhabism, including Muslims.

Prof. Hamid Algar, a Cambridge trained professor of
Islamic Studies at Berkley

Those who accepted Wahhabism were "expected to swear allegiance to its religio-political leadership and demonstrate their loyalty by agreeing to fight for its cause and pay zakat to its representatives." Those who resisted the Wahhabi-Saudi encroachment were “subjected to raids that threatened their livelihoods.” Using such tactics, the Wahhabi-Saudi alliance was able to create a quasi-tribal confederation enabling them to conquer and consolidate vast regions of the Arabian Peninsula. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Muhammad ibn Sa’ud died in 1791 and 1766 respectively leaving behind them a legacy of greed, ruthlessness and intolerance.

The Wahhabi-Saudi state waxed and waned for years before being officially declared in 1932. Each periodic re-emergence was more ruthless than the one before it. Algar notes that the second Wahhabi-Saudi conquest for example, which lasted between 1824 and 1891, “came at a cost of 400,000 killed and wounded.” Furthermore, it is said that the governors of the various provinces appointed by Ibn Sa’ud “carried out 40,000 public executions and 350,000 amputations in the course of subduing the peninsula.”

Although Algar gives a good overview of the Wahhabi/Saudi alliance in the 19 century, he brushes over key historical events that have affected the nature of the alliance since. The 1902 oath of allegiance is one such example. Through the pledge of 1902, Abdul Aziz Ibn Sa’ud extracted loyalty from the Wahhabi religious specialists (mutawwa’a), who were independent up until this time, by paying them a salary. Abd al-Wahhab, to his credit, had always refused monetary compensation for religious service, considering such transactions as bribes compromising the impartiality of the mutawwa’a. The 1902 allegiance, however, transformed the mutawwa’a from full time religious specialists to vassals loyal to Ibn Sa’ud and the al–Sa’ud family and dependent on their resources. In return, Ibn Sa’ud was guaranteed religious legitimacy and a loyal police force that could subdue the population and collect Zakat for the royal family, thereby allowing the consolidation of Sa’udi authority in Arabia. This relationship however has suffered periodic setbacks.

Take, for example, the 1979 Mecca uprising led by Juhayman ibn Muhammad al-Utayabi to which Algar devotes only one paragraph. Juhayman, an active preacher, protested against the relations of the Saudis with the ‘infidel powers,’ the materialism and corruption of the monarchy, and the relationship between the ulama and the Saudi royal family. He attracted a following of nearly 200, declared the movement’s spiritual leader, Muhammad al-Qahtani, to be the Mahdi and demanded the removal of the royal family.

In response, the Saudi state’s well-compensated “ulama,” lead by Shaykh ibn Baz, issued a fatwa supporting the Saudi royal family and authorizing military intervention in the sacred precincts of the Ka’ba. The fatwa justified the brutal suppression that followed, which culminated in the shedding of blood inside the holy mosque.

Juhayman’s legacy however was not as easily quashed. His accusations resonated through a significant swath of Saudi society and “highlighted the contradiction between the Islamic rhetoric and credentials of the Saudi state and its prolonged relationship with the West.” This was the first major challenge to the legitimacy of the Saudi monarchy since the founding of the kingdom. The Royal family heeded the warning bells and acted quickly to maintain their authority. Mohammed al-Obaidi, Secretary General of the tourism board in the Asir province of Saudi Arabia, summed up the significance of the episode best when he stated that ''The royal family cut off Juhayman's head, but implemented his entire agenda. They said what the hell: it won't mess with our power. Let the society have what it wants. ''

After providing a brief sketch of Abd al-Wahhab’s life, Algar delves into an exposition of Abd al-Wahhab’s scant teachings. Algar pins the cornerstones of Wahhabi ideology as being the concepts of tawhid al-ibada (directing all worship to Allah alone) and bid’a (innovation in religious matters).

Tawhid al-ibada in its proper sense attempts to demarcate acts of worship appropriate for a Muslim. Violations of these rather arbitrary limits take place whenever an act of devotion involves an intermediary between the worshipper and Allah. It is within this context that petitionary prayers (du’aa) which mention the Prophet or visitations to the tombs of sacred personages (ziyara) are deemed religiously unacceptable. Violations of tawhid al-ibada are grave sins casting the violator as a mushrik (polytheist). Because the Wahhabi formulation of Tawhid al-ibada can be defined only negatively, in terms of the avoidance of certain practices, it leads to a “fear of perceived deviation at the very heart of Wahhabism and helps to explain its intrinsically censorious nature.”

Deviations from the fundamentals of tawhid al ibada are categorized as bid’a, which in the strictest sense is defined as an innovation in religious matters-specifically, any religious practice or concept that had its genesis after the third century of the Islamic era. Acts of bi’da were rife in society, according to Abd al-Wahhab, and included practices ranging from the rituals of the Sufi orders, to the commemoration of the birthday of the Prophet, to the recitation of religious poetry (qasida). Because bid’a was ubiquitously manifest in Muslim society, the Umma needed to be periodically purified-through force if necessary. Abd al-Wahhab was therefore at war with both his ancestors and his contemporaries. This was all justified, in Abd al-Wahhab’s view, by certain hadiths, which allude to the appearance of a mujaddid (“renewer”) once every hundred years, a title that Abd al-Wahhab proudly claimed.

Algar notes that in modern times, the Wahhabis have used Saudi petrodollars rather than force to spread their beliefs. Using various front organizations such as the Muslim World League, and at one time the Muslim Students Association of North America and ISNA in the United States, Wahhabi-esque ideas have permeated the philosophies of certain groups, such as the Salafis, the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and Jama’at-I Islami of Pakistan. Yet this does not mean that Wahhabism has been universally accepted. Algar points out that “in many parts of the Middle East, the Sufi orders have shown a resilience and vitality that have confounded Western scholars alike.” Although Algar does not elaborate on this point, it is a story that needs to be told, as it shows that the Wahhabi influence on Islam is amenable to defeat, that there are antidotes to its metastatic spread. The case of the Yihewanis in China is one such example, which will have to be saved for another day.

In the book’s final chapter, Algar writes that it is “inaccurate, irresponsible, and dangerous to paint a picture of American Muslims as being in their majority Wahhabi,” which contrary to the poisonous writings of Daniel Pipes, Steve Emerson and others is absolutely correct. However, Algar continues by writing that it is equally dangerous to conflate “Salafi” with “Wahhabi” making a distinction between the two, identifying Salafis as being more diplomatic in approach, choosing “persuasion rather than coercion in order to rally other Muslims to their cause.”

This may have been true when the ideals of Salafism were first formulated by Muhammad Abduh, Jamal al Deen al Afghani and others, but as the eminent Khalid Abou El Fadl correctly observes, “Wahhabi thought exercised its greatest influence not under its own label, but under the rubric of Salafism.” The distinction between the two in modern times is null. This is an important point, because if we are to combat the crippling influence of Wahhabism on Islam today, we must recognize how ubiquitous many of its calcified tenets are in the Muslim world today and not engage in exercises of semantic gymnastics trying to differentiate Wahhabism from Salafism from Deobandism, etc…We must recognize that all of these movements, suffused with Abdul Wahhab’s spirit, have contributed to a virulent and parochial Islam that has gained currency with many throughout the world.

As Khalid Abou El Fadl reminds us, “Even a cursory examination of predominant ideas and practices reveals the widespread influence of Wahhabi thought on the Muslim world today.” The success of Wahhabi/Salafi ideas lie in their appeal to a very basic concept in Islam, “that Muslims ought to follow the precedent of the Prophet and his companions (al salaf al-salih)” only. This was the Golden Age of Islam. Yet such thinking is intrinisically flawed because, as Abou El Fadl notes, by emphasizing a presumed golden age in Islam, the adherents of Salafism (Wahhabism) effectively idealize the time of the Prophet and his companions, and ignore or demonize the balance of Islamic history. Critical historical inquiry effectively gets thrown out and the challenges of modernity are responded to by escaping to “the secure haven of the text.” By underrating the achievements of the past, the Wahhabis/Salafis devalue all those which still remain to be accomplished.

The problem with Wahhabism as with any movement that attempts to distill historical insights into an ideology or strategy is that the movement risks becoming a caricature of its own best instincts. History should be a guide, not the objective. There is not historical panacea. Better to put our collective shoulder to the wheel rather than pine for phantom Golden Ages, which can easily be manipulated by people with questionable motives. I have always liked Rousseau’s take on the matter. In his Tristes Tropiques, Claude Lévi-Strauss cites Rousseau as writing:

“If men have always been concerned with only one task -- how to create a society fit to live in -- the forces which inspired our distant ancestors are also present in us. Nothing is settled; everything can still be altered. What was done but turned out wrong, can be done again. The Golden Age, which blind superstition had placed behind [or ahead of] us, is in us.”

The golden age of Islam does not lie in the Prophet’s Medina, nor as some people have suggested Cordoba between the 8 to 14 century, or Baghdad during the reign of Harun Al-Rashid. The golden age is in us! We must learn from the wisdom of the ancients, but not try to implement their mode, lifestyle, and cultural beliefs in toto in the modern age. Just look at the example of the Prophet. He was the continuation and seal of the message of Islam. His was not a new message, but the message that all the Prophets before him preached. Yet Prophet Muhammad did not try to preach the message as Adam or Abraham or Jesus did. He did not speak of “salaf al salih” and adopt the mannerisms and cultural beliefs of Noah or Lot. The Prophet realized that the times were different, that the people were different, and that the message needed to connect with the people and be relevant to their needs. The divine oneness of Allah supercedes cultural and historical constraints.

Imam Khamenei on Iran’s Islamic ethos and the dangers facing the Ummah

Sayyid Ali Khamenei

In December last year, AYATULLAH SAYYID ALI KHAMENEI, the Vali-e Faqih of the Islamic Republic of Iran, convened a meeting of Islamic movement leaders and representatives in Tehran. Here we reprint extracts from his talk to the gathering. It is impossible to imagine any other statesman in a position of authority in the Muslim world speaking so openly and frankly about the state of the world today, clearly identifying the Ummah’s errors and weaknesses, and the dangers and challenges facing us.

In the Name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful...

I welcome all of you, and thank you for having accepted the Islamic Republic of Iran’s invitation to take part in this gathering. You are among your family and brothers. Iran is the second home of Muslims all over the world.

This gathering is necessary at this time because Muslims all over the world are now facing new threats and challenges. When a human being is threatened, it is necessary for him to gather his forces and use his intellect to determine the appropriate response to the threat. A dynamic community, such as the Ummah of Islam, cannot simply sit passively and let events shape its destiny. Islam encourages and inspires the Ummah to be proactive in thoughtfully planning their actions and implementing their plans. This is why this gathering has been called, and why you have gathered here in response to this need. We hope and expect this gathering to be taken seriously and to have an impact on the affairs of the Ummah. The issues confronting the Ummah today, and the capabilities of the Ummah in responding to these issues must be understood and marshalled, and the use of these capabilities must be considered.

We, the government of the Islamic Republic, are dependent on Almighty God, alhumdulillah. We also rely on our noble and vigilant people. We are ready to meet our responsibilities and to do our share as a part of the global Islamic community.

It is true that the Islamic world is facing numerous new threats today. But, on the other hand, there are also new opportunities and advantages before us, which we did not have before. When one speaks of opportunities and advantages, people’s thoughts are drawn first to material or financial factors. For instance, some people may think that I am talking about geographical location, historical background or natural resources under the ground. Some might think that the large population of the Islamic world is an invaluable resource. Of course these things are important. However, we must realize that, despite our having had such resources in the past, the colonial powers managed to gain control of the Muslim world, and dominated us for 150 or 200 years. As a result, Muslims were turned into dependent and backward peoples. So we must conclude that such resources are not sufficient on their own.

Of course, being weak and backward at any given moment of history does not mean that the weakened and dependent people are doomed to permanent subservience. No. What we must realize is that whenever we come to our senses, and fulfill the duties that Islam has prescribed for us, everything will change, insha’Allah, and the Ummah will make real progress.

In my opinion the biggest opportunity open to the Islamic world is Islam itself. Almighty Allah tells us in the Holy Qur’an, that Islam is gift from Him to us. Indeed, it is the greatest of all the gifts that Allah (swt) could have given us. Whatever gratitude we wish to express, we should do so by observing our Islamic faith in its fullest sense. Islam can strengthen the Muslim’s heart and spirit, and can equip the Ummah with knowledge, understanding and unity. This is the fundamental power of Islam, and we should not underestimate it.

Islam’s situation today is different from what it was 50 years ago. Compared to 50 years ago, the world of Islam is much more dynamic and forward looking, much more alive, enthusiastic and full of hope, and much more in tune with the aspirations and expectations of our young generations, our youth. Muslims of the world today are proud of their faith. There was a time that the Muslims had lost pride in Islam. Many Muslim intellectuals were proud of having abandoned the faith and not practising their Islam. This has changed today; all over the world, young people and intellectuals are proud of living in accordance with Islamic values, and of proclaiming the Islamic identity. This pride is a massive resource for the Ummah.

Some of the major ideological challengers of Islam – Marxism, communism and socialism – have been eliminated from the historical arena. They once represented major challenges to Islam in Muslim countries. Today they have been defeated by the realities in the world, and in the process, Islam has re-emerged as the dominant political force in the Muslim world, in a way unprecedented in the modern history of the Muslim world. In the past, when people spoke of political Islam, they referred to the early centuries of Islam; Islam was not a factor in contemporary political affairs. Today, Islam is at the centre of political affairs, and has established its own capability and power. It has shown that it can defend itself and be a positive, constructive force in public affairs for the Muslim Ummah. This is a great achievement and puts the Ummah in a very strong position.

Over the last few decades, those who aimed to dominate the Muslim world, used to promise us western modernity. In effect, they used to say: ‘we will offer you western modernity if you surrender to us and bow to our culture.’ Today when Muslims look at that past, they see that western modernity has brought the world of Islam dependence and corruption. It has made Muslims weak, both singly and collectively. Instead of progress and success, western modernity has only brought Muslims domination and subservience. Today’s Muslims have recognised this reality and will not make the same mistakes as previous generations.

Today liberalism is facing contradictions even in its own birthplace. Today, in the supposed birthplaces and homes of liberalism and individual freedoms, the same people who used – and still use – the rhetoric and slogans of freedom are resorting to methods that are the precise opposite of freedom.

Today the West has no response to the persecution of Palestinian children, it cannot justify the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and defend its horrendous killings of large numbers of people in both countries. The West does not have a response to, and cannot protect itself against, the Islamic commitment and fervour of the people of these countries, people who opted for Islam when they were oppressed and confronted by the Americans.

Today the West does not have any kind of response to insults against women’s dignity. In the Western world, the supposed birthplace of freedom and democracy, woman’s dignity has been lost. Sexual corruption is reaching extreme levels, and the institution of the family is on the verge of destruction. Statistics on the destruction of the foundations of family life in Western countries are outrageous and shocking. The West held itself up as a model in these areas for the rest of the world; today these very issues are exposing the contradictions and failings of liberalism.

Now America, in its arrogance, is producing a new response to the challenge being posed by Islam. America today, after decades of promoting and protecting the most brutal dictators in the region,, is suddenly championing democracy. Who does not know that America itself was the greatest supporter of the dictators and tyrants in the Muslim world. Today everyone recognises that it was America that supported Saddam for so long, and that it was America that gave a green light for Saddam’s invasion of Iran and the eight years of war that followed.

Saddam had been nurtured by the Americans. They provided him with chemical weapons. They were silent in the face of the massacre of Iraqis in Halabjah, and that of many of our young people. In our country we still have many people who have been affected by chemical weapons. Every few weeks we hear the news of the death of another one of these people who were injured in chemical attacks and have been dying ever since. The West was silent when these events took place. Today the same West is pushing ‘democracy’ in this region. This is no more than another self-serving response to the rise of Islam in the region and the popular Islamic government.

The religious government of the people means the votes of the people, with religious values, and with the respect which religion has reserved for the vote of the people. Religion provides dignity for people. Religion obliges governments to take seriously their responsibility to and for the people. Religion does not accept dictatorship from any ruler under any circumstances. This is our Islam. This is religious government of the people: religious government is based on a strong and clear logic, on the principles and values that Islam has established for the governing of every society. Today this has been presented to the world, it has been practised in reality, it is not only written in books. In the last 25 years we have had 24 elections in the Islamic Republic; people have turned out in large numbers to vote and safeguard the system. This is the reality of an Islamic government of the people. And America is reacting to this by talking about the "government of the people"!

The enemies of Islam, led by the Zionists and America, do not want the real, true Islam to be seen. They want to restrict perceptions of Islam to two forms: either the backward form that has been seen in the Islam of the Taliban – empty of logic, full of strong fanaticism and devoid of compassion, rationality, knowledge and wisdom – so that everyone hates, despites or fears Islam; or a form of Islam that has lost its own identity to the West, an eclectic Islam that would accept whatever the West wants, and propagate Western culture as Islam, having nothing to say for itself. Those are the only two forms of Islam acceptable to its enemies. What they do not want anyone to see or recognise is the Islam that seeks dignity, power, justice and progress for the Islamic community: the form of Islam which builds life.

Today, the enemies of Islam know that immense power resides in the Muslim Ummah. They fear this power, and so they fight it without acknowledging what it is that they are fighting. Instead they give other labels to their adversary. For instance, they expand the meaning of terrorism to include liberating movements. They intend to crush the Palestinians, who are the most courageous fighters for Islam, by branding them terrorists. They also try to delegitimise the struggles of the warriors of Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and every other region of the Muslim world, who are confronting colonialism and foreign interference in their homelands. They use weapons of mass destruction, human rights or democracy as excuses to justify their war because they are too frightened to confront Islam directly.

It is true that the Ummah is facing new threats. But we have new potentialities too. Large numbers of young Muslims everywhere are turning away from the West’s seductive and colourful temptations to keep faith in their hearts and obedience to God in their deeds. There are many such young people everywhere in the Muslim world. Many intellectuals and scholars speak or write in support of Islam. They recognise its qualities, its values, its civilization, its arts. Today the Muslim world too is realising its power. It is recognising its own strength. The threat may be big, but so is the potential. It is up to us to benefit from it through our own commitment and endeavour. There is a hadith of Allah’s Messenger (saw) which says "the Muslims are like a sturdy plant which may be flattened by the wind of events; but they will stand again when the opportunity arises." The Holy Qur’an says something similar, that a Muslim resembles a tough tree whose roots are stable and whose branches spread into the sky. It is for us to ensure that this tree will bear fruit.

We in Iran, in the Islamic Republic, have concentrated all our efforts on strengthening the foundations by a number of crucial principles. The first is that we shall not abandon government of the people, which has been derived from Islam. It is an Islamic instruction. Islam has clarified giving bai’ah to the rulers. We accept this wholeheartedly. This is an Islamic instruction; we have not taken it from the West.

The next principle is that we shall stand firm against infiltration and interference by foreign powers. We do not mind exchanging science, knowledge and experience with the rest of the world. We can engage in transactions of material and intellectual commodities, but we shall not submit to foreign domination under any circumstances. The enemies of Islamic Iran are not happy with this, but we have proved that we remain committed to this, and that we are able to do so. We believe that the entire Muslim world can do so too.

The next principle is of justice. The promotion and maintenance of justice is the most demanding task facing us. It is very difficult to implement social justice in any society. We intend to promote justice and we have taken steps in this direction. However, a huge gap remains before we achieve the standard that Islamic principles demand of us. We must concentrate our efforts on this issue,insha’Allah.

The next principle is that we believe in the progress of science. We have advanced a great deal in pursuit of this principle. We believe that the Muslim world, in view of its historical record of cultural and scientific achievements, can take bigger steps in the arena of science and knowledge. We have recommended that our young people and scholars must be studious and imaginative in this field.

We believe that disunity within the Ummah is the greatest internal danger to the Islamic world. We are a community of diversity, and have become distant from each other; we have disunity when we need to be united. Our enemies exploit this for their own agendas. Our appeal to the Muslim world, and to all Muslims countries, is to unite and become closer. Some of our differences and disagreements can be resolved; we must resolve them. Others may not be soluble in the short term; they should be set aside. This prospect would pose a massive threat to the interests of the Zionists and Americans; which is why they concentrate such great efforts to ensure that it does not happen.

Tribal differences, religious and clan disputes, political disputes and differences of opinion are all deliberately exploited by our enemies to ensure that we remain disunited. The grounds for these differences existed among us before, but we were neglectful and did not remove them. They exploited this oversight and have targeted these issues to weaken us. We have wasted our spiritual and material resources on various tribal, civil, religious and clan disputes and wars. This is a crucial issue which we must pursue with all sincerity and urgency.

Today, the enemies of Islam and the Muslim Ummah are using two main weapons against is: intimidation and subversion. Sometimes they intimidate governments and intellectuals, elites, organizations and individuals with threats and shows of power; other times they subvert them with bribes and incentives. Both of these are strategies of shaytan. We must not fear their intimidation.

"Those to whom the people said: ‘Surely men have gathered against you, therefore fear them’; this increased their faith, and they said: ‘Allah is sufficient for us and most excellent Protector.’ So they returned with favour from Allah and [His] grace, no evil touched them and they followed the pleasure of Allah; and Allah is the mighty Lord of grace." (Qur’an 3:173-174).

We must not fear the enemies’ intimidation. Nor should we be tempted by their bribes. Nothing good can ever come from our enemies to us, and their bribes and incentives are a trap. This applies to individuals as well as to states and governments, and to every sector of society. We must make this our motto. We must not hope for anything from them, nor should we fear their power and intimidation. "And be not infirm, and be not grieving, and you shall have the upper hand if you are believers" (Qur’an 3:139).

One of the most important things for us today is that we must recognise our enemies. Today, the greatest enemy of the Islamic world is America and Zionism. They are the worst, the most evil and dangerous of worldly shaytans, and they are completely and very openly united. They are the big idol that must be broken. We must expose them to the people and to every individual. We must ensure that the reality of the nature of these enemies is clear to each and every Muslim, all over the world.

Some people neglect the chief and real enemies, and instead deem some secondary ones as their main enemies. This is a big mistake that diverts the attentions of the Ummah and drains the dynamism of Muslims. Alhumdulillah, we have not made any mistakes in identifying our enemy; nor will we ever make a mistake. Many hostile acts are perpetrated against us, but we never mistake these hostilities for the main and real enemy. We do not allow ourselves to be distracted by these side shows. The real enemy is America and Zionism. We must recognize these enemies, and the methods they use to subvert and defeat us, in order that we can effectively counter them.

I would like to close with this ayah of the Qur’an, which summarises our most important challenge and duty: "Say, I exhort you only to do one thing: rise up for Allah’s sake in twos and singly" (34:46).

 

Sayyid Ali Khamenei

Welcome new edition of a famous analysis of the decline of Islamic civilization

Abdar Rahman Koya

Our Decline: Its Causes and Remedies by Amir Shakib Arslan (new, revised edition). Pub: Islamic Book Trust, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2004 (www.ibtbooks.com). Pp: 175. US$8.00.

Sometimes people find themselves in such a mess that the only consolation seems to be to relive the past. In fact so impotent are Muslims now that even their glorious past is relived through orientalist works. Thus we find hundreds of books on Muslim achievements of the so-called academic and objective bent, written by Muslims and non-Muslims, as if even the Muslim mind were colonised. Hundreds of books also flood libraries on Islamic laws and principles, ideals and beauty, without considering whether these principles can be put into practice at a time when Muslims are in the worst situation — humiliated and subjugated despite the enormous amounts of wealth flooding their cities.

Such has been our state for over a century, especially since the collapse of the Uthmaniyyah empire and the establishment of Muslim nation-states ruled by traitors and bandits (‘royals’ and ‘sheikhs’). By 1914 almost the whole Muslim world was directly under Western rule. Muslim leadership was either completely demoralised or had concluded that it was better to join the enemies because we could not fight them all.

It was in this frustrating state that one Muhammad Bisyooni Umran, an alim in Borneo Island (present-day Indonesia), wrote to Al-Manar, the reform magazine edited by Egyptian thinker Muhammad Rashid Rida, asking the "Prince of Eloquence" to explain the causes of the Muslims’ downfall. The "Prince of Eloquence" was no other than a Lebanese-Druze Muslim, Shakib Arslan (1871-1946), known and addressed as "Amir". He was considered well placed to comment on Muslims’ affairs because of his experience in labouring for many Muslim causes. After the first ‘world war’, he moved his efforts from reviving the last caliphate (or "Ottomanism") to Arab nationalism and "Islamism", in much the same way as Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, being consistently against the West and its policies, unlike many of his contemporaries, who were critical of Muslim "apathy" while preferring western customs in their personal lives. By his stand Arslan earned the admiration of Muslims. Later he supported the jihad of Umar al-Mukhtar in Libya against the Italian Nazis, and that of Muhammad Abd al-Karim in the Maghreb. Arslan injected new life into the narrow brand of nationalism of that time — an ‘Islamist’ nationalism, as it were. Arslan was also one of the main early architects of the revolutionary movement in Palestine in the effort to break free from colonial clutches, using his contacts with activists in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt and Palestine and with others in the Arabian Peninsula and Muslim countries.

Thus Arslan’s reply to Bisyooni Umran, first entitled in Arabic Li maza ta’akhkhara al-Muslimun wa li maza taqaddama ghayruhum ("why Muslims are backward and others have progressed") still deserves serious consideration. That most of what he laments about Muslim backwardness is still applicable, 70 years after he wrote it, shows how little (or not at all) Muslims have inched back from their hole.

This new revised translation, renamed Our Decline: Its Causes and Remedies from Our Decline and its Causes, could not be more timely: our history of direct colonization is set to repeat itself, particularly in the Middle East. Iraq, Palestine, the Arabian peninsula, other client-states of the US, as well as Pakistan and Turkey, are today all effectively under Washington’s command. The situation is little different in essence from when European powers were implementing every sort of colonial agenda in Muslim lands.

Arslan delayed giving his diagnosis of the Muslims’ decline until after his visit to Spain, where he saw the remnants of the Islamic-Arabic civilization in Andalus, and until he had seen French attempts to Christianize the Berbers in Morocco. He begins by discussing the Muslims’ "deplorable" conditions everywhere, and why this did not encourage them to leave their miserly and selfish ways and make sacrifices: what Arslan describes as the "modern" sense of jihad. The Europeans, by contrast, for good or bad, made huge sacrifices: Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Japan sent millions of soldiers to die in battle, and spent billions on arms and munitions.

Arslan asks, "Can anyone point out a single Muslim nation of the modern time, which has sacrificed men and money as unstintingly and unhesitatingly for their country as these Christian nations of Europe have done for theirs?" One is tempted to point out that the bulk of the moneys spent by the Europeans were from lands – most of them Muslim – that they colonised, stealing their natural resources and using them for their own ends. Thus to say that these Western powers were willing to sacrifice ‘their’ wealth is a misrepresentation, or misunderstanding, of the facts. But again Shakib could ask us: Would Muslims, if they were to hold this wealth themselves, be spending and sacrificing as the Europeans did? It is true, argues Shakib, that Muslims do not possess such resources to spend, but they need only spend a small proportion of their wealth for the common cause. "Are the Muslims prepared to do so?" he asks. Their abandonment of the waqf and zakah systems, and how these are abused, is one example he highlights.

The Amir should have lived today to see how much more relevant his strictures have become. Muslim governments are completely mixed up, and today we see them busy building sky-scrapers and huge mosques, instead of improving their societies in order to avoid having to depend on the West both for the products we learnt from them to want and for those things that once we produced ourselves. This is not the case with, say, the Japanese, writes Arslan. In addition, to maintain the lifestyles of Muslim rulers also requires astronomical resources. It is a fact that Muslim economies, awash with oil wealth, have to spend more to maintain their ‘royalties’ than any other country.

To strengthen his claim of Muslim miserliness and lack of spirit of sacrifice, Arslan gives the example of how 400 million Muslims could not match the contributions of around twenty million Jews for Palestine. He gives a rough breakdown of how much Muslims contributed to the Palestine Fund at that time, and shows his frustration that one-tenth of the world’s Muslim population were found to have contributed not even a qarsh per head.

There is another aspect to the problem of Muslim decline: our preoccupation with peripheral issues. Arslan criticises severely both the so-called ultra-modern and -conservative Muslims. These are two types of people who, according to him, have damaged Islam more than any other with their narrow interpretations of the deen, one lot to please their western masters, and the other to protect their own status and position in society by their lack of regard for knowledge, and for its right to be disseminated and understood widely, instead of becoming the scholars’ exclusive preserve. While one type accept European values totally, the other interpret Islam narrowly and oppose any effort to change their plight. For Arslan both "modernists" and "conservatives" act from ignorance and dogmatism, preparing the way for the enemies of Islamic civilization to attack it, "to pick holes in it with specious arguments that the teachings of Islam are responsible for the decline and fall of the Muslims." One can safely say that Arslan is definitely referring to the likes of the Turkish military, ever eager to join the West by banning Islam altogether, as well as the followers of the Taliban, who provided ammunition our enemies were longing for. However, he considers the latter more dangerous — theirs is what he calls "incorrigible conservatism": the "rigid, inflexible following of old hackneyed conventions".

The treachery of Muslims against their own people and the existence of false scholars who issue fatwas to justify the enemies’ subversion of Islam are another cause of Muslim decline. With few exceptions, Muslim rulers think their people have been created for their service, and have no scruples about terrorizing them into submission. To justify these rulers, there sprung up "species of scholars" who are only too eager to issue fatwas on the permissibility of killing whoever is bold enough to point out the rulers’ injustices.

He also points out other treacheries committed by Muslim ‘leaders’. One cannot help but wonder at his praise for king Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, who was a member of the very elites that emerged out of treachery. Arslan may have had the astigmatism suffered by many well-meaning Muslim intellectuals and activists in this decade, who are unable to see through the people they deal with, despite their vast knowledge. Having said that, one should not let Arslan’s side-opinions and sentiments mar his arguments; we must look beyond these side-issues to gauge his opinions about the Ummah’s upliftment.

He points out that the Ummah suffered from many traitors: the Berber Muslims who allied themselves with France; some Muslims in India; and many Tartars in Russia. Their analogues are rife in this age: in Chechnya, where some "religious Chechen Muslims" are even more eager than the Russians for Chechnya to be part of the Russian Federation; in Kashmir, where some scholars have no qualms about speaking openly against the Muslims’ struggle for self-determination. These Muslims are either sucked into the colonial masters’ argument that Islam is the cause of their backwardness, and that their (the colonial masters’) only intention is to help these Muslims. Arslan may as well say that Muslims are better fighters when they fight among themselves!

These attempts at subverting Islam convinced some Muslims that the deen is the cause of their decline, and that the path of secularism is the only way out. The truth is, observes Arslan, that the ‘secular’ West are more religious, and the evidence abounds: the laws adopted by the ‘secular’ French in respect of the Berbers, to facilitate the propagation of Catholicism among them; the law imposed by the Dutch in Java to protect Christian missionaries; the Belgian government’s resolution to baptise the inhabitants of the Congo; and the British ban on preaching Islam in Uganda, Tanganyika and southern Sudan.

Throughout this book Shakib’s diagnosis is provided in the spirit of the Qur’anic proposition that "man can have nothing but what he strives for" (Q. 53:39). He not only supports his claims with ayaat, but provides evidence from his dealings with Muslim rulers and activists to drive home some points. He concludes that "sacrifice" is the necessary, irreplaceable method by which a people can redeem their dignity. It is the most obvious remedy, above everything else; only from the spirit of sacrifice in wealth, energy and lives can Muslims complain of their plight to God. It is no surprise, then, to see that the West dominates in almost every field of life today, because of the enormous efforts they have made to protect and nurture their civilization.

Islamic CivilizationState of the Ummah