A few short weeks ago, some in the Muslim world were bold enough to suggest that America’s problems in Iraq represented the beginning of the end for its hegemonic power. That may yet prove to be true; but George W. Bush’s belligerent warmongering against Iran suggests that celebrations may be premature.
Malaysia is the favourite Muslim country for many Western Muslims. The reasons were not difficult to see when this writer visited the country last month; Malaysia can perhaps be characterised as Muslim but not too Muslim. You can eat halal food wherever you go, there are suraus (prayer rooms) in malls, hotels and most other public buildings, and virtually all Muslimahs wear hijab. But in terms of their development, modernity, looks and general atmosphere, Kuala Lumpur and surrounding urban areas such as Petaling Jaya feel more like Islamised versions of cities in the West than Muslim cities like Cairo, Damascus, Tehran, Karachi or Jakarta.
Hizbullah has won a stunning victory over Israel in its first all-out military conflict with the zionist state. Between its formation in the early 1980s and its victory in 2000, when Israel was kicked out of most of occupied Lebanon, Hizbullah was in resistance mode.
President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB boss during the Soviet era, has turned his country into an undisguisedly racist and anti-Islamic fortress since taking power in 2004: there has always been an element of discrimination (albeit disguised) against Muslims in the Soviet Union, but it is getting worse.
One feature of current events in the Middle East is that the three Islamic movements that perhaps deserve the greatest respect and recognition from the global Ummah are standing together against the onslaught from the West.
Watching events unfolding in Lebanon over the last month, it has been impossible to avoid a sense that we have seen it all before, that what is now happening is merely a replay of what we have seen so many times already. Lebanon’s modern history has been dominated by Israeli attacks and interference, most notably in 1982, when the Israeli military devastated the country with air strikes and occupied Beirut itself.
In previous columns, we have examined the methodology of the Islamic Revolution and movement; now we must move to questions concerning the very survival of the Islamic Revolution and movement. As this column is written, the zionist military machine is launching wave after wave of air-raids and naval bombardments on the northern part of the Holy Land – Lebanon.
The sudden expulsion last month of the warlords who had ruled Mogadishu for 15 years took everyone by surprise – including the US government, which backed and financed them to prevent any Islamic group from assuming power in the failed state.
In May, Lebanon marked the anniversary of the Hizbullah’s successful expulsion of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in 2000. For Muslims around the world, the Hizbullah success was a triumph for the courage and steadfastness of its members in the field of battle and in the far more complicated arena of Lebanese politics.
Somalia is a country that tends unfortunately to be associated with famine and civil war, rather than anything more positive, for that is how it most often appears in the Western media. It is also a country about which many Muslims know little; many may not even realize that it is a Muslim country.
The agreement reached on June 22 at Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, by Somalia's nominal transitional government and the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) – which is in control of the capital,Mogadishu, and most of southern Somalia – has been hailed as a first step towards the restoration of peace, tranquillity and unity to the violence-ridden "failed state".
What makes some pro-democracy movements popular in the West and others not so popular? Considering the emphasis that the Bush regime has placed on democratisation in the Muslim world as the solution for anti-Western anger among Muslims, one would expect that the eruption of popular protests against a one-party dictatorship led for nearly three decades by the same former military officer might be welcomed in Washington and gleefully publicised by the world’s media.
Working on the preparations for the Dr Kalim Siddiqui Memorial Conference in April provided an opportunity to go back and read many of his writings after many years. What was truly remarkable about them was how much of what he wrote years ago, in what were apparently very different historical times, remains as fresh and relevant today as it was at the time.
On April 23, the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT) and Crescent International hosted a Kalim Siddiqui Memorial Conference in London. The theme of the conference was The Islamic movement: between extremism and moderation. Here we publish an abridged version of the keynote paper, presented by IQBAL SIDDIQUI, the editor of Crescent International.
Since the war on Iraq ardent calls for “change” have become fashionable in Arab countries. These appeals come from various quarters. However, the variety of the demands for change betray the nature and the extent of the power-war currently unfolding in the region. While “change” apparently means all things to all people, three broad stages have emerged: the popular arena, the regimes, and the Americans and their European allies.
Al-mu'min mir'atu akhihi (“a committed Muslim is the mirror of his brother”). In other words, we Muslims should be building on our perceptions of each other. One should be able to identify one's own characteristics as a Muslim through the character andbehavior of another Muslim.
Last month marked the third anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussain. Few now doubt that the invasion was the culmination of a long-held plan on the Americans’ part, and that the intense international politicking of the months leading up to the war, with the talk of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links between Saddam Hussainand al-Qa’ida, UN resolutions and weapons inspectors, was no more than a process designed to justify the invasion.
The images are still fresh in our minds, the characters are still around, and the memories will not go away. In Islamic centers and masajid, Islamic annual conferences and halaqat, even at hajj and the ‘umrah, books, tracts, essays, and pamphlets, and sometimes cassettes and CDs, were liberally distributed, free of charge.
There are less than three years left for the US's neo-conservative leaders – the current set of pro-Israeli decision-makers inWashington – to make their mark on history. They have had five years in power and the only rallying cry they have produced was 9/11.
April 18 this year will be the tenth anniversary of the death of Dr Kalim Siddiqui, the founder of the Muslim Institute, London, and the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain. For the last decade and a half of his life, between the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 and his death in South Africa in 1996, Dr Kalim dominated Islamic movement activism in Britain and was a major figure in the global Islamic movement.
