[ALBSA-Info] A War Against Whom?

[Mimoza Meholli]

>A War Against Whom?
>
>By Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Ph.D.
>Minaret of Freedom Institute
>
>27/09/2001
>
>It appears that we have entered a war. I wish to
>evaluate both President George W. Bush's actions since
>September 11th and those of the American Muslim
>community. I realize that wartime is a dangerous time
>to risk offending parties in such precarious
>positions, but I am more afraid of offending Allah.
>
>The good news is that for the most part Mr. Bush has
>handled the situation well. He has understood the fine
>line he needs to walk between assuring the American
>people as a whole that effective action will be taken
>and the American Muslim community that he wants them
>united with the rest of America, on his side in his
>decision to treat the September 11th horrors as an act
>of war rather than as a criminal offense.
>
>And American Muslims, have on the whole, reacted well,
>sharing in the grief of our non-Muslim neighbors (as
>well as our own: there may have been hundreds of
>Muslims killed that day) and offering to help with
>funds and blood donations.
>
>Yet I am disappointed in both parties. In Mr. Bush,
>for his absurd assertion in his address to Congress
>that the motivation of the terrorists was a hatred of
>freedom and democracy, and disappointment in American
>Muslims who, in their understandable reluctance to
>believe that Muslims would do such an evil act have
>given credence to every absurd rumor to come out over
>the Internet or backyard fence.
>
>Muslims must condemn Osama bin Laden's calls for the
>murder of civilians whether or not he was involved in
>planning or funding the attacks on the World Trade
>Center and the Pentagon. At the same time, Mr. Bush
>should stop evading the fact that the motivation for
>bin Laden's ire is not freedom and democracy (however
>he might feel about those issues) but disastrous
>American interventionist foreign policies. America has
>not been a sleeping giant, but a sleepwalking
>superpower blundering across the world stage making
>enemies without understanding why.
>
>Even if bin Laden was not behind the September
>carnage, a declaration of war against him is logical.
>After all, he declared war on the United States in
>February of 1998. His signature appears on a fax sent
>to the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi of a directive
>that specified "crimes and sins committed by the
>Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his
>messenger, and Muslims" and on the basis that struggle
>"is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the
>Muslim countries" that therefore "to kill the
>Americans and their allies - civilians and military -
>is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it
>in any country in which it is possible to do it, in
>order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Holy
>Mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies
>to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and
>unable to threaten any Muslim" (Bin Laden, et al.
>1998). If someone knows that bin Laden has repudiated
>this fax, they should produce the evidence now,
>otherwise it is a top priority for American Muslims to
>denounce it, and him.
>
>The fact that a man trains people to kill and tells
>them it is okay to use the techniques they learn
>against the innocent (and then gives a prayer of
>thanks when he hears that someone has done just that)
>is sufficient cause to consider him a terrorist. As
>Muslims we are obligated to use the same standard of
>justice with regard to bin Laden as with regard to
>Ariel Sharon. This is what the Qur'an means when it
>says: "O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice
>as witnesses to God even as against yourselves or your
>parents or your kin and whether it be [against] rich
>or poor: for God can best protect both. Follow not the
>lusts [of your hearts] lest ye swerve and if ye
>distort (justice) or decline to do justice verily God
>is well-acquainted with all that ye do" (4:135).
>
>As for Mr. Bush, if he is sincere in his desire to
>avoid a demonization of Islam, then why in his address
>to Congress did he say that the terrorists were
>motivated by a hatred of democracy and freedom? Bin
>Laden, whom he accuses, never once criticized
>democracy or freedom in his directive of February
>1998. He denounced the presence of American troops in
>the land of the two holy mosques. He denounced
>American embargoes and bombings that have killed so
>many Iraqis. He denounced American support of the
>illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. The U.S.
>actions bin Laden criticized are distorted perversions
>of democracy and outright abominations against
>freedom, no less than the bombing of the World Trade
>Center was a distortion of jihad (struggle) and an
>abomination against the peace and justice commanded in
>the Qur'an.
>
>Mr. Bush has made it clear that he is not out after
>only one man, nor even just his network of presumed
>collaborators, but also those who "harbor him". What
>this means is that when someone commits a criminal or
>violent act against a community and another community
>gives protection to that man, refusing to extradite
>him to those he has injured that the injured community
>has the right to retaliate against the community that
>protects him. Revenge is not only an ancient lust, it
>is a modern one as well. Napoleon promised to kill ten
>of the enemy for every one of his killed. The
>difference between retaliation in the Napoleonic code
>and qisas (the law of equality) in Islamic law is that
>the Qur'an strictly limits retaliation. One for one
>and like for like. In this limitation says the Qur'an
>"there is [a saving of] life to you O ye men of
>understanding! That ye may restrain yourselves"
>(2:179).
>
>Against whom have we gone to war? Is it Mr. Bush's
>intention to restrain himself, to give measure for
>measure, or perhaps less, until the conspirators are
>turned over so that the guilty may be punished and the
>innocent left alone? Or shall he expand his war to
>Sudan, Iraq, even Iran as some Zionists have demanded,
>or even worse? Does he aim to remind the exiled Saudi
>who was so happy to see six thousand civilians killed
>in fifteen minutes that America is the country that
>once killed tens of thousands of civilians in fifteen
>seconds (at Hiroshima)?
>
>Bin Laden calls his incitement against America a
>"fatwa" and Americans sing "God Bless America" as they
>stand on the brink of the slaughter of Afghanis. It
>would be wise to remember how often both sides of a
>war have insisted that God was on their side. Truly
>godly people know that the important question is: Are
>we on God's side? Whether Mr. Bush chooses a
>proportioned and narrowly targeted action or a broad
>retaliation in Afghanistan, and later elsewhere in the
>Muslim world, will demonstrate whether or not he is on
>God's side, as will whether he continues the material
>support of the slaughter of non-combatants with
>American weapons by Israelis.
>
>As I reflect on these things, one thought keeps
>returning to my consciousness. A glorious act of jihad
>(struggle in the way of God) took place on September
>11th. It was not the provocative murder of innocent
>civilians by the embittered terrorists. It was the
>brave fight by the passengers on the plane from
>Pittsburgh that successfully foiled the conspirators
>from attacking one more target and who knows how many
>more innocent lives. They could have had no motive
>other than to please God, for their death was a
>virtual certainty. But unlike the hijackers, the
>passengers' purpose was to save life, not to destroy
>it. Of this Allah, the Exalted and Glorified, has
>truly said: "We ordained … that … if anyone saved a
>life it would be as if he saved the life of the whole
>people" (5:32).
>
>
>References
>
>Shaykh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Laden, Ayman
>al-Zawahiri, Abu-Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, Shaykh Mir
>Hamzah, and Fazlul Rahman (signatories), "Text of
>World Islamic Front's Statement Urging Jihad Against
>Jews and Crusaders" - Al-Quds al-'Arabi, English
>translation by Emergency Response and Research
>Institute, Chicago (9/24/2001).
>
>
>
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