A terrorist is not created
in his mother’s womb. It takes an environment of hatred, a whole jungle of
hatred-to bring him into existence. The present-day community of Muslims has
unfortunately provided such an environment. How did this jungle of hatred grow?
For one it has been cultivated by the extensive proliferation of a particular
ideology among Muslims, a political interpretation of Islam, which offered
Muslim the status of God’s vicegerents on earth with the right to rule the
entire world on His behalf.
Islam was the leading
civilization of the world in the period between the decline of ancient
civilization and the ascent of modern European ones. But ultimately, western
colonial powers established their dominance over the Muslim world; it was in reaction
to his domination that political movements began to be launched in the name of
Islam. The objective of these movements was to free Muslim countries from
western rule and to re-establish Muslim rule.
It was Syed Jamaluddin
Afghani, born in Iran in 1838, who probably developed the concept of Islamic
nationalism for the first time. During his lifetime, the colonial expansion of
the west was at its peak and almost the entire Muslim world had, directly or
indirectly, come under its rule. Jamaluddin Afghani made it his mission to
bring down the colonial system and restore the political power of Muslim
nations. Towards this end, he launched the movement know as pan-Islamism. It
aimed at bringing together the Muslims of entire world to form a united
international power, which would defeat western nation and set the Muslim world
free from their clutches.
Jamaluddin Afghani failed to
achieve his political target, but what he did successfully was to show the
seeds of hatred for western nations in Muslims minds all over the world. As a
result, Muslims in general came to regard western nations as their enemies. Almost
all the Muslim leaders of his time began to think in negative and political terms.
The more prominent of these were Sayyid Qutb and Amir Shaqib Arsalan in the
Arab World, Muhammad Iqbal and Sayyed abul Ala Maududi in the Indian subcontinent, and later
ayatollah Khomeini in Iran.
Initially, the movement
focused on the expulsion of western forces from the Muslims world. More
appropriately, it was an initiative to gain political freedom. Thus, in the
times of Afghani, this movement was more political than religious in nature,
which its slogan being the east for easterners’’.
After Afghani, this
revolutionary movement entered another phase. Now it was given an ideological form.
The movement, which had been described in communal terms (with reference to the
global Muslim community), was now given an Islamic hue. An attempt was made to
Islamize their communal thinking by developing a complete ideology based on the
political interpretation of Islam. If earlier the thinking had been that the
western nations were usurpers and that a restitution of Muslims’political rights must be demanded from them in the next
phase ideologists developed the theory that Islam had a system covering the
whole of human life and that this include politics. The Muslims were,
therefore, duty-bound to capture political power b y force so that Islam might
be implemented as a total system. The promoters of this movement held that so
long as Islam was not adopted by the believers in toto, as a complete system,
their faith would not be acceptable to God. It following that bringing about a
political revolution became a binding obligation, like prayers and fasting.
In this second phase, two
Muslim leaders figured most prominently: the Egyptian intellectual Sayyid Qutb
(d. 1966) and Sayyed Abul Ala maududi (d.1979), a Muslim ideologue from the Indian
subcontinent. Both these leaders found themselves in a very favorable
environment- an environment that now
made it possible for their books to be translated into many language and thus
for their ideas to spread over almost the entire Muslim world. As a
consequence, Muslims in almost all part of the globe were directly influenced
by their political ideology. Some became actively involved, while the thinking
of others, shaped by this ideology, centred on political Islam. All dreamed of
the political glory of Islam.
This movement, designed to
establish political Islam, gave rise to various other movements. Two of these
movements grew in to prominence: all Ikhwan al –Muslimun, or the Muslim
Brotherhood, established in 1928 in the Arab world and the Jamat- e Islami
established in 1941on the subcontinent. Both were highly organized movements
and subsequently launched campaigns to establish Islamic rule in Muslim
countries such as Egypt, Sudan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Algeria, Tunisia and
Malaysia.
At first these movements
sought to establish Muslim rule by spreading their ideology of political Islam.
When they failed on this score, they started taking part in the national
election in the countries here they were active. When they failed on this front
too, they resorted to militancy. This political movement of
the Muslims intensified in the latter half on the twentieth country. It was
during these days that the Jews established their rule in Palestine in the name
of Israel. Now Muslims believe that they Jews are rejected by God, while the
Muslims themselves are the chosen people. So finding the dominance of the Jews
over the Muslims intolerable, they made a frantic bid to obliterate the Jews
from the face of the earth. The pro-Islam movement of the first half of the
twentieth century ultimately turned into an anti-Jewish movement in the second
half century.
Events have demonstrated
that, in spite of making every conceivable effort, Muslims have failed in their
campaign against the Jews. On every front, right from the united nation to the
Aqsa Mosque of Jerusalem, they have had total defeat inflicted upon them. It is
the ensuing build-up of a defeatist mentality which has culminated perforce in
the phenomenon of ‘Islamic terrorism’. Though ostensibly aimed at
re-establishing Islamic rule. The political Islam movement actually grew as a
political reaction to the circumstances in which Muslims found themselves at
that particular point in time. Its inspiration and its impact were totally
negative. The movement was the result of anti- western rather than pro-Islam
feelings, and for precisely this reason it rapidly turned violent.
According to Islam, a truly
Islamic movement arise out of feelings of benevolence for all the humanity. Its
target being neither land nor power, it is always carried out through peaceful
means. It never adopts violence. If Muslims movements of the modern age opted
for the way of extremism, it was because they were not genuinely Islamic in
nature. The truth is that these Muslim social movements, which had only the
community agenda in mind, adopted the name of Islam purely as a means of self-
Justification. If you read the Quran,
nowhere in it will you find any mention of ‘political Islam’. They Quran
contains neither information nor injunction which could lead to the setting up
of a political system. The eighteenth- century
French thinker Rousseau, who was greatly concerned with the human condition,
wrote a treatise called the social contract (1762). He opened his book with
this arresting statement: man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.’
This is the language of a
political book, a book which was to contribute to the ideas and policies of the
leaders of the French revolution and which ultimately gained worldwide
currency. But if you read the Quran, you will see that it begins not with a
diatribe against human inequality with its implied criticism of wrong
governance, but simply with praises of God, and it ends with the necessity to
seek refuge in God against Satan. In the Quran and the Hadith, there is no
mention of the system of state. Nor is there any mention of revolt against nay
existing system neither is there any indication as to how a political ruler or khalifah is to be appointed or selected.
No such principles are set forth in Islam, neither from an ideological nor from
a practical point of view. In short, it is clear that no aspect of political
Islam is dealt with anywhere in the Quran and the Hadith.
At more than one place in
the Quran we are told what the Prophet’s tasks were in accordance with the
divine plan. These were recitation of the verses of the Quran; purification of
man; teaching of the scriptures; and teaching of wisdom. In none of the verses
are we told that the task of the Prophet was to establish Islamic rule in the
world. Such verses of the Quran as presented by the champions of political
Islamic in support of their cause were distorted to serve their own ends.
The truth is that giving a
political interpretation to Islam is a despicable act and in no way serves the
higher aims of the religion.
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