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By: Kishan Bhatia
March 14, 2007
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Note: Homicidal Islam is a legacy of al Qaeda founder, Osama bin Laden who
turned 50 on March 10 and honored with birthday celebrations by the
homicidal Muslims of jihad mindset!
For graphic look at a history of destabilization of Afghanistan-Pakistan
areas on both sides of the Durand Line (1610 miles long), see, a graphic
essay by the Tim Weiner, NY Times reported at
AT Large at rugged Land All that follows is profoundly politically incorrect but designed to force
readers back to first principles and to puncture complacencies. This
agitator-author-is going far so that others will go enough.
Introduction: Hundreds of soldiers, policemen, worshipers in mosques and
seminaries, innocent citizens including an elected woman minister have
perished at the hands of homicidal Jihadis in Pakistan. For many specific
such deaths see, “The Terrorist Within” by Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed (The News,
March 10, 2007) and other such articles. Homicidal Islam is like an
out-of-control cancer internally destroying Islam and particularly nations
like Pakistan that follow Sunna (traditions) for territorial gains.
Pakistan, a nuclear power with 600,000 men in arm, has seventh largest
army in the world. Pakistan is number 134 out of 177 countries on the
Human Development Index but it maintains the seventh largest military on
the planet. The toll by homicidal Islam continues to mount in spite of
Pakistan being America’s front line state in the war on terror!
There is an abundant supply of volunteers for the homicidal missions as at
an estimated population growth rate of 2.5% in the Islamic Um’mah about 25
million babies per billion Muslims are annually added to global Muslim
population.
The essay in two parts covers Islamic Sunna (tradition) based practices
existing in the Islamic Um’mah with emphasis on Pakistan and the issues
associated with reforming Islamic social and cultural practices to meet
growing political aspiration of five ethnic groups that make-up Pakistan.
Homicidal Islam (Part I):
Sunna (Tradition) and Neo-Warlords: Jihad was used by Turkic
warlords from central and north Eurasia to grab prosperous territories on
Indian subcontinent inhabited by non-Islamic followers. The Turkic warlord
used a relatively disciplined military with cavalry for speed of attack
against less disciplined slow moving elephant brigades of Hindu warlords.
Turkic warlords had strategic support from Muslim rulers of Turkey while
Hindu warlords were divided and not without traitors. Turkic warlords
followed Sunna (traditions) established by Muhammed (for capture of Mecca)
and Caliphs (for conquest of parts of Europe along the Mediterranean Sea
and Asia) by militarily over-running prosperous non-Islamic lands for
personal gains (women - hurries, angels - wealth, fertile lands, etc) and
to spread Islam with its traditional social and cultural practices using
politics of subjugation and humiliation of women and non-Islamic faith
followers.
A modern version of a similar Islamic military strategy started with
enlisting of Pakistan in 1950s as an ally to acquire strategic military
strength with American arms and foreign aid. Later, it was complimented by
Wahabi and Salafi dominated system of ‘rote and regurgitate’ brand of
education in numerous madrassahs funded by Saudi Arabia. The army
developed a jihad mindset and several decades later Pakistan became armed
with nuclear weapons.
Pakistan’s neo-warlords (army Generals) under President Ayub Khan attacked
Indian controlled territories in 1965 and lost. Ignoring radical changes
that had taken place in military strengths in South Asia from medieval
times to twentieth century, Pakistani neo-warlords harbored a vision of
conquest of prosperous lands in the Islamic tradition of violent
confrontations with neighbors. A series of military failures was results
of strategic miscalculations, for example, the failure in 1965 was
followed in late 1960s to suppress political aspirations of Bengalis of
East Pakistan. The suppression of Bengali population was imposed by the
army in collusion with civilian political leadership in West Pakistan. By
1971 the toll was an estimated million deaths of Muslims by Muslims and it
stopped with an unconditional surrender to India of the army units in East
Pakistan. Pakistan disintegrated giving birth to Bangladesh.
Undeterred by recent history of failures President Zia-ul Haq, a
fundamentalist Sunni Muslim dictator in 1979 couldn’t resist second wave
of American arms and financial aid. Zia rented Pakistan’s capabilities to
America for training a mercenary force of youths from Saudi funded
madrassahs of Pakistan and volunteers from Islamic Um’mah (believers in
Islamic traditions recruited from 57 Muslim majority nations) to initiate
jihad against USSR in Afghanistan.
By 1989 Afghanistan was liberated and American support for the Afghan
jihad was terminated creating a regional political vacuum for Pakistan to
manage. Pakistani army lost control of feuding Afghan warlords filling the
political vacuum so they tried to regain it using Pakistani trained
Taliban forces - primarily youths recruited from Saudi funded madrassahs,
foreign mercenaries, and retired Pakistani army men. While Taliban were
busy subjugating and humiliating women and non-Pashtun minorities, al
Qaeda - a non-state actor established by Arabs and foreign mercenaries -
wrestle away from Pakistan the control of Taliban leadership setting a
stage for uncontrolled growth of jihad against non-Islamic believers in
the West and India.
Parallel to developments in Afghanistan, in the tribal regions –
Baluchistan, Waziristan, NWFP, FATA, etc - of Pakistan where the writ of
central government at best has been rudimentary many politically active
tribal clerics operating the Saudi funded madrassahs had acquired well
armed Lashkars such as LeT, LeJ, etc, to set in motion, also under
umbrella of al Qaeda, an additional uncontrolled growth of jihad. Post
9/11, homicidal Islam or the Jihadi cancer took root and flourished in
Pakistan, initially aided and abetted by the army!
Al Qaeda and America: In 1990s al Qaeda issued a fatwa against America.
The fatwa was followed up with attacks by homicidal Muslims on America
that put holes in New York’s skyline on 9/11/2001. The war on terrorism
followed the al Qaeda guided attacks on America. Post 9/11, American
occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq were mismanaged, which created
opportunities for spread of homicidal Islam to Middle East instigating not
only to resist American occupation but also to systematically initiate
sectarian wars in Iraq and tribal warfare in regions bordering Afghanistan
and Pakistan. The process had now meta-morphed into an al Qaeda guided
global jihad with homicidal Islam infecting Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq
and occasionally surfacing in Spain (Madrid train bombing), UK (subway and
bus bombings) and India (attack on Indian Parliament).
Following the routing in 2002 of al Qaeda (from Tora Bora mountains,
northeast Afghanistan) and Taliban (from Kandahar, south Afghanistan)
leadership it took five years of looking the other way by the
Commando-President’s army for the al Qaeda and Taliban forces to regroup
in tribal areas of Pakistan to seriously challenge American and NATO
forces entrusted to stabilize Afghanistan under the Karzai Government. It
took a clandestinely arranged and later widely publicized visit from a top
official (V.P. Dick Cheney) of the Bush administration for the
Commando-Presidents men in March 2007 to arrest the former defense
minister of Taliban (Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, with a U.S. bounty of a
million dollars) from Quetta, Balochistan (Pakistan). Challenges to the
democratically elected Karzai government were covertly being facilitated
by the dictators’ actions in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
Democracy and Islam: American drive to install democracy in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Pakistan is contrary to Islamic Sunna (traditions).
Culturally, democracy and Islam are incompatible. Reflecting on Islamic
cultural practices, Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-born psychiatrist living in
USA has observed that only Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down
churches. She maintains that there isn’t any difference between radical
Islam and regular Islam. For believers in Islam the baggage of Shariah and
hadith – traditions in which some of the most violent Islamic injunctions
are to be found – are as central to Islam as the Koran itself. For
example, Salafists and Wahabis cannot imagine Islam without the killing of
apostates. To them religion is a house of cards (social, cultural, and
political); remove one card and the whole structure collapses. To them a
Muslim democrat is a bad Muslim and in their version of Islam there is no
room for secular Muslims.
The flip side of the appeal for extremist Islam is that the “want to be”
democratically elected leaders, educated and inspired by the Western
democracies, are looking for radical alternatives to unpalatable,
day-by-day growing unpopular autocratic government of the
Commando-President, who was initially backed by state-approved influential
clerics and several Saudi-funded organizations – LeT, LJ, etc., with the
private armies controlled by clerics and warlords.
Muslims Killing Muslims: The medieval practice of unleashing Jihad and
associated fear factor to force perceived enemies to submission to Islam
has boom-ranged on Muslims everywhere as jihad became synonymous with
homicidal Islam. Examining the consequences of a global Jihad may help
understand that globally among Muslim population, more Muslims have died
than non-Muslims starting 1960s.
Contrary to claims of peace in the Muslim majority lands by Dr. Ahmed,
Muslims have a 1,400 years long history of killing Muslims. Some latest
statistics are:
In 1967, half a million Muslims were killed by other Muslims in Nigeria.
In 1970s Bangladesh war of liberation a million Muslims were killed by
Pakistani army.
In the eight years Iran-Iraq War (Jihad by two armies), the longest
conventional war of the 20th century, a million Muslims were
killed by Muslims.
In Darfur, Muslim Arabs and non-Arab Muslims have already slaughtered
400,000 Muslims.
In 1991, a quarter of a million Muslims were killed by other Muslims in
Algeria
During 1979 - 1998 half a million Muslims have been killed by Taliban and
other Muslims trained in Pakistan and the killings have continued even
with American occupation of Afghanistan since 2002.
Post 9/11 the death toll of Iraqis by homicidal al Qaeda jihadis engaged
in sectarian war is estimated at more than half a million.
Extremist militants backed by the government apparatus have caused more
harm to Pakistan than to India and brought the country to the verge of
being declared a terrorist state according to a former law minister and
human rights activist Iqbal Haider. Under the false notion of "strategic
depth," Pakistan supported the United States by recruiting mercenaries
under the banner of Jihad against USSR in Afghanistan, banned political
parties and gave free rein to religious zealots. During the process,
lethal weapons had been provided to militants and the whole society had
been depoliticized. Prior to 1979 Pakistan had a civilized and peaceful
society without the evils of drugs and arms.
Sunni vs. Shia A-Bombs: Twenty years ago, just three Muslim countries,
Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq, used to buy half of all weapons sold in the
planet"s arms bazaars. This year, the recently formed Sunni alliance --
GCC plus Egypt and Jordan -- have spent hundred billion dollars to buy the
deadliest of western weaponry. Pakistan consistently has been one of the
top-10 arms buyers since 1998. Contrary to claims otherwise, most times
such weapons have been and in future, likely to be used by Muslims to kill
Muslims.
Although Global powers are active in limiting spread of nuclear weapons
technology to nations labeled as axis-of-evil they are neither afraid of
Islamic nuclear bombs of Pakistan nor of Islam. Unlike Pakistan's
establishment, other nuclear powers understand that WMDs are weapons of
deterrence.
Ask why, only Iran, a Shia nation, is reacting with alarm to the Sunni
nuclear bomb of Pakistan? Iranian nuclear bomb is neither for Israel nor
for the US as Iran knows she shall be no more if she drops the bomb either
over Israel or the US. The "Shia bomb" is to dominate Sunni sheikhdoms of
Middle East along with their 500 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.
See also The Sunni A-Bomb vs. The Shia A-Bomb by B. Raman, SAAG Paper 2161
(March 9, 2007).
Durand Line: The neo-Taliban has inflamed Pashtun political aspirations.
The Commando-president has tried to manage Pashtun political aspirations
by making peace with tribes in 2006. Politically the arrangement has
allowed Neo-Taliban not only to dominate the tribal areas of Pakistan but
also created a potential for a spring offensive by the regrouped Taliban
and al Qaeda forces in tribal Pakistan to challenge American and NATO
forces supporting the Karzai government of Afghanistan.
Some Muslims argue that the real challenge for Pakistan is how to
extricate itself from ravages of jihad and homicidal Islam associated with
Neo-Taliban. If it fails the challenge then it may be in for a potential
second disintegration of Pakistan unless it successfully institutes
social, cultural and political reforms.
The hundred year treaty that created the Durand Line by the British in
1893 has expired and technically, Pakistan stands to lose most of tribal
areas. Pakistan is facing demands for political freedoms by its 40-million
Pashtuns in tribal Baluchistan, NWFP, Waziristan and other FATA areas and
unification with 10-million Pashtuns living West of the Durand Line.
Pashtun social and cultural norms and practices are different from those
of Punjabis, Seraikis and Sindhis - these three ethnic groups together
represent about 100 million Pakistanis.
The elimination of the Durand Line and splitting of both Afghanistan and
Pakistan can create a Pashtunwa (a land for Pashtuns) by combining
southern Afghanistan and tribal areas of Pakistan west of Indus River. The
north and West Afghanistan then may come under domination by Iran. A way
to avoid creation of Pashtunwa is to reform Pakistan’s ethnic social and
cultural makeup by replacing army dominated autocratic political order and
organize an Islamic democracy that meets the political aspiration of each
of its five major ethnic groups – Punjabis, Sindhis, Seraikis, Baluchis
and Pashtuns.
Homicidal Islam (Part II):
Reform and Islam: Some defenders of indefensible Islamic cultural
practices cite the reformist period of scientific learning in Muslim
dominated lands to claim that Islam advocates peace and Islamic states can
be secular democracies. The reformist period in Muslim majority lands
lasted from 748 to 827AD out of more than 1,400 years of Islamic onslaught
on non-Islamic lands, sectarian wars and internal power struggles that
resulted in murder of many autocrats including three of four Caliphs.
Before quoting (http:/ /www.indiacause.com /columns/OL_051014.htm October
14, 2005) from my previous article let me briefly point out that unlike in
Islam, a broad evolution of secular practices took hold in many Christian
majority Western democracies. With respect to reforms among “the people of
book”, the history of Christians and Muslims took opposite turns.
In a struggle between the protestant movement and Catholics, the reformist
Protestants managed to rid of dominance by fundamentalists Catholic
Church. It followed a period of renaissance to bring about reforms in
Christian social, cultural and political norms. With a separation of the
Church and state, (not without some outrageous attempted suppressions of
scientific discoveries like that of Galileo in a belief that Christian
religion dominates sciences) in many instances reformist Christians were
able to incorporate reasons to evolve into a modern culture and society
with Christian majority democratic states guaranteeing secular ideas of
individual freedoms, equality of sexes, and political evolution. Not so
with Muslims.
The history of Arabs (Dr. Anwar Syed, professor emeritus of political
science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, US) showed why
rational explanations are not a part of Arab Islamic interpretations and
why thinking in philosophy, mathematics, and science ceased in the Arab
Muslim world starting with thirteenth century.
The basic issue is whether
propositions in the realm of beliefs are subject to rational examination?
The “Mutazilites” Arabs sought to find rational explanations for articles
of faith. They were influential for less than a century (748-827AD) and
then they were suppressed until they disappeared from Muslim theological
discourse. Arab Muslims have their share of obscurantism.
4. The winners in this contest, known as Asharites Arabs, opposed the
application of reason to matters of religion. They preached conformity to
the teachings of the earlier interpreters, and they cultivated prejudice
against philosophy and non-religious branches of knowledge. In 1150 Caliph
Mustanijid ordered the burning of the philosophical works of Ibn Sina (Avicena)
and in 1194 Amir Abu Yusuf al-Mansur, then at Seville (Spain), ordered the
burning of the works of another great Muslim philosopher, Ibn Rushd (Averros).
Thereafter, further thinking in philosophy, mathematics, and science
ceased in the Arab Muslim world.
Muslim history is littered
with never ending bloodshed, including mindless homicidal violence, a
cancer called Jihad against humanity, carried out in the name of Islam,
some times by Islamic armies (eight year Iraq-Iran war) and other times by
private militias – Lashkars - controlled by warlords and with
encouragement of politically motivated autocrats, elites and clerics of
questionable scholarship engaged in systematically keeping women and
followers of non-Islamic faiths subjugated and humiliated.
An unintended consequence of the Islamic “dogma” – Islam supersedes
sciences - and Sunna is a practice of not allowing flourishing reason that
comes with study of math, sciences, philosophy and logic to cultivate a
habit of modernization of social, political, economic and cultural
practices. A critical mass of critical thinkers has been deprived to more
than fifty generation of Muslims practicing Islamic dogma and Sunna in the
Islamic majority nations, which some say is responsible for current –
overall "poor" - social, cultural, economic, and political state of
Muslims.
When: A satirical poem titled "When," was posted on two Arabic reformist
websites: www.aafaq.org and www.memri.org. Reformist Saudi author and
journalist Wajeha Al-Huwaider lamented what she regards as the conditions
in the Arab world. The conditions in Pakistan are comparable to that in
Arab lands.
In the introduction to the poem (copied below, in part), Al-Huwaider
wrote: ""When” is an ode to the troubles of the Arab citizen. Both men and
women participated in its [writing], and it is still open to additions.
This ode will be hung on the walls of the palaces of the Arab rulers, [1*
- see note below] so feel free to add you contributions."
"When you cannot find a single garden in your city, but there is a mosque
on every corner - you know that you are in an Arab country…
"When you see people living in the past with all the trappings of
modernity - do not be surprised, you are in an Arab country.
"When you see the ruler transformed into a demigod who never dies or
relinquishes his power, and whom nobody is permitted to criticize - do not
be too upset, you are in an Arab country.
"When you find that the members of parliament are nominated [by the
ruler], or else that half of them are nominated and the other half has
bought their seats through bribery… - you are in an Arab country…
"When you hear the clerics saying that democracy is heresy, but [see them]
seizing every opportunity provided by democracy to grab high positions [in
the government] - do not be surprised, you are in an Arab country…
"When religion has control over science - you can be sure that you are in
an Arab country.
"When clerics are referred to as "scholars" - don't be astonished, you are
in an Arab country.
"When you discover that a woman is worth half of what a man is worth, or
less - do not be surprised, you are in an Arab country…
"When young women students are publicly flogged merely for exposing their
eyes - you are in an Arab country…
"When covering the woman's head is more important than financial and
administrative corruption, embezzlement, and betrayal of the homeland - do
not be astonished, you are in an Arab country…
"When minorities are persecuted and oppressed, and if they demand their
rights, are accused of being a fifth column or a Trojan horse - be upset,
you are in an Arab country…
"When you see that the authorities chop off a man's hand for stealing a
loaf of bread or a penny, but praise and glorify those who steal billions
- do not be too surprised, you are in an Arab country…
"When you are forced to worship the Creator in school and your teachers
grade you for it - you can be sure that you are in an Arab country…
"When land is more important than human beings - you are in an Arab
country…
"When at any time, there can be a knock on your door and you will be
dragged off and buried in a dark prison - you are in an Arab country
[1*] This is an allusion to the Seven Mu'allaqat, famous sixth century
odes, which according to Arab legend were hung in pre-Islamic times on the
walls of the Qa'ba in Mecca.
Reforming Islam: For Islam to reform:
1. Ask why otherwise pious Muslim living in secular democracies and
submitting to constitutional law and order of the adopted lands do not
regard the prophet a tyrant and a pervert?
2. Ask why a God fearing Muslim or non-Muslim must submit to what is
written in the Koran, the hadith and Sunna, originally written in (and
today ill understood) archaic Arabic and over centuries open to traceable
theological imperatives and interpretations to suit views of clerics of
questionable scholarship?
3. Ask why a part of Islamic “dogma”– the morality of Mohammad for his 7th
century act of capturing Mecca and that of 7th to 9th century morality of
Caliphs to conquer European territories along the Mediterranean Sea and
parts (Persia, etc) of Asia with military violence – is a model guide to
justify Islamic homicidal behavior in modern day?
4. Ask why otherwise pious Muslims in Muslim majority lands don’t see a
connection between Mohammad’s taking of child brides and modern day sexual
oppression, the imprisonment of women, murders of adulteresses and rape
victims, the insistence that women must display modesty by wearing a veil,
submit to domestic violence and other denials of the most basic freedoms?
5. Ask why otherwise pious Muslims chose not to follow their rational
capacities as humans and not follow sciences based on reason instead of
Koranic commands?
6. Ask why otherwise pious Muslims don’t consider it their obligation to
look at things critically?
7. Ask why rulers who favor democracies don’t subscribe to not settling
individual differences according to the laws of land and not killing one
another?
8. Ask why contemporary secular democracies allow for setting up of Muslim
parallel societies that ignore established local social, political,
economic and cultural norms?
9. Ask why the jihadi forces developed by Pakistani army for export to
Afghanistan and other areas have morphed into homicidal Islam to
infiltrate the system to destroy it as an internal enemy?
Muslims as a society should recognize the patterns that emerge from
answers to these questions and the question is if they are they free to do
something about it?
Kishan Bhatia
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Previous articles by:
Kishan Bhatia
Development of Rural India’s Entrepreneurs
Defending Indefensible Cultural Practices
Mughal India and Sectarian Bombs
Terrorism and Political Dialogue
Islamofascism and Islamophobia
Political Map of Islamic Nations
Pak, India & America: Religious Extremism
To be Arabs or not: Pak
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Developing democracies
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Pakistan: The ‘but...’
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Prospects for Economic
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What?s Musharraf to do?
Pakistan?s Educational
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Kishan Bhatia |
