Analysis of the Decline of Islamic Civilization

By Abdar Rahman Koya
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.

A new Western crusade: this time against Libya

By Zafar Bangash

The West’s attack on Libya is yet another crusade launched against a Muslim country on the pretext of protecting its people. Pope Urban II would be pleased to learn that his disciples are still marching on as good “Christian soldiers” against another group of “heathens” in the Muslim world nearly a thousand years after his sermon on Mount Clermont. Colonel Muammar Qaddafi does not have to be our favourite tyrant but like Saddam Husain of Iraq, he has enjoyed Western support for decades. Western multinationals salivate at the prospect of consuming his sweet crude. Now they can have their belly full.

Interestingly, too, the UN Security Council was pressed into service to pass a resolution (#1973), imposing a “no-fly zone” over Libya on March 17, ostensibly to “protect” the Libyan people. Twenty years ago, a similar no-fly zone was imposed on Iraq but without even the formality of going through the motion of a Security Council resolution. An estimated 1.5 million Iraqis were killed as a result of sanctions and the Western-imposed no fly zone. On May 12, 1996, when Leslie Stahl of CBS 60 Minutes program asked Madeleine Albright, then US ambassador to the UN, whether the death of 560,000 children was worth the price for ousting Saddam from power, the latter, without hesitation, said it was! Would it be any different in Libya?

Let us look at the lineup of countries attacking Libya: the US, Britain, France, Italy and Canada. Italy repudiated its friendship treaty with Libya and US President Barack Obama said Qaddafi had lost his legitimacy. Did Qaddafi ever have legitimacy; if yes, when and how did he lose it? If not, why were the same Western powers eager to deal with him before the recent troubles? Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair had visited Qaddafi in his tent in March 2004. The Libyan dictator also received former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2008. Qaddafi famously referred to her as “that black woman.” French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi both hosted Qaddafi in their capitals a few months before the uprisings started in the Middle East. So what has changed to make Qaddafi the bad boy of the Middle East again so quickly?

True, like Saddam, Qaddafi has had a rocky relationship with the West. From being the West’s darling to mad dog and then back into their good books, he has been through many ups and downs. Qaddafi’s current pariah status has nothing to do with the West’s argument of “humanitarian intervention” to save Libyan lives. Since when have Western rulers become concerned about the plight of Libyans or Muslims? If they do not care for the lives of their own friends — look at how the children of poor families are being sacrificed in Afghanistan and Iraq — why should they care about Libyans?

We need to understand what is afoot in Libya. Despite claims to the contrary, Western troops are already operating on the ground in Libya under the cover of “protecting” Western diplomats but actually providing training to the rebels. Even with the deeply flawed no-fly resolution that does not authorize attacks on Libyan ground forces or armored columns such as tanks, that is precisely what Western bombers are doing. This is creeping occupation of Libya as the world’s attention is diverted to the nuclear disaster in Japan. What might be the reason for the latest Western crusade?

Libyan oil, much coveted by the West because of its low sulphur content, has already been mentioned. Similarly, the US has frozen about $32 billion in Libyan assets under Executive Order 13566. Libya’s frozen assets represent a significant portion of its wealth, according to the Washington Post (March 23, 2011). “In 2009, Libya had a gross domestic product of $62 billion; its sovereign wealth fund is estimated at $40 billion and its central bank reserves at $110 billion. The European Union has added the central bank, the wealth fund and three other Libyan institutions to its sanctions — two weeks after the US action [of February 25],” according to the Post. Britain, not to be left behind, has seized more than $19 billion in Libyan assets.” The looting of Libya has begun in earnest by thieves that have honed their robbing skills over centuries.

Neither Qaddafi nor a successor regime — whatever its shape or color — will ever see this money again. Americans have a habit of stealing others’ wealth, whether by freezing their assets or robbing them through direct invasion and occupation. The US froze $40 billion of Iranian assets in 1980 and barring a few million the rest have been usurped. The Saudis have invested more than one trillion dollars in the US economy. They, too, are not likely to see any of this, especially given the precarious state of the US economy.

But the West’s crusade has another, more sinister purpose. Libya will serve as a beach-head for Western penetration into sub-Saharan Africa that is rich in minerals. Chad, Niger and Sudan have vast mineral deposits that the West covets. This also fits into the election of Obama as president of the United States in 2008. With a black man in the white house, the people of Africa as well as African Americans at home would not be too concerned if the US were to attack and occupy parts of Africa. After all, nobody would accuse Obama of racism. The American establishment has had it all neatly figured out.

A hint to the permanence of Western military intervention was given by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates when he said there was no definite answer about the duration of the Libyan campaign. But he did reveal what was afoot. “Let’s just call a spade a spade,” he said in what a no-fly zone over Libya would entail. “A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy air defences. That’s the way you do a no-fly zone.” A closer look at what Gates said reveals that there is no end in sight. Let us also recall the statement of Dick Cheney, former US vice president about the “war on terror”. He said it may last 50 to 100 years. We can now begin to get a glimpse into the thinking of Western policy-makers.

Wars necessarily create humanitarian crises. There are already nearly 100,000 refugees trying to flee Libya. These include Egyptians, Tunisians, Algerians and citizens of sub-Saharan African countries as well as poor Bangladeshis, Indians and Pakistanis. The West would use their plight as a pretext to send in “humanitarian” aid and workers. Then their “protection” would be used as a pretext for sending in large numbers of ground troops. Libya would once again be colonized directly.

We can see also that while the no-fly zone resolution was authorized by the UN Security Council, the military operations have been taken over by France and Britain and placed under NATO command. Thus, NATO powers have, once again, set themselves up as “authoritative judges of the world common good.”

Libyans clamoring for Western support to help them topple Qaddafi will rue that day when they wake up. Foreign intervention has never brought liberation to any people. Horace Campbell, Professor of African American studies and political science at Syracuse University and currently working on a book on AFRICOM has said: “US involvement in the Libyan bombing is being turned into a public relations ploy for AFRICOM (US Africa Command). AFRICOM is fundamentally a front for US military contractors like Dyncorp, MPRI and KBR operating in Africa. US military planners who benefit from the revolving door of privatization of warfare are delighted by the opportunity to give AFRICOM credibility under the facade of the Libyan intervention. No African country has agreed to let AFRICOM onto the continent. It has 1,500 people operating out of Stuttgart, Germany. If Libya is indeed partitioned, that new state could provide a base for AFRICOM.”

Libyans must wake up before they end up in even worse shape than they are under Qaddafi, however bad he may be. There are better ways to seek liberation than foreign help. It always comes with long strings attached and ends up enslaving rather than freeing people.