Being aware of the hidden agendas behind “dialogue” with non-Muslims

by Abu Dharr - Guest Editorial, 

Crescent International

The lesson Muslims should have learnt through years and centuries of dealing with the “Ahl al-Kitab” is that although we, the Muslims, are almost always ready to speak and listen to “Jews” and “Christians” they are hardly ever ready to listen to us. Some of the better-known figures in the Islamic movement have still not learned that lesson.

During the 1980s, when the US under Ronald Reagan (and with Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney in positions in government) was pursuing war against Islamic Iran via Saddam Husain and his Ba’athist regime in Iraq, Muslims in the Islamic movement were solicited by Saudi Arabia, and even the United States directly, to help to isolate the leadership of the late Imam Khomeini, largely on sectarian grounds. In the context of such deep strategies within their larger political-military plans, the West was willing to speak to Muslims. Some of the Muslims that they dealt with then have become their enemies now; but now they are seeking other Muslims to deal with in order to promote their own interests within their larger game-plan. All they need is Muslims who are poor-spirited and covetous about speaking to them. The lesson Muslims should have learnt through years and centuries of dealing with the “Ahl al-Kitab” is that although we, the Muslims, are almost always ready to speak and listen to “Jews” and “Christians” they are hardly ever ready to listen to us. Some of the better-known figures in the Islamic movement have still not learned that lesson.

Today, when Hizbullah stands its ground and forces the Israeli army to recoil into its territory-of-occupation there are again movements in the West to speak once to Muslims who are willing to listen. This is the key point: the West wants Muslims who will listen – they do not want Muslims to whom they would have to listen. Similarly, when Islamic Iran is minding its own business and developing its own technology, we notice frantic motions coming from the same Western capitals who are now interested in discussions and dialogue.

If it weren’t for the political stature of Islamic Iran, the military successes of Hizbullah and the popular resistance of Hamas, and all the rest of the success of the Islamic movement recently, no one in the West would be interested in speaking to Muslims. To put it bluntly, for those who are having problems following our line of thought: if it wasn’t for the leadership of Imam Khomeini and the sacrifices of the shuhada’, no one would have been interested in approaching al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, Jama’at-e Islami, etc. If it wasn’t for Imam Khamane’i no one in the West would be interested in welcoming former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami to speak at institutions in Europe and America. If it wasn’t for the “anti-American” resistance in Iraq and elsewhere in the predominantly Sunni parts of the Islamic world, the West would not be interested in Hizb al-Da’wah, al-Majlis al-A’la, etc. And if wasn’t for Hizbullah the West would not be interested in al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen or Syria. Will we ever learn this lesson, build our own bridges, close our own ranks, and defeat our own common enemy?

Wa in tasbiru wa tattaqu la yadurrukum kayduhum shay’an inna Allaha bima ya‘maluna muheet – “But if you persevere [against their schemes] and are on guard their guile cannot harm you at all: for certainly Allah encompasses [with all His might] all that they do.” (al-Qur’an 3:120 )