www.stand4islam.blogspot.com: Pakistan flood: Where are the Rulers?

About this blog

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.

20 Aug 2010

Pakistan flood: Where are the Rulers?

The floods in Pakistan began in late July this year after record heavy monsoon rains caused rivers and lakes to burst out of their banks, and dams to be overwhelmed by the sheer weight of water, sending great flash floods which swept away houses, bridges, roads and electrical power lines. Baluchistan, Southern Punjab, Peshawar and Swat are all included among the worst hit areas. Close to 2,000 people have been killed so far and millions were rendered homeless. Estimates from rescue-service officials suggest the death-toll may increase as the threat of water-borne diseases and infections such as cholera are very high. According to a recent estimate of the United Nations, the number of people suffering as a result of these massive floods in Pakistan exceeds 20 million, which is more than the combined total of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The extensive damage to infrastructure and crops has also resulted in a major setback to the struggling Pakistani economy.

Where are the Rulers?

While the Muslims in Pakistan are facing this horrific situation, how has the government reacted?

As the flooding began, President Zardari continued with his plans to visit France and Britain to meet President Sarkozy and Prime Minister Cameron. Furthermore, it was reported that Zardari stayed at the Royal Suites in London which costs 10,000 British pounds per night – the equivalent of which could feed 10,000 people in Pakistan.

Prime Minister Gilani received strong criticism after staging a visit to a fake flood relief camp with paid actors playing the part of flood victims.

Local politicians of the ruling party were absent from the affected areas causing anger among the survivors. Furthermore, in Sindh, ministers of the ruling party were accused of using their influence to direct flood waters off their lands towards densely populated areas.

There has been very little assistance by the military since the majority of the army has been sent to fight America’s war in the tribal areas which has cost billions of dollars.

Due to the rulers in Pakistan parceling out its sovereignty to America the Shahbaz airbase in Jacobabad (where 500,000-700,000 people have been displaced due to the floods) cannot be used for relief efforts as it is being used by the U.S. for drone attacks in the tribal regions.

The lack of response and the blatant mismanagement of the crisis by the government is a replay of a similar situation in the past. On November 12th, 1970, a devastating tropical cyclone struck East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and West Bengal in India in which 500,000 people died. The Pakistani government was severely criticized for its handling of the relief operations following the storm, both by local political leaders in East Pakistan and in the international media.

What makes the floods of this year more devastating is not only the government’s weak response (if any) towards helping the survivors; it is also criminal neglect that after more than 60 years, no ruling party has yet instituted flood management plans. The unusually heavy rains during the monsoon season provided ample warnings that flooding may occur. Yet local authorities did nothing to provide advance warnings to give residents enough time to evacuate. Speaking about the floods in Pakistan, the director for the Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters said, “The numbers of people killed are very high for a natural event [like a flood], which is among the easier disasters to predict and plan for…Poor communities in Vietnam, Bangladesh, and even Mozambique have put together simple radio-based early warning systems, which help people to be evacuated in time.” Furthermore, the flooding could have been entirely averted – as admitted by Gilani himself – had the proposed Kalabagh Dam been built in 2005. However, the project was cancelled in 2008 by the now ruling PPP party. Any government that was sincerely concerned about its people would have established counter-measures such as ditches and drainage systems to funnel the excess water away from the inhabited areas.

The disregard of safety by the government is not restricted to the region of Pakistan. Rather, it is a common trait among all the agent rulers that have been forced upon the Ummah. It is natural disasters, such as the floods in Pakistan that expose more of the true nature of the Muslim rulers.

In November of last year we saw in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, how a flood caused the death of 500 Muslims. At first the government tried to downplay the number of casualties by claiming that “only” 100 people had died. However, when the figures became impossible to hide, Prince Khalid al-Faisal, the governor of the Meccan region (which includes Jeddah) blamed the deaths on arbitrarily built neighborhoods and not on the fact that the Muslims living in Jeddah do not have an adequate sewage system to deal with the potential flooding.

In 1999 we also witnessed the Izmit earthquake in Turkey with a magnitude of 7.6 in which 40,000-45,000 people died and 600,000 were left homeless. There was widespread anger among the Muslims living in Turkey as the government did not enforce basic building standards in an area that was prone to earthquakes.

Treacherous RulersBy examining the actions of these Muslim rulers it is clear that these rulers are the oppressors, described in the hadith of RasulAllah (saw):

"... then there will be oppressive kingship for as long as Allah wills…"[Ahmad]

Allah (swt) has warned us of the heavy price of not ruling by the Quran and Sunnah:

"And whoever did not rule by what Allah revealed, those are the disbelievers.”[Surah Al Mai’dah (5):44]“...oppressors.”[Surah Al Mai’dah (5):45]“... transgressors."[Surah Al Mai’dah (5):47]

Furthermore, RasulAllah (saw) says about the ruler who betrays the people whom he is supposed to manage: “Every traitor will have a flag on the Day of Judgement to identify him according to the amount of his treachery; there is no traitor of greater treachery than the leader of the people”[Bukhari & Muslim]

To Change the Rulers, we need to Change the System

These Muslim rulers who are put in place by the colonial western powers, mainly the U.S. and Britain, operate in a manner so that this great Ummah of Muhammad (saw) remains under the tyranny and injustice of the western-imported man-made system. This is why a simple change in leadership has never done anything to improve the affairs of the Ummah. If anything, it has made the situation worse as we have observed in Pakistan.

The root of the problem does not lie solely with the corrupt rulers but in the system which they are adhering to – the western-imported man-made system. This system, which the rulers implement, is designed only to care for the ruling elite and its entourage. Throughout the world, a select elite hoards the world's important resources, depriving billions of people of their basic needs, leaving them to hunger, thirst and homelessness. In the Muslim lands the system might be disguised with selective rules in order to appear Islamic. But when these few rules are stripped away there is no question that the systems implemented are far from what RasulAllah (saw) implemented and the Khulafaa’ (Caliphs) upheld.

Khilafah: A Model of Disaster Management

When we examine the system which the Prophet (saw) had brought to mankind, we will see that it does not resemble what is currently being implemented in the Muslim lands.During the Khilafah of Umar ibn Al-Khatab (ra), Madinah had suffered a famine. Abu Ubaydah ibn al-Jarrah (ra), his Wali (governor) in Syria, said that he would send a train of camels so long that, "... one end will be here at Syria and the other will be at Madinah."

Moreover, Abu Ubaidah (ra) later paid a personal visit to Madinah and acted as an officer of a disaster management division, which was headed personally by Umar (ra). Tens ofthousands of people from desert towns had already gathered in Madinah and once an adequate supply of ration reached Madinah, Umar (ra) dispatched his men to the routes of Iraq, Palestine and Syria to take the supply caravans to the desert settlements deeper into Arabia, which by the permission of Allah (swt) saved hundreds of thousands from starvation. For the internally displaced people, Umar (ra) hosted a dinner every night in Madinah. If all this could be achieved by Islamic ruling in an age of camels and messengers on horses, what could be achieved by the Khilafah in today’s time?

Even during the period of decline, the Khilafah remained a shining example and a guiding light for all of mankind.

In 1845, the onset of the Great Irish famine resulted in over a million deaths. Khalifah Abdul-Majid declared his intention to send 10,000 pounds sterling to the Irish farmers but Queen Victoria requested that the Khalifah send only 1,000 pounds sterling, because she had sent only 2,000 pounds sterling herself. Sultan Abdul-Majid sent the 1,000 sterling but also secretly sent 3 ships full of food. The English courts tried to block the ships, but the food arrived in Drogheda harbor and was left there by the Uthmani sailors. To bring this into today’s terms the 10,000 pounds dedicated to the Irish from the Sultan would be worth approximately $1,683,280 US Dollars. By the same standard, the Queen had only given the equivalent of 336,656 US Dollars!

Reflecting on those who Died

Many of us may know, or be related to, someone who was personally afflicted by the floods in Pakistan. While it is a tragic time for the grieving families, we should also remember that a believer is never at loss, regardless of the tremendous trials that befall him/her. RasulAllah (saw) said:

"… the one who died due to the stomach is a shaheed and the drowned person is a shaheed."[Muslim]

We ask Allah (swt) to raise the ranks of those who have suffered and for them to be in a more comfortable place.

Just as Allah (swt) is testing our brothers and sisters in Pakistan with hardship, He is testing us with our response. In this time of need and immediate crisis, we should help where we can and give sadaqa to those in Pakistan whom we know personally (i.e. friends and relatives), especially in this blessed month of Ramadhan.

These floods or any other natural disaster that befalls the Muslim Ummah exposes the current despotic rulers. They should be a reminder for us that the work to resume the Islamic way of life, by re-establishing the Khilafah Rashidah in the Muslim lands, needs to be undertaken with urgency so that we may seek the pleasure of Allah (swt).

May Allah (swt) grant us victory in dunya and akhirah.

“And soon will the unjust know what change in circumstance their affairs will take.”[Surah Al-Shu`ara' (26):227]

[Taken from The PAM Website, August 2010]

No comments:

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]