Separating Muslims from Islam

1 AAA warwarwar ononon Islam?Islam?Islam? What does the “war on terror” mean for the Muslim and non-Muslim World? Abid Ullah Jan A WAR ON ISLAM? 2 COPYRIGHT © 2002 BY ABID ULLAH JAN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED, STORED IN A RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, OR TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM, BY ANY MEANS, INCLUDING MECHANICAL, ELECTRONIC, PHOTOCOPYING, RECORDING, OR OTHRWISE, WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION FROM THE PUBLISHER. PUBLISHED BY Maktabah Al-Ansar, UK PUBLISHED IN UNITED KINGDOM ABID ULLAH JAN NOT A WAR ON ISLAM / ABID ULLAH JAN – IST EDITION. ISBN. 0-953-9847-7-X 1. FIRST PROBLEM: VAGUENESS 2. THE PLOT THICKENS AS THE MYTH DEEPENS 3. THIRD PROBLEM: MEDIA IRRESPONSIBILITY. 4. FOURTH PROBLEM: FEAR. 5. FIFTH PROBLEM: THE CULTURE OF VIOLENCE. 6. SIXTH PROBLEM: AUTHORITARIANISM. 7. SEVENTH PROBLEM: REALPOLITIK. 8. EIGHTH PROBLEM: SEPARATING MUSLIMS FROM ISLAM. 9. CONCLUSION NOT A WAR ON ISLAM? 3 Acknowledgements No book has a single author, and this one is no exception. In writing it I have incurred enormous debts of gratitude. Particular thanks go to Naseem Ahmed, who helped this book take shape and provided useful criticism and support. I sincerely appreciate the input from Dr. Israr Ahmed and General Hamid Gul. Equally valuable to appreciate are the efforts of a friend in Canada, whose prodding, perseverance, word-processing and moral support enabled me to produce this book in a timely manner. I am also thankful to Ray Woodcock, a lawyer in the American Midwest, who shared supporting and opposing views on a number of issues and whose contribution made me put different concerns in proper perspective. All this good assistance accounts for whatever merits the book may possess. For its flaws, I alone bear the full responsibility. A WAR ON ISLAM? 4 NOT A WAR ON ISLAM? 5 Contents Foreword 11 Preface 13 Setting the context 19 1 FIRST PROBLEM: VAGUENESS 25 1.1 Setting the stage for a war on Islam 29 1.2 The war is on 35 1.3 Pre-war Propaganda 41 1.4 Misnomerism adds to vagueness 44 1.5 The plot thickens as the myth deepens 50 2. SECOND PROBLEM: TARGETING ISLAM 55 2.1 Faith, fundamentalism, and facts 59 2.2 The self-created fear of Islam 61 2.3 The real roots of Islamic resistance 72 2.4 Islam not a threat 79 3. THIRD PROBLEM: MEDIA IRRESPONSIBILITY 85 3.1 New lexicon for sensitised times 90 3.2 Spreading the fear of Islam 93 4. FOURTH PROBLEM: FEAR 106 4.1 Scared of Jihad? 109 4.2 Wishing death to Islam? 114 5. FIFTH PROBLEM: THE CULTURE OF VIOLENCE 118 5.1 Muslim violence 123 5.2 Target: terrorism or Islam? 130 5.3 Violence, Islam and the US 132 5.4 Who is fighting whom? 136 5.5 Solution: combat anti-Americanism 137 A WAR ON ISLAM? 6 6. SIXTH PROBLEM: AUTHORITARIANISM 142 6.1 The dread of Taliban’s authoritarianism 152 6.2 Imposing totalitarian governments 156 6.3 Democracy & authoritarianism 162 6.4 Double standards for democracy 166 6.5 Imposing a way of life 173 6.6 Relativity of democracy 178 7. SEVENTH PROBLEM: REALPOLITIK 188 7.1 Islamophobia: a tool for interventions 195 7.2 Terrorism: another tool for intervention 201 8. EIGHTH PROBLEM: SEPARATING MUSLIMS FROM ISLAM 205 8.1 Does anti-terrorism need secularisation? 209 8.2 Twisted secularism 213 8.3 Secularism: not the solution 219 8.4 Lessons from the paradox of secular Turkey 221 9. CONCLUSION 225 9.1 The unfolding final clash 226 9.2 The real problem 231 9.3 The only solution 247 POST-WORD by Dr. Israr Ahmad 253 References 257 INTRODUCTION 7 Some comments that represent the intellectual horror that laid the foundation for the anti-Islam policies and prepared the public psyche for undermining Islam. “I wish I were Commander-in-Chief in India. The first thing I would do is to strike that Oriental race with amazement should be to proclaim to them, in their language, that I considered my holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean that I should do my utmost to exterminate the Race upon whom the strain of the late cruelties rested [referring to the uprising of 1857]; and that I begged them to do to me the favour to observe that I was there for that purpose and no other, and was now proceeding, with all convenient dispatch and merciful swiftness of execution, to blot it out of mankind and raze it off the face of the Earth.’ Charles Dickens ‘Islam must be destroyed, as Carthage was destroyed’ Peregrine Worthshorne “Our struggle against murderous Islamic terror is also meant to awaken the world, which is lying in slumber... We call on all nations, all peoples to devote their attention to the greater danger inherent in Islamic fundamentalism [which]...threatens world peace in future years... [W]e stand on the line of fire against the danger of fundamentalist Islam.” Yitzhak Rabin, December 1992 Rodman sees the West as being challenged from the outside by a “militant, atavistic force driven by a hatred of all Western political thought, harking back to age-old grievances against Christendom....The rage against us is too great, as is the concrete threat of nuclear, conventional, and terrorist weapons it continues to marshal in the service of its rage.” Peter Rodman, senior editor of the National Review National Review, May 11, 1992, pp. 28-29 It is the mightiest power in the Levant and North Africa. Governments tremble before it. Arabs everywhere turn to it for salvation from their various miseries. This power is not Egypt, Iraq, or indeed any nation, but the humble mosque. The Islamic Threat, The Economist, March 13, 1993, pg. 25. “It should now be clear that we are facing a mood and a movement far transcending the level of issues and policies and the governments that pursue them. This is no less than a clash of civilizations—a perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judaeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both.” Charles Krauthammer, “The New Crescent of Crisis: Global Intifada,” Washington Post, January 1, 1993. A WAR ON ISLAM? 8 “We are not dealing with the NATO at all. We are dealing with the UN. The UN are not going to do anything advantageous for the Muslim side. We are always glad when the UN is deciding.” Radovan Karadzic: Serbian Leader, Daily Telegraph, Feb. 16, 1994, pg. 10. “The Red Menace Is Gone. But Here’s Islam,” New York Times, Headline, January 21st, 1996 edition, section 4. “Islam for the Europeans remained as the belief of the enemy, the anti-Christian and the non-Europeans. When an idea or a perception has taken root and becomes an article of faith it is difficult to change.” Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohammad Business Times; Kuala Lumpur; Mar 25, 1998 “No one will be allowed to tamper with the new world order, and we are determined to use force against that.” James Baker “Islam is the only civilisation which has put the survival of the West in doubt…. Statesmen can constructively alter reality only if they recognise and understand it. “ Samuel P. Huntington Clash Of Civilisations And The Remaking of The World Order “The West today is losing irretrievably its former global hegemony and is increasingly challenged economically and culturally by East Asian and Islamic civilisations,” Internet web page by the Philosophy and Religion Department of Montclair State University in New Jersey. Called “Philosophy and Civil Society,” “With the end of the Cold War, what we really need is an obvious ideological and threatening enemy, one worthy of our mettle, one that can unite us in opposition.” Irving Kristol , Council on Foreign Relations Wall Street Journal, editorial August 2, 1996 The instinct of the masses is not false in locating the ultimate source of these cataclysmic changes in the West and in attributing the disruption of their old way of life to the impact of Western domination....Islamic fundamentalism has given an aim and a form to the otherwise aimless and formless resentment and anger of the Muslim masses at the forces that have devalued their traditional values and loyalties and, in the final analysis, robbed them of their beliefs, their aspirations, their dignity, and to an increasing extent even their livelihood....And since the United States is the legitimate heir of European civilization and the recognized and unchallenged leader of the West, the United States has inherited the resulting grievances and become the focus for the pent- up hate and anger. The “Israelists” Propose the Islamic Threat In his influential essay “The Roots of Muslim Rage” (Atlantic, September 1990, pp. 47-60), Bernard Lewis INTRODUCTION 9 “The proliferation of state-sponsored or assisted terrorist groups and of weapons of mass destruction in the region threatens the United States, as well as Israel, Egypt and other allies. The United States would be hard pressed, given American domestic politics and its long-standing commitment to Israel, to remain aloof from a conflict that endangered the Jewish state....Moreover, the aftermath of the bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York City, the United States must acknowledge now that Islamic fervour nurtured overseas is bound to come home.” Judith Miller, Challenge of Radical Islam Foreign Affairs, Spring 1993, pp.43-56 Islamic fundamentalism, according to Amos Perlmutter is “a plague” which has infected the entire Islamic world and whose goal is to topple secularist military regimes in Egypt, Syria and Algeria and replace them with Islamic states.

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