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In recent times a plethora of misconceptions, misrepresentation and myths have been forged about Islam
and Muslims. Many western influentials from politicians, policymakers to judges have taken it upon
themselves to undermine the Islamic beliefs, values and rules so to make it palatable to their
egotistic minds and the secular liberal thoughts.

This blog is dedicated:-

1. To argue the point for Islam in its belief and systems and to refute the misconceptions.
2. To expose the weakness and contradictions of all forms of secularism.

21 Aug 2010

Independent Pakistan = Khilafah


The 2010 monsoon rains have left death and destruction across Pakistan. The monsoon season due every year near the end of July has in 2010 produced a year's rain in 36 hours. The Indus River which flows through Pakistan was overwhelmed leading to the flooding of many villages.

Images of the president of Pakistan shuttling European cities as his own citizens pulled dead bodies from the floods beamed around the world as Zardari confirmed once and for all his complete disregard for his own people in the face of this unprecedented disaster.

Whilst it has become common practice to throw a number of emotional rants in times of government incompetence, successive governments in Pakistan have failed the nation one after the other and one disaster after the other. On this occasion we should go beyond this. Historically national disasters, war and travesties are occasions to review national purpose and a nation's identity. The Pearl harbour bombings of 1941resulted in the US to mobilise for WW2. The new found purpose resulted in the expansion of the national defence system and society viewed it as its duty to defend America. This new found purpose turned America into the world's superpower.

Pakistan is at such a cross road once again where its government has shown how it really feels about its people. The 2010 floods is Zardari's Lal musjid and we should use this national disaster to chart a new course for the Ummah of Pakistan through establishing the Khilafah. Some of the actions a future Khilafah in Pakistan could undertake are:

1. Currently Pakistan has an unnecessary reliance on the US. The US needs Pakistan rather than Pakistan needing the US. The US relies on Pakistan for 80% of all equipment for its war effort in Afghanistan. It also needs Pakistani territory for meeting its fuel needs. According to Strategic Forecasting, the Texas-based private intelligence agency: "Pakistan remains the single-most important logistics route for the Afghan campaign. This is not by accident. It is by far the quickest and most efficient overland route to the open ocean." As most of Pakistan was being subsumed by the flooding America was dropping bombs on Pakistan. On Pakistan's Independence Day 13 Muslims were killed in a US drone attack. Three missiles were fired at a village near Mirali in Pakistan's northwest tribal area of North Waziristan. It is not the so called extremists who are taking advantage of the floorings it is the US who is expanding is failed endeavour in Afghanistan into Pakistan. Pakistan can very easily weaken the US in the region by turning its back on it. The US is already losing the war in Afghanistan and it is only the current compliant leadership in Pakistan that allows the US to avoid embarrassment.

2. China from many perspectives needs Pakistan due to its strategic location. China's navy has a strategic presence on the Mekran coast in Baluchistan, and along the Gwadar port that overlooks the supply routes for oil needed to keep the Chinese economy growing, and for checking on India's hegemonistic ambitions. Developing strategic relations with China will allow Pakistan to move away from the US area of influence. This will at the same time complicate US plans to contain China. Pakistan should use such bargaining power with China to solve its Xinjiang separatist problem with a treaty of Hudaibiyah type deal.

3. Pakistan could begin to make better use of its strategic resources. Pakistan has significant quantities of copper, chromite, iron, antimony, zinc and Gold. Baluchistan has the world's fifth largest reserves of copper and over 20 million ounces of untapped Gold reserves. Pakistan has no shortage of coal and gas. Pakistan has been blessed with the world's largest coal field at Thar in Sindh. It comprises around 175 billion tonnes of coal which is the equivalent of 618 billion barrels of crude oil; this would meet the country's fuel requirements for a century. Pakistan has been able to build five oil refineries and whilst their capacity is small, under an industrialisation drive these can be expanded and will make Pakistan self sufficient in energy. The shortage of oil refineries in the Middle East can potentially make Pakistan an important location for energy.

4. Pakistan should build upon its existing industry in order to industrialise and become self sufficient and independent. Pakistan surprisingly has managed to develop the foundations of an advanced military industry even though it has a dysfunctional economy. Pakistan began with virtually no military production capability, however it has managed to become self sufficient in areas such as aircraft overhaul, tanks, helicopters, frigates, submarine construction and fighter jets. Pakistan has on some individual military areas made stunning advances which need to be built upon. These include the development of nuclear weapons, the development of an advanced tactical ballistic missile programme, the development of a basic space programme and the development of its own drones. Such developments are the key for rapid industrialisation.

5. This national disaster is perfect time to end the army's role in America's war on terror where they can be re-deployed to reconstruction and relief efforts in the country. Politically America will undermine itself globally if it were to pressure Pakistan to leave its units where they are on the border to fight America's war when the Muslims of Pakistan are drowning in the floods.

6. Whilst the UN and many around the world are organising charity, Much of Pakistani funds are going on America's war on terror or on debt repayment which in handcuffing Pakistan for the foreseeable future. Pakistan politically can call for such debt to be written off in the face of this national disaster. This will then allow Pakistan to divert government funds to the relief effort. In this way Pakistan can come out of this disaster independent and stronger.

Whilst this is by no means an exhaustive list of actions that can be taken by Pakistan, Pakistan has all the necessary ingredients to rapidly industrialise, unify with the Muslim world and become a global player. From many perspectives Pakistan is in a much better position on the eve of development than many of the industrialised nations were. Both the US and Britain had very small populations whilst Germany and China today have energy challenges. Pakistan today has a population of 172 million where 50% of the population is under the age of 15. Only 4% of the population is over 65.

The Muslims of Pakistan must not allow this disaster to lead to some artificial change, its time the Ummah took their destiny into their own hands and made this change a reality. Those who save the deen, work to establish it and strengthen it have an exalted position in the eyes of Allah سبحانه وتعالى. Their names will be remembered throughout history, with successive generations making du'a for them, and they will be highly rewarded by Allah سبحانه وتعالى. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم prophesied that Constantinople will be conquered one day, and it was Muhammed al-Fatih who Allah blessed with this honour. The 2010 floods should be the last time the Muslims of Pakistan are left to fend fore themselves when their government litters their pockets

[Article written by Adnan Khan, August 2010]
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What they said...

“Islam represented the greatest military power on earth…It was the foremost economic power in the world…It had achieved the highest level so far in human history, in the arts and sciences of civilization...Islam in contrast created a world civilization, poly-ethnic, multiracial, international, one might even say intercontinental.”





[Bernard Lewis, Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Orientalist and Historian, 2001]





"There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world. It was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean, and from northern climes to tropics and deserts…the civilization I'm talking about was the Islamic world from the year 800 to 1600… Although we are often unaware of our indebtedness to this other civilization, its gifts are very much a part of our heritage"





[Carly Fiorina, ex-CEO of Hewlett-Packard, 2001]





"For the first three centuries of its existence (circ. A.D 650-1000) the realm of Islam was the most civilized and progressive portion of the world. Studded with splendid cities, gracious mosques and quiet universities where the wisdom of the ancient world was preserved and appreciated, the Moslem world offered a striking contrast to the Christian West, then sunk in the night of the Dark Ages."





[Lothrop Stoddard, Ph.D (Harvard), American political theorist and historian, 1932]





"Medieval Islam was technologically advanced and open to innovation. It achieved far higher literacy rates than in contemporary Europe;it assimilated the legacy of classical Greek civilization to such a degree that many classical books are now known to us only through Arabic copies. It invented windmills ,trigonometry, lateen sails and made major advances in metallurgy, mechanical and chemical engineering and irrigation methods. In the middle-ages the flow of technology was overwhelmingly from Islam to Europe rather from Europe to Islam. Only after the 1500's did the net direction of flow begin to reverse."





[Jared Diamond, UCLA sociologist and Author, 1997]



"No other society has such a record of success in uniting in an equality of status, of opportunity and endeavour so many and so varied races of mankind. The great Muslim communities of Africa, India and Indonesia, perhaps also the small community in Japan, show that Islam has still the power to reconcile apparently irreconcilable elements of race and tradition. If ever the opposition of the great societies of the East and west is to be replaced by cooperation, the mediation of Islam is an indispensable condition."





[Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, Professor at Harvard University, 1932]





“The Muhammadan Law which is binding on all -- from the crowned head to the meanest subject is a law interwoven with a system of the wisest, the most learned and the most enlightened jurisprudence that ever existed in the world.”





[Edmund Burke, British Statesman and Philosopher, 1789]





"The Exile here is not like in our homeland. The Turks hold respectable Jews in esteem. Here and in Alexandria, Egypt, Jews are the chief officers and administrators of the customs, and the king’s revenues. No injuries are perpetuated against them in all the empire. Only this year, in consequence of the extraordinary expenditure caused by the war against Shah Tahmsap al-Sufi, were the Jews required to make advances of loans to the princes."





[David dei Rossi, Jewish Traveller 17CE, quoted by Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands]





"The notable religious tolerance towards Christians and Jew under Muslim rule had given way to the uncompromising zealotry of Spanish Inquisition. Jews and Muslims thus fled Spain with large numbers of Jews immigrating to the Ottoman Empire which was known for its tolerance to the Jews."





[Graham Fuller, Author and former CIA, 1995]





“If there is much misunderstanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is also much ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilization owe to the Islamic world. It is a failure, which stems, I think, from the straightjacket of history, which we have inherited. The medieval Islamic world, from central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished. But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society, and systems of beliefs, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own history”





[Charles Philip Arthur George, HRH The Prince of Wales, 1993]





"...Not being subject to the Sharia, Jews and Christians were free to go to their own religious authorities for adjudication of disputes; but in many cases they went instead to the [Muslim] Qadi"





[Richard W. Bulliet, Professor of History and Author, 2004]





"Here in the land of the Turks we have nothing to complain of. We possess great fortunes; much gold and silver are in our hands. We are not oppressed by heavy taxes and our commerce is free and unhindered. Rich are the fruits of the earth. Everything is cheap and each one of us lives in freedom. Here a Jew is not compelled to wear a yellow star as a badge of shame as is the case in Germany where even wealth and great fortune is a curse for a Jew because he therewith arouses jealousy among the Christians and they devise all kinds of slander against him to rob him of his gold. Arise my brethren, gird up your loins, collect up your forces and come to us."





[In his book 'Constantinople', Philip Mansel quotes a rabbi in Turkey writing to his brethren in Europe where they were facing increasing persecution after 1453]





"Praise be to the beneficent God for his mercy towards me! Kings of the earth, to whom his [the Caliph’s] magnificence and power are known, bring gifts to him, conciliating his favour by costly presents, such as the king of the Germans, the king of the Gebalim, the king of Constantinople, and others. All their gifts pass through my hands, and I am charged with making gifts in return. (Let my lips express praise to the God in heaven who so far extends his loving kindness towards me without any merit of my own, but in the fullness of his mercies.) I always ask the ambassadors of these monarchs about our brethren the Jews, the remnant of the captivity, whether they have heard anything concerning the deliverance of those who have pined in bondage and had found no rest."





[Hasdai Ibn Shaprut (915-990 CE) Jewish physician, chief minister of Islamic Caliphate in Cordova, 'The Jewish Caravan']





"In Baghdad there are about forty thousand Jews, and they dwell in security, prosperity, and honour under the great Caliph [al-Mustanjid, 1160-70 CE], and amongst them are great sages, the Heads of the Academies engaged in the study of the Law…’"





[Benjamin of Tudela, Rabbi in Baghdad in the year 1168 CE, 'The Jew in the Medieval World']





"Those Eastern thinkers of the ninth century laid down, on the basis of their theology, the principle of the Rights of Man, in those very terms, comprehending the rights of individual liberty, and of inviolability of person and property; described the supreme power in Islam, or Califate, as based on a contract, implying conditions of capacity and performance, and subject to cancellation if the conditions under the contract were not fulfilled; elaborated a Law of War of which the humane, chivalrous prescriptions would have put to the blush certain belligerents in the Great War; expounded a doctrine of toleration of non-Moslem creeds so liberal that our West had to wait a thousand years before seeing equivalent principles adopted.





[Leon Ostorog, French Jurist]





"The debt of our science to that of the Arabs does not consist in startling discoveries or revolutionary theories; science owes a great deal more to Arab culture, it owes its existence"





[Robert Briffault, Novelist and Historian, 1928]





"The only effective link between the old and the new science is afforded by the Arabs. The dark ages come as an utter gap in the scientific history of Europe, and for more than a thousand years there was not a scientific man of note except in Arabia"





[Oliver Joseph Lodge, Writer and Professor of Physics, 1893]





“Thus, when Muslims crossed the straits of Gibraltar from North Africa in 711 and invaded the Iberian Peninsula, Jews welcomed them as liberators from Christian Persecution.”





[Zion Zohar, Jewish scholar at Florida International University, 2005]







“Throughout much of the period in question, Arabic served as the global language of scholarship, and learned men of all stripes could travel widely and hold serious and nuanced discussions in this lingua franca. Medieval Western scholars who wanted access to the latest findings also needed to master the Arabic Tongue or work from translations by those who had done so.”





[Jonathan Lyons, Author, Writer and Lecturer, 2009]