Muslims’ Worth

It is time to stop pretending that this not the case, rather, time to accept that Islam and Muslims are under attack from many sides and on many fronts: military (the first choice where possible, or police), economic, political, social, you name it or cannot name it. It should be obvious why.When a lion gets old, wolves, jackals and other predators go after it in the jungle. Secondly, Islam is the only uncorrupted and uncorrupting religion left for mankind now. It is the only religion that values spiritualism, moralism, ethics and so forth, Muslims name it or cannot name it, and which resists compromise.

Add to that the fact that there hasn’t been any ‘rise and fall’ of moral corruption intercontinentally; there has only been a ‘rise and rise’ of moral corruption, of every kind and every class imaginable or unimaginable. The unquestioned high priests of the world, the highest moral authorities in the cosmos, looking at whom alone (even if it is a silhouette, from a distance of a kilometer) is counted as a blessing, the spokesmen of the infallible holy houses – the very organs of God on earth – are ready to hug the homosexuals as those who could, and should, be welcome in, allowed to win blessings of God and make contributions to the holy house, not as repentant, but as proud man to man, woman to woman, husbands and wives.

In contrast, the poor followers of Islam, the terrorists, the unrepentant believers in One God and the people over the lands and seas who hold aloft Christian moral values, who believe in gods of the past as exemplary human ideals, who oppose every corruption brought into the lives of the people in the east and west, and, in their own lives and societies, are up against, and opposed (sometimes with 18^th century guns) to the choices of the rest of the world made for them. It should be obvious that when this happens, that is, when they decorate themselves with 18^th century weapons, then they are declared the undeclared enemies of humanity in general.

With the dawn of the new age, the stupendous scientific progress, the incredible technological developments, the superabundance of wealth, Islam was in its coffin awaiting burial. The invincible, the unchallengeable, socio-economic powers of the West, with the East on the eastern flank of the armies, was irresistible and, it was thought that, as time crawled, immigrant Muslims would leave behind their cultures, and sprint into the glorious Western culture. After all, except for them, hadn’t the East succumbed to it? As for the peoples of the countries that they had abandoned, it was assumed that they would be crushed like ants by the political and military powers of the West, or, would be bombed back into the Middle Ages. Arabs around Israel would be annihilated – socially, politically, and economically. They would be forced to serve Israelis as menials living on crumbs thrown at them.

The West was supreme. It would remain supreme: a land of peace, abundance, freedom, equality, justice, you attempt naming the rest. It was the best place in the world, and would remain so, until the Universe would stop expanding, start recoiling, falling upon itself, to destroy all life. But that would take around 100 billion years, and the Western world, ever advancing in science and technology, would have by then, found a way to get out of this universe, worm-hole into another universe, or tunnel through a Black Hole.

The Western man has the spirit and strength to look into God’s face and say, as their mentors say to Yahweh: “You have been wronging us throughout our history. However, we will forgive you, if you will forgive us.”

As for Islam and Muslims, they were to the West, only a little disturbance. The West knew how to consign them into annals of forgotten history.

Such was the situation, the ideas, and the well-drawn plans until the 1960s. But a walk on the moon and the common Western man knew that the moon is beautiful from the earth;but the earth is much more beautiful, even from that distance, gravitationally more powerful, and, therefore, perhaps those guys in the control-rooms, talking about tunneling through Worm Holes to convert light year travel into weeks, were right on time to realize that they should rather hang their boots.

It was some disappointment. But it was a disappointment at the deepest level of consciousness. The east was catching up, and with their rise, the Muslim world could also rise.

In the meanwhile, to those among the Westerners who believed in god, god had done them injustice. He had decided to place in the mainland of the Muslims two-thirds of oil. Should they manufacture oil-run engines of all sorts and slide down into them, those camel riders who contributed nothing? To go down to their countries, not to teach them how to modernize their countries, but rather be employed as expatriates to do it, was again a deeply felt humiliation.

In the meanwhile, the bewitched Muslims within their own communities, the immigrants, were becoming a little more than a little disturbance. Although many had melted in the pot, but recently, a new kind was emerging. They were becoming a nuisance. They were establishing in their midst, Islamic centers, building mosques, setting up schools, and slaughtering their own animals. They were not drinking, gambling, sexing or whoring. On top of that, there came a second wave of reverts within them, call them extremists, radicals, fundamentalists, practicing Muslims, or whatever you like. They were more committed to Islam. There were among them those sporting Aaron’s beard, women in Talmudic Burqa, and teen-age girls looking like Mary, the mother of Jesus. They were fasting the month of Ramadan, filling the mosques thrice on Fridays, and setting up Madrasas. As if things were not getting intolerable, they were now winning converts, and those converts were suddenly transformed into such un-American, un-British, un-French, and every country’s ‘un-’ populations, that were difficult to be recognized as proud Westerners.

Think-tanks were appealing, and Huntingtons were suggesting, that something had to be done. So an astonishing plan was worked out, with short-term and long-term goals clearly defined, and began being executed with astonishing skill and precision. It was to replace Jews with Muslims to be identifiable as the Semites, project Islam as the anti-thesis of progress, Muslims as terrorists hiding behind their outward honest faces, as ruthless murderers with benign manners, children eradicable as future terrorists, and, as a final solution, invade their lands to push them back by centuries – accomplish that, and the spread of Islam would be restricted. A bi-product would be this: the Zionist grand plan of an invincible empire would meet with success. It would deliver justice, freedom, equality, brotherhood and peace and plenty to all, with the true sons and daughters of the Zion deservedly in charge of the affairs.

The plan is in action. So far, things are working well enough. One of the strategies is to provoke them. If they cannot be provoked, organize events,properly spacing them. Send a delivery boy, when on the spot, click the remote control – boom – “see, another suicide bomber.” Infuse hopelessness in them. Identify ‘those who feel the hurt most.’ Train them. Arm them. Send them in. Once they are powerful and popular, go after them, bomb them. Civilians, women and children (the kind described above), are a necessary price. Shout out: the ruthless terrorists they; the enforcers of order we; the barbarians they, the civilized we. Yes, it’s working well enough.

The above should not lead to the belief that the events and happenings of the world are unidirectional, or that the West the only player, or that Islam is the only target, or yet the victims Muslims alone. There are many other conflicts, clashes of ideals, economies, or, political struggles, either global or local, unrelated to Islam and Muslims. Actually, the world is in turmoil. Individuals are unhappy. The main players are not the masses. It is the leaders, the elites, the think-tanks, the specialists. It is they who plan out things – those who think they can change the world and bend the nations. The masses do not agree to all that they do, the masses are themselves victims. They are misled by the classes mentioned above. Western peoples for instance, are laying the responsibility for the turmoil in the Middle-east, resulting in the loss of millions of lives, and causing immense suffering to the peoples of the region, on the neocons on both sides of the Atlantic, who manipulated public opinion to gain approval for whatever they wished to do. Today, they are identified and not welcome to speak in public places. They are hiding and issuing statements from facades away from public eye. One of them had shoes thrown at his car when he was found inside a car. There are calls to try them for war crimes.

Yet, once triggered, events are unstoppable. The plan about Muslims is working well enough at several levels of operation, in several regions of the world. The job is half-finished. So, the Muslims, with plenty of co-operators in the plans of action within their ranks, plenty of naivetés, plenty of “let’s mind-our-own-business” kind,and plenty of  “Allah-will-take-care-of-them” kind, must simply wait. Wait for what? Wait either for slaughter, or for the victory of ‘those who feel the hurt most?’ Whatever, but it is time for them to stop pretending that this is not the case, rather, time to accept that Islam and Muslims are under attack from many sides and on many fronts.

Ordinary Muslims believe that they are non-combatants, non-participants, and yet the sufferers. That’s not true. It is their collective actions, at the regional and global levels, their attitudes, their inter-play with Islam in the past, repeating itself in the present, that can be largely blamed for what’s happening now. They need to contribute: financially, socially, intellectually, morally and spiritually. They must re-affirm their faith in the religion they believe in by living it out. They must attempt, in a huge way, to alleviate the sufferings of the peoples of the world, beginning with those around, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, without ever making a distinction, without accepting the division that is being imposed on the masses, of “they” and “us.” Their services to mankind, to those millions and billions who suffer, are worthier in the sight of their Lord, than their spiritless devotional acts. Indeed, this is a class of devotion. How dear the mankind to Allah cannot be when He forgave a man’s sins for giving a drink to a dog, and sent a woman to Hellfire for keeping a cat hungry? The Prophet said, “A man was forgiven because he removed thorny bushes from the people’s path.” How dear the people are not to Allah? Removal of what discomforts the people was not such a big deed. But it acquired significance considering the fact that those were served who are dear to Allah. A lover loves the loved ones of the beloved.

So long as there are the hungry, the naked, the sick around the Muslims, so long they ought not to sleep peacefully. Frustrated by the attacks, they ask, what shall we do? The answer is, this is what they should do.

Muslims are special targets today. But that doesn’t mean they are a special people. They are just one among many communities. Their worth in the sight of their Lord is the worth of mankind in their eyes.