Islamic Resurgence - Part 3

INTRODUCTION:

This is the third and final part of my Blog on Islamic Resurgence. I will have nothing more to say on this topic after that. I am researching to write about Quantum Mechanics with special reference to Hinduism - I know more about both of them than I did about Islam when I started the first Blog. However I promise to respond to any communique on Islam sent to me by the readers.

In Part 2 I talked about the three main reformers in Islam and stated the importance of the Modernists amongst them. They alone, in my view, are capable to turning rich Islamic countries into real world powers. How they can do this and what they must do to achieve it is part of this essay.

I shall also express freely my views about what they must refrain from doing to achieve their aim. At the risk of angering some diehard muslims I will have unpalatable ideas to express on the topics of fatwa, jihad and the use of terrorist attacks on the West. These three, either individually or together, will never help the cause of Islamic resurgence - and I shall explain each one separtately.

FATWA:

I am no mufti but my understanding gleaned from reading about this is as follows:

This is an authoritative ruling on a point of Islamic law given by a mufti or Islamic leader. Sunni Muslims would favor a Sunni fatwa whereas Shiite would follow a Shi'a one. There exists no international Islamic authority to settle fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence)issues today, in a legislative sense. Fatwa is only binding on its author and individuals are free to accept them or not. "In Sunni Islam, a fatwa is nothing more than an opinion. It is just a view of a mufti and is not binding in India." ― Maulana Mehmood Madani, president of the Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Hind [4]

This implies that an individual carrying out the fatwa needs to apply his/her own rational thinking as to whether he/she thinks it is moral to carry it out. The word has never been mentioned in Koran.

We know that fataawa do not work - people involved in the cases shown below are still alive and well. Non-Islamic world will not toletate it and most of them are morally wrong:

According to the religious edict issued by Rashad Hassan Khalil, a former dean of Al-Azhar University's faculty of Sharia (or Islamic law), "being completely naked during the act of coitus annuls the marriage".

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 pronounced a death sentence on Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi released a fatwa on April 14th 2004, stating that the boycott of American and Israeli products was an obligation for all who are able.

Sheik Sadeq Abdallah bin Al-Majed, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan, issued a fatwa that prohibits vaccination of children claiming it is a conspiracy of the Jews and Freemasons.[3][4]

Indian Muslim scholars issued a fatwa of death against Taslima Nasreen, an exiled controversial Bangladeshi writer. Majidulla Khan Farhad of Hyderabad-based Majlis Bachao Tehriq issued the fatwa at the Tipu Sultan mosque in Kolkata after Juma prayers as saying Taslima has defamed Islam and announced “unlimited financial reward” to anybody who would kill her. [5]

These three articles are directed towards muslims who want an Islamic Resurgence.
To this end Fatwa does not help our cause.

JIHAD:

In Islam it means a holy war and unlike the fatwa it is mentioned in the Koran many times. According to OERD "A jihad may be undertaken to defend Islam against external threats or to spread the religion among non-believers; effort or exertion in the cause of God. Prosecution of a jihad when summoned is prescribed as a religious duty by the Koran and by tradition."

For most of the fourteen centuries of recorded Muslim history, jihad was most commonly interpreted to mean armed struggle for the defense or advancement of Muslim power. In Muslim tradition, the world is divided into two houses: the House of Islamic Peace (Dar al-Salam), in which Muslim governments rule and Muslim law prevails, and the House of War (Dar al-Harb), the rest of the world, still inhabited and, more important, ruled by infidels. The presumption is that the duty of jihad will continue, interrupted only by truces, until all the world either adopts the Muslim faith or submits to Muslim rule. Those who fight in the jihad qualify for rewards in both worlds—booty in this one, paradise in the next. For most of the recorded history of Islam, from the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad onward, the word jihad was used in a primarily military sense.

Implications of all this is that jihad only works in your favaour if you are stronger or soon likely to be stronger than your opponents or your adversaries are in imminent decline.

We need to face the reality. At present Israel alone can defeat all its neighbours put together - in each war she has extended her boundries. Israel is a fait accompli - the West and especially the USA will not never let it be obliterated no matter how much Iran and the rest of the muslim world waould love to do so. For this to happen the Islamic Resurgence needs to be so extensive as to make the muslim countries as a group to be the new super power in the world. Would this be morally right?

Anyway, the main thrust of this essay is to achieve Islamic resurgence and to that end it appears to me that Jihad has not been helpful and is never likely to be. It appears to me that Jihad has killed more muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq than the enemy. Muslims need to accept that the West will never be intimidated by Jihad - they have fought two World Wars, dominated most of the world and is still dominating it, both, militarily and economically. If the muslims cannot scare even Israel they are not really scaring the USA and the West. The three put together are dectating the events in the Middle East.

The Fatwa and the Jihad are the stratagies that have failed so far and will not succeed against the West. Muslims need to be economically and militarily as strong as the West to be an effective voice towards their own destiny. In my view there is no other way.

The Talibans:

The Taliban's reclusive supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, has imposed the world's strictest form of Islam on the people of Afghanistan. Music, television, cinema and most forms of entertainment have been banned. Teaching Christianity is punishable by death. Severe restrictions on women's access to health care and education also have been imposed. Women must be covered from head to toe when outside their homes. One woman, who was convicted of killing her abusive husband, was executed publicly by rifle. In March 2001, the world recoiled as the Taliban destroyed non-Islamic religious statues such as centuries-old giant Buddhas.

In light of the Taliban's role in harboring bin Laden, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have renounced all diplomatic ties with Afghanistan's rulers. Only Pakistan now maintains formal relations with the Taliban.

Let us be realistic, the Talibans will never bring about Islamic Resurgence.

AL-QAEDA:

It is an international alliance of militant Sunni jihadist organizations. Al-Qaeda's objectives include the end of foreign influence in Muslim countries and the creation of a new Islamic caliphate. For this to be achieved they need the wherewithals - not just the money; they also need supremacy in science, technology and engineering. This is precisely what they have not got and unlikely to ever get and hence they are are a spent force and will never ever bring the West to their knees.

Theirs is not the way to bring about real resurgence of Islam.

TERRORIST ATTACKS:

Consider the following facts about WW1 and WW2:

During the summer and fall of 1914, France lost as many men on the battlefield as the U.S.Army would lose in all of the 20th century!

Russia's losses were never actually counted. It is estimated that over 6 million Russian soldiers were killed in WWI.

During World War One, 230 soldiers perished for each hour of the four and a quarter years it continued.

There were 70,000,000 men and women in uniform of that number one-half were either killed, wounded or became prisoners of war.

In Great Britian at the end of the war there were 250,000 wounded soldiers who suffered total or partial amputation.

The Spanish Influenza of 1918 killed 51 million people worldwide!

The U.S. was in the war in actual combat for only seven and a half months. During this time 116,000 were killed and 204,000 were wounded.

In 1916 in the Italian Alps a winter avalanche killed 10,000 men. In four years of conflict on the Italian Alpine Front 50,000 soldiers killed by avalances.

During the course of the Great War 11% of Frances's entire population was killed or wounded.

The biggest naval battle in history occurred off the coast of Jutland in the afternoon of May 31, 1916. More than 200 warships and 100,000 men of the rival navies were involved. The British "Grand Fleet" lost 14 ships. The German "High Seas Fleet" lost 11 ships.

The 10 month Battle of Verdun, 1916 caused over a million casualties.

Italian Front:

60,000 Alpine troops would freeze to death in the "high mountains" (Dolomiti Adamello ranges) during 3 years of war.

WORLD WAR 2:

The total estimated human loss of life caused by World War II was roughly 72 million people. The civilian toll was around 47 million, including about 20 million due to war related famine and disease. The military toll was about 25 million, including the deaths about 5 million prisoners of war in captivity. The Allies lost around 61 million people, and the Axis lost 11 million.

COROLLARY of all this is that the West is used to great losses for the cause they believe in and the terrorist attacks of killing a few thousands here and there is never going to deter the West from taking on the Muslims especilly when they are so week as at present.

So it seems clear to me that the use of Terrorist Attacks will only compound the faith of the West that they must always dominate the Muslims!

The only way to have any say towards ones destiny is to be as strong and powerful as your opponent.

The rest of this final part deals with my views about how the rich muslim countries can plan to be close to being superpowers.