Political Sectarianism’s Spookiness: Down with Sunni and Shi‘i Sectarians

Abu Dharr

 

In the beginning of Islamic history, there were Umawis (Umayyads) and today there are Saudis. In the beginning it wasn’t the khulafa’ and now it isn’t the Ikhwan. For some of us who cannot relate the past to the present or vice versa, let us remind them, if a reminder is any help, that the Saudis have put the Ikhwan on their terrorist list. In other words, the scheming Saudi family has criminalized the Ikhwan, for the same reason and purposes that the Umawis outlawed the Shi‘is, criminalized the Khawarij, and proscribed any scholar or movement that questioned their legitimacy.

If we the Muslims had our political thoughts correct we would easily see the similarities between the Umawis and the Saudis on one flank as they were and are at war with the Shi‘is and the Ikhwan on the other. One of the principal reasons why this political clarity is muddled is the element of sectarianism — both Sunni sectarianism and Shi‘i sectarianism. Sunni sectarianism swells into proportions verging on ignorance from a root problem that fails to identify, clearly and publicly, the political deviation and ideological aberration that was set into historical motion by the Umawi usurpation of power and succeeding dynasties since that time, barring a few exceptions. Shi‘i sectarianism sprouts into proportions verging on ignorance from a root problem that fails to identify, clearly and publicly, the political temporary solution and ideological measure to keep the Muslim population together (most of whom are steeped in a jahili ‘asabiyah) after the Prophet’s passing on — from the khilafah of Abu Bakr to Imam ‘Ali. This grey area (the legitimacy of the khilafah and the illegitimacy of monarchies) that has turned into widespread Islamic ignorance (both Sunni and Shi‘i) has become the troublemaking area of anyone who holds a grudge or harbors hostility toward Muslims (both Sunnis and Shi‘is). The two incapacities: Sunnis discovering who the Umawis were, and the Shi‘is discovering who the khulafa’ were, are causing confusion and chaos throughout Muslim lands. Feeding on this general ignorance are the jumping mad extremists and fanatics, both Sunnis and Shi‘is. Immediately identifiable on the Sunni side are most Wahhabis and Salafis; on the Shi‘i side are the Hujjatis and Shirazis. And the cure can only come from within. A Sunni does not meet the requirements to remedy Shi‘i mistakes and misunderstandings. Similarly, a Shi‘i does not meet the requirements to rectify Sunni mistakes and misunderstandings.

This very wide gap of historical, religious, ideological, and political ignorance has flung the doors of fitnah wide open for Sunni-Shi‘i religious bigots and Zio-imperialist military diehards to suck the life out of Muslims everywhere.

What has this combined Sunni-Shi‘i unfamiliarity with each other done to both of them? What has it done especially to the ruling decision-makers in Arabdom? In the first instance, current rulers in Arab countries have gone from hypocritical enemies of Israel to its introverted friends on their way to becoming its affable allies. Can anyone believe that the Egypt of the 1950s and 1960s has gone from a pompous enemy to becoming a poodle pal of the Zionist beast? Who could have imagined that an Egypt, with a population of 100 million, ganging up with the diminutive mortal enemy of Muslims — the Zionist butchers of Palestinians — to strangulate the two million poverty stricken Palestinians in an open air prison called Ghazzah!? Even an imagination running wild could not have predicted, a generation ago, that there will be Arabian officials who will go public with their alliance with the Zionist slaughterers of babies and killers of kids with smiles on their faces and will salute an apartheid Israel in their statements! The official Arabian system that began with the Umawi usurpation of power and allegations of legitimacy is winding down with the Saudi capitulation to those who are most ruthless in their hostility to committed Muslims. The Umawis’ official policy of condemning Imam ‘Ali and the Prophet’s household from the minbars has morphed into public policies that are saying the Yahud have a right to settle in and establish their (Zionist) state in Palestine. The Umawi-cum-Saudi rulers are blowing hot-and-cold saying that resistance to Zionist Israel is terrorism. Even the Palestinian Authority that was conceived in Oslo and Madrid by Arabian officials and midwifed by Zio-imperialism is begging for international recognition of statehood on about a fourth of geographical Palestine. The 14 centuries of official metamorphosing from Umawi to Saudi peaked with the Oslo agreement that had half the world’s nation-states, who were hitherto resistant to recognizing Israel, come out accepting Israel as a bona fide nation state; among them were China and India. The Umawi affinity with Byzantium lives on in official Arabdom as Egypt and Jordan made their peace with the Zionist colonizers. And now the Arabian-Gulf goofballs are preparing the stage for their official recognition of the Zionist creature — with Bahrain leading the way. Their Iblisi rationalization: we can’t be more Palestinian than the Palestinians themselves! As the 14-century old Umawi regime is surrendering to the American sponsored Zionists in Palestine, a 14-century old resistance is coming of age — the spirit of resistance and championing the rights of the oppressed. History is at a turning point. In less than a generation we may very well witness the rise of those valiant spirits who gave their lives as they stood their ground against the combined forces of Byzantium and the Umawis come back to life and win in the final confrontation in this historical battle. The resistance and fight against Zionism and its backers and benefactors is the prospect of the Palestinians, the anticipation of the Arabs, sunniness of the Sunnis, the sureness of the Shi‘is, marvel of the Muslims, and the optimism of the oppressed.

The nation-states, particularly Egypt and Jordan, who were promised economic prosperity for signing the Oslo and Madrid agreements are worse off now than they have ever been. Their normalization of relations with the Zionist colony in Palestine has put them deeply in debt and marginalized them so much that you may count them as banana republics. Opposite them was tiny Lebanon (total population a mere 4 million) — a country divided into many sects and denominations, a den of spies, dotted with nightclubs and casinos to serve as a playground for the immoral Arabians. In this Lebanese polyglot of religions and classes, the Shi‘is were at the bottom of the totem pole. Then came the attempted Israeli occupation of Lebanon in the 1980s. What was to follow was a manifest miracle — a core of dedicated grassroots Muslims, with values of human equality and principles of universal justice. They emerged and blew up the US marine barracks and the US embassy and forced the protectors of Israel to flee from Lebanon. Then came a long war of attrition against the Zionist occupiers of Lebanon that culminated in the Zionist Israelis dragging their tail of defeat out of southern Lebanon. At a time when sons of PLO officials were busy transacting business deals, the sons of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon were transacting divine deals. A leader of Hizbullah and sons of the leaders of Hizbullah gave their lives in exchange for Allah’s promise. When the dust began to settle, many agents of the Israeli war machine were exposed and some of them fled to Israel where they eventually were treated like the rest of the Palestinians and Arabs. Then came 2006, and Israel and the US confidently talked about a “New Middle East.” And a New Middle East did indeed emerge but it was not the one Tel Aviv and Washington had envisioned. It turned into a New Middle East after 33 days of Israel’s unrelenting but failing warfare with Hizbullah. The resistance movement emerged at the center — head and shoulders above the historical remnants of Arabian officialdom from Manama to Morocco. Hizbullah today has catapulted into the only fighting force in the area along with the Islamic Resistance front. If war ever breaks out we may very well witness for the first time in our tortured contemporary history Hizbullah gallantly liberating at the very minimum northern Palestine with the potential of moving onward to liberate al-Quds (Jerusalem) — the eternal capital of the Prophets (a). And so it was: the Lebanese underclass of poor Muslims became the center of attention and the only force to be reckoned with in the Eastern Mediterranean. And the Umawi voice can be heard through the loudmouths of Arabdom who call Hizbullah a “terrorist organization.” Finely-tuned Muslims can recognize the voice of Mu‘awiyah in the statements of Bani Saud. The Saudi princes and royals are pointing fingers at Hizbullah saying that it gets its support from Iran. Look who is speaking! They get their support from Israel and America. And what is wrong if a Muslim gets support from another Muslim for the goal of putting Palestinians back in their homes and territories? We are now in front of two camps: one of them says the liberation of Palestine is a legitimate goal (the Islamic Resistance) and the other says that the Zionist colonization of Palestine is legitimate (the Gulf Arabian officials).

Arabian official mouthpieces are poisoning the airwaves with sectarian accusations flying left and right saying that Hizbullah is Shi‘i. In the meantime we want to ask them: who are your allies? Aren’t they Israel and the US? And in your sectarian vocabulary are Israel and the US Malikis? Or Shafi‘is, or Hanbalis? Or Hanafis?

The Umawis and the Saudis who hijacked the word “Sunnis” became conscious of their Sunni-ism when they began puffing their Cuban cigars and sipping their Johnny Walker!

And they should not think — they who are in denial of Allah’s power and authority — that Our giving them rein is good for them: We give them rein only to let them exacerbate their sin; and shameful suffering awaits them (3:178).

My House shall be Called the House of Prayer…

But you have turned it into a den of thieves

Abu Dharr

Take a look at the global map. There is what is commonly known as a manufacturing or modern global north. These are nation-states that call themselves part of the “First World.” These are developed, industrialized states. These “industrial, modern, civilized nation-states” are located mostly in Europe, North America, Russia, and China. The southern hemisphere is burdened with nation-states that are old-fashioned, or outdated, behind the times, savage, underdeveloped or uncivilized! In the middle of this global polarity are the Muslims — around two billion, or one-fourth of humanity. More than one in every four persons living on planet Earth is a Muslim. No doubt, the number is impressive. Don’t listen to Zionist and imperialist sources of information who always downplay the number of Muslims, tone down the potential of Muslims and give a lower profile to the capacity of Muslims almost everywhere in the world. Even the Muslims who are born and raised in industrialized countries are either disregarded as communities or downgraded as individuals.

Very few Muslim countries have escaped the harsh conditions of the capitalistic schemes that have impoverished the global south. And among those there are a few that appear to be affluent (glitzy business districts, high-rise buildings, a bubbly night life, etc.) but beyond appearances they still remain “Third-World countries.”

In this “chosen race” and “upper class” division of worldwide societies a closer look at the Islamic demographics demonstrates that the Muslims of the world, and only the Muslims, have been so inclusive and so coexistent with the “other” that this Islamic demographic extends into the domains of all other religions, races, and regions of the world. The in-built perception of “human equality” and “human rights” have been so much ingrained into Islamic peoples that they, at their geographical peripheries, are either Chinese, or Russian, Indian, or European. Muslims of the world who find themselves torn between an independent ideological Islamic identity (which their Islam tells them to be) and an imposed non-Islamic or anti-Islamic ideological national identity (which their enemies want them to be) are suffering the consequences of the Islamic core or the Islamic hub’s inability to come together and at least synchronize its foreign policy and its currency — at the very minimum. This Islamic central part (a very large mass of land and people that stretches from East Asia to West Africa, very rich in mineral resources and very talented in human resources) is being stressed by imperialism, harassed by Zionism, and frequently under attack by the combined strategies of both the Zionists and the imperialists. The racism and classism that is tearing Muslims apart on the peripheries is trying to stab them in the heart at their religious and ideological center: the Holy Land. And the ruling class in the Arabian Peninsula is trying to facilitate the final Zio-imperialist act of Islamic disintegration.

Needless to say, Muslims have more problems than they can deal with. The worst problem, at this moment in time, is that of sectarianism and xenophobia. This officially-sanctioned religious chauvinism is bolstered by the common enemies of Muslims from the peripheries to the center. The way the world is run, it is quite normal to have fraternal relations between the governments of Saudi Arabia and the USA, Egypt and Israel, Israel and the UAE, but it is unauthorized and criminal to have normal and fraternal relations among Islamic movements and Islamic organizations such as Islamic Iran and an Islamically-oriented Turkey, or between al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin and Hizbullah, or between Hamas and Islamic Jihad, etc. The unspoken rationale for this is the unrevealed common strategy between the rulers in Arabia and other Arabian countries on one side and the Zionist regime and its Euro-American enablers on the other, that the consolidation of an Islamic popular Afro-Asian self-governance is an existential threat to the Zionist colonizers of Palestine and the attempted Pax-Americana upon the Muslim world. These global “deep-state” officials know that if there comes a day when the world’s Muslims reconstitute their independent political will, the Zio-imperialist show is over. To preclude that from happening, the Israeli-centrics of the world are relying on their last line of defense: the Wahhabi-Saudi kingdom. That kingdom can be best described as a factory of hate, any hate, rather the hate of the other Muslim who is not one of them. This hate is then put into an assembly line that runs through educational institutions and universities that gave the world the takfiris and their numerous bloodbaths throughout the Muslim world. Not one shot against Zionists and Israel’s military regime. When these Saudi officials realized that their final sellout to the Zionist bosses and their American underlings was not going to sit well with their “moderate” religious scholars, they hauled them off to prison where they languish without due process until this very moment while no one is able to predict what tomorrow will bring to these poor souls. These temperate scholars, from Hasan Farhan al-Maliki, to Salman al-‘Awdah, to Safar al-Hawali, and others, would not and could not find it within their conscience to go along with the final phase of Saudi-Israeli-American collaboration, which says that Islamic Iran is enemy number one and Israel is our friend.

At this point, we think that the Muslims of the world have stuffed themselves with the appropriate amount of the hate-and-kill the other Muslim, Wahhabi/Salafi claptrap that their immune system is beginning to fight back against the pathogens of Wahhabi indoctrination at the service of Zionist interests. And to preempt their own demise, the Saudi ruling class is trying to balance its act by taking out its own scholars who preached a bigoted Islam and nothing goes just yesterday while bringing in its own entertainment class of wishy-washy Islam where everything goes. So now we have entertainment centers, night clubs, halal discos, and Red Sea beaches being prepared for tourists who can come without obstruction from all corners of the earth to engage in fahsha’ and munkar just a few miles away from Makkah and Madinah. The Arabian royal lapdogs have made a 180-degree turn: from Wahhabi kill the Muslims through the barrel of the gun to kill the Muslims through the butt of the gonad.

The Zionist coached Saudis are trying to buy time. They know that they lost their sectarian wars in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. They now know that their worldwide network of Wahhabi indoctrinated and Saudi financed fanatics could not deliver on encircling the Islamic Revolution in Iran by relying on the resuscitation of historical ghosts and sectarian ghouls. So now these crashing cashiers from Najd have placed all their eggs in the Zionist basket. The Muslim World League has extended an invitation to Zionist Israeli personnel to visit Saudi Arabia in January 2020. A signboard has gone up in Madinah with the word “Shalom” written on it in Hebrew. Is this the first shot of a Saudi policy that will have the Yahud return to Madinah? The Zionists have been emboldened by official Arabdom that made it possible for Israel to reverse over half a century ago ‘Umar’s liberation of al-Quds (Jerusalem) in 16ah/638ce and thus colonize it. Now the Zionists are emboldened by royal Saudi Arabia that is making it possible for Israel to reverse our Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) liberation of Madinah and resettle and then take virtual possession of it!

Let us be frank and problem-solving about this internal ailment in our worldwide body. We are suffering from cardio-spiritual disease. Our heart in Makkah and Madinah is in poor health. We need otherworldly Arabians, not Saudi Arabians; we need tawhidi Muslims, not takfiri “Muslims.” We need a unifying Makkah not an “off limits” Makkah. We need to show our love and attachment for our Prophet (pbuh) in Madinah and not to be assaulted and thrown out because we are fond of and feel affection for our beloved Prophet.

The bottom line is: if we can’t feel at home in Makkah, we can’t feel at home anywhere else. Ask the Palestinians. Ask the Kashmiris, ask all of us who are living as individuals and dying as societies. If I can’t call Makkah home, I can’t call anywhere else home,

Let them, therefore, settle in with the Sustainer of this dwelling [the Ka‘bah], who has fed them [out of conditions of hunger] and secured them [out of dangerous circumstances] (106:3–4).

Condescending and discriminatory Beliefs are of Satan — Not Allah

By Abu Dharr

It is elementary to say that the Zionists are the arch-enemies of Islamic self-determination, Islamic independence, and Islamic self-rule. The Zionist destabilization and misappropriation of Judaism is concealed, controversial, and camouflaged. We have no bones to pick with Jews who are against Zionism; our targeted crowd are those “Jews” who in their politics belong to Satan but in their rituals belong to Ha-Shem (God). The major mainstream media that these types virtually control wants the rest of the world to identify “Jews” by rituals alone — and as for their wars of aggression, their theft of the Holy Land, and their continued crucifixion of the Palestinian Muslims and Christians, well that has nothing to do with identifying who they are simply because they perform Jewish rituals!

We are going to take our gloves off and deal with the diabolic psychology not only of these “Jews” who stole the history of Judaism before they stole Palestine, but we will also deal with the vile psychology of “Muslims” who tried to steal the history of Islam before they stole Arabia.

Let us quote the Israeli Zionists and leave the conclusion to you:

• “When we have settled the Arab land, all the Arabs can do about it is to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle” (Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli “Defense” Forces, New York Times, April 14, 1983).

• “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel: it is normal, we have taken their country; it is true — God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs, why would they accept that?” (Nahum Goldman in The Jewish Paradox, p. 121).

• “Every time we do something, you tell me America will do this, America will do that. I want to tell you something very clear: don’t worry about the American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America and the Americans know it” (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001, speaking to Shimon Peres, as reported on Call Israel Radio).

• “Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages; we do not even know the names of these Arab villages. I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist” (Moshe Dayan, in an address to the Technion, Haifa, reported in Ha’aretz, April 4, 1969).

• Rabin’s description of the conquest of Lydda (al-Ludd) after the completion of plan Dalit, “We shall reduce the population of Arabs to wood cutters and waiters” (Yuri Lubrani, Prime Minister Ben Gurion’s adviser on Arab affairs in 1960, excerpts from The Arabs in Israel, by Sabri Jirius).

• “It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion clearly and courageously a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time: the first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonization or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands” (Yoram ben Porat in Yedi‘ot Ahranot, July 14, 1972).

• “One million Arabs are not worth a single Jewish fingernail” (Rabbi Yaacov Parin, February 27, 1994; quoted in the New York Times on February 28, 1994, p.1).

• “We Jews are the destroyers and will remain the destroyers. Nothing you can do will meet our demands and needs. We will forever destroy because we want a world of our own” (Morris Samuel, You Gentiles, p. 155).

• “We will have a world government whether you like it or not. The only question is whether that government will be achieved by conquest or by consent” (Jewish banker Paul Walburg, February 17, 1950 as he testified before the US senate).

• “Our race is the master race; we are divine gods on this planet. We are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects. In fact, compared to our race, other races are beasts and animals — cattle at best. Other races are considered as human excrement. Our destiny is to rule over the inferior races. Our earthly kingdom will be ruled by our leader with a rod of iron. The masses will lick our feet and serve as our slaves” (Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in a speech to the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) quoted by Amnon Kapelyuk, in Begin and the Beast, from the New Statesman, June 25, 1982).

Now we transition to the Wahhabis and see what they have to say about Muslims and Arabs. And you be the judge. Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Al al-Shaykh, the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, preceding Ibn Baz, and considered the pacesetter of the current takfiri creed, considers most of the Muslims to be kafirs in his voluminous book of Jami‘ al-Fatawa, Volume 1 (p. 77),

• Islamic countries are countries of kufr (Vol. 6, p. 188).

• A murtadd is not someone who renounces Islam; he is someone who says he is a Muslim but is not a Wahhabi by conviction (Vol. 12, p. 183).

• Whosoever’s ancestors died and were not Wahhabis have died

as mushriks.

• Becoming a Muslim means becoming a Wahhabi (Vol. 12, p. 198).

• Whoever becomes a Muslim remains a “Muslim suspect” until verification is established of whether the person became a Muslim via a Wahhabi or non- Wahhabi (Vol. 5, p. 196).

• Muslims may be taken as prisoners of war by Wahhabis and treated like slaves (Vol. 6, p. 208).

• Wahhabis are authorized to confiscate the wealth and possessions of “other” Muslims (Vol. 6, p. 216).

• Muslims belonging to the Ibadi, Ash‘ari, and Shafi‘i schools of thought are disqualified from testifying in a court of law (Vol. 1, p. 256).

• The Shi‘is are idol worshippers, some of whom may be considered munafiqs (Vol. 8, p. 189).

• The people of Egypt have foregone their Islam (Vol. 11, p. 40).

• Selling the coverings of the Ka‘bah is tantamount to shirk (Vol. 1, p. 102).

• Abu Jahl knew more about Islam than Muslim scholars — the ‘ulama’ (Vol. 1, p. 84).

• Those of the Zaydi school of thought are not permitted to become judges (Vol. 12, p. 324).

• Affinity for virtuous and righteous individuals who passed on is shirk (Vol. 1, p. 122).

• Sitting at a burial site of a virtuous, honest, and righteous deceased Muslim in memory of him is shirk (Vol. 1, p. 133).

• It is permissible to eliminate the Maqam of Prophet Ibrahim (a) (Vol. 1, p. 6).

• It is allowed to destroy the structure on Umm al-Mu’minin Khadijah’s grave.

• A fatwa that legalizes the killing of anyone who says Abu Talib, the Prophet’s uncle, was a Muslim.

• A fatwa saying that the earth does not rotate (Vol. 2, p. 182).

And we can go on and on and on… We cited these examples from the Zionists and the Wahhabis to prove that both of them agree on Muslim populations being disposable and legitimate targets for their war campaigns and their war efforts. Both of them have assumed a satanic psychology and espouse a diabolic policy that legitimizes genocidal warfare. Both of them consider the Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim “other” to be inferior and subordinate. Should anyone be surprised to see Netanyahu and Ibn Salman shaking hands, smiling for the cameras, and sitting down to sip and sup together? Along with a host of their advisers, security guards, and entourage! No amount of Jewish rituals or Islamic rituals should obscure their common character and their shared spirit.

We can understand the evil character of politicians using clergymen (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim) for their wicked purposes, but we cannot understand clergymen being used for such wicked purposes. Wahhabi Zionists and Zionist Wahhabis pray at the common niche within their satanic temple. And their holy book legitimizes the starvation of populations, wars of aggression, and displacement of tens of millions of Muslims. If you think Netanyahu and Ibn Salman belong to two different religions, your definition of religion does not come from the Qur’an. They give lip service to God but they give bullet service to Satan. And their gunshot actions speak louder than their pious words,

A group of people [ostensibly] belonging to divine scripture would love to share misguidance with you… (3:69).

A Person Between Man and the Angels

By Abu Dharr 

How does one broach the subject of “womanhood” in the Islamic environment when there are two immoderations at loggerheads with each other? Each one drapes itself with self-righteous quotations and an inability to see some merit in the line of reasoning on the opposite side.

Talking or writing about women is taboo to some Muslims and way overdue for others. Both are inexact and reinforce each other’s position without intending to do so. Knowing how delicate this topic is to some Muslims and how intense it is to others, it will not be a surprise if both sides pelt us with their displeasure.

As time drags on, the issue of women’s rights keeps developing. There are many moral concerns and social problems that unfold when speaking of women’s rights. Many times the question of women’s rights has more to do with individuals who have money and power or with establishments that manipulate money and deploy power.

Take as an example what happened a few months ago when a section of the Saudi ruling family made it legal for women to drive cars. Muhammad bin Salman and his father the king at long last reconciled a ma‘ruf (a self-evident good quality) with shar‘ (divine legality). But what we saw accompany this seemingly positive development was the Saudi ceremonial rulers give a free rein to their security agents to viciously embark on a campaign to silence or send to prison the very Saudi women who stood up for justice and equality throughout the past years. You would think that these women would have been applauded or even promoted. But no, that wasn’t the case. As the malevolent monarchy always behaves, it viciously went after fair-minded females and unbiased women! And when Canada, even though it has no problems with the Saudi regime killing tens of thousands of Muslims up and down the Holy Land from Yemen to the Levant, expressed some empathy for human rights advocates in the medieval Kingdom, the Saudi regime was incensed and immediately expelled the Canadian ambassador from Riyadh. Little did Canada know that it had touched a Saudi raw nerve — the Kingdom is rife with internal contradictions and the human rights issue is a very serious one indeed. That’s how fragile that clan-run Kingdom has become.

Moving away from the chauvinistic shaykhs and misogynist freaks in that state of Saudi sin, we refocus our attention on Muslim women in many societies in Euro-America throughout the past couple of decades at least. And what do we find? We find a type of fixation with the issue of niqab and hijab. Some of these “freedom loving” countries have passed laws that would make wearing the niqab in public places illegal. A ban on the burqa in public places went into effect in Denmark recently. France’s cultural colonialism no longer has its Legionnaires killing Muslims across Africa and Asia but it has its security forces and legal institutions eradicating the freedoms that, on paper, are the right of all citizens and legal residents living in France, except if one is a Muslim — and particularly an observant Muslim woman. Recently, the ex-foreign minister of a lapsed Great Britain poked fun at Muslim women wearing the hijab.

In a column in the UK’s the Telegraph, on Sunday (August 12), Boris Johnson wrote that while he doesn’t support a burqa ban, he does think they’re “ridiculous” because they make women look like “letter boxes” and “bank robbers.”

“If you say that it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces, then I totally agree,” Johnson wrote. “I would go further and say that it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes.”

He also said that if “a female student turned up at school or at a university lecture looking like a bank robber,” he would ask her to remove her face covering in order to speak to him. He added that humans “must be able to see each other’s faces.” Mr. Johnson, the political animal that he is, it turns out, made those statements to garner support of the political right-wing factions and the conservative votes in his indisposed kingdom — a kingdom that injected itself with a lethal dose of Brexit and thus is on its way to becoming the sick man of Europe. Britain still suffers from a colonial hangover — which would explain why Mr. Johnson could not bring himself to apologize for his anti-Muslim rant.

How many Muslim women are there in Britain who wear the niqab? An educated guess would be less than one-tenth of 1%. But that miniscule number is huge in a political atmosphere that is systematically charged with Islamophobia and the post-9/11 war on terror.

Then we have in Tunisia ongoing public campaigns and legal procedures that would give a female beneficiary the same share as the male beneficiary, which would mean goodbye to the ayah, “…for the male [beneficiary] the equivalent of two female [beneficiaries]” (4:11). And now that the matriarchy versus patriarchy door is open, the Tunisians are showing their penchant for more “equality” by motioning the right for Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men. This was presented by the Tunisian president al-Baji Qa’id al-Sabsi to parliament! In the context of Arabian governments, Tunisia has always prided itself on being the most liberal and liberated society when it comes to women’s rights. But a more careful consideration of Tunisian politics reveals that there is a fierce electioneering competition going on between the two major Tunisian parties — the secular Nida’ Tunis (The Sound of Tunis) and the Islamic oriented al-Nahdah (The Arising). In these election campaigns winning women’s votes is critical — so critical that al-Nahdah had women without the Islamic dress code nominated on their behalf. And lo and behold one un-Islamically dressed Tunisian woman who joined al-Nahdah — Su‘ad ‘Abd al-Rahim — was elected as mayor of Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. This major Islamic party in Tunisia had its members expressing themselves in what you would say is the lingo of modernity and the vocabulary of enlightenment, so much so that the female mayor is being presented by al-Nahdah as the next potential prime minister or president. It is reported that al-Nahdah inclines to favor equal inheritance rights for male and female. Quixotically, this pro-feminine position of the Islamic al-Nahdah caused members of its rival Nida’ Tunis to adopt a more traditional and “Islamic” position on women in society: women are not qualified to hold the highest offices in the government! It has become so schizophrenic that during the vote on equal inheritance rights for men and women in which the secular president al-Sabsi voted in favor, the male and female attendees were segregated!

In this intense and irregular election atmosphere al-Azhar, the renowned Islamic institution in Cairo, Egypt, weighed in on an internal Tunisian affair and took the side of the secular Tunisian party. It doesn’t take a scholar to figure out that al-Azhar is doing the bidding of its governmental bosses — the Egyptian military brass that undid a democratic election and, so far, has gotten away with it.

As Divinity would have it, al-Azhar took a vocal position on the “women’s rights” issue, which amounts to supporting the seculars of Tunisia within the same week in which the fifth anniversary of the Egyptian military’s mass slaughter of thousands of Egyptians in what is called the Massacre of Rabi‘ah — women, men, and children — occurred.

Whether it is an Islamic party, an Islamic institution, or an Islamic individual, the merits and demerits of women’s rights are, regrettably speaking, a function of power politics. The language that has cavities in its words will have chasms in its policies. We, the Muslims, have some Qur’anic words that are not well defined and, thus, are not well understood. These words are: hijab, khumur (plural of khimar), jalabib (plural of jilbab), and sitr. Then there are cultural words and variations: niqab, chador, burqa. If we were serious-minded, we would define these words, place them in our down-to-earth everyday life and move ahead with our common and shared responsibilities — men and women. “O People! Be ever on guard relevant to your Sustainer who has created you from one nafs, and He created from it, its matching part” (4:1).

Abu Dharr

Prejudices are What Rule the Vulgar Crowd

By Abu Dharr

The damage and destruction that the family kingdom of Saudi Arabia has wrought on the Muslims and non-Muslims of the world is immeasurable. Any indication of the failure of the clannish Kingdom is a success story for the rest of the world. First and foremost among them are the steadfast Muslims who have lived and died through the Saudi schemes that were originally planned by Talmudic Zionists and evangelical imperialists.

One encouraging sign of the unraveling of the Zionist-imperialist Saudi rulers is the massive and unprecedented departure of “foreign” workers from that wicked Kingdom. Foreign workers and employees in Saudi Arabia are leaving in droves due to princeling Muhammad bin Salman’s (MBS) Saudiization policy — by which he means that jobs in his personal kingdom belong to the citizens of Saudi Arabia and only to them!

Official figures show that during the past year 667,000 “foreign” employees exited the Kingdom. Most of them decided to do so because the authorities there began imposing high governmental service fees on “foreigners” and their families. Add to that a general slow-down of the Saudi economy due to bleeding budgetary expenses resulting from its war in Yemen and its financing of other wars elsewhere, primarily in the Muslim world. Further, inflation has taken a toll on middle- and lower-class “foreign” workers. Expectations are that the number of “foreigners” exiting this year (2018) will more than double, probably reaching 1.5 million!

The Saudi financial impositions upon “foreigners” have no basis in the Qur’an or Sunnah. Take for example their new law that every “foreign” breadwinner has to pay a sum of $27/month for every dependent in his family. By the year 2020 that amount will rise to $106 for every dependent. Add to that the levies that are imposed on a person every time he or she enters or exits the Kingdom, which have been tripled due to MBS’ Saudiization program. Fees are on the rise for a person renewing his residency permit or his driving license! What used to be government subsidies on basic essentials have been virtually eliminated. Add to all that the taxes that are surreptitiously tagged on to many consumer items and the average “foreigner” feels that he is no longer welcome in the land of the Prophet (pbuh) and the birthplace of Islam.

Even the “Arab foreigner” is beginning to evacuate his family because of the escalating costs of rent and inflation. Imagine a hardworking employee in the Kingdom who now has to pay about 35,000 riyals (approx. $10,000) each year to renew his and his family’s residency permit! Tag on to that rising school tuition fees and health insurance costs, and even a mentally challenged person would understand that he is being booted out of the Saudi dynastic Kingdom. Of note here is that the official Saudi policy forbids most “foreigners” from enrolling their children in government schools and forbids them from having access to free medical care in government-run hospitals. Remember, the majority of these “foreigners” are Muslim. And remember that the Saudi “da‘is” and preachers speak about Islamic brotherhood and faith companionship night and day!

The “foreign” employees who have already left and those who are on their way out number about one-third of the total Saudi population (11 million out of 33 million). Most of them built the Saudi infrastructure throughout the past decades in the fields of education, health, construction, technology, and public services. They make up about 80% of the private sector.

MBS, who follows the Zio-American script carefully, envisions that his 2030 plan would secure 1.2 million jobs for his tribal citizens. Currently unemployment is officially at 13%. The projection is that it will go down to 9% by 2020. Economists are skeptical as Saudi citizens have not taken up the jobs that were vacated when “foreigners” left the private sector. Absent women from the work force, the short-term fulfillment of Saudiization doesn’t look promising.

Crunching the numbers is not encouraging: 53% of “foreign” workers receive about 3,000 riyals ($800) each month — barely enough to support a family. The un-Islamic Saudi policy of kafil (sponsorship) excludes these “foreigners” from ever finding a path to citizenship. They are disqualified from permanent residency. Read that again: they (Muslims) are disqualified from permanent residency. How can any Muslim be disqualified from constant or long-lasting residency in the land of his or her Prophet (pbuh)? This is what everyone should ask: where is the Qur’an and the Sunnah here?

Many Jordanians have been streaming out of MBS’ kingdom, and in a way, that is good news because the Jordanian population will no longer feel a “soft spot” for its erstwhile Saudi employer.

The Saudi-Israeli-American grand scheme is meant to put pressure on certain countries when the citizens of those countries leave Saudi Arabia and no longer send remittances back home. Case in point is Sudan. But this could very well contribute to a buildup of resentment and bitterness within the Muslim populations against what will become more obvious as the months and years pass by, that is, the Israelization of Saudi Arabia.

If the Saudi crowned heads could think for themselves they would have invested the $450 billion they gave to Trump in their own country, thereby putting an end to unemployment and inflation. But flunkies are flunkies even with crowns on their heads. The Saudis are whispering to themselves as to what they are going to do with “illegals” residing in the Kingdom. It is not hard to guess that they will follow in Trump’s footsteps.

The Saudi propagandists say that Saudi Arabia is the second country in the world, after the US, that has transfer of funds elsewhere ($30–40 billion/year). Now, that is a meandering way of saying that wealth should not be shared, or that Saudi Arabia does not belong to the Ummah, or “make Saudi Arabia great again.”

Let’s face it: Saudi Arabia is the cash cow and the laughing stock of the world. When there were imperialist wars of aggression in Southeast Asia (1960s and 1970s), in Central America (1980s), and in Central Asia (1980s) the corporate and capitalist elites tapped on the Saudi royals for securing the US dollar and for pumping petroleum to meet and secure the expenses of wars. The pea-brain Saudi royals and their Arabian moneyed monarchs footed the bill. Who financed the antagonistic Iraqi imposed war on Islamic Iran? Who financed the Second Gulf War when the same Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait? Who is financing the wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Bahrain? Who is sponsoring and bank-rolling the war and war crimes in Yemen?

Throughout this quick summary of the shameful Saudi exclusion of the “other” we avoided the use of words like racism, discrimination, prejudice, and bigotry. All of these elements are par for the course when it comes to Wahhabi narrow-mindedness — a predisposition that does not know what the definition of equality is. Compare official Saudi policy above with divine words, “Hence, I [Muhammad] shall not expel [any of] those who are committed Muslims…” (26:114).

Israel Plans, Saudi Finances, Qatar Facilitates, Britain, France, and USA Execute

Abu Dharr

Last month (April 15) the Arabian rulers held their summit meeting in the family kingdom of Bani Sa‘ud. From the inception of the Arab(ian) League on orders from Britain and with its blessings, it has been a political performance festooned with meager monarchs and paltry presidents massaging their extravagant egos on one extreme or trading tirades against each other on the other. In both cases, never has there been anything positive or progressive about this sporadic meeting of heads of state. The latest one adds to its farce performance. The senile Saudi son-of-Sufyan christened this Arabian summit meeting as, believe it or not, “the Quds Summit.” Hypocrisy has reached unparalleled summits! These heads of state are unloading tons of money for the Zionists to claim al-Quds as the eternal capital of Israel while at the same time unloading loads of words to declare that al-Quds should not have the American embassy moved there, in a gesture to expunge the loudmouth statements released by the king’s out of control son MBS. Another two-faced facade of that summit is the hoisting of the flag of the Syrian Arab Republic at the entrance of the conference building when no invitation was sent to that country’s president to attend the summit. Syria’s seat at the summit lay vacant. If these Arabian royals were honest with themselves they should have invited Bejamin Netanyahu or Donald Trump to sit in that empty chair! And then, General ‘Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi, “president” of Egypt, began criticizing Islamic Iran without having the testosterone to call it by name. The Jordanian monarch-minor evoked the Hashemite mandate of al-Quds. What planet is he living on? Or is he appealing to Recep Erdogan and his channels of communication with both the Saudis and Israelis to bring back the good old days of his treacherous, CIA-employed father, the late and forgotten pintsize King Husayn. Syria was not alone in its exclusion from the Arabian summit; Qatar was also absent. And dare one bring to mind an intelligent discussion and debate about the latest Gulf crisis (the rift between Saudi and Qatar Arabians)? The financial stakes are much too high. Money dictates their muteness. What about the timing of this Arabian summit? On the Islamic calendar it began on the day of al-Isra’ wa-al-Mi‘raj, or a day after. On the political calendar it came a day after a team of investigators were supposed to arrive in Syria to ascertain whether chemical weapons were used in Douma, and the day when there were antiwar demonstrations in many countries. On the military calendar it came the day after the combined attack by Britain, France, and the US against “military” targets in Syria. Perhaps these kings and presidents were preparing to cheer an imperialist-Zionist military victory over the Asad “regime”! Instead of toasting themselves to an imperialist-Zionist victory they were being toasted by the results of that anticlimax. Let us try to steer through their muddled minds. They and their imperialist advisers and Zionist consultants are living off false projections. They look at the regional map and see that Turkey is in control of areas in northern Syria. They interpret that as a setback for Islamic Iran and Hizbullah. They fail to see that Turkey’s entry into Syria was done when Ankara rearranged its politics more closely with Isla-mic Iran and Russia.

These Arabian heads of state (tails of imperialism and Zionism would be more accurate) watch Israel bomb Syria and they cheer such aggression thinking that Israel is contributing to the weakening of Syria. It doesn’t occur to them that whatever material losses are sustained due to Israeli bombing raids strengthens the resolve of the Syrian, Arab, and Muslim masses to side with the victims of Israeli aggression. The Zionist Satan whispers to them that the Russian ruble and the Iranian touman are losing their value and with their crude minds they cannot figure out that all the imperialist and Zionist policies of sanctions and boycotts amount to an inoculation that will immunize and consolidate the economies of Russian and Iran. The Arabian crowned heads watched the “sneak attack” by the US, Britain, and France against Syria on the day of al-Isra’ wa-al-Mi‘raj gleefully thinking that the end is near for Syria. Little do they realize that they themselves are living on borrowed time. Why can’t these military behemoths fight like real men? Why do they attack other sovereign countries under the cover of night? In 1956 Britain, France, and Israel attacked Egypt; that catapulted Egypt to become the most popular Arab country. In 2018, Britain, France, and the US attack Syria. Is it unexpected to foretell that Syria is on its way to becoming the most popular Arab country? Tripartite aggressions have their way of boomeranging against the perpetrators. All of these dynamics that are in high gear would have us draw some lessons from the various theaters of operation in the Muslim world. In the 1980s, the US supplied the Afghans with Stinger missiles to bring down Russian military aircraft over Afgha-nistan. Would it be out of the question to ask why can’t this policy of supplying anti-aircraft (shoulder held missiles) apply to the anti-Israeli resistance in Syria and Lebanon? The mainstream media wants everyone to think that the choreographed attack on Syria was done by nation-states Britain, France, and the US. The unspoken other half of this stage-managed attack was done with the connivance of the tribal states Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. President Trump, whose tweets appear to be stiffer than his Tomahawks, needs to begin to think about two things: (1) to instruct his advisers to learn Russian because if he continues down this road of military friction and confrontation he will have to, in due course, apologize to the Russians for his military miscalculations and policy blunders in Russian; and (2) to brush up on his math — news reports have it that the missiles, over a hundred of them that were launched to destroy chemical warfare targets, cost $224 million. Was it worth that amount to destroy three buildings Mr. Trump? Where is your business savoir-faire Mr. Trump? Or should we attest to your business shrewdness and say that it was worth $224 million to divert national and international news away from the media juggernaut that is quickly closing in on you because of your scandals: sexual immorality on one side and the political foxtrot with the Russians on the other side?

As the Arabian skulls-of-state were meeting in ¸ahran (Dhahran, about 250 km from the Islamic Republic of Iran) instead of Riyadh, where previous summits were held, the family Arabians’ armed forces were conducting military exercises in the Persian/Arabian Gulf. Twelve of these tribal states were operating joint military exercises in what appears to be a signal of intentions against the Islamic Republic and not against the Zionist regime. That’s on the military front; on the propaganda front, articles are appearing in the media of these overwhelmed officials with an unmistakable content: peace with Israel and war with Iran. A news site called al-Riyadh led with the following title, “The Summit at Dhah-ran… Peace with Israel and confrontation with Iran.” The long and short of the article is: whoever rejects peace with Israel is in the service of Iran. There you have it from the horse’s mouth. Does anyone need further proof of the perfidy and nifaq of Bani Sa‘ud, Bani Khalifah, Bani al-Íabah, Bani Thani, along with their master Bani Isra’il? They can never inflict more than a passing hurt on you; and if they fight against you, they will make an about turn [fleeing away from you], and will be denied [ultimate] victory (3:111).

Fore-think, though you cannot fore-tell

By Abu Dharr

By Abu Dharr

The success of the Islamic revolution in Iran exposed the secular nationalists both in Iran and the rest of the Muslim world.

Some people ask, either out of goodwill, ignorance, or malicious knowledge, why Iran is “expanding” from its (imperialist) imposed geographical frontiers into Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon (also colonialist defined and penciled nation-states)? The question is meant to present the Islamic political will in Iran as if it were invading, occupying, or annexing these countries!

The secular sloppy cerebrum wants to sway public opinion into believing that Islamic Iran is a hegemon. Some would postulate that Iran’s ruling classes from ancient times to the present always had their eyes set on that stretch of territory from Iran to Lebanon — Cyrus the Great, the Sassanians, the Safawids, and now the Islamic Republic. In the Muslim mind it does not take a great deal of effort to distinguish between pre-Islamic dynasties and Islamic-based governance. So we will throw that one to the wind.

These secular haranguers, especially within a peculiar Iranian nationalist strata, go on to say that in history, Iran has been defeated twice through invasions emanating from its west: Alexander of Greece and ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab of Arabia. Even the Umayyad Dynasty was finished off by a revolt with an Arabian content and a Persian structure. This counter-movement went from the east (Persia) westward toward Bilad al-Sham (the Levant).

During the fourth hijri century the (Shi‘i) Buwayhids took control of ‘Abbasid Baghdad. Even the royal family of Harun al-Rashid, the celebrity ‘Abbasid king, saw two of the princely sons split on the issue: one favored the “Arabs” (al-Amin) and the other favored the Persians (al-Ma’mun).

Strictly from this type of reading of history, some Persians, of course lacking an Islamic perspective, look at that whole region from an Iran-centric point of view. Iran was known as Persia until the Pahlavi family came along in the first quarter of the last century and stamped the country with its “Iran” imprimatur. For them it wasn’t WWI that changed the political landscape of the area; it was the 1906 Constitutional Revolution. Then came the Pahlavi coup in 1921. That was followed by the rise and expansion of the communist Tudeh Party from 1941–1953.

These internal Persian stirrings led to the nationalization of the Iranian-British petroleum consortium and the ambition of nationalizing other enterprises (the early-1950s). During Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh’s reign Persia became a bone of contention between a fading British colonialism and an emerging American imperialism. All these internal developments in certain secular Iranian circles were the catalyst for other developments in the countries around Iran. Like all other people, Iranians also have their self-centric tellers of tales.

We are not much concerned with this intellectual deviation. Our concern is that an Islamic paradigm shift occurred in Persia in 1978–1979. This revolution, for anyone who is willing to understand, broke from nationalist and sectarian eccentricities. The psychologically defeated talking-heads monitoring this exceptional event say that reformist efforts have failed to mend this revolution (for instance, the presidency of Muhammad Khatami from 1997–2005). Even the “Arab Spring” in the eyes of these observers was an offshoot of the failed “Green Revolution” of 2009.

With all the sectarian mud that is being thrown around, we should hasten to preempt the Wahhabi sectarians by saying that the Shi‘i Buwayhids, when they ruled in Baghdad, never imposed their Ithna ‘Ashari madhhab on the rest of the Muslims. This was to happen much later, at the beginning of the 16th century CE, when the Safawids pressed the Shi‘i Ithna ‘Ashari madhhab on the people in Iran, who were prior to that a “Sunni” population. At that time the Muslims (Sunnis and Shi‘is) were operating at a depleted intellectual level. Thus the disagreements and battles between the Safawids and Ottomans turned into a sectarian conflict. In 1514, the Ottoman sultan, Salim I, defeated Shah Isma‘il at the battle of Chaldiran and occupied the Safawid capital of Tabriz. There were pitched battles back and forth between the Ottomans and the Safawids in Iraq, ending ultimately with the Ottomans taking control of Iraq in 1638. Some may look at the 1502 Safawid conquest of Persia on par with the Yalta agreement and what it meant for Europe, or the collapse of the Soviet Union and what that meant for the world.

During the reign of the Pahlavis, Iranian nationalist fervor was pronounced. The friction between Iran and its neighbors (Bahrain, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates) was one of Persian nationalism versus Arabian nationalism. Persian nationalism took a back seat where imperialist interests were concerned, and so the Persian Pahlavis found common cause with the Arabian autocrats: Nuri al-Sa‘id in Iraq and King Faysal in Saudi Arabia. They all were at “imperialist attention” against ‘Abd al-Nasir of Egypt.

The Islamic governance in Tehran today has its contemporary beginnings in its opposition to the scandalous Shah. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, anti-Shah committed Muslims built bridges with anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, and anti-Zionist forces. And no one that this writer knows of came out and labeled these self-determined Muslims to be “Persian enemies” or “Shi‘i sectarians.” They were motivated by their Islamic commitment — the way they understood that commitment to be. Once that Islamic consolidated effort came to fruition in 1979 the solidarity with it was phenomenal. People in Arab countries expressed their support bypassing ideological and religious affiliations: whether Islamic, nationalist, or leftist, they were all inspired by it and hopeful for it. The American political class — always at the Zionist beck and call — did not know how to challenge or tackle this burst of Islamic self-determination. A repeat of the 1953 American supported coup was out of the question.

Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow and Saddam Husayn in Baghdad were now equally scared of this Islamic awakening and solidarity. Saddam’s first reaction to the triumphant Islamic political will in Iran was to depose President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr. Brezhnev’s first reaction was the occupation of Afghanistan. The Soviets deposed and disposed of their less confrontational communist comrade Hafizullah Amin who, it is said, was inching toward an understanding with the Islamic Afghan resistance (jihad). The Kremlin brought out of his Prague exile the vicious Babrak Karmal.

The Islamic sea change in Iran stirred its Shi‘i kin in Iraq who were in opposition to Saddam’s bloodthirsty regime. Some of this opposition took sides in the rivalry between Saddam and the Shah thereby fostering a relationship of sorts with the Pahlavi regime. The Shah had his own plans for unseating Saddam and some of the “Islamic” Shi‘i personalities and parties may have been active or passive abettors (Hizb al-Da‘wah, the Hakim family). Those who want further information should look up the attempted coup in Iraq led by General ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Rawi.

These fast-paced events brought together the enemies of Islamic self-determination and Saddam, on reassurances from Arabian rulers and on orders from their imperialist masters to launch the eight long years of a bloody war of aggression that drained the two populations of their combined potential to deliver the Palestinian people to their homeland. Saddam and his imperialist-Zionist handlers knew that this Ba‘thi war of aggression would have the double multiplier of antagonistic nationalism and fanatical sectarianism.

The expulsion of the Israeli diplomatic mission from Iran and the handing over of its embassy to representatives of Palestinians did not register with the Arabian decision makers as they began to lose sight of an Israeli enemy and the Palestinian cause.

Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, who are the closest bloc of activists, had their run in with President Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat when he hosted a Shah without a country. The Ikhwan also could only go so far in their verbal support of the Islamic Revolution in Iran as they were estranged by years and decades of trying to milk the Saudi, Kuwaiti, Qatari, and other cash cows in the Arabian Peninsula. When Imam Khomeini (rahmatullahi ‘alayhi) passed away, some Ikhwan mourned his passing in silence and opacity.

The Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought (Majma‘ al-Taqrib Bayna al-Madhahib al-Islamiyah) with its yearly international conferences tried to close the ranks of committed and enlightened Muslim scholars, intellectuals, activists, and officials but the Saudi spoilers would not stomach any of this Islamic rapprochement. The Islamic awareness in Iran proved to be light years ahead of the cash-centric Islamists. The Islamic scholars in Iran understood their Islamic scholar counterparts outside of Iran; but the opposite was not true. The Islamic scholars outside Iran are still having difficulties understanding their counterparts in Iran. The support of Islamic Iran for Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as real and as helpful as it is could be, did not convince the Islamic doubting Thomases of Islamic Iran’s indisputable independence and its unpretentious brotherhood with the oppressed Muslims.

To muddy the waters even more, some Shi‘i decision makers and officials in Iraq are trying to play America against Iran or vice versa. Some of them have managed to prove they are sectarians. And these “some” are amplified in the murky day-to-day bombings in Iraq to prove to the world that “Shi‘is” are by their nature and definition sectarians. And the target of this false impression is Islamic Iran.

Bumbling Iraqi officials did not have a say when the US and Islamic Iran were over a powder keg concerning the peaceful enrichment of uranium. The inability of the Iraqi regime to assume day-to-day responsibility for its own citizens and its inability to side with Islamic Iran gave birth to the takfiri phenomenon: a loophole viciously utilized by the Saudi-Israeli-American axis.

The Islamic Republic in Iran is being tainted with a broad “Shi‘i” sectarian brush — not because Islamic Iran is sectarian (although sectarians are to be encountered here and there) but mainly because some of their high profile Shi‘i kith and kin contacts are sectarians. Many Arabians who are under the spell of a local and worldwide network of poisonous propaganda conclude that Islamic Iran is not what it says it is.

Now, with Donald Trump in the political cockpit in Washington, we can expect the neoconservative political class in the US to edge its way into war position against Islamic Iran. Trump’s initial soft talk about Vladimir Putin can only be interpreted as an attempt to win him into a position of abandoning Islamic Iran. News is beginning to come out about American boots on the ground in Syria. This would mean that the Iraqi popular mobilization will not be permitted to pursue Da‘ish into Syria. America becomes the de facto guardian of Da‘ish. American and Kurdish forces are teaming up in Syria.

Trump and his advisers are trying to checkmate Islamic Iran throughout Iraq by putting together a “Sunni Arabian,” “Kurdish Sunni,” and “Shi‘is-in-opposition-to-Iran” alliance. Trump and his mentors are ratcheting up the conflict in Yemen. The unspoken consensus on the Tel Aviv-London-Washington axis is that Islamic Iran has to be reined in. The geostrategic outlook from this axis is that Islamic Iran is the linchpin in a continuum of interests ex-tending from a Chinese ene-my to an ill-disposed Pakistan to a volatile Levant. The political forecast is for what appears to be an American-Israeli controlled massing of forces from Arabia, Egypt, and maybe Turkey. These armies are expected to do the fighting for those who pay their salaries.

Whoever is elected to become the next president of the Islamic Republic of Iran this month should visit some of these actualities and realize that “Iran” is the center of the world — not because it is Persian and not because it is Shi‘i, but because it is Islamic. In the words of Allah’s Prophet (pbuh), “O Allah! If this esprit de corps is defeated, You will not be revered on earth.”

Sectarians open their mouths and shut their eyes

By Abu Dharr

Unless Muslims begin to think outside the Sunni-Shia box, they will remain vulnerable to manipulation by the enemies of Islam as is happening today. As any committed Muslim with listening ears and observing eyes would confess, the Muslims from the most ignorant to the most educated are living through times of trials and ordeals. These pivot around the sectarian psychology that has taken possession of those who say they are Sunnis as well as those who say they are Shi‘is. Fortunately, though, there are Muslims with free souls who have not fallen into this sectarian sinkhole. Let us try to deconstruct the sectarian centered information in a way that will enlighten our minds but may hurt our inherited emotions or cut through our local cultures. In the previous year some scholars convened to define who is a Sunni. That was done, by and large, because the Wahhabi wealthies hijacked the word Sunni and gave it a Wahhabi image. An impartial consideration of who is a Sunni would have us visit the scholars who themselves had an input into defining who a Sunni is. Political establishments from the time of king Mu‘awiyah did their best to own the definition of who is a Sunni. All Muslims who say they are Sunnis are in agreement to the Prophet’s hadith that the era of the khulafa (Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthman, and ‘Ali) is to be followed by a despotic monarchy [mulk ‘adud]. If we were to visit the history of the Sunni fuqaha’ we will definitely find that Abu Hanifah, al-Shafi‘, and Malik, not to mention others, to have sided with the struggle/opposition of the Ahl al-Bayt. Ahmad ibn Hanbal is considered by some to be more of a scholar of hadith than a faqih. There are thousands of hadiths attributed to his scholarly effort. One of the rulers during the time of Ahmad ibn Hanbal was killed in a venue of amusement and enjoyment with the drinking that goes with it as well as hundreds of concubines (jawari). For those who are emotionally jarred by this, refer to the books of the ardent Sunni al-Suyuti. Among the Sunnis were scholars who developed ideas relying on the Qur’an and Hadith as well as scholars who kept to a literalist reading of the divine Book and the Hadith. This dynamic gave the Muslims the historical “controversy” of whether the Qur’an is created or not. These two sets of scholars then and now do not give us a satisfactory definition of the word Sunni. Then we have that scholarly effort to find a happy medium between the literalist reading of the Qur’an and Sunnah and the extended rational reading of them. These are referred to as the Ash‘aris. It is said that one of the takfiris (Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi) distrusted the late leader of the Taliban (Mulla ‘Umar) because the latter considered himself an Ash‘ari-Maturidi. The fact of the matter is that the average Sunni, as far as we can tell, does not see himself, per say, as an Asha‘ari, even though he may very well be one. In the climate of our turbulent times, there is a growing impression among this general body of Sunnis that there is a diabolic sectarian war [undeclared] against them; in exclusion to other Muslims. Some Wahhabi obsessed among them go as far as accusing Shi‘is of entering into a scheme by the US and others to eliminate Sunnis in places like ‘Iraq, Syria, etc… Mind you, the Zionists and imperialists manipulate this sectarian impression to extend their pilfering of Muslim resources and their penetration and manipulation of Muslims markets. The simple, but undetected, truth of the matter is that all these intra-Islamic confrontations and conflicts as they swing from near-victory to near-defeat are the result of a profound public ignorance of our own selves – Sunnis and Shi‘is. The old-hand Zionists and their co-politicos the imperialists are draining the pool of Islamic potential as they have experience from playing off Muslims during their era of colonialism and interventionism in the past centuries throughout Asia and Africa. When we the Muslims cannot think outside the Sunni-Shi‘i box we become easy targets for their thought-out wars. The intensity of our common ignorance has some of us referring to the regime of Saddam Husain as a Sunni regime – a Sunni government that persecuted the Shi‘is! Saddam Husain and his Ba‘thi comrades are turning in their graves and feeling insulted to have anything to do with Islam – of course unless it serves a sectarian purpose. If the Sunnis are being sought out by Shi‘is for extermination, as some sectarians would like us to believe, then explain to us what is happening in Libya and Egypt. Explain to us what happened in Algeria a couple of decades ago. Ask yourself beyond your emotional trigger-points, who is arming and financing some Muslims to kill other Muslims? The Muslim Egyptians are practically 99% Sunnis. Its army and institutions are manned by Sunnis. So who and with the help of whom are innocent Egyptians being killed? Libya is 99% Sunni. Are there any Shi‘is involved in the wars among the tribes, cities and regions of Libya? In the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia why did the “Sunni” governments of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) support the “Shi‘i” government in Azerbaijan while the government in Iran stood with Christian Armenia? If the Shi‘is are the number one enemy as we hear from some sectarian quarters? Sunnis are Sunnis because they have a history of tolerance and coexistence with all Muslims. But now is the time to ask: will the Sunnis tolerate the Wahhabis who are prejudiced, segregationists, and sectarians? Even within the Wahhabi kingdom of Saudi ruling family the bigotry and intolerance of the Saudi rulers took issue with the Wahhabi bias in the battle of al-Sablah in 1929 and once again during the rebellion of Juhayman al-‘Utaibi some 37 years ago (November 1979). Can we or will the common enemy consider Turkey a homogeneous Sunni country with its solid bloc of the Hanafi madh-hab? Or is it an entity waiting for serious fragmentation along the lines of a strong Sufi tradition (especially the tariqah Jalal al-Din al-Rumi) as opposed to the Baktashi tariqah (the Sufi order favored by the Sultans) and the Janissaries for several centuries? Are we, in our self-destructive ignorance, awaiting the time when the enemy plays on the historical events when the Ottoman Sultans leveled some edifices related to Ahmad ibn Hanbal and built in their stead structures honoring Ibn ‘Arabi? On the other hand, the common Zionist-imperialist enemy can set off our emotions by reminding us in our ignorance of our own selves of the antagonism and war between the Ottomans and the Mamluks in Egypt! Who here represents the Sunnis, may we ask? Back in the 1960’s when Yemen threw off the monarchy and declared itself a republic, the Egyptian (Sunni) government supported those who were pro-republic while the Saudi (Wahhabi) regime supported the pro-monarchists (Zaydi Shi‘is)? That may have been the exception to the rule as the Zaydi Shi‘is have been in a historical struggle against the literalists Wahhabis who disparage the Zaydis for their affinity with the rational Mu‘tazilites). Suffice it to say the wars here and there among the Muslims had nothing to do with sober Islamic ijtihad as much as it had to do with evil politicians and cunning strategists who want to target the Muslims’ Achilles’ heel. Now to that most seditious of all: Syria. There are some pieces of information that need to be taken into consideration. Going back to the bombardment of Hamah in the 1960’s, those generals who executed and participated in the assault on Hamah were “Sunnis” and Ba‘this. Were they doing what they did as Sunnis? Or did they do what they did as Ba‘this? Remember the ‘Alawis/Ba‘this came to power in 1970 after the first bombardment of Hamah. Who were those Sunnis and Ba‘this? To name a few: ‘Abd al-Halim Khaddam, Nur al-Din al-Atasi and their president was the “Sunni” and Ba‘thi Muhammad Amin al-Hafiz. The Corrective Movement (the coup de etat) of 1970 undertaken by General Hafiz al-Asad (‘Alawi-Ba‘thi) relied heavily upon “Sunni” but Ba‘thi generals the likes of Hikmat al-Shihabi and Naji Jamil. The coup was substantially supported by the preponderantly “Sunni” Chamber of Commerce in Damascus. Now to the leap of logic. What happened in 1979 and thereafter was not a sectarian conflict – even though many were led to believe it was. It was actually a clash between a regime that refused to be drawn into the trap of Camp David on one side and the advocates of Camp David who gave support and logistics to the rebels. There was a weapon delivery route extending from Egypt to Israel to the Lebanese port cities of Junieh and Tripoli and from there onwards into the Syrian interior. In that context the Israeli military went into action against the Palestinian resistance, the Syrian armed forces, and the patriotic/nationalist Lebanese movement during 1982. If Syria comes out of the current crisis (which again is not a Sunni-Shi‘i conflict), it will reverse the Zionist and imperialist invasion and settlement in ‘Iraq. That will result in the consolidation of a 200 million bloc of Muslims extending from Central Asia to the Mediterranean. When this happens and it is bound to happen, the sectarian canard will be exposed. The Islamic tide will, in a massive way, turn in favor of the final march towards the Holy Land. And the hitherto sectarians will then see the light of day. With Allah rests all power of decision, first and last, and on that day the committed Muslims will have cause to rejoice in Allah’s support: for HE supports whomever HE wills, since HE alone is almighty, very gracious. (Surat al-Rum, ayat 4-5.)