George W. Bush's Holy Crusade

Author, Kaukab Siddique, states bluntly what most practicing Muslims have thought for years, yet only a few learned scholars have dared to state publicly:

The British and U.S. warlords are preparing to enslave the Muslim world. They are willing only to tolerate Muslims who are tame-tailwaggers and bootlickers. So just because you are allowed to pray and fast does not mean that the power structure is not out to destroy you across the world.

The Zionists and Imperialists can never defeat Islam, inshallah. This is not the era of Turkey's Mustafa Kamal Ataturk who forced his nation to wear hats and trousers and brutally removed the hijab and fez of the Turkish Muslims leaving them as bastardized Europeans. This is the era of jihad in all those lands which have Muslim majorities.

Will the Pakistani people move against Musharraf or will his mercenary forces successfully silence the people? Observers say that the success of Islam in Pakistan could be decisive in the struggle. If the Pakistani people observe the destruction of fraternal Afghanistan in silence, their own fate will be enslavement by Imperialism, Zionism and Brahminism.

Will Pakistan become another Turkey, cut off from its Islamic roots and ruled by people who keep dogs in their homes? Will the dream of Iqbal, the vision of Maudoodi, come to nothing?

Pakistan police are gathering in the streets to try and crush demonstrations by Islamic movements.

It should be quite clear and evident from this small, transcribed portion of his lecture why Bush's war is, in fact, a war on Islam and not a war on "terrorism" as he claims:

The following beliefs provide the ideological framework for Islamic organizations.

1. Islam is a total way of life, therefore religion is integral to politics, state, and society.
2. The political, military, and economic weakness of Muslims is due to having strayed from Islam and followed Western secular materialistic ideologies and values. Both Western nationalism and Marxist socialism have failed because they are antithetical to Islam.
3. Islam is founded in guidance of the Qur'an, the practice of the Prophet, and in the example of the early Islamic community/state provides the true alternative ideology for Muslim life.
4. Therefore Muslims must reestablish God's rule, the kingdom of God on earth, by re-instituting Islamic law, the blueprint for society.
5. The method for the renewal and reform of Muslim society is an Islamic political and social revolution like that of Prophet Muhammad and later 18th century Islamic movements [he's referring to ibn Abd-ul-Wahhab here] which brings about an Islamic system of government and law.
6. The new Islamic order does not reject science and technology, however, modernization is subordinate to Islam in order to guard against the Westernization and secularization of Muslim society.
7. The process of Islamization requires organizations of society built around dynamic nuclei of committed and trained believers, who call on all to repent and turn to Allah's path, and who are prepared when necessary to fight against corruption and social injustice.

And then he goes on to describe the most radical of these fundamentalists. And he says:

1. They have a crusader mentality, neo-colonial ambitions, and the power of Zionism have resulted in a Western Judeo-Christian conspiracy, which pits the West against the East.
2. Since legitimacy of Muslim governments is based on the Shari`ah, governments such as Anwar Sadat's Egypt, which does not follow the Shari`ah, are illegitimate. Those who are responsible for such an atheist state are guilty of unbelief and are as such, lawful objects of Jihad.

And then he goes on to talk about Jihad against the unbelievers. And that Christians and Jews are to be considered unbelievers rather than People of the Book, and a few other points.

So this is who he calls the fundamentalists. And I would think that most people, who attribute themselves to religiosity in this area would find themselves following in these characteristics that he has. And, at the same time, current policy looks at exterminating those. They say the argument now in the West is that, "We have no problem with Muslims as a religion, Muslims as a culture, but what we have a problem with is those fundamentalists," which are described in those beliefs, which I summarized. And, most of us would see that those beliefs are probably true beliefs.

So, therefore they say to us, as a preeminent writer in the United Kingdom, Montgomery Watt, who is one of the preeminent Orientalists of this century, in a book entitled, I guess, Islam in the West or Muslim-Christian Encounters -- he has a section called "The Demands made upon Muslims." And, in that section, he tells, that in order for Muslims to live in this world, they must do a certain number of things. What are those things? He says,

For Muslims also, if they are to live alongside other religions, it will be necessary to abandon their exclusivism. This means admitting, that even if Islam has all the truth required by the whole human race until the end of time, there may be complimentary ways of expressing this truth. It would also appear [he says] that Muslims would have to reinterpret their conception of the finality of Islam, and that Muhammad is the Last Prophet. This last point presupposes that there has been a series of pure and perfect revelations from God, but this is not borne out by what we know of the history of religion. It would seem that Muslims [he says] would have to admit that religions like Hinduism and Buddhism also received something from Allah, but not in the form resembling that of the revelation to Muhammad.

Then he says in respect of Muslim-Christian relations:

It is essential that Muslims accept the historicity of the Bible, and reject the doctrine of its corruption.

In other words, what is he trying to say? He says that we must forsake, in order to live in the world -- Muslims must forsake the belief that Islam is the only true religion. You must believe that there are other ways to go to Paradise. 2) The belief that Muhammad (sollahu `alayhi wa sallam) is the Final Prophet. You must forsake this belief also. Also, we must accept the previous scriptures as being true and uncorrupted in order for us to live in the world. Likewise we must forsake our beliefs concerning al-wala' wal-bara' and also Jihad in the path of Allah. And also, we must forsake many practices in our religion. Other writers have required us, that we have to adopt secularism, and also other writers have said that we must redefine the role of women in our society as I might have eluded to somewhat in yesterday's lecture about feminism and Islam.

This is what is required for us in order to live in the world, they say. And so, therefore current Western perceptions toward Islam try to define Muslims into two camps: a cultural Islam, or a historical Islam, where Muslims, which they will tolerate in the world, if they give up these certain beliefs, if they redefine the religion in order to fit in within the Global Village. And, those who want to adhere to the true teachings of Islam, the original beliefs of the Muslims, they are to be labeled as fundamentalists and terrorists, and then they decide to deal with them in whatever manner they want. And, I guess we have seen many examples in terms of the repression of Muslims within their own countries and outside their countries.

The point here is that, in other words, the choice given to us is that, either we change our religion, or that we are forced to not live in this world.

The best thing you can do if you are confused, is to educate yourself about Islam.