In his masterpiece, Ihya’ ‘Ulum al-Din, Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali offers the following advice to Muslims: shun those ‘ulama’ that stand as supplicants at the ruler’s door. Instead, seek guidance of those that are visited by the rulers. Imam Ghazali was writing at a time when the rulers were Muslims. Today, Muslims have fallen to such depths that hundreds of millions are forced to live under non-Muslim rule. This is most strikingly evident in India with almost 200 million Muslims. They often complain that because of the creation of Pakistan, they have to suffer the wrath of the Hindu fascists who blame them for partition. They also argue that absent partition, their numbers would be far higher, hence they would have been much better off in India. This is mere conjecture. What is indisputable is that it is not numbers but rather a lack of bold and sincere leadership that is responsible for the Muslims’ sorry state. How is it that 15 million Sikhs in India can defend themselves but 200 million Muslims cannot?

There is clearly a lack of leadership, especially of the ‘ulama’ in India. Far from standing up for the rights of the oppressed Muslims, these so-called ‘ulama’ berate Muslim youth for being “too militant.” When Muslims are unjustly accused of indulging in terrorist acts, these same ‘ulama’ are quick to condemn them. After suffering years of torture in India’s notorious jails, when the Muslims are exonerated of any wrongdoing by the courts, as was witnessed in the case of Malegaon blasts, these ‘ulama’ remain mum. The least that could be expected of them would be to condemn such acts of barbarism against innocent Muslim youth. Perish the thought. As far as these ‘ulama’ are concerned, they would rather go to Hindu temples and bow to idols to prove their loyalty to India. They are quick to pounce at every opportunity to visit the Zionist State of Israel. Once there, they reprimand the Palestinians for demanding a state of their own! They do not hesitate even in distorting the message of the Qur’an by claiming that Allah (swt) promised this land to the Jews (nastaghfir-allah). We will refrain from naming these so-called ‘ulama’ for the present but it may become necessary to unmask them in the future.

This is the condition of the so-called ‘ulama’ in India. The situation in the Muslim heartland is even worse. Let us look at the Arabian Peninsula where tribal chiefs have usurped power and co-opted some ‘ulama’ to do their bidding. It is interesting to note that the court ‘ulama’ in Saudi Arabia expressly forbid questioning the legitimacy or authority of the kingdom’s rulers but eagerly urge people to rise up against the ruler in Syria. Why the deference to one set of rulers and opposition to the other? Surely, we are not living in early Islamic history when the Umayyads led by Mu‘awiyah refused to pledge allegiance to Imam ‘Ali (d) that led to so much disruption in Muslim life! 

The behavior of such ‘ulama’ is truly distressing. Like the Saudis, the Qataris have also co-opted a number of ‘ulama’ to serve their interests. Some are given a platform on al-Jazeera television turning them into celebrities. They are also given huge mansions to live in with an army of servants at their beck and call. Such comforts can affect and soften up even the most enlightened scholars; this is the reason why struggling members of the Islamic movement characterize the Peninsula as the “graveyard of scholars (maqbarah al-du‘at).”

There is also another phenomenon sweeping the Muslim East: thebuilding of huge cathedral type masjids named after rulers who in their lifetime perhaps never set foot inside one. There is the King Hasan Masjid in Rabat; there are similar masjids in Oman and Abu Dhabi named after rulers. But the Qatari rulers have gone much further: they have constructed a masjid in the name of Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, founder of the Wahhabi parochialism. While the Qataris have had a long border dispute with Saudi Arabia, in recent years, the two tribal monarchies have been drawn closer together because of Islamic uprisings in the Muslim East. It was in Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab Masjid that one of these ‘ulama’, of Egyptian origins, prayed for the long life of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia during a Jumu‘ah Khutbah while urging people to rise up against Bashar al-Asad of Syria. In the same breath, he condemned the people of Bahrain for rising up against the Khalifa family! 

Muslims must pay much greater heed to Imam Ghazali’s advice about shunning ‘ulama’ that stand as supplicants in the courts of the rulers. Had Imam Ghazali known that these rulers would also be subservient to the kafirs, he would surely have denounced them in much stronger terms. Is it any wonder that Muslims are suffering so much when their ‘ulama’ serve taghut so eagerly?

           

Zafar Bangash is Director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought

Abu Dharr

Thirty-three years ago this month the world was witness to the fall of a Shah and the rise of an Imam. The Shah was Persian by culture, American by loyalty. The Imam was Persian by culture, Islamic by persuasion. The Muslims of the world along with the imperialist victims of the world rejoiced at this turn of events. Ever since that time Uncle Sam and his nephew Cohen have been playing their cards against the Imam and the Revolution. How valiant and patient the sons and daughters of that revolution have been throughout all these years! Had all the forms of warfare and conspiracies and out-and-out lies been leveled against another revolution, it would have been on its knees by now. 

Today, the Islamic Revolution in Iran is standing tall. It has developed its skills, advanced its technology, and extended its infrastructure to a degree that has finally brought the imperialist-Zionist club of nations out into the open in their war preparations, which are being set in motion as this article goes to press. The spreadsheets in the US and Europe inform us that there are 15,000 US combat ready troops in a slaphappy Kuwait: at least two army infantry brigades and a helicopter unit. The Pentagon has two aircraft carriers prowling regional waters: the USS Carl Vinson and the USS John Stennis. There are reports of a third aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln steaming toward the Persian Gulf, as of this writing. These and their strike groups are sharking their routes between their home base and the Persian Gulf. 

The hot line between Washington and Tel Aviv is sizzling with blood-and-guts coordination plans. The word is out that the twin cities of Washington and Tel Aviv are gunning for Iran. Not to be left out of this imperialist-Islamic buildup of tension and threats the Qatari collaborator Sheikh Hamad Aal Thani (the Qatari Foreign Minister) and the Saudi sycophant Sa‘ud al-Faisal (the Saudi Foreign Minister) were in Washington last month listening to President Barack Obama and probably signing on to any future outbreak of hostilities. Their conversations remain a tightly guarded secret. Thanks to you, Islamic Iran, for showing the rest of the world who these toady officials in Arabia are and to whom they owe their allegiance. 

Then we had, during this past month, the British Prime Minister David Cameron flying into Arabia to sell handsome amounts of weapons to the scared-to-death Saudi rulers. He held talks with King ‘Abdullah and his Crown Prince Nayef. This war scenario which comes to us from Washington and Tel Aviv is exactly what the military-industrial-banking complex needs. Thank you, Islamic Iran, for blowing the Islamic camouflage off the Anglo-American sheikhs in Arabia — and beyond.  

You, the sons and daughters of the Revolution, with your dedication and tireless efforts have built your own state. You are showing the rest of us the way. It is your devotion to Islam as it was meant to be that is causing cracks in the Yahudi-Yankee edifice. Not all is rosy and peachy between the Israeli Knesset and the US Congress. The US budget has been bleeding for the better part of the past 33 years of the Islamic Revolution. The US Congress realizes that the America now owes more than it makes in a given year. And the hatchet men are out to chop off financial appropriations that are non-essential: there are plans for sequestration. This means that dollar-addicted Israel will have to be put on notice that it cannot expect to receive the generous amounts of cash infusions that it is addicted to. And this is resulting in a flare-up of behind-the-scenes tension between an America that no longer can supply and an Israel that needs more and more. 

Little does the public eye notice that Israel is leading the charge, and the US is being pricked into combat position, a situation it is not ready for after its battles in Afghanistan and Iraq. The relationship between Yahudi-firsters in Washington and the Bible supremacists in Tel Aviv must be on thin ice when we hear that both sides called off “Austere Challenge 12” which was supposed to have been the largest war exercise ever between the US and Israel. Thank you, the persevering sons and daughters of the Islamic Revolution, for having shown us (those of us whose eyes are open) how flimsy and vulnerable the relationship is between the chicken hawks in Washington and their roosters in Tel Aviv. 

People without prejudice — Muslims and non-Muslims — have watched your revolution grow from infancy into manhood. These people saw how the imperialists and Zionists targeted, via their agents, the scholars of Islam Ayatullah Murtaza Mutahhari, Ayatullah Seyyed Muhammad Hussein Beheshti, Ayatullah Ashraf Isfahani, Ayatullah Dastagheib, and many other great scholars of Islam were assassinated by “Persian” fifth-columnists. Yet the Revolution survived. Next, Iran’s soldiers became the target of the same enemies. And after eight long and bloody years and after hundreds of thousands of martyrs the Islamic Revolution survived. Now, the same enemies are targeting the scientists. You, the sons and daughters in your principled defense of the Islamic Revolution, exposed the cowards and showed us how they fight. When they lose at the battlefield they turn to assassinations and random killings. 

The historical Islamic Revolution demonstrated to us the lengths to which the Zionists and imperialists will go to “frame” and “entrap” Muslims to justify a worldwide war that they say may continue for over a hundred years (a Freudian slip of the tongue that the Islamic Revolution may be around for a hundred years or more). You, the class of shuhada’, enlightened us as to the depth of hate and the visceral hatred that lurks in the bosoms of Euro-American-Israeli officials who cannot tolerate an independent Islamic state acquiring peaceful nuclear technology, when they themselves say that it is the right of all states. 

You, the leaders of the Islamic State under the guidance of Imams Khomeini and Khamane’i, have stimulated our thoughts as to the real nature of our enemies and the enemies of oppressed people in the world. You educated us in these 33 years about enemies who hide behind a gloss of civilization but in their hearts they are anything but civilized. These enemies, as we all celebrate these bittersweet 33 years of revolution, may very well be planning a mass casualty attack of some sort against innocent people that will be blamed on Muslims.

They may even be thinking about some type of cyber-attack that may paralyze some society’s infrastructure in a way that is equivalent to a natural catastrophe or national emergency. They may be planning some type of disruption in the energy sector of the producers and consumers of petroleum. Their own man-made economies are teetering on the brink in Europe and in America. They are very adept at triggering a trans-Atlantic crisis that the world itself will suffer from. 

You the leaders, the martyrs, the scholars, the soldiers, the scientists, and the devotees of Islam, have changed the geopolitical landscape of the world; whether you know it or not. You snatched the masks off the faces of political hypocrites and removed the gloves off the hands of financial thieves exposing their finger prints on crimes. And at the end of this line we and all the world can see how civilized these shayateen are: they urinate on dead Muslim bodies, they desecrate the Qur’an, they ridicule the Prophet (pbuh), they sexually assault the innocent, they commit every crime in the Book and none of our rulers from the filthy rich of Arabia to the dirt poor of Africa are able to speak truth to power the way you have done in Islamic Iran. 

In all these years, an unspoken question lies deep down inside every astute Muslim, and that question is: will the imperialist US or Zionist Israel attack Islamic Iran? You have been answering that question for 33 years. And your answer in Allah’s (swt) words is:

They [the committed Muslims] were told: ‘But everyone is against you, be heedful of the danger’. And this [scenario] boosted their faith and commitment; and they [the committed Muslims] answered back: Suffice it that Allah is on our side, and He is the best confidant (3:173).

Pull quotes:

Today, the Islamic Revolution in Iran is standing tall… You, the sons and daughters of the Revolution, with your dedication and tireless efforts have built your own state. You are showing the rest of us the way. It is your devotion to Islam as it was meant to be that is causing cracks in the Yahudi-Yankee edifice… Not all is rosy and peachy between the Israeli Knesset and the US Congress.

Iqbal Siddiqui, Perspectives

For a civilization and value system that places such great emphasis on “freedom”, there are still plenty of ways that dissidents can be targeted in the modern West. Freedom has been described as a “hurray word” — a word “with little substantive meaning… an empty signifier in a hegemonic language game, to which we all have to defer”, in the words of Mark Haugaard, political scientist and editor of the Journal of Power. The contradiction between the proclaimed ideal of freedom and the practical realities of power are a constant cause of tension in modern societies, not least when people try to realise the freedom that is proclaimed as a universal right but which those in power do not actually believe in. At any given time, numerous examples of the result of this tension can be highlighted among the major issues of the day.

As this issue of Crescent goes to press, for example, it has just been confirmed on January 20 that Press TV has lost its license to broadcast in the UK. Officially, the reason is bureaucratic: the British company that held the license is not in charge of its editorial content, which is supposedly dictated from Iran, which is in breach of broadcasting regulations. In fact, it is the result of a long campaign against Press TV by local politicians, commentators and others angered by its coverage of issues such as Palestine, Iraq and Western aggression in the Muslim world. For those willing to see them, the limits of the freedom of the press are very clear: what a paper like Crescent may get away with saying to the limited audience that seeks it out —as Press TV will still be available to those who find it on the internet — may not be broadcast daily into the homes of millions of people who would otherwise be unlikely ever to access it. But the bureaucratic justification does more than provide a convenient cover to shield the government and those who called for a ban from charges of censorship. It also saves those who supposedly oppose censorship in any form, proclaiming instead their support for total freedom of speech and the press, from having to take up the cause of a perspective they are quite happy to see suppressed. 

Another case of the tension between the realities of Western power and the ideals of freedom — in this case, freedoms of speech and information — that has been much discussed recently is that of Bradley Manning, the US soldier who allegedly leaked millions of classified US military and diplomatic documents to the WikiLeaks website. The appalling treatment that Manning has been subjected to since his arrest, and the travesty of his judicial prosecution has been well documented. The point here is simply to highlight the gap between the ideals that the West proclaims and the realities that people in the West, particularly those who challenge the hegemonic discourse of its elites, face. The issues regarding freedoms of speech, media and information raised by the Manning and WikiLeaks cases are many and complex. Wikileaks was originally perceived as an open intelligence agency for democratic societies, based on the premise that for people to take good decisions, they must have access to as much information as possible. The fact that it has been so thoroughly trashed by the establishments in western countries shows their attitude to that idea. Equally, Manning took at face value the ideal that as a citizen and a soldier of a democratic state, he had a duty to speak up to highlight the wrongdoings of those in power and to refuse to obey orders and take part in actions that were illegal, immoral and based on lies and misinformation. His fate shows what the USA, the global champion of freedom and democracy thinks of those ideals.

One thing that both these examples, and so many others like them, have in common is that the powers that be have used the law against their critics and enemies. But the laws they have used have not been of censorship or persecution of dissidents, but laws intended for completely different purposes that have been found, by design or happy coincidence, to be useful for these purposes as well. Which brings us to another recent example of the tension between freedom and power: that of the protest by Wikipedia and other prominent websites against the proposed legislation in the US targeting illegal sharing of films and music online. The two bills proposed by members of Congress and the Senate, known as SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (the Protect Intellectual Property Act) have been promoted by US media firms, supposedly concerned with protecting their copyrighted assets against illegal distribution over the internet, who have made massive donations to the politicians promoting the bills. This is an issue that the media firms have long been pursuing through existing laws, with major websites such as TVShack and Megaupload already shut down, and overseas creators of such sites, such as Richard O’Dwyer, the British creator of TVShack, being pursued for extradition to face charges in the US. 

SOPA and PIPA, however, go further. The influential internet commentator Clay Shirky has characterised them as “an attempt to create a privatised form of international censorship… [that] would have a profound and chilling effect on any form of public conversation among ordinary citizens.” He points out that the legislation would target not only those profiting from online piracy but “any site that was facilitating the activities of copyright infringement”, by, for example “mentioning the existence of such sites”. The fact that such restrictions go against the supposedly open and public ethos of the internet has brought the wrath of the online establishment down upon the legislation, with the result that they are now being rethought. The bills are unlikely, however, to be pulled altogether. Sometime in the not-too-distant future, they will be presented once again in revised form with their key elements intact, and with the same or similar potential for misuse for purposes other than their stated intentions.

The political potential of such legislation is obvious. Press TV has been pulled from broadcast in the UK on bureaucratic grounds, but is still available through the internet. It is no great leap, in view of SOPA and PIPA, to imagine that in future, it and other news sources offering dissident views could be targeted not on the grounds of censorship — which would of course be blatantly undemocratic and therefore wholly unacceptable — but simply because of accusations of offering access to copyrighted and illegally obtained materials such as, say, leaked US government documents. 

The potential of the internet to provide a platform for the circulation of information and perspectives that were excluded from the hegemonic discourse of the mainstream media was one of its great attractions for dissidents of all kinds, including the Islamic movement. And it has indeed served this purpose to some extent. But the reality is that it has been far more effectively exploited by the powers that be for the projection and promotion of their own propaganda than it has by any dissident movement. The concepts of “hard” and “soft” power are well established, with hard power being the power to force people to do what you want, and soft power the ability to persuade people to do what you want. But power comes in many other forms as well. One is institutional power: the ability to manipulate and exploit the institutional infrastructures of society to serve your purposes. 

The US’s wielding of its institutional power through bodies such as the UN and international economic organizations is well established; but the internet has its institutional infrastructure too, and the US is already well established as the dominant voice in that as well, even before its new attempts to extend its control by legislative measures such as SOPA and PIPA. Those fond of triumphantly trumpeting the US’s defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the problems it faces because of the current economic crises, would do well to remember that it still has plenty of other sources of power through which to defend and promote its interests, as well as to target its most dangerous enemies.