Syrian reforms re-defining political environment despite limitations

By Abbas Fadl Murtada

Since he became president last July, Bashar al-Asad of Syria has initiated a process of political and economic reform. Asad has issued a series of decrees and submitted several draft laws to the country’s People’s Assembly (parliament) dealing with various aspects of Syrian political and socio-economic life. These moves are rightly viewed with scepticism by many people, who notice the continued restrictions on the Islamic movement; in recent weeks, a number of activists, and businessmen accused of supporting them, have been arrested and interrogated. Nonetheless, these moves are a considerable change in Syria’s political environment.

Asad has pardoned 600 long-serving political prisoners, closed the notorious Mazzeh prison (long a byword for the repression of the Ba’athist state) and submitted a draft law for a general amnesty covering a wide range of common-law crimes. Encouraged by this atmosphere of openness, advocacy groups such as the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights in Syria, which have long been active underground, have come into the open.

The ruling Ba’ath party has also decided to allow the six legal political parties that are its partners in the Progressive National Front (PNF) to issue their own newspapers. This is a significant departure from previous practice, allowing constituent parties of the PNF, which was formed in 1972 as a coalition between the Ba’ath and political groups of a communist or Arab nationalist complexion, to distribute their publications openly. A ministerial committee has drafted a new law ending the government’s monopoly of the press. The draft empowers the cabinet to issue newspaper licences to individuals and authorized political parties. Ali Farzat, a well-known cartoonist, has applied for a license to issue a satirical paper. This would be the first such publication to be issued independently since the Ba’ath seized political power in a military coup in 1963.

Work on a multimillion-dollar network for internet communications is underway. The network will be run by a company in which the state-run Syrian Telecommunications Foundation will hold a 25 percent stake; private Syrian and Arab investors will own the remaining 75 percent. Under the new network, access to the internet, currently the privileged domain of public administration, companies and universities, will become available to the public.

Like the last Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, after he launched perestroika (‘openness’), Asad has come to realize that political freedom cannot be withheld indefinitely from all quarters of society or sociopolitical life. Indeed, Asad’s ‘perestroika’ has awakened civil society. Civil society associations and forums have mushroomed since he became president. Limits to such freedoms are emerging, however: organisers of new political discussion-groups in Damascus reacted in dismay when vice-president Abdel Halim Khaddam warned the discussion-salons not to cross certain lines.

The fact that such salons exist at all, however, is a start. So too is the growing outspokenness of some intellectuals. Last September a group of respected Syrian intellectuals issued the so-called “Petition of 99,” demanding among other things the release of all political prisoners. In January some thousand writers, artists, professionals, businessmen and academics signed a Basic Document calling on the president to introduce wide-ranging political reforms. The Document, drawn up by the Committees for the Revival of Civil Society, urged Asad to end the state of emergency and martial law, release all political prisoners, allow the return of political exiles, ensure the independence and integrity of the judiciary and, most notably, end the Ba’ath party’s monopoly of political power by enacting a law for elections to be held under the supervision of an independent judiciary. Among the prominent figures who signed the document are independent member of parliament and businessman Riyad Sayf, ultra-secularist and anti-Islamist philosopher Sadeq Jalal al-’Azm, writers Khayri al-Dhahabi and Mayya al-Rahbi, researchers Michel Kilo, Walid al-Bunni, ‘Arif Dalila, Najati Tayyarah, Ihsan ‘Abbas and Jad al-Karim Jaba’i, and cinematographer Nabil al-Maleh.

Later in January, 70 lawyers issued a statement demanding political reforms, particularly public freedoms and the end of the state of emergency and martial law. They also demanded legislation that would guarantee the neutrality of the state in the conduct of elections, thus paving the way for the rotation of power through the ballot-box.

In an interview with the daily al-Sharq al-Awsat (February 8, 2001), Asad raised the prospect of allowing new political parties alongside those in power under the umbrella of the Ba’ath-led PNF. “There is an idea to develop party activity in Syria; all possibilities are open, including that of having new parties,” he said.

Such a development might well unleash a storm of change. So far the constituent parties of the PNF have behaved more like extensions of the Ba’ath party than independent bodies. Since they joined the PNF these parties have led a semi-clandestine existence. Their role in public political life has been limited at best. Their positions have always been barely distinguishable from the government. Their membership is estimated to have ranged between 300 and 10,000, with the two wings of the Communist party, the Bakdash and Faysal wings, being the most active and effective among them.

The reforms seem to suggest that the democratic sentiments expressed in Bashar al-Asad’s inauguration speech, which referred to transparency, respect for opposing views and pluralism, might be a little more than rhetoric. But they are also inspired in part by internal and external pressures. Syria’s social, economic and cultural life atrophied during the 30-year rule of Hafez al-Asad. There is a large and widening gap between the rich and poor. More importantly, the burdens of underdevelopment are not shared equitably, with an island of affluence surrounded by a sea of poverty and destitution. Economic benefits are allocated largely through a system of clientelism and patronage feeding voraciously at public expense.

The system of government instituted by the Ba’ath party is in many ways a carbon-copy of the one that prevailed in the former ‘eastern bloc’. It is a largely centralized and authoritarian system in which there are few legitimate mechanisms by which the population can complain against public officials or influence the policymaking process. The state became monolithic: the security agencies enjoy wide, largely unchecked, powers, instilling fear in the people. The new president seems to have realised, even before coming to power, that such a system is an anachronism. The internal pressures for accountability and participation were also compounded by the challenges of globalization, economic integration and the conflict with Israel.

The rejuvenation of civil society currently under way might lead eventually to a radical change in the basis of governance. Since it came to power in 1963, the Ba’ath regime has justified its rule by a glib and superficial “revolutionary legitimacy.” It made the institutions of civil society irrelevant to the country’s governance, and transformed the institutions of state into spoils to be distributed among chosen nomenklatura. The Ba’athist hegemony effectively depoliticised Syrian society.

If carried to their logical conclusion, Asad’s reforms would shift the legitimacy of political power from “putschist-cum-revolutionary legitimacy” to “constitutional legitimacy,” thus making the state an instrument of the rule of law. But it is safe to say that it will not be easy to push reforms against the existing network of vested interests and entrenched bureaucratic habits, even if Asad genuinely desires to do so.

In his recent interview with al-Sharq al-Awsat, he said: “The important thing is to move forward in a measured fashion “as all development needs discussion.” That effecting change should be a gradual affair is understandable in the light of opposition from entrenched power centres, the natural impulse being to ensure that the floodgates of reform will not sweep the regime away altogether. It is also important to preserve internal stability, which was established after long years of turbulence. Asad faces the “Gorbachev dilemma”: preserving stability and the regime is conditional on prosperity and change, which in turn are hard to bring about without social and political stability.

There has been growing pressure from within some government circles against the movement toward reform. But the old guard may well realise that, although the age of overt military coups in Syria ended long ago, the age of undeclared, non-military coups might just have started.

Abbas Fadl Murtada

The Seerah as a model for the total transformation of society

Zafar Bangash

Last month, the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT) announced that it will hold an International Seerah Conference in Pretoria, South Africa, in June this year. This follows similar conferences in Pakistan and Sri Lanka last year.

ZAFAR BANGASH, Director of the ICIT, discusses the Seerah and the thinking behind the ICIT’s programme of Seerah conferences.

That Muslims have a deep attachment to the noble Messenger of Allah (saw.) is beyond doubt. His birthday is celebrated by Muslims throughout the world. During the Rushdie fitna, Muslims demonstrated their willingness to sacrifice their lives to defend the Prophet’s honour. This is exactly how it should be; after all, Allah says that he was sent as a “mercy to all the worlds” (21:107), and as “a witness, bringing glad tidings, and as a warner” to humanity (33:45).

But the noble Messenger of Allah was sent not only to inform but to transform humanity by bringing it “out of darkness into light” (65:11). This is a point not fully appreciated by many Muslims today. The Seerah (life-history) of the noble Messenger has been reduced to a few anecdotes about his life, and some rituals. That the Seerah is central to the very ethos of Muslim life is also forgotten. The Qur’an cannot be understood without recourse to the Seerah. As Seyyeda Aisha (r.a.) pointed out, the Prophet’s character was the Qur’an in practice. In a well-known hadith, the noble Messenger himself has said: “Hold to the Qur’an and my Sunnah (life-example), and you will not go astray.” There are other versions, but the point is clear.

During the Prophet’s time (nearly 1500 years ago), Arabia was steeped in jahiliyyah in which idol-worship was the basis of religious, social and cultural behaviour. People believed in Allah, but they associated partners with Him. Injustice, oppression, tribal arrogance (and tribal warfare borne of such arrogance), female infanticide and slavery were other practices that characterised Arabian society at the time. Today Muslims are afflicted by many of the same problems, even though the worship of idols has been replaced by the worship of nationalism, money and class interests. Thus, in order to bring about a “total transformation” of their societies — to echo the phrase memorably used by the late Dr Kalim Siddiqui — Muslims will first have to understand the nature of the dhulm and darkness that surrounds them. Their success in transforming their societies will be determined by their proximity to the Prophetic Sunnah and Seerah.

For some Muslims, the Prophet’s Seerah is a means to attaining greater spirituality, oblivious of its relevance for the world at large. Muslims use the Seerah to seek blessings but not guidance, and individual but not collective salvation. No lessons are derived from it for the arduous struggle of life. Many Muslims quote hadiths (sayings of the Prophet) endlessly, but either do not follow them or use them selectively to support their preconceived ideas.

Allah declares in the noble Qur’an: “He [Allah] it is Who sent the Messenger with clear guidance and the Deen of Truth so that it becomes dominant over all other systems, however much the mushrikeen may oppose this” (9:33 and 61:11). We know that Islam became dominant during the lifetime of the noble Messenger of Allah (saw) but this is no longer the case, despite there being more than 1.2 billion Muslims in the world today. The darkness that prevailed in Arabia at the time of the Prophet has once again engulfed the world, but on a much greater scale.

The Prophet’s example is applicable at all times and in all situations because he is the “seal of all the Prophets” (33:40); no more Prophets will come after him. Yet contemporary Muslims have failed to derive appropriate lessons from the Seerah to guide them back to a position of dominance in conformity with Allah’s promise. The Prophet’s Seerah demonstrates a complete and perfect model for humanity covering all aspects of life, personal, family and community life, as well the ordering of society and state. The application of the Prophetic method in its entirety is, therefore, the only way to transform Muslim societies. The Muslims’ present predicament confirms their deviation from the divinely-prescribed path as exemplified by the Seerah: Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala commands the believers to “obey the Messenger” (4:59) whom He describes as “the best of exemplars” (33:21).

While Muslims accept the validity of these principles and even argue passionately in their favour, in practice they appear to have accepted the de facto separation of deen from politics and other aspects of societal activity. There is a long history behind this schizophrenic behaviour, which has affected not only the socio-political and economic outlook of Muslims but has also made its impact on the study and understanding of the Seerah itself.

For instance, Muslims spend endless hours arguing about the number of miracles the noble Messenger of Allah performed and whether the mi’raj was a physical journey or merely a vision. While there may be merit in discussing these at some level, the Muslims’ present plight hardly allows for such indulgences. It would be far more relevant to consider the circumstances in which the Prophet was rewarded with mi’raj. He had to endure 12 years of extreme hardship and when the worldly prospects for his mission appeared bleak, there was an explosion of divine mercy, culminating in mi’raj. So the mi’raj must not be viewed merely as a phenomenon that occurred in isolation but as the culmination of a long process of struggle to establish Allah’s deen. The secularization of Islam through the dark period of history has clearly taken its toll, freezing many vital issues out of Muslim consciousness. The study of the Prophet’s Seerah, for both historical and contemporary reasons, has also fallen victim to this phenomenon.

It is with this problem in mind that the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT) continues its efforts to study the Seerah from a new perspective by organizing international conferences. Last year, two International Seerah Conferences were organized, one in Sri Lanka (June 16-18) and the other in Pakistan (June 25). The response of Muslim scholars from around the world was overwhelming. This year, another International Seerah Conference is planned for South Africa (June 15-17).

The ICIT’s aim is not to repeat what earlier scholars have already written about the Seerah but to seek answers to contemporary problems through the processes of examination and analysis of the Seerah. The Seerah literature is a goldmine of basic information which has to be sifted, analyzed and applied to contemporary issues and problems. Why Muslims have failed to derive any lessons from the Seerah to solve their current problems, especially relating to their collective existence and governance, is a question that needs careful consideration.

Few Muslims have risen above their emotional attachment to the Prophet and appreciated the larger significance of the Seerah. They are accustomed to reading a ‘sanitized’ version of the Seerah, oblivious of the Prophet’s role in dealing with such issues as state and politics. Some recoil in horror from the idea that the Prophet had anything to do with politics. The corruption of politics and the abuse of power and authority clearly has much to do with this, but it also reflects the distorted view some Muslims have of the Seerah itself. Since crookedness and lying have become considered a normal, indeed essential, part of modern politics, Muslims have assumed that politics per se is bad. Similarly, the reduction of Islam to merely a “religion” like so many others has resulted in Muslims overlooking many important aspects of Islam and the Seerah.

Another misconception is also common among Muslims: they believe the Prophet was sent merely to convey a message; he had no responsibility beyond that. These Muslims may agree that rectifying people’s morals was also part of his mission, but little else. According to this line of thinking, if the people of Makkah had merely stopped worshipping idols everything would have been all right. There would have been no need for the Prophet to migrate to Madinah or to establish an Islamic State. There are some Muslims who even go so far as to argue that there was no Islamic state, merely a Muslim community in Madinah. Is there a difference between the two? What then of the Qur’anic ayah: “Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger and those charged with authority among you” (4:59)? Who are the people placed in authority and what is their role? Do they have any power? Do they exercise their authority, or is their role merely to advise people to behave, without any mechanisms of enforcement to ensure compliance?

From this line of argument follows another misrepresentation: it was not the Prophet who challenged the prevalent system; the challenge came from the kuffar. The Prophet, according to them, was a pacifist who believed in non-violence and shunned all worldly authority. This is based on a superficial understanding of the situation in Makkah, where the Muslims did not physically resist the oppression of the mushrikeen. Does the absence of physical resistance automatically mean no resistance at all, or even acquiescence? What about the ideological and psychological challenges posed to the system in Makkah by the proclamation of the kalimah, “La ilaha il-Allah, Muhammad al-Rasool Allah” (“There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah”)? Such stalwarts of the jahili system as Abu Lahab and Abu Jahl were roundly condemned by the Qur’an itself (surah 111 and ayaat 43:43-46). Then there was the challenge to the social system, in which the aristocracy was split right down the middle. The sons and daughters of leading figures entered the fold of Islam, repudiating the existing order and their own privileged position in it. Islam also proclaimed the rights of women and slaves, in direct and open challenge to the existing social order in Makkah.

But the question remains: why have so many Muslims adopted an apologetic attitude to the use of force to confront evil and oppression? Part of the reason may be found in the anti-Islamic propaganda alleging that Islam was “spread by the sword.” In order to refute such allegations, Muslims have resorted to a pacifist interpretation of the Seerah. The other reason may be found in the vast body of Seerah literature itself. The early compilers of the Seerah naturally concentrated on an accurate record of events. Islam’s impact on the world was so great that Muslims were anxious to learn every detail, however minute, about the life of the Messenger of Allah who was at the centre of all the breathtaking changes. This need was felt both by early Muslims who did not get the blessings of the company of the Prophet for very long, as well as those who came into the fold later. In fact, a proper understanding of the Qur’an and Islam was and is only possible through a greater awareness of the Prophet’s Seerah.

Responding to the needs of early Muslims, and in order to preserve the most accurate record of events, the scholars busied themselves with recording every detail of the blessed life of the Prophet. The early biographers did not concentrate on the Prophet’s method of acquiring power. This, as Dr Kalim Siddiqui has pointed out in his paper Political Dimensions of the Seerah (ICIT, 1998), was perhaps because Muslims were already in power and their influence was increasing, with new lands coming continually under their sway. There appeared to be no need to discuss issues that were already taken for granted; Islam was the dominant reality and they saw no reason why that should change.

Another reason for recording every detail of his life, especially the moral precepts he enjoined and the great victories he achieved in battles was that pre-Islamic Arabia was steeped in jahiliyyah. Islam reintroduced the values that had been ordained by Allah through all the earlier Prophets but which had since been forgotten. Muslims were anxious to conform as closely as possible to the Seerah of the final Messenger of Allah. Similarly, narration of the Prophet’s conduct in numerous battles was a source of great inspiration for Muslims. This is evident in the brilliant victories they achieved in a short period of time after the death of the Prophet. So it not surprising that the early biographers concentrated on narrating details of the Prophet’s life, the Seerah, and his battles (maghazi).

Another reason maybe that after the period of the Khulafa al-Rashidoon (the four ‘rightly-guided’ successors to the Prophet), rulers started to deviate from the Prophetic example. Muslim scholars felt, quite rightly, that by highlighting the spiritual and moral dimensions of the Seerah, they would encourage the rulers to reflect upon their own conduct, personal as well as administrative.

There is another important aspect of the Seerah: no miracles were performed by the Prophet in his struggle to establish the Islamic state. This was clearly part of the divine scheme. If the Islamic state had come into existence by miracles and not through sustained human effort, future generations would have used this as an excuse to claim that they could not possibly achieve the same results as the noble Messenger. In fact, the establishment of the Islamic State in Madinah provides additional proof of the finality of his Prophethood. The Prophet also demonstrated superb mastery in the conduct of state and politics, two fields not normally considered to fall within the domain of Prophetic mission. Of all known previous Prophets, only Yusuf, Daud and Sulaiman (a.s.) acquired worldly power.

This led perhaps to the assumption that religion has nothing to do with politics. The Prophet, upon be peace, not only established a state where none existed before, but it became so powerful that it went on to dominate the world for more than 1,000 years. It was only by the deviation of Muslim rulers from the Prophetic Sunnah that Islamic power lost its standing, and societies ruled by Muslims strayed from the Prophetic principles and standards. It is also clear that only by understanding and applying the Prophetic method can these standards be re-asserted, and Islamic social order re-established as the only natural habitat for Muslims, indeed of all human beings.

It is to these matters that Muslims must begin to pay attention. Dr Kalim Siddiqui led the way, and many scholars are now following his lead. A volume containing papers on this subject by Muhammad al-Asi and this author was published early last year (The Seerah: a Power Perspective, ICIT, 2000 [see p. 7 above]) and proceedings of the ICIT’s Seerah conferences last year will shortly be published. In the meantime, the ICIT hopes that holding international conferences to bring together scholars to discuss these issues will go some way towards addressing the contemporary problems of Muslims. What we must bear in mind is that Muslims must not limit themselves to narrating what has already been recorded in Seerah books. A simple description of the Seerah, however eloquent, is not the purpose of such conferences. The aim is to derive and discuss fresh analytical insights to the Seerah.

The ICIT invites scholars to submit abstracts of papers before April 30. Dr Kalim Siddiqui pointed out that “the Seerah... is a vast ocean that cannot be charted in a short paper”. The same is true of a conference, or even a series of conferences. But the ICIT’s objective, in starting this work, is to help Muslim scholars to develop fresh approaches to the understanding of the Seerah that can inform the intellectual revolution in Muslim political thought that, despite the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the blossoming of the global Islamic movement, remains embryonic. Such an intellectual revolution is essential for the “total transformation” of the Ummah and the emergence of a new era of Islamic civilization in the future.

Zafar Bangash

Imam Khomeini (r.a.) on the significance of the Hajj for the global Muslim Ummah

Imam Khomeini

  After the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Imam Khomeini (r.a.) started a tradition of issuing an annual message to hujjaj as they gathered in the Hijaz for the Hajj. Here we reprint an abridged version of his message to the hujjaj given in Dhu al-Qadah 1403AH (August 1983CE).

In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful...

I congratulate the Muslims of the world on the great Islamic festivity, Eid al-Adha. This holiday brings to the minds of people the place of (Prophet) Ibrahim’s sacrifice: a place which offers a lesson of devotion and struggle in the way of Allah to the progeny of (Prophet) Adam, may the blessings of Allah be upon them all.

This leader of monotheism (tawheed), the great iconoclast (Ibrahim as), taught us that offering sacrifices for the sake of Allah, aside from monotheistic and religious considerations, also has political dimensions and social values. He taught us to offer our most cherished possessions for religion and the establishment of divine justice. He fostered understanding in Adam’s progeny that Makkah and Madinah were the places of sacrifice by all devotees of religion, places for the promulgation of monotheism and for the rejection of blasphemy.

He taught man to make jihad for truth and instructed us to convey to the world from these great places the virtues of devotion and self-sacrifice. He told the people of the world to forget their own egotisms for the sake of truth, for the establishment of divine justice and for cutting the hands of the world’s infidels. He taught man to sacrifice everything in the spirit of Ismail ibn Ibrahim (as). This idol-breaker and his beloved son, as well as another idol-breaker, Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace, taught man to break idols no matter what they are, and that the Ka’aba should be purged and cleansed from idols for as long as the world exists, no matter what the idols are, be they statues, the sun, the moon, animals or man.

No idols are worse or more dangerous than taghuts which have been present throughout the course of history, from Adam to Ibrahim and to Muhammad, upon whom be peace, to eternity when the last idol-breaker shall issue the monotheistic cry from the Ka’aba. Are not the present superpowers big idols, which have forced the world to obey and worship them? They impose themselves upon the world through force and deceit. The great Ka’aba is the only place for breaking these idols. Ibrahim and Muhammad, upon whom be peace, raised the cry of monotheism from the Ka’aba, and their descendant the Mahdi will also do so in the world’s last days. Allah said to Ibrahim: 

“And proclaim the pilgrimage among men. They will come to thee on foot and [mounted] on every kind of camel, lean on account of journeys through deep and distant mountain highways” (al-Qur’an, 22:27). They are to be purified from all impurities, above all blasphemy as it is said in the Qur’an:

“And an announcement from Allah and his Apostle, to the people (assembled) on the holy day of the great pilgrimage: that Allah and his Apostle dissolve (treaty) obligations with the pagans” (9:3).

We should break idols with our cries, invitations, revelations and assemblies in Makkah. And we should reject all evils, the first of which is the great Satan [the US], lest it be said that there is “noise but few real Hajj pilgrims”.

It is hoped that the Hajj pilgrims in Makkah, irrespective of their sects, will pray for the victory of Islam over global blasphemy, and for the vigilance of Muslims and their governments. May Allah show mercy to Muslims, help them to regain the splendour of their religion and cut the hands of world expansionists from their countries. And may Allah shower upon them forgiveness, for He is the most generous forgiver.

Here are some important reminders to the Hajj pilgrims.

1. An important duty incumbent upon Hajj pilgrims and the ulama of Hajj caravans is the learning and teaching of Hajj rituals. Any failure in this matter will create such problems as the wasting of Hajj ceremonies. The ulama of Hajj caravans should invite the pilgrims of their caravans to classes set up for instructions on Hajj ceremonies. And Hajj pilgrims should learn them without waste of time. They should observe Hajj with complete understanding.

2. All of us know that it is the ignorance of Muslims about socio-political aspects of Islamic matters that has for the past two centuries in particular paved the way for aggression against Muslim nations by foreign governments. This ignorance is being imposed on oppressed Muslims by the neo-colonial imperialists and their lackeys. Most of the ulama used to think that Islam was separate from politics and that a Muslim should not interfere in political issues. Deceitful plunderers attempted, with the assistance of so-called intellectuals, to push Islam into isolation as they did with Christianity. They imprisoned the ulama within the framework of religious issues. They confined prayer-leaders to mosques and wedding ceremonies, and limited people’s activities to rituals.

3. Among the things that keep the world’s Muslims and other oppressed people from struggling to free themselves from the yoke of imperialists is the widespread propaganda of the agents of the west and the east. This is either as a result of their (the agents’) own shortsightedness or of their obedience to the dictates of the superpowers. Such propaganda is aimed at convincing the oppressed that the sciences and development are exclusive possessions of the two wings of imperialism and communism, and that they–especially the westerners and recently the Americans–are the superior race, while the rest are inferior.

4. One of the obstacles barring Muslims from defending their countries is the wide-ranging propaganda aimed at magnifying foreign powers. In the past, through the efforts of the so-called intellectuals, westernized and western-educated people, they made a giant out of Britain. They impressed on the oppressed nations that if a harsh word was uttered to a janitor of the British Embassy, Iran would be destroyed and that if the embassy’s flag was hoisted on the rooftop of any criminal’s house, he would become immune to punishment. Today, the two powers, especially the US, have replaced that giant and have become even bigger. Because of these false notions and rumours, Muslims have lost the courage to defend their rights.

5. What is the solution, and what is the responsibility of the Muslims and oppressed for dispelling these illusions? The primary solution, from which emerges all other solutions for cutting the roots of these problems and eradicating corruption, is the unity of Muslims, rather the unity of all oppressed and enslaved peoples in the world. This unity is gained through widespread tabligh and invitation. And the centre for this invitation and tabligh is the holy city of Makkah during the congregation of Muslims to perform the Hajj. This was started by Ibrahim (as), continued by Muhammad (saw) and will be followed by Hadrat Mahdi. It was enjoined on Ibrahim to call people to Hajj to attend to their needs–that is, the political, social, economic and cultural issues of the society óand so that they could witness how Allah’s Prophet laid upon the altar the fruit of his life, for the sake of Allah.

Everyone should follow the leader of monotheism and recite what was instructed in Sura Tauba to be read at the gathering in Makkah: 

“an announcement from Allah and his apostle, to the people [assembled] on the day of the great pilgrimage that Allah and His Apostle dissolve [treaty] obligations with the pagans” (9:3).

We renounce the infidels during the Hajj rituals. This is a political-religious renunciation that the Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace, enjoined.

The court alim who considers the slogan of “Down with the US, Israel and the Soviet Union” contrary to Islam should be told that if he considers following Allah and His Prophet’s instructions as contrary to Hajj rituals, then he and other pro-US ulama are the ones who are disobeying Allah’s instructions and the Prophet’s deeds, by separating Hajj rituals from renunciation of blasphemy. It is they who are forgetting Allah’s orders and His Prophet’s instructions for their own interests.

6. Another point that must be noted, as the world’s Muslims and the oppressed rise up against international exploiters and expansionists, is that superpowers are implementing their vicious plots either through creation of terror, or by their propaganda, or their treacherous subservience. But if, through their vigilance and unity, nations stand against these powers, they [the superpowers] will not be successful. The living proofs of that in our own region are Iran and Afghanistan. Iran was one of the US military bases and its [Iran’s] army was in the hands of American advisors. Culture was in the hands of mercenaries while the shah, his government and majlis were but obedient servants. The economy was in its worse state of dependence. The shah was the most powerful policeman in the region, thanks to his affluence and sophisticated military hardware, supported by the US and other lackey States in the region.

However, the Iranian people, empty-handed and relying only on Allah, in a short period of time miraculously broke the idols created by those affected by the west; and they [the Iranian people] put an end to the 2500-year-old tyranny, as well as to the myth created by idolaters. The Afghan people crushed the brute assault of the Soviet Union. They are doing it with the power of faith and by relying on Allah. And it was the committed ulama who expelled France and Britain, which had usurped Algeria and Iraq.

These examples are sufficient to remove unfounded terror created by imperialism and the imperialists, and to awaken Muslims and the governments of Muslim States, so that Muslims and their governments become free.

7. When, insha’Allah, the unity enjoined by Allah is established among Muslims, the governments of Islamic States, governments of Muslim countries with the backing of their people, can form a joint defensive army with 100 million trained reserves and a tens of millions-strong army. They could thus gain the greater power in the world. It would enable us to free ourselves from the disgrace of bowing before the superpowers and to taste the sweetness of independence and freedom.

8. Muslims, and especially the oppressed people of the region, should know that Israel will not abandon the idea of dominating Muslim States from the Nile to the Euphrates, despite the changing of figureheads aimed at deceiving the Palestinian and Lebanese combatants. The US will support an agent such as Israel through which its crimes in the region are being committed. Therefore, their political games should not be ignored and those backing Israel should know that they are stroking the serpent that, given half an opportunity, will poison the region. This venomous serpent must be denied the opportunity to do so.

O Allah, save us from following the devil and worldly desires. Save us from ambition for status and earthly belongings. Save Muslim States from being afraid of the superpowers and inform them of their Islamic and humanitarian responsibilities. Ameen.

-Imam Khomeini

Islamic movement fighting on so many fronts

Editor

The killings of Palestinians continues unabated, as Palestinian Muslims continued the al-Aqsa intifada in defiance of Israeli attempts to suppress it through brute force. Even as the Palestinians faced some of the worst days of the intifada, however, representatives of Yassir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority began meetings with Israeli and American representatives in Washington to bring the Palestinian ‘peace process’ — also known as the Palestinian sell out — back on track. It was a stark reminder of the reality that Muslims’ leaders are often our worst enemies.

The point was emphasised by the reports of further massacres in Algeria. Since the military coup in January 1992 that prevented the Islamic Solidarity Front (FIS) from taking power after its overwhelming electoral victory the previous month, over 100,000 Algerians have died. According to the authorities, they have been killed by Islamic activists. The idea that mujahideen might, under any circumstances, find reasons for the sort of brutality against innocent Muslim people that has become commonplace in Algeria’s recent history makes no sense whatsoever, and there is ample direct evidence, and even more circumstantial evidence, pointing to the Algerian state as the real perpetrators of the crimes.

The Algerian regime might well be one of the most ruthless regimes in the Muslim world when it comes to dealing with its own people, but it is has many rivals for the title. While some naive Muslims have looked to Arab states for support for the Palestinians in their struggle against the zionists, the regimes of kind Abdullah II in Jordan and king Muhammad V in Morocco are only two of several that have been more concerned with preventing their people from turning anti-zionist protests into anti-government ones. Far from condemning Arafat for his repression of Hamas and other Islamic activists, Arab states are doing precisely the same thing in their own countries. Both regimes have cracked down hard on Islamic activists protesting against the zionists, for fear that the public mobilization might turn against themselves. Another way of avoiding this would be to take a firm stance in support of the Palestinian intifada, but this appears not to have occurred to them. Instead, the pressure from the Arab states has been not on the zionists, but on Arafat, to return to the negotiating table and reach a settlement, even though such a settlement can only be to the zionists’ advantage.

In numerous Muslim countries, Islamic movements are being viciously suppressed, often far more viciously than the Islamic movements in Palestine. It is hard to imagine which has the greatest impact on a Muslim community: the sorts of hardship being suffered by the Palestinians, or the more subtle but perhaps more even painful hardships imposed on Muslim women in Turkey for trying to fulfil their Islamic duty to cover themselves and conduct themselves with modesty and reserve. Similar secular policies are being pursued by the government in Tunisia. In Uzbekistan, scores of Muslims who wish to practice, or to live according to their faith in public and social matters, are in jails, and Islamic institutions are subject to regular crackdowns and closure. The examples are legion.

Islamic movements confronting the forces of kufr on the front-line against Western civilizational imperialism (and its allies and agents) have a high profile, be they in Palestine, Kashmir, India, east Turkestan, Chechnya, Sudan, Nigeria, or the Balkans. But the battle of Islamic movements in the Muslim countries, fighting against agents of kufr planted deep into our societies, and imposed on us as rulers and leaders, is arguably far harder and even more important. Until Islamic movements overthrow these rulers, and create Islamic states in the heartlands of the Muslim world, the struggles in Palestine, Kashmir and other such places will not be won.

The struggles of these Islamic movements take many forms: political, military, intellectual, social and cultural. Often they are harder to see for Muslims elsewhere, particularly in the West, than the movements of the frontiers, and information about them is harder to come by and to understand. Supporting them, in the heart and in material terms, is often harder. But while we support wholeheartedly the struggle in Palestine, we must remember also, at this time more than any other, that there are other movements requiring our support and assistance all over the Muslim world, not only in our prayers, but by our actions.

 

Editor

Exotic western view of Muslim women

Laila Hasib

The assumption that western culture is inherently superior to all other cultures is the vantage point from which all social and religious philosophies are judged by the west. Muslim societies are, thus, regarded with special interest, fear and ignorance. Hostility, however, is the west’s most prevalent attitude towards Muslims, due to Islam’s great political and military challenge to Christian Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. When, in the nineteenth century, the roles were reversed and the major European nations began making inroads into the Middle East, they came armed not only with technology and a belief in racial superiority, but with a predetermined set of ideas and prejudices about Islamic society and Muslims. The Middle East is perceived as the west’s cultural and spiritual opposite.

Due to hijab (in its various forms) and ‘seclusion’, Muslim women are ironically held as exotic sexual objects by the west, more so than other women in the world. This idea of the exotic has two dimensions: the lure of distant lands and people and the pursuit of the ‘other’. The fascination of the ‘untouchable’ Muslim woman reached its peak in the nineteenth century and has continued to this day.

The fantasy created by western man of the Middle Eastern woman is one of a forbidden world of women, of sexuality caged and inaccessible to him, surrounded by the barriers of the veil and seclusion. Yet behind this cage, men reign supreme, living in a sexual paradise "off our wives" and unlimited concubines. The notion that women wait in the harem only to serve men, imprisoned with a black eunuch guarding the door, has further intensified the desire to penetrate what is defended and forbidden to outsiders.

The word harem in Arabic means a sacred, inviolable place and its root, haram, means forbidden or sacred and protected. Haram and hurma are a respectful form of address to a married woman. In Turkey and Iran, the equivalent term is hanum or khanum. But the most common usage of the word harem (haremlik in Turkish) is to denote the space in the family home reserved for women’s privacy. Instead, the reason for the segregation of women and the control over their visibility was fabricated by the west due to what they perceived as Muslim women’s uncontrollable, powerful sexual passions. Christian Europe held (and still holds) the notion that women’s sexuality was dangerous (nuns who were celibate complemented the image of the Virgin Mary) and since Muslim women are on a lower rung in mankind’s hierarchy (according to the west) they are even more in need of control. Muslim women are seen as hbel al-shaitan (the devil’s leash), implying their capability of dragging men away from virtue and also of making them impotent. Muslim men, in the west’s disturbed understanding, were given many socially acceptable means to control their women - the harem, polygamy, child marriage and repudiation.

Only a small proportion of families - almost all urban upper-class - practised strict seclusion and few do so today. Most homes are much too small to allow true seclusion and many Muslim women have to travel outside the home for food or work. Patterns of sexual segregation vary greatly from one community and region to another. Such defiling of the word harem by the west is only one example of its stereotypical hatred of Islam.

Muslim women’s lives are viewed by the west in several ways: the life of the upper-class harem is indolent, boring, idle and without occupation; the rest are ignorant, enslaving and degrading. Either way, Muslim women are seen as passive victims. What is interesting is that upper-class western women, too, have little to do except relax, attend social functions and administer the running of their home, including the servants - much like upper-class women worldwide. The remaining women are overworked and underpaid often uneducated.

Another western view of Middle Eastern women is the proverbial ‘dancing girl’, an indispensable part of orientalist art, photography and Hollywood movies. As late as the 1950s, the French tourist office marketed pictures of the Ouled Nail women of Algeria, loaded with jewellery and cigarette, as the star attraction in the country. Dominated by the danse du ventre (belly dancer), this vision of the Middle Eastern woman conjures up notions of lasciviousness and sensuality, signalling their sexual availability.

Western feminists, from the 1920s onwards, began delving into the Middle East, seeing their fellow sisters as oppressed like themselves. Although they face inequality in their own countries, few feminists see western culture or the imperialistic attitudes of their countries as wrong. They use their own culture as a yardstick by which to judge other women.

Muslimedia - April 1996-August 1996

Risks of working through un-Islamic political systems

Editor

One thing that revolutionary Islamic movements have largely been clear about since the Islamic Revolution in Iran is that trying to come to power through democratic processes in the political systems established and run by secularist politicians in Muslim countries is a waste of time. The repeated and total failure of the Jama’at-e Islami in Pakistan, the marginalization of Necmettin Erbakan’s Refah-led coalition government in Turkey, and the suppression of the Islamic Solidarity Front (FIS) in Algeria, when it was on the verge of a massive victory in the country’s elections of 1991, are just some of the various ‘democratic’ Islamic experiments and experiences pointing in the same direction.

However, some Muslims point to other experiences and try to reach other conclusions; in fact, some Muslims point to some of the same experiences and try to reach different conclusions. These include both some Islamic movements, and Muslim thinkers committed to democracy and democratic processes. The Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) is a case in point. It has ruled the state of Kelantan for some years, with considerable success, and in last month’s Malaysian general elections was also elected to run the important state of Terengganu. The ‘Islamist’ political parties in Turkey (Refah until it was banned, and Fazilat since then) have also built their reputations and records on the basis of successes in local government. In both cases, the reputations of the Islamic movements involved have been enhanced, as their successes have tended to demonstrate at least some of the advantages of Islamic social organization, values and administration.

The question which arises, therefore, is whether these successes disprove the Islamic movement’s general rejection of the political party approach, and justify working through existing political systems. The answer is a barely-qualified ‘no’, and the evidence of Turkey is all one needs to explain the point. Refah successes in local government encouraged Muslims to work through the mainstream political system at the national level. However, a Refah government was totally hemmed in by the institutions and norms of the secular state, and was powerless do anything of its own choosing. The same would have been the case even had Refah controlled a majority of seats in the parliament, rather than being in coalition with one of the most aggressively secular parties in the country. One unfortunate consequence of Erbakan’s failure in government has been that Islamic parties have also suffered in local politics.

The object of any Islamic movement must be the ‘total transformation’ of the society and state from one based on secular and western bases, as exist in virtually every Muslim country today, to one based on Islamic values, principles and norms. Such a transformation cannot be brought about from within a non-Islamic system.

This commitment naturally places limits on the long-term value of participation in local or regional politics. The arguments here cut both ways. Certainly there is the possibility of demonstrating the practicability of Islamic values in collective community affairs, to counter the common anti-Islam propaganda myths that Islam is out-of-date or has no relevance beyond that of a purely personal faith. The fact that Islamic government can make life much better for many people is also relevant; that, after all, is the object of the exercise. However, such local involvement must not become an end in itself, to the detriment of the longer term object of the ‘total transformation’ of the society. One possibility is that the movements become ‘moderated’ by involvement in ‘real politics’ and lose their revolutionary edge, becoming used to the relative ease and short-term rewards of mainstream politics. This process is, of course, encouraged by secular politicians and commentators. Another process leading to similar results is if the workers and activists of the movements are tempted by local successes to try to repeat them nationally.

PAS’s success in winning power in Terengganu, to go with their established record in Kelantan, is welcome, of course. What is worrying, however, is the news that PAS leader Ustad Fadhil Nur has been appointed leader of the national opposition in parliament by the four-party Alternative Front. PAS has long been warned of the dangers of working in the system; they are in danger of falling into familiar traps - again.

Muslimedia: December 16-31, 1999

 

Editor

The hollowness of the west’s ‘democratic revolution’

Editor

West Germans on the Berlin Wall in 1989

The collapse of the communist bloc in 1989 is regarded in the west as the definitive triumph of democracy, a ‘Democratic Revolution’ to rank alongside the other great revolutions of western history, the French (1789), the Russian (1917) and the Chinese (1949). Dating revolutions is never easy, but for historic purposes the Democratic Revolution of 1989 is usually dated by the fall of the Berlin wall, on November 9, 1989. So it was that the 10th anniversary of that event last month was marked not only in Germany but around the world.

At the time, of course, the Democratic Revolution was greeted as a massive triumph, inspiring such grandiose theories as Francis Fukuyama’s ‘End of History’. It was also, inevitably, related to the coming millennium, with the third millennium of the Christian/western era being hailed by some commentators as a coming ‘age of democracy’. In the popular perspective, for the consumption of those who know no better, this triumphalist tone is maintained. Among more considered views, however, this triumphalism has been toned down somewhat, and it was the latter view which tended to prevail as the tenth anniversary of the Democratic Revolution was marked.

The reasons for this change of tone are many and varied. The main one, however, is the realization that the advent of democracy is hardly regarded as good news by most people in the former communist bloc, and that former communist parties, leaders and ideas are increasingly popular. Of course, this is not admitted in the west, where the former communist parties tend to be euphemistically dubbed ‘nationalist’ or ‘conservative’; however, the growth and popularity of these parties is a matter of grave concern to the west.

The reasons for this apparently paradoxical phenomenon are not difficult to find. The Democratic Revolution was based on a lie; the lie that life in the west was some sort of utopia where everyone could live in luxury. (Westerners were equally given a distorted picture of life under communism, focus on low ‘standards of living’ rather than facilities available to people from the state.) People in the communist bloc welcomed the fall of communism because they were promised a consumer revolution, with easy access to video recorders, satellite television, fancy cars, big houses and all the consumer items of modern life. Like any salesman, however, the west was careful to hide the downside of this rosy picture -- the costs and the risks. In the eastern bloc, housing, health care and jobs were guaranteed by the state. In the west, the good life is only available to the minority who can make their own way in a dog-eat-dog environment, and the losers have no safety net to fall back on.

Valdas Anelauskas’s book Discovering America as it is (reviewed in the last issue of Crescent) exposes the bitter realities of American society, where huge numbers of children go hungry, millions of people have no easy access to healthcare, and crime and other social disorders are tolerated as long as they affect only the ‘underclass’ - which underclass is rapidly growing to dominate society. Millions of people in the former communist world are making the same discovery themselves, not by seeing the realities state of western societies, but by experiencing them.

Anelauskas, a former anti-Soviet dissident who emigrated from his native Lithuania to the US shortly before the collapse of communism, now regards himself as a anti-American dissident; which begs the question: what happened to all the other heroes of anti-communism? Where are they now that their people are in so much strife as a result of the Democratic Revolution that they called for and welcomed? Some, like Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, are still struggling for their people’s welfare; but far more, like Slovakian president Vaclav Havel, are living the good life as part of the former communist bloc’s new Elite, enjoying the fruits of their good relations with the west while ignoring the ideals and principles which they once claimed to hold so dear.

Small wonder, then, that most of those celebrating the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall last month were those who have benefited from the Democratic Revolution; while the former east German masses, supposedly liberated, were too busy trying to feed themselves and their children to celebrate.

Muslimedia: December 1-15, 1999