http://www.countercurrents.org/india-sikand311005.htm
Delhi Bomb Blasts And
The Lashkar's Jihadist Agenda
By Yoginder Sikand
31 October, 2005
Countercurrents.org
Responsibility for last week's deadly bomb blasts in Delhi has been claimed
by a little-known outfit the Islami Inqilabi Mahaz ('Islamic Revolutionary
Front'), said to be sponsored by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-i Tayyeba.
Ruthless terror is the hallmark of the Lashkar, fired as it is by an irrepressible
hatred of non-Muslims, whom it sees as, by definition, anti-Islam.
The Lashkar is the armed wing of the Markaz Dawat wal Irshad ('Centre for
Invitation and Instruction'), an organisation affiliated to the Ahl-i Hadith sect,
which follows a version of Islam almost identical with that of the Saudi
Wahhabis. It is today the single most powerful militant outfit operating in
Kashmir. Its involvement in Kashmir goes back to the early 1990s, when
Pakistan began patronising radical Islamist outfits to counter the influence of
the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front which had inaugurated the armed
uprising against Indian rule. The Front's agenda of an independent and
secular Kashmir was clearly not to the liking of the Pakistani establishment,
who saw in radical Islamist outfits a more reliable ally, with their opposition to
Kashmiri nationalism and their advocacy of Kashmir's union with Pakistan. In
setting up the Lashkar the late Abdullah Azam a close aide of Osama bin
Laden, then associated with the International Islamic University, Islamabad,
also played a key role. Funds for the organization are said to have come
from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan's secret services agency, the Inter Services
Intelligence.
Like other radical Islamist outfits, the Lashkar sees Islam as a perfect, all-
embracing system. Islam is said to govern all aspects life in the form of the
shari'ah. For the establishing of an Islamic system an Islamic state is seen
as necessary in order to impose the shar'iah as the law of the land. If such a
state were to be set up and all Muslims were to live strictly according to 'the
laws that Allah has laid down', then, the Lashkar argues, 'they would be able
to control the whole world and exercise their supremacy'. Since Muslims
throughout the world are members of a global ummah, the Lashkar insists
that there should be a single global Islamic state with one Caliph ruling over
all the faithful.
The struggle for the establishment of the Islamic state can take various
forms, peaceful as well as violent. Islam, the Lashkar says, is 'a religion of
peace and harmony', and seeks to 'eliminate mischief and disorder, and to
provide peace, not only to Muslims but also to the entire humanity'. However,
it stresses, Muslims are commanded to take to armed struggle, or jihad, to
defend their co-religionists suffering from the oppression of others. As the
Lashkar sees it, such a situation is said to prevail over much of the world
today. While jihad in defence of Islam and of Muslims labouring under
oppression is presented as a liberation struggle, it is also seen as a means
for Islam to 'prevail on this earth', for Islam is seen as the only true religion.
Armed jihad must continue, the Lashkar insists, 'until Islam, as a way of life,
dominates the whole world and until Allah's law is enforced everywhere in the
world'. Since Islam is meant for all peoples, the Islamic State must
spearhead a movement to spread Islam all over the world, so the Lashkar
believes. In the course of this struggle, it is expected that it will encounter
conflict with other states and their ideologies. The conflict can be resolved
through peaceful diplomacy, but, if that fails, then, the Lashkar argues, the
only course left open is armed jihad. In this sense, the Lashkar believes,
jihad is 'the foreign policy' of the Islamic State.
The subject of armed jihad runs right through the writings and
pronouncements of the Lashkar and is, in fact, the most prominent theme in
its discourse although it has traditionally not been included as one of the 'five
pillars' of the faith. Indeed, the Lashkar's understanding of Islam maybe
seen as determined almost wholly by this preoccupation, so much so that its
reading of Islam seems to be a product of its own political project. In the
writings and speeches of Lashkar spokesmen jihad appears as violent conflict
waged against 'unbelievers' who are said to be responsible for the oppression
of the Muslims. The Lashkar claims that 'There is so much emphasis on this
subject that some commentators and scholars of the Quran have remarked
that the topic of the Quran is jihad'.
The global jihadist programme of the Lashkar presents itself as a
'liberationist' project, basing itself on widespread feelings of discontent and
suffering among many Muslims. 'All Muslims', the Lashkar believes, are
oppressed today, by such 'enemies' as the Hindus, the Jews and Christians.
'Wherever you look, you will find that non-believers are everywhere trying to
enslave Muslims and destroy them', it argues. Hence, it says, Muslims must
form a 'solid bloc' to defend themselves from these 'enemies', and if all
peaceful means fail they must resort to armed jihad for their liberation. This
Muslim bloc, it suggests, should be led by both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia,
and have its headquarters at Mecca.
The Lashkar sees jihad as the secret of Muslim power in the past when much
of the known world was under Muslim rule, and it is argued that when Muslims
'abandoned jihad and other injunctions they began to degenerate'. In
Lashkar discourse, jihad is projected as a religious duty binding on all
Muslims today. Thus, it is claimed that the prevailing global situation warrants
all Muslims to be involved in some way or the other in jihad against
non-Muslim 'oppressors'. In this grand enterprise there are different roles for
different people to play. Muslims are promised that they would receive great
rewards, both in this world and in the Hereafter, if they were to actively
struggle in the path of jihad. Not only would they be guaranteed a place in
Heaven, but they would also 'be honoured in this world', for jihad is, according
to a Lashkar spokesman, also 'the way that solves financial and political
problems'.
The Lashkar sees its involvement in the armed struggle in Kashmir as only
one stage of a global jihad against the forces of 'disbelief', stopping at
nothing short of the conquest of the entire world. As Qari Abdul Wahid, former
amir of the Lashkar in Indian-administered Kashmir, puts it, 'We will uphold
the flag of freedom and Islam through jihad not only in Kashmir but in the
whole world'. Likewise, Nazir Ahmed, in-charge of the public relations
department of the Markaz, the Lashkar's parent body, declares that through
the jihad that the mujahidin have launched in Kashmir, 'Islam will be
dominant all over the world, Inshallah (God willing)'.
In Lashkar discourse the conflict in Kashmir is seen not as a territorial dispute
between India and Pakistan, but as nothing less than a war between two
different and mutually opposed ideologies: Islam, on the one hand, and
disbelief, on the other. This is portrayed as one chapter in a long a struggle
between the two that is said to have characterised the history of Hindu-Muslim
relations for the last 1400 years ever since the advent of the Prophet
Muhammad. The Prophet is claimed to have singled out India as a special
target for jihad, or so the Lashkar insists. 'Whosoever will take part in jihad
against India', Lashkar leader Muhammad Ibrahim Salaf claims that the
Prophet had declared, 'Allah will set him free from the pyre of hell'.
The Lashkar sees the roots of the Kashmir problem as lying in its Muslim
rulers having been replaced, first by the Sikhs and then by the Hindu Dogras
through British assistance. With India (the 'Hindus') having taken over
Kashmir in 1947, a long reign of bloody terror is said to have been unleashed
on the Kashmiri Muslims. This is seen as a direct and logical consequence of
the teachings of Hinduism itself, because, it is alleged, 'the Hindus have no
compassion in their religion'. Hence, the Lashkar argues, it is the duty of
Muslims to wage jihad against the 'Hindu oppressors', for, it insists, 'it is the
Hindu who is a terrorist'. All Hindus are tarred with the same brush, described
in such essentialist terms as 'terrorists', 'traitors', 'cowards', 'enemies', etc..
Thus, Lashkar chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed declares, 'In fact, the Hindu is a
mean enemy and the proper way to deal with him is the one adopted by our
forefathers, who crushed them by force. We need to do the same'.
India is a special target for the Lashkar. As Hafiz Muhammad Saeed argues,
'The jihad is not about Kashmir only. It encompasses all of India'. The
Lashkar sees the jihad as going far beyond the borders of Kashmir and
spreading through all of India. The final goal is to extend Muslim control over
what is seen as having once been Muslim land, and, hence, to be brought
back under Muslim domination, creating what the Lashkar calls 'the Greater
Pakistan by dint of jihad'. Thus, at a mammoth congregation in November
1999, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed declared, 'Today I announce the break-up of
India, Inshallah. We will not rest until the whole of India is dissolved into
Pakistan'. On the same occasion, Amir Hamza, senior Lashkar official and
editor of its Urdu organ, ad-Da'wa, thundered: 'We ought to disintegrate
India and even wipe India out'. Those who take part in this anti-Indian jihad
are promised that 'Allah will save [them] from the pyre of hell', and 'huge
palaces in paradise' await those who are killed in fighting the 'disbelieving
enemies'.
If indeed the Lashkar was behind the Delhi blasts, it indicates that these
bombastic anti-Indian and anti-Hindu appeals of the Lashkar are no empty
rhetoric and that it is deadly serious about its designs of exporting terror
beyond Kashmir into the rest of the country, inflaming Hindu-Muslim conflict
and making the solution to the Kashmir dispute even more intractable.
Delhi Bomb Blasts And
The Lashkar's Jihadist Agenda
Thanks for posting this granny. This is a must read for all. This group is related to the Lodi CA cell (only a few have been arrested). Since 2000, THOUSANDS of Pakistanis have settled in LODI.
TM FLASHBACK:
Lodi case points to new style of jihadist training
The Argus, CA - Jun 21, 2005
... The groups themselves — Harkat-ul-Mujahedin, or HuM; Jaish-e-Mohammed; and Lashkar-e-Taiba ... who has been connected to some of the detained men in the Lodi case ...
Radical Islam considers that the very existance of non-Islamic religions threatens and oppresses Muslims. When you read their writings you have to take this into account - they will find "oppression" where the objective observer would find none.
They won't stop until they kill everyone who disagrees with them or until they themselves are killed. Unfortunately, like the person who assassinated the Archduke Ferdinand, they may drag the rest of the world into a war of civilizations that no rational person on either side really wants.