Muslim Decline Causes and Remedies (JR 151)

Muslim Decline Causes and Remedies (JR 151)

Introduction

Myriad problems afflicting Muslims today are of our own making. The combined GDP of a billion plus Muslims living in some 56 sovereign Muslim states is less than that of Japan. Barring a few countries like Malaysia and Turkey, most Muslim states are underdeveloped.

Pakistan has seven million children who do not go to schools, including 2.3 million between the ages of five to nine. Not a single university in the whole Islamic world remotely approaches the stature of European or American universities.

There was a time when Islamic civilization was considered to be the most advanced, tolerant, highly developed and progressive civilizations in the world. This was mainly because of their accomplishments in practically all disciplines of knowledge. The situation changed radically after the 16th century AD Learning and inquiry was no more the motto of the Muslims with the result that today they occupy the lowest position in the ladder of the global world. They are educationally backward, scientifically marginal, politically insignificant and economically poor. This is the present status of the entire Ummah amongst the comity of nations.

Muslim Decline (middle 13 ^th. to middle 19 ^th. centuries), Causes

The second decline of the Muslim world, its Dark Age, dates roughly from the beginning of the twelfth/eighteenth century to the middle of the thirteenth/ nineteenth century. With the exception of Indonesia where decadence started earlier, all the Muslim countries witnessed a terrible decline not only in their political status but also in their intellectual and cultural life soon after the awakening of Europe from a long slumber, an awakening which was the result of her intellectual, scientific, and philosophical movements.

While the Ottomans lost their glory after Sulaiman the Magnificent, the Safawids after Shah `Abbas the Great, and the Mughuls in India after Aurangzib, the European nations went from strength to strength, acquiring more and more territories and trade centers from the Muslim rulers, defeating them on land and sea, and finally pronouncing the Muslim empires to be suffering from incurable diseases.

 Causes of Decline

A. Political Causes of the Catastrophic Decline

1. Turkey

Sulaiman the Magnificent (6 November 1494 – 6 September 1566 ) was the last and the greatest of the first ten Ottoman Sultans who together in a period of three centuries raised Turkey from nothing to one of the most dreaded and powerful empires of the world. But climax was followed by decline, so we find signs of decadence appearing in the later part of Sulaiman's reign. According to Kotchi Bey, a Turkish historian, the decline or at least the signs of decline are visible towards the end of Sulaiman's reign can be attributed to the following causes:

1.      Sulaiman did not participate regularly in the deliberations of the Council of State but listened to the discussions only from behind a veil. His successors dispensed even with this formality. The result was that the king, instead of profiting from the mature and seasoned advice of the councilors, acted arbitrarily or was in most cases swayed by the opinion of his harem and the prejudiced views of flatterers and fortune-seekers.

2.      Sulaiman would appoint men to offices of trust and responsibility without their having them pass through the grades of lower offices, e.g., Ibrahim was promoted from the post of Master of the Pages to that of Grand Vizier. The criterion of appointments to high offices of the State was friendship, flattery, and the recommendation of the harem and not merit, experience, or intelligence. Sulaiman permitted his favorite viziers to amass wealth. Rustam Pasha, a son-in-law of Sulaiman, remained Grand Vizier for fifteen years. He was skilled, in the art of filling the Government treasury through exactions of large amounts of money from persons appointed to State offices.

3.      These exactions fixed during Sulaiman's own time became arbitrary and exorbitant later in the hands of his successors, so much so that the office of tax-collector went to the highest bidder. State officials whether high or low tried their utmost to amass as much wealth as possible by fair or foul means.

4.      This tendency to grow richer and richer through corruption, nepotism, and exploitation, though immediately beneficial, often led the officials concerned into troubles. The bare fact that an officer was enormously rich was a sufficient proof of his being dishonest and corrupt, and, therefore, a sufficient ground for his being exposed to condemnation. Many rich officers lost their lives on charges of corruption, and their property was confiscated by the Government.

The immediate effect of these malpractices was not great, but in course of time, especially when the Turkish Empire fell on evil days, they assumed enormous importance and became potent causes for its downfall.

A brief mention may be made of the Janissaries who revolted against Sulaiman the Magnificent when he withdrew from Vienna in 936/1529 realizing the futility of his campaign. The Janissaries were a military force recruited from the Christian youth. They came into being during the reign of Murad I (760/1359-790/1389). They not only proved a weapon of rare strength in wars against the enemies of the Ottoman Empire, but also, because of their loyalty and devotion, helped the Sultans in keeping turbulent forces under control.

The Janissaries were a useful instrument in the hands of strong Sultans, but in the times of degenerate Sultans they became a kind of Praetorian Guard, dictating the deposition of Sultans and the nomination of their successors. In the eleventh/seventeenth and the twelfth/eighteenth centuries, they became a menace to the State and were given short shrift by Mahmud II in 1242/1826.

Another important event which took place during the reign of Sulaiman the Magnificent was his granting of preferential treatment to France in matters of trade and commerce, and also his allowing her to establish consular courts and exercise judicial rights over the French subjects in the Ottoman Empire. This was done to counteract, through alliance with France, the power of the Holy Roman Empire in South-East Europe. After Sulaiman, when the Sultans lost their prestige, other Christian powers demanded the same political and commercial concessions as were accorded to the French and obtained them as a matter of fact.

This proved very dangerous. It not only led the foreign Christian powers to foment troubles on the plea that discrimination was practiced against the Christians but it also made the Christian subjects look to anti-Ottoman powers for help and survival. The loyalty of the Christian subjects thus became divided; indeed, their loyalty to outside powers exceeded their loyalty to the Ottoman Sultans. To every subsequent reform that the young Turks aimed at, "capitulations" served as a major handicap.

It was not possible to weld the Christians into the body politic, so they were jealous of their separate entity. Their separatist feelings were fanned partly by the agents of foreign Christian powers and partly by the mishandling of the situation by the unintelligent and unimaginative Sultans of the later period.

The Sultans who succeeded Sulaiman possessed neither the imagination nor the political acumen necessary to keep a vast empire intact. They frittered away their energies in petty squabbles, meaningless intrigues, and frivolous avocations. Little did they realize that in an age of technology and science their old weapons would prove worse than useless. Their defeat in 1094/1683 sealed their fate in Europe. But for the mutual bickering of the European powers, the Ottoman Empire could not have maintained its frontiers for any length of time. Then there was the growth of Western imperialism and also the emergence of Russia as a strong centralized State, both of which turned the scales against the Turks.

In the twelfth/eighteenth century the Muslim empires all over the world began to show signs of weakness and decay. This synchronized with the rapid strides of the European powers in technology and industry. These powers had developed superior naval military equipment as well as war strategy. The Muslim powers, quarrelling as they were among themselves, sought for the latest weapons from the Europeans who found thus a splendid chance to enter into the complexities of Oriental political intrigues and turn them to their advantage.

They meddled in the affairs of the Mughul Empire in India, the Mamluk rulers of Egypt, the Safawid monarchs of Persia, and, last but not least, the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire. The interfering powers were the English, the French, the German, the Dutch, the Spaniards, the Portu­guese, and the Russians. This will show that practically every European power, impelled by her superior technical skill and actuated by commercial and imperialistic ambitions, set out to bring under their dominance as much of the Muslim world as they possibly could. The Muslim powers were no match for them.

During this period, the Turks made several attempts to reform the army and the administration of the Ottoman Empire. These reforms go by the name of tanzimat. They were undertaken to save the Empire which had been enfeebled externally and internally, but for one reason or another they all failed. After the Crimean War, the Turkish Empire continued to decline so much so that it came to be known as the "sick man of Europe"-a sick man whose days were numbered.

The question then is, why did Turkey suffer so miserably that her condition was declared to be incurable, not only by her foes but also by her friends? Many causes have been pointed out in answer to this question. It is said that the in-conclusive wars between the Ottoman and Persian Empires during the tenth/sixteenth to twelfth/eighteenth century weakened and exposed them both to European commercial penetration; that the Ottoman principles of adminis­tration were actuated by a desire for the well-being not of the State but of the sovereign; that the tenure of the Pashas was very short and that their high office could be purchased by bribery; and that the authority of the Sultans was weakening as the brief noontide of the Ottoman Empire passed.

It is also alleged that the Ottomans had been in Europe for over two hundred years-an extremely long time for an Oriental dynasty to retain its aggressive­ness. Moreover, the tactics which had sufficed against the lions of Hungary had become hopelessly antiquated by the middle of the eleventh/seventeenth century. Coupled with these causes was the degeneracy of the Sultans. The supreme power of the State had fallen into the hands of the viziers or those of the harem-the centers of intrigues and corruption.

More explicitly, the allegation is that it was neither the Sultan who governed, nor the viziers who administered; the power was actually in the hands of necromancers and purchased slave-girls. Moreover, there were outrageous taxes and general corruption in the army, in which promotions were likewise made through bribery and not on merit.

Even after all this has been admitted, it remains a fact that the explanation in terms of external and internal factors would be incomplete unless one keeps in view the machinations of foreign powers which finally destroyed the Empire. "It was not corruption, not misgovernment, not inefficiency-that spelt the ruin of the Ottoman Empire. These things had always been present, but the Empire had remained. What destroyed it in the end was the pressure of European ambitions.... The Ottoman Empire died of Europe. "

2. Persia

Two powers, the Uzbeks (Uzbegs) in Turkestan and the Safawids in Iran, arose after the break-up of the Timurid power. It was at the hands of Shaibani Khan, the first ruler of the Uzbeks, that Babur, the founder of Mughul dynasty in India, suffered defeat. Because of his discomfiture, Babur turned his attention to India and laid the foundation of an empire which lasted till 1274/1857.

The Safawids began as leaders of a Shi'ite dervish-order in Azharbaijan and turned to politics after the collapse of the Timurid Empire when every chieftain took advantage of the chaotic conditions and tried to establish himself. In 904/1499 their leader Isma'il proclaimed himself the leader of all Shi'ites, and three years later he took the title of Shah. To the Safawids belongs the credit of making Persia a nation once again. The rise of the Safawid dynasty marks the restoration of the Persian Empire and the recreation of Persian nationality.

The Safawid State reached its peak during the reign of Shah 'Abbas the Great. With a few exceptions, the successors of Shah 'Abbas were a band of incompetent persons who reveled in atrocities, and exhibited utter indifference to serious matters of the State. The major cause of the misfortune of the Persians is associated with the interference of the Europeans in the internal affairs of Muslim countries on one pretext or another.

The Napoleonic invasion of Egypt in 1213/1798 marks the beginning of modern history in Iran. Napo­leon's plan to reach India through Iran was taken seriously by the English. Hence they advanced from the east. With Russia on the north and the English on the east Persia was virtually encircled. It was only on the Turkish side that her frontiers remained undisputed. Due to encirclement, Persia could do nothing but promote the cause of Britain and Russia in turn.

Many wars were fought between Persia and Afghanistan at the instance of Britain or Russia. Both these powers, however, extended their sphere of influence to consolidate and protect their respective interests. There was nothing to choose between the Russians and the British; both vied with each other in the matter of exploitation and territorial aggrandizement.

The intrigues of the West in Iran should not be made a ground for putting the responsibility of Iranian decline on the shoulders of the West alone. The Iranians themselves were mainly responsible for it. If one's own house is in disorder, one should not blame others for making capital out of it. In a country where political cohesion is lacking, where there is intellectual stagnation, religious intolerance, despotism, and authoritarianism, and where there is sloth, apathy, and indifference, it would not be surprising if it sinks. During this period Iran did not produce a single thinker of repute in any branch of knowledge. With the exception of a few poets, prose-writers, and historians there was no person worth mentioning.

3. India

The third great Muslim empire, i.e., that of the Mughuls in India, was at its zenith during the times of Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzib. After Aurangzib, who died in 1119/1707, there was a rapid decline. The causes of the decline of the Mughul Empire were many. The Ottoman Empire reached its peak during the regime of Sulaiman the Magnifi­cent, the Safawids' in the reign of Shah 'Abbas the Great, and the Mughul Empire in the time of Aurangzib. As Sulaiman the Magnificent and Shah 'Abbas the Great were followed by a long line of incompetent successors, so was Aurangzib.

In the authoritarian type of society, if kingship becomes hereditary, it is inevitable that many kings should be found with little or no initiative. And once rot sets in, it is very difficult to check it. In Muslim Empires one weakling was followed by another and that by still another and thus what had been achieved by the personal valor of a few great per­sons disappeared in no time. All the successors of Aurangzib, without exception, were persons of low worth. They reveled in sensuous pleasures neglecting the onerous duties of the State. Instead of remedying the evils that had crept into the Mughul body politic, they kept themselves busy in luxuries and petty intrigues. The Mughul nobility was in no better condition. They were also corrupted by a life of affluence, ease, and indolence. Along with the Mogul nobility, the army also deteriorated.

The foreign powers were quick to perceive the incapacity and rottenness of the Mughul army and also of the persons who presided over the destiny of the Mughul Empire. In 1152/1739, Nadir Shah invaded India. By his orders not only were the inhabitants of Delhi massacred but also the entire wealth of the Mughuls was taken away. Nadir's invasion left the Mughul Empire "bleeding and pros­trate." And then it was given no time to recuperate as Nadir Shah's invasion was followed by a wave of invasions conducted by an Afghan chief of the Abdali clan, known as Ahmad Shah Abdali.

From 1161/1748 to 1181/1767, Ahmad Shah led several expeditions and inflicted a series of defeats on the Mughuls, leaving them, after each invasion, very much weaker than before. His invasions not only broke the back of the Mughul army, but also left the country financially crippled. Like Nadir Shah he took away everything he could lay his hands on, leaving the country destitute. These invasions hastened the dismemberment of the tottering Empire.

During the reign of Aurangzib, Hindus had started raising their heads here and there, taking advantage of the unwieldiness of the Empire and the long absence of the monarch from the capital. They were also dreaming of reviving their past by establishing a Hindu Empire like that of Asoka or Harsha. Hence the Rajputs, the Satnamis, the Bundels, the Sikhs, and the Jats of Mathura revolted against Aurangzib and kept him busy till his end. After his death the turbulent elements grew stronger. A few new Muslim States-the 'Deccan, Oudh, and the Bengal Subah-which were practically independent of the titular Delhi Emperor, though outwardly avowing allegiance to his nominal authority, also arose and added to this confusion.

Neither the Muslims nor the Hindus were destined to build lasting king­doms on the ruins of the Mughul Empire. The nation which ultimately succeeded to found a mighty empire greater than any which India had witnessed hitherto entered the portals of India in the guise of traders, seeking commercial privileges and concessions. Having secured a foothold, they began interfering in the internal affairs of the State in one pretext or another. Ultimately, because of their cleverness, superior military strategy, and latest war materials, they wiped off all the forces contending for supremacy on the Indian soil and became the undisputed masters of the sub-continent for one century and a half.

These were the British who, acting on the maxim "flag follows trade," took advantage of the military weakness, intellectual stagnation, and mutual differences of the rulers, both Hindu and Muslim. True, there were other European powers like the Dutch, the Portuguese, and the French fighting for supremacy, but none of them succeeded against British diplomacy and naval strength and also perhaps against the Britons' superior knowledge of the Eastern mind.

The British, like the Dutch in Indonesia, and like themselves and the Russians in Persia and the Ottoman dominions, played off one ruling power in India against another till these were exhausted and the British became the masters of the land. The War of Independence in 1273/1857 was the last effort on the part of the masses to throw off the foreign yoke.

But it failed miserably and, on the charge of engineering the revolt, the last Mughul ruler was exiled by the British to Rangoon where he died in extreme penury. That sounded the death-knell of the great Mughul Empire. After the War of In­dependence the Indian Muslims were almost dead politically, intellectually, and socially. It was the darkest period for the Muslims of India.

As it always happens when a great culture is at its zenith, the symptoms of its decline begin to reappear, even so it is during its darkest periods that the faint rays of light appear, unless its spark of life is dead and it is destined to speedy extinction. This period of decadence was not a period of unmitigated gloom. One good thing that happened was the development of the Urdu language--a mixture of Persian, Arabic, Hindi, and Sanskrit words, but altogether a new language with infinite capacity to develop and to expand. Another good thing was the birth of Shah Wali Allah whose teachings and contributions to the culture and thought of the Indian Muslims will be found in another chapter of this work.

4. Indonesia

Among the causes which led to the break-up of the Muslim rule in Indonesia the most important was the intrusion of the foreign powers, the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the English, and the Dutch. The first to arrive in the country were the Portuguese, who at the end of the middle ages had built up a formidable naval power and had gained valuable ex­perience of sea-warfare through a long series of exploration and piratical adventures. They were, moreover, charged with a strong crusading spirit which impelled them to destroy Islam.2

To the religious motive was added, in course of time, an intense economic urge to wrest the trade monopoly from the Arabs. "Happily it was possible to serve God and Mammon at the same time, for by striking at Arab trade in the Indian Ocean, Portugal aimed a blow at the Ottoman Empire, which drew the major part of its revenue from the spice monopoly."

Because of their superior war strategy, the Portuguese, notwithstanding the opposition of the Arabs and other Muslim traders, could expand their power and influence in no time. Their first viceroy, Francis de Almeida, had no desire to extend his sphere of influence beyond the Malabar Coast and was anxious to remain contented with the commercial gains of that area. His successor, Don Affonso Albuquerque, however, realized that, in order to increase revenue resources to maintain the growing power of the Portuguese, and also to curb the maritime  activities of the Muslim traders, who could collect the produce of the Spice Islands, Bengal, Siam, and China from Malacca, it was necessary that the policy of his predecessor should be given up. Accordingly he invaded Malacca on July 1, 1511, under his expansionist program. In the opinion of Crawford, his main motive was to spread Christianity  and to crush the growing power of Islam through the extension of the Portuguese power and blockading of the Muslims' economic resources.

It was during the tenure of Don Affonso Albuquerque that Francis Xavier, a Portuguese Christian evangelist of outstanding merit and ability, was invited to Malacca in 952/1545 with the express object of spreading Christianity among the natives. Francis Xavier was well known for his proselytizing activity, which was financially and militarily backed by the Portuguese Government. If the Europeans of those days acted on the principle that the flag followed the trade, they also realized that the perpetuation or stabiliza­tion of their imperialistic and colonial program required a vigorous policy of conversions to their faith.

The primary object of Portuguese infiltration in these islands was indeed commercial exploitation, but to this purpose nothing was more helpful than the creation of a solid block among the natives who, because of their religious affinities, would support the foreign government in all matters. As a result of Francis Xavier's missionary efforts, the Portuguese language, culture, and religion came to the notice of the Indonesians. The Portuguese sphere of influence increased and a few nature-worshippers renounc­ed their tribal religion and embraced Christianity. On the whole, the Christian missionary program met a grand failure in Malacca and elsewhere, for nowhere could Christianity supplant Islam. The Spice Islands had been con­verted to Islam and no amount of coercion or persuasion could lead the inhabitants away from it. .

After their conquest, the Portuguese promulgated laws to crush the commercial activities of Muslim and Indian traders. In this mission Albuquerque had the support of an exiled Muslim Jaja Utimutis and a non-Muslim officer, Ninachetuen. A reign of terror started in Malacca. All anti-Portuguese activities were put down with a strong hand.

The Portuguese exploited the internal differences and the mutual jealousies of the native rulers. Ambassadors came to Malacca from the Sultans of Siam, Annam, Java, and Sumatra to seek the goodwill of the Portuguese and to obtain from them modern weapons of warfare which they could use against their rivals. All this helped the Portuguese to establish themselves firmly on the Indonesian soil. Military alliance with some of the important rulers of the islands encouraged Albuquerque to dispatch his fleet to weaker and less organized islands.

It was not difficult for the Portuguese to subjugate small principalities scattered here and there over the islands, for where their military strategy failed, their political diplomacy succeeded. The annals of the Spice Islands are replete with tales of Portuguese atrocities, horror, and deceit. Sir Hugue Clifford describes the Portuguese as swarming into Asia in a spirit of brigandage. Their cruel and capricious behavior was stimulated by their crusading zeal.

The Spaniards were the second foreign power to exploit the Indonesians; they were drawn towards these islands by the enormous profits which the Portuguese had made out of their monopoly of the spices. Thus, war ensued between the two, which continued for three years. In 936/1529, a treaty was concluded between the contending powers, according to which both Spaniards and Portuguese could rule over different parts of Malacca. Till 937/1530, the Spaniards and the Portuguese were the only two foreign powers contending for supremacy in political domination and commercial exploitation of the Indonesians. They were helped in their designs by the internal differences and mutual jealousies of the ruling chiefs who frequently sought the help of the foreigners to overthrow their rivals.

As in India the English took advantage of the mutual quarrels of the rajahs of the Deccan and Karnatak, so did the Portuguese and the Spaniards exploit the dissensions of the ruling chiefs of Indonesia. Acting on the policy of "divide and rule," the foreign powers conspired to break up the unity of the Muslim Sultans of the islands and later used them as an instrument in the furtherance of their commercial designs. The natives were struck by the superior strategy and war technology of the foreigners and curried favor with them to obtain their expert advice and the latest war instruments.

Despite their agreement on their respective sphere of influence in the island of Malacca, the Portuguese and the Spaniards could not desist from waging war against each other. Finally, the Spaniards suffered reverses and were expelled from the Spice Islands in 947/1540. For forty-five years after the expulsion of the Spaniards the Portuguese ruled over the Islands. Their death ­knell was sounded by the arrival of the Dutch in 1003/1595. Thus, the third foreign power which was destined to rule over Indonesia for about four hundred years, that is from June 2, 1595, to December 27, 1949-a period of colonialism longer than that vouchsafed to any power so far-was the Dutch.

The Dutch could claim superior war technology and also better war strategy in their struggle against the local potentates, but what helped those most was disintegration prevailing in Indonesia in the eleventh/seventeenth and twelfth/eighteenth centuries and even earlier. The rulers were weakened by internecine wars and were often compelled to contract disadvantageous pacts of military and commercial nature to obtain the latest military weapons from the Dutch and secure their support and blessings in their own designs.

The harmful nature of these pacts can be gauged from the fact that in about a hundred years, that is to say, between 1088/1677 and 1191/1777, the whole of Java lay at the feet of the intruders and what was worse its "merchants and ship­builders lost their occupations and the fisheries and forests were no longer profitable. The Javanese became a people of cultivators and the economic content of their social life was stunted."

The Dutch introduced a system of indirect administration through which they utilized the native aristocracy for the furtherance of their own designs.

The decadent elements of the Indonesian society were supported by the arms of the Dutch so long as they helped them in the commercial exploitation of the populace, that is to say, so long as they deposited in the Dutch coffers whatever amount the Dutch wanted from the different sections of the society. The result was appalling. While the utterly rotten aristocracy acquired great powers with regard to the populace, it degenerated into a pliable tool in the hands of the Dutch and lost its independence.

Before the arrival of the Dutch, the Chinese had their trading concerns in Java, though much limited in scope. The Dutch looked on them with a favorable eye, as it was felt by them that there were no people in the world that served them better than the Chinese; too many of them could not be brought to Batavia.

Consequently, the Chinese were increasingly absorbed in the country's economy. Not only did they retain imports as originally planned but they also took part in the exports of the Dutch East India Company. Because of the privileges and powers which the Chinese enjoyed, their relations with the natives resembled those of the appointed aristocrats.

At the beginning of the twelfth/eighteenth century the Company stood at the zenith of its power. But it collapsed in 1213/1798 and the Indonesian territory was placed under the direct authority of the Dutch Government. The aristocratic members of the Indonesian society, however, continued to occupy the topmost positions. To strengthen their positions, the offices which they held were made hereditary, and they were allowed to retain a certain percentage of the crop collected from the natives.

The aristocratic nominee of the Dutch Government was answerable to the Dutch officer above him and not to the peasantry whom he kept under strict bondage. The peasants were required not only to pay fixed land-tax, but also to sow crops needed by the Government and to put in labor to the amount desired by his foreign and local bosses. The result of this tyrannous system was that Indonesia was often visited by widespread famines which took a heavy toll of human and animal life.

As the entire trade was in the hands of the Dutch and the Chinese, the Indonesians could acquire neither trading experience nor contact with the market economy. In the words of Van der Kolff, the cultivation system "caused a gap between the producer and the market whereby there was no knowledge of the market, no outlet for enterprise, and no possibility of develop­ing a native trading class."

Moreover, the Dutch-Chinese monopolists fleeced the peasant to such a degree that it killed all his creative qualities and initiative as a farmer. The taxes were so heavy that the peasant was forced to borrow money from the Chinese, the only source of credit, who lent money at ex­orbitant rates of interest. The peasant could pay back the money in kind only; consequently, he was forced to sow the crop acceptable to the creditor and to sell the same at the rate fixed by him.

The Dutch paid no attention to the education of the native inhabitants of the colonies except that they allowed a few families to benefit from learning. According to governmental records, public primary schools were instituted in 1266/1850. There were no secondary schools. No library worth the name was to be found in Indonesia before 1235/1819. Officially, a library with about 20,000 books came into existence in 1262/1846, but no native was allowed to enter its precincts till 1313/1895. It contained Dutch books mostly. The number of Arabic books was negligible.

Politically and intellectually, the Muslim civilization could not sink lower than it did in Indonesia by the middle of the thirteenth/nineteenth century.

B. Non-Political Causes

Several non-political causes can be assigned to the general decay of the Muslim society during the period under review. As these causes operate in all parts of the Muslim world with varying degrees of intensity, it would be better to discuss them all at one place. The political fall of the Muslims was conditioned by factors both external and internal.

As the external factors were almost in all cases due to the interference of the Europeans, so the internal factors were in almost all cases due to the intellectual, moral, and spiritual bankruptcy of the Muslims themselves. Thus, primarily the Muslims themselves were responsible for their decadence. The machinations of the imperial­istic nations were helped, or shall we say abetted, by the inefficiency of Muslim rulers and the colossal ignorance of the masses.

So long as the Muslims were in the vanguard of knowledge, they led the civilized world in culture, science, and philosophy. But as soon as they lost interest in free and independent inquiry, they ceased to exist as a dynamic force. Not only in Indonesia which was ruled and exploited by a colonial power for a long time, but also in Persia, Turkey, and India where the semblance of Muslim power existed for some time, one finds absence of interest in scientific pursuit or genuine philosophical quest.

No one can deny the great urge for inductive study that existed among the Muslims in the first few centuries of their era. Nor can one deny the priceless contributions of the Muslims to the world of scientific and cultural thought. Islam can boast of its splendid thinkers in every discipline and in every department of human life. There are great names in the field of physics, medicine, geography, mathematics, astronomy, history, and linguistics-to mention only a few out of the several branches of human knowledge wherein the Muslims scored triumph by virtue of their painstaking study and inductive methods of investigation.

But it is surprising as well as regrettable to note that not a single scientist of any repute existed in the entire Muslim world from the beginning of the twelfth/eighteenth century to the middle of the thirteenth/nineteenth century. On the other hand, what one finds in this period is a condemnation of the modern scientific knowledge because of its supposedly anti-religious tendencies.

While the Muslims gloried in the achievements of the past, they neglected the new weapons of inquiry which the West had discovered with the progress of science and technology. The result was a terrible catastrophe. Whereas the other nations progressed, imbued as they were with modern spirit of inquiry, the Muslims frittered away their energies in fruitless controversies of a theological and trans-empirical nature. Instead of imbibing the results of modern science and conducting inductive inquiries, what they did was to question the compatibility of modern knowledge with their mistaken views of religion and to pooh-pooh it because of its materialistic import.

None really understood the meaning of materialism or for that matter the meaning of spiritualism. What was done, however, was that a dichotomy was created between the two and in all discussions spiritualism was overweighed, and materialism run down with all the force that ignorance could muster.

Since the Muslims in the four countries mentioned above lacked the capacity to cope with the demands of the modern scientific world, they regressed as it were to the past and took refuge in the long exploded myths and dreams­ which were very good for the time for which these were conceived and nurtured but quite out of date in the modern world. Little did they realize that a passionate clinging to the past is an indication of mental morbidity which leads eventually to death and destruction.  As individuals regress or get fixated under the stress of life, so do nations. When the realities of life are hard and unpalatable, decadent communities like neurotic individuals take refuge in the past and find solace in their earlier achievements.

Generally speaking, the Muslims of this period evinced no knowledge of that great principle of movement in the social structure of Islam, technically called ijtihad. This principle has been variously interpreted by jurists, but all seem to agree, despite their differences, that a reinterpretation of the Qur'anic injunctions for legalistic and extra-legalistic needs of a society is not at all forbidden by Islam. On the other band, there are ahadith of the Prophet which strongly commend the exercise of independent and free inquiry in the domain of jurisprudence and the enactment of laws for the welfare of the community.

No doubt, there are differences among the jurists as regards the nature and scope of ijtihad. But the existence of this principle and its operation in the early stages of Muslim society is a clear proof of the fact that Islam never accepted a static view of human society. The present is never a replica of the past, nor is future a copy of the present. If exact duplica­tion and identity is abhorred by the course of historical events, how can socio-political enactments of one age apply in totality to the socio-political re­quirements of another age?

The Muslims of all the four countries under review preferred to rest on their oars and blindly accepted the interpretations of the past. Acceptance of freedom is not an easy task; it involves great dangers as Eric Fromm has amply shown. The human mind flees from freedom, especially if it entails fresh responsibilities and new ventures in the domain of thought. The Muslims miserably lacked the courage to think for themselves and consequently flew to the past for shelter. But the inevitable result of mental procrastination was the creation of a society extremely rigid and immobile in outlook and intellectual framework.

Blind imitation of the past became the hallmark of the Muslims. The verdicts of Imams and jurists were accepted more in letter than in spirit. While the jurists and other religious thinkers never claimed infallibility or finality for their legal and theological decisions, the Muslims thought that the last word had been said on the subject and that amendment or departure amounted to sacrilege. The early thinkers interpreted and applied the tenets of Islam according to the needs and requirements of their time. But to suppose, as the Muslims did, that their solutions were true for all times indicated incapacity to think afresh in accordance with the changing needs of society.

Not only were the early jurists quoted in support of legal and social pro­nouncements, but also the sayings of the Prophet, quite a good many of which lacked authenticity. No one can deny the relevance of Hadith, provided its authenticity is guaranteed by unimpeachable evidence and criteria of sound historical criticism. Some ahadith do certainly meet these requirements, but not all.

Unfortunately, the religious divines of this period were not mentally equipped to sift the fabricated and cooked ahadith from the genuine ones. Hence all sorts of ahadith were dug up to lend authority and weight to what­ ever the divines wanted. As most of them had no acquaintance with old or contemporary scholarship, they relied on cheap commentaries and second ­rate catechism. In this way what passed for authority was not the Qur'an or Hadith or the decisions of jurists, but the presentation of them by ignorant and bigoted persons.

As a result of reactionary tendencies, reason became the target of attack and even an object of ridicule. It was contended that reason was foreign to religious truths and led only to their distortion and misrepresentation. Consequently, all domains of knowledge were given scant attention and their findings were not properly appreciated. Science was discredited on the plea that it led to materialism, and philosophy was opposed as intellect was debarred from entering the portals of divine knowledge. Science and philosophy con­demned, what remained was a fairy tale, very comforting to the ignoramus but extremely injurious to the nation as a whole.

The Muslim mind continued to be fed, for a century and a half, on fiction and myths. The result can be well imagined. Not only was there a dearth of scientific thinking in this period but also an absence of genuine philosophical activity. In the heyday of Islam there existed thinkers of great repute; they built their philosophies on the teachings of the ancients but they also made splendid contributions of their own to the storehouse of human knowledge. The States created the proper atmosphere for intellectual pursuits.

Throughout the length and breadth of the Islamic world as it existed during the period under review, one misses freshness and originality of thought. Philosophy requires a soil and a climate to grow and develop and where the conditions of a society are such that neither the proper soil nor the appropriate climate is available; it is hard to find any activity which can be characterized as critical or intellectual.

Another force which worked negatively for the Muslims was mysticism. There is nothing basically wrong with mysticism as such. Every great religion has a mystic strain and so has every great philosophy, for mysticism is the assertion of a trans-empirical reality which is one and ineffable, bears resem­blance to the human self, and can be realized through intuition and self-abnega­tion.

Mysticism records its strong protest against the intellectualization of philosophy. It maintains that the Ultimate Reality, union with which is sought by the mystics in their moment of contemplation, is attainable not through the exercise of ratiocinative processes or logico-mathematical techniques but through the operation of intuitive faculty which enables one to see face to face.

As the preceding chapters have amply shown, among the Muslims there had been great mystics who delved deep into the realm of the spirit and had moments of great insight. They enriched the literature of mysticism by their valuable experiences and observations. In the Dark Age, however, with which we are concerned here, mysticism ceased to exist as a live force and, instead, degenerated into a mode of escape from the hard facts of life. According to Karl Mannheim, absorption in transcendental problems is a characteristic of decadent and retrogressive societies.

Instead of grappling with problems that face them, they retreat to the world of transcendence and waste their time in discussing vague and nebulous questions. All mystics in Islam, however, were not escapists. Some of them, at least, indeed the very best of them, did realize the urgency and the imperativeness of the problems facing the society of their time.

But to a large majority of mystics, unfortunately, interest in worldly affairs was of secondary importance; what interested them primarily was their preoccupation with the external form of mystical practices. They decried the ordinary criteria of knowledge, much as the ignorant mullas did. The mystics of earlier periods had described the mystic state as the direct experience of Reality, but now the so-called mystics even preached that ignorance was an advantage in the pursuit of holiness. The cumulative effect of this doctrine was that the masses lost their faith in the exercise of reason and regarded it as a Satanic force leading to heresy and atheism.

But the baneful effect of the degenerate type of mysticism was not confined simply to the indictment of intellectual inquiry. It had far-reaching con­sequences, for as Iqbal says, "The emphasis that it laid on the distinction of zahir and batin (appearance and reality) created an attitude of indifference to all that applies to Appearance and not to Reality." is The spirit of total other worldliness, Iqbal observes further, "obscured men's vision of a very important aspect of Islam as a social policy."

A one-sided concern with transcendentalism indicates, according to psychoanalysts, a state of mental infantilism. In so far as the path generally adopted by the so-called mystics of this dark period and their followers ceased to be that of deep contemplation of or of wrestling with problems through scientific understanding and experimental control, it was at best the path of least resistance; it de­generated into a path of controlling supernatural agencies through the recita­tion of certain liturgical formulas or by wearing certain amulets and practicing certain charms.

As the percentage of literacy became appallingly low in the Muslim world, the credulous masses troubled by want and privations could be easily deluded into thinking that the recitation of certain words could rid them instantaneously of all their ills. These short-cuts were offered by the Sufis to the disciples who avowed solemn faith in them. In nearly all Muslim countries there arose a long line of hereditary pirs who claimed direct and immediate contact with eternal verities and professed to ensure the spiritual uplift of their votaries provided they had unshakable faith in them.

Thus, along with unquestioning obedience to the divine Law as embodied in the Qur'an and the Sunnah, there arose the need for implicit faith in the spiritual leadership of the pir one chose for oneself. Thus the simple folks were saddled with an authority more terrible and tyrannous in nature than that of the traditions of a degenerate society.

Mystic ideas were transmitted to the disciples only after having induced in their minds a high state of receptivity. What was thus accepted under stress of emotions took firm roots in their souls and could not be dislodged by any amount of logic or re-education. Consequently, there arose among the masses a cult of saint-worship. The unwary and credulous people did obeisance to the pirs as if they were the incarnations of God on earth.

Offerings were made to them in all sincerity; they were required by the disciples to get their desires granted, to ensure their salvation, and to secure their union with God. The practice of saint-worship soon developed into the habit of shrine-worship. Annual pilgrimages to the shrines of saints became the occasions to celebrate their death anniversaries as national fairs. The saints would be haloed in mists of lore and legend, and the oft-told tales of their marvels were bathed in glory of their spiritual effulgence. Little wonder if superstition flourished and reason remained an outcast.

Pre-deterministic and fatalistic ideas became an essential part of the creed of the masses. Hence epidemics, floods, famines, and deaths happened at the appointed hours and nothing could be done to avoid them. This tendency was encouraged amongst the Muslims by their appalling ignorance of science and the cheap methods of faith-healing placed at their disposal by the clever pirsand the so-called Sufis. Fatalism flourishes in darkness and there was enough of it to spare in the Dark Age of Islam. The occurrence of an epidemic, poverty, flood, or drought presents a challenge to a scientist's ingenuity and technological skill. To a fatalist nothing comes as a challenge, for he is safely enwrapped in his acquiescence and resignation.

Mysticism not only bred fatalistic tendencies, it also encouraged indifference to social morality. As the pir was supremely concerned with the betterment of his soul, so was his protege. For the spiritual uplift of the soul the cultivation of another-worldly attitude, asceticism, and renunciation came as necessary prescriptions. Self-denial and detachment were deemed the highest virtues.

The prevalence of saint-worship and adherence to the mystic cult left no scope for the development of practical ethics. The masses could be easily aroused to a high pitch of indignation if one uttered a word against a so-called saint, but they would not be stirred if sanitation was neglected or if delinquency prevailed. In this period it was not noticed that for self-realiza­tion the performance of civic duties was as essential as the performance of the spiritual duties. The neglect of social and practical ethics cancelled all programs of humanitarian activity and left the Muslims far behind in the task of social and political reconstruction.

No Muslim country seriously thought of a social welfare prograe for the regeneration of the masses. If anything happened in that direction, it was just by chance and not as a result of some well-planned scheme. The society was left to drift-to sink or to swim as it may. The chances of its sinking exceeded those of swimming, and it actually did sink under the severe demands of life and the world around. The decline was all round. The Muslims lost their empires; the Muslim society went to pieces; science and philosophy disappeared. Even fine arts and minor arts which were the distinguishing features of the second period of revival languished painfully.

The excellent traditions of the early painting were lost; most of the artistic activity confined itself to producing bad copies of the paintings of the early masters. The same degeneration appeared in minor arts. In lite­rature too there was all-round deterioration; traditional poetry encouraged by the princes retained its charm, but created no new forms. The greatest poet in the Indian sub-continent before Ghalib was a weeping poet. Prose became a string of long-drawn-out phrases, cumbersome and involved on the whole.

The Muslims were at the lowest ebb in about 1266/1850. The kings and the nobles took to a life of lewdness and lasciviousness; the masses were ignorant and apathetic; the administration was bureaucratic and autocratic; and what is worse, no attempt was made to appreciate and profit by the scientific and technological developments taking place around them. The West took advantage of the incompetence of the rulers and the hollowness of the Muslim society. They had superior weapons, better ships, more effective techniques, strategy, and diplomacy. In addition, they had qualities of character which the Muslims ceased to possess.

If the strength of a nation is to be measured in terms of the awareness of a challenge and its acceptance, it can be said that during the second decline, the Muslim nations all over the world excelled one another in their lack of understanding of the Western challenge. The West regarded the solidarity and expansion of the Muslim dominions a serious threat to its imperialistic and colonial programme. Hence it was out to throw off the Muslims by whom the challenge was hardly understood. Accordingly, their response was as weak as their understanding of the challenge.

Muslim Decline   (Mid 1960s)

By 1965 Muslims are living all over the globe. There were 220 million Arabs living in 22 countries, ruled by Arabs. 450 Million Muslims were living in 33 non Arab Muslim countries. The term Darul-Islam is applied to these independent Muslim countries. Muslims, who are living under the rule of non Muslims, such as in India, Europe, North America, Russia, and China, are about 330 Millions. This segment of Muslim population is known as Darul-Harb. Then there are Muslims who are refugees, roaming all over the world, numbering about 20 Million and they constitute 80 % of the world’s refugee population. This is called Darul-Muhajireen.  

There was a time when Muslims were the masters of the earth, controller of the destiny, but by then they were on a path of continuous decline. Their Condition was horrible; they were faceing miserable poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, disease and sickness. There was a feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, and frustration among the Muslims. They are just living, for the sake of living, without any sense of direction. Neither the rulers, nor the intellectuals of this nation, have any plan, for this huge mass of suffering humanity.  

Muslims had their own social, economic Judiciary and political system of Khilafat, that was established by Mohammed Rasoolullah and the system was further advanced by Kulfae Rashideen (rightly guided successor). After 40 years, the system of Khilafa was derailed, and changed into Kingship, though the rulers continued to call themselves Khalifas. In order to understand the causes of decline of Muslims, one has to know the fundamentals of Khilafa, as follows: - 

1. The government is established according to the commandments of Quran, with Allah being the supreme and sovereign ruler of the state. Man cannot be the sovereign.

2. All power belongs to the system, not to the Ruler. Khalifa is merely an agency to conduct the affairs of the state,  by the framework given in Quran. When people obey this system, they do not obey any person, they really obey Quran, the word of God.

3. The Khalifa is the central authority, on political as well as religious front. It is his responsibility to meet social, economic and political needs of the people. In Islam the religion and the state cannot be separated.

4. It is the responsibility of the Islamic system, to create the conditions within the state, where equal opportunity is provided for the Psychosocial development of every individual, on the Quranic line. 

CAUSES OF DECLINE OF UMMAH:

A. Political Decentralization: - 

Tauheed is the most essential element of Islam. It does not mean only the oneness of Allah. It also means one nation under one Allah. Mohammed Rasoolullah (pbuh) established the Islamic state according to Quran. He was the head of the state, performing the political and religious duties simultaneously. After his demise, it was the rightly guided Khalifah who followed the footsteps of the Rasool, with single central authority (markaziah). Subsequently the system was changed to the dictatorial system, where power belonged to the individual rulers, not to the system. Now these rulers were not interested in the religious affairs of people, they took control of the foreign affairs, treasury, defense and trade and left rituals of Salat, Saum, Hajj, Zakat, marriage, divorce etc. for the Ulema. So the single centralized authority was divided into political and religious wings. The rulers invented the laws to serve their aims and goals and distanced themselves from the guiding principles of Quran. They did not care for immediate and delayed deleterious effects of decentralization of the Ummah. The Arabs had not yielded power over large areas of land and were therefore unaware of the principles of governing a country and an empire. After the early success the Muslims started borrowing from the conquered civilizations. The art of governance and running an empire was aped from these civilizations. Some of the copied Methods and principles did not find sanction in the Koran and therefore there was serious deviation in teachings of the Koran and methods of governance employed. Some of the conquest in itself were not entirely up to the principles laid down by the Koran .

The aped methods resulted in hereditary kinship and dictatorship. In dictatorship, whosoever gets the power does not want to give it up and likes to pass it on to his descendants. The end result of this phenomenon is struggle for power among the successors, and fragmentation of the elite group. This fragmentation does not stop at the upper-level but trickles down to the commoners, who start supporting one leader against the other. In this way the  united power of the people, required for the defense of the country, gets misdirected against each other. When Ummayya became weak in this way, they were easily eliminated by Abbassids who in turn were decimated by Tatarees. This is the punishment, Muslims received, for sacrificing the Quranic principal of Tauheed. Allama Iqbal expressed it well: -

 There is death for the nations, in detachment from the center,

There is life for the nations, in attachment with the center,

B.  Religious Sectarianism:

The vacuum left by rulers on religious front was filled by Mullah. Majority of them were also insincere to the cause of Islam.  Most were interested in strengthening their power and position. Their power grew parallel to the power of the rulers and they gradually evolved into institutions. The heads of these institutions became so powerful, that their ruling became the last word. They created followers and supporters,  slowly personality worship started. As they say, two of a trade seldom agree; Interpersonal jealousy and struggle for power among the Mullahs, divided one nation into numerous sects. Through these so called Ulema, non Islamic, Greek Philosophy of Tassawwuff and Mysticism was introduced in Islam, that had reduced Muslims next to nothing. Today every Muslim proudly identifies himself with the titles of Sunni, Shia, Ahle-Hadith, Ahle- Fiqah, Ahle-Quran, Hanfi, Shafi, Malki, Hanbli, Dewbandi Brailwi so on and so forth. Sufis have not lagged behind, they too have hundreds of Silsilas. The rulers and Mullah have fragmented one Ummah into so many sects that there is hardly any hope of reunion in the near future.

Further ruler and Mullah have developed a reciprocal symbiotic relationship. Ruler gives a special status to the clergy, tax exempt status, to collect tax free money from people. The clergy on the other hand pays it back to the ruler, by justifying the illegitimate actions of the rulers with their fatwas. They brainwash the people not to react against the rulers, and ask them to accept the status quo. Poor is pacified and put to sleep with the statements like; “will of Allah, destiny fate, reward in life after death, hate for this world of materialism, person who suffers here is the dearest to Allah etc.” The purpose of this is to eliminate the spirit of struggle (Jihad) among the Muslims, so that the field can be left wide open to the infidels. To give a sample, look at the verses of  Mirza Qadyyani, and pay attention to what he is preaching: - 

Now, forget my friends, the thought of Jihad

In our time, for the sake of deen, haram is Jihad,

Now the Masseeh has come, the Imam of Deen

This is the end for all the battles for the Deen,

Now the revelation has come down to say

The fatwa of battle, war and Jihad is nay,

He who calls for jihad, is the enemy of God, now

Believer of jihad, is denier of my prophethood, now

C. Psychological Change in Ummah:

Under the Islamic Khilafah, there is a complete freedom for people to express themselves. As a matter of fact, Islam gives the ultimate freedom because Quran forbids enslaving of the people; even the Rasool does not have the authority to subjugate people. Public is encouraged to surrender to the system not to the Khalifah. In dictatorial system, people do not have freedom to think and speak against the state. If anyone does dare to speak, he just disappears, never to be found. So people become fearful and  unconcerned with affairs of state. As a result of this, people learn hypocrisy, and suffer from fear complex. This is why the nation of 1.2 billion people is facing the crisis of altruistic leadership. Muslims are suffering from sickness of hypocrisy for the same reason. They address each other as brother, but act contrary. For the same reason, Muslim states do not trust each other and are plagued with conflict after conflict, purposely created by outsiders, to keep them tangled in their internal disputes. Both rulers and Mullahs are unconcerned with the future of the nation, as long as they can maintain their respective seats of power. Majority of us do not even react with our tongues, leave alone the constructive action. Is this the practice of Islam? Is this the Muslim brotherhood? According to Quran internal conflicts are the AZABUN-ALEEM (severe punishment). Today Ummah is caught in a vicious cycle of internal division, conflict, and weakness.  

Present Status of Muslim World

Historically, the Muslim Ummah is the best example of a universal community. From the flood in the age of Prophet Nuh (Noah) to our own times, the spread of this Ummah is and has been global. Today, there are some 57 independent Muslim states inhabited by over 900 million people, and over 400 million more Muslims are spread throughout the rest of the world. Consequently, in every part of the world, there is Muslim presence; in most cases, quite a significant one.

Globalization as a political, economic, cultural and technological process is not very new. Throughout history, there have been waves of globalization, the critical vehicles for this process being migration, trade and conquest. What is indeed new in our times, however, is the spread, the scope, the speed, and finally, the structure that is going to imbue the current trend towards global integration with liberalization, deregulation, privatization and the hegemonistic contours of capitalism and American power. These factors combined make the globalization of today, to a great extent, a unique phenomenon. It is in this context that limitations of time and space are being annihilated and the entire world is, willy-nilly, becoming one global city.

The most significant aspects of the contemporary phase relate to revolutions in technologies concerning transport and communication, particularly the processes of instant transfer of information. Swift global interactions and decision-making via new information systems are having far-reaching effects on the whole matrix of worldwide relations, including the movement of goods, services and financial flows. These represent developments with profound consequences, moral, ideological, economic, cultural and political.

In view of the dominant paradigm of power and civilization, America and Europe remain major players in the making of this new world order. American military power and its outreach, political influence, economic strength, command over technology and almost total control over media, bordering on virtual thought-control, have given globalization a distinct Euro-American identity. In the name of promotion of liberalization, privatization, market economy and modernization, the domination of Western norms, value-systems of life, socioeconomic institutions, and finally, political and economic interest is being established over the length and breadth of the world. Along with the state players, three other powerful actors are in the field, which are the multinational corporations, the international NGOs and the media.

There is nothing wrong with globalization per se; however, when the crucial ground realities that comprise the context of globalization are ignored, serious problems arise. A judicious and honest approach by the Muslim leadership towards addressing these realities is a must for affording some relief to the world that is at the suffering end.

The first and the foremost reality of the modern world to be recognized is the fact that there exist gross asymmetries of political power, military strength and levels of technological and economic development in different parts and countries of the world. Foreign rule is nothing new in history. However, European colonial rule, which held sway over a part of the world for more than four centuries, has something unique about it. For the first time ever in human history, during this period, a large-scale physical transfer of resources took place from the colonies to the colonial overlords; the so-called mother countries. Consequently, the erstwhile global balance was destroyed and a new global arrangement appeared which established the authority of the Western hemisphere and marginalized all other regions, cultures and people. During the twentieth century, although the colonization process apparently reversed, Western power gained further grounds because of selective and lopsided development strategies. As a result, today, one finds a strong center-periphery relationship that has been embedded into the global system’s political, economic and technological spheres, and which is primarily responsible for producing serious deformities and inequities.

Let us glance over certain anomalies. Up until the end of the eighteenth century, the per capita income of Europe, America, the Muslim World and the rest of the Third World was within a differential of 1: 2; in certain parts of the world, it was in favor of the Muslim World. From the nineteenth century onwards, the trend changed until, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, 87 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) is produced in 22 rich countries, while the rest of the world, consisting of some 170 countries and over four-fifths of mankind, tries to survive on the remaining 13 percent. In 1800, Europe’s share in the world’s manufacturing output was hardly 28.1 percent; America’s, less than one percent; while that of the rest of the world; the so-called Third World of today was almost 67.7 percent. Notably, the share of the Muslim World was roughly around 40 percent of the world GDP. This sea change has totally distorted the balance of power in the world and created a situation where liberalization and globalization only accentuates the disparities.

Asymmetric economic wealth is both accompanied and accentuated by asymmetrical political power and military strength. The expenditure of the US alone on its war machinery is equal to the combined defense expenditure of all the other countries of the world. US forces are stationed in some 40 countries of the world with an outreach to every corner of the globe. Technology has reached a state where a target anywhere in the world can be struck from the US Military Command stationed in Florida. Most of the countries of the world are dependent on the US arms systems and supplies for their defense; indeed, the US accounts for 48 percent of the world’s exports of arms and defence systems.

Muslim World is facing a number of challenges in this era of information and globalization. The Muslims, by and large, are not behaving as true representatives of Islam, individually or collectively. Economically, the Muslim World is poor and dependent on the West. Politically, it is divided like nine pins. Culturally, it seems to be in a melting pot. In the field of education, research and technological development, it is far behind the rest of the world. According to a recent study, the total number of books published and translated in the Muslims world is barely equal to the number printed in one, rather less developed, country of Europe, Spain.

The combined GDP of all the 57 Muslim countries of the world is less than five percent of the world GDP, or to put it differently, less than the GDP of one European country, Italy which itself ranks as the fifth or sixth economy in the world. The bulk of Muslim financial resources are in the hands of and under the management of American and European banks and investment and management houses. Muslim countries have developed a consumer economy without a sustainable production base. Despite all of their wealth and resources, almost all the Muslim countries are languishing under foreign and domestic debt, in a few cases, with menacing consequences.

Militarily, the Muslims are not only dependent on the West; they are helplessly caught in its grip. Despite all the expenditure on defense, they have not been able to even face the threat that has been hammering at the doors of the Arab and Muslim World for over 50 years in the form of the “tiny,” yet armed-to-the-teeth entity of Israel.

The state of political freedoms, the level of participation of the people in the economy and the polity, and the equitable sharing of wealth and power within Muslim societies is in very bad shape. And unless they set their houses in order, it is unrealistic to expect that Muslim Ummah can play their rightful role in the current phase of globalization.

The above being the weaknesses of the Ummah today, it should be stated that all is not bad news. There are certain positive developments and there is definitely light beyond the tunnel for the Muslim World.

Islam calls Muslims to a mission, an approach and an effort rooted in the framework and geared to the ideals outlined above. If Muslims are prepared to put their shoulders to this harness, the present is struggle, and future is Islam. But this calls for clear commitment and serious efforts in the right direction.

Current situation in the Middle East  

Looking at the current economic and financial crisis, one finds that it has been produced mainly by internal factors in the global capitalistic milieu. At the root of it are moral problem, wealth aggrandizement, greed, exploitation, and a system in which economy remains controlled and manipulated by a handful of powerful players including investors, speculators, and bankers. Periodically, the balloon becomes unmanageable, with the dominance of global players and particularly the role of the government in the modern capitalist system assuming alarming proportions. That is why on one hand there is now the talk of least government and on the other government becomes the real player to mange and remedy the failures of the capitalist system, and its major institutions that are in disarry. The Middle East and the Muslim World, which make 40 percent of the third world, is at the receiving end.

As far as the Muslim World in general and the Middle East in particular are concerned, they are suffering at least on three counts. First, a huge amount of capital from Muslim countries particularly oil rich Middle East has been invested in Europe and America over the years. The continuous devaluation of dollar has deprived the Middle Eastern investors and savers of almost 40 percent of their total savings and investments. When stock exchange collapses, those who suffer the most are the ones engaged in speculation deals and derivatives.

According to some estimates, around 3 to 4 trillion dollars of the Middle East money is in the western markets. According to some recent reports, total loss during the last 18 months exceeded 9 trillion dollars, which simply means that a large chunk of the valued Middle Eastern assets has been lost as well. Western powers exercise political manipulation and control because of this “soft belly” of the Middle East rulers and the powerful elite.  

The second area of loss is shrinking of the world market. The exports of the third world countries are going down. America is the biggest market, Europe is the second largest. As markets shrink, the impact is naturally going to be adverse, especially because of the wider base of the export commodities. It is then the common man who suffers.

The third dimension, now coming up, is that of the real estate and stock exchange markets. The recent Dubai collapse is a spillover effect of that and it is having a direct effect on the economies and the economic players, businessmen, bankers, and depositors all over the world.

 Now coming to the linkage of global economic crisis with energy, almost 70 percent of the world energy resources, oil and gas, are in the Muslim lands, not only in the Middle East but Central Asia as well. Moreover, the overall political hegemonistic designs, and the economic interests of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, Central Asian states and even in Pakistan are also very important dimensions indeed. For that matter, the United States wants to ensure that production of oil, the quantity explored and the refinement of petroleum products remain within its tight grips. The dependence of the Middle East and the Muslim world on America, Europe and their multinationals is inbuilt in the global capitalist system. Besides, it is also linked with the political wars, political pressures, regime changes, making and unmaking of blocs, which are very much a part of West’s energy politics.

 Furthermore, and rather unfortunately, genuine interests and interests based on exploitation and manipulation are interrelated. As is rightly said, you can not drink oil, you have to sell it. But the questions that remain unanswered are: on what terms; in what quantity; in what form; and at what price? In 1973, the Arab World used oil as a weapon and it proved effective. But after that, the West has changed its strategy in such a manner that this leverage is now marginalized, though not entirely eroded. The greater mishap today is the Muslim leadership’s lack of vision, courage and capacity to use this vital energy leverage. This is why the oil and energy lobby, and the military-industry conglomerates of America and the West are now calling the shots.  Their bankers and investors are real game players. In the prevailing scenario, the Islamic world’s independence is superficial and sham. They have meekly allowed themselves to be manipulated and serve the global hegemonic powers’ interests.

Oil alone is not the critical consideration. The political factors, particularly the Israeli factor is also very important. The energy factor, nonetheless, remains one of the major catalysts. Whether it was Bush Senior’s war in early 1990s or the war of Bush Junior following 9/11, the haste with which they invaded Iraq, which in their strategists own words was an “indecent haste”, and for which they used the ploy of the so-called weapons of mass destruction (WMD), a war that shifted the focus from Afghanistan, it was definitely the energy dimension, which was the major factor. Now, the so-called exit strategy is also moving along with future arrangements for energy control. The recent auctions that have taken place in Iraq, or are in progress, are part of the same game. Energy has become not only an economic but a major political issue. Unless a political strategy is developed, the Middle East and Central Asia would not be able to get the right price for its assets.

As far as the expected role of OPEC is concerned, probably the OPEC countries have lost their teeth. OPEC was a power in 1980s. Its share in world oil began to shrink as new non Arab/non Muslim players in the form of countries from Latin America, Africa, particularly Nigeria, came in. They lacked a focused strategy for sustainable development. In the Middle East, a barrel under the earth is more valuable than a barrel in the pipeline. But the leadership there has failed to realize this crucial truth. They were coaxed and forced to produce as much as the global politico-economic barons desired.

One would have to admit, however, that the West has developed its strategies with a deeper understanding of both economic and political dynamics. For example, America has diversified its import of oil and thus its dependence on Middle East is reduced now to as low as 20 percent, which was 60 percent at one time. The US used to have energy reserves for 15 days, then 30 days, and later increased it to 3 months. Now it is said to be more than 120 days/ 4 months. So it means that even if a country tries to use its leverage, it would not work, because of the safety mechanisms they have developed.  By increasing the supplies, the countries of the Middle East have not only been providing for the West’s day to day requirements but also for building their reserves. This weakened the role of OPEC and its muscle. Then there is division within OPEC countries themselves on production and there have been instances where a few countries agreed for production cuts while one big player decided otherwise. That is how the game was played and now OPEC is no longer the decisive player.

It is interesting to note how the Muslim world has lost its leverage since 1973. Kissinger, who was Secretary of State and Security Advisor to President Nixon, became a pivotal figure in developing an outstanding strategy called recycling. The Kissinger phenomenon reflected the Western mindset that made the West believe that it was paying the Muslim World, especially the Middle East, a high price by giving them dollars in lieu of oil, and if it could get these dollars back, the West would be the sole beneficiary. This was called as recycling. The once advantageous position of the Muslim World was thus reversed and it gave way to a new dependence because instead of using their immense energy resources for developing their own production base, the Arabs and the Muslim World virtually handed them over to America and West. The money thus generated was used by the West for investments, speculation in the form of hedge funds and investment houses – all managed and controlled by the West. That is how the Arabs and Islamic world lost their leverage.

Muslim countries in general and Arab world in particular failed to realize that this big inflow of money could be utilized for building their own capacity instead of developing a life style which is consumption-oriented, wasteful and not sustainable except if one remains dependent on the West and keeps fulfilling their demands. The oil money became an addiction. Instead of managing it for economic sectors and managing it in view of their immediate needs for future prospects, they became prone to a falsely inflated lifestyle, and that was a wrong and disastrous strategy.

Importantly, the use of oil as a weapon depends upon a visionary and courageous leadership – a leadership that is concerned more about the people’s interests instead of selfish personal interests. This is really unfortunate that the post-King Faisal Arab world has failed to have a leader of the same vision and courage. Qaddafi initially resisted, but then surrendered in front of the US pressures, a capitulation that can be called a great tragedy for the Arab world. As things stand today, the entire Middle East leadership has been reduced to the status of tools in the hands of the West and as its proxies. Proxies do not use weapons, as their role is only to clap and capitulate. It is due to this that the Muslim World has moved from the strategy of dignified self-reliance to a destructive syndrome of dependence and serving the interests of the West. Unless there is a fundamental political change, the Arab and Muslim World populace would not be able to use their leverage, whether it is political or energy-based.

Clash of Civilizations

While there is no fundamental or permanent clash of interests between the peoples of the Western countries and the Muslim World, it is the ruling elite of the West that is calling the shots in their own vested interests. Even in the US today, more than 14 percent people live below poverty line. California, which is the largest and richest state of America and 7th largest economies in the world, has more than 30 percent poverty. Almost 25 percent of the population does not have health cover. If there is a clash of interests, it is solely due to the leadership and elite both of the Muslim world and the West

There is also a historical psychic fear of Islam or Islamophobia. The shadow of the Crusades has changed its color and intensity but remains very much there. This is very clear from the two major developments of recent past: first, the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979; and the second, the Islamic resistance to the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. There was convergence of interests for some time in Afghanistan but it was temporary and very superficial. While the US was supporting the Afghan Jihad, it was also strategically planning for realignment. An important article of Nixon in 1983/84 (published in Foreign Affairs), when the Afghan war was approaching its climax, floated the idea that Russia and America had more in common than the points of divergence.

The clash of civilization thesis first appeared in early 1970s. Bernard Lewis was the first to write about it and it was later developed by Huntington. Moreover, when the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan, the NATO Secretary General publically said that while the red threat has gone, the green threat had emerged.  So it is not 9/11; it goes far back. From that viewpoint it can be said that it is the elite both of the Muslim World and the West that have played their own games in their own narrow selfish interests. The Arabs and the Muslim population remain at the receiving end. It is this cultural and ideological onslaught and political hegemonism of the US and the West that has bred the cancer of extremism and violence in the Muslim World. Love breeds love and hatred begets hatred. The so-called terrorism in parts of the Muslim World is nothing but a reaction to the terror and the ‘war on terror’ let loose by the US, its allies and ill-begotten Israel against the Muslims 

US Interest in Middle East

 The ‘American interests’ in the Middle East are not really ‘national’ interests.  The interests of the small number of energy companies, Wall Street banks, the political establishment, and their well paid lobbyists are not the same as the interests of working class people of all racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds who make up the majority of the population of the United States. Indeed, since all countries throughout the world consist, more or less, of an upper class that possesses most of the wealth and political power and a lower class that has neither—there is no ‘national interest’ in any country. The ruling groups portray their special interests as the ‘national’ interest.

The ruling elites in the United States have clear interests in the Middle East that they have consistently pursued for nearly a century. Those interests can best be summed up as ‘imperialist’ interests that have always centered on the pursuit of geo-strategic advantages in control of the region’s energy resources—oil and natural gas, the pipelines and sea lanes that connect them to global markets. After World War II, the United States superseded the British as the dominant imperial power in the Middle East. Its interests consisted of three interrelated objectives: (1) To control the oil and gas resources of the region; (2) To control certain regimes in the region as much as possible, especially Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, and Pakistan; and (3) To prevent the rise of any popular movements—whether communist, socialist, nationalist, or religious—that might threaten US control of the region’s energy resources and the stability of its client regimes.

Once it is recognized that the rhetoric is meant to deceive the general public, it would not be difficult to recognize the intense competition among capitalist interests for resources, cheap labor, markets, and geo-strategic advantage that, during the first half of the twentieth century, produced two horrific world wars. The US is trying to prevent its ongoing decline, while new powers, especially China, are challenging the US Empire. During the past several years, Brazilian journalist Pepe Escobar, who writes regularly for ‘Asia Times Online’, has published highly informative articles and books on the global battles over what he has dubbed “Pipelineistan.”  With a wry and cynical sense of humor and a great deal of knowledge, his “Roving Eye” has described the competition for dominance over the Middle East and Central Asia. Among the major powers, there are no “good guys” in this competition. They fight for their own material interests, and they do not hesitate to threaten the lives of millions of people.

Beginning in 1979, the US, along with Saudi, Pakistani, and other allies, organized an international private army to invade and devastate Afghanistan, a strategic objective in the new “Great Game” for control of the energy resources, and potential and actual pipeline routes in Central and South Asia. More than two decades later, the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US were blowback from the US strategy of encouraging and unleashing the most extreme form of political Islam against a Soviet backed progressive government in Afghanistan.

The US, which possesses a military arsenal larger than that of all other nations combined, and which spends more on weaponry and sells more arms than all other nations combined, is the single largest practitioner and sponsor of terror in the world. It cannot possibly wage a war on terror, unless it makes war on itself. That is not to deny or minimize the existence of both non-state and state sponsored terrorism not controlled by the US and sometimes directed against the United States. Terror has long been a weapon employed by contending imperialists, primarily against colonized, occupied, and subjugated people, but also against each other.

The end of the Cold War period brought with it the end of the challenges to US imperial interests from the Soviet bloc and its sponsored communist and nationalist movements in the Middle East. Secular leftist forces throughout the Middle East declined in strength and influence. This provided a brief window of opportunity for the US to launch the first Gulf War against Iraq without any Soviet opposition. Soon, however, new forces rose to challenge US hegemony in the Middle East. As the US sought to expand its military presence in the region, in order to bring oil resources and governments more securely under US control, States in the European Union, Russia, and China increasingly saw a world dominated by a lone superpower as contrary to their own interests and challenged US policies in the region. For example, Chinese and Russian support enabled Iran to pursue a path that challenged US interests, and Iran supported groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine that resisted the US backed Israel government and its allies in Lebanon.

US, Middle East and Media

All of the corporate media in the United States serve government policies faithfully, working constantly to keep most people in the United States from acquiring accurate information and understanding of what their government is doing in the Middle East and throughout the world. Although major media confessed belatedly, for example, to helping George Bush to lie, the US into the 2003 invasion of Iraq, these same media continue to provide the same services to the US government. They are part of the corporate establishment themselves, and they will not change. They have continued, for example, to promote support in the US for Israel’s criminal blockade of Gaza, and current US assistance to Egypt to build a steel wall on the border between Egypt and Gaza. They never allow any information about the energy objectives that are driving the US war in Afghanistan to get into their coverage of the war.

Since the terrible earthquake in Haiti, the media have hidden from the public knowledge of a century of US imperialist domination and exploitation. They do not mention the more recent economic restructuring plans and the two coup d’etats against Haiti’s elected leader. They do not remind the people that the US intercepted thousands of Haitian immigrants and detained them in prisons at Guantanamo during the years before 9/11. They false portray Haitians as violent to justify US prioritizing military security over lifesaving aid. This shows what the US does in the Middle East; it also does to the people of small island nations right on its doorstep.

Obama and Middle East

President Obama had clearly and decisively supported longstanding US policies regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict. He denounced the UN Goldstone Report that irrefutably documented Israeli war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza. He haf continued massive US military assistance to Israel, and has continued the effort to split Palestinians by arming sections of Fatah that collaborate with Israel. This effort, of course, has the not so secret support and participation of the governments of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. The most likely course of events is that of continuing Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and Jerusalem, along with continued terrible suffering of people in Gaza under the blockade. For the US, maintaining Israel’s status as a powerful watchdog in the region that cannot be seriously threatened by any other forces in the region makes Iran’s support for Hezbollah and Hamas a serious problem. That is why the US and Israel continue to threaten a military assault on Iran. Maintaining Israel’s exclusive ownership of nuclear weapons in the region is an important aspect of this equation.

The only “breakthrough” that President Obama could conceivably achieve would be the acceptance by compliant Palestinian leaders of a Palestinian Bantustan, lacking any real sovereignty or independence, but able somehow to contain and suppress Palestinian anger against such a betrayal. In other words, the US and Israel would like to establish an apartheid arrangement between Israel and a Palestinian Bantustan. It seems unlikely that this can be forced upon Palestinians and the hundreds of millions of people throughout the world who care about the fate of Palestine and want a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Much has been written about the Israel Lobby in the United States. To be sure, lobbyists exert much influence on the US government. On a more fundamental level, however, the US government exists to serve elite interests. The pursuit of empire has been a consistent US strategy for well over a century. Regardless of which party is in the majority and which particular lobby is currently more influential, there is no division within US ruling groups about the maintenance and defense of its empire.

Palestinian American Joseph Massad, well known professor of Arab Politics at Columbia University in New York City, made this point most persuasively in a 2006 article ‘Blaming the Israeli lobby: It’s US Policy that Inflames the Arab World’. US policy in the Middle East is not significantly different than it is throughout the rest of the world, nor is it different from US policies decades before the growth of Zionism and the founding of the state of Israel. Lobbyists may battle over strategies and tactics, but there is no anti-imperialist faction with any clout in the ruling elites of the United States.

US President Obama possesses a different style and rhetoric from his predecessor, but he has rapidly demonstrated to those willing to open their eyes and see that he is a loyal steward of the US Empire. His surge in Afghanistan, drone attacks in Pakistan, retention of US forces in Iraq, bombing attacks in Yemen, continued operations in Somalia, and continued militarization throughout sub-Saharan Africa under the aegis of the Pentagon’s new military command for Africa, Africom, explain that the thrust of US foreign policy is not about to change for the better. Along with that, President Obama, despite populist rhetoric, has demonstrated his consistent defense of Wall Street banks, insurance companies, and other big financial and corporate interests. The Democratic Party received more money from the richest segments of American society than the Republicans did in the 2008 election. No one should have any expectation that the Democratic Party will alter the direction of US foreign and domestic politics. That can only come about when a mass movement, independent of the two-party establishment, develops to challenge the ruling groups in American society.

Trump has embarked of]n a far more serious and  disturbing plan to what is called a Zero Palestine Solution. A solution in which the two Palestinian entities are to absorbed by Jordan and Israel. In the process the intent is  to eliminate the Palestinians as a people. The growing relations of the Saudis and GCC with Israel are also a part of this effort. Already Trump has recognized Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel and he is moving towards presenting the solution which will completely eliminate the Palestinians as a people as a nation as an entity.

A. The ‘American interests’ in the Middle East are not really ‘national’ interests.  The interests of the small number of energy companies, Wall Street banks, the political establishment, and their well paid lobbyists are not the same as the interests of working class people of all racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds who make up the majority of the population of the United States. Indeed, since all countries throughout the world consist, more or less, of an upper class that possesses most of the wealth and political power and a lower class that has neither—there is no ‘national interest’ in any country. The ruling groups portray their special interests as the ‘national’ interest.

The ruling elites in the United States have clear interests in the Middle East that they have consistently pursued for nearly a century. Those interests can best be summed up as ‘imperialist’ interests that have always centered on the pursuit of geo-strategic advantages in control of the region’s energy resources—oil and natural gas, the pipelines and sea lanes that connect them to global markets. After World War II, the United States superseded the British as the dominant imperial power in the Middle East. Its interests consisted of three interrelated objectives: (1) To control the oil and gas resources of the region; (2) To control certain regimes in the region as much as possible, especially Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, and Pakistan; and (3) To prevent the rise of any popular movements—whether communist, socialist, nationalist, or religious—that might threaten US control of the region’s energy resources and the stability of its client regimes.

Once it is recognized that the rhetoric is meant to deceive the general public, it would not be difficult to recognize the intense competition among capitalist interests for resources, cheap labor, markets, and geo-strategic advantage that, during the first half of the twentieth century, produced two horrific world wars. The US is trying to prevent its ongoing decline, while new powers, especially China, are challenging the US Empire. During the past several years, Brazilian journalist Pepe Escobar, who writes regularly for ‘Asia Times Online’, has published highly informative articles and books on the global battles over what he has dubbed “Pipelineistan.”  With a wry and cynical sense of humor and a great deal of knowledge, his “Roving Eye” has described the competition for dominance over the Middle East and Central Asia. Among the major powers, there are no “good guys” in this competition. They fight for their own material interests, and they do not hesitate to threaten the lives of millions of people.  

Palestinians

Hamas and Fatah today represent two different approaches to solve the problem of Palestine. Fatah, at least after the signing of the Oslo accords, has accepted the two major pre-conditions dictated by Israel and the United States to begin the so-called peace process: recognition of Israel as a legitimate state; and renunciation of violence. Since then the Palestinian Authority under Fatah has effectively acted as a Deputy Sheriff for Israel in the occupied territories by maintaining law and order in the West Bank on behalf of the occupier and preventing attacks inside Israel. This has helped Israelis to redeploy their forces from West Bank to Gaza to crush the resistance by the Islamic groups such as Hamas. Fatah is also closely connected with the US and its European and Arab allies who are deeply concerned about the rise of Islamic forces in the region.

Hamas, on the other hand, remains committed to its original charter that rejects the legitimacy of the state of Israel as a national home for the Jews only. It considers armed struggle for national liberation as a natural right (and Islamic obligation) of occupied people that has also been recognized by the UN Charter. Hamas wants to restore the sovereignty of the Palestinian people over all of historic Palestine with the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties appropriated illegally by the Jewish settlers since the establishment of Israel. Hamas does not reject out rightly the idea of negotiated settlement of the Palestinian issue; however, given the history of Israeli intransigence in all previous peace talks, Hamas is not willing to lend Israel the credibility of a peace partner as it continues to build more illegal settlements in the occupied territories and kill Palestinians at will. At the same time, however, Hamas leadership has publically indicated that it is willing to sign a long term Hudna (truce) with Israel if it agrees to completely withdraw from the areas it seized in the 1967 war. This position was clearly stated by the late spiritual leader of Hamas Sheikh Ahmad Yasin. The political leadership of Hamas based in Damascus has also reiterated this position on several occasions in recent months.

While there are fundamental differences between Fatah and Hamas on how to go about restoring the political rights of Palestinians, one should not overlook the fact that Hamas has never opposed any meaningful peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. On the contrary, Hamas gave full moral and political support to President Yasser Arafat during his crucial peace talks with Israel mediated by President Clinton during 1990s. Hamas has made it clear that it will not get in the way of any negotiated settlement reached between the Palestinian Authority and Israel as long as the peace accord brings about an independent, truly sovereign and viable Palestinian state, seeks complete Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, acknowledges East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestinian state, and recognizes the right of return of Palestinian refugees. Thus, the internal divisions within the Palestinian ranks will adversely affect the so-called peace process only in case the Fatah leadership capitulates to an accord that goes against the consensus of the Palestinian people. Seen from this perspective, one cannot say that the differences between Fatah and Hamas are irreconcilable as for as the peace talks with Israel are concerned.

At the same time, however, one cannot deny the fact that the Fatah-Hamas conflict has not only provided a convenient alibi to Israel for the indefinite suspension of peace talks but has also tended to demoralize the Palestinians people and their well wishers.

Human Rights in Palestine

Judge Goldstone’s report, howsoever inadequate and cautious in its approach, was, nevertheless, the first ever document by an international organization to raise the possibility of indicting Israel for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Unfortunately, however, moral and legal considerations are rarely taken into account when it comes to the imperatives of power politics in international arena. And given the history of the US-Israeli relations as well as the inordinate influence of the Israeli lobby in Washington, it was simply inconceivable that the United States would have allowed this report even to have been discussed in the United Nations forums, what to speak of adopting and implementing it.

For all practical purposes, the US policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict is a direct extension of the American domestic politics. It is interesting to note that an overwhelming majority of US congressmen signed a petition to oppose the Goldstone Report without even reading it. It was enough for them to sign the petition after receiving instructions from the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington. It was, therefore, a foregone conclusion that that Washington would not allow any discussion of the Report. What was more disgraceful in this whole Goldstone affair was the fact that the US used its Arab-Muslim allies (including the spineless Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas) to withhold any discussion of the Report.

President Obama said in his Cairo speech that the Arabs and Muslims will judge him by his actions, and not by his words. His words in Cairo evoked a great deal of hope among Muslims all over the world; his actions (and inactions) have been nothing but greatly disappointing. He left unfulfilled a large part of his agenda which included Palestine and Kashmir

Neocons

The neocons presented three agendas that provided George W Bush with grounds to launch the attack against Saddam Hussein:

I. The United States will remake Iraq into a democratic country which will have a spillover or snow balling effect for the rest of the Middle East. This way America will be able to spread the light of democracy to the entire Middle East. The goal was not fundamentally flawed, but seeing the aftermath of invasion of Iraq, it will never be achieved and that explains why the Americans even under Obama administration are not talking about Iraq as a springboard to implement democratization project. Even if the larger goal of using Iraq as a center piece of the project in the Middle East has not been realized, the goal of the regime change has taken place. Now, the United States has a friendly democratically elected regime in power which would not likely threaten the key American interests in the region. The Maliki regime actually provided the US a substantial ingress and allowed it to maintain its influence and an indirect presence in Iraq that will probably continue in the foreseeable future.

II. The second goal was to eliminate Iraqi capabilities for developing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). We now know that Iraq never had these capabilities and the threat of these weapons was used as pretext to invade Iraq. The former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has recently stated that even if Iraq had not possessed  the WMDs, he would  have still gone and invaded Iraq, because he felt that Saddam’s autocratic rule was a sound enough moral reason for the Western powers to use force and seek a regime change there.

III. The third goal that many people think is the real underlying reason for the US invasion of Iraq and its continued military presence in that country is the Iraqi oil resources. The US, no doubt, is interested in the Iraqi oil. This goal has been achieved partially as a consequence of a 2007 deal under which it was agreed that the American oil companies will be given a preferential treatment in the exploitation of the Iraqi oil assets.

Regardless of whether the war was launched for democratization, rooting out WMDs or the control of Iraqi oil and energy resources, there is no denying the fundamental reality that the cost of war for the US has been exceedingly high. According to some estimates, it has cost the US over three trillion dollars. Many in the American policy community believe that given its stupendous financial cost this war was not worth fighting. So, irrespective of the original US goals in Iraq, the push for the American policymakers to withdraw from Iraq will remain very strong. Trump has now declared withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan  

Firstly, the critical driving factor behind the withdrawal process is the realization in the United States that it was a wrong war that has deeply polarized the American nation. The United States has shed the blood of not only thousands of Iraqi civilians but has also paid a huge price in terms of its own treasure and blood. So, Obama seems committed to putting an end to this war.

Secondly, the economic cost of this war has been beyond American expectations. Earlier, the calculation of US policymakers was that some of the cost of the war would be met through the sale of Iraqi oil and this would make the war affordable for Washington. This expectation has not been realized, largely because the price of oil having soared to about $180 per barrel has now come down to about 77 dollars per barrel. The dwindling oil revenues have forced the US oil companies to extract oil in larger quantities. This has complicated the picture even more as the Iraqi government also needs income from the same oil revenues to stabilize itself and also to undertake the daunting task of the economic reconstruction of the country.

Thirdly, there is the imperative of winning the war in Afghanistan. President Obama has announced that the US will commit thirty thousand troops more troops in Afghanistan as part of the surge strategy to help stabilize the situation in Afghanistan. Some of these troops will be withdrawn from Iraq to be sent over to Afghanistan. Keeping that aspect in consideration, the withdrawal of American forces in Iraq is critically linked to the surge in Afghanistan.  

Iran

The US policymakers are conscious of the fact that the ethnic and sectarian division in Iraq will destabilize the country and they would not want to take any measures that would further exacerbate the tensions and could ultimately result in destabilizing the relationship between the Shiite majority and Sunni minority. Consequently, they have come to accept the reality that Iran’s influence over the Shiite population in Iraq will remain strong and they have not tried to reverse this influence. At this stage, Tehran has played its card wisely and used its influence in Iraq to become an important stakeholder. This is exactly what Iran has done and is now an important player in the Middle East, this expanding Iranian influence has resulted in a Saudi GCC emergence as rival powders .

In addition, Iran may not be interested in capturing any territory of Iraq because it thinks; A) that will not be tolerated by its neighbors; B) this will be seen as blatant use of force by Iran and C) it will not be acceptable to most of the Iraqi people, even to the Shiite population which has an ideological affinity and sympathy for Iran. So far, Iranian influence has helped stabilize the situation in Iraq and Iran does not want to run the risk of having Iraq become a new battleground for regional powers like Saudi Arabia.

However, the biggest worry for America regarding Iran could be to devise a strategy to balance the present rising Iranian influence in the region and to prevent the probable strategic rapprochement between Baghdad and Tehran. . The US had pursued the policy of dual containment of Iran and Iraq for very long time. Since it has been able to contain Iraq through war and through installing a pro-American regime, the containment policy for Iran remains intact. In this context, if Iran forged a strategic alliance or an understanding with Iraq, either for political or economic reasons; the US and Saudi Arabia would not view this development with equanimity. However, because of its internal weaknesses and problems, Iraq, both as a State and as a regional power, is not in a position to pose any kind of threat to the region. In case of Iran, it may like to carve out a special sphere of influence in Iraq for regional influence commensurate with its growing military and missile capabilities.

But the worst American fear is a situation in which social, ethnic and religious polarization in Iraq becomes so intense that they threaten the cohesion of the Iraqi state and government. Such a situation would be a bigger gain for Iran than that of a united Iraq in which Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis live in harmony. In this scenario, the US administration would like to see an Iraqi regime which is quite capable of handling these contradictions and Iraqi constitution on its own, particularly after the withdrawal of American ground troops. Some legal measures have been taken to ensure that post-US withdrawal Iraq will be able to stand on its own feet. So, there is no threat to the cohesion of the Iraqi state as long as the central government remains powerful.  

The anti American sentiments at the public level are very strong and likely to remain so for a long time to come because of the massive abuses of human rights, killings, and destruction that the American invasion of the country brought with it. The story of American military actions against Iraqi people has not unfolded in all its terrible dimensions yet. The Iraqi people, who have suffered the atrocities at the hands of American soldiers, know very well what the invasion meant for them, resulting in making them intensely anti-American. In this backdrop, any future government in Iraq will have to take this undercurrent of deep anti-American resentment into account and craft its policy accordingly. No genuinely elected Iraqi government will be able to survive for too long if it is perceived as an extension of American interests. The US might be able to extract certain concessions from Iraq in terms of oil and privileged l access to its energy resources, but it would be very hard for it to find a regime in Iraq that would hold the US in a tight embrace against the will of the Iraqi people.

However, it is a widely known fact that the US leaders talk about spreading and supporting democracy but if democracy in a certain country produces leaders who are not willing to toe their line, they turn their back on such a democratic dispensation. Therefore, the US wants a democracy that produces leaders that are acceptable to the United States. This is an inherent problem in American attitude in international politics, particularly in the third world countries. Since the democratically elected leaders have their own agendas, compulsions and popular mandate, the US prefers lending its support to dictators.

In the case of Iraq, Saddam Hussein fell afoul of these American gimmicks since the occurrence of Iranian revolution in 1979 till 1991. During these eleven years, the US was the biggest supporter of Saddam Hussein as is evident from some very important visits of Rumsfeld to Saddam Hussein who was projected as a force for regional stability. It also carried along Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in funding the Iraqi war against Iran because Iran was seen as a bigger threat at that time. Therefore, the US has never been shy of alternating support from dictatorship to democracy and vice versa according to its own interests and political needs.

Considering such an American attitude of supporting governments around the globe, the idea of a pro-American strong leader ruling Iraq with the help of American support cannot be ruled out. However, the US has created a new opening for the Iraqi people by destroying the autocratic system and Ba’athist one-party rule in Iraq. If Iraq wants to become a sovereign democracy, instead of a democracy which is seen to be subservient to the American strategic interests, the Iraqi leaders in particular and people in general will have to pursue their own democratic agenda.

The American trained military force may pursue the American agenda. The Iraqi leadership, particularly the military leaders, is beholden to the US because it trained them, gave them weapons, provided them with military equipments and put them into power. ‘Without mentioning his name, I met an Iraqi general during my last visit to Washington. While talking to him, I realized that he was more loyal to the American leaders than the ordinary Americans. That made me wonder how this general was going to rule that country with that kind of blatant pro-American stance. So if that is the tip of the iceberg then in terms of future leadership, Iraq does have a potential problem.’ The military will be seen as a pro-American institution with an extraordinary degree of US influence over it and the possibility of a repression of genuine anti-American democracy in Iraq at the hands of an American-trained Iraqi military force cannot be ruled out.

Power Structure in Middle East

One should not forget that even after the complete withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, it will not be a situation of total vacuum. The Iraqi government is in place and a lot will depend on who it chooses to align itself with. For example, no Iraqi government can afford to alienate its neighbors such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and Turkey etc. The US efforts will be to use some of these regional powers to maintain a degree of influence over Iraq. Although these countries have their own agendas, yet it can manipulate its influence in Jordan and Saudi Arabia for that matter. Besides, Iraq is not weak enough that it will actually become the battleground for all the regional powers, the way in which Afghanistan did after the withdrawal of the Soviet forces. Iraq is a proud nation and it has the resources, resilience and a nascent, strengthened, and enhanced sense of Iraqi nationalism—the biggest asset they have. It is going to be a critical deterrence against any country’s ambition to influence Baghdad in a decisive fashion. Therefore, there might not be an intensifying regional competition replacing the American military presence in Iraq.

Moreover, China has made ingress in Iraq because of the oil factor. Russia also has a long standing interest in Iraq. It had a 20-year friendship treaty with Saddam Hussein. With the exception of years 1990 and 2003, the Russian technicians were present in Iraq. But Russia has lost that influence and it will try to regain its toehold in Iraq. One can see how Russia and China are trying to develop a very special relationship with Iraq. These ties, however, will have to be motivated and propelled purely by logic and economic considerations rather than any kind of geo-political concern or they will have to contend with American presence and influence in Iraq which is going to remain very strong for a long time to come either through the political dispensation that the US has put in place; or through the U.S trained Iraqi military; or through their indirect presence.

Theoretically one cannot rule out the possibility of an anti-American coup in Iraq. But this is highly unlikely given the fact that most of the Iraqi leaders are indebted to the Americans. The Iraqi sense of nationalism is very strong but it will not easily fuse with a pro-American strategic posture for too long. In view of these contradictory pulls, it is going to be very delicate balancing act for the Iraqi regime.

For United States of America: The US needs to withdraw its forces from Iraq, and if it has to, it should keep them to a bare minimum and let the Iraqi people determine their own future. Besides, Iraq’s capability and capacity to devise a future for themselves should not be underestimated. Iraq is a literate, very sophisticated, and one of the most advanced societies in terms of literature and heritage. It is one of the oldest civilizations and it should not be considered a banana republic. So, if Iraq is left to its own devices, the Iraqi people are quite capable of fashioning their own future which would be democratic in essence; largely because they were ruled by dictators for a long time and those dictators launched attacks against the neighboring states and caused devastation. Having seen the devastating effects of dictatorial rule for themselves, the Iraqi people would do their best to avoid being ruled by a dictator like Saddam Hussain in the near future.

In addition, the civil society, particularly its media, is now very strong and the people have tasted democracy. They have seen the value of an open society. These are some of the positives that should be strengthened and reinforced. At this point, the US should realize its responsibility for waging war and causing such large scale destruction and should come forward to play a constructive role that it owes to the Iraqi people. The Iraqis would need the Western expertise and technology, and the international support to negotiate the democratic transition. So, the West in particular and the international community in general should not walk away from the Iraqi people in this very challenging situation. In the regional matrix, Iraq is not a kind of country that can be over-influenced or overpowered by any of the regional states. Nonetheless, the possibility of Iraq moving a little closer to Iran than it traditionally has been cannot be ruled out. In short, the US should give up its high handed approach towards Iraq, adopt a “hands-off policy,” treat the Iraqi people with respect and grant them the freedom to manage their own affairs.

For Iraqi Government: The Iraqi government has a massive internal construction and peace building task at hand that requires a single minded focus on dealing with these issues. It also needs to deal with the pockets of insurgency, the threats of terrorism, and lawlessness. There are a number of organized and violent armed groups that have popped up in Iraq, so dealing with these groups, putting them out of business, launching a deweaponization campaign, and inculcating in people the value of seeking a non-violent resolution of their problems are some of the very important priority areas. The Iraqis need to turn inwards and that is where their salvation lies. The economy needs to be put back on track as it was before the invasion—stable and resilient. The government still possesses the economic and natural resources to strengthen the country and to engage in the economic reconstruction. The important thing is to develop a political consensus, take the people on board, focus on the immediate needs of the people, and stay engaged with the international community.

Iraq should go back to its policy of non-alignment as it was under Saddam Hussain and send a message of reassurance to its neighbors that if Iraq regains its strength, it will not pose any kind of danger to them. It needs to negotiate a settlement with Iran over Shatt al-‘Arab and to resolve the territorial disputes peacefully with its smaller neighbors. It also needs to join the larger Islamic community and find its place of pride there because a non-aligned Iraq would be seen as a positive force by most of its neighbors. However, if Iraq is aligned with the United States and seen as the “American cat’s paw” vis-à-vis other neighbors, it will not be beneficial for Iraq. Siding with the US may revive its tension with Iran. So, Iraq has to be very careful in how it handles its relationship with the United States. In no circumstances should it let the US use its territory to launch attacks against any of its neighbors. At the same time, Iraq should not become part of the revisionist states vis-à-vis Israel. Since technically Iraq still remains at war with Israel, its relationship with Israel is going to be very sensitive.

Obama Rhetoric

During the election campaign, President Obama talked a great deal about the situation in Afghanistan, Pak-India relations, US-Iran relations and the Middle East problems in general. There were high expectations that his presidency would mark a distinct change in the American policies toward the problems and issues that the world was facing.   Obama talked about opening all inclusive negotiations with Iran that also include the nuclear issue. Nevertheless, he was careful even at that time on nuclear issue, trying not to give the impression that he would accept a military nuclear program from Iran.

 . The Obama administration continued to hold a hard-line stance on the nuclear issue and is threatening Iran with more sanctions—harder and tougher. Yet, during his presidency He managed to arrive at a nuclear disarmament treaty with Iran, which has now been scrapped by the Trump administration

Similarly Iran has a role in Iraq as well. It has handled the Iraq crisis extremely well in its national interest. Since Iran was a victim of Saddam Hussein’s aggression for eight long years, the power shifting in Iraq from Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party to the elected government of the majority which, Iranians believe, subscribes to the Shiite school of thought, is a boon for Iran. It has used its cultural and religious linkages to establish a great deal of understanding with some of the armed militias inside Iraq. Leveraging these linkages well in the region has made Iran a power to reckon with and it would be difficult to side step or ignore Iran in regional issues. Obama is also aware of these factors and knows that Iran’s approach to these issues would be one of the determining factors for any future peace talks or any progress that can be made in the Middle East or Gulf.

The Obama outlook was that the whole issue of US-Iran relations is passing through a very interesting phase where the United States is very increasingly realizing and admitting that: Iran is a reality and an emerging power; it has enough clout to exert influence all around today; and it is bound to have more clout in the years to come. Both sides are in a kind of exploratory phase at the moment. One of Obama’s problems is that the hawks of Israel do not take an enlightened view and would want to bomb Iran’s nuclear installations. President Obama has resisted the pressure from this particular hawkish lobby and generally counseled Israel to show restraint, because it would be a disaster if there is any military action against Iran either by Israel or by United States. He realizes that it would complicate things to such an extent that it would become extremely difficult to resolve the consequences of that unwise and extremely shortsighted decision.

At the same time, Unites States continues to oppose the Iranian nuclear program. When the elections took place in Iran and the protests ensued, the American media in particular which is fed by the American government very often and the American intelligence agencies took a strong anti-Ahmadinejad line. They played these protests up and tried to stage a kind of velvet revolution in Iran, as is seen by Iranian establishment. It was a negative move on the part of the West which Iranians did not take very well.

The West tried to use statements from Tehran for developing a case against its revolutionary regime. One of the charges against Iran over the decades has been that Iran is a supporter of all terrorist movements in the greater Middle East. Iran seems to be providing active assistance, arms, training, and volunteers to Hezbollah and Hamas that have been classified by the West as terrorist movements. In this backdrop, Iran has always been portrayed as a terrorist state by the West. When Iran tries to reach out to Latin America for its own economic reasons, particularly to defeat the sanctions; even that was seen as an attempt to create trouble in American backyard.

Nevertheless, the contacts continued and both sides were trying to identify a common space where their interests could co-exist, if not converge as it is unlikely, and the present confrontation, which is now about 27 years old, can be dismantled. In the dialogue between Iran and the West, United States in particular, Iran seeks to change this mind-set and want the West to acknowledge the fact that Iran cannot be a secondary power. Half of the struggle of Iran is for the West to acknowledge Iran’s correct position in this part of the world.

Although a kind of dialogue has been going on between Iran and the West but meaningful, result oriented and deep dialogue is still not visible. The two sides have started from maximal positions. The US demands that Iranians should completely wrap up its nuclear program which would never be accepted by Iran. Some compromises would have to be found in such a manner that Iran’s self esteem, its sense of dignity and interests are safeguarded. Yet, the United States has not abandoned or given up the policy of containing Iran. It has been its traditional policy and it is too early and premature to assume that there has been any significant shift in that policy. The shift has been in Obama’s own position very rightly.

It is extremely unlikely that Iran would be seen to have climbed down under pressure from the West because it is a proud nation and there is no reason and no objective factors on the ground as to why Iran should buckle under pressure. It has resisted the pressure and defying it has not brought it down. It is a fact that Iran could do better by developing good relations with the West as it badly needs an injection of modern technology and other basic things. But even while the sanctions and American hostility with Iran have slowed down Iran’s development and progress over the years, it has continued to march forward regardless of consequences of UN Security Council resolutions against it.

Therefore, there is a point of view among American hawks that sanctions have not really been successful. There are serious doubts on the question whether the stricter sanctions against Iran would work because Iran’s position is now unassailable. However, an understanding between Iran and the West would be in the interest of both the parties and the region.

China and Russia and Iran sanctions

As far as China and Russia are concerned, that is a complicating factor. Looking back to the history of various resolutions directed against Iran, the United States almost always began with very harsh draft for sanctions but behind the scene negotiations with China and Russia and the fear of their veto gradually led to softening of the terms. China and Russia individually and together are not in favor of any more stringent sanctions against Iran because they know that these sanctions are counterproductive. They also realize that sanctions would only strengthen the hawks and hardliners in Tehran. Being the stakeholders in Iran’s prosperity, China and Russia are also facing a problem. On the one hand, both the powers have strong relations with Iran particularly in the economic field. China has burgeoning trade with Iran which is bound to increase. Russia has supplied a nuclear reactor and it would like to sell more of them to Iran if it can. Iran has paid Russia for highly sophisticated air defense system but it has not received it as yet. The Americans have been putting pressure on Russia to delay it or cancel it altogether.

On the other hand, China has a fairly comprehensive relationship with United States. When Obama recently visited Beijing, he went out of the way to recognize China as an emerged power. At one stage, he seemed to be suggesting that there are only two powers—US and China that is G2 as it came to be known—that could sort out the global problems or give a lead at the least. Similarly, Russia has sensitive relations with America too because European politics is involved in it and NATO’s eastward expansion is a cause of concern for Russia. Moreover, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) is running out of its time and a fresh treaty has to be negotiated very soon. Thus, neither Russia nor the US can forget about each other.

In this scenario, China and Russia try to maintain relations with Washington in such a manner that the issue of Iran or Iranian nuclear program would not rock their own bilateral relations too much. They are careful, but it is a safe presumption that while they may say they certainly would not want Iran to have nuclear weapons, they would continue to oppose stringent or stricter sanctions against it. So in a way, they are in a muddle. They certainly would not want to jeopardize their relations with Iran and at the same time they also want to be seen by the United States and the West as responsible international stakeholders and actors at global level. In short, the two big powers would seek to continue the process of diluting the American positions and they would probably succeed.

Sanctions and Iran

Iran has responded to external pressures by improvising and re-tooling up its indigenous capacity. In a way, the sanctions have been a blessing for Iran as it has made considerable strides towards being able to look after itself in the field of technology. Still it cannot be said that Iran is self sufficient. Obviously, the technology that Iran is using cannot be compared with the latest western technology, but Iranians have their paragon: they have fairly modern army, which is not an aggressive army, and it concentrates on defense, particularly on the coastal defense; and they have demonstrated innovative skills.

While taking into consideration the internal situation of Iran with respect to the sanctions, the reality is that Iran would face the people’s pressure but it would not be a pressure to change Iran’s national policy on the nuclear question. Incidentally, the nuclear program is very popular in Iran. There could be many reasons for its popularity such as self esteem, Israel, India and Pakistan being nuclear powers, the threats to Iranian security and sovereignty etc. The pressure that government is facing shows that the Iranian society is dynamic, and not at all static. The revolution is now old and lots of people in Iran feel that the initial dangers to the revolution are no longer there and there should be a better deal for the Iranian people. The policies that the governments pursue or have pursued in Iran in some ways create this demand for change or reforms. For instance, from the beginning of Islamic revolution, the Iranian governments have encouraged the education of women. Iranian women are into the higher education in a big way. Probably, there are more women at universities than men and they are encouraged to go in every profession. When the governments empower people in that sense, they begin to wonder why it is necessary to continue with a rigid dress code or other restrictions that the revolutionaries may have imposed on them. Therefore, a certain momentum for change is built-up.

The same goes for other human rights issues. Iran is a very literate society in which even those people who are by no means rich or affluent buy books. So, when a society is so aware and lives in a world of communication revolution too where it can listen to broadcast from all over the world, then they begin to wonder why they do not have the freedom of speech as anyone else in the world has. So it is a legitimate struggle and this kind of struggle will continue. However, the conservatives in Iran fear change. One reason for that fear is Iran’s own history in which they look at the example of Shah of Iran. They have learned that if the change is too rapid, the governments would lose control and unintended consequences may emerge. This danger makes the governments even more conservative.

Nevertheless, there was a period of reforms before Ahmadinejad and there was no upheaval. It was a gradual process. So Iran has to find its own way. No one can do it from outside. The progress of Iranian people in the direction of human rights such as better justice, better distribution of wealth, and freedom of speech should be an internal struggle and it seems that the direction would be positive. Today’s Iran is probably less dogmatic than immediately after the revolution but they still have strong convictions in the spirit of revolution. Therefore, when Iran is threatened in a state of siege, then the dynamic are different: The Iranians would forget their internal differences and unite because they have very strong sense of nationhood. They defer the internal struggles and close their ranks as it happened when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran. This is the characteristic of the Iranian people which the West could not understand.

Quite the opposite, the West keeps on providing funds for Iranian dissidents and setting up television stations to arouse the Iranian people against their government on the matter of freedom of speech, women’s rights and so on and so forth. But on the nuclear issue, there is no significant group in Iran which wants to give up the nuclear program just to oblige the West.

Yemen and Saudis

Yemen has a long history of internal divisions that mar the governance in the country. There are vacant spaces in its border areas which can be exploited by the Al-Qaeda or other such elements, but one of the dominant factors could be that Al-Qaeda wants to keep Saudi Arabia under pressure because Saudi Arabia has been very determined in its relationship with the US. However, what complicates things is that even the West sometimes would like to see its own friends in the region to be kept under pressure. They are always fearful that Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or any other state might break away from the Western control and take their own independent decision. Yemen is a hot-spot and Saudi government is right in the sense that it cannot allow the phenomenon of armed groups in Yemen to get out of hand and that is why they reacted strongly at this time. This problem can easily be understood in terms of its own dynamics but the Western media is trying to bring up the sectarian element into it.

Iran is careful in diplomacy and international relations. For instance, when Iran exchanged a few statements with Saudi Arabia, it tried to limit it to an exchange between the two governments. The Saudis might have said something about Iranian suspected involvement in the Yamani troubles and Iran then responded to it but they appeared to be walking on a tight rope. Iran does not seem to be giving any support to Al-Qaeda as a movement and once the chips are down, it would not tolerate the Al-Qaeda fugitives in its own case either. In fact, in the case of Afghanistan, Iran is opposed to the Taliban because it always regarded them as an aberration of Sunni thought processes and extremely narrow-minded interpretation of Islam, which is hostile to Iran’s own approach to Islam.

The American diplomacy continues to incite Arab opinion against Iran and is constantly trying to prey on Arabs fears that Iran might go nuclear. There is another constant theme in the western propaganda for driving a wedge between Arabs and Iranians that Iran wants to be hegemonic power of the Gulf or of the Middle East. There is Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia which inhabits in the oil rich part of Saudi Arabia. The West constantly drums that fact up and tries to create doubts that Saudi Arabian stability particularly energy security would be threatened if there is a Shiite revolt or Iranian penetration in the oil-bearing Eastern parts of Saudi Arabia.

This kind of threat is kept alive more by the Western media than by the regional media as a part of West’s policy that has tried to turn this Shiite-Sunni issue into a fault-line for many years. The US saw it as fault-line and it exploited it very badly in Iraq that led to thousands of very tragic deaths and events such as attacks on holy shrines etc. These are the weapons that the opponents of Iran use in this region rather successfully. However, it is not a fault-line for the people in the region who live with it very comfortably. Although there is a certain dialectical tension within the Iranian revolution from the very beginning regarding the neighborhood, there is no great evidence that Iran possesses an expansionist policy.

A degree of distrust between the Arabs and Iran cannot be denied, yet the Arab States and Iran are wise in a sense that they do not fall into this trap easily. Perhaps the more obvious massage from Iran to Arabs is that it has no hegemonic intentions and it would like to have friendly relations with the neighbors as its relations with UAE and Dubai are excellent in a way that UAE handles the bulk of Iran’s trade in particular.

The leader of the revolution, Imam Khomeini, kept on repeating endlessly that Iranian revolution was not sectarian but a Muslim or an Islamic revolution in nature. However, there are other voices in Iran which see the Iranian revolution, first and for most, as a Shiite revolution. That tension is there but this is not a tension that any other state should worry about too much because the Iranian decisions at the state level are always practical and pragmatic regardless of their internal discourse and internal debate. The Hezbollah-Iran relation is not simply a Shiite nexus. It is, in fact, against the terrible injustice that has been done to Palestine and Lebanon that have been invaded a number of times in the past 6 decades. In the case of Palestine, Hamas is a Sunni dominated organization but it has an excellent relation with Iran.

The fact of the matter is that the US has not succeeded in creating an Arab/Sunni front against Iran/Shiite. It is a tug of war and the key of course is whether or not president Obama shows perseverance in dealing with Iran peacefully and developing a proper dialogue.

Kurdish Problem

Kurds are the third largest ethnic group in the Islamic World, The Islamic World has been unable to deal with Nationalism, Democracy, ethnic diversity and sectarian diversify. The Kurds are spread over a number of countries in the Middle East and have been repressed. The Kurdish issue is used by outsiders to keep the Islamic States off the balance. There is urgent need to have this issue resolved through the Islamisation of democracy and nationalism, Islam itself does not accept ethnic and racial diversity as reasons for a separate identity but the conditions laid down by Islam for all citizens need to be clearly understood and implemented in letter and spirit.

 The US realized that a weakened Iraq will create a regional instability that will benefit neither the Americans nor any other power. This awareness arrested the vigorous pursuit of tripartite division of Iraq in which Shiite would dominate South, Sunni in the Center and Kurds in the North. Even though Iraqi society has always been laden with primordial ethnic sentiments but the Iraqi sense of nationalism was very distinct when it came to fighting against the external forces. It was this inherent nationalism that came into play in 1930 when the Iraqi society fought against the British.

The same pattern has continued and the successive US administrations—Bush and Obama—have been forced to view Iraqi insurgency as a nation-wide movement directed against the foreign forces. This realization exposed to the protagonists of Balkanization policy that it will take extraordinary and risky effort to divide up the country into three small units. So, the balkanization logic was trumped by the massive reassertion of the Iraqi nationalism against the American occupation of their country. Therefore Iraq has survived as a united entity not because Washington wanted it that way but more because of Iraqi people’s unwillingness to fall prey to the balkanization schemes promoted by neocons.

Fanning the fire of Kurdish separatism in Iraq might not serve the interests of any of the regional power including Syria, Turkey and Iran: Kurds are living in very large numbers in all the three countries. Turkey has had the problem of Kurdish uprising and irredentism. These regional powers have vested interests in keeping the Kurdish minority well within their separate borders. The broader movement for Kurdistan can destabilize all the three and let lose centrifugal forces of ethnic balkanization. Because of these dangers, there is an implicit regional consensus that Iraqi Kurds should stay within Iraq. At the same time, there is a distinct realization that Iraqi Kurds should be given greater sense of participation within the framework of a united Iraqi state. While it may seem tempting for Iran to fan the fires of ethnic separatism in Iraq, but the adverse blowback effects of this in the form of greater Kurdistan movement override this temptation.

Quran and Nationalism

Quran has explicitly rejected the basis of nationalism, and states that language, color and race are no criteria for unity and privilege. The only criteria are belief and virtue. A common ideology is the basis of the unity of the Islamic ummah, not race, country, language or even culture. The goal of nationalism is to create national units, whereas the goal of Islam is universal unity. To nationalism what matters the most is loyalty and attachment to the homeland, whereas to Islam, it is God and religion. Nationalism gives authenticity to geographical boundaries and racial distinctions, whereas Islam negates them. Nationalism inclines to limitation and race, but Islam assumes a universal outlook.

Nationalism attaches value only to the historical traditions, culture, civilization, ideas and historical figures of its own nation, but Islam's vision goes beyond the frontier, race, tribe and nation. Moses pbuh, Jesus pbuh, and Muhammad pbuh   are considered as belonging to all mankind. Islam wishes all nations to regard the Quran as their Book, and the Ka'aba as their Qibla, and true leaders of Islam as their leaders.

It is very hard for nationalism to accept this view. According to its limited vision, it considers the entry of Islam as a transgression or as something dangerous. It associates the nation to Cyrus and Darius . It intends to revive its ancient past which Islam calls paganism. Islam curses the Pharaoh, but Egyptian nationalism makes him a national hero to be worshipped.

Islamic concept of Society and nationalism

Islam says that all the Muslims in the world are members of the same body and all Islamic nations, Arab, non-Arab, Turk, Afghan, Indian, black, white and yellow must belong to one ummah in their belief. But nationalism considers the religious solidarity of a country with other nations as a danger for national and tribal identity

The progress of the Islamic revolution did away with this idea and with tribal organization; with the tempestuous slogan of “There is no god but God", it made conviction and ideology prevail over all attachments to blood, territory and language, next to paganism and polytheism, the prejudice of blood, land, ancestors and tribe is the greatest enemy of Islam. The Prophet (S) fought strongly against it until he removed these barriers in the way of the divine ideology of Islam. The hostility between national prejudice and Islam is not a new phenomenon. It began with the advent of Islam.

Tribe worship (tribalism) and tribalistic sentiments have always been a threat to Islam. The nationalist Arabs take pride in their being Arab, not in being Muslims. An Egyptian thinks of his Pharaoh. A Turk tries to show his connection with Chengiz and Halaku. An Iranian takes pride in Cyrus, Darius, Buzarjomehr, Mani and Mazdak, instead of pride in Muhammad pbuh and Ali ra. An Indian makes heroes of the mythical Hindu figures, and instead of going to the well of Zamzam, he seeks the River Ganges. In this way, the entity of Islam is endangered. That is why Islam has always been hostile to nationalism.

Simple patriotic sentiments, so long as they do not contravene the higher conviction of man are permissible in Islam, like the affection one feels towards one's father, son and family. But as already shown, nationalism does not stop at simple sentiments. It is a socio-political creed and an actual way of life which aims at a full control of man's individual and social conduct. Islam, too, being a school having its own independent, spiritual, practical, political and social system and comprising a particular set of beliefs, it naturally comes into conflict with the school of nationalism

The unity of religion and politics is regarded as one of the central elements of an Islamic government. Sayyid Hasan Mudarris (d.1938/39), a distinguished clergyman who represented the people in the Iranian parliament and finally was poisoned and martyred by King Reza Pahlavi, declared that "The foundation of our politics is our religion," and also professed that "Our religion is the same as our politics and our politics is the same as our religion."

In Imam Khomeini's opinion, nationalism is one of the causes of the disasters and miseries faced by Muslims today. He writes in fact that those who try to revive nationalism are struggling against Islam. Imam Khomeini also states:

The plan of the great powers and their affiliates in the Muslim countries is to separate and divide the various strata of Muslims, whom God has declared brothers, under the guise of Kurd, Arab, Turk, Fars, etc. nations and even make them regard themselves as enemies of one another. This is against the path of Islam and the Qur'an.

He furthermore remarks that: "Those who, in the name of nationalism, factionalism, etc., create schism and disunity among Muslims, are armies of Devil, opponents of the holy Qur'an and helping agents of the superpowers." Imam Khomeini clearly identified nationalism with reactionary forces and with colonial powers who encouraged nationalistic feelings among Muslims in order to foster disunity

According to Islamic teachings, prejudice is strongly condemned. The Prophet pbuh said: "Whosoever possesses in his heart 'asabiyyah ... even to the extent of a mustard seed, God will raise him on the Day of resurrection with the (pagan) Beduins of the jahiliyyah (the pre-Islamic era)." According to one definition,

... 'asabiyyah is an inner psychic quality which is manifested in patronizing and defending one's kindred and those with whom one has some kind of affinity or relation, whether it be religious creed or ideology, or whether it be soil or home. The affinity may also be similarity of profession or the relationship of teacher and pupil, or something else.

Prior to the spread of Islam, the Arabs were a tribal society. They had a strong sense of 'asabiyyah towards their own groups. Islam challenged this prejudicial spirit and declared that the division of human beings into different tribes and races had only been willed by Allah in order to allow people to recognize one another more readily, not to give a sense of superiority to one tribe or nation over another. This is because in the sight of Allah, it is an individual's virtue and piety that functions as the key element of his superiority

According to a hadith the Prophet pbuh said: "O you mankind! All of you are from Adam and Adam was created from earth (clay). There is no superiority of Arab over non-Arab except through the virtue of piety (God fearing)."

The Prophet, once addressing the Quraysh, said: "O People of Quraysh! Verily one's honour and pride should be due to one's Islam ... (neither to his/her blood nor to his/her race)." He insisted that Arabism was not a matter of narcissism; it was merely a language (like other languages) spoken by Arabs. In the Prophet's eyes, it was only by means of faith and good behaviour only that a man could achieve a higher position.

Islam and Nationalism

Nationalism has been one of the determining forces in modern history. It originated in eighteenth- century Western Europe; during the nineteenth century it spread all over Europe; in the twentieth century it has become a world-wide movement it was not until the end of eighteenth century that nationalism in the modern sense of the word became a generally recognized sentiment increasingly molding all public and private life.

"A nation is a unity of attitudes which derives from a unity of historical experience." Nationalism, from his point of view, "is the conviction, the consciousness of a people that they are united in one group, one nation. In general, nationalism by its very nature excludes all parties who do not share the 'desire to live as one'; ... nationalism actually belittles all groups which do not feel that they are 'one group, one nation' with the people; ... Nationalism in principle rejects all attitudes which do not stem from a 'unity of historical experience.’ Nationalism is a state of mind, in which the supreme loyalty of the individual is felt to be due to the nation-state. A deep attachment to one's native soil, to local traditions and to established territorial authority has existed in varying strength throughout history.

Nationalism is a secular ideology according to which religion and state, politics and faith should be separated from one another. One of the mottos most often expressed by Egyptian nationalists was: "The religion belongs to Allah, but the country belongs to all." What this statement intended to say was that religion is a personal issue which falls outside the framework of public life. Religious thought should not interfere with social-political decision-making, for it is the nation and not religion that deserves the loyalty of a society. Nationalism rejects religion's claim to be regarded as the fundamental element of unity. Accordingly, religion after all undermines national unity and causes religious minorities to live separate from each other. Nationalism teaches us that the only instrument of unity is human being's tendency towards geographical, racial and linguistic identification. For these reasons, nationalism encourages secularism and consequently, religion and everything else that is perceived as threat to national unity must be sacrificed for its sake

Islam and Nationalism divergences

Unlike other religions such as Christianity, Buddhism etc, Islam is not confined to religious rites and metaphysical convictions. Had Islam been only a religion of devotions, it might have agreed with nationalism. But Islam is a religion with asocial and philosophical worldview, and provides for economic and political principles. Nationalism, too, has its own social and political principles based however on different beliefs and criteria. Therefore, conflict between Islam and nationalism is inevitable. The Islamic ideology is not compatible with any other ideology on the question of sovereignty over the private and social life of Muslims. A Muslim cannot at the same time be a Muslim and a polytheist, or a Muslim and communist. In Islam, there is no room for one to be a loyal and genuine nationalist. It is a question of identity, and one negates the other

Muslim Thinkers

In the nineteenth century the Muslim world was stirred by the teachings of two insightful figures, Sayyid Jamal al-Din (1838- 1896/97) and Shaykh Muhammad 'Abduh (1849-1905), the "two champions of the Pan-Islamic movement." These two Muslim thinkers and particularly Sayyid Jamal al-Din were among the first figures who "inspired feelings of resistance to the danger of Western imperialism in the hearts of the Muslim peoples" and forced them to think of an Islamic front against imperialism.

Sayyid himself used to hide his own nationality for he preferred not to be known as an individual belonging to a specific nation so that the Western colonialists might motivate others against him88. He stated that there is no nationality for Muslims except Islam89.

Sayyid was chief among individuals who "were the first to seize upon the Pan-Islamic idea, and became its propagandists." Familiar with the ancient civilization and power of the East, he "yearned to rouse it from a state of complete decadence. He recognized all the menace of existing conditions and the need of a solid alliance against Christian Europe .

Sayyid Jamal al-Din "conceived the idea of Pan-Islam", in 1882 while in Constantinpole, where he made a "deep impression upon" Ottoman Sultan Abdul- Hamid II. The Turkish Sultan developed and supported the idea of Pan-Islam "as a deliberate policy and attempt to restore to the office of Caliph its ancient significance as the chief and protector of all Muhammedans."

The Sultan sent delegates to the Muslim world "to rally all believers behind their caliph." Consequently, even among the orthodox Arabs, Shi'ites, and Sunnites, the Pan-Islamic idea received an encouraging response, although theoretically they could not recognize Abdul-Hamid as caliph, probably because they realized that the Qur'an did not predict the office of Caliph. Instead they believed that such an office "sprang from military and political needs." During the revival of Pan-Islamism, the office of caliphate, after having long been void of all significance, "rose again to importance, especially through Abdul-Hamid who endeavoured to restore the authority of the Caliph." In spite of a consciousness of Islamic affinity, politically nationalism was the stronger force. Attempts to revive the Caliphate (which Mustafa Kemal abolished in Turkey in 1924) as a pan-Islamic movement ... failed.

Iqbal and present chaos in Muslim lands (Quoted in original)

[[1a]] It cannot be denied that Islam, regarded as an ethical ideal plus a certain kind of polity – by which expression I mean a social structure regulated by a legal system and animated by a specific ethical ideal – has been the chief formative factor in the life-history of the Muslims of India. It has furnished those basic emotions and loyalties which gradually unify scattered individuals and groups, and finally transform them into a well-defined people, possessing a moral consciousness of their own.  The structure of Islam as a society is almost entirely due to the working of Islam as a culture inspired by a specific ethical ideal. What I mean to say is that Muslim society, with its remarkable homogeneity and inner unity, has grown to be what it is, under the pressure of the laws and institutions associated with the culture of Islam.

[[1b]] The ideas set free by European political thinking, however, are now rapidly changing the outlook of the present generation of Muslims both in India and outside India. Our younger men, inspired by these ideas, are anxious to see them as living forces in their own countries, without any critical appreciation of the facts which have determined their evolution in Europe. In Europe Christianity was understood to be a purely monastic order which gradually developed into a vast church organisation. The protest of Luther was directed against this church organisation, not against any system of polity of a secular nature, for the obvious reason that there was no such polity associated with Christianity. And Luther was perfectly justified in rising in revolt against this organisation; though, I think, he did not realise that in the peculiar conditions which obtained in Europe, his revolt would eventually mean the complete displacement of [the] universal ethics of Jesus by the growth of a plurality of national and hence narrower systems of ethics.

[[1c]] Thus the upshot of the intellectual movement initiated by such men as Rousseau and Luther was the break-up of the one into [the] mutually ill-adjusted many, the transformation of a human into a national outlook, requiring a more realistic foundation, such as the notion of country, and finding expression through varying systems of polity evolved on national lines, i.e. on lines which recognise territory as the only principle of political solidarity. If you begin with the conception of religion as complete other-worldliness, then what has happened to Christianity in Europe is perfectly natural. The universal ethics of Jesus is displaced by national systems of ethics and polity. The conclusion to which Europe is consequently driven is that religion is a private affair of the individual and has nothing to do with what is called man's temporal life.

[[1d]] Islam does not bifurcate the unity of man into an irreconcilable duality of spirit and matter. In Islam God and the universe, spirit and matter, Church and State, are organic to each other. Man is not the citizen of a profane world to be renounced in the interest of a world of spirit situated elsewhere. To Islam, matter is spirit realising itself in space and time. Europe uncritically accepted the duality of spirit and matter, probably from Manichaean thought. Her best thinkers are realising this initial mistake today, but her statesmen are indirectly forcing the world to accept it as an unquestionable dogma. It is, then, this mistaken separation of spiritual and temporal which has largely influenced European religious and political thought and has resulted practically in the total exclusion of Christianity from the life of European States. The result is a set of mutually ill-adjusted States dominated by interests not human but national. And these mutually ill-adjusted States, after trampling over the moral and religious convictions of Christianity, are today feeling the need of a federated Europe, i.e. the need of a unity which the Christian church organisation originally gave them, but which, instead of reconstructing it in the light of Christ's vision of human brotherhood, they considered fit to destroy under the inspiration of Luther.

[[1e]] A Luther in the world of Islam, however, is an impossible phenomenon; for here there is no church organisation similar to that of Christianity in the Middle Ages, inviting a destroyer. In the world of Islam we have a universal polity whose fundamentals are believed to have been revealed but whose structure, owing to our legists' [=legal theorists'] want of contact with the modern world, today stands in need of renewed power by fresh adjustments. I do not know what will be the final fate of the national idea in the world of Islam. Whether Islam will assimilate and transform it, as it has before assimilated and transformed many ideas expressive of a different spirit, or allow a radical transformation of its own structure by the force of this idea, is hard to predict. Professor Wensinck of Leiden (Holland) wrote to me the other day: "It seems to me that Islam is entering upon a crisis through which Christianity has been passing for more than a century. The great difficulty is how to save the foundations of religion when many antiquated notions have to be given up. It seems to me scarcely possible to state what the outcome will be for Christianity, still less what it will be for Islam." At the present moment the national idea is racialising the outlook of Muslims, and thus materially counteracting the humanizing work of Islam. And the growth of racial consciousness may mean the growth of standards different [from] and even opposed to the standards of Islam.

[[1f]] I hope you will pardon me for this apparently academic discussion. To address this session of the All-India Muslim League you have selected a man who is [=has] not despaired of Islam as a living force for freeing the outlook of man from its geographical limitations, who believes that religion is a power of the utmost importance in the life of individuals as well as States, and finally who believes that Islam is itself Destiny and will not suffer a destiny. Such a man cannot but look at matters from his own point of view. Do not think that the problem I am indicating is a purely theoretical one. It is a very living and practical problem calculated to affect the very fabric of Islam as a system of life and conduct. On a proper solution of it alone depends your future as a distinct cultural unit in India. Never in our history has Islam had to stand a greater trial than the one which confronts it today. It is open to a people to modify, reinterpret or reject the foundational principles of their social structure; but it is absolutely necessary for them to see clearly what they are doing before they undertake to try a fresh experiment. Nor should the way in which I am approaching this important problem lead anybody to think that I intend to quarrel with those who happen to think differently. You are a Muslim assembly and, I suppose, anxious to remain true to the spirit and ideals of Islam. My sole desire, therefore, is to tell you frankly what I honestly believe to be the truth about the present situation. In this way alone it is possible for me to illuminate, according to my light, the avenues of your political action.

Western and Jewish Interference in Muslim Beliefs

At the very outset of the movement of Pan-Islam, the Western colonial powers, mainly France and England, realized the danger of this newborn doctrine. They tried as a result to defeat this movement before it grew and acquired strength. They began to explore every means of destroying Muslim unity. One of the most effective methods utilized in this regard was to encourage nationalist feelings among Arabs and Turks in order to create barriers between the various peoples of the Muslim world. This strategy was aimed in particular at the Ottoman Empire. Thus, it was no accident that the first nationalist aspirations arose in the dependencies of the latter.

It is asserted that three Jewish thinkers from Europe motivated the thought of Turk Nationalism. This is confirmed by the famous 0rientalist Bernard Lewis in his Islam in History. According to him, Arthur Lumley David (1832-1811) was the first one who encouraged the feeling of nationalism among the Turks. He was a British Jewish who departed to Turkey and distributed a book known as Preliminary Discourses trying to confirm the excellence and superiority of Turk race to Arab and other nations.

In any case, the establishment of nationalist movements in Muslim world was not the result of a real consciousness or awareness among Muslims. Rather it was the fruit of Western colonialism. Kohn claims that the rise of nationalism in countries outside Western Europe during this period was influenced by the West. "Yet this very dependence on the West hurt the pride of the native educated class, as soon as it began to develop its own nationalism."

Arab world and Nationalism

In the early 1950s, a series of military coups brought young Arab nationalist officers to power in many Arab countries, including Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Algeria. It was during this period that Arab nationalism, expressed in exclusive, radical and even socialist discourse, became the official ideology of the Arab states.

But the military background of the ruling forces, their fragile base of legitimacy, and the sweeping programs of modernization and centralization they pursued, turned the Arab nationalist entity into an authoritarian state. One of the major results of this development was the eruption of a series of confrontations between the Arab nationalist regimes and the Islamic political forces, in which questions of power, identity and legitimacy were intertwined.

One of the first confrontations came in 1954, when Egypt embarked on a desperate drive to destroy its Islamic opponents. Thousands of Muslim activists were jailed, often without trial, and subjected to East German methods of torture and psychological destruction, while eminent ulama - Muslim intellectuals - were executed or forced to live in permanent exile.

Supported by scores of nationalist intellectuals and brandishing a utopian project of socialist development enveloped in anti-imperialist rhetoric, the Arab state accused its Islamic opponents of being reactionary, employing religion for political purposes and serving the interests of foreign powers. The Islamists, in turn, depicted Egypt's radical regime and its supporters in a monochromatic picture of a deliberate war against Islam and the Islamic identity of the Arab peoples. In many respects, Arab nationalism (or Arabism as it was then called) was the political expression of the reformist discourse of Rashid Rida, Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakbi, Tahir al-Jaza’iri, Abd al-Hamid al-Zahrawi, and their students.

For the Arab-Islamic reformists, Arabism was meant to reassert the Arab identity, seen by increasing numbers of the Arabs as the answer to the Ottoman failure to defend Islam and protect the Arab and Muslim lands. In this sense, Arabism was not only defined in Islamic terms, but was also envisioned as inseparable from the Islamic revival.

During the inter-war period (although students of the Arab-Islamic reform movement continued to play a major role in the Arab anti-imperialist struggle) the gradual transformation of the social and intellectual making of the Arab elites contributed to the evolvement of an exclusive, ethnically based Arabist narrative.

In the face of the Arabs’ failure to establish their united and independent state after World War I, young Arab nationalists, like Darwish al-Miqdadi, Zaki al-Arsuzi, Edmond Rabat and Qunstantin Zurayq, graduates of the American University of Beirut and French and British universities, sought to re-emphasize the project of Arab unity by employing the power of an imagined ethnic essence.

The French bombardment of Damascus in the mid 1920s, the British disregard of the Arab opposition to the Jewish immigration into Palestine, and the brutal crushing of the Palestinian revolt of 1936-39, as well as the imperialist divisive policies in Morocco, all contributed to intensifying the Arab feeling of defeat, and thus to the radicalization of the Arab nationalist discourse. And while Islam had been the ultimate goal of the Arab-Islamic reformists, Islam was now conceived by Sati' al-Husari and Zaki al-Arsuzi, and many others of their generation, as a mere validating element of Arab nationalism.

But since the top priority for all shades of the Arab political forces during the inter-war period was national liberation and independence, it was not until the early 1950s that the divisive political climate would develop. Even the Islamic vision of the Young Muslim Men Society and the Muslim Brotherhood was coloured with a strong belief in Arab unity and Arab identity. With the rise of the Baath Party, the Arab Nationalist Movement (Harakat al-Qawmiyyin al-'Arab), and the Arab-nationalist military officers, the divorce between the Arab nationalists and Arab Islamists reached a critical stage.

Inter-Arab conflict

Equally significant is the absence of any serious attempt to (re-)defines the relation between Islam and Arab nationalism, or to formulate a theoretical framework for a common agenda, especially in regard to the state in question, democracy and the place of religion in Arab society and politics. Yet, the meeting of the Arab nationalists and Arab Islamists has opened a new chapter in modern Arab history.

In many respects, Islamism and Arab nationalism have been, and still are, the most powerful movements in Arab political and cultural life. It is true that neither holds power in any of the Arab countries, but their influence in society and within civil organisations is beyond doubt. For the increasing diversification of Arab cultural systems during the past few decades, nationalism and Islamism can no longer claim to possess an exclusive hold over the Arabs' imagination. All this, however, should in no way diminish the importance and meaning of their convergence for the future course of Arab politics and culture. For more than half a century, the Arabs have lacked a solid, durable level of consensus, a middle ground, around which the political process normally revolves and in which political stability is anchored.

SOLUTIONS:-

 Knowledge, character, moral sublimity, economic strength, political power, military capability, technological prowess, and social cohesion are key elements of this preparation. Without setting our own house in order and mobilizing all the resources at hand to prepare to play the rightful role in the world, nothing can be achieved.

The Muslim Ummah has no option but to move towards greater cooperation, unity and collective self-reliance. Regional groupings, trade and financial arrangements, educational and technological alliances, and political co-ordinations are stepping stones to a global order that is more balanced and just, and that represents a fair state of equilibrium between different nations, socio-political systems and civilizations. Muslim unity could be an effective guarantee against decimation of Muslim countries and the eclipse of their civilizational identity in the face of the onslaught of unmanaged globalization. Muslims   must plan and prepare themselves to play a positive role both to protect their identity and interests, and to make the world a better place for all.

  The right course of action for the Muslims is dialogue, contact, participation, and cooperation at the global level. This must be an essential component of their strategy. Their response to the global challenges must be proactive and positive; that is the only way, not only to survive, but also to make their own mark on history.

Economic Integration

 A central Islamic bank should finance all projects that aim at economic freedom of the Muslim World. The economic integration of Muslim states through a network of interconnected rail and road links, liberalized trade with minimal trade barriers among Muslim states and common tariff, free movement of businessmen and entrepreneurs, a central Islamic bank to finance development projects and bailout packages, to name but a few, is needed. A Muslim Common Market (MCM) should also be explored and economic integration with free flow of capital, goods and labor be achieved

Freedom of Muslim Lands

Muslim leaders on the platform of the OIC need to address a million-dollar question: how to negotiate an exit strategy for the US and its allies stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan?  They also need to watch out for the meddlesome role of foreign powers in the Arab Spring, and perform their due role to ensure that stable regimes are soon in place in all ‘destabilised’ countries. This is an alarming situation the Muslim and Arab leaderships are either unconscious of this or because of vested interests are hands in gloves with the economic and political leaders of the West. They are thus being willingly exploited. One can hope, however, that this crisis will eventually open the eyes of the people and leaderships of the Arab and Islamic countries, and they would realize that the only way to graceful survival is the path of self-reliance. In Middle East and elsewhere in the Muslim world, there exists a consumer economy with no production and technological base, and without developing the required manpower skills. These are deficiencies that need to be addressed forthwith, for that one key essential is that the economy is gradually and partially delinked from the global system – partial de-linkage, because it cannot get out of it completely. Such important activities as exports, imports, investment, movement of money, people, and goods, and the flow of investment, must continue unhindered. What needs to be effectively changed is the relationship of dependence, and building in its place a kind of independent relationship, where Muslim World should reset priorities and re-manage its resources in its own interests keeping in-view both opportunities as well as the cost it has paid over the years.

Delinking of Muslim Lands

So far as partial delinking is concerned, the Middle East and the Muslim World need to give priority to the following three vital areas: education; technology adaptation; a growth strategy in food security and gradual self-reliance and development of an industrial and technological production base. If they succeed in this, they would, in due course of time, be in a position to make their own policies and decisions. At the same time, self-reliance and self-sufficiency should be treated as two different aspects. Self-sufficiency cannot be achieved. What is attainable is self-reliance, which means that a country of region should not be dependent on others to an extent that their economic and political priorities are imposed on it – rendering it unable to protect and project its own priorities. This is what should be the objective. This is exactly what Europe and China have done vis-à-vis America. The Muslim World, taken as a whole, has much more potential. What they lack are political will and a coordinated strategy. When one talks about gradual delink age, one would have to keep in view all the above- mentioned dimensions, namely:

(i)Development of the economic, industrial and production base within a country;

(ii)Food self-sufficiency of which food security is an extremely important element; and

(iii) Development of local market to a sustainable base to local production.

The above strategy is definitely going to bear fruit and as a result of that the Muslim World’s dependence on the West will rapidly decrease. As the example of Russia is , which ultimately was able to survive in the post-Berlin Wall phase should be taken as an example . One factor that enabled Russia to survive economic onslaught was the huge reserve of informal economy, which was not dependent on global trade. We have before us today the glowing example of the rising China, which has grown also because of the large market within. The country has then gone into industrialization, import of technology for opening up an outreach towards the world and American markets. The Muslim World needs to have a similar strategy. This is not a one off operation; it will take time. It has to be carefully planned and a transition has to be made towards it.

Strategies

Muslims will have to go deeper into analyzing the current scenario. Their strategies should not just be reactive; they should not go for confrontation only. They need to develop a proactive counter-strategy to fight the Islamophobia of the West and educate them in understanding the true worth of Islam and Muslims as a nation which stands for noble values and is committed to serve humanity, as envisioned in the Quran. That counter-strategy evolves a futuristic socio-cultural and politico-economic standpoint. Moreover, the Arabs and the Muslim World should have their own vision, priorities and objectives.  Without setting their own house in order, they cannot succeed. The human rights teachings of the Koran if implemented would eradicate the issues created by the sectarian, ethic, and racial divides.

Beating violence with violence, blackmailing with black-mailing and bullying with bullying is not the solution. Muslims will have to have a long-term strategy, which is based on reality and clear vision of the future. Developing a counter strategy that regards people of the West as enemies would be counter-productive. We need a very well thought out strategy giving a message to and initiating friendships with the people of the West. We will have to distance, however, from groups with vested interests in the West and their collaborators in the Muslim World.

The Arab and the Muslim World are also to disengage from those who are misusing Islam, either honestly or as tools of the Muslim’s enemies. It is not appropriate to visualize a conflict, clash, and war scenario as the only option for the Muslim World and the West. The Muslims need much more serious thinking, research, analysis, dialogue, and a dynamic leadership that is not stooge of the West, but trusts own people, a leadership that promotes and develops an Islamic ethos. Then they would definitely be able to live with dignity, equality and honor and with an approach where mutuality and commonality of interests take precedence over conflict and clash

1. REESTABLISHMENT OF CENTRAL AUTHORITY: -

 The cause of Muslim fragmentation is because of the loss of a sacred central authority of Khalifah, we must make a sincere effort to re establish the Khilafah. It must be according to Quranic principals.  Otherwise, it will be a failure. To achieve this goal is a Herculean task, but can be done, not impossible. Peaceful approach should be taken, through diplomacy, disciplined dialogue and tolerance. In order to succeed step number two must be taken. The moribund OIC needs to be revived for the purpose to integrate vast resources of the Muslim world and bring about intellectual, economic and political renaissance in it. The focus of reforms and measures in the OIC should be on intellectual revivalism of all Muslims through a network of world-class universities with state-of-the-art facilities established all over the Muslim world under the umbrella of the OIC. Muslim leaders should agree on certain basic principles representing ‘common’ foreign policy of the OIC. For example, they can agree not to support attack on any member-state by a foreign aggressor or not to allow stationing of foreign forces on their lands without unanimous decision of the OIC, common stance on political issues like Palestine, Kashmir , Rohingyas, and so on.

2. CREATE UNITY: - 

Open the Quran, understand the final revelation, and propagate it to the masses and win their hearts   Highlight our similarities, rather than be fixed on our differences.  Human rights agenda of the Koran will help create unity .

3. LEARN ARABIC LANGUAGE:  

Bulks of the Muslims today are non Arabs, living outside the Arab lands, which neither speak nor understand the language of Quran and Prophet Mohammed(pbuH). All Muslims must learn to read write and speak Arabic language for effective communication. If we can master English, French, Spanish and German, there is no excuse not to learn Arabic. This should be in addition to their other regional languages. 

4. EDUCATION: - 

Present system of education is given to us by colonial powers, secular system of education, which orientates us towards Capitalistic mentality. It teaches us, myself first, while Islam wants us to meet the needs of others first. This system of education transplants Western mind on the Eastern shoulder. It must be replaced by Islamic system of education. Allama Iqbal’s philosophy of Khudi must be reassessed and practically implemented in the new system of education. This will infuse the ruh of Islam among the younger generation, which will be more community orientated.

5. ELIMINATION OF PRIESTHOOD: -

In Quranic Islam, there is no place for priesthood or Mullaism. The word Maulvi, Mulla, and Maulana is not used with the names of companions of prophet. This means these titles are the invention of Ajmi Islam. Priesthood is strong arm of Zoroastrianism, Iranians of that time brought with them Mullaism and introduced into the Quranic Islam, during Abbasi period. At present, If one carefully looks around, the newer sects are produced by these Maulvis, through the process of personality worship. Therefore, those madarsas that produce Mullas should be curtailed and gradually abolished, so that further divisions in the nation can be eliminated.

6. DEVELOP ISLAMIC ECONOMY:  

Muslim Economists and scholars should develop models of LARIBA (interest free) economy. Central Islamic bank and regional Islamic banks should be developed to finance these projects. Banking should be part of LARIBA Islamic economy  Recent gains in Interest Free Banking and other tools developed should be made main stream and this effort needs to be intensified and taken forward .

7. MEDIA:  

We can also have a common international media channel as an official ‘mouthpiece’ of the OIC. In order to present Muslim point of view, entry into the  media is of utmost importance. Through this vehicle all negativism against Islam should be challenged. TV, Radio, Magazine and Newspapers must be established. Movies have a very powerful impact on people. So far Muslims have neglected this powerful mean of impacting the public. This should be pursued. 

8. HAJJ:  

The word Hajj is from Hujjat, which means to discuss and find the solution to the problems. At this annual event, must discuss the problems and find the solutions for the problems facing the Ummah. Annual program must be spelled out in front of the Ummah and and in the subsequent year the goals achieved throughout the year should be presented at the next Hajj. This is the place where unified policy of the Muslim world must be charted out. It should become United Nations of Islam. This should be in addition to present rituals of Hajj. At Hajj, every year, an international appraisal of the World of Islam should be undertaken by International thinkers, this institution should be given autonomy and it should publish these assessments and guide lines for the coming year. This is exactly as per the instructions of the Koran

9. PROTECTION OF RIGHTS OF MUSLIMS MINORITY:  

Muslims, living in Darul-Harb, are facing severe discrimination in education, jobs, physical insecurity; they are denied religious and political rights. An effective policy should be charted out to deal with the Governments of the offender countries. Our resources, our trade should  be shared with those countries, only if they are willing to change their policy towards their Muslim subjects. Muslims of Kashmir , Palestine, Rohingyas,India,  and minorities in Western States need special attention

10. DIALOGUE WITH NON MUSLIMS: - 

Since the collapse of Communism, all the cold war is shifted toward Islam. West is suffering from fever of Islamophobia. Christians are made to believe that green menace is coming after the red menace is dead. This prejudice is the result of the hate literature, produced by enemies of Islam. Christians  must understand Muslim point of view. Through interfaith dialogue and through positive literature about Islam, their fears must be conquered, and sincere friendship must be established with Christian world. Fair minded, Justice believing Christian scholars should be encouraged to present real Islam and promote the understanding between the two communities. If such a plan can be developed, and dedicated efforts are made, the abysmal fall of ummah will stop and rise will not be too far away.  The West manufactured this friction between themselves and Islam , the Clash of Civilizations etc., all contributed to identification of Islam and Muslims as the enemy. Muslims should present the true face of the religion and the best method would be to have lands that follow the guidance of the Koran, in entirety