[1058] in peace2
A War Against Whom?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Saurabh Asthana)
Fri Sep 28 15:04:36 2001
Message-Id: <200109281850.f8SIoT712506@chaos11.bwh.harvard.edu>
To: peace-list@mit.edu
Reply-to: rednblack@alum.mit.edu
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 14:50:29 -0400
From: Saurabh Asthana <angrymob@chaos11.bwh.harvard.edu>
Good article from a Muslim scholar... can't say I disagree with much in it.
Saurabh
------
"Everywhere the building of a prison is the first step in the organization of
a civilized state." - B. Traven, 'Government'
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 alAqsa 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 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).
