Posted on 12/29/2006 10:59:54 AM PST by Posting
Islam and Nirvana of Global Caliphate
Dec 18, 2006
http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_19551.shtml
Radicals are the greatest proponents of Islamic unity and caliphate. The unique method to reach this unison is mesmerising. The formula is simple: first, eliminate any opposing thought and then impose spiritual unity from top down. Definitely unity can only be achieved by force. The last time a universal Islamic Ottoman Caliphate existed under Selim the grim, Mamluks and Saffvids lost their dynasties. Might and conquest was an integral part of previous ideological unity. In an environment where state craft has become part and parcel of the new world, the radicals are selling a dream of nirvana where 'great Islamic unity' will under a caliph achieve the dominance that Islam is missing today. To achieve that, elimination of dissent is the primary object; nothing can be resolved peacefully hence bloodshed is a convenient tool of statecraft.
A quick expanse of the hotspots in the Islamic world reveals a very repulsive and distressful drama unfolding very silently and unnoticeably. Sectarian and political divisions are leading to mass inter-communal terror: the way Hamas and Al-Fatah are ready for a civil war; the manner in which Hezbollah is readying for the new civil war in Lebanon; the approach taken by Gulbadeen Hikmatyar to eliminate the government of brother Pakhtoon Karzai with the aid of his ex-enemy Mullah Omar. In the latter case, Karzai is a Sunni so are the other enemies of Karzai i.e. Taliban. Of course they consider Karzai to be a puppet of the Northern Alliance.
Nearly all of these varied groups, whilst colouring their hands by the blood of their own brethren, talk about the ultimate Caliphate where they all can live peacefully under the tabernacle of the God-entrusted Caliph. Mullah Omar likes the title of Ameer-ul-Momeneen; Hezbollah awaits an even bigger appearance that of 'Imam Ghaib.' Osama would like to be the first rejuvenated Caliph of Islam after the end of the Ottomans Empire, which his forefathers under the guise of 'Arab National Army' and leadership of Lawrence of Arabia, fought to destroy and obliterate.
In 1517, the Ottoman Sultan Selim I defeated the Mamluk Sultanate and made Egypt part of the Ottoman Empire. Al Mutawakkil was captured and transported to Constantinople, where he agreed to formally surrendered the title of Caliph as soon as he dies, as well as its outward emblems, the sword and the mantle of Muhammed (PBUH), to the Ottoman Selim I.
The creation of an Islamic caliphate, or empire, has long formed part of Al-Qaeda's worldview, and it is a vision that seems to have unsettled many in the west. But it will remain just a militants' dream. It is these very people who had torn Caliphate apart when it existed. Before he went into hiding in 2001, Osama bin Laden often talked of deposing Muslim rulers, seen as indebted to Western powers, and abolishing modern state borders to unite all Muslims under a caliphate - an Islamic state where God's word was law ruled over by a caliph, or "successor" to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
What grudge possibly can Arab Osama bin Laden have with the westerners; it was not until 400 years after the Mamluks defeat at the hands of Selim I that under Lawrence of Arabia as the head of the Arab armies they captured Damascus and installed an interim Arab administration, deputizing for King Feisal. So after 400 years of Turkish rule, the Arabs were once again a power to be reckoned with in the contemporary world, though very much below the authority and strength which Lawrence had intended for them. As Lawrence himself put it, the opponents of Arab nationalism had bigger guns, that were all. Is Osama going to re-install Caliphate that his forefathers in the name of 'Arab revolt and nationalism' busted?
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Now Al-Qaeda militants are talking about setting up a caliphate in west Iraq, and militants calling themselves Al-Qaeda in Yemen also said recently a caliphate is their goal. Very noble goals indeed but the way they are handling communal differences between various strains of Islam is absolutely murderous. A Caliphate being conceived on orgies of blood!! It absolutely took two wars with Mamluk and Safavid armies to unite the Caliphate the last time. No universal Caliphate is possible, going by what happened to the 'Ottoman Caliphate' under the name of Arab revolt. The Ottoman family, the House of Osman of Turkish origin, and was not a member of the Prophet's family. They were always considered as a usurper by the Arabs. According to the Islamic tradition, a caliph had to trace his lineage to Prophet Mohammed (Umayyads and Abbasids are examples of this). Blood is thicker than ties of Islam, 1400 years of history is living prove.
The treacherous battle of Shiite and Sunni Islam in the heartland of Iraq is another unique example of this hysterical exposition of internecine abhorrence. Zarqawi's detestation of Shiites in Iraq and his war of freedom for Iraq by mass elimination of Shiites resulted in emergence of the equally ruthless Sadr; the two are fighting for freedom of Iraq and freeing Iraq of Iraqis at Godspeed. People of peace and advocates of inter-sectarian unity have been totally sidelined. The mass frenzy of carnage has overtaken the hotspots of the Islamic world, and no one seems to notice that this is actually the consequence of continuous chastisement of 'hatred against mankind' that is now revealing its full impact on fledgling societies. The so-called blood infested freedom struggles have come to a full circle and are now consuming the children of Jihad; the first victim of misplaced revolutions, rather, all revolutions, has been its own children.
Such naked and barefaced vengeance has seen very few parallels in modern history. Medieval world had seen Protestants and Catholics war on the lines of Shiite and Sunni war between Iraq and Iran. But within the Middle East, where these communities are so intermingled in modern day and age, the spectre of inter-sectarian violence at this height is a new threat to regional balance and economic stability of the world as far as energy goes.
For the consumption of these bloodthirsty tyrants who want to claim universal 'Caliphate' by waging a war against their own brethren, let us take a whirlwind tour of history; let us see how bloody and forceful it was the last time when Selim I united the Caliphate of Islam. The Ottomans under Selim at the Battles of Marj Dabiq and al-Raydaniyya destroyed the Mamluk Sultanate, which led to the annexation of Syria, Palestine and Egypt. It was he who extended Ottoman power to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The holiest sites of the Islamic world - the Great Mosque in Mecca and the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina - fell under his dominion when the Turks took Egypt and her Arabian provinces from the Mamluks. The title which 'King Fahd' took in the 80's, that of Khadim ul Haremeyn, or The Servant of The Two Holy Shrines, was originally instituted by Selim I. Instead of styling 'Hakim ul Haremeyn,' or The Ruler of The Two Holy Shrines, he accepted the more pious title Khadim ul Haremeyn, or The Servant of The Two Holy Shrines.
It was after the conquest of Egypt and the Holy Cities, Al-Mutawakkil III (1509–17), the last Abbasid Caliph in Cairo, formally surrendered the title of Caliph and its emblems, the sword and the mantle of Muhammad to Selim. Once cementing his claim to the position of the "Guardian of the Faithful", Selim waged a war against Persia, whose ruler Shah Ismail I claimed to be Caliph as well. The triumphant crusade which followed was a victory for Selim, whose determination and bravery overcame the insubordination of the Janissaries, the household troops of the Ottoman dynasty.
After assuming the Caliphate, Selim assumed the title Malik ul-Barayn, wa KhaKhan ul-Bahrayn, was Kasir ul-Jayshayn, wa Khadim ul-Haramayn - that is, King of the Two Deserts, KhaKhan of the Two Seas, Conqueror of the Two Armies, and Servant of the Two Holy Shrines. This designation alludes to his dominions in Africa and Asia (namely, Egypt, Anatolia, and much of the Fertile Crescent), his rule over the Mediterranean and Black seas, his conquest over the Mamluk and Safavid armies, and his guardianship of the shrines of Mecca and Medina. It was Selim who expanded the 2,500,000 km of Ottoman land to 6,500,000 km. After completely filling the royal treasury, he reportedly locked it with his own seal and decreed that "he who will fill the treasury more than this, may use his seal to lock it." The treasury remained locked with Selim's seal until the collapse of the Empire 400 years later.
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One problem that is faced by the Islamic world is the distrust and infighting between them; the violence within communities is extensive. In the face of huge diversity of religious and political systems in the Middle East today, no such 'messianic' figures are on the scene. Selim-kind of power and figures do not exist anymore; it is decentralising of authority where every state within the Arab world wants respect and authority. The massive schism between Sunni and Shiite Muslims who argue bitterly over the first four caliphs (632-661 AD) to succeed the Prophet (PBUH) makes this dream of a universal caliphate even more part of a fairy tale.
Shiite Iran has its own form of Islamic government where supreme authority lies with an Islamic jurist chosen by a body of senior clerics to rule in the place of a disappeared line of descendents of the Prophet (PBUH). In Saudi Arabia, the adherents of an austere school of Sunni Islam, known as Wahhabism, give their allegiance to the Saudi family to rule as kings in return for wide latitude to enforce their version of sharia, or Islamic law. "I can see the whole Arab world falling into sectarian violence, so I can't see this caliphate happening," said London-based anthropologist Madawi Al-Rasheed, referring to Sunni-Shiite tensions in Iraq and Lebanon. "This is just part of (Al-Qaeda's) war of slogans."
These brewing struggles are suggestive of a roadmap of insecurity, all through the crescent of volatility from Morocco to Afghanistan. The internecine wars have to be stopped. Continuous fanning of the message of 'Jihad' against the infidels have to be revisited and abolished once for all; sowing hatred breeds hatred, sowing bullets leads to a harvest of bullets. Eventually the Muslim world should wake up to realize that this 'Jihad' is being fed by the blood of its own children. Guns, dynamite, venom and poison have no boundaries. They flourish on the easiest of preys, and when these guns fail to find the 'infidels,' they can easily find unarmed civilians in their own neighbourhood with whom they don't agree ideologically and they become the new target. Hamas and Hezbollah and Alqaeda deliver messages of poison that need continuous feeding of blood to sustain their efforts. The best antidote is 'peace.' That means death to them; if they are contained they start gulping their own children with equal ferocity. It is their brand of ideology that matters and in absence of their brand being accepted every other shade of human thinking is discarded.
That is what is exactly happening. Unable to launch their global campaigns of terror, the fangs of terrors are now demanding new blood to sustain its tentacles. In Gaza, the Palestinians are now victims of the Hamas or the Palestinian security forces, political expression bastardised to the highest level of corruption. When politics are at the back stage and guns in front, naturally every dispute is handled by guns, even a shoddy attempt of formation of a bipartisan government. Last week they were talking of a coalition government; yesterday they were killing each other like nobody's business. The problem is that when a 'gun' is relied on for so much, even a family feud, then it becomes a gun-based feud. The family of Islam is tearing each other apart; the message of tolerance and communal coexistence has been lost. It is important it searches from the moments of history where tolerance led to peaceful eras.
Hezbollah should avoid making attempts to plunge Lebanon into the ignominies of bloodstained days. Al Fatah and Hamas, ready to get on to each other's throats to bury the facade of brotherhood and unity once and for all, should avoid the dance of death amidst them. Mature societies respect life and respect law. These signs of medieval immaturity need to be buried; the Middle Eastern media should join hands to denounce this vain violence all around us. It is not the enemies who are killing Muslims, once again, it is the Muslims killing each other and if unchecked it will be the biggest unfolding tragedy. There are hundreds of regions where fragile balance between communities can dribble over to bloodshed.
It was not an Arab like Arafat or Osama bin Laden, but Lawrence who as a great military leader and strategist got them freed from the 'yoke of Caliphate..' Today's demands of Caliphate are expedient tool to find the cannon fodder of the Islamic Jihad, find new suicide bombers in hope of a vast Caliphate land. Islamic global unity brings out a lot of emotion and lot of anger. Lawrence of Arabia organized the national rebellion of the Arab peoples and gave them the first opening in 400 years to become a significant Middle Eastern power. It was overthrown by the French with considerable bloodshed. Feisal, having been robbed and deposed of his kingdom in Syria was awarded with Iraq. On his death Sheikh Hamoudi of Aleppo exclaimed in his grief: "It is as if I had lost a son. Tell them in England what I say. Of manhood, the man; in freedom free; a mind without equal; I can see no flaw in him."
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A lesson from history where coexistence, even in wars, was most important has to be revisited; sensibilities and rejection of hatred should take the front seat. The best caliphate would be respect of the territorial integrity of bigger and smaller states and respect of life and property with the tolerance of opposing strains of ideas that is a possible goal. Radicals who are destroying peace and security and demanding the promotion of universal Islamic unity amidst this carnage of bloodletting under the name of 'caliphate' is nothing but a visa for elimination and cleansing the minority thought. A Caliphate should be about inclusion not exclusion. The atrocities in the hotspots within the fringes of the Islamic world demand removal of this toxic thinking of self-righteousness associated with eliminations. The world today needs no global wars and no mass conversions. Let the hundred flowers bloom.
The author makes some reasonable points, but most of radical Islam wants nothing to do with reason.
He forgets a couple crucial matters that makes a Caliphate quite attainable - specifically nuclear weapons in the hands of a radical mideast state, with allied religious minority cell groups in neighboring countries.
Not sure the muzzies would go for it....
They are running to meet 72 virgils...
Good article by Igbal Latif. Great comment by rjp2005.
While one hates to see such bloodshed and misery for any peoples, one can't help but be thankful that so much energy is being spent among our enemies slaughtering each other, instead of us.
May God lead them into the truth and peace of Christ.
Satan is the father of all schemes designed to control or extend religion by force.
That's a lot of dactylic pentameter.
Ping for later
Hey....
ol' Omarr Khayyam got nuttin' on my ragged-rap...
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