The Dagger of Islam
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The Dagger of Islam JOHN LAFFIN John Laffin is one of the best-known writers on the Middle East and has traveled widely in the Islamic world. His books, which number eighty, include Middle East Journey, (The Arab-Israeli Dilemma), The Arab Mind and The Israeli Mind. He is also a regular contributor to the international press and to world encyclopedias. United Copts of Great Britain www.unitedcopts.org 1 First published by Sphere Books Ltd 1979 Contents Copyright © 1979 by John Laffin Reprinted 1981 1 Warnings 1 2 A Great Anguish, an Arc of Crisis 5 3 ‘History Surrendered to Our Will’ 8 4 ‘Distress, Misfortunes and Weakness’ 12 Contents 5 ‘No Compassion for Weakness’ 17 6 ‘Make War on Unbelievers’ 22 7 Purity and Punishment 25 8 al-Azhar – Islamic Policy Centre 31 9 Islam and Christianity 35 TRADE 10 Islam v the West’s ‘Intellectual Havoc’ 40 MARK 11 Islam and Economics 45 12 Islam Judged by its Minorities 48 13 Islam Judged by its Women 56 14 A Taste of Literature 62 This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, 15 Key Countries – Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without Iran, Turkey, Algeria, Lebanon, Tunisia 66 the publisher's prior consent in any form of 16 Africa – Drive for Converts 86 binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition 17 Uneasy Courtship – Soviet and Islam 88 including this condition being imposed on the 18 Out With the Dagger 92 subsequent purchaser. Spelling and Glossary Further Reading Set in |Intertype Plantin Index Printed in Great Britain by Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd Aylesbury, Bucks 2 CHAPTER ONE Warnings There is genuine fear that Muslims may be creating a List of Illustrations great el of trouble for themselves and the rest of the world by [cashing forces which they may not be able to control or direct. The ageless face of Islam - the men from the deserts; Altaf Gauhar, in The Guardian The young face of rural Islam, from Egypt. February 26, 1979 The Islamic population explosion is no less serious than that in South-East Asia. Cameroon boys learning the holy book from tablets: We are at war. And our battle has only just begun. Our Veiled women in Tripoli, Libya, photographed by the first victory will be one tract of land somewhere in the author.. world that is under the complete rule of Islam : . Islam is moving across the earth ... Nothing can stop [it] spreading Some Muslim girls find temporary equality in uniform, in Europe and America. Young Libya on parade: 'Abd al-Qadir as-Sufi ad-Darqawi, Violent men in Teheran during the Iranian in Iihad - a Ground Plan; published in Britain by Revolution: Diwan Press, 1978 A victim of the `Islamic Revolutionary Court'. The result of terrorist violence: As a creed with which Europe and America. has to do A frequent scene in many Islamic cities; business, Islam has begun to make Marxism look decidedly Prayer hour for the Royal Guard, Ryad. familiar and manageable ... It presents itself as a powerful A poster depicting Colonel Gaddafi, President of Libya; third force in international affairs. Guardian weekly editorial, April 14, 1979 Historically, Islam has made good its capacity to belong with wide diversities of humankind. But always, traditionally, this universality was on the basis of surrender. Kenneth Cragg, The House of Islam, 2nd edition, Dickenson Publishing Co., California, 1978, 3 The Muslims are coming, despite Jewish cunning, As reports of Islamic revival sweep from Africa to Christian hatred and the Communist storm. Southeast Asia, it behooves the adherents of other faiths, or The Cairo Muslim magazine AZ Da`wah (The Call) no faith , to try to understand the religious strivings of so March 21, 1979 many millions of their fellow human beings… There is a previously under-estimated force at work. Islam is once again on the march out of Arabia; it is a An editorial in Christian Science Monitor, Muslim crusade, a religious and cultural jihad or holy war . February 19,1979 . Who knows what djinna [the Islamic resurgence] has let loose upon the world? Christopher Dobson and Ronald Payne, when my mind travels to the eighty million Muslims The Sunday Telegraph, of Indonesia, the fifty million in China, and the several 1 March 25, 979 other millions in Malaya, Siam and Burma, and the hundred millions in Pakistan, the hundred or more in the Middle East and the forty million in Russia, as well as the A wave of religious fanaticism is sweeping the Arab other millions in the distant parts of the world, when I world - indeed the whole Muslim world - and the visualise these millions united in one faith, I have a great consequences could be revolutionary. consciousness of the tremendous potentialities that ca- An editorial in To the Point International, operation among them can achieve. November 14, 1977 Gamal Abdel Nasser, late President of Egypt, in The Philosophy of the Revolution, 1955 The spread of Islam was military. There is a tendency to apologise for this and we should not. It is one of the injunctions of the Koran that you must fight for the Our frontiers are not our limits but our wounds. spreading of Islam. Shukri al-Quwaitli, one time President of Syria Dr Ali Issa Othman, for some years adviser to UNRWA on education; quoted by Charis Waddy in The Muslim Mind, Longmans, 1976 The’ ulama [the`learned` doctors of Islam] by encouraging a violent and fanatical spirit have given Muhammadanism a sinister reputation contrary to many precepts of its founder.. Alfred Guillaume, Islam, Penguin 1978 edition 4 adulterers in Saudi Arabia, and the use of the so-called CHAPTER TWO `oil weapon'. A Great Anguish, Despite the coverage of the Islamic world by the media an Arc of Crisis generally, the West - indeed the whole of the non-Muslim world - is startlingly ignorant of Islam. Among private in- Outside al Azhar, the great Islamic university and dividuals this lack of information is probably nothing more religious centre in Cairo, is a large illuminated billboard than unfortunate but the ignorance extends to the leaders of proclaiming 1,000 MILLION MUSLIMS. It is not only a the Western, Communist and Third Worlds, and this is bold sign but a significant one, for Islam does not yet have dangerous. It can also be fatal. On the international scene, this many adherents. The current figure is about 750 million American ignorance about Islam in Iran led to one of the * and the 1,000 million is the target for the year AD 2000. greatest setbacks ever to American prestige. Individuals can The billboard and the number indicate Islamic ambition also suffer through the ignorance of third parties. For in- and they hint at a surging power which goes far beyond stance, the well-intentioned appeals by world political and mere numbers. After all, the Christian world has 985 religious leaders made to President Zia al-Huq to spare Mr million people, but this does not mean that Christianity is Bhutto's life ensured only that he had no chance at all. It is stronger than Islam. Christianity is nothing more than a true that he never did have much chance - the laws of an vein to Islam's artery. Islam is not, as in Christianity, a Islamic republic being what they are - but `interference' church within the community, but a community integrated from outside effectively did away with whatever slight with religion and in this lies its special strength. chance remained. The average Western person does not realise that Islam All the events reported from the Islamic world indicate is not merely religious but political, economic and legal as that `one of the world's great religions is in the throes of a well, an all-embracing system, code and pattern of life, not great anguish', as a Christian Science Monitor journalist, just something to which Muslims turn on Friday, their Geoffrey Goodsell, has described it. principal day of prayer. Zbigniew Brzezinski, U.S. presidential adviser on That something is stirring in Islam is apparent from foreign policy, places this anguish in its political context. even a cursory glance at newspapers. The words Islam and `An arc of crisis stretches along the shores of the Indian Muslim have appeared in headlines over stories concerned Ocean, with fragile social and political structures in a with revolution and executions in Iran, the judicial murder region of vital importance to us threatened by of ex-President Bhutto of Pakistan, the stoning to death of fragmentation. The resulting political chaos could well be filled by elements hostile to our values and sympathetic to * An accurate figure is impossible to reach. Encyclopedia Britannica puts our adversaries.' the number at 536 million; various Islamic and Arabic authorities say Dr Brzezinski's `arc of crisis' extends from Iran to South between 60o and 90o million. Mr. Ahmed Heiba, an agricultural East Asia, taking in Afghanistan, the Gulf States, Pakistan, consultant with the Islamic Development Bank, suggests 80o million. The 1977 edition of the World Muslim Gazetteer, published by the World Bangladesh, the Yemen and Somalia, all Islamic states. But Muslim Congress in Karachi, gives a world total of over 900,000,000 the area of potential crisis is much more extensive, (from 647, 00 0,000 in the 1964 edition ). stretching from Morocco to Egypt and including much of 5 North Africa; it involves Turkey and the six Muslim states history. Not since the fierce warrior tribes of Believers - the of the Soviet Union; it reaches as far as Indonesia and the followers of the Prophet Muhammad - swept out of the Philippines.