While the shock and horror following Donald Trump's statement on Muslim immigration to the US continues, there are a few points that are being ignored or played down at best:
1) Trump is calling for a temporary ban of Muslims who are not US citizens entering the country. He's not talking about a permanent ban or about deporting all Muslims who currently live in the US. This is about "until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on."
2) The US, not too dissimilar to the EU, has a pretty open border policy, and Daesh (ISIS) have made it clear that they have and they will exploit open border policies and refugee distribution programmes in order to get terrorist cells into Europe and America. They explicitly threatened Paris in July of this year.
3) Syed Farook, who committed the latest atrocity along with his wife, was a US citizen, which means that Daesh have infected and brainwashed people who don't even need visas to enter the US. There is also plenty of evidence to suggest that Farook and his wife were planning something much bigger.
4) Then we have to bear in mind the extreme prevalence of Salafi and Ikhwani (Brotherhood) organisations in the US and other parts of the Anglosphere, as was discussed in my last post. Orthodox (Sunni) Muslims have little or no infrastructure. In fact, when Orthodox Muslims do try to build infrastructure from the grassroots, it is Brotherhood front organisations like ISNA, ICNA etc. that do everything to undermine it and shut it down. From my own experience in the UK, Brotherhood front organisations like FOSIS and the Islamic Foundation are not interested in Muslims learning orthodox creed and fiqh and making genuine progress with their faith. Rather, Muslims are to be used as pawns in protests and demonstrations, as part of their political agenda.
5) The opportunity to crush and deal Salafiyyah and the Brotherhood a fatal blow came and went after the attacks of September 11, 2001. After years of promoting Sunni Islam (what they call "traditional Islam") in the US and Anglosphere in the 1990s (see here and here), prominent figures of western Sunni Islam did a complete 180-degree turn and decided to embrace Salafiyyah and the Brotherhood under the banner of unity. They should have made it crystal clear that is what this false theology and fiqh leads to, i.e. murder and mayhem, death and destruction, but they did the exact opposite, and therefore "they have done precisely nothing to help America rid this country of their lethal coreligionists". You reap what you sow. There is no proof that Orthodox Muslims should unite with cults and people of innovation when threatened by the disbelievers. In fact, the opposite is true. Imam Salah ud-Deen al-Ayubi, may Allah have mercy on him, took an army past the Crusaders in Palestine and removed the Fatimids from power in Egypt first. The internal enemy always has to be dealt with first, not embraced.
6) Oddly enough, 2001 was the year that "fiqh of minorities" gained prominence and maraaji' like Imam Muhammad Saeed Ramadan al-Bouti, may Allah have mercy on him, came out and denounced it. Since then, such scholars have had little sympathy for Muslims living outside of Dar al-Islam.
As as side note, fiqh of minorities and uniting with cultists and innovators has led to a new form of Islam in the Anglosphere, and especially in the US. We should note that the Jews, the Ummah that most resembles us, are broken down into three groups: orthodox, conservative and reform. Conservative Judaism in Israel, Germany and the UK is known as Masorti, which is Hebrew for "traditional". "Traditional" Islam is the forerunner, and Allah knows best, of what will eventually become Conservative Islam, an "Islam" that pays respect to classical scholarship but believes that the rules and principles of the religion are subject to "the age we live in". Therefore, expediency can be used as an excuse to create fiqh of minorites instead of adhering to the firmly established principle of emigration (hijrah). Fighing cultists with the pen and the sword can be left aside for the sake of "unity".
Are Orthodox Muslims pushing Muslims in the Anglosphere in that direction? No. Actually, "Traditional" Muslims made the threat to "go it alone" as early as 2006:
Whatever we do, as Muslims in the West, we may be approaching the day when we will have to go it alone. If our coreligionists in the East cannot respect the fact that we are trying to accomplish things here in the West, and that their oftentimes ill-considered actions undermines that work in many instances, then it will be hard for us to consider them allies.
But apart from one Mauritanian scholar, who told them to embrace "fiqh of minorities" wholeheartedly? Did they not consider that this would create obvious discrepancies between Muslims in the Anglosphere and Muslims in traditional Muslim heartlands?
7) Donald Trump is not some raging racist or "Islamophobe". It seems that he is most likely just a patriotic, and wealthy, American, and he doesn't appear to be a Zionist. Also, his support is not subsiding, despite all the negative publicity. Americans, especially, are fed up of the whinging and complaining, the terrorist attacks, and then claims that Islam is a "religion of peace", and not necessarily in that order.
8) Donald Trump's comments about UK police not being able to work in certain neighbourhoods, despite claims to the contrary by leading politicians, have been confirmed by British police officers, i.e. those who actually work on the ground. More cops are continuing to come forward.
9) Last but certainly not least, we should take a step back and realise the damage that political correctness has done, and how it has horribly warped our sense of reality. We thus live under "the inhuman reign of the lie", living in a distortion of reality in which we lie to others and others lie to us, while resentment and bitterness continue to grow and simmer under the surface.
And Allah knows best.
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Why are they angry?
Your article is spot on. As someone who has sat in private meetings with the US' most famous Sunni scholars, I can assure you that what you say above about them joining forces and bowing down to the Salafiyyah post-911 is an absolute fact. What's sad is that they will bash them in private behind closed doors but then praise them with smiles in public.
ReplyDeleteJust now:
ReplyDeletehttps://m.facebook.com/imamzaidshakir/posts/10153278940938359
Jazakum Allah khayran for your comments and updates.
ReplyDeleteThe article you've linked backs up the ninth point in my article; this tyranny of the lie. The "unity" agenda has been followed since 9/11 and what is the result? Judging by the other posts on this FB page, namely the ones about Donald Trump, the writer wishes to continue living under that tyranny. You can't stress "dialogue" and "awareness" and then dismiss people like Trump or Tommy Robinson as bigots and "Islamaphobes" when they criticize Muslims or Islam. Why not take the time to actually hear them out? We need to ask: what is their knowledge of Islam, or more importantly, what is their experience of Muslims? Or are we to assume that we are such wonderful, amazing people and only the most rabid, racist nutjob would ever have a problem with us?
Regarding Salafiyyah, I agree with what Abdal Hakim Murad said in the immediate aftermath of 9/11:
"Among Muslims, the longer-term aftershock will surely take the form of a crisis among ‘moderate Wahhabis’. Even if a Middle-Eastern connection is somehow disproved, they cannot deny forever that doctrinal extremism can lead to political extremism."
...
"It is true that not every committed Wahhabi is willing to kill civilians to make a political point. However it is also true that no orthodox Sunni has ever been willing to do so. One of the unseen, unsung triumphs of true Islam in the modern world is its complete freedom from any terroristic involvement. Maliki ulama do not become suicide-bombers. No-one has ever heard of Sufi terrorism. Everyone, enemies included, knows that the very idea is absurd."
In the addendum that he added in 2014 he states:
"Having spoken to the editor of one of this country’s major Muslim magazines, it is clear that the small minority of voices which have been raised in support of the terrorist act were in every case of the Wahhabi persuasion. Clearly, we cannot simply ignore this on grounds of ‘Muslim unity’, since those people appear so determined to destroy Muslim unity, and endanger the security of our community."
[Source: http://masud.co.uk/recapturing-islam-from-the-terrorists/]
The simple point is, all these groups, be it ISIS, al-Qaeda, Nusra Front, Boko Haram, ash-Shabaab and so on and so forth, all have the same theology. Is this merely a coincidence?
And with Allah alone is every success.
Wa iyyakum sidi. Their compromises are a lot worse as I'm privy to some of their behind-the-scenes efforts. I can't speak as frank as I wish but let me say this much that some of them are working directly with the government in trying to make room for Salafiyyah as part and parcel of mainstream Sunni Islam and they have chosen the al-Maghrib organization as their go-to group. The writer of the article I linked earlier has jointly taught aqidah side-by-side in California with Yasir Qadhi to the public. This is the extent of their compromising. Yet, in private mawlids, I've heard them lament about the "Wahhabis did this", the "Wahhabis did that". But in public, they show a different face. I've grown tired of them through the years of following their every move because of their unprincipled approaches. Their accommodation of perennialism through their endorsement of The Study Qur'an publication is just another example.
ReplyDeleteWe wait for the day the pendulum of true Ahl al-Sunnah swings back our way again bi idhnillaaahi ta'ala.
The US government's involvement in asking certain Sunni scholars to help make room for Salafis under mainstream Sunni Islam was known to myself and others who are privy to such behind-the-scenes efforts. There are some self-respecting Sunni scholars who declined the invitation by the govt to help with this initiative and then there are those who accepted in full faith without coercion. I'm familiar with some of each. The following article sort of touches on this initiative ever so slightly but only those who had prior knowledge understood the subtlety whereas the vast majority of sheeople have no idea:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2015/04/01-yasir-qadi-quietist-salafism-experts-weigh-in#.VRxXcVFq9DU.twitter
Salam
ReplyDeletePls see link
https://www.facebook.com/shaykhmohammadyasir/?ref=ts&fref=ts
He is one of the tableegh deobondis who regularly writes against salafiya despite being labelled "against Muslim unity". The imams from his " group" complained to the senior scholars about this but I think they have given him the green light to do this ( write against salafiya)
One of wahabies advantages are occupying Makkah and medinas. People automatically thinks these people are correct in everything
This article is exactly right. Trump is not a politician so he does not use precise nuanced language to get his point across. He does not use doublespeak either. The vagueness in his choice of words allows the media to work their spin and turn him into an Islamophobic racist and bigot. The sad thing is that voice of the orthodox Muslim community is never heard. Only the voices of the radicals are heard which is why so many Americans are fearful of Islam and think that it is an inherently violent religion.
ReplyDelete