Return to the Roots: Liberate yourselves from the Shackles of Arab Religious Imperialism, Part 1

Return to the Roots: Liberate yourselves from the Shackles of Arab Religious Imperialism, Part 1

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011 | Posted by Dr Radhasyam Brahmachari
Return to the Roots: Liberate yourselves from the Shackles of Arab Religious Imperialism, Part 1

By FFI Contributing Editor Dr Radhasyam Brahmachari

Islam stands for slavery of Arabia:

Presently the students and young Muslims in the Islamic world are agitating for freedom from the despotic rulers. But real freedom cannot be obtained unless they abandon the evil creed called Islam. There is no doubt that, Islam is the real oppressor and slavery of Islam is the curse that stifles freedom of speech and freedom of expression, without which a nation cannot prosper. So, the protesters should target Islam, not only the despotic dictators.

The ideal Islamic state is what Prophet Muhammad founded in Media, after his migration to the city from Mecca. In that Islamic state, Muhammad was the supreme dictator – he was the head of administration, chief of army staff and the chief of judiciary. So, there lies a strong propensity for the government of an Islamic state to become dictatorial, rather than democratic one. Hence, Islam is incompatible with democracy. And due to this reason, most of the Islamic states in the world are run by dictatorial governments. So, to obtain freedom, Islam is to be thrown first into the garbage first.

Furthermore, Islam is not simply a religion but Arab religious imperialism which uproots a convert from his or her ancestral culture. According to the Nobel Laureate author V S Naipaul, “Islam is not simply a matter of conscience or private belief. It makes imperial demands. A convert’s worldview alters. His holy places are in Arab lands. His sacred language is Arabic. His idea of history alters. He rejects his own: he becomes, whether he likes it or not, a part of the Arab story. The convert has to turn away from everything that is his.” He also said, “Islam asks its followers to abandon their past histories, culture, and identities. …… Islam has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples. To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say ‘my ancestral culture does not exist, it does not matter’….” (Beyond Belief) [1]

This observation of the said celebrated writer is beyond any dispute. For this reason, there is no taker for the rich ancient Mesopotamian and Babylonian culture in Iraq. No takers for rich and ancient Persian culture in today’s Islamic Iran. Every year the Egyptologists across the world hold seminars and symposia on ancient Egyptian civilization, but few Egyptian is found to contribute or participate in such discussions. In Pakistan, there are no takers for the ancient Harappan civilization. No Pakistani historian is interested about the pre-Islamic Pakistan. The people of Bangladesh talk in such a way that they had no existence before the declaration of the Islamic State of Bangladesh or before the creation of Pakistan.

Not only that. The Muslim invaders, who once massacred their ancestors and converted them to Islam through inhuman torture and at the point of sword, they treat those invaders as their saviors. For example, Pakistan has named its most up to date long-range missile as Ghauri, in the name of Mohammad Ghauri (or Ghory), one of the most despicable Muslim invader. On August 14, 1947, Pakistan, the Muslim country came into existence. A dispute arose among the leaders of All India Muslim League regarding where to celebrate this victory. Finally they came to the conclusion that Karachi should be the venue because this was the place where Mohammad bin Qasem brought the light of Koran and Hadith in this country in 711 AD.

Once upon a time, misfortune came to the people of today’s Islamic nations and they were converted to Islam through bloodshed and torture. It should be remembered that, in the darkness of a stormy night, it is not unlikely for a sailor to lose sight and get deviated from his original course. But after the calamity is over, it is natural for an intelligent sailor to strive hard to return to his own course. But even then, if he obstinately refuses to mend his way, it is needless to say that the wrong course would lead him to a wrong destination. And it is needless to say that the entire population of converted Muslims has been swayed by Islam, in a calamitous moment, to a deviated course and time has come to mend their way and return to the original course.



Ferdowsi, the great Persian poet, philosopher and the author of the epic Shahnameh.

Nearly a thousand years ago, the celebrated Persian poet and philosopher Ferdowsi gave such a call to his converted countrymen through his literary epic, Shahnameh. In that epic he narrated the efforts of the Princes of Samanid dynasty, who were responsible for revival of the Persian cultural traditions after the Arab invasion. But unfortunately, the Samanids were later on conquered by the Ghaznavid Turks. Though Ferdowsi died in 1020 C.E. in dismal poverty, his call is still ringing in the air of Persia. He was confident that the masterpiece that he had created would last the test of time and inspire his countrymen to return to original culture of their motherland.



In 1979, the Iranian people revolted against the oppressive rule of the dictator Shah Reza Pahlavi, but the people were misdirected by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led them to deeper darkness and fiercer and more ruthless Islamic dictatorship. These days, world is observing revolt of the people of the Islamic nations like Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain and other Islamic states in the Middle-East. They are targeting the autocratic rulers, but Islam should be the target, because Islam creates these demonic rulers. So long Islam is there, there would be no respite. They will depose one demon and Islam will create another devil.

Muslims are most oppressed by Islam:

Islam stands for backwardness and it is pulling the entire Muslim community from behind in the race for the progress and civilization. Islam forbids freedom of speech and freedom of expression, which terribly stalls the creativity of the people. Without freedom of expression and freedom of speech, a society cannot progress. According to Islamic culture, the thought process of an individual must be guided by the Koran and Sunnah, which Allah revealed 1400 years ago. So, Islam strives to keep the progress of the Islamic world as it was fourteen centuries ago.



Sir Winston Churchill

While commenting on this aspect of Islam, Sir Winston Churchill said, “No stronger retrograde force (than Islam) exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”[2]



Regarding the oppression of Islam on the Muslims, he said, “How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.” He further said, “The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.” [2]



Mustafa Kemal Atatürk


In early 20th century, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk could understand that, under Islam a nation cannot progress and hence he tried to liberate Turkey from the fetters of Arab religious imperialism. On March 3, 1924, he abolished the Caliphate and its powers within Turkey were transferred to democratically elected Parliament called the GNA. Other Muslim nations strongly opposed Turkey’s unilateral abolition of the Caliphate and debated whether they should confirm the Turkish action or appoint a new caliph. Though a Caliphate Conference was held in Cairo in May 1926 and a resolution was passed declaring the Caliphate “a necessity in Islam”, but failed to implement the decision.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, popularly known as Kemal Pasha, could comprehend that a new generation of educated people is needed to build a secular Turkey and that should begin from primary schools level. So, he implemented primary education compulsory for boys and girls; and modernized the old madrasa education with modern European system of education. Thus Mustafa Kemal changed the classical Islamic education for a vigorously promoted reconstruction of educational institutions. Thus Kemal could liberate education from religious dogma. In the summer of 1924, Mustafa Kemal invited American educational reformer and philosopher John Dewey to Anakara to advise him on how to reform Turkish education.



John Dewey

The state schools established a common curriculum which became known as the unification of education. At the same time, he abolished the two ministries including the department of religious affairs. Thus he separated religion from politics and thus laid the foundations of a secular Turkey. Beginning in the fall of 1925, Mustafa Kemal encouraged the Turks to wear modern European attire only to discourage Arabic dress-code. He said, “In the face of knowledge, science, and of the whole extent of radiant civilization, I cannot accept the presence in Turkey’s civilized community of people primitive enough to seek material and spiritual benefits in the guidance of sheiks. The Turkish republic cannot be a country of sheiks, dervishes, and disciples. The best, the truest order is the order of civilization. To be a man it is enough to carry out the requirements of civilization. The leaders of dervish orders will understand the truth of my words, and will themselves close down their lodges [tekke] and admit that their disciplines have grown up.”[3]

He made institutional Sufism illegal in Turkey; but allowed a non-political Sufism, functioning as social associations. Such were the steps adopted by Mustafa Kemal to liberate Turkey from the fetters of Arab religious imperialism. On 5 December 1934, Turkey granted full political rights to women, before several other European nations. The equal rights of women in marriage had already been established earlier in the Turkish civil code. Women’s place in Mustafa Kemal’s cultural reforms was best expressed in the civic book prepared under his supervision. As a result of these measures, eighteen female MPs joined the Turkish Parliament after the 1935 general elections.



Eighteen female MPs of Turkish Parliament (1935)

But it is really unfortunate that the present rulers of Turkey have revived an Islamic Turkey by abandonment of all the reforms implemented by Kemal Pasha. In this context, the reader may remember the unfortunate demise of the Mutazila movement to liberate science and learning from the Islamic dogma, that flourished in the cities of Basra and Baghdad, both in present-day Iraq, initiated by group of rational thinkers known as Mutazilis.

Dismal state of education in the Islamic world:

At the very outset, it should be mentioned that Islam does not have any program like “Human Resource Development.” People create wealth, but Islam does not have any program to raise an educated work force for creating wealth. Islam put stress on jihad. What is jihad? To kill certain kind of people and grab their properties and riches by sword, fire and rape. If young people are imbued with this kind of idea, they will try to acquire knowledge for burglary, robbery and theft for accumulation of wealth and not to create wealth by sincere labor. Recently, Muslim zealots are talking about conquering the entire world, particularly the developed countries in the West, so that they could loot the wealth and riches of those countries.

So, the Islamic world does not make the best use of its accumulated human capital. Due this viewpoint, Islamic world is falling behind the other communities of the world in education and creativity. This lack of education, Islam produces ordinary laborers but not an educated and skilled labor force. The governments of rich countries of the Middle East are importing educated skilled labor force from foreign countries, but not trying to develop their own labor force. In fact, Building such labor force is necessary for economic growth, income distribution, and poverty alleviation. It is needless to say that, it can be achieved only by imparting modern scientific education to the people.

So, an investigator laments, “The Muslim countries of the world are at the bottom of the list when it comes to education and development. Many people have tried to blame the west for the backward Muslim attitude. However, this problem is not an external problem, but an internal one. There are other countries in the world, which are poorer than some Muslim countries, but when it comes to education they are far ahead of Muslim nations.”.

He also says, “India is one example. They were also under colonial rule like Pakistan and are among the poorest countries in the world. However, their education system is better than any Muslim country in the world. They produce more world class scientists and researchers than all the Muslims countries combined . If you go to any major university in the world, you are bound to find Indian professors in the faculty.”

“What is their secret? This question had been on my mind several years ago and I did some research on that. I noticed several differences in ATTITUDE and no major differences in content of what was being taught at their universities compared to Muslim Universities. The main difference was that Indian education system encourages QUESTIONING old Masters, whereas, the Muslim countries’ education system DISCOURAGES asking new questions and it encourages following what people in the past did. This attitude is not limited to universities but is also prevalent in other social things, including religion.” [4]

There is another problem. In Islamic countries, women are treated worse than domestic animals and in many of them the Islamic clerics forbid education to the girls. When Talibans occupied Afghanistan, they closed all schools and colleges for girls. In one occasion, the Muslim zealots slit the throats of 300 school girls for the offence of attending schools. There so many similar examples in various Islamic nations. But the girl children of the Muslims migrated to the Western countries receive education like the children of the other communities without any hindrence.


In the recent past, the World Bank conducted a study regarding the education in the Muslim world and it submitted its report titled “The World Bank Report on Education Reform in North Africa and the Middle East” in February, 2008. The report concluded that the quality of education in the Arab world is falling behind other regions and needs urgent reform to tackle swelling unemployment. The report said unemployment in the Arab world averaged 14%, which is higher than other areas in the world, except Sub-Saharan Africa, with the Palestinian territories coming highest with nearly 26%.

A senior World Bank official, Marwan Muasher who contributed to the report said, “Educational reform went hand in hand with economic development, especially given the region’s extremely high youth population. It’s a very youthful region – 60% of the region’s population is under 30 years of age, close to 100m new jobs will need to be created over the next 10 to 15 years in the Arab world. If we are to create such jobs, then we have to start with education.”

Another study carried out in January, 2008, by the Tunis-based Arab League Educational Cultural and Scientific Organization found that 30% of the approximately 300 million people in the Arab World were illiterate.
The report also says, “The Muslim World has made no contribution to science or contributed anything substantial to technology. It remains today in a state of gloom and anarchy where leaders inherit their thrones for life and ensure the population remains in poverty with little care for the educational needs of the people.”

The report confirmed that the region has only invested about 5% of GDP in education over the past 40 years. Some developments have occurred in countries such as the Gulf States and Egypt, where many children have benefited from compulsory schooling. However, the region as a whole has not made the best use of its accumulated human capital. Unemployment is particularly high among graduates, and a large segment of the educated labor force is employed by governments. Not surprisingly, the link between human capital accumulation and economic growth, income distribution, and poverty reduction in the region is weak.

Another study says, “What is very clear is that the Muslim rulers are intellectually bankrupt without any vision for the Muslim world and have in fact implemented policies that have contributed to the multitude of problems in the Muslim lands. The royal family in Saudi Arabia spends millions every year on shopping malls and family trips abroad. In Egypt Hosni Mubarak spends more on building palaces than his people, whilst Jordan spends more on renewable energy than on welfare. Education just isn’t a priority for the Muslim rulers.” In fact, Muslim rulers and the cleric are afraid of imparting modern education to the younger generation, because in that case, they will start questioning the Islam. So, they strive to confine education within the Islamic schools or madras, where they will learn only Koran and the Hadith. They argue that truth has already been revealed by Allah in the Koran and Sunnah and hence it is useless to spend time and money to rediscover the truth. It is not difficult to understand that such an attitude is extremely detrimental to the progress and development of a society. Most importantly, such a view stalls the creativity of people and we hope to discuss these aspects in the next part of the article.

(To be continued)

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References:

[1] http://www.chowk.com/Views/History/A-Convert-s-Complaint-Analyzing-Naipaul-s-Views-on-Islam

[2] http://www.brutallyhonest.org/brutally_honest/2010/02/winston-churchill-on-islam.html

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1592070/posts

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal_Atat%C3%BCrk

[4] http://www.masjidtucson.org/publications/books/sp/2007/jun/page1.html