Dare to Speak: Islam vs Free Democracy and Free Enterprise (II)
Section 14.
The history of leadership in the Islamic world
In Muhammad’s last days, Islam’s “ideal” leader made a critical blunder: He left his followers without a well-defined plan of succession. This failure produced bloody battles for power and a deep schism in the Islamic community. What follows is a quick summary of Islam’s early history of succession: [1]
Upon Muhammad’s death in 632, at age 63, a group of Muslims now called Sunnis conducted a form of election among their tribal leaders and chose a successor whom they called the Caliph. Unfortunately, this election was conducted without the participation of Muhammad’s blood-cousin and son-in-law, Ali, who was busy making funeral arrangements for Muhammad. This surreptitious election was seen as illegitimate by the faction of Muslims later known as Shiites, who believed leadership should proceed through blood lines, and who felt that Ali had been robbed of his rightful position.
Abu Bakr, the father of Muhammad’s wife A’isha, was elected Caliph after Muhammad’s death. He initiated the Koran’s compilation, but died of old age only two years later. His reign was viewed as successful by Sunnis but despotic by Shiites. This difference of opinion set the stage for later battles.
Umar, the second Caliph, and father of another of Muhammad’s wives, ruled from 634 to 644 and played a major role in developing the Koran. His work was cut short, however, when he was assassinated by a disgruntled slave in 644.
After Umar’s assassination, Uthman, who was one of Muhammad’s sons in law, was selected as Caliph by a 6-man council and reigned from 644 to 656. Uthman played an important role in Islam’s history by completing the Koran’s compilation and eliminating all competing versions. Unfortunately, this honor cost him his life, as explained in Islam: A Short History: [2]
The Quran-reciters, who knew the scripture by heart and had become the chief religious authorities, were…incensed when Uthman insisted that only one version of the sacred text be used…, and suppressed variants, which many of them preferred…Increasingly, the malcontents looked to Ali ibn Abi Talib, the Prophet’s cousin, who, it seems, had opposed the policies of both Umar and Uthman, standing for “soldiers’ rights” against the power of the central authority.
In 656 the discontent culminated in outright mutiny. A group of Arab soldiers from Fustat returned to Medina to claim their due, and when fobbed off they besieged Uthman’s simple house, broke in, and assassinated him. The mutineers acclaimed Ali as the new Caliph.
The death of Uthman also gave birth to another rebellion that would ultimately kill Ali and establish the caliphate as an object of conquest and dynasty rather than either election or Muhammad’s blood line, as the following summary of Ali’s reign reveals.
During the 24-year period of the first three caliphates, the faction of Muslims who believed that leadership should be carried on through blood lines gained power, particularly among the Persian Muslims. This movement climaxed with Ali’s selection as the fourth Caliph upon Uthman’s death, and he reigned from 656 to 661.
Unfortunately, non-Persian Muslims (now known as Sunnis) resented Ali’s inclination toward the Persians. This, along with a sense of outrage over Ali’s refusal to punish Uthman’s murderers, who were also supporters of Ali, led to two rebellions. The first took place when Muhammad’s wife A’isha raised an army against Ali, but who lost in 656 at the Battle of the Camel. The second rebellion was led by Uthman’s nephew, Mu’awiya (Sunni), and climaxed in 658 during a famous battle where the losing Mu’awiya had his cavalry put pages from the Koran on the tips of their spears and cry out “Let Allah decide!” (the question of Ali’s guilt or innocence in Uthman’s murder). Ali, who in all likelihood was innocent of the murder, and more afraid of his supporters than in league with them, agreed to an investigation. His decision, which indicated Ali’s confidence in his innocence, robbed his supporters of certain victory, and this angered them so much that many of these “supporters” actually turned on him and formed a faction called the Kharijis (meaning “seceders”). This action created Islam’s third sect. Ali responded by pursuing the Kharijis ruthlessly, killing off all of their original leaders. [3] By this time, however, the Khariji movement had found new leaders, and it survived the slaughter. Today, Kharijis retain a significant presence in Oman, but they represent less than 1% of the world-wide Ummah.
Although Ali was able to suppress the Kharijis, the split within his camp weakened him politically. The three-member arbitration panel that was established to decide Ali’s case turned against him and gave the caliphate to Mu’awiya (Sunni). Ali’s reduced forces still had power though, and he continued to reign several more years in the Shiite strongholds of southern Iraq. Ali was ultimately assassinated in 661, presumably by a Khariji.
After Ali’s death, struggles for the caliphate continued, with Mu’awiya’s (Sunni) Umayyad dynasty on one side and the Shiites, who preferred Ali’s line, on the other. A few years later, Ali’s former (Shiite) supporters called on his second son, Husayn, to rise against Mu’awiya’s son, Yazid. The defeat of Husayn’s (Shiite) uprising was particularly gruesome, and humiliated the Shiites. What follows is the sequence of events.
Shortly before Husayn’s uprising, Shiite envoys from the city of Kufa had assured Husayn that the Shiites there would support him in a rebellion against Yazid. Husayn responded by raising an “army” of fewer than 100 supporters and marching against Kufa. Unfortunately, Yazid’s (Sunni) supporters discovered this conspiracy and killed Kufa’s Shiite leaders before Husayn arrived. Without leaders, none of Kufa’s Shiites came to Husayn’s aid. Isolated in the desert, and without access to water, Husayn’s meager forces shriveled in the sun. Over the next week, Husayn witnessed the bloody deaths of two young nephews, his oldest son (who died in his arms), his youngest son (who was pierced in the throat by an arrow), and a nephew on that nephew’s wedding day. On the eighth day, both arms were cut off of his half-brother as he desperately tried to fetch water, and on the tenth day, Husayn and the remains of his (Shiite) “army” were slaughtered. Husayn’s severed head was carried to Yazid in Damascus as a trophy.
Shiism lived on, though, and today Shiites flagellate themselves annually for deserting Husayn in a “celebration” known as ‘Ashura. For them, his death is still as fresh as if had just happened, and they are inspired by his reputed dying words: “Death with dignity is better than a life of humiliation.” To this day, these believers give Islamic leadership only to Muhammad’s descendants, and they insist that Ali was the first true Caliph, or Imam, as they call him. Although Ali’s bloodline died out with the Shiite’s twelfth Imam, the Shiites contrived a theology to preserve their beliefs. They claim that the twelfth Imam is a “hidden Imam,” who has been hidden alive for the past 1,300 years and will appear again to rule and conquer injustice. The vengeance they long for will apply to non-Shiite Muslims as mightily as it will to any Infidel. Today, when Shiites recite their calls to prayer, they pronounce curses upon the first three caliphs, as well as A’isha.
Thus, during the twenty-nine years following Muhammad’s death, Islam divided into three sects, each separated by a deep chasm of hatred for the others. Given these sects’ bloody beginnings, and the long and vengeful memories that Islam teaches its believers to have, it is apparent that ecumenicalism is just as impossible among Muslim sects as it is between Muslims and Infidels. To fully appreciate the chasm between Sunnis and Shiites, recall the devastating suicide attacks that each sect has perpetrated on the other, and then note that the desire of suicide bombers is to attain heaven by dying in jihad against non-believers.
Muslims describe Islam’s chaotic early years with words that can only be called pure propaganda. For example, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Koran says:[4]
Clearly, a revolution had occurred [with the coming of Islam], probably the most far-reaching and influential revolution of human history. Anarchy…and rampant immorality had given way to a clearly ordered way of life built on principles derived from two things and two things only: the Koran and the behavior and sayings of the Prophet.
Sunni Muslims call Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali the “Rightly-Guided Caliphs,” and their era is considered Islam’s “golden age.” This is for three reasons:
The Caliphs were “companions of the Prophet”
The office of Caliph was awarded on the basis of election by a council of Islamic leaders rather than military action or inheritance through a non-Muhammadan line.
Conquering Muslims enriched the caliphate with hoards of captured booty.
During the caliphates that followed Islam’s “golden age,” the theological rifts between Sunnis, Shiites, and Kharijis hardened. Around 1000 AD, the caliphate itself was split as the Islamic nation divided into several petty states, each with its own Caliph. [5] They warred with each other as readily as they did with any Infidel nation. So, just as in the Christian realm, with its battles between denominations and kings, the House of Islam was riddled with bloody rivalries.
For many centuries, Muslims have had a fundamentally pessimistic worldview, even as the House of Islam grew. The West has also had its periods of pessimism and darkness, but there has been an over-all trend toward optimism as it moved through the enlightenment, the age of reason, the industrial age, the space age, and the current period of global democratization. In contrast, Islam’s history has been one of fragmentation and decline, despite its geographical expansion, and not because of anything taking place in the West. As described in Islam: A Very Short Introduction:
This historical achievement (which may without too much distortion appear as a golden age in the social memory of Muslims) was counter-balanced by a conspicuous failure at the level of power politics. After its initial expansion, the Arab empire imploded. Islam’s central institution, the caliphate, at first contested by rival factions was gradually drained of legitimacy, as the caliph, the “shadow of God on earth” became the prisoner of palace guards recruited from the tribes.
…
The Islamic state…never fully transcended its tribal matrix. The implosion of the Arab empire compounded the Caliph’s failure to enforce religious conformity [i.e. religious unity]…The law developed separately [through the religious elite] from the agencies entrusted with its enforcement [the rulers], and so military-tribal rule became the norm…“a ruler who has no say at all in the definition of the law by which his subjects have chosen to live cannot rule those subjects in any but a purely military sense.”
After Muhammad and the “Rightly Guided Caliphs,” Islam’s rulers did not have the religion-backed moral authority to create new laws for Muslims; only Islamic scholars could to so. Therefore, there have been tensions between Islam’s rulers and its scholars for many centuries.
Political instability in the Islamic world is not the recent product of Western domination or occupation. It is not even the product of Western ideas or inventions. It is endemic to Islam and the natural result of its approach to law.
According to Islam’s traditional practices, its rulers did not even have the authority to make laws for non-Muslims. According to Shari’ah, Infidels had the right to live by their own religious laws, as long as they submitted themselves to Muslim domination. Therefore, Islamic rulers were stripped of nearly every tool for governance other than raw power.
As a result, the general Muslim sentiment has been that the Ummah was led astray by a succession of power-hungry men, who usurped the caliphate in one way or another to serve their own purposes. Therefore, the laws made by these rulers, whether selfish or meant to serve the needs of their nations, were often seen as illegitimate. Even worse, Islamic scholars could readily stir up rebellions by issuing their own fatwa’s in defiance of civil authority, as happened during the Iranian revolution. Disagreements between Islamic scholars can also incite religious battles that resemble civil wars, as is happening in Iraq. The religious inclination to overthrow rulers and clash with other religious authorities has been a constant source of chaos in the Islamic world for centuries.
The extent of Islamic hostility toward its rulers can be seen The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam, when it states that: [6]
For many years the caliphate was a powerful institution; it was abolished in the 1920s, following the eclipse of the Ottoman Empire, which had co-opted it in the sixteenth century.
In other words, many Muslims saw the Ottoman Empire’s caliphate as illegitimate long before Europe “occupied” Ottoman lands. This observation confirms what a study of the Ottoman Empire’s history will also reveal: Political turmoil in the Middle East was not and is not the product of Western interference. On the contrary, political turmoil was a pre-existing condition that opened the door to Western involvement.
The future of leadership in the Islamic world
Despite Islam’s pessimism, Muslims await a return to righteousness, and actively seek to bring it about. Unfortunately, this redemption is expected to be in the form of a “second coming,” with a militarized and political Jesus very different from what Christians imagine.
What will this return of Jesus and righteousness look like? The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islamdescribes Islam’s well-scripted eschatology in detail. Brace yourself; this is scary: [7]
Prophecies About the Muslim World
Are Muslims expecting the end of the world soon? Modern conditions, as foretold by the Prophet Muhammad, lead many to believe that the end is indeed near. The greatest of these signs lies in the worldwide condition of the Muslim community. There is no unified Islamic nation encompassing the whole Muslim world, as is called for in the Qur’an. Muslims are not victorious against their foes anywhere in the world, and only recently did the armies of Europe end their military occupation of over 90 percent of the Muslim world…
To make matters worse, in almost every Muslim country the free practice of Islam is suppressed. It is so bad that in Turkey, the former seat of the last Islamic Empire, it is illegal for females to wear head scarves in school or for children to be sent to academies to learn about the Qur’an [except through government-controlled studies]…
…
…Muslims feel that we have entered the beginning of the end-times process. In this there is commonality with fundamentalist Christians, who also feel the end of the world is near.
What are the signs of the end-times? Islam teaches that after the Muslim world is vanquished and broken up into many competing nations, the practice of Islam will be increasingly difficult for true believers…Other signs of the end-times include…:
Abundant riches (oil?) will be discovered under the Euphrates River in Iraq, and people will fight over them, causing much death and destruction.
Children will no longer obey their parents.
Poor nations will compete with each other to build tall buildings in their cities.
It will be hard to tell men and women apart.
Women will outnumber men.
Religious knowledge will decrease dramatically.
Wealth will be widespread, and corruption will be rampant.
Music, female singers, and alcohol will be prevalent.
The worst people will be chosen as leaders.
There will be family turmoil in every household.
…Early Muslims were often under the impression that the Last Day would soon come…
…a great Muslim leader will arise who will unify all faithful Muslims under his banner and will wage many successful campaigns against the enemies of Islam. This leader’s title is the Mahdi. Muslims look forward to his appearance and expect that many victories in Palestine and India will be achieved. Invading armies from Europe will be vanquished as well.
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[After some time,] The Dajjal [anti-Christ] will claim that he is a new prophet of God. He will be wealthy and have amazing powers to cure people of their illnesses…The majority of the people of the world, including a few misguided Muslims, will follow him and believe in him. He will therefore amass a lot of military might, which he will use to harass and destroy all vestiges of true religious expression.
The reign of the Dajjal will last for 40 days. During that time, he will gather an army and begin to conquer the Middle East, which had been unified under the Mahdi…When all appears lost, the Mahdi will call his soldiers together in the evening and receive their pledge to fight to the last man and woman on the following day.
While the darkness of night is still upon the Muslim camps in and around central Syria…a voice will be heard saying, “The one who listens to your pleas has come.” When the time for the morning prayer arrives, the Prophet Jesus, who had been saved from dying on the cross thousands of years before and had been kept in Paradise by God, will descend in the midst of Damascus. After joining the Muslims in prayer, he will lead the Mahdi’s forces against the Dajjal’s army. The Dajjal’s soldiers will number 70,000.
On the battlefield, Jesus will command his troops to move aside so that there will be a clear view between him and the Dajjal [anti-Christ]. Upon seeing Jesus, the Dajjal’s powers will fade and he will make a panicky retreat into Palestine. The Muslims will come down from the mountains and crush the remnants of the enemy army. Jesus will pursue the Dajjal to a place named Lydda, which is near an airport south of the present-day city of Tel Aviv in Israel. There Jesus will strike down the Dajjal with a lance, and his reign of tyranny will be over.
The Rule of Jesus
…Jesus will speak to the Christians and Jews of the world and convert them to Islam. He will succeed in breaking the worship of the cross and will stop the eating of pork…Jesus will be the spiritual head of a transnational government of peace. Everyone in the Middle East will convert willingly to Islam, and there will be no more war…He won’t reign for a thousand years, as Christianity teaches, but will live only 40 more years – the rest of his natural life span. Along the way he will marry and have children. While he is in the world, peace and prosperity will bring countless benefits for all people.
What is more frightening than these words themselves is the fact that they reflect the scriptural interpretations of modern Muslims more than the scripture itself. The verses Muslims draw on tell a story much more disjointed and less tied to current events than the above quote implies. To get a sense of them, consider this hadith from Sahih Bukhari (Volume 3, Book 34, Number 425), which explains that Jesus will be: [8]
…a just ruler [who] will break the Cross[9] and kill the pig[10] and abolish the Jizya (a tax taken from the non-Muslims, who are in the protection of the Muslim government). Then there will be abundance of money and no-body will accept charitable gifts.
What these passages from The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam reveal is that Islam does more than oppose Free Democracy. Devout Muslims actually believe that Free Democracy, as exemplified by Israel and/or the United States, is evil, and a springboard for the anti-Christ, otherwise known as the “Great Satan.”
A widespread interpretation of Islamic prophesy, represented by the above “Idiot’s” quote, has actually inserted the history of the past 100 years into its eschatology, and this new script incorporates both Western democratization efforts and Israel. Moreover, this script is flexible, as it is with all groups claiming “The End is Near,” and it will adjust to fit new events as they occur, as it has done for centuries.
As noted in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam, devout Muslims are like Christian doomsayers in that both groups have been saying “The end is near” since the early days of their religions, and both long for the glorious return of Jesus. Another similarity is that, despite an appearance of prophetic truth, their “signs of the end times,” quickly fall apart under scrutiny:
The Euphrates lies in a cultural war zone that has existed since the days of ancient Rome and Persia, and its people have a long history of conflict. In former days, this area was famous as “the fertile crescent” – the breadbasket of the Middle East. People fought over its abundant farmland. The suggestion of “oil?” is a new interpretation of a very old “prophesy” that has been true since the days of Muhammad.
Children have always disobeyed their parents.
Nations, both rich and poor, have been competing to build tall buildings almost since the dawn of architecture. Consider the ancient Ziggurats, made legendary by the tower of Babel, and the Egyptian pyramids, as well as the Eiffel Tower of 130 years ago.
Ask yourself: are you having difficulty distinguishing women from men? I didn’t think so, except maybe for male terrorists hiding under burkas.
Women, particularly in the warlike Middle East, have always outnumbered men – in fact, this is one of the stated rationales for polygyny.
If one reads ancient laments about the spiritual condition of man, one will find that people have been bemoaning the loss of religious knowledge since the dawn of religion.
Widespread wealth sounds like a good thing, not a bad thing. As for corruption, it is a timeless and universal problem that, if anything, has improved in recent years as governments have become more transparent and answerable to their people.
Music, female singers, and alcohol all existed long before Islam, and have always persisted in the Middle East, which is renowned for its belly-dancers.
Bad political leadership and corruption have been laments since the dawn of history.
Household turmoil is also timeless. Even Muhammad’s own household was rife with it, as the Koranic passages and hadiths presented in this series reveal.
The difference between Christian doomsayers and Islamic ones is that Islamic doomsayers are not content to simply predict the end times. Given Islam’s militaristic outlook and dreams of redemption, they actually seek to provoke the final battle scenes. No wonder Israel has had numerous wars with its Muslim neighbors – many Muslims see Israel’s destruction as a signal of Islam’s return to glory!
After considering Islam’s “prophesies,” Islamic hatred for Israel makes much more sense, as do Muslim conspiracy theories of Jewish global domination and the oft-stated claim that Israel is the United States’ 51st state, or that the U.S. is controlled by the Jews.
Islam’s holy scriptures set the stage for destructive self-fulfilling prophesies. They train Muslims to distrust non-Muslims, and to even distrust Muslims of other sects. They discourage honest communication between groups, and value loyalty over integrity and objective reason. They portray warfare as a religious duty that yields booty now and glory later. And they train Muslims to be outraged whenever non-Muslims act to defend themselves from Islam’s aggression, and call their defensive acts defiance of Allah and his Apostle. After seeing how Islam sows the seeds of conflict, it is not difficult to predict cataclysmic warfare between Muslims and non-Muslims, especially as warfare technology advances.
With this new understanding, the speech given by Malaysia’s President Mohamad quoted at the beginning of this series no longer sounds like the words of a paranoid and hateful man. Instead, it sounds like the words of a rational man indoctrinated by a paranoid and hateful religion.
Even more disturbing is how this scripted eschatology creates incentives for Islamic leaders to place themselves into the roles of end time heroes. For example, it is quite possible that Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, tried to fill the role of the Mahdi. This seems to be the only plausible reason for him to provoke a war with Israel, given Israel’s overwhelming firepower. He knew that his forces could not win by themselves, but he may have believed that his attack would bring on the victorious return of Jesus. In this eschatology, Hezbollah would be rescued, Israel would be obliterated, and Jesus, in the form of Hezbollah’s sponsor, President Ahmadinejad of Iran, would come in glory.
While Hezbollah has stopped shooting missiles into Israel, its members can still look to the future. Perhaps they will someday have the honor of eliminating Ahmadinejad’s need for long-range nuclear missiles, and join with Iran to “wipe off this disgraceful blot [Israel] from the face of the Islamic world.” [11]
Sound unbelievable? Consider this: Even back in December 2005, Ahmadinejad’s words gave a perplexed world notice that something messianic was in the works:
Religion Versus Reality
By Richard Ernsberger Jr., Newsweek International
Dec. 12, 2005 issue – …Ahmadinejad’s inflammatory rhetoric – “Israel should be wiped off the map” – has alarmed Western diplomats…Eerie stories about Ahmadinejad’s mystical obsessions have been drifting out of Tehran of late, specifically his devotion to the so-called 12th imam – the Shiite messiah, better known as the Mahdi, who’s supposed to return and lead an apocalyptic revolution of the oppressed over vague forces of injustice.
By some accounts, the new president’s first deputy…recently asked cabinet members…to pledge their allegiance to the Mahdi in a signed letter. And when Ahmadinejad was Tehran’s mayor, he reportedly refurbished a major boulevard on grounds that the Mahdi was to travel along it upon his return. Last week, a videodisc began circulating that reportedly shows the president chatting with one of the country’s leading clerics…Referring to his September speech to the [UN], during which he called for the return of the 12th imam, the Iranian president confides that he felt himself surrounded by a radiant light. Not one foreign diplomat blinked during his speech, he adds.
How might this apocalyptic plan operate? Hezbollah tipped its hand when it tried to probe Israel’s capabilities through the kidnapping and murder of Israeli soldiers. Unexpectedly, this attack triggered an Israeli response before Hezbollah was truly ready to act. Hezbollah’s reaction, though, revealed much about its strategy: It provoked, but did not invade, Israel. When Israel entered Lebanon to rescue the hostages, Hezbollah began to launch rockets into Israel from civilian areas. This was a trap that virtually forced Israel to inflict civilian casualties. The civilian losses, in turn, unified the entire Islamic World against Israel, because, in any conflict between Israel and a Muslim entity, Muslims must choose to follow the Koran’s command to “Let not the believers take for friends or helpers Unbelievers rather than believers,” [12] and “Strive against the disbelievers.” [13]
Few if any people believe that the current cease-fire between Hezbollah and Israel will bring about a permanent peace. Assuming that Hezbollah will provoke Israel again, we can expect them to again become pinned down militarily. In fact, the vast network of underground shelters that pock the southern Lebanese landscape, combined with Hezbollah’s lack of tanks and other invasive weapons, betray a plan to become pinned down. From this apparently defensive pose, it will cry out to its sponsor, Iran, and give President Ahmadinejad the opportunity to fulfill his messianic destiny and declare “The one who listens to your pleas has come.” There is even an added benefit: In this plan, the Mahdi and Jesus both are Shiite Muslims. Therefore, the question of whether Sunnis or Shiites are the true congregation will be settled in favor of Shiism. This is a win in every way for the Shiite schemers.
One might seek comfort from the thought that this Nasrallah-Ahmadinejad version of the end times is not a perfect match to the story given in the “Idiot’s” book, but that book only provides one interpretation of the Koran and the Hadith. As noted previously, the scriptural depictions of the end times are disjoint and vague in important ways, allowing ambitious Muslims to bend them to serve their own glory-seeking purposes.
Sadly, this kind of dementia is a recurring disease in the Islamic world. Sources used for other portions of this series also mention several of the more successful episodes of Messianic mania. For example:
From Islam: A Short History:[14]
…These [Abbasid] caliphs gave themselves titles expressive of the divine right of kings. Al-Mansur indicated that God would give him “special help” to achieve victory; his son styled himself al-Mahdi (the Guided One), the term used by Shiis to describe a leader who would establish the age of justice and peace.
From Islam: A Very Short Introduction:[15]
During the tenth century CE these Isma’ilis [a branch of Shiism] were at the forefront of several revolts inspired by eschatological expectations. In 909 a leader…proclaim[ed] himself the Mahdi and create[d] a state in North Africa.
From Africans: The History of a Continent:[16]
The Sudanese Mahdi, Muhammad ibn Abdallah,…revealed himself in 1881 as leader of Sudan’s stateless peoples against Egyptian rule…Three years later his forces took Khartoum…
As one might suspect, a closer look at Islam’s history reveals that its “golden age,” which Islamic fundamentalists seek to recreate through the returning Mahdi, is actually a warped utopian memory of an age that was golden in war booty only. Although Islam’s conquests may have once filled its coffers and underwritten magnificent works of architecture, its politics have almost always been tumultuous and bloody. Although this series cannot relate the entire history of Islam, you may want to study it further on your own, using any of the resources mentioned herein, or an Internet search, or a quick trip to the local library. You will find that the reputedly great dynasties of Islam were actually very repressive, and brought wealth to the ruling families while leaving the vast majority of people in ignorance and poverty.
While one may claim that these Islamic dynasties were no more repressive than their non-Islamic contemporaries, the fact remains that they were far more repressive than anything Westerners would tolerate today. To citizens of modern Free Democracies, the Islamic dynasties of yesteryear should appear as attractive as the reign of Ivan the Terrible.
The real, rather than idealized, history of Islam is one of bloody rivalries and sectarian feuds, which began with Uthman and Ali and continue to this day. The Assassins[17] of former days have become the suicide bombers of today. In fact, suicide bombers are currently being used by Sunnis and Shiites against each other far more often than against Israel or the West.
The following article illustrates just one recent example of this inter-Muslim strife:
Bomb Kills 16 at Shiite Mosque in Pakistan
By Kamran Khan, Washington Post Foreign Service, June 1, 2004; Page A17
KARACHI, Pakistan, May 31 – A bomb blast tore through a Shiite…mosque during evening prayers on Monday night, killing 16 people and wounding at least 30 others…, one day after the assassination of a prominent Sunni cleric in this southern port city.
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Manzur Mughal, senior superintendent of police…, said…“We have many reasons to believe that today’s bombing was a response to yesterday’s murder of Mufti Shamzai”…
…the blast was caused by about four pounds of C4 plastic explosives…The same type of device was used in a suicide attack at another Shiite mosque on May 7, in which 23 people were killed and 35 wounded…about 3,000 people have been killed in sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis in the last eight years. Sunnis make up about 80 percent and Shiites about 17 percent of Pakistan’s population of 150 million.
The ancient rivalry between Shiites and Sunnis is a primary source of Iraq’s river of blood. Shiites, who represent the majority of the population, have been dominated politically by the Sunnis for centuries. This was especially true under the repressive regime of Saddam Hussein, who is known to have killed hundreds of thousands of Shiites during their uprising after the first Gulf War.[18] In the aftermath of the second Gulf War, both Sunnis and Shiites have agitated for the Infidel occupiers to leave, but Iraqi society faces a far deeper problem. The disturbing truth is that Sunnis and Shiites hate each other nearly as much as they hate Infidels, and that Sunnis, fearful of possible reprisals under a Shiite-led democracy, have engaged in a widespread insurgency to thwart democratic governance. [19]
To their credit, those who have worked together to form a constitution and a permanent government have made great strides that have exceeded the expectations of many. However, the bloody insurgency continues to rage, killing thousands of civilians since the February 2005 elections, with no end in sight.
On top of their clashes with each other, the Shiites and Sunnis also have bloody internal clashes. For example, Shiism gives its clerics incentives to establish quasi-governmental hierarchies, which can, in turn, produce rival militias as religious leaders compete for money and power.
Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr provides a prime example of this phenomenon:
He murdered a rival cleric, Ayatollah Abdul Majid al-Khoei, in April 2003.
He organized a militia, known as the Mahdi Army.
For a time, he actually took over the governance of some Iraqi cities through this militia. This action was in direct conflict with the wishes of other Shiite leaders, particularly Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Husseini Al-Sistani, who is Iraq’s supreme Shiite authority. [20]
Al-Sadr’s example also shows how Shiite religious leaders can raise themselve above the law, establishing religious governments-within-a-government that answer to no one. To see how this works, read the following exerpt from the Newsweek article, Sword of the Shia:[21]
A…prominent exile was Abdul Majid al-Khoei, who was supposed [by the Coalition of the Willing] to be a key guide to the Shia religious community…
Al-Khoei paid with his life. The London-based exile returned to the holy city of Najaf, where he was born and raised, under U.S. military protection. He quickly organized a local council to get electricity and water flowing again, apparently with CIA money…But al-Khoei’s father had been Iraq’s top ayatollah—and a bitter rival of Sadr’s father—during Saddam’s rule. Now the sons were competing for power and influence. Sadr castigated al-Khoei as a U.S. agent, and demanded that he turn over the keys to the tomb of Imam Ali, the Prophet Muhammad’s son-in-law. A gilded cage surrounding the tomb contains a box for pilgrims’ donations, a huge and vital source of income for religious leaders.
As al-Khoei and a colleague visited the shrine on the morning of April 10, 2003, an angry mob attacked them with grenades, guns and swords. “Long live Moqtada al-Sadr!” the mob cried out. Al-Khoei was stabbed repeatedly, then tied up and dragged to the doorstep of Sadr’s headquarters in Najaf, where he was still alive A subsequent investigation by an Iraqi judge found that Sadr himself gave the order to finish him off: “Take him away and kill him in your own special way.”
Yet it wasn’t clear at the time of the killing what Sadr’s personal role was, and “we didn’t want one of our first acts in country to be taking out one of the most popular leaders,” says a U.S. military officer familiar with Army intelligence on Sadr. The officer, who did not want to be named…, says the Army was worried about provoking riots…Politicians in his Sadr bloc won 23 of 275 seats in the January 2005 elections and, after fresh voting nearly a year later, now hold 30 seats…Sadr was able to play kingmaker. Two prime ministers since 2005 – Ibrahim Jaafari and the current Iraqi leader, Nuri al-Maliki – have depended on his swing votes for their majority.
While Shiites have often suffered bloody internal battles, Sunnis once enjoyed a relatively stable hierarchy for centuries under the Ottoman Caliph. Unfortunately, the Caliphate’s dissolution after World War I left many Sunni leaders free to declare Holy Wars of their own. Even leaders without official credentials such as Osama bin Laden may issue fatwas and take military actions. Today, there is no universally accepted entity that can speak on behalf of all Sunnis and declare the proper response to current events.
Thus, from both Sunnis and Shiites, there is a cacophony of voices claiming authority to speak for Islam. Some declare that their religion is peaceful, while others declare Jihad against the United States. Or Israel. Or Denmark.
Faced with this discord, Westerners cannot simply turn their ears to those who say what they want to hear, because the opportunity for complicity with terrorism is enormous. While claiming to be peaceful people, “moderate” Muslims can easily funnel money and information to killers. Ultimately, these individuals may be caught in their deceits, but the damage done in the mean-time could be devastating and permanent.
Who is leading Islam into the future? Unfortunately, no one, though many, like Osama bin Laden and Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, are willing to kill for the honor.
Sadly, any attempt by the West to seek peaceful relations with the “House of Peace” is futile because Muslim hostility is a multi-headed beast. More profoundly, the idea of a lasting peace with the “House of War” violates Islam’s basic tenets. Therefore, any Muslim leader who begins to work toward peace with the West risks accusations of hypocritical complicity or apostasy, thereby drawing attacks from other leaders. And, when the killers are unable to attack the peaceful leaders themselves, they will turn on the innocent people whom those leaders are supposed to protect, as well as the West itself, to make those leaders appear impotent and helpless. Both Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, of Palestine’s secular Fatah movement, have contended with such attacks from Hamas whenever they began to talk peace with Israel.
Relations between the House of Islam’s political leaders and its people
Throughout much of the Islamic world, political leaders are at odds with their people and face no-win situations. On one hand, Western-oriented leaders are despised by citizens who accuse them of hypocritically selling out Islam for financial or political gain. On the other hand, Islamist leaders face opposition from citizens who long for the West’s prosperity and freedoms. At the core of this dilemma is a tangle of conflicting objectives among fundamentalist and liberal Muslims. Consider this sampling of issues:
There is a strong fundamentalist urge to avenge the humiliation inflicted on Islam by the West as the Ottoman Empire declined and fell.
For those who burn with this feeling of humiliation, Western economic or military aid simply enflames their sense of dependence and deepens their rage. Such people will attach sinister motives to any aid received, and will undermine efforts by liberal Muslims to collaborate with the West. Taught to never doubt the teachings of their faith, these fundamentalists reject the notion that the weakness of Islamic nations might be the result of Islam’s own policies, and instead lay all blame on the West.
The problems these people cause are compounded by a lack of any central religious authority to which they must answer, and which the Ottomans once had. In the absence of a central authority, every theologian feels free to act on his own beliefs and speak on behalf of Allah.
These fundamentalists are also a destabilizing force because they can turn to revered and ancient Islamic authorities to support their attacks on liberal leaders who cooperate with Infidels. For example, Ibn Taymiya, [22] a 14th century jurist, argued that a ruler who does not enforce Shari’ah in all aspects forfeits his right to rule. In this case, jihad against such a ruler is more than acceptable; it may be obligatory.
Shari’ah declares that a Muslim ruler must wage jihad against the enemies of Islam, i.e. those in the House of War. Ibn Taymiya’s pronouncements have strongly influenced extremists such as Osama bin Laden, who vowed to bring down the Saudi government, even though it is one of the most religiously conservative governments in the Islamic world. Why did bin Laden do this? Because the Saudis cooperated militarily with the United States in a war against Muslim Iraq, allowing U.S. troops on Saudi soil. It didn’t matter that that Iraq was led by a mass murderer who had attacked other Muslim nations and was a military threat to Saudi Arabia. To Osama bin Laden, Saudi Arabia had displayed its dependence on an Infidel army and had allied with Infidels to attack a Muslim nation. This was both a humiliation and a direct violation of the Koran.
Fundamentalists seek to restore what they claim is Islam’s rightful place as the most advanced civilization in the world, by returning to the laws, beliefs, customs, and fearless courage that once made it great.
Unfortunately, those laws, beliefs, and customs were made for a different time and do not consider modern innovations in science, finance, forensics, and other areas. Moreover, the teachings that inspire fearless courage adapt poorly to peacetime, leading to internal strife. A society based on these relics will inevitably be less fair, peaceful and productive than societies that incorporate modern ideas, technologies, and institutions. What these fundamentalists refuse to see is that they are trying to move foreward by going backward.
Liberal Muslims wish to enjoy the benefits of Infidel innovations but do not want to acknowledge any superiority on the part of the civilizations that produced them.
Like the inventors of “Islamic Banking,” Muslims who try to modernize their societies often attempt to put Muhammad’s stamp on modern ways, and thereby avoid admitting that these innovations came from non-Muslim sources. While these modernizers may or may not be hostile to the West, their reasoning itself leads to an absurd conclusion: That the West has done a better job of understanding the Koran, and preserving Muhammad’s practices, than the House of Islam.
Unfortunately, this absurdity feeds the belief that Islam’s leaders have misled the Muslims, or are being manipulated by malevolent Infidels who have stolen Islamic wisdom and left Muslims with nothing. Even though this belief makes no sense, it persists and encourages rebellion, along with a longing for Islam’s days of glory.
Many Muslims believe that, by adopting certain Western institutions, they are taking back Islam’s legacy. This mindset enables them to adopt Western institutions while maintaining their hostility to the West and calling them thieves instead of benefactors. However, by continuing to search ancient texts for answers to modern questions on law, finance, and science, they reject the underlying methods of reason that could lead them out of their state of backwardness. While they may be able to adopt some Western practices, they will be hard-pressed to invent anything truly new, and will remain dependent on the West for innovative ideas.
Liberal Muslims aim to install the West’s engines of success (Free Democracy and Free Enterprise) into a society faithful to Islamic holy scripture.
Professor Noah Feldman, of New York University’s School of Law, did a valiant job of attempting to write a guidebook for this installation, entitled After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy. [23] However, his book appears to be more interested in creating a democracy for Muslims than a democracy for all. How so? His vision would institutionalize the tyranny of the majority and legitimize Shari’ah’s harshness against Infidels, Polytheists, Pagans, Hypocrite, and Apostates.
While Feldman recognizes that his Islamic Democracy would not be a Free Democracy, he fails to appreciate that Islamic Democracy lacks the virtues that make democracy desirable. Instead, he seeks to comfort non-Muslims with inane bromides, assuring them that Islamic Democracy would not be all that bad. This is what Feldman says:
One limitation of [Islamic Democracy] is that it is apparently the Muslim community alone that is entrusted with the task of interpreting and applying God’s word. That is all well and good for Muslims, but it excludes non-Muslims. If self-rule consists in figuring out what God wants within the framework of Islam, then non-Muslims will not be full-fledged participants. The answer that minorities in any democracy are excluded when they do not share the fundamental values of the majority may be unsatisfying to someone who thinks that equality is a touchstone of democracy. But perhaps non-Muslims could be permitted to participate in the democratic discussion of God’s will, even if they are not full members of the community. [24]
…
Islamic states traditionally required Jews, Christians, and other non-pagans[25] deemed “peoples of the book” to pay a special tax and wear distinctive dress; legally, the state accorded them special status as “protected persons.” Churches and synagogues had to be modest in size relative to mosques. The enforcement of these rules varied historically from rigorous to lax, and treatment of non-Muslims ranged from highly tolerant to repressive and even violent. There is an extensive literature arguing about whether this protected status must amount to second-class citizenship – a question that might plausibly be answered either way. But even if these discriminatory taxing and zoning requirements were put in place – and they need not be adopted by an Islamic state that is not fully Islamist – the Islamic state faces no theoretical barrier to treating its non-Muslim citizens equally. [26]
…
In northern Nigeria, where Islamic law is being introduced today, the threat of such punishments functions as a symbol of the new order, to Islamists and non-Muslim opponents alike. Everyone involved gets some benefit out of drawing attention to the possible stoning of an adulteress. It is free publicity for Islamists, and a good rallying point for opponents. It would be a horrible tragedy if anyone should be unlucky enough to be executed for adultery there, but an Islamic system need not execute anyone for adultery under normal circumstances. There is almost always some legal way out. The existence of hudud punishments is therefore not incompatible with democracy, unless we think that capital punishment makes a country undemocratic. [27]
If Feldman’s ideas were implemented, his “democracy” would do more than disenfranchise and discriminate against non-Muslims. As his defense of both Nigeria and the hudud laws demonstrates, his Islamic Democracy would be both harsh and capricious. Violators of the law might be killed or released, depending on the willingness of legal authorities to find “some legal way out.”
Additionally, Feldman’s concept of Islamic Democracy would lend support to those who wish to oppress others. Ruling factions could invoke the laws of Shari’ah to impose severe penalties on opponents, calling them slanderers, backbiters, Hypocrites and Apostates. Therefore, on top of oppressing non-Muslims, Feldman’s concept is almost guaranteed to magnify the hostilities that Islamic sects already have toward each other, with their motivations to dominate, disenfranchise, and discriminate against each other.
Interestingly, Prof. Feldman was a Senior Advisor for Constitutional Law at the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) for Iraq. Perhaps we should not be surprised that Iraq is being torn apart by sectarian strife and appears in danger of overt civil war. As the U.S. and its allies are discovering, Feldman was overly optimistic when he claimed that “It is a gamble to rely on secular moderates to produce democratic parties that are respectful of Islam without being Islamist, but the odds may be better than would appear to the Western imagination.” [28]
As alluded to previously, a sad effect of the conflicts between liberal and fundamentalist Muslims is that they force the political leaders of Islamic nations to become repressive and dictatorial. These leaders face citizens who are willing to use revolutionary force to achieve their goals if the leaders resist them. However, any action a leader takes to please one faction is likely to incite revolutionary action by the other. For example, if a leader introduces Western-style reforms, Islamic fundamentalists are likely to declare a fatwa against the leader or simply try to assassinate him. If a leader instead reforms a nation into an Islamic state, the state’s subsequent economic and political failure is likely to lead to popular revolt. Thus, Islamic leaders confront a Hobson’s choice of either battling Islamic fundamentalists or watching their nations descend into chaos. Either way, they must use repressive measures to maintain order.
Into these churning waters the United States has embarked on high-stakes experiments in nation-building, hoping to bring democracy and freedom to the Islamic world. After dethroning the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, will they be able to chart a course for Free Democracy and Free Enterprise? Or will these re-founded nations sink again into repression and chaos? So far, the results of these experiments have been less than encouraging:
In Iraq, the new government faces multiple insurgencies, fed by both Sunni and Shiite rage at Infidel “occupiers,” as well as hatred for each other. This insurgent spirit is only exacerbated by the new government’s dependence on foreign militaries to prop it up. The economy also continues to languish, with an unemployment rate that in 2005 was somewhere between 27% and 50%.[29] The bad economy is not the result of sparse funding. In fact, billions of dollars are being pumped into Iraq annually. However, corruption is rampant and Islamic terrorists continue to sabotage Iraq’s infrastructure and make commerce difficult. In addition, fears of infiltration by insurgents have kept military support jobs in foreign hands, even though Iraqis desperately need the work. Local businesses also miss the benefits of commerce because Coalition personnel are afraid to shop in local markets.
Afghanistan’s situation, more than four years after the Taliban’s fall, is little better. The nation still depends on NATO forces to maintain order, and it still generates articles like these:
Bomb kills election workers
By Matthew Pennington, Associated Press, June 27, 2004, The Boston Globe
KABUL, Afghanistan – A bomb tore through a bus carrying female election workers yesterday on their way to register women for the country’s first post-Taliban vote, killing two and injuring 13. It was the bloodiest attack yet in a string of violence targeting election workers, aimed at sabotaging the September vote. A spokesman for the Taliban claimed responsibility…
…
Bomber strikes at Afghan funeral
Kyodo, AFP, AP, Reuters, The Australian, June 2, 2005
KANDAHAR: A suicide bomb attack on the funeral of a leading cleric killed by suspected Taliban militants left at least 16 people dead… in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, officials said. A further 36 people were wounded when the blast ripped through a mosque in the centre of the city…The attack will raise fears that Taliban militants are further stepping up a renewed onslaught that has left more than 250 people dead this year.
REFERENCES FOR SECTION 14:
[1] Islam: A Short History, by Karen Armstrong, Random House, 2000, pages xiv-xv.
[2] Ibid, pages 32-33.
[3] Islam: A Short History, by Karen Armstrong, Random House, 2000, page 35.
[4] The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Koran, by Shaykh Muhammad Sarwar and Brandon Toropov, Alpha Books, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., Chapter 2, section entitled Islam’s Triumph, page 19.
[5] Umayyad caliphate, Fatimid caliphate, Almohad caliphate, and Abbasid Calphate, among others.
[6] The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Koran, by Shaykh Muhammad Sarwar and Brandon Toropov, Alpha Books, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., Chapter 8, section entitled It’s Settled, page 86.
[7] The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam, by Yahiya Emerick, Alpha Books, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2002, Chapter 9, sections entitled Prophecies About the Muslim World, The Signs of the Hour, The False Prophets, and The Rule of Jesus, pages 105-108.
[8] To see other hadiths pertinent to the eschatology of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam, see Sahih Muslim, Book 1, Number 287, Number 293, Number 325, Number 327, Book 7, Numbers 3186 – 3187, Book 41, Numbers 7005 – 7057, Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 36, Numbers 4266 – 4277, and Book 37, Number 4310.
[9] This is a reference to Christianity or Christians.
[10] This is usually considered to be a reference to either Judaism or Jews, although some believe that it is a reference to pork.
[11] Blair ‘revolted’ by ‘destroy Israel’ call of Iranian president, by Sam Knight, The Times (U.K.), October 27, 2005.
[12] Koran, [3.28] YUSUF ALI
[13] Koran, [9.73] PICKTHALL
[14] Islam: A Short History, by Karen Armstrong, The Modern Library division of Random House, 2000, Chapter 2, section entitled entitled Ahe Abbasids: The High Caliphal Period (750-935), page 54.
[15] Islam: A Very Short Introduction, by Malise Ruthven, Oxford University Press, 2000, Chapter 3, section entitled entitled Other Branches of Shi’ism, page 54.
[16] Africans: The History of a Continent, by John Iliffe, Cambridge University Press, 1995, Chapter 9, section entitled entitled Partition, page 190.
[17] An Isma’ili (Shiite) sect, famous for consuming Hashish and giving the term Assassin its meaning. In the 11th and 12th centuries, they terrorized the Islamic and Infidel world alike by killing the rulers of nations. According to Marco Polo, their key operatives were young men, ages 12 – 20, who sought Paradise by fulfilling the murderous commands of their leaders (The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, translated by Henry Yule, London, 1875)
[18] Expert: 300,000 in Iraq’s Mass Graves, Associated Press, November 8, 2003.
[19] Questions and answers on the Iraq power transfer, by John Yaukey, Gannett News Service, April 8, 2004.
[20] Symbol of Insurgency, by Charles Recknagel, Asia Times, April 9, 2004.
[21] Sword of the Shia, by Jeffrey Bartholet, Newsweek, December 4, 2006.
[22] Lived from 1263 to 1328, and was an Islamic conservative theologian and jurist considered to be a progenitor of Wahhabism. – Summarized from Encyclopedia Britannica Precise, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 2006.
[23] After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy, by Noah Feldman, Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2003.
[24] Ibid, Chapter entitled God’s Rule and the People’s Rule, page 59.
[25] This reference to pagans does not mean that pagans did not suffer abuses. Instead, it means that pagans were given no quarter at all. Laws are not needed for people who are not allowed to exist.
[26] After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy, by Noah Feldman, published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, 2003, Chapter entitled Islamic Equality, page 68.
[27] Ibid, Chapter entitled Islamic Liberty, page 72.
[28] Ibid, Chapter entitled Democracy’s Muslim Allies, page 225.
[29] Tackling Another Major Challenge in Iraq: Unemployment, By Jonathan Finer and Omar Fekeiki, Washington Post, June 20, 2005.
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