Archive for September, 2008
Blasts again in India – this time in Muslim majority areas :change of tactics or something even more sinister?
Blasts again shook two cities of India late Monday night and took human lives – they appear to be similar in pattern to what probably accidentally happened in Delhi two days ago. What is highly significant is that blasts are now taking place in areas which are Muslim majority regions. The nature of explosives also point to a highly effective but cruder technology. One of the cities to have the latest of these blasts is Malegaon – literally derived from a 18th century place-name meaning “village/town of gardens”. It was originally strategically located between Gujarat and Agra, the early Mughal military and administrative centre. A local jahagirdar, Naro Shankar Raje, started building a fort in the area in 1740, a project that took 20 years, and this construction work attracted a large number of Muslim workers and artisans from places like Surat and northern India. When the British captured the Malegaon fort in 1818, Muslims from Hyderabad migrated to Malegaon. After the failure of the 1857 “first war of independence” British brutality of reprisals forced many Muslims to migrate from around Delhi and other places of UP into Malegaon as a convenient community refuge. Famine in 1862 forced Muslim weavers in the Varanasi area to move to Malegaon. In my series on the effect of Muslim rule on the economic decline of India I have extensively written on how the producing classes were ruthlessly exploited by the imported “Ashrafi” (literally pure – this is the title given to themselves by the descendants of those whose records show no more qualifications than an infinite capacity for bloodlust, murder, rape and loot, and of course an extreme devotion to “Islam” which of course very conveniently always condones such acts as part of Jihad) Muslim elite almost to the point of ruin.
The non-Muslim artisans of northern India at the time of the Muslim invasions were in severe straits. India had been famous as a producer, and exporter of cotton and fine cotton based material as well as in constructions and architecture. The early pre-Muslim towns and cities of Northern India therefore had a concentration of artisans specializing in weaving, dyeing or construction and masonry. By the very nature of their work, they were dependent on the urban environment and a concentration of necessary infrastructure not only for their particular skills but also for trade and markets. As the Hindu kingdoms fell before the Muslim invasions, the artisan’s survival (which had already been quite jeopardized because of the Muslim interference in Indian trade through Central Asia and the Indian Ocean sea-trade using piracy) was crucially dependent on holding on to their urban production infrastructure. This probably led to their acceptance of Islam as there are countless indications and claims by the Muslim chroniclers [like Ferishta and many many others] of the only choice given to the inhabitants of a city that fell to Muslim armies, as being either conversion to Islam or death.
Thus we do find a concentration of Muslim weavers in Varanasi, the very ancient centre of Hindu cultural development, and the capital of a long surviving kingdom. These were in fact descendants of the Hindu artisan class converted under extraordinary circumstances. If they are now concentrated in Malegaon, they should be treated as Hindu descendants who were converted under extreme pressure, when they were defenceless and without protection of their rulers, when their livelihoods and survival were at stake. There has been a similar blast in 2006 in Malegaon, exactly on similar dates of religious significance to the Muslims – the Shab-e-barat, with the end of the Ramadan month in sight.
If Islamic terrorists did this, why would they want to have Muslims killed in the blast? Or is it that this was the safest place to carry out blasts, given that deep cover was necessary now when the security forces would be combing the whole country – and such cover could only be provided by a sufficiently large and entrenched Muslim community, and therefore the momentum of Jihad could only be maintained by continued explosions but now only within a smaller feasible radius around the base of the cover. It could also be punishment to the local Muslims at large, who might have shown reluctance or lack of sufficient enthusiasm to join the Jihadi network – there is strong disapproval in the Quran for those Muslims who show “reluctance” in joining militant Jihad or providing material support for such Jihad.
A second more sinister aspect could be a tactical calculation that, these attacks could be attributed to the so-called “Hindu Right wing”, and thus help in the current apparent campaign of the UPA to try to equate “Islamic terror” with “Hindu Right”. If true this would be a very subtle and cynical tactic on the part of the Jihadists, as it achieves many objectives – (1) this makes Jihadi terror appear more “palatable” (2) helps the Congress in its desperate fight to utilize minority support in the coming elections and attempt at delegitimizing the BJP (3) makes the vacillating among the “secular” Hindus shaky in identifying with or leaning towards the “Hindu Right”.
A third possibility could be a copy-cat retaliation from among the non-Muslims of India, as a part of making Muslims share the pain of Jihadi and Islamic terror. This could be an increasing possibility if the Islamophile state policy of India continues. The reaction to Islamic terror is coming, in spite of my deep reluctance to accept the reality of such reaction which will tend not to distinguish between the barbaric theologians of Islam and the common brainwashed followers who in the case of India will be descended from the most unfortunate of pre-Muslim Indians, and one day it will sweep Islam away and deposit it in history’s garbage heap.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Terrorist Blast kills child in India while Markey demands we all shake in fear of Pakistan and stop the N-deal – fools of the world unite to preserve Islam, you have nothing but your shame and the blood and tears of non-Muslims to lose
Two young men on a bike were riding through a busy market in the Mehrauli area of South Delhi. A black polythene wrapped box dropped off from the bike. A young girl called after the bikers, to tell them that they had dropped a package, and picked it up and gave a young boy to return it to the bikers. The bikers however sped away. And then the box exploded killing the boy on the spot, injuring three others seriously, and in all injuring 17 people. These were perhaps terrorists on the way to planting explosives to catch maximum population densities over the weekend markets leading up to the festive season in Northern India. These were perhaps terrorists simply carrying explosives in small packets from one storage to another. Several pointers indicate the stamp of Islam in this – this is a Muslim dominated area, with most traders and clients belonging to the Muslim community, with a “prestigious” mosque nearby, and the time of the day was not the point at which Hindus from outside the area would be likely to be in sufficient number, which makes it unlikely that the blast was pre-planned. Secondly, it would be typically Islamic ethics as in historical practice [and not as per lofty claims in the modern sanitized reconstructions of the history and practice of Islam] which considers preservation of the life of the Muslim soldier or raider to be much more important than show the courage or chivalry of saving the innocent child by accepting the package back. Especially as I have pointed out many times in my posts here before, the Quran as well as the Hadiths indicated that the life of children of non-Muslims was not really important for Muhammad – “they[children and women of “pagans”] are from them[“pagans”]” in the context of possibility of danger to the children and women of non-Muslims when Muslims attack at night.
While we have this in the capital of India, we have the eminent wisdom of Eddy Markey whose argument against the Indo-US civil N-deal in the last desperate attempt by the Islamophile lobby in the US to block the deal in the House and the Congress, is simply that Pakistan “warned of arms race” if the N-deal with India went through. No wonder that Islam gains converts in the USA, if such asinine statesmanship is voted to represent the American people in the legislature.
India is strategically crucial in the defence of non-Muslims against the last scourge of 21st century human civilization – Islam. Christianity has not proved to be a strong antidote to Islam. The reason lies in the very origins and nature of both the aggressive proselytizing branches of the revealed traditions. The Jews had long decided in favour of a restriction of their faith to ethnicity and strictly by biological descent, for various possible reasons, perhaps not excluding the severe political and military repression they apparently went through in the final stages of their theological development [however, by the logic of the Thaparite School of Indian History applied to prove absence of historical Islamic terror in India, we have little record of “trauma” at the hands of the Romans from the side of the Jewish victims, and therefore the “trauma” theory should normally be suspect as per “professional” historian’s standards – copying the logic of Thaparites, we could say that Romans including the “Romanized” Josephus, after all always had boasted and prized military ruthlessness and therefore could have written in all the gory details of the liquidation of the Jews as propaganda for self-glorification]. Hindus have no formal mechanism for conversion, and for a non-hindu to become a “Hindu”, they also have to take the socio-biological route – either getting married to a Hindu or getting “adopted” by a Hindu. Hindus are not congregational, and do not insist on collective religious action under a centralized religious organization. Both Islam as well as the more radical offshoots of Christianity starting from the medieval period have been on the other hand distinctly aggressively proselytizing – this is the characteristic of minority ideologies without strong social roots desperately struggling to increase following and power in competition with established ideologies. Both Islam and Christianity could significantly expand only through military imposition of the faith – as in their original forms they represented a simplification of the world view that was far less complex and sophisticated compared to some of the cultures they were in conflict with. It is usually not remembered that Christianity really expanded in Europe only two significant phases – the first under the aggressive military imposition under Constantine and second under the Frank Charles [Charlemagne] who reputedly chopped off thousands of Saxon chief’s heads to establish acceptance of Christianity but himself showed just like Constantine many persistent departures from the Ten Commandments.
As I have pointed out earlier, such minority ideologies would be attractive to (1) those who have not been able to keep up with increasing technological and therefore socio-economic superstructural complexities of a given civilization (2) those who are insecure and feel bewildered faced before the increasing number of multiple and myriad choices and decisions (3) low sense of self and self-esteem who need the esteem of a group to compensate (4) to men if these ideologies promise the sexual and social subjugation of women especially if such men feel threatened by the independence and control of women over their own sexuality and are only reassured if the entire activity of women are restricted to reproductive and physically submissive sexual roles only (5) to the economically and politically disadvantaged if such ideologies promise to legitimize the transfer ownership of wealth, power and women from the current elite irrespective of qualifications of the “neo-converts”. This is indeed the attraction of Islam, and it remains true for those Americans who satisfy the criteria mentioned above.
Europe is actively allowing the main organizational units for aggressive Islamic proselytization, the mosques where theologians inevitably having training and connections to the Sunni Wahabi orthodoxy safely operating out of Saudi Arabia and definitely benefiting from the price of oil, carry out the real agenda of Islam – the brainwashing and preparing of future adult Muslims to undertake violent military Jihad to capture the lands, wealth and women of non-Muslims.
Islam actively and openly promotes the destruction of or taking over of as well as prevention of the construction of new cultural centres of non-Muslims, including shrines, temples, or holy sites, and therefore it has no ethical right to protection of its own cultural centres. Attitude towards any ideology should be based on reciprocal basis – and new constructions of mosques or Islamic cultural or religious centres should not be allowed unless the Islamic countries allow the construction of non-Muslim centres. Further, since Muslims have and continue to destroy non-Muslim cultural icons or religious places wherever they have military and political authority or so called “land of Islam”, no protection should any longer be given to Muslim centres in “non-Muslim lands”. Every terrorist activity by Muslims should actually be made to be responded with an actual reduction in number of practising Muslims, not the Islamic method of reducing non-Muslims by chopping off the head of anyone who refuses to follow Islam, but by either disenfranchising, expelling, or exchanging populations, if the Muslims refuse to give up their religion publicly. It is Islam as a practising religion which must go – it will not be the first time a religion has bitten the dust because people leave it in droves.
Both in India and the USA, the non-Muslims should now decide on and identify the forces in their respective countries that are Islamophiles – and are trying to bring in Islam for various personal, political and economic tie-ups with the Islamic establishment as well as a mistaken perspective of the strategic importance of Islamic oil and Islamic markets. Pressure should be mounted for more self-sustainable energy sourcing within their own national boundaries, and develop internal markets rather than depend on the easier route of enjoying excessive profits from trade with the Islamic markets. Economic activity of non-Muslim countries should try to bypass the Islamic countries as much as possible. The thorny issue of conversion into Christianity in India can be tackled easily, if the Christian and Hindu groups come to an understanding that they will not proselytize on each other’s existing following, but coordiante or concentrate on converting Muslims. Also in India, it is important to delink religion or ethnicity from social opportunities and benefits but which will be hotly resisted by the Congress as its management of political power at the centre is crucially dependent on the maintenance of these social fractures.
The world will never know peace from the threat of Islam, unless the last practising Muslim is no more, for as long as the practise of Islam remains, its Jihadist violent greed for the Sadistic enjoyment of the pain of the non-muslim under its power, its continuing agenda of promoting war on non-Muslims [just type in Google “ghazwa-e-Hind” -literally translating as the Arabic tribal style raid to loot wealth, and women of another tribe to be launched on/in India] , and its fundamental driving force of greed for the lands, wealth and women of non-Muslims, will plague the human civilization – as it crystallizes, sanitizes and gives suprahuman “divine” justification for all the most biologically powerful and dark motivations in humans.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )The US bailout – was Hayek and Friedman wrong afterall?
A frustrated and dejected Hayek had once returned to his home country of Austria, leaving the Chicago school of economics alone to fight for the acceptance of their theory of the superiority of “free market forces” over that of centralized or planned/controlled economies which were constantly being intervened in or needed intervention by the Government or financial regulatory authorities. Hayek’s eventual rehabilitation started with the fascination that the Iron Lady had for his interpretations, and of course the Iron Lady’s success [perhaps with a heavy dose of Lady Luck smiling through the success in the Falklands war – or was it not so much an “accidental” war after all?] in deregulating most of the UK’s economic sectors. Friedman was the face of “free market” in the USA, the focus of intense vilification as the “devil’s advocate” who thought nothing of the heavy human cost of “reforms”, and the man who visibly flinched at the abuse hurled at him from the galleries while even receiving the Nobel Prize.
The association of the Latin American dictatorships with these reforms were not a help to the Hayekists. The Chilean example would be a permanent blot on the Hayekists, because of the fascist methods of torture and liquidation of political opposition, especially those who could be represented by the authorities as “leftist”. European countries who recently appear to pander to “leftist” demands to “equate anti-Islam” with “fascism”, never uttered a single word of censure against the Chilean regime in defense of the Chilean “Left” then. This was consistent with their behaviour when similar barbarities were being carried out on “Leftists” in the middle-Eastern Islamic countries. The only European country to have opened its mouth on humanitarian concerns about the atrocities in Latin America, appears to be the post-post-Franco Spain, still too deeply agonized and guilt-ridden over its spectacular achievements on the human-rights front under Franco. However, utilization of or experiments with spontaneous market forces to revive stagnating economies had started not only in the USA under Reagan following Thatcher, but unknown and unpublicized in the western media, had been going on in the “Communist” world surreptitiously. Communist China had never really fully given up on markets, with records showing existence and encouragement of local markets from the beginning of Communist power. With the admirable strategic and tactical flexibility shown by the Chinese communists as always, the CCP showed its grasp of economics quite early – when it used a combination of markets and hedging against real commodities to slash down on inflation. Subsequently it retreated quickly as and when necessary from disastrous experiments with centralization, and did not believe in continuing on an error because of pride or ideological commitment.
In contrast to Keynesian theory, which at least gave a crucial importance to the role of the Government spending in jump-starting a stagnant or crisis ridden economy, and was taken up with enthusiasm by FDR leading definitely to the recovery from the Great Depression of the 30’s in the USA, a simplistic reading of Hayek indeed gives the impression that Government intervention only leads to further chaos. There are two important objections to this simplistic reading of Hayek. When Hayek is talking of leaving markets forces to adjust themselves, he is talking of small departures from equilibrium – this is the reason, where there had already been cumulative large departures from equilibrium, the adjustments were extremely costly in human terms. The US case is the case of a large departure. But then inevitably the question arises as to how large is “large”? And this is where the second objection comes in. Hayek was essentially formulating his theory in the framework of national economies, and to a certain extent we still cannot completely come out of the implicit conditions in Hayek’s theory. The fundamental problem is because our mechanisms of financial and economic accountability is still tied primarily with the political boundaries and institutions of the nation state, whereas financial capital is no longer national. Global capital now flies where it senses profit, with very little of the actual market forces being integrated between the source and sink of this capital.
Taking the very simple example of the US mortgage crisis, which probably resulted at least partly from the ruthless exploitation of endemic vulnerability of non-dominant racial and ethnic and social groups in having access to resources, to pump up prices and profit rates. This not only creates a fictitious commodity in economic terms, [a value which cannot be supported in reality by a real commodity of utility – especially peculiar commodities like land or buildings which do not generate new buildings or lands on their own, unlike other material input into industrial processes] but also definitely needs increased money supply. Now in the older framework of national economies, this increased money supply and therefore inflationary pressures could have been controlled by tightening the national money supply itself. However in the strange modern world economy, money supply itself cannot be controlled within the national economy itself, as finance capital flows constantly in and out of the national economy. The nations have no real control over the global money supply, and the crucial equilibrium factors of a tight money supply, free movement of labour and other factors of production [as would have more or less naturally been obtained for a “free market” system within a single “national economy”] are practically absent in the international economic exchanges between national economies.
Exceptionally high prices for basic housing could only be sustained if there was unusually large financial capital on the money supply side not really balanced against the productive capacity of the national economy and development of monopolies and cartels in the housing provider market also with the help of excessive accumulation of finance capital in the hands of a few – both conditions not conducive to a Hayekian “free market” self correcting mechanisms.
There are two components to solving this problem over the long run – (1) go for a solid, international fully integrated monetary regime not constrained by national boundaries, but subject to overall control of money supply, backed up by a freeing of the crucial market forces of free movement of labour and technology (2) include a basic social security net that still is consistent with encouragement of performance and the role of incentives. Even in the USA, the land of “opportunities”, the ideas of “microcredit” or “community land trusts” should not be “untouchable”!
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Germany edges close to India – countries where anti-Islam means pro-Nazi
A proposed demonstration against the proposed construction of a mosque at Cologne, Germany, which was supposed to be raising “stop Islam” slogan, was banned – ostensibly in the face of “communist” or other “leftist” counter demonstration. I wonder why Germans do not burst out laughing at the sheer absurdity and farce of it all! (I am holding back my temptation to make a very politically incorrect joke about why we should not expect them to laugh at all about this). Germany’s weakness for Islam seriously started with the realpolitik of a Kaiser who played a pivotal role in the initiation of the trans-Syrian “holy rail” to Mecca in the 1890’s, that ultimately connected all the way through to Baghdad. This is the rail line which probably significantly fuelled the industrial demand and market for steel in Germany, as the whole railway, with all its supporting infrastructure was manufactured in Germany and shipped to the building site. This is also the rail line which served as the iconic backdrop to the fictionalized hagiographies of “Lawrence of Arabia”. Germany’s relationship deepened with the Ottoman Turkish empire, perhaps not only as a strategic and tactical countermove to the British Empire’s hogging of all of the world’s colonial “goodies” and British Imperialism’s persistent refusal to “share” markets – a position it now has strongly reversed and demands all the world’s markets to open up after losing imperial dominance. German scholars have left us some important translations of works from the middle east, which perhaps in the hands of the likes of some of the British “scholars” who plastered up “obscene” ancient figurines on Indian temples, would have been destroyed forever. But Germany’s fascination with the “Orient” and especially Islam took a much more serious turn during the march of Nazism – the anglicized shortened form of the original in Deutsche meaning “National Socialism”.
We have the following gems about how intensely antagonistic the Nazis and Muslim leadership of the Middle East were to each other: the first is a message from Himmler to The Grand Mufti Haj Amin al Husseini, [“GrossMufti” in Deutsche] dated November 2, 1943,
[message from Heinrich Himmler to an anti-Balfour Declaration meeting]:
To the Grand Mufti:
The National Socialist Movement of Greater Germany has, since its beginning, inscribed upon its flag the fight against world Jewry. It has, therefore, followed with particular sympathy the struggle of the freedom-loving Arabians, especially in Palestine, against the Jewish interlopers. It is in the recognition of this enemy and of the common struggle against him that lies the firm foundation of the natural alliance that exists between National-Socialist-Greater Germany and the freedom-loving Moslems of the whole world. In this spirit I am sending you on the anniversary of the infamous Balfour Declaration my hearty greetings and wishes for the successful pursuit of your struggle until the certain final victory.
Signed: Reichsfuehrer-S.S. Heinrich Himmler
Better still is the following recording by Haj Amin al Husseini, the Grand Mufti [“GrossMufti”] in Berlin, November 21, 1941, in his own handwriting about his meeting with Hitler in his diary:
The words of the Fuehrer on the 6th of Zul Qaada 1360 of the Hejira (which falls on the 21st of November 1941) Berlin, Friday, from 4:30 P.M. till a few minutes after 6. The objectives of my fight are clear. Primarily, I am fighting the Jews without respite, and this fight includes the fight against the so-called Jewish National Home in Palestine because the Jews want to establish there a central government for their own pernicious purposes, and to undertake a devastating and ruinous expansion at the expense of the governments of the world and of other peoples.
It is clear that the Jews have accomplished nothing in Palestine and their claims are lies. All the accomplishments in Palestine are due to the Arabs and not to the Jews. I am resolved to find a solution for the Jewish problem, progressing step by step without cessation. With regard to this I am making the necessary and right appeal, first to all the European countries and then to countries outside of Europe.
It is true that our common enemies are Great Britain and the Soviets whose principles are opposed to ours. But behind them stands hidden Jewry which drives them both. Jewry has but one aim in both these countries. We are now in the midst of a life and death struggle against both these nations. This fight will not only determine the outcome of the struggle between National Socialism and Jewry, but the whole conduct of this successful war will be of great and positive help to the Arabs who are engaged in the same struggle.
This is not only an abstract assurance. A mere promise would be of no value whatsoever. But assurance which rests upon a conquering force is the only one which has real value. In the Iraqi campaign, for instance, the sympathy of the whole German people was for Iraq. It was our aim to help Iraq, but circumstances prevented us from furnishing actual help. The German people saw in them (in the Iraqis-Ed.) comrades in suffering because the German people too have suffered as they have. All the help we gave Iraq was not sufficient to save Iraq from the British forces. For this reason it is necessary to underscore one thing: in this struggle which will decide the fate of the Arabs I can now speak as a man dedicated to an ideal and as a military leader and a soldier. Everyone united in this great struggle who helps to bring about its successful outcome, serves the common cause and thus serves the Arab cause. Any other view means weakening the military situation and thus offers no help to the Arab cause. Therefore it is necessary for us to decide the steps which can help us against world Jewry, against Communist Russia and England, and which among them can be most useful. Only if we win the war will the hour of deliverance also be the hour of fulfillment of Arab aspirations.
The situation is as follows: We are conducting the great struggle to open the way to the North of the Caucasus. The difficulties involved are more than transportation because of the demolished railways and roads and because of winter weather. And if I venture in these circumstances to issue a declaration with regard to Syria, then the pro-de Gaulle elements in France will be strengthened and this might cause a revolt in France. These men (the French) will be convinced then that joining Britain is more advantageous and the detachment of Syria is a pattern to be followed in the remainder of the French Empire. This will strengthen de Gaulle’s stand in the colonies. If the declaration is issued now, difficulties will arise in Western Europe which will cause the diversion of some (German-Ed.) forces for defensive purposes, thus preventing us from sending all our forces to the East.
Now I am going to tell you something I would like you to keep secret. First, I will keep up my fight until the complete destruction of the Judeo-Bolshevik rule has been accomplished.
Second, during the struggle (and we don’t know when victory will come, but probably not in the far future) we will reach the Southern Caucasus.
Third, then I would like to issue a declaration; for then the hour of the liberation of the Arabs will have arrived. Germany has no ambitions in this area but cares only to annihilate the power which produces the Jews.
Fourth, I am happy that you have escaped and that you are now with the Axis powers. The hour will strike when you will be the lord of the supreme word and not only the conveyer of our declarations. You will be the man to direct the Arab force and at that moment I cannot imagine what would happen to the Western peoples.
Fifth, I think that with this Arab advance begins the dismemberment of the British world. The road from Rostov to Iran and Iraq is shorter than the distance from Berlin to Rostov. We hope next year to smash this barrier. It is better then and not now that a declaration should be issued as (now) we cannot help in anything. I understand the Arab desire for this (declaration-Ed.), but His Excellency the Mufti must understand that only five years after I became President of the German government and Fuehrer of the German people, was I able to get such a declaration (the Austrian Union-Ed.), and this because military forces prevented me from issuing such a declaration. But when the German Panzer tanks and the German air squadrons reach the Southern Caucasus, then will be the time to issue the declaration.
He said (in reply to a request that a secret declaration or a treaty be made) that a declaration known to a number of persons cannot remain secret but will become public. I (Hitler) have made very few declarations in my life, unlike the British who have made many declarations. If I issue a declaration, I will uphold it. Once I promised the Finnish Marshal that I would help his country if the enemy attacks again. This word of mine made a stronger impression than any written declaration. Recapitulating, I want to state the following to you: When we shall have arrived in the Southern Caucasus, then the time of the liberation of the Arabs will have arrived. And you can rely on my word.
We were troubled about you. I know your life history. I followed with interest your long and dangerous journey. I was very concerned about you. I am happy that you are with us now and that you are now in a position to add your strength to the common cause.” [Source: The Arab Higher Committee. Its Origins, Personnel and Purposes. Documentary Record Submitted to the United Nations, May 1947, by the Nation Associates].
Huseini, was after all, being consistent with the core teachings of Islam in his fanatical anti-semitism. The Quran does not give direct incitement to massacre of Jews, but gives hints and references consistent with the more gory details supported by all the principal Hadiths. There was only one significant difference between the teachings of the Quran and the Hadiths on one side and the Nazi philosophy on the other side, the Prophet of Islam categorized the Jews as “people of the book” and hence at least in the Quran, they should be allowed to survive only on condition they pay a “survival tax” or Jiziya or they convert to Islam, whereas in the Hadiths of course, their males are declared to be fit to be “killed”, their lands to be “appropriated by Muslims”, and especially their women to be taken over by the Muslims. Although there are some allegations of sexual contact between the Jewish captive women and Nazi soldiers or officers, formally there were severe laws against such practices, and there are known instances of convictions and sentences carried out.
At the time of his death, Hitler’s official place of residence was in Munich, which led to all rights to Mein Kampf, coming under the ownership of the state of Bavaria. The government of Bavaria, in agreement with the federal government of Germany, does not allow any copying or printing of the book in Germany [and opposed it also in Sweden without success]. Owning and buying the book is legal. Trading in old copies is legal as well unless it is done in such a fashion as to “promote hatred or war”, which is, under anti-revisionist laws, generally illegal. In Austria, the possession and/or trading of Mein Kampf is illegal. In France, the selling of the book is forbidden unless the transaction concerns a historical version including commentaries from specialists and states the law allowing its special historical edition. In the Netherlands, selling the book, even an old copy, can be illegal as “promoting hatred”, but possession and lending is not. The Dutch states treats this as claims of copyright infringement (as acclaimed owner of the translation) and does not allow any publishing. In 1997, the government explained to the parliament that selling a “scientifically annotated version” might escape prosecution, and the debate was repeated in 2007 with similar conclusions. In Indonesia the book is available in Indonesian language, in Lebanon, an Arabic edition of Mein Kampf was published in 1995 by Bisan/Beisan. In Turkey, the book is freely available and a Turkish edition was reported to be a bestseller in Turkey in March 2005, and claimed to have sold over 100,000 copies in two months. Note that the European nations which had significant collaborators with the Nazi ideology during the war, have turned the strongest protectors of the European populations who are considered to be completely immature, from the possible insidious infection in contact with the words of a “demented fanatic” by trying to ban these words, whereas these very same words are not deemed to be “antagonistic” or “revisionist” in the Muslim countries.
If the European populations are so intellectually immature that they cannot handle “Mein Kampf”, how can they handle the Quran, which says in the context of the first successful looting and massacre mission by the Prophet of Islam after six earlier unsuccessful ones on his relatives from Mecca engaged in their traditional trading journeys [and after having been allowed to leave and “migrate” from Mecca with full life, limb and liberty, and with indications of having abused profusely the beliefs, sentiments, as well as the hospitality of the Meccan Qureysh with his associates sometimes having also shed blood of those who had refused to submit to their ideology] – the “famous” Nakhla raid:
022.039 To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight), because they are wronged;- and verily, Allah is most powerful for their aid;-
022.040 (They are) those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right,- (for no cause) except that they say, “our Lord is Allah”. Did not Allah check one set of people by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, in which the name of Allah is commemorated in abundant measure. Allah will certainly aid those who aid his (cause);- for verily Allah is full of Strength, Exalted in Might, (able to enforce His Will).
022.041 (They are) those who, if We establish them in the land, establish regular prayer and give regular charity, enjoin the right and forbid wrong: with Allah rests the end (and decision) of (all) affairs.
022.042 If they treat thy (mission) as false, so did the peoples before them (with their Prophets),- the People of Noah, and ‘Ad and Thamud;
002.190 Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors.
002.191 And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have Turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.
002.192 But if they cease, Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.
002.193 And fight them on until there is no more Tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah; but if they cease, Let there be no hostility except to those who practise oppression.
002.194 The prohibited month for the prohibited month,- and so for all things prohibited,- there is the law of equality. If then any one transgresses the prohibition against you, Transgress ye likewise against him. But fear Allah, and know that Allah is with those who restrain themselves.
Those who were reluctant to join in the war of plunder were reproved. Allah’s revelation on this came down in verses 47:20-21. These verses granted paradise to those who fight (or terrorize and plunder) for Islam i.e., Jihad and are killed.
047.020 Those who believe say, “Why is not a sura sent down (for us)?” But when a sura of basic or categorical meaning is revealed, and fighting is mentioned therein, thou wilt see those in whose hearts is a disease looking at thee with a look of one in swoon at the approach of death. But more fitting for them-
047.021 Were it to obey and say what is just, and when a matter is resolved on, it were best for them if they were true to Allah.
Allah then asked the Jihadis to “strike off the heads of the unbelievers; to make a great slaughter and bind them fast in bonds” in verse 47:3-4
047.003 This because those who reject Allah follow vanities, while those who believe follow the Truth from their Lord: Thus does Allah set forth for men their lessons by similitudes.
047.004 Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly (on them): thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens. Thus (are ye commanded): but if it had been Allah’s Will, He could certainly have exacted retribution from them (Himself); but (He lets you fight) in order to test you, some with others. But those who are slain in the Way of Allah,- He will never let their deeds be lost.
Furthermore, the true believers were expected not only to fight but also to contribute materially towards the cost of war (4:66-67, 9:88, 9:111), to kill and be killed. Those who did this were promised a higher rank in paradise (4:74, 4:95). The believers were asked to prepare with whatever force in their ability, troops, horses, etc. to strike terror into the hearts of the unbelievers.
004.066 If We had ordered them to sacrifice their lives or to leave their homes, very few of them would have done it: But if they had done what they were (actually) told, it would have been best for them, and would have gone farthest to strengthen their (faith);
004.067 And We should then have given them from our presence a great reward;
009.088 But the Messenger, and those who believe with him, strive and fight with their wealth and their persons: for them are (all) good things: and it is they who will prosper.
009.111 Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth, through the Law, the Gospel, and the Quran: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme.
004.074 Let those fight in the cause of Allah Who sell the life of this world for the hereafter. To him who fighteth in the cause of Allah,- whether he is slain or gets victory – Soon shall We give him a reward of great (value).
004.095 Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) and receive no hurt, and those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah with their goods and their persons. Allah hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit (at home). Unto all (in Faith) Hath Allah promised good: But those who strive and fight Hath He distinguished above those who sit (at home) by a special reward,-
009.073 O Prophet! strive hard against the unbelievers and the Hypocrites, and be firm against them. Their abode is Hell,- an evil refuge indeed.
009.123 O ye who believe! fight the unbelievers who gird you about, and let them find firmness in you: and know that Allah is with those who fear Him.
008.060 Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know. Whatever ye shall spend in the cause of Allah, shall be repaid unto you, and ye shall not be treated unjustly.
This does not seem to promote “hatred” or “war”? Or the Hadithic description of ethnic cleansing of the Jews which have an uncanny resemblance to what happened to the Jewish areas or ghettos under the Nazis? -for example the genocide of Bani Qurayzah Jews by Muhammad-February-March, 627 : The Muslim soldiers marched toward the fortress of Bani Qurayza that lay two or three miles to the south-east of Medina. Muhammad rode an ass, while an army of three thousand Muslims, with thirty-six horses followed him. After twenty-five days of siege, the Jews grew desperate, exhausted and terrified at their future. They were on the verge of starvation.
Tabari writes: ‘When they saw him (i.e Abu Lubabah), [ A Muslim from a friendly tribe whom the Jews hoped to intercede on behalf of them] the men rose to meet him, and the women and children rushed to grab hold of him, weeping before him, so that he felt pity for them. They said to him, “Abu Lubabah, do you think that we should submit to Muhammad’s judgment”? “Yes”, he said, but he pointed with his hand to his throat, that it would be slaughter.”’ Haykal writes that the Jews thought that the former allies from al-Aws tribe would give them protection if they migrated to Adhriat in al Sham, and that Muhammad would allow them. Muhammad rejected their proposal and insisted on their waiting for his judgment.
In the morning, B. Qurayzah Jews surrendered. The male Jews were chained and kept in the fortress till a decision was made about their fate. The B. Aws were friendly with the B. Qurayzah Jews and pleaded with Muhammad for mercy and a fair judgment for their Jewish allies. On this, Muhammad proposed that the judgment be passed by Sa’d b Muadh who was the B. Aws leader, trying to recuperate from his eventually fatal wound in a tent at Medina. B. Aws and the B. Qurayzah both agreed on this proposal of Muhammad, hoping to have some mercy from Sa’d b. Muadh. Muhammad dispatched some B. Aws men to bring Sa’d to deliver his judgment. Many B. Aws people requested Sa’d to deal with the Jews with leniency and mercy. Sa’d then asked his people if they would accept whatever judgment he pronounced. The assemblage agreed.
On being asked by Muhammad Sa’d b. Muadh replied, “I pass judgment on them that the men shall be killed, the property divided, and the children and women made captives.” Muhammad praised Sa’d for proclaiming a solemn judgment of the Almighty and termed Sa’d’s judgment as fair and said, “You have passed judgment on them with the judgment of God and the judgment of His Messenger.” Sahih Bukhari records:
Volume 5, Book 58, Number 148: Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri: Some people (i.e. the Jews of Bani bin Quraiza) agreed to accept the verdict of Sad bin Muadh so the Prophet sent for him (i.e. Sad bin Muadh). He came riding a donkey, and when he approached the Mosque, the Prophet said, “Get up for the best amongst you.” or said, “Get up for your chief.” Then the Prophet said, “O Sad! These people have agreed to accept your verdict.” Sad said, “I judge that their warriors should be killed and their children and women should be taken as captives.” The Prophet said, “You have given a judgment similar to Allah’s Judgment (or the King’s judgment).”
[Original Sahih Al-Bukhari] The women and children were then separated from their husbands, others were put under the care of Abdullah, a renegade Jew. All the goods and possessions of the B. Qurayzah Jews, their camels and flocks were all brought as spoils of war. The B. Qurayzah Jewish men were handcuffed behind their backs with their women and children having already been separated. They were placed under the charge of Mohammad ibn Maslama, the assassin of Ka’b ibn Ashraf, to be sent to Medina before their execution in batches. A long trench was dug in the marketplace of Medina. The Prisoners were then taken there, made to kneel down and beheaded in a group of five or six. Muhammad was personally present to witness this slaughter. Ali and Zubayr cut off the heads of the Jews in front of Muhammad. Sourcing from Al-Waqidi, Tabari writes:
“…the messenger of God commanded that furrows should be dug in the ground for the B. Qurayzah. Then he sat down, and Ali and al-Zubayr began cutting off their heads in his presence.” Ibn Ishaq writes that they were taken in groups to Muhammad for beheading in front of him.
Tabari further writes: ‘The messenger of God went out into the marketplace of Medina and had trenches dug in it; then he sent for them and had them beheaded in those trenches. They were brought out to him in groups. Among them were the enemy of God, Huyayy b. Akhtab, and Ka’b b. Asad, the head of the tribe. They numbered 600 or 700-the largest estimate says they were between 800 and 900. As they were being taken in groups to the Messenger of God, they said to Ka’b b. Asad, “Ka’b, what do you understand. Do you not see that the summoner does not discharge [anyone] and that those of you who are taken away do not come back? By God, it is death!” the affair continued until the Messenger of God had finished with them.’
Sir William Muir describes: ‘The men were penned up in a closed yard, while graves or trenches were being dug for them in the chief marketplace of the city. When these were ready, Mahomet, himself a spectator of the tragedy, gave command that the captives should be brought forth in companies of five or six at a time. Each company was made to sit down by the brink of the trench destined for its grave, and there beheaded. Party by party they were thus led out, and butchered in cold blood, till the whole were slain. One woman alone was put to death; it was she who threw the millstone from the battlements.’
Huyayy b. Akhtab, the banished B. Nadir Jewish leader was taken to the execution field. Tabari describes his execution:
‘Huyayy b. Akhtab, the enemy of God, was brought. He was wearing a rose-colored suit of clothes that had torn all over with fingertip-sized holes so that it would not be taken as booty from him, and his hands were bound to his neck with a rope. When he looked at the Messenger of God, he said, “By God, I do not blame myself for being hostile to you, but whomever God forsakes is forsaken.” Then he turned to the people and said: “People, there is no injury in God’s command. It is the book of God, His decree, and a battlefield of great slaughter ordained against the Children of Israel. Then he sat down and was beheaded.’
Only one woman of the B. Qurayzah, the wife of Hasan al-Qurazi and a friend of Aisha, was killed. Aisha’s narrated her story of beheading thus:‘Only one of their women was killed. By God, she was by me, talking with me and laughing unrestraintedly while the Messenger of God was killing their men in the marketplace, when suddenly a mysterious voice called out her name, saying, “Where is so and so?” She said, “I shall be killed.” “Why?” I asked. She said, A misdeed that I committed.” She was taken away and beheaded. (Aisha used to say: I shall never forget my wonder at her cheerfulness and much laughter, even when she knew that she would be killed.).’
The Sahi (authentic) Hadith of Abu Dawud: Book 14, Number 2665: Narrated Aisha, Ummul Mu’minin: No woman of Banu Qurayzah was killed except one. She was with me, talking and laughing on her back and belly (extremely), while the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) was killing her people with the swords. Suddenly a man called her name: Where is so-and-so? She said: I I asked: What is the matter with you? She said: I did a new act. She said: The man took her and beheaded her. She said: I will not forget that she was laughing extremely although she knew that she would be killed.”
Ther very old Jewish man Az-Zabir had saved the life of a Muslim convert, Thabit b. Qays in the Bu’ath war. When Az-Zabir was about to be beheaded Thabit requested Muhammad to save the life of Az-Zabir and his family as a return to his favor. Muhammad agreed. Az-Zabir then asked Thabit b. Qays about the Jewish leaders such as Ka’b b. Asad and Huayy b. Akhtab, as he preferred to die rather than to live without them. Az-Zabir replied, “Then I ask you for the sake of the favor I once did for you to join me to my kinsmen, for by God there is no good in living after them. I will not wait patiently for God, not even [the time needed] to take the bucket of a watering trough, until I meet my dear ones.” So Thabit brought him forward, and he was beheaded. Abu Bakr commented “He will meet them, by God, in the Gehenna, there to dwell forever and forever.”
Muhammad commanded that all those Jewish men with pubic hair were to be executed. Hadith from Sunaan Abu Dawud:
Book 38, Number 4390: Narrated Atiyyah al-Qurazi: I was among the captives of Banu Qurayzah. They (the Companions) examined us, and those who had begun to grow hair (pubes) were killed, and those who had not were not killed. I was among those who had not grown hair.
After executing all the adult male Jews, Muhammad sent Sa’d b. Zayd al-Ansari with some captive women and children from the B. Qurayzah to Najd to sell them in the slave market. While we do not have an accurate price of a female slave during that time, Ibn Sa’d writes that Khadijah, Muhammad’s first wife, bought her slave, Zayd b. Haritha, (who would later become Muuhammad’s adopted son), for four hundred Dirhams at the slave market of Ukaz, Mecca. [the price of young slave varied from five hundred dirhams to eight hundred dirhams – Sunaan Abu Dawud hadith numbers, 3946 and 4563]. Among the captive was a young woman called Rayhanh bt. ‘Amr b. Khunafah and took her as his concubine. It is said that when Muhammad offered to make her his wife by embracing Islam, she declined. She preferred to remain a concubine to becoming a Muslim and said, “Messenger of God, rather leave me in your possession [as a concubine], for it is easier for me and for you.”
I have not heard of the Quran or the Hadiths being banned in Europe. As for the communists or the leftists, they need simply to look for a functioning leftist, socialist or communist party working in any of the core Islamic countries in Asia – other than a few intellectuals tolerated here and there – with two notable exceptions, one without a country among the Kurds, and the other in Turkey where the nationalist modernization started by the army under Ataturk is still battling it out with headscarfs and explosions. The communists can also ponder the fate of the communists at the hands of Muslims in Afghanistan, or the “Marxist” army commander in Iraq who took over from the boy-king and was then replaced by the mentor of Saddam. Forgetting history is a serious lapse, but selective percolation of politically motivated reconstructions or “scientifically annotated” histories in favour of a particular group or ideology and against others is a “criminal” offence against freedom of thought and speech – for ultimately it always leads to the most pernicious of ideologies to take over our lives by not revealing to us the real agenda behind the sugar-coated pills provided by the “ideologues”.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Islam’s Targets in Asia – Israel and India : who is supplying the military hardware?
With the Marriott Hotel in the capital of Pakistan, being the latest of targets of a blast from an estimated 1000 Kg of explosives, the old question becomes obvious again – who is supplying the military hardware and the logistics for such attacks? It is not only about who is supplying, but also the question of who has the capability of supplying such necessary ingredients of terror? Both in Isarel and India, Islam’s terrorists are showing up with the latest military technology and knowledge of explosives and using such hardware which are only typically available only in the armies of modern nation states. Weapons in modern warfare come from sophisticated defence establishments and are a result of long and intensive research, and are necessarily products of highly sophisticated and centralized industrial networks with the end product almost inevitably coming from the top of the industrial pyramid. Thus, increasingly it is becoming impossible for the non-military common population to mount any successful rebellion against a national government – as even veterans or those who have been trained in the military as reserve cannot do much without access to the hardware, and continued supply from these industries for military consumables and replacements. Thus it is crucial to note that in Islam’s continued aggression on Israel and India, two things have to coincide to sustain this onslaught – (1) the preservation and stoking the fire of the hardcore Sunni Wahabi or closely allied in agenda (but not necessarily allied in practical terms) Shia sectarian aggressive proselytization and an obsessive intent on capturing the lands and the non-muslim people of Israel and India (2) the continuous provision of finance and military hardware for the various levels of Islamic terror- ranging from paramilitary/semi-armies like that of the Hezbollah, Pakistani Taleban, or regrouping Al Qaeda in Afghanistan all the way through to the individual suicide bomber in Iraq, or the executors of blasts in Pakistan and India.
In India, the situation is rather more complex than in Israel. It appears to me that now there are indications of a disturbing possible collaboration between Islamic forces and other ideologies. The other ideologies involved in this collaboration may not be fully aware of their own place in the overall Islamic strategy for the Indian populations. The Islamic strategy appears to be heading now towards utilizing the existing divisions between the various ethnicities and non-muslim religions or ideologies. There is a strong possibility that various so-called Maoist outfits, ethnic separatists, as well as some proselytizing religious groups could be playing into the hands of the Islamic Jihadi leadership. The Quran, and the Hadiths repeatedly stress, as well as provide examples of how Islam utilizes the conflicts and misunderstandings between various groups of “unbelievers”, to weaken all unbelievers until they are no longer militarily strong to resist Islam when it suddenly reveals its actual Jihadi militant agenda. A part in this could also be played by the clever use of political anxieties within anti-“Hindu” political parties that a cultural consolidation of the “Hindu” is taking place within India, and showing signs of a political consciousness as well. This could be behind the recent string of attacks on churches in BJP led states or states where BJP has come to a sharing of state power, as, if we apply the principle of who benefits from a “crime”, we can see that everyone gains apart from the BJP – the Congress gains by posing as the protector of minorities and then can curry for votes from these sections, the proselytizing groups gain by posing as the “leader” among all the different sects of this religion and polarize religious sectarian sentiments in favour of their particular sectarian group [especially if their prestige and funding is dependent on the number of “conversions” of the “heathen” they have benn able to make], and “Maoists” gain money or arms in return for supporting actions against the majority groups in favour of a particular religious sect. In all this Islamic Jihadis gain the most, by engaging the majority community in basically what amounts to “death by a thousand cuts”, and could be behind supporting all these groups with money and arms.
For India, two things are working in its favour – its military is still relatively free from the presence of Islamic influence, and that a cultural and political consolidation of the “Hindu” is taking place. The political forces that have been infiltrated by Islam are an “aging” generation, and an “aging” ideology which tries to relive an earlier era following the various compromises and sheer greed for personal power that accompanied the formal but not actual removal of India from the British empire – and is still following the realpolitik of the Cold War, not realizing that even the West has had to reverse its earlier overwhelming Islamophilia in favour of a more practical policy as consistent with their dependence on “Islamic” oil and markets.
It is important for non-Hindu non-Muslim proselytizing groups to realize, that any attempt to replace the culture of the Hindus from among its populations through the after-effects of “conversions” will only make these converts more vulnerable to the onslaught of Islam – as monotheism of the revealed traditions represents a simplification of the complexity and diversity of the world view of the classical Hindu philosophies, and it becomes infinitely easier to convert from one form of the revealed traditions to another – as is seen by the increasing conversion rates of Christians into Islam in Europe and America. Leaving the Hindus as they are, is the best possible antidote to Islam on the Indian subcontinent at present – even though the “Hindus” of India may appear to be rich picking in terms of showing “scalp counts” at religious conventions to compete for funding. Money can be raised in various other ways, but fall of India to Islam will be accelerated if Christianity spreads in India, which will ultimately unhinge the entire US strategy in Asia to prevent the formation of a continuous Islamic “Caliphate” running from North and East Africa, Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Myanmar,Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Islamophiles intensify campaign to consolidate Islamic penetration of the Indian state apparatus
In the wake of the recent Delhi blasts, and the encounter in high-Muslim density part of Delhi, close to a well-known mosque, an “Islamic” university, and the office or headquarters of most of the known Islamic organizations, Indian media shows indications of the revival of a persistent campaign to increase the recruitment of Muslims into all the branches of Indian security forces – the formal logic being given is a recommendation of a report prepared by a committee formed and commissioned by the UPA government to look into the “status of minorities”. On the face of it the recommendation appears sound and logical – make the representation of the Muslims in the security forces proportionate to their representation in the population. With any other religion, this need not have been much of a problem – but with Islam in perspective this is indeed a huge problem. Historically the experience of Muslims as defenders of Indian territories against foreign armies or forces dominated by Muslims or inspired by Islamic Jihad – has been appalling. The Thaparite school of Indian history picks up on a couple of textual claims of apparent participation of “Arabs” in the defence of Indian territory against “Turuskas” in an attempt to extend this to the claim of a society wide phenomenon.
Historically we find records of significant populations of settled Islamic traders, deep inside “Hindu” territories especially near important commercial, political, and cultural centres [Buddhist university townships] which are later on targets of surprise military attacks by Muslims with surgical precision. Ibn Asir mentions explicitly in his Kamil-ut-Tawarikh, that there were “Mussalmans in the country of Banaras” from the days of Sabuktigin.[Elliot and Dowson]. Muhammad Aufi also speaks of Bahram Gur of Iran coming to Hindustan under the guise of a Muslim merchant [although a historically unlikely event, as this particular name is given to Bahram V, a pre-Muslim Persian ruler]. When Bakhtyiar appeared in Nudiya people thought that he was a Muslim trader come to sell horses – implying that visits to this old Hindu city on the banks of the Ganges in modern West Bengal, by Muslim traders was quite common and that Muslim military leaders were in the habit of using this acceptance to disguise themselves for spying or raiding or surprise attacks. Taranath mentions settlement of “Turuskas” (at this period a generic name for Muslims) in the AntarVedi or Ganges-Yamuna Doab. He also significantly mentions that during the time of Lavasena and his successors and prior to the invasions and destruction of the Buddhist university townships of Odantapuri and Vikramasila the number of “Turuskas” had significantly increased. Muhammad Habib in his introduction to Elliott and Dowson suggests that the far-flung campaigns of Mahmud Gaznavi would have been impossible without an accurate knowledge of trade routes and local resources of India, which he probably obtained from Muslim merchants. Many Arab narratives [including that of Al Beruni, who had been allowed to learn Sanskrit and copy and translate Hindu texts] contain accurate accounts of land-routes in India with minute details of the distances between cities and their products and other strategic details whose context shows that these were supplied mostly by Muslim merchants who had visited these places in person and recorded these details back at home accurately for future use by their fellows.
Amir Khusrau writes that under Jalauddin Khalji (1290-96), after a battle, “whatever live Hindu fell into the hands of the victorious king was pounded to bits under the feet of the elephants. The Musalman captives had their lives spared”.[Miftah-ul-Futuh (Aligarh text, 1954), p. 22 -za hindu harche amad zinda dar dast/bazere pae pilan khurd ba shikast/musalmanan-i-bandi gushta ra baz/ bajan bakhshi chu isa gasht damsaz]. Malik Kafur, the notorious general of Alauddin Khalji (1296-1316), and a Hindu-woman-lifter extraordinaire, while on his expeditions in South India, spared the lives of Muslims fighting on the side of the Hindu Rai as they deserted to his army [Lal, Khaljis, p. 250].
North Indian Muslim armies, under Muslim rulers, have faced foreign invasions by other Muslim armies, and have been only successful once – that under Alauddin Khalji against one Mongol attack. The Delhi Sultanate lost miserably under Ibrahim Lodi to Babur, who was invited and supported by an influential Multani Muslim administrator. The Mughals lost abjectly to the Persian looter Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah Abdali, or became pensioners of the British before being humiliatingly hanged or exiled by the British. After the initial reports of collaboration by a few North Indian Hindu rulers with Mahmud, or Muhammad Ghori, we do not hear of any further collaboration by the Hindus with invading forces. On the other hand, even when they had not been in control of the state and its resources for centuries, and ruthlessly exploited and decimated by Islamic Jihadi onslaught, they have tried to muster forces to resist foreign invasions when the relevant Muslim ruler of northern India gave up easily – Babur met his serious opposition in the Rajputs led by Sanga, Akbar met his first serious opposition in Himu, it was the Marathas that undertook to fight the Persian adventurers, while the Nizam of Hyderabad – the ancestor of the dynasty that later patronized the Rajakars in Hyderabad – the Islamic fundamentalist group that carried on looting, abduction of Hindu women and murders for a sufficiently long period to provide the Indian army the necessary excuse to annex this princely state, collaborated right from the beginning with the British.
Muslim dominated armies in India have a fundamental weakness, their ideology teaches them that they should prefer Muslims over “infidels”, in friendship, in social interactions, in loyalty and war – and that their ideological centre lies outside of India – in Arabia. Any religious ideology that has its centre outside the borders of India, and that believes in aggressive proselytizing – ultimately is a cover for imperialist ambitions of foreign nations. I have already predicted in my previous articles on the blasts, that the Islamic Jihadi Wahabi imperialists are getting panicked that if they do not accelerate the process of Islamization in India, it can get out of their hands, and that non-Muslim consolidation would outpace their efforts so that they can never hope to bring India under Islamic rule. Islamic forces have now sufficient backing and contacts within the general administration and political party structures that ensures protection of their religious agenda for India. They have been able to protect their Islamic agenda dissemination, and indoctrination through the Islamic educational systems and organizations, which in several areas have seen continuous growth in resources from foreign inputs, as well as indirect contribution from the Indian government such as persistent refusal to bring Muslim institutions under the tax net [unlike Hindu institutions] as well as public audit. Muslims insist on and protect their right for a separate civil law – something they usually deny in the core Islamic countries to Hindus, and in states like Kashmir they have even been able to get away with imposition of the Shariah law through the backdoor of the special-“status” state legislature. The Indian governments consistently protects Islam by choosing to or threatening to dismiss state governments that fail to protect “minority” rights even for a month, under Article 355 of the Indian Constitution, but has never used this to protect the rights of Hindus or Buddhists in Kashmir, when they were subjected to ethnic cleansing for years, when their women were abducted or raped, when their properties, their religious shrines, were destroyed and when they were being murdered – never, ever, in no instance did the Central government under various Congress regimes come out with even a strong statement. The remaining obstacle in Wahabi Islamic Jihadis eventual takeover of the nation is the fact that the security forces have remained strongly non-Muslim, and therefore as correctly “lamented” non-“secular” in composition – in India this means non-Muslim, as “secularism” practically translates into “Islamo-philia” in the Indian context. The few examples of Muslim majority units that remained loyal against the Pakistani forces in action during the 1965 war comes from a period before the rising strength and penetration of the Wahabi Islamic aggressive proselytization, and should not be used as self-lulling agent towards destruction of the non-Muslims.
If this campaign to increase Islamic proportion in the Indian armed forces succeeds, it will lead to a serious weakness in the ultimate defence of India as a functioning non-Islamic state – because the insidious propaganda that hides the violent agenda of Islam’s core principles for the non-Muslim population at large, while at the same time training and indoctrinating Muslim youth in its various madrassahs and cultural organizations to wait and prepare for the eventual military conquest of non-Muslims to appropriate their land, wealth and women, is accelerating, and sooner or later, such elements in the Army will collaborate with or defect to Pakistani or other Islamic invasions at opportune moments.
It is possible, that internal security systems, such as the police as well as various state security organizations have been very well aware of Islamic Jihadi activities and preparatory movements towards Islamic takeover of the country, but have been held back from taking action, by the Islamo-phile governments that have been at the centre of the Indian state. As previously proposed by me, the Islamic terrorists will act from bases in areas that have sufficiently high concentration of Muslims to provide social cover, but will carry out their terror in mixed areas within their geographical reach where non-Muslims are a majority, so that in any blast or public outrage, more non-Muslims are victims together with a few Muslims which can of course be accepted as necessary “costs of war”. The fact that the Indian Home minister, or his corresponding counterparts for the state of Delhi, had little or no foreknowledge or concurrent knowledge of the “Delhi” encounter, together with angry protests from the Muslim leadership in the area as well as leadership of so-called national level Muslim organizations that the police should have “consulted” local Muslim leadership before launching an “encounter”, implies that the police mounted this operation on extremely short notice and either did not have time or did not consider it safe to inform the “politicians”. It could be an indication that certain sections of the command of the security forces have already decided that that they can only tackle this “Islamic terror” by avoiding the politicians as far as possible, as the main motivations of the politicians are to protect “Islamic votes”. An insistence by the Islamo-philes to increase Muslim presence in the armed forces which have had to face the brunt of Jihad in Kashmir and elsewhere, will only lead to an increased politicization of the armed forces against such moves.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Religious conversions in India : a strategy for the future
Religious conversion in India is a hotly debated and highly controversial topic. The fact is that the modern Constitution of India does not prevent a “genuine change of heart” but it is illegal to “entice” or “force” conversions. This was expected of course, since the early politicians under Nehru who dominated the legislative process would be very much aware of the success of both these strategies under Islam and Christianity. The Muslim invaders from Qasim, Mahmud, Ghori, the Delhi Sultans, or the Mughals have consistently used forced conversions, and enticements – either direct aggression with the only choice being given as either death or conversion, or penalizing taxation.
Another highly enjoyable conversion activity of the Muslims was of course abduction, rape, and enslavement of non-Muslim women, and raising the children from such unions as Muslims. So the Islamo-philes under Nehru decided to block these Islamic technique of conversions specifically fearing that the remnant majority Hindus in India could decide to copy the Muslims now that they are no longer under the military threat of the Muslims. Nehru was genuinely saddened at the loss of Muslim populations who migrated to Pakistan, and we can understand his sense of loss of people from a culture he identified with. It is a deep irony of Nehruvian politics however, that it was mostly his rivals whom he eliminated with the help of Gandhiji and indirect help of the British, like Bose or Sardar, [Bose was consistently kept under house arrest, or exiled from India, so that he could not carry on political activities or maintain connections with his organizations, and as usual with all all nationalists anywhere whom the British hated, from Napoleon to Shyamaprasad Mukherjee, Bose consistently fell “ill” in British captivity – while Nehru was never exiled, was given the right to freely carry on his political work while free] who had genuine influence and acceptance with the “Muslims” – Bose was helped by loyal Afghan “Muslims” in his “escape”, and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan – “frontier Gandhi” declared the Congress leadership under Nehru to be one which “stabbed” his people “in the back” over the Partition. Nehru knew that he was deeply resented in many parts of India outside the Uttar Pradesh, particularly by Sikhs in Punjab and Bengali Hindus in West Bengal, and Nehru needed Muslims as a counterbalancing force to prevent the non-Muslim consolidation to maintain his tenuous control over the fractures which he could use in Indian society.
There are speculations about possible personal reasons behind Nehru’s Islamo-philia, but I am against discussing them without concrete proof. Overall, however, we can see the basic motivations behind banning “illegal” methods of conversion by “force, enticements” – as without military support, Muslims would not be able to carry out these methods of conversion, whereas sheer number and resources of the Hindus could make these methods even non-militarily feasible given that there could not be official justification for use of “Indian” security establishment to continue protection of Islamic proselytization. So the most important task in front of the Nehruvian regime was to protect the gains of Islam in India already achieved under the methods now banned and made unavailable to others.
But as I have written and given detailed historical, and practical justifications in these posts before, Islam must go from India as a “practising religion”, and I want the Muslims to come out of “Islam” but continue to be Indians – what should be the policy and strategy of the Indian nation about conversions in general?
The two most common issues that give rise to controversy about conversions are (1) inter-faith marriages/”abductions for sex” (2) enticements. It is a consistent feature of Islam that everywhere it insists on the conversion of a non-Muslim groom before he can marry a girl born a Muslim – and they are prepared to go to any length or violence to ensure this, depending on the level of support they can obtain from state authorities they live under – so that the entire state apparatus of Islamic states jump on to enforce this like in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia or Arab states, and the maximum possible help is given by the administrative and legislative institutions of countries that have usually Islamo-phile regimes like in India. On the other hand a Hindu or non-Muslim woman can be easily married [or abducted and forced in Islam dominated countries like Pakistan] by a Muslim, as once married or taken to Islamic countries such a “wife” will be treated as a Muslim, and children will be automatically deemed to be Muslim. The fact is that this is supported by the Quran, the Hadiths, the Sunnah of the Prophet of Islam, and the Shariah and the Hidaya – however much the modern Muslim theologians try to sanitize and whitewash these injunctions in the core texts of Islam away from their misrepresentation of Islam before non-Muslims – and which they are very much aware of and openly teach/preach for and within “safe” and secure Islamic audiences. There is a similar insistence on conversion into Christianity before marriage from certain denominations within Christianity, although not carried out with such violence as in the case of Islam. The Sikhs, Buddhists, also have similar insistence but over many decades now, there are fewer and fewer incidences of violence from these faiths.
In India, only objections by the relatives of a Hindu or Hindu religious groups against the marriage with a non-Muslim are supposed to be seen as “proof of fanaticism” and the “evil right-wing Hindu fascist” who “trample on the pure love between a Hindu and a Muslim” – for all other religions it is an “internal matter” of the religion concerned and Hindus are expected or demanded to shut up as Hindus should respect the “religious sentiments of Muslims” etc. In India it seems to be tacitly accepted that all other religious groups except the Hindus have the right to convert “freely” and their “forcing” should be seen as “genuine change of heart” and “friendly ardent persuasion” rather than forcing – as accusations of “forcing/enticing” are only genuine if it comes against the “Hindus”.
How do Indians tackle the task of removing extremely dangerous, deceptive, violently intolerant, and aggressively expansive movements like Islam from their immediate surroundings?
(1) Bring in a complete civil law that is not binding initially on all citizens, but which can be adopted formally by an oath and declaration voluntarily by any adult Indian citizen. This should include a complete marital, family, and inheritance law guided by modern humanitarian principles. At the moment Indians do not have any choice in their religious denomination and they are considered to belong to the religion they are born into or “adopted”. This can be a good way out for those who want to come out of Islam but do not want to face “charges” of apostasy and hence the Hadithic/Sharia injunctions not to really wait for the day of “resurrection” but to carry out immediate retribution for converting out of Islam.
(2) give a very clear warning against Muslim countries that are carrying out forced conversions of Hindus, that Islam stands to lose a much larger chunk if Indians decide to get serious about “persuading” Indian Muslims to convert out of Islam.
(3) ensure that surviving Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs in Pakistan, or non-Muslims of Indic origin faiths, in Malaysia or Indonesia are protected, either by exchange of populations or establishing direct diplomatic centres.
(4) enforcing all religious institutions to register, and have a separate unit set up, possibly under the Ministry of Culture, that will formally not only audit but have representatives on the board of trustees or management. All religious institutions will have to make transactions through bank accounts, and will not be allowed to receive foreign funding, and accounts will be regularly audited. All citizens will have to be registered in one of the religions recognized or declare themselves to be under the civil law who will not be then considered legally as belonging to any religion. Also legal steps can be taken if someone who has declared in favour of the civil law, continues to participate in activities under a specific religious institution.
(5) religions which prescribe a fixed rate of contribution from their followers, will be guaranteed the required proportion deducted in addition to regular income tax from the source of income of the religion’s followers. This money will then be forwarded to one or more religious institutions of choice as indicated by the donee. Islam prescribes Jakaat and fitra, which should then be deducted from the income of Muslims at source and handed over to Islamic institutions. All religious institutions will have to function within this source of revenue, as transparently audited and supervised by the Government, and no external source of funding will be allowed. Any breaking of this stipulation will lead to criminal proceedings against the religious institution. Those who adopt civil law will not have to pay this “religious contribution”.
(6) educational activity carried out by religious organizations will have to conform to a National Education policy, and have to cover the basic elements including all modern science subjects required in a national syllabus. Material declared objectionable and not in consistency with the Constitution, or the legal system will have to be removed, and if retained will lead to closing down of the educational setup.
(7) Conversions have to be applied for to the government, together with documentary evidence of sanction by a recognized religious body, and subject to a waiting period, during which people or bodies that have objections can raise it with the appellate body. The convertee can be subjected to repeated interviews by independent experts, and have also to agree to audit of personal accounts, sources of income expenditure and wealth, for an unspecified period of time before and after the recognition of conversion. This process will not have to be gone through in case of adopting the civil law.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Delhi blasts and Jihadi takeover of government building in NW Pakistan – Islamic war is coming close to India
After the latest in the string of blasts in India by Islamic militants at New Delhi, India’s capital, and with the consistent failure of the current ruling Indian government and its administrative setup to crack these cases and prevent Islamic Jihadi activities, Indians should start seriously thinking of what really lies ahead of them. Non-Muslims of India have already seen the strategy of Islam at work for a long long time. Communities remember by oral tradition what the Muslims have been doing for the last 1000 years – looting, raping and abducting women, converting under pain of death or crushing taxes, and massacres under any flimsy excuse. Non-Muslims survived by sheer number, determination and by militarily fighting back. In spite of the fact that some of Hindu elite were bending over backwards in the boot-licking of Islamic rulers to maintain their lands or their wealth, and collaborated in the inhuman torture of their “lower classes”, Hindus have survived – in this they were helped by the vastness of their country and the remoteness of many parts where they escaped into deep forests from the clutches of Muslim armies and in many instances carried on a guerrilla struggle that later on gained momentum into recapture of lands from Islam under the Mahrattas, the Sikhs, and some of the Rajputs.
The scale of blasts in India should make Indians realize that at least three crucial factors are needed for such terror activities to be carried on without any disruption – (1) the military training and material support of the army of some militarily “modern” nation (2) deep community support to provide both material and intelligence cover (3) good connections within the administration and political setup that leaks crucial information and provides protection from any negative reaction.
The impression that is consistently gaining ground is that the UPA government is Islamo-phile, either because of historical reasons as a legacy of Nehru’s sole dominance of the Congress organization with the help of the British and Gandhiji – who combined their mettle in removing or neutralizing all potential rivals of Nehru within the organization, or because of growth of deep penetration of Islamic elements within the networks of the Congress and related parties, or a combination of both. Bengal terrorists during the British Raj did not succeed because the Bengali community as a whole did not support the “armed insurrectionists”, and this lack of support is indicated by the consistent emergence of detailed information from even the most insignificant of meetings by the revolutionaries – it was the Bengali community itself that was helping the British with intelligence. The Punjab separatist insurrection in the 80’s did not ultimately succeed because the Sikh community decided to go against it. The Muslim community has so far not shown any indication of a similar sentiment against their Jihadi brethren. This is typical everywhere in Islam, because the core texts of Islam always teach about the necessity and “validity” of violent militant Jihad against non-Muslims – a fact now carefully suppressed both by Islamo-phile non-Muslims as well as Muslim theologians themselves in their public face towards non-Muslims – but intensively and authentically carried on within their own Islamic circles.
Now we come to the first factor mentioned above – that of the basic infrastructural support that can only be provided by the technological knowledge and sophistication of a modern army, [not necessarily that of a “modern” nation]. The most direct source of this for Indian Jihadis is that of Pakistan, and indirectly from groups operating in Pak-occupied Kashmir, Bangladesh, as well as eventual links back to the middle-East and Afghanistan, as well as possible indirect material help from China, Iran and funding from sources tolerated tacitly by Saudi Arabia. The ultimate source of all this is money from oil and natural gas, and the investment of the resulting capital in various non-Muslim economies.
Pakistan’s sole national project and now the only driving reason for its existence appears to be the capture of entire Kashmir, and subsequently as much of India as possible under the banner of Islam – as acknowledged by the dominance of public statements and debates by Pakistan’s politicians both inside and outside its legislature – whereas we would have expected more time devoted to making statements about combating terror within its borders. This campaign also helps Pakistan to gain support from the orthodox Islamic regimes sitting on oil wealth, and countries like China which have their own imperial axes to grind on India. As I have written before, Kiani would have sacrificed Musharraf, his mentor, only if the “elected” democratic government promised continued and perhaps even increased support for Kiani’s original organization, the ISI’s promotion of Jihadi Islamic violence across the border with India. The Pakistani government has recently concluded an understanding with the Taleban, and it is incapable or unwilling to fight back and annihilate the Islamic Jihadis based around the gateway to the Indian subcontinent – the Afghan-Pak border area known commonly as the NWFP or NW Pakistan. By all accounts, the Jihadis are gaining ground and they have already occupied a government building for some time before retreating. The official Pakistan government’s writ does not run in this grey-zone, and thsi perhaps necessitated a missile attack by the US led coalition leading to loud protests by the Pakistani army – either from loss of pride, or from the actual loss of “allies” with whom the Pakistani Aarmy has already come to an understanding to turn over Pakistan firmly into Jihadi hands.
India’s recent tie-ups with the USA has led to a panic in the Wahabi Islamic Jihadi expansionist agenda for the subcontinent – and they are striking back with the only weapon taught in the Quran and the Hadiths – Islamic Jihadi violence, surprise attacks and assassination on the innocent populations including women and children of non-Muslims whose lands, wealth and women are desired by the Muslims. The islamic forces think that time is running out, and their Islamo-phile allies within India are perhaps no longer reliable enough to slow down the growth of Indian non-muslim’s power and further lapse of time will simply make it impossible for them to conquer India in the name of Islam. They are banking on the support from Muslim populations within India, who have always served as the fifth-column of invading Muslim armies in the historical past of India [ read my series on How Islam came to India]. The Pakistani army, whose lower ranks are being recruited from the society at large which has been increasingly radicalized with the worst form of Islamic Jihadism sponsored by oil-money through the madrassahs, and therefore increasingly sympathetic to the Jihadi cause, will collaborate and “appear to collapse” before the Talebani-Al Qaeda onslaught from the Afghan border. Pakistan stands to be dismembered not by the USA or India, but by the Army from within itself allied with the Taleban and Al-Qaeda. The entire northern Pakistan will fall, including NWFP and the Punjab. The war with India will take off from this point.
The non-Muslim Indian should immediately realize the weakness and essential betrayal of the Islamo-phile parties [who repeat the role of the Brahmin minister to Prithviraj Chahman, the minister who advised Prithviraj not to collaborate with the Chalukyas of Gujarat in annihilating the forces of Muhammad Ghori the very first time]. In the international arena, a military alliance should be formed by India with the USA and Russia. China should be kept out of this, as China will only betray, and leak information to the Pakistani forces. India should not buy into the pretensions of the current Pakistani government to offer “good news” on Kashmir – this is simply a tactic to buy time and deceive – in classic Islamic style of “deception is war, and war is deception”. War is coming into India, whether India behaves like the proverbial turkey burying its head into the sand or not.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Delhi explodes – price of India’s ruling elite’s love affair with Islam paid by the common Indian
“Indian Mujahideen” claims responsibility in an email for blasts that have left at least 30 dead and 100’s injured in the capital of India, New Delhi.
Many times have I written on the tolerance of Islam in India by a section of Islamo-phile non-Muslim elite and how none of the accumulated grievances in non-Muslims due to the historical rape, torture, massacre and exploitation by the Muslim elite have been ever acknowledged. I had already warned explicitly that even after the “capture” of a few suspects connected to the Gujarat blasts, and claims of catching key terrorists, these were most likely peripheral units, and the main network is under deep cover all over the western Indian hinterland. These terrorists can only function with a certain minimal support from local Muslim communities. [extract from original post dated 17th August]
“While this pussyfooting is going on in Kashmir, the Gujarat police has claimed to nab the main culprits behind the Gujarat blasts, and identified them as a breakaway hardline faction of SIMI, calling itself the Indian Mujahideen. However sometime ago, in the aftermath of the blasts media leaks from officials appeared to project the theory that Indian Mujahideen did not really exist but was a “shadow name” of a Pakistan based outfit that specifically wanted to pretend to be “Indian”. Both cannot be true at the same time, and it is quite possible that neither of the two theories are entirely correct. It seems unlikely that the main culprits behind the Gujarat blasts have been nabbed. These are people still under deep cover all over the western coastal areas of India, with strong underground networks between Communist extremists, and ethnic separatists throughout India as well as groups based across the border not necessarily with Pakistan. The people nabbed are most likely to be the peripheral weak links. The ideological shortsightedness of these groups may make them itch in “righteous anger” to prove that the Indian authorities have barely even scratched their bottoms, and more public outrages or “show of strength” can probably be expected.”
I had also given a list of provinces in India whose Muslim population proportion was within a certain critical range – not too small so that sufficient social depth of cover is not available, not too high as then blasts jeopardize the existence of the Muslim population itself providing excuses for security forces to move in. Here is an extract from the original post dated 26th July. ” Now blasts have taken place in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, a day after blasts in Bangalore, Karnataka. It is interesting also that recently the three states which suffered from blasts are Rajputana, Karnataka, and Gujarat, all states which have recently come under BJP led state governments. It is quite clear now that these are Islamic extremists who are behind these blasts. These are states which have a small but significant Muslim population. We can look at the states with medium to low concentrations of Muslim populations (Census of India 2001):
(State – total population – percentage of Muslim populations)
Kerala 7,863,842 24.6969
Uttar Pradesh 30,740,158 18.4961
Bihar 13,722,048 16.5329
Jharkhand 3,731,308 13.8474
Karnataka 6,463,127 12.2291
Uttaranchal 1,012,141 11.9225
Delhi 1,623,520 11.7217
Maharashtra 10,270,485 10.6014
Andhra Pradesh 6,986,856 9.1679
Gujarat 4,592,854 9.0641
Manipur 190,939 8.8121
Rajasthan 4,788,227 8.4737
So the pattern indicates, the following factors, between 7-8% on the lower limit and 25% as upper limit on Muslim populations, with a BJP led government or where BJP may come to power in the near future through the electoral process, centres of commercial and industrial activity with current or future potential for FDI’s, are possibly ripe for continued “blast” violence. A much higher percentage of Muslim population’s religious leadership obviously feels secure enough that nothing against their religious agenda will be undertaken by the respective state governments. A much lower percentage simply does not have the community resources to provide cover for extremists.”
I had also warned that Musharraf’s departure will signal increased power of Kiani to carry on his activities from the time he was chief of the Pakistan ISI, and increase it with indirect material and resource help from the “democratic” political government. [original post dated 18th August] Added to this of course now the failure of Pakistan, China, and other nations who prize the Islamo-Chinese axis, to stop the NSG waiver for India. These have made the Islamic Wahabi Jihadist leadership and networks extremely anxious – and from now on India should expect increasing attacks from Muslim networks in the subcontinent. Indian governments have always been soft on Islam, especially the fundamental sources of Islamic expansion and growth in India – the countless Muslim religious trusts and Madrassahs which claim and are allowed the right to function completely unsupervised. Unlike any other educational institutions run by other religious groups, Islamic madrassahs function in a closed manner with complete immersion in Islamic propaganda and religious texts. In my blog posts I have tried tos how what is the real message and agenda of Islamic religious texts – loot, murder, terrorise, rape and enslave under deceptive war on non-Muslims with coveted resources – land, wealth, women and live off this resource like a band of marauding robbers.
Indian government does not have any financial supervision on the activities, funding and expenditure of these Muslim institutions – in fact whereas Hindu institutions are taxed normally, no Muslim institution is taxed or audited under government supervision. Additionally these institutions are funded or subsidized partly, using public money. The Indian government has proved its complete failure intelligence wise to deal with the Islamic terror threat. The Delhi police and the Home Minister, who just days ago had turned down a request from the Gujarat government to introduce tougher anti-terror laws – repeats the lines learnt by heart now – stay calm, don’t panic, don’t heed rumours, don’t add to social discord, we will nab the culprits and give them tough punishments – his main concern as always is the protection of “Islam” – see to it that no retribution takes place on the Muslim networks by popular anger. As always, he is never able to catch “the culprits”, his main concern being protecting Muslims. It is obvious why the Indian intelligence fails completely to break Islamic terror networks and only wisecracks after the blasts have already taken place: because these Islamic networks have developed political connections within the ruling elite and serve as conduit of critical information from the ruling side to the Muslim leadership and disinformation from the Muslim side to the government. Ruling elite’s conscious or subconscious involvement in the protection of Islam game is now so deep that almost nothing can be done without a complete rehaul of the political and administrative structure of India.
This terror will only stop if it can be shown to the Islamic networks that each such attack will actually decrease the “number of practising Muslims” – a call should immediately be given to the Muslim community and leadership in India, that they should offer to publicly declare and promise that each such attack by Islamic Mujahideen or other terror outfits will be met by pubic renouncement of Islam and coming out of the religion of Islam by a number equal to the number of non-Muslims dead or injured – only in this way can non-Muslims believe in the sincerity of Muslim’s claim of peaceful intent. Similarly, It is the Muslim communities themselves who must give up these terrorists, otherwise the entire Muslim community will be deemed to be in support of these terror tactics.
The soft border in West Bengal with Bangladesh, which allows coninuous unhindered infiltration by Islamic terrorists from Bangladesh with ultimate routes to the middle East whose petro-dollar now is pouring into Bangladesh at an accelerating rate to build mosques and madrassahs – all centres of Islamic propaganda and institutionally protected centres to store, train and serve as bases of Islamic terror when the opportunity arises – as in the Lal Mosque of Pakistan and many others [ Ibn Ishaq, and Tabari write how many of the initial jihadi calls for raids and assassinations of non-Muslims around Medina were given from within the mosque] and is a long tradition of Islam right from the days of its foundation – can only be checked by a state government that is not ideologically dependent or soft towards Islam. Both the Left as well as its current nemesis the Trinamool Congress have proved their complete failure in statesmanhip over the Tata nano plant. It is the need of the country as well as the common people of West Bengal that there is a regime change there that can fight the Islamic infiltration as well as industrialize – it perhaps should start looking for a Modi.
Ultimately in the long run, as long as Islam is practised in India and the Indian subcontinent, the terror threat will never go. The Islamic and Islamo-phile false propaganda that Islam is peaceful and has no evil intentions on the land, property, and women of non-Muslims and complete destruction of all non-Muslim cultures, have hidden for a long time the real reasons behind the rise of Islamic terror. Complete eradication of Islam as practised religion in the subcontinent must take place, and non-Muslims, mainly the Hindus, the Christians and the Judaic communities should come to an understanding between themselves to fight unitedly the common threat of Islam – its not very difficult to do, if the Quranic observation that “un-believers” are always torn by dissension and that they cannot take united action against Muslims, is remembered.
Jihad and coming of Islamic war to India
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Mumbai Masala from “God Remembers” : a source of Islamic propaganda protected by India -3
LIE 4: ISLAM DOES NOT ALLOW KILLING OF WOMEN, CHILDREN AND THE ELDERLY, OR CUTTING DOWN OF TREES, NOT EVEN IN WAR-ISLAM RATHER PROTECTS THE CHILDREN AND WOMEN OF THE DEFEATED
Killing women : The Murder of Asma bt. Marwan at Medina by Umayr b. Adiy al-Khatmi -March, 624CE
Immediately after his return from the victory at Badr, Muhammad felt strong enough to put a halt to his critics who were displeased at his arrival at Medina. During those days, poets served as mouthpiece of political and social satire. One such poetess was Asma bint Marwan. She belonged to the B. Aws and did not hide her dislike for Islam. She was married to – Yazid b. Zayd, a man of Banu Khatma and had five sons and a suckling infant. After the Badr war, she composed some satirical poems. The verses spread from mouth to mouth and finally reached the ears of the Muslims and they were greatly offended. Muhammad could not at all endure satire or vituperation. Therefore, an incensed Muhammad decided that it was time to get rid of her.
In his mosque, at night, Muhammad sought a volunteer to assassinate Asma bt. Marwan. A blind man, Umayr b. Adiy al-Khatmi, belonging to the same tribe as Asma’s husband (i.e., Banu Khatma) stood up to complete the job. In the dead of night he crept into her apartment. Her little children then surrounded Asma while she slept. Hugging her bosom was her infant, suckling her breast. The blind man, feeling stealthily with his hand, removed the infant from her breast and plunged his sword in her belly with such a force that it passed through her back. This severe blow killed Asma on the spot. It was just five days before the end of the month of the sacred month of fasting, Ramadan when Muslims are not supposed to shed blood.[Ibn Ishaq]
After murdering Asma, next morning, the killer Umayr went to pray in the mosque while Muhammad was there. Muhammad was quite anxious to learn if the mission of Umayr was a success or not. He said to Umayr, the killer “Have you slain the daughter of Marwan?’ Commenting on this Ibn S’ad writes, “This was the word that was first heard from the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him.” When Umayr replied that the job had been carried out with success, Muhammad said, “You have helped God and His apostle, O ‘Umayr!’ When Umayr asked if he would have to bear any evil consequences, the apostle said, “Two goats won’t butt their heads about her.” Muhammad then praised Umayr in front of all gathered for prayer for his act of murder, and Umayr went back to his people. (Note: Some biographers suggest that Omayr was Asma’s former husband). Five days later, the Muslims celebrated the first Eid (the end of fasting)! [Ibn Ishaq]
When Omayr, the killer returned to Upper Medina, he passed the sons of Asma who were burying theirs slain mother. They accused Umayr of murder of their mother. Without hesitation, Umayr admitted the accusation boastfully and threatened to kill the whole family if they dared to repeat the lampoons that their mother had composed deriding the Prophet of mercy. This threat of terror worked wonderfully. The entire tribe of Asma’s husband (i.e., Banu Khatma) who secretly hated Islam, now openly professed their adherence, just to save their lives. Ibn Ishak writes, “That was the first day that Islam became powerful among B. Khatma. The day after Bint Marwan was killed the men of B. Khatma became Muslims because they saw the power of Islam”. [Ibn Ishaq]
Singing women killed:
Sunaan Abu Dawud: Book 14, Number 2678: Narrated Sa’id ibn Yarbu’ al-Makhzumi: The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: on the day of the conquest of Mecca: There are four persons whom I shall not give protection in the sacred and non-sacred territory. He then named them. There were two singing girls of al-Maqis; one of them was killed and the other escaped and embraced Islam.
Later, Umar killed Sarah by causing his horse to trample her at al-Abtah. On the day of occupation of Mecca, Muhammad commanded that six men and four women be killed. The women were: 1. Hind bt. Utbah b. Rabiah, 2. Sarah, the freed slave girl of Amr b. Hashim b. Abd al-Muttalib; she was killed (waqidi) on the day of invasion. 3. Quraybah; killed on the day of invasion, 4. Fartana escaped death and lived until the Caliphate of Uthman.
The killings of polytheist women and children and old men are definitely sanctioned by Muhammad.
Sahih Muslim: Book 019, Number 4321: It is reported on the authority of Sa’b b. Jaththama that the Prophet of Allah (may peace be upon him), when asked about the women and children of the polytheists being killed during the night raid, said: They are from them.
Old Women killed : Raid against Umm Qirfa of B. Fazarah by Zayd b. Haritha/Abu Bakr-January, 628CE
After Zayd b. Haritha’s first raid at Wadi al-Qura ended in a failure, he conducted further raids. In one of these operations, he set out for a mercantile trip to Syria to do some border trading there. When he arrived at Wadi al-Qura, he again raided the inhabitants there. However, his caravan was waylaid and was attacked by B. Fazarah tribe. During the fighting B. Fazarah killed a number of Muslims including Ward b. Amr, one of Zayd’s dear comrade-in-arms. Zayd himself was wounded.[NOTE THE EASE WITH WHICH MUSLIMS COMBINED THE DUAL ROLE OF TRADER AND RAIDER]
After Zayd returned to Medina with his wound he vowed to avenge the death of his comrade by raiding B. Fazarah again. After his recovery from the injury Muhammad sent Zayd with an army against the B. Fazarah. He attacked them at Wadi al-Qura and inflicted heavy casualties on them. He took Umm Qirfa (her real name was Fatimah bt. Rabiah b. Badr), the wife of Malik b. Hudhayfah, the chief of B. Fazarah, as a prisoner. Umm Qirfa was a very old woman having a young and exquisitely beautiful daughter. She (Umm Qirfa) was the aunt of Uyeina and was married to her cousin, Malik, the uncle of Uyeina. They formed a branch of Fazarah, Fazarah tribe being a branch of the Ghatafan tribe. Zayd took her daughter as a captive and ordered a Jihadist, Qays b. Mohsin to kill Umm Qirfa. Qays tied each of her legs with a rope and attached the ropes to two camels. Then he drove the camels in opposite directions thus renting her in two. Rodinson writes that Umm Qirfa was torn from limb to limb by four camels. Two brothers from the same family were also brutally executed. When told, Muhammad fully approved this ferocious punishment meted out to a grand old lady. When Zayd brought Umm Qirfa’s daughter to Muhammad, he allocated her to Salamah b. Amr al-Akwa, a Jihadist who captured her. Then Muhammad found that one of his maternal uncles, Hazn b. Abi Wahb was eyeing on Umm Qirfa’s beautiful daughter. So he asked her owner, Salamah b. Amr b. al-Akwa, if he would give her to his (Muhammad’s) uncle. Salamah readily agreed to Muhammad’s request. This distinguished lady was then passed on to Muhammad’s uncle for his private use.
Another version of this story says that the leader of this raid was Abu Bakr b. Abi Quhafah (told by Salamah): Muhammad appointed Abu Bakr as the leader of this raiding party. When Abu Bakr arrived at Wadi al-Qura, he ordered his troop to rest there; then they prayed. After prayer, Abu Bakr made a raid on B. Fazarah. The Muslims killed a number of B. Fazarah people and captured a number of their women and children. Among them was Umm Qirfa, a very old lady, wearing a worn-out piece of leather coat. With her was her young daughter, the fairest of the Arabs. Abu Bakr gave Umm Qirfa’s pretty, young daughter to, the Jihadist, who had captured her as a booty. After Salamah b. al-Akwa returned to Medina and met Muhammad at the market place, he (Muhammad) asked Salamah to give this pretty young lass to him. Salamah told Muhammad that he liked her but had not had sex with her yet. Then he offered her to Muhammad.
Quoting Salamah, Tabari (Tabari, vol. viii, p.97) writes: ‘When I returned to Medina, the messenger of God met me in the market and said, “Salamah-how excellent the father who begot you!-give me the woman.” I said, “Messenger of God, I like her, by God, and I have not uncovered her garment.” He said nothing to me until the next day, when he met me in the market and said, “Salamah-how excellent a father begot you!-give me the woman.” I said: “Messenger of God, I have not touched her garment. She is yours, Messenger of God.” The Messenger of God sent her to Mecca, and with her he ransomed some Muslim captives who were in the hands of the polytheists.’ Look also Sahih Muslim (Refer to: Sahih Muslim: Book 19, Hadith number 4345)
Killing Old Men: The Murder of Abu Afak at Medina by Salim b. ‘Umayr-April, 624CE
Abu Afak, a Jew of Medina was a very old man, about 120 years old. He was active in the opposition of Muhammad’s religion. He too composed some satirical verses that annoyed the Muslims. One month after his victory at Badr, Muhammad showed his limit of tolerance to his intellectual opposition by expressing his wish to eliminate this old man. At his mosque, the apostle of Allah sought the service of a volunteer killer, saying, ‘Who will deal with this rascal for me?’ A convert by the name of Salim b.‘Umayr, brother of B. ‘Amr b.’Auf from the B. Amr tribe came forward to do the job. He killed Abu Afak with one blow of his sword when the latter slept outside his house. (Some say that Abu Afak was murdered first then Asma). Ibn S’ad describes this gruesome murder in this way: “He waited for an opportunity until a hot night came, and Abu ‘Afak slept in an open place. Salim b. ‘Umayr knew it, so he placed the sword on his liver and pressed it till it reached his bed. The enemy of Allah screamed and the people, who were his followers rushed him, took him to his house and interred him.”
Cutting down trees of the “enemy”
The Ethnic Cleansing of B. Nadir Jews from Medina by Muhammad-July, 625CE
Bani Nadir Jews inhabited the fertile land in the vicinity of Medina. They were prosperous Jews, having vast tracts of land, on which they cultivated date palms. They were in confederation with the B. Amir people. Muhammad went to the Bani Nadir Jews to raise the blood money to be paid for the killing of two men of B. Amir, whom the professional killer, Amr b. Umayya al-Damri had killed by mistake.
So, Muhammad, with a few of his followers, including, Abu Bakr, Ali and Umar visited the village of B. Nadir, two or three miles away from Medina and requested the chief of B. Nadir to refund the blood money that he had already paid. The B. Nadir Jews received Muhammad courteously, asked him to sit down while they attentively listened to his demand and agreed to honor Muhammad’s request. Muhammad was quite unhappy when the B. Nadir readily agreed to his demand. In reality, he was expecting the B. Nadir Jews to reject his demand, so that he could have a good pretext to attack them and seize their land and property.
After agreeing to Muhammad’s demand for blood money, the B. Nadir Jews went for a private discussion among themselves. While he was sitting by the wall of a house, he claimed that B. Nadir Jews wanted to kill him by dropping a stone from top of the house and claimed that Gabriel gave him this information. So, he suddenly stood up and left the place, as if to answer the call of nature asking others, including Abu Bakr, Umar and Ali not to leave the place until he returned. When his companions found that Muhammad’s return was very much delayed, they went out looking for him. On their way to Medina they met a man who told them he saw Muhammad was headed for Medina. When they met Muhammad at Medina, he told them his perception of treachery by B. Nadir and asked the Muslims to prepare to fight the B. Nadir.
With clear war and invasion of Jewish property in mind, Muhammad asked another of his professional assassins, Muhammad ibn Maslamah (He murdered Ka’b b. Ashraf) to go to the Banu Nadir Jews to announce to them the ultimatum to vacate Medina. He gave the Jews ten days to evacuate Medina and, if after this deadline any Jew was seen in the area, he would be killed. The B. Nadir Jews were surprised that Muhammad ibn Maslamah, who was hitherto very much on friendly terms with the Jews had to serve them the ultimatum. When the B. Nadir Jews expressed their dismay at the action of Muhammad b. Maslamah, he said, “ Hearts have changed, and Islam has wiped out the old covenants.”
When Abd Allah ibn Ubayy learned about the precarious situation of the B. Nadir Jews, he sent the message to them that he himself would be coming to their assistance with two thousand Jewish and Arab fighters. But the Banu Nadir Jews recalled that the same person promised to help the Banu Qaynuqa Jews, but in the end, betrayed. So, the Banu Nadir Jews, at first, decided towards removing themselves to Khaybar or nearby. They thought that they could still come to Yathrib (Medina) to harvest their crops and then return to their fortresses at Khaybar. Huyayy ibn Akhtab, their leader finally resolved against this view. He decided to send a message to Muhammad, declining his order of expulsion,. entered in their fortified fortresses, stocked them with enough supplies to last up to a year and got ready to defend themselves. So, no Jew left Medina after the expiry of the ten days ultimatum. Muhammad, immediately ordered Jihadists in his mosque to arm themselves and march forward to lay a siege on the fortresses of B. Nadir Jews. A band of Muslims, with Muhammad as their leader started marching against B. Nadir who had already taken shelter in their formidable fortresses. In the beginning, the Jews attacked the Muslim besiegers with arrows and stones and held out gallantly. Although not unexpected, they were greatly disappointed when no help came from Abd Allah ibn Ubayy, nor from any other previously trusted sources. The siege lasted for fifteen or twenty days, and Muhammad became very impatient. At last, to hasten their surrender, Muhammad, cut down the surrounding date trees and burned them. When the Jews protested about the breaking of sacrosanct Arab laws on warfare, he demanded a special revelation from Allah (59:4) that was promptly sent down, sanctioning the destruction of enemy’s palm trees. In this verse Allah gave generous permission to the Muslims to cut down the palm trees: it was not a destruction but the vengeance from Allah, and to humble the evil doers that is to say, it is alright to cut down cultivated land and burn crops in a war. The Muslim poet (or the war correspondent of those days) Hassan b. Thabit enjoyed this gutting of the livelihood of the B. Nadir Jews and composed lyrics on this savage acts of the Jihadists.. Here is a Hadith from Sahih Bukhari that describes Hassan’s mood :
Volume 3, Book 39, Number 519:
Narrated ‘Abdullah:
The Prophet got the date palm trees of the tribe of Bani-An-Nadir burnt and the trees cut down at a place called Al-Buwaira . Hassan bin Thabit said in a poetic verse: “The chiefs of Bani Lu’ai found it easy to watch fire spreading at Al-Buwaira.”
After Muhammad destroyed their only source of livelihood, the B. Nadir found their case completely hopeless, and finding no other alternative, they decided to surrender and abandon their lands. In exchange for this, they wanted Muhammad to spare their lives, on which he agreed, on condition that they could only take those of their property that they could carry on their camels. He stipulated that the Jews must surrender their arms. They were allowed to carry whatever they could stock upon their camels. The Jews agreed to comply with those humiliating conditions, loaded six hundred camels with their goods and departed from their ancestral land with fanfare, din and alacrity. Some of them, with their chiefs Huyey, Sallam and Kinana went to Khaybar [These were the Jews who were later captured, tortured as prisoners of war to death, and their wives taken over by Muhammad and his followers for their personal enjoyment]. The rest of them went to Jericho and the highlands of south Syria. Only two of them embraced Islam.
Attacking suddenly at night and killing :
Raid on B. Kilab at Nejd by Abu Bakr-July, 628CE
Sunaan Abu Dawud: Book 14, Number 2632: Narrated Salamah ibn al-Akwa’: The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) appointed AbuBakr our commander and we fought with some people who were polytheists, and we attacked them at night, killing them. Our war-cry that night was “put to death; put to death.” Salamah said: I killed that night with my hand polytheists belonging to seven houses.
As for fate of women and children in Islamic war :
Genocide of Bani Qurayzah Jews by Muhammad-February-March, 627
The Muslim soldiers marched toward the fortress of Bani Qurayza that lay two or three miles to the south-east of Medina. Muhammad rode an ass, while an army of three thousand Muslims, with thirty-six horses followed him. After twenty-five days of siege, the Jews grew desperate, exhausted and terrified at their future. They were on the verge of starvation.
Tabari writes: ‘When they saw him (i.e Abu Lubabah), [ A Muslim from a friendly tribe whom the Jews hoped to intercede on behalf of them] the men rose to meet him, and the women and children rushed to grab hold of him, weeping before him, so that he felt pity for them. They said to him, “Abu Lubabah, do you think that we should submit to Muhammad’s judgment”? “Yes”, he said, but he pointed with his hand to his throat, that it would be slaughter.”’ Haykal writes that the Jews thought that the former allies from al-Aws tribe would give them protection if they migrated to Adhriat in al Sham, and that Muhammad would allow them. Muhammad rejected their proposal and insisted on their waiting for his judgment.
In the morning, B. Qurayzah Jews surrendered. The male Jews were chained and kept in the fortress till a decision was made about their fate. The B. Aws were friendly with the B. Qurayzah Jews and pleaded with Muhammad for mercy and a fair judgment for their Jewish allies. On this, Muhammad proposed that the judgment be passed by Sa’d b Muadh who was the B. Aws leader, trying to recuperate from his eventually fatal wound in a tent at Medina. B. Aws and the B. Qurayzah both agreed on this proposal of Muhammad, hoping to have some mercy from Sa’d b. Muadh. Muhammad dispatched some B. Aws men to bring Sa’d to deliver his judgment. Many B. Aws people requested Sa’d to deal with the Jews with leniency and mercy. Sa’d then asked his people if they would accept whatever judgment he pronounced. The assemblage agreed.
On being asked by Muhammad Sa’d b. Muadh replied, “I pass judgment on them that the men shall be killed, the property divided, and the children and women made captives.” Muhammad praised Sa’d for proclaiming a solemn judgment of the Almighty and termed Sa’d’s judgment as fair and said, “You have passed judgment on them with the judgment of God and the judgment of His Messenger.” Sahih Bukhari records:
Volume 5, Book 58, Number 148: Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri: Some people (i.e. the Jews of Bani bin Quraiza) agreed to accept the verdict of Sad bin Muadh so the Prophet sent for him (i.e. Sad bin Muadh). He came riding a donkey, and when he approached the Mosque, the Prophet said, “Get up for the best amongst you.” or said, “Get up for your chief.” Then the Prophet said, “O Sad! These people have agreed to accept your verdict.” Sad said, “I judge that their warriors should be killed and their children and women should be taken as captives.” The Prophet said, “You have given a judgment similar to Allah’s Judgment (or the King’s judgment).”
[Original Sahih Al-Bukhari] The women and children were then separated from their husbands, others were put under the care of Abdullah, a renegade Jew. All the goods and possessions of the B. Qurayzah Jews, their camels and flocks were all brought as spoils of war. The B. Qurayzah Jewish men were handcuffed behind their backs with their women and children having already been separated. They were placed under the charge of Mohammad ibn Maslama, the assassin of Ka’b ibn Ashraf, to be sent to Medina before their execution in batches. A long trench was dug in the marketplace of Medina. The Prisoners were then taken there, made to kneel down and beheaded in a group of five or six. Muhammad was personally present to witness this slaughter. Ali and Zubayr cut off the heads of the Jews in front of Muhammad. Sourcing from Al-Waqidi, Tabari writes:
“…the messenger of God commanded that furrows should be dug in the ground for the B. Qurayzah. Then he sat down, and Ali and al-Zubayr began cutting off their heads in his presence.” Ibn Ishaq writes that they were taken in groups to Muhammad for beheading in front of him.
Tabari further writes: ‘The messenger of God went out into the marketplace of Medina and had trenches dug in it; then he sent for them and had them beheaded in those trenches. They were brought out to him in groups. Among them were the enemy of God, Huyayy b. Akhtab, and Ka’b b. Asad, the head of the tribe. They numbered 600 or 700-the largest estimate says they were between 800 and 900. As they were being taken in groups to the Messenger of God, they said to Ka’b b. Asad, “Ka’b, what do you understand. Do you not see that the summoner does not discharge [anyone] and that those of you who are taken away do not come back? By God, it is death!” the affair continued until the Messenger of God had finished with them.’
Sir William Muir describes: ‘The men were penned up in a closed yard, while graves or trenches were being dug for them in the chief marketplace of the city. When these were ready, Mahomet, himself a spectator of the tragedy, gave command that the captives should be brought forth in companies of five or six at a time. Each company was made to sit down by the brink of the trench destined for its grave, and there beheaded. Party by party they were thus led out, and butchered in cold blood, till the whole were slain. One woman alone was put to death; it was she who threw the millstone from the battlements.’
Huyayy b. Akhtab, the banished B. Nadir Jewish leader was taken to the execution field. Tabari describes his execution:
‘Huyayy b. Akhtab, the enemy of God, was brought. He was wearing a rose-colored suit of clothes that had torn all over with fingertip-sized holes so that it would not be taken as booty from him, and his hands were bound to his neck with a rope. When he looked at the Messenger of God, he said, “By God, I do not blame myself for being hostile to you, but whomever God forsakes is forsaken.” Then he turned to the people and said: “People, there is no injury in God’s command. It is the book of God, His decree, and a battlefield of great slaughter ordained against the Children of Israel. Then he sat down and was beheaded.’
Only one woman of the B. Qurayzah, the wife of Hasan al-Qurazi and a friend of Aisha, was killed. Aisha’s narrated her story of beheading thus:
‘Only one of their women was killed. By God, she was by me, talking with me and laughing unrestraintedly while the Messenger of God was killing their men in the marketplace, when suddenly a mysterious voice called out her name, saying, “Where is so and so?” She said, “I shall be killed.” “Why?” I asked. She said, A misdeed that I committed.” She was taken away and beheaded. (Aisha used to say: I shall never forget my wonder at her cheerfulness and much laughter, even when she knew that she would be killed.).’
The Sahi (authentic) Hadith of Abu Dawud: Book 14, Number 2665: Narrated Aisha, Ummul Mu’minin: No woman of Banu Qurayzah was killed except one. She was with me, talking and laughing on her back and belly (extremely), while the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) was killing her people with the swords. Suddenly a man called her name: Where is so-and-so? She said: I I asked: What is the matter with you? She said: I did a new act. She said: The man took her and beheaded her. She said: I will not forget that she was laughing extremely although she knew that she would be killed.”
Ther very old Jewish man Az-Zabir had saved the life of a Muslim convert, Thabit b. Qays in the Bu’ath war. When Az-Zabir was about to be beheaded Thabit requested Muhammad to save the life of Az-Zabir and his family as a return to his favor. Muhammad agreed. Az-Zabir then asked Thabit b. Qays about the Jewish leaders such as Ka’b b. Asad and Huayy b. Akhtab, as he preferred to die rather than to live without them. Az-Zabir replied, “Then I ask you for the sake of the favor I once did for you to join me to my kinsmen, for by God there is no good in living after them. I will not wait patiently for God, not even [the time needed] to take the bucket of a watering trough, until I meet my dear ones.” So Thabit brought him forward, and he was beheaded. Abu Bakr commented “He will meet them, by God, in the Gehenna, there to dwell forever and forever.”
Muhammad commanded that all those Jewish men with pubic hair were to be executed. Hadith from Sunaan Abu Dawud:
Book 38, Number 4390: Narrated Atiyyah al-Qurazi: I was among the captives of Banu Qurayzah. They (the Companions) examined us, and those who had begun to grow hair (pubes) were killed, and those who had not were not killed. I was among those who had not grown hair.
After executing all the adult male Jews, Muhammad sent Sa’d b. Zayd al-Ansari with some captive women and children from the B. Qurayzah to Najd to sell them in the slave market. While we do not have an accurate price of a female slave during that time, Ibn Sa’d writes that Khadijah, Muhammad’s first wife, bought her slave, Zayd b. Haritha, (who would later become Muuhammad’s adopted son), for four hundred Dirhams at the slave market of Ukaz, Mecca. [the price of young slave varied from five hundred dirhams to eight hundred dirhams – Sunaan Abu Dawud hadith numbers, 3946 and 4563]. Among the captive was a young woman called Rayhanh bt. ‘Amr b. Khunafah and took her as his concubine. It is said that when Muhammad offered to make her his wife by embracing Islam, she declined. She preferred to remain a concubine to becoming a Muslim and said, “Messenger of God, rather leave me in your possession [as a concubine], for it is easier for me and for you.” [Some biographers claim that Rayhana eventually accepted Islam].
Sir Willima Muir:
‘Having sated his revenge, and drenched the market-place with the blood of eight hundred victims, and having given command for the earth to be smoothed over their remains, Mahomet returned from the horrid spectacle to solace himself with the charms of Rihana, whose husband and all whose male relatives had just perished in the massacre. He invited her to be his wife, but she declined; and chose to remain (as indeed, having refused marriage, she had no alternative) his slave or concubine. She also declined the summons to conversion, and continued in the Jewish faith, at which the Prophet was much concerned. It is said, however, that she afterwards embraced Islam. She lived with Mahomet till his death.’
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Of Lipsticks, pigs, Presidents, and south Asia – the Right way forward?
The American electorate is being fabulously entertained. It is fascinating to watch what the movers and shakers of American opinion demand that the American mind should think – lipsticks and pigs dominate proceedings – and with all adult-o-teens and perhaps half the unborn population deemed trained Freudian psychiatrists – lipsticks and pigs are just two words that spawn a billion networks of interpretations and interpretations of interpretations. But no one has told them that what the therapist interprets is also a revelation of the therapist’s own obsessions and paranoias, and in the patterns and passions of your looking for “others” secrets, your own secrets come out – especially about secret pleasures. Why should it matter whether a woman Vice-Presidential candidate has an affair or not or whether her daughter is pregnant or not? What should have been more relevant is whether she is good for what she is being asked to do – play the role of a deputy leader to the highest executive post in the country – if having an affair or her daughter’s supposed pregnancy doesn’t interfere with her state responsibilities why should we bother? It is ridiculous to accept the pseudo-logic that her daughter if pregnant represents her lack of control and leadership, given the fact that Americans champion personal freedoms and individual responsibilities especially in the realm of sex. And as for affairs, should we forget the two illustrious White Christian examples of ladies at the top seats of their realms – Queen Elizabeth I of England, and Tsarina Catherine the Great? By most historical accounts, both ladies had their fill of affairs while proving themselves to be some of the best things that could have happened to their nations in the very practical terms of statesmanship. Isn’t it time that opinion builders of America decide to grow up a bit? What should concern Americans more is what is happening in South Asia and the middle East. The Indo-US nuclear deal has drawn a lot of attention, and it comes as no surprise to me that the Democrats failed to send a woman as a Presidential candidate, and that all Democrat Presidents have gone against strategic strengthening of India at the cost of India’s Muslim neighbours. If we analyze the regimes that have put up women for the top post, they have invariably been leaning towards the Right, whereas the Left, from the Communists to the “Democrats” in spite of all their libertarian rhetoric always shy of women for the top posts and always land up ultimately in the camp of Muslims. Ex President Carter while in the USA is vehemently anti-Indian as far as nuclear strengthening of India is concerned, and frankly ridicules both India’s nuclear capabilities as well as its security concerns which he dubs “ambitions”. The same President Carter while in India however feels no shame in associating his name with remote Indian villages claiming that the Indian connection had been “good for him”. Ex President Clinton, on his visit to India, demanded that both “India and Pakistan” respect the LOC, and pointedly refused to acknowledge Pakistani responsibility for the typically Islam recommended “deceptive” war of killing 35 Kashmiri Sikhs -one of many massacres of non-Muslims of Kashmir towards the ethnic/religious cleansing by the Kashmiri Muslim militants wearing Indian army uniform. Obama is aware of this pattern perhaps and has already consciously tried to neutralize the edge gained by the Republicans through the Indo-US nuclear deal, by highlighting Indo-“phile” Biden and accusing Pakistan of diverting funds meant to fight “terror” towards preparing for war with India.
The coalition forces are not having a very good time in Iraq, or in Afghanistan, and the west should now realize that the centre of power of the Islamic Jihad is firmly in the middle East, with financial and ideological support maintained by the wealth of oil, and Wahabi Islamic fundamentalist clergy, and at least one unsupervised strategically important military establishment that has dubious attitudes to the Taleban – and has already come to an understanding with this patron of Al-Qaeda in the North Western Frontier Province of Pakistan – the corridor that connects Muslim Jihadi insurgents in Afghanistan through northern Pakistan right into Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Fall of India to Islam, either by cooperation or weakness from some of its Islamo-phile centre-left political parties or by outright aggression facilitated or spearheaded by Pakistan with tacit help from China, would mean the establishment of a continuous band of Jihadi Islam from Egypt, and Sudan through Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia (the smaller non-Muslim majority nations of Myanmar or Thailand may not prove a strong bulwark against Islam because of their Buddhism) establishing a stranglehold over the Indian Ocean and virtually over Asia itself, making American presence and control in the middle East virtually impossible..
It is crucial, that no weakness of the “leftist” sort comes in the way of consolidation of all non-Muslim ideologies and forces. Christians and Hindus have the potential of forming an effective alliance in this game of survival. The Right way forward…?
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Mumbai Masala from “God remembers”- on a source of Islamic propaganda protected by India : 2
LIE 3: THE QURANIC EXHORTATION TO BRING DOWN VIOLENT RETRIBUTION ON THE UNBELIEVERS WAS ONLY IN THE CONTEXT OF URGING MUSLIM SOLDIERS TO FIGHT AGAINST MECCANS WHO HAD ATTACKED MUSLIMS:
We will see that the Quran carefully omits any mentions of who started this “war” – Meccans or Muslims, and deliberately does not give the history of the “war”. We will see what the nature of this “war” was – war as we understand even in the historical sense or simply ambushes and raids. To do this we first briefly recount the history of the quarrel with the Meccans as narrated in the Quran and the biographies. We will not deal with the other possible personal motivations in Muhammad as far as accusations of “deprivation” of an “orphan” from his “rights” are concerned, as these are not explicitly and directly stated in the Quran, and was also probably not intended to be revealed in the Quran as it might have detracted from the “spiritual” stance of the “revelation” and and revealed “mundane” “human” weaknesses of greed for property, wealth and women.
The Prophet had kept his mission concealed for three years after he received the first revelations. The Muslim brotherhood had functioned as a secret society. Ibn Ishaq gives a list of persons who had joined.[Ibn Ishaq], “The advantage of the darkness for the first few years was great. The darkness saved it from being crushed at the outset. Ridicule and contempt could be more easily endured when some hundred persons were involved, than if the Prophet had been compelled to endure them by himself. It saved him, too, from the character of the eccentric sage (such as Waraqa and others had borne), investing him from his first public appearance with that of the leader of a party; it gave the Prophet time to secure over a reasonable number of people that influence which he could exercise to a reasonable degree.”[D.S. Margoliouth, Mohammed and the Rise of Islam, London, 1905, New Delhi Reprint. 1985 – p 112]. People in Mecca apparently took notice of the “deviation” quite early. From the first, Muslims had been directed by Allah to offer prayers in congregation. They could not do it inside the city so long as they were an underground organisation. “When the apostles companions prayed,” reports Ibn Ishaq, “they went to the glens so that people could not see them praying, and while Sad b. Abu Waqqas was with a number of the prophets companions in one of the glens of Mecca, a band of polytheists came upon them while they were praying and rudely interrupted them. They blamed them for what they were doing until they came to blows, and it was on that occasion that Sad smote a polytheist with the jawbone of a camel and wounded him. That was the first blood to be shed in Islam.” No reprisals from the pagan side are reported. Just as in modern societies, the pluralistic society at Mecca faced with an aggressive and determined minority, were incredulous that such ideologies could at all be propagandized by normal human beings. “People began to accept Islam, both men and women, in large numbers until the fame of it spread throughout Mecca, and it began to be talked about[Note that the amused tolerance of bigotry and hatred or provocation without an overwhelming immediate retaliation, encouraged the weak, the alienated, the bored and those with a “grievance” against the existing system to veer towards this “empowering” ideology that promises not only the “heaven” and the “earth” but perhaps more of the latter – as in the rise of modern totalitarian regimes – so that later people wonder “if only we were not so tolerant”]. Then God commanded His apostle to declare the truth of what he had received and make known His commandments to men and call them to Him. Three years elapsed from the time the apostle concealed his state until God commanded him to publish his religion, according to information which has reached me. Then God said, Proclaim what you have been ordered and turn aside from the polytheists.”[Ishaq, Quran, 15.8-9, 94]
The ideology proclaimed was a quite simple inversion of the prevalent Judaeo-Chrstian traditions -Apocalypse-Qyamat, resurrection and Last Judgement, [from this point the inversion starts] only the believers in the “Ilah” named “Allah” as the only god and in Muhammad as the last Prophet will enter paradise for an everlasting life of the moset delectable of earthly pleasures; anyone assigning partners to “Allah” or denied Muhammad’s prophethood or did both will be subject to the worst of hell-fire and everlasting tortures. Right from the beginning, it was categorically stated that belief in Allah as the only God was not enough; it had to he accompanied by the belief that Muhammad was the only mediator through whom Allahs mercy could be sought or obtained. “To avow Islam meant to renounce publicly the national worship, to ridicule, and if possible to break down idols, and unabashedly to use the new salutation and to celebrate the new-fangled rites. For it must be remembered that Islam was in its nature polemical. Its Allah was not satisfied with worship, unless similar honour was paid to no other name; and his worship also was intolerant of idols, and of all rites not instituted by himself… Mohammed and Abu Bakr were planning an attack on the national religion, that cult which every Meccan proudly remembered had within their memory been defended by a miracle from the Abyssinian invaders and in their myths had often thus triumphed before. The gods they worshipped were, Mohammed and Abu Bakr asserted, no gods. For their worship these innovators would substitute that of the Jews whose power in South Arabia had recently been overthrown, and of the Christians with whose defeat the national spirit of Arabia had just awakened.”[D.S. Margoliouth, p. 118-19]. At first the “pagan”s led several delegations to Abu Talib, Muhammads uncle and guardian. They told him that his nephew had “cursed our gods, insulted our religion, mocked our way of life and accused our forefathers of error”, and requested him to restrain his nephew. Abu Talib was conciliatory and tried to persuade Muhammad to go slow. “Do not put on me a burden greater than I can bear”, he said to his nephew. But the Prophet “continued on his way, publishing Gods religion and calling men therein.”[Ibn Ishaq] Muhammad was married to a rich woman, Khadijah, and controlled her considerable wealth which he used for supporting his uncles family as well as in the service of the mission to which his wife also subscribed. It has to be kept in mind that at this stage, the pre-Islamic Arabs gave a lot of rights, liberties and positions of influence or power to women, and were quite “permissive” as revealed in some of the “sensual” Hadiths.
Islam’s impact on Meccan society was extremely disruptive as al-Walid b. al-Mughira, a man of standing in Mecca, observed, Muhammad looked like “a sorcerer who has brought a message by which he separates a man from his father, or from his brother, or from his wife, or from his family.”[Ibn Ishaq]. “The view prevalent at Meccah concerning Mohammad appears to have been that he was mad-under the influence of a Jinn, one of the beings who were supposed to speak through poets and sorcerers. That this charge stung Mohammed to the quick may be inferred from the virulence with which he rejects it, and the invective with which he attacks the bastard who had uttered it. He charges the author of the outrage with being unable to write and with being over head and ears in debt and threatens to brand him on his proboscis.[D.S. Margoliouth, p. 121]” Allah declared to his prophet: “You are not a mad man… And you will see and they will see, which of you is the demented. Therefore obey not you the rejecters, who would have you compromise, that they may compromise: Neither obey you each feeble oath-monger, detractor, spreader abroad of slanders, hinderer, of the good, an aggressor, malefactor, greedy therewithal, intrusive. We shall brand him on the nose.”[Quran, 68.2, 5-6, 8-13]. One day some Meccans were assembled in the precincts of the Kaba when Muhammad was passing by and made some remarks. Muhammad retorted that, “By him who holds my life in His hand, I bring you slaughter.”[Ibn Ishaq]. The Meccans probably thought this was due to some “demonic possession” as part of the beliefs of that time, for they sent Utba b. Rabia, one of their chiefs, to Muhammad. Utba offered psychiatric help to Muhammad , “If this ghost which comes to you, which you see, is such that you cannot get rid of him, we will find a physician for you, and exhaust our means in getting you cured, for often a spirit gets possession of a man until he can be cured of it.”[Ibn Ishaq] The Prophet’s reactions convinced Utba that Muhammad was quite sane and advised the Meccans to leave him alone. “If (other) Arabs kill him, others will have rid you of him,” he said.[Ishaq]
What were the questions which the Meccans posed against Muhammad’s faith and what were their observations? “The objections recorded and ostensibly answered in the Koran appear to have been directed against every part and feature of the new system; against Mohammed personally, against his notion of prophecy, against his style, his statements, his doctrines. It is impossible to suggest any chronological scheme for them.”[D.S. Margoliouth]. The manner in which the debate is recorded in the Quran is somewhat strange. The Meccans must have said what they said, to Muhammad and his Muslims directly, or among themselves. But the answers come invariably from Allah in the form of revelations. “The debate with which the earlier years were filled was conducted in a variety of ways. Occasionally the Prophet himself condescended to enter the arena, and confront his antagonists: he was indeed a powerful preacher and when he talked of the Day of Judgment his cheeks blazed, and his voice rose, and his manner was fiery; apparently, however, he was not a ready debater, and was worsted when he tried the plan. Moreover, his temper in debate was not easily controlled, and he was apt to give violent and insulting answers to questioners. He therefore received divine instruction not to take part in open debate, to evade the question and if questioned by the unbelievers, retire.” [Margoliouth, Quran 6.67]. Muhammad’s biographers indicate that a debate took place during his “mission” at Mecca but their versions reflect only the side of Muhammad, apart from being sketchy. The points the Meccans made are preceded by “They say”, and Allahs rejoinders by the phrase, “Say”. Quite often, the debate is reported as having taken place between some earlier “prophet” and his people but implied to be similar to or a It is obvious, however, that the participants meant are Muhammad and his pagan contemporaries, “More often then the controversy was conducted as it is… in election times, when different speakers address different meetings. The points are recorded and reported by members of the audience to the antagonists; who then proceed if they deem it worth while, in some manner to reply.”[Margoliouth]
To start with, the Meccans felt amused that a man like Muhammad, who was distinguished neither by birth nor breeding, should strut around proclaiming himself a prophet. Muhammad’s followers also came from classes and occupations which were not very respectable according to Meccan standards. Allah reports: “When they see you (O Muhammad) they treat you as a jest saying: Is he (the man) whom Allah has sent as a messenger? He would have led us far away from our gods if we had not been staunch to them… Has he invented a lie concerning Allah or is there some madness in him? …Shall we forsake our gods for a mad poet? …Or one of the gods has possessed you in an evil way… Shall we put faith in you when the lowest (people) follow you? …We see you but mortal (man) like us, and we see not that any save the most abject among us follow you, without reflection. We behold in you no merit above us-nay, we deem you liars… We are surely better than this fellow who can hardly make (his meaning) clear… We do not understand much of what you say, and we see you weak among us… We are more (than you) in wealth, and in children… Why are not angels sent down unto us, and why do we not see our Lord? …If you cease not, you will soon be the outcast.”[“Quran 25.41-42. 34.8; 37.36; 11.54; 26.111; 11.27; 43.52; 11.91; 34.35; 25.21; 26.167.]
There is no reply from Allah about Muhammad’s birth and breeding. About Muhammad’ss followers he says that their past is not relevant after they have come to the true faith. He assures the Meccans that Muhammad is neither mad, nor a poet, nor possessed. He laments that the Meccans think too highly of themselves and are proud and scornful. He assures Muhammad that the time is fast approaching when it will be found out who is really mad, and that the disbelievers shall stand humbled.
Muhammad’s and his followers alleged low birth and lack of breeding appeared to the Meccans of the seventh century as in almost all contemporary societies, to be a disqualification to be a messenger from Allah. That Muslim biographers of Muhammad also gave a lot of importance to “distinguished” descent is revealed in their elaborate reconstruction of Muhammad’s descent from Adam. Margoliouth has cited several early Muslim sources to conclude that Muhammad’s grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib, was a manumitted slave who made his living by means which were not considered honourable in Mecca at that time, namely, lending money and providing water and food to the pilgrims for a consideration.[Margoliouth] But the Quran shows that, even Allah reacts extremely negatively to such taunts based on alleged “lowly origins” and indicates that “origins” were extremely important and significant in early Islam, as if they were not important they should have been no cause for anguish or retaliation.
Another point which provided amusement to the Meccans was the Prophets incapacity to perform miracles. He had himself invited the trouble by producing revelations in which the preceding prophets, particularly Moses and Jesus, had exhibited supernatural powers. Allah reports: “They say: This is only a mortal like you who would make himself superior to you… He is only a man in whom there is a madness. So watch him for a while… This is only a mortal like you who eats whereof you eat, and drinks of what you drink… If you were to obey a mortal like yourselves, you surely will be losers… What ails the messenger of Allah that he eats and walks in the markets? …You are but mortals like us who would fain turn us away from what our fathers used to worship… shall mere mortals guide us? …You are but a mortal man like us. RaHman has naught revealed to you but a lie… Is this other than a mortal man? Will you then succumb to magic when you see it? …So bring some token if you are of the truthful… If only some portent were sent down upon him from his Lord … If only he would bring us a miracle from the Lord… Why are no portents sent down upon him? …Why then have armlets of gold not been set upon him, or angles sent along with him? …We shall not put faith in you till you cause a spring to gush forth from the earth for us, or you have a garden of date-palms and grapes and cause rivers to gush forth therein abundantly, or you cause the heavens to fall piecemeal as you have pretended, or bring Allah and the angels as warrant, or you have a house of gold, or you ascend into heaven, and even then we will put no faith in your ascension till you bring down a book that we can read… Or why is not treasure thrown down unto him or why has he not a paradise from whence to eat? …You are following but a man bewitched…”[Quran. 23.24,25,33,34; 2S.6; 14.10; 64.60; 36.15; 21.3; 26.154; 13.7; 20.133; 29.50-, 43.53; 17.90-93; 25.8. The Meccans (36.15) have a fling at Rahman, the name which the Prophet gave to Allah quite frequently. They hated this name].
Allah assures the Meccans: “Your comrade errs not, nor is deceived… Surely he beheld him (the angel) on the horizon. Nor is he avid of the unseen…” He commands Muhammad: “Say: You are a warner only… Say: I am naught save a mortal messenger… Portents are with Allah and I am a warner only… Allah is able to send down a portent. But most of them known not…” He reminds Muhammed that the Meccans are not likely to believe even if a miracle is shown to them. “The hour drew nigh and the moon was rent in twain. And if they behold a portent, they turn away and say: Prolonged illusion.” [Quran 53.2; 81.23-24; 29.50; 13.7; 54.1-2].
According to some commentators on the Quran, this revelation refers to an actual miracle performed by the Prophet. One night the moon had split into two and Mount Hara was seen standing between the two parts. But the Meccans dismissed it as an illusion. Other commentators, however, say that this refers to a future event when the Last Day will be near at hand. The Meccans stood firm by their gods; their faith in the gods was not at all shaken by Muhammad’s attacks. Allah reports: “When it was said unto them, There is no God save Allah, they were scornful, and said: Shall we forsake our gods for a mad poet?… And they marvel that a warner from among themselves has come. They say: This is a wizard, a charlatan. Makes he the gods One God? This is an astounding thing… The chiefs among them go about exhorting: Go and be staunch by your gods. This is a thing designed (against) you. We have not heard this earlier in our religion. This is naught but an invention. Has a Reminder been revealed unto him alone among us?… Why not Allah speak to us, or some sign come to us?… Had Allah willed we would not have ascribed (unto him) partners, neither our forefathers… Had Allah willed we would not have worshipped aught beside Him, we and our forefathers, nor forbidden aught commanded from Him… We worship them only that they may bring us near unto Allah… He has invented a lie about Allah…”[Quran 37.35-36; 38.4-8; 2.183; 6.149; 39.3; 42.24]. Some of their observations were addressed to Muhammad, though reported by Allah: “Enough for us is that wherein we found our forefathers. Have you come to us that we serve Allah alone and forsake what our fathers worshipped? Do you ask us not to worship what our forefathers worshipped? We are in grave doubt concerning that to which you call us… Does your way of prayer command you that we should forsake that which our forefathers worshipped ?… We found our forefathers following a religion, and we are guided by their footprints. In what you bring we are disbelievers… O Wizard! Entreat your Lord by the pact he has made with you, so that we may walk aright…”[5.104; 7.70; 11.62; 11.87; 43.22,24,49].
The Meccans were obviously vehemently opposed to the name which Muhammad wanted to foist on Allah: “When they see you, they but choose you out of mockery: Is this (the man) who makes mockery of our gods? And they would deny all mention of the Rahman… And when they are asked to adore RaHman, they say: What is Rahman? Are we to adore whatever you bid us? And it increases aversion in them… And when the son of Mary is quoted as an example, behold! the folk laugh out, and say: Are our gods better, or is he?… They call our revelations false with strong denial… And when the Quran is recited unto them, they do not prostrate themselves.”[Quran 21.36; 25.60; 43.57-58; 78.28; 84.21]. But, as Muhammad persisted in reviling their gods, the Meccans decided to protest and said: “Muhammad, you will either stop cursing our gods, or we will curse your Allah.” having realized that the Allah whose will Muhammad was revealing was not the Allah they worshipped. Allah of the Quran felt concerned at this new turn and revealed, “Had Allah willed, they would not have been idolatrous. We have not set you as a keeper over them, nor are you responsible for them. Revile not those unto whom they pray beside Allah lest they wrongfully revile Allah through ignorance.”[Quran 6.108-109] Ibn Ishaq observes: “I have been told that the apostle refrained from cursing their gods, and began to call them to Allah.[Ibn Ishaq]
The Meccans, were not at all impressed by the revelations produced by the Prophet and they did not accept his claim that he received them from some higher source. They thought that he was inventing them himself. Allah reports: “They say: This is naught else than the speech of a mortal man… This is naught else than an invented lie… Nay, say they, (these are but) muddled dreams, he has but invented it; nay, he is but a poet… And when our revelations are recited unto them, they say: We have heard. If we wish we can speak the like of this. This is naught but fables of the men of old…”[Quran,74.25; 34.43 (also 11.13,35;32.3;34.43;46.8; 52.33); 21.5; 8.3l]. Muhammad threw a challenge to the Meccans. Allah prompted him: “Say: Then bring a surah like unto it, and call (for help) all you can besides Allah if you are truthful.”[Quran 10.38]. The challenge was accepted by al-Nadr b. Harith, a Meccan chief, who said: “I can tell a better story than he… In what respect is Muhammad a better story-teller?”[Ibn Ishaq], He told several stories in verses which were like verses of the Quran. Muhammad felt outraged and never forgave al-NaDr. “The effect of the criticism must have been very damaging; for when the Prophet at the battle of Badr got the man into his power, he executed him at once while he allowed the others to be ransomed.”[D.S. Margoliouth] Ibn Ishaq confirms that when the apostle was at al-Safra on his way back from Badr. “al-Nadr was killed by Ali…”[Ibn Ishaq], But while the Prophet was still in Mecca, Allah thought it wise to pacify the pagans and revealed: “It is not a poets speech… nor diviners speech. And if he had invented false sayings, we assuredly had taken him by the right hand, and severed his life-artery, and not one of you could have held us off from him.”[Quran, 69, 41-42. 44-47]. The more knowledgeable among the Meccans suspected that Muhammad was only repeating what he had learnt from the People of the Book, Jews and Christians. Allah reports: “They say: And we know well that only a man teaches him… This is naught but a lie that he has invented and other folk have helped him so that they produced a slander and a lie… Fables of men of old which he has written down so that they are dictated to him morn and evening… One taught (by others), a mad man…” [Quran16.103; 25.4-5; 44.14. The Meccan allegation shows that Muhammad was not an illiterate as is asserted even in the Quran (29.46,49)]. There were several stories current in Mecca regarding the particular person or persons who coached Muhammad in biblical lore which, they said, was all that came out in the Quran. “One account says it was Jabar, a Greek servant to Amer Ebn al Hadrami, who could read and write well; another, that they were Jabar and Yesar, two slaves who followed the trade of sword cutlers at Mecca, and used to read the pentateuch and gospel and had often Mohammed as their auditor, when he passed that way. Another tells us it was Aish, or Yasih, a domestic of al Haweiteb Ebn Abd al Uzza, who was a man of some learning, and had embraced Mohammedanism. Another supposes it was Kais, a Christian, whose house Muhammad frequented; another, that it was Addas, a servant of Otba Ebn Rabia…”[George Sale, The Koran or Alcoran of Mohammed, London (n.d). p. 233, footnote 1.]
Having seen the People of the Book from close quarters, the Meccans found it difficult to believe that divine knowledge had been sent to the Jews and the Christians long ago, and that they themselves were deprived of it till the advent of Muhammad. Allah proceeds: “They say: The Scripture was revealed only to two sets of people before us, and we in sooth were not aware of what they read… If the Scripture had been revealed unto us, we surely would have been better guided than are they… Two magics which support each other… In both we are disbelievers… If it had been any good they would not have been before us in attaining it… This is an ancient lie.”[Quran, 6.157-58; 28.48; 46.11] It had also been noticed that Muhammad produced revelations according to his convenience in the debate. Allah complained: “And when we put a revelation in place of (another), they say: You are but inventing… Why is not the Quran revealed unto him all at one.”[Quran 16.101; 25.32]; Allah had himself revealed that the Quran was being read out from a “well guarded tablet” preserved in the highest heaven. Why was it then being doled out in bits and pieces? The Meccans suspected that the Prophet was inventing verses as occasion demanded and their suspicion was confirmed in the so-called Satanic Verses. Tabari reports: “When the apostle saw that his people turned their backs on him and he was pained by their estrangement from what he brought them from God he longed that there should come to him from God a message that would reconcile his people to him… Then God sent down, Have ye thought of Al-Lat and al-Uzza and Manat the third, the other, these are the exalted Gharaniq whose intercession is approved.” The Meccans felt happy and thought that the strife was over, now that Muhammad had endorsed their Goddesses. But Muhammad had to face his own followers who felt betrayed. The verses were withdrawn soon after and replaced by another revelation. “So God annulled what Satan had suggested and God established His verses.”[Ibn Ishaq, Allahs replacement of the “Satanic Verses” are in the Quran. 53.19-17]
So the Meccans turned down the Quran totally and finally. Allah reports: “Their chieftains said: We surely see you in foolishness and we deem you of the liars… It is all one to us whether you preach or are not of those who preach… Our hearts are protected from that unto which you (Muhammad) call us, and in our ears there is deafness, and between us and you there is a veil… They say (to their people): Heed not this Quran, and drown the hearing of it.” [Quran, 7.66; 26.136; 41.5. 46.26.] Having reaffirmed their Gods and rejected Muhammad’s prophethood as well as revelations, the Meccans made fun of the Last Day (Yaumul akhir) which is described by Allah variously as Day of Resurrection (Yaumul Qiyamah), Day of Separation (Yaumul Fasl), Day of Reckoning (Yaumul Hisab), Day of Awakening (Yaumul Bal), Day of Judgment (Yaumul Din), Day of Encompassing (Yaumul MuHit) or simply as The Hour (As-Saah). [Quran 2.79; 77.14; 40.28; 30.56; 1.3; 11.85.]
“For Muhammad, a revivalist preacher seeking to strike terror in his hearers, the doctrines of resurrection and of the judgment were of the first importance, and the Quran, in consequence, is full of references to them.”[First Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. IV, p.1018], on this day, the dead are to be raised, judged, and sent to eternal heaven if they were believers, and to an eternal hell if they were unbelievers. The pagan Arabs, on the other hand, believed in survival of the human personality after death as far as the retrievable outlines of the Sabateans belief and they stood for transmigration of souls.[Encyclopaedia Americana, New York, 1952, Vol. XXIV, p. 77]. So “the notion of the reconstruction of the decayed body seemed to them in the highest degree absurd, and Mohammed’s promise of heavenly spouses occasioned mirth”[D. S. Margoliouth]. Allah reports: “They say: Shall we show you a man who will tell you (that) when you have become dispersed in death, with the most complete dispersal, still even then, you will be created anew. Has he invented a lie concerning Allah or is there in him a madness?… This is a strange thing: When we are dead and have become dust like our forefathers, shall we verily be brought back? We were promised this forsooth, we and our forefathers. This is naught but fables of the men of old. Bring back our fathers if you speak the truth… When we are lost in the earth, how can we then be recreated?… Shall we really be restored to our first state: Even after we are crumbled bones? Then that will be a vain proceeding… There is naught but our life of this world; we die and we live, and naught destroys us save Time… We deem it but a conjecture, and are by no means convinced… And they swear by Allah their most binding oaths (that) Allah will not raise him who dies…”[Quran, 34.7-8; 50.2-3; 27.67-68; 44.36; 45.32; 32.10; 79.10-12, 45 24, 32; 16.38. The reference to the earlier promise points to the Jews who had been proclaiming for a long time that the forefathers of the Arabs will be raised again and judged]. Allah replies in the Quran: “We know what the earth takes, and with us is a recording Book… Thinks man we shall not assemble his bones. We are able to restore his very finger… Surely it will need but one Shout, and they will be awakened… Those of old and those of later times, will all be brought together to the tryst of an appointed day. Then you the deniers, you will eat of a tree called Zaqqum, and will fill your bellies therewith and thereon you will drink of boiling water, drinking as the camel drinks. This will be their welcome on the Day of Judgment…”[Quran 50.4; 75.3-4; 79.13-14; 56.49-57].
The Meccans, however, were not cowed down by these threats. They challenged Muhammad to hurry up and bring down the doom upon them. Allah reports: “They say: You have disputed with us and multiplied disputation with us. Now bring down upon us that wherewith you threaten us, if you are truthful… O Allah! if this be indeed the truth from you, rain down stones on us or bring us some painful doom… Our Lord! Hasten us for our fate before the Day of Reckoning… They ask you of the Hour: When will it come to port?… When will the promise be fulfilled, if you are truthful? When is the Day of Judgment?… They say: The hour will never come to us…”[Quran 11.22; 8.32; 48.16; 7.187; 10.48; 32.28; 51.13; 34.3]. The Meccans threw this challenge repeatedly according to the Quran. Muhammad had to wriggle out of the situation. Allah reports: “Say: Knowledge thereof is with my Lord. He alone will manifest it at the proper time… It comes not to you save unawares… But Allah will not punish them while you (Muhammad) are with them… For every nation there is an appointed time… It is (only) then when it has befallen that you will believe… And it is in the Scriptures of the men of old. Is it not a portent for them that the doctors of the Children of Israel know it? …You are but a warner sent unto them… So withdraw from them and await (the event)…”[Quran 7.187.8.33:10.49,51; 26.96-87; 79.45].
“Thus then the years of the debate rolled on; in which parties increased in vehemence and antagonism, and in which the successful polemics of the Meccans on the new religion were met by ridicule and refutation of the religious notions current among the pagans. As has been said, the Meccan side is known only from the statements of the adversary, whose acquaintance with the Meccan religion may not have been very deep…”[ Margoliouth] The poet Abu Qays b. al-Aslat whose pseudonym was Sayfi summed up the pagan position in an appeal to an obviously approachable “Lord of all humanity” and not the particular “Lord of all Muslims”:
Lord of mankind, serious things have happened.
The difficult and the simple are involved.
Lord of mankind, if we have erred
Guide us to the good path.
Were it not for our Lord we should be Jews
And the religion of Jews is not convenient.
Were it not for our Lord we should be, Christians
Along with the monks on Mount Jalil.
But when we were created we were created
Hanifs; our religion is from all generations.[Ibn Ishaq]
Commenting on the last phase of the Meccan Suras, F. Buhl says: “It is the weakest part of the Quran, in which Muhammad’s imagination became exhausted, and he was content with tiresome repetitions of his earlier ideas and especially with the tales of the prophets. The form becomes discursive, and more prosaic… The passages belonging to it show clearly that Muhammad would have become intellectually bankrupt if the migration to Medina had not aroused him to a new effort…”[First Encyclopaedia of Islam, Volume IV, p. 1075]
The bulk of the Quran covers the Meccan period in the life of the Prophet. We do not find in any of the chapters even the hint of any physical method used by the Meccans towards Muhammad or his Muslims. The only violence we come across is in the language of Allah who frets and fumes and threatens the Meccans with dire consequences, all too frequently and for no other reason than that the Meccans refuse to accept what is written in the scriptures of the Jews and the Christians, and stick to their own ancient religion. the only contemporary source available to us, namely, the Quran does not support even with a single instance the claim by the biographers of Muhammad, that while the Prophet argued his case with patience and in a reasoned manner, his opponents did not know how to meet the challenge and resorted to physical methods. We find no evidence for these stories in Quran. On the contrary, the biographers provide several broad hints of violence threatened or committed by the zealots of Islam in the streets of Mecca. For instance, when Umar became a Muslim, he went to the Kaba and proclaimed to his fellow citizens, “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the apostle of Allah! Whoever of you moves, I shall cut off his head with my bright scimitar, and shall send him to the Mansion of destruction.”[The Rauzat-us-Safa, or Garden of Purity by Muhammad bin Khavendshah bin Mahmud translated into English by E. Rehatsek, first published 1893, Delhi Reprint 1982, Vol. I, pt. II, p. 183.] Margoliouth observes: “The persons whose accession to Islam was most welcomed were men of physical strength, and much actual fighting must have taken place at Meccah before the Flight; else the readiness with which the Moslems after the Flight could produce from their number tried champions would be inexplicable. A tried champion must have been tried somewhere…”[Margoliouth]
We can take up the exact procedure of the “Migration” later on in a different context. There is comprehensive evidence, that the first followers of Muhammad were quite poor and had very little or no wealth and property at Mecca. There is no evidence even in the Quran that the Meccans physically “harmed” Muslims without any physical provocation on the part of Muslims. Even if the Meccans had reacted “physically” to all that Muhammad threatens the Meccans with, as well as his attacks on their beliefs and religious practices, it would have been entirely consistent with how Muslims have reacted to any verbal criticism on their own beliefs or claims by non-Muslims. We will take up the possibility that Muslim aggression and violence became so intolerable that the Meccans decided to simply ask the Muslims to leave, and Muhammad negotiated with tribes in Medina not entirely on friendly terms with the influential Meccan Qureysh, for asylum. More pertinent is the fact that, both by financial circumstance as well as lack of reference in the Quran, there is no evidence for looting, abducting for ransom, or killing of Muslims in Mecca by the Qureysh. The fact that all of Muhammad’s adherents, and himself could safely move from Mecca to Medina without any harm at all, including a few women, proves further the non-aggressive policy of the Meccans.
As soon as Muhammad had migrated to Median, he engaged a few spies to supply him with the intelligence of the movement of Meccan caravans. However, the Quraysh caravans were always well protected with armed security guards, just to prevent it from the plunder of highway bandits. Muhammad wanted to try his luck, as those Meccan caravans were such richly laden with exquisite goods-no Jihadist could resist. Apologist biographers, like Hussein Haykal explain that the Muhajirs from Mecca were homesick and were looking for an opportunity to take revenge. Later, when Muhammad conquered Mecca, none of these ‘homesick’ Muhajirs decided to return permanently to their “beloved” home. Here follows a description of the first few of such many surprise/terror raids on the Quraysh caravan. There is a controversy as to which was the first raid on the Quraysh caravan by Muhammad. Ibn Ishak writes that Muhammad himself conducted the first raid, and it was the raid on a caravan at Waddan. Ibn Ishak’s book is scanty in giving a reasonable dating of these operations. Waqidi writes that the first raid was the raid conducted by Hamzah. Most other biographers agree with Waqidi’s version of the dating of Muhammad’s raids.
(1) The Raid on Quraysh Caravan at al-Is, or the Expedition of Sif al-Bahr by Hamzah ibn al-Muttalib–March, 623CE
The first raid/expedition against the Quraysh caravans took place seven or nine months after the Hijrah. Led by Hamzah ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib (Muhammad’s uncle), with thirty or forty men of the emigrants; the purpose of this raid, as stated earlier, was to plunder the Quraysh caravan. This raiding party of Hamzah assembled at the seacoast near al-Is, between Mecca and Medina, where Abu Jahl ibn Hashim, the leader of the caravan was camping with three hundred Meccan riders. Hamza met Abu Jahl there with a view to attack the caravan, but Majdi b. Amr al-Juhani, a Quraysh who was friendly to both the parties intervened between them; so, both parties separated without fighting. This very first adventure of Muhammad in war and plunder was a failure, Hamza returned to Medina and Abu Jahl proceeded towards Mecca. This raid failed as the Muslims were afraid to face such a formidable convoy of the Quraysh.
(2) Raid on Meccan Caravan at Buwat by Ubaydah b. al-Harith—April, 623CE
This raid took place nine months after the Hijrah, a few weeks after the first raid at al-Is. About a month after Hamzah’s abortive bid for plunder, Muhammad entrusted a party of sixty (or eighty) Jihadists led by Ubaydah b. al-Harith (a cousin of him) to conduct another terror operation at a Quraysh caravan that was returning from Syria and protected by two hundred armed men,. The leader of this caravan was either Abu Sufyan ibn Harb or Ikrima b. Abu Jahl. The Muslim party went as far as Thanyatul-Murra, a watering place in Hejaz. No fighting took place, as the Quraysh were quite far from the place where Muslims were in the offing to attack the caravan. Nevertheless, Sa’d b. Abi Waqqas, shot an arrow at the Quraysh. This was the ‘first arrow of Islam.’ The arrows thrown at them by the Medina party surprised the Quraysh. It was completely an unprovoked attack on the Quraysh that sent the strong message to them about what they could expect next. However, no fighting took place and the Muslims returned empty-handed. Some say that Ubaydah was the first Jihadist to carry the banner of Islam; others say Hamzah was the first to carry the first banner. Some say that Muhammad commanded Ubaydah to conduct this raid while he (Muhammad) was returning from the raid of al-Abwa.
(3) Raid on a Meccan Caravan at Kharar by Sa’d ibn Waqqas-April, 623CE
The very brave act of Sa’d ibn Waqqas, to shoot arrows at the Quraysh greatly impressed Muhammad. Sa’d had been between twenty to twenty-five years old but in spite of his youth Muhammad deputed him as the leader of a plundering team to lay a siege, with only twenty other Jihadists (some say eight), on the Meccan caravan. All of them were from the Muahjirs (immigrants). So, one month later, the third raid took place under the leadership of a youthful Sa’d’s who set up an ambush in the valley of Kharrar on the road to Mecca and waited to raid a returning Meccan caravan from Syria. They planned a surprise attack but learnt that the ‘booty’ (the Meccan caravan) had already eluded them, just one day before they arrived at the place of plunder. The Muslims returned to Medina crestfallen.
(4) Raid on a Meccan Caravan and on B. Damrah at al-Abwa/ Waddan by Muhammad-August, 623CE
Muhammad personally, took charge of this raiding foray and led his followers. This was the raid at al-Abwa, also known as the Ghazwah of Waddan. As said before, he himself conducted this raid, directed at Abwa, the spot where his mother lay buried. To his dismay, when he arrived at the site, the Quraysh caravan had already passed. Disappointed, he then raided the nearest tribe of B. Damra (a branch of B. Bakr) and forced them to conclude a treaty of no aggression (by B. Damra). This treaty was the first written accord of Muhammad with any foreign tribe. The agreement was of benefit to Muhammad, as it prevented the B. Damra to mobilize forces against him, nor could they assist Muhammad’s enemy who were principally the Quraysh. In return, Muhammad pledged not to wage any war against this tribe. This is an example of the success of economically non-productive nomadic raiding strategies on settled producers, as simply the constant threat of raids could disrupt the productive processes. Then Muhammad went as far as Waddan in pursuit of the Quraysh caravan, but it eluded him and he returned to Medina after fifteen days.
[Ghazwa means either a military force when an Apostle (Rasul) leads it or an Imam. It also means a sudden attack on a caravan or another tribe for the purpose of seizing property and women. Sariyah or brigade means a small force commanded by one of the Imam’s lieutenants.] Sahih Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 52, Number 256: Narrated As-Sab bin Jaththama: The Prophet passed by me at a place called Al-Abwa or Waddan, and was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The Prophet replied, “They (i.e. women and children) are from them (i.e. pagans).” I also heard the Prophet saying, “The institution of Hima [protected/inviolate in Arabic] is invalid except for Allah and His Apostle.” This Hadith clearly shows that Muhammad did not spare the women and children of the infidels. This is a significant Hadith that is never brought up by the Muslim apologists.
(5) Raid on a Rich Meccan Caravan at Bawat by Muhammad-October, 623CE
A month after his raid at al-Abwa, Muhammad personally led two hundred men including some citizens of Medina to Bawat, a place on the caravan route of the Quraysh merchants, where a herd of fifteen hundred (1,500) to two thousand-five hundred (2,500) camels, accompanied by one hundred (100) riders, under the leadership of Umayyah ibn Khalaf, a Quraysh was proceeding. The purpose of this raid obviously, was the plunder of this exceedingly rich Quraysh caravan. No battle took place and the raid resulted in no booty. Muhammad went up to Dhat al-Saq, in the desert of al-Khabar. He prayed there and a mosque was built at the spot. This was the first raid where a few al-Usharayh Ansars participated with the prospect of pillage.
(6) Raid on a Meccan Caravan at al-Ushayrah, in the district of Yanbu by Muhammad-November, 623CE
This was Muhammad’s third personal raid. Between one hundred-fifty and two hundred (note the increasing number of Jihadists joining in the robbery) followers joined this terror operation. They had thirty camels that they rode upon by turns. When they arrived at al-Usharayh in the direction of Yanbo, they expected to waylay upon a rich Meccan caravan towards Syria led by Abu Sufyan. Muhammad already had the intelligence report of this caravan’s departure from Mecca. He waited for a month for this caravan to pass. Unfortunately, it was too late; for, when Muhammad reached the intended spot of plunder, the Meccan caravan had already passed. The readers should keep in mind of this raid, as this was the same caravan that gave rise to the famous action at Badr (Badr II) during its return journey. In this operation, Muhammad entered into an alliance with Bani Mudlij, a tribe inhabiting the vicinity of al-Usharayh. He also concluded another treaty with Bani Damra. All those treaties established good political connections for him.
(7) Raid on Muhammad’s Milch Camels at Badr (Badr I) by Kurz ibn Jabir al-Fihri-December, 623CE – the first retaliatory raid from an ally of the Meccans
After those six unprovoked and hostile attacks on the Quraysh caravans, the Quraysh decided to retaliate and send a strong message to Muhammad that his highway robbery would not be tolerated. With this end in view, Kurz ibn Jabir al-Fihri, ally of the Quarysh raided the vicinity of Medina where Muhammad’s milch camels were pasturing. This was conducted ten days after Muhammad returned to Medina from his unsuccessful plundering attempt at the Quraysh caravan at al-Usharayh. Having heard of this attack, Muhammad swiftly went out looking for Kurz until he reached the Safwa valley, close to Badr. This was the first raid at Badr or Badr I. Kurz escaped the capture; Muhammad returned to Medina and stayed there for the next three months. It is said that later, Muhammad caught Kurz and he (Kurz) converted to Islam.
(8) Raid on Meccan Caravan at Nakhla by Abd Allah ibn Jahsh, the First Successful Plunder-December, 623CE
After his return from the first Badr encounter, Muhammad sent Abd Allah b. Jahsh in Rajab with eight emigrants and without any Ansar for another terror operation. Abd Allah b. Jahsh was a maternal cousin of Muhammad. The participants in this plunder were: 1. Abu Haudhayfa 2. Abd Allah b Jahsh 3. Ukkash b. Mihsan 4. Utba b. Ghazwan 5. Sa’d b. Abi Waqqas 6. Amir b.Rabia 7. Waqid b. Abd Allah and 8. Khalid b. al-Bukayr. Some historians say that there were between seven to twelve partakers in this raiding/plundering party of the Muslims. It will be useful to remember the names of these very first Islam’s terrorists, as we shall witness, later, that their names crop up in many other terror operations.
Muhammad gave Abd Allah b. Jahsh a letter, but not to be read until he had travelled for two days and then to do what he was instructed to do in the letter without putting pressure on his companions. Abd Allah proceeded for two days, then he opened the letter; it told him to proceed until he reached at Nakhla, between Mecca and Taif; lie in wait for the Quraysh and observe what they were doing. Abd Allah b. Jahsh told his companions that whoever chose martyrdom (read terrorism) was free to join him and whoever did not could go back. All the companions agreed to follow him (a few biographers write that two Muslims decided not to be martyrs and chose to return to Medina). Sad b. Abi Waqqas and Utbah b. Ghazwan lost a camel that they were taking turns to ride. The camel strayed and went to Buhran. So, they went out looking for the runaway camel to Buhran and fell behind the raiding party.
As instructed by the Prophet, Abd Allah and the rest of the party then proceeded, and soon they arrived at Nakhla. Nakhla was a valley to the east of Mecca, about halfway to Taif. It was the usual route to Syria for the Meccan caravans. Muhammad had the secret information that a rich Meccan caravan, lightly guarded, laden with dry raisin, wine leather and other goods was soon to pass by the route.
Four Quraysh men guarded this donkey caravan – Amr b. al-Hadrami the leader of the caravan, Uthman b. Abd Allah b. al-Mughirah, Nawfal b. Abd Allah b. al-Mughirah, Uthman’s brother, Al-Hakam b. Kaysan, the freed slave (Mawla)of Hisham b. al-Mughirah. Soon, the Meccan caravan arrived at Nakhla guarded by the four Quraysh men. When they saw the Muslims, they were afraid of them. One of Abd Allah b. Jahsh’s men, Ukkash b Mihsan, was shaven in head to hide the real purpose of their journey and to give the Quraysh the impression of lesser Hajj (Umra); for, it was the month (Rajab) when hostilities were forbidden. When the Quraysh saw the shaven head of Ukkash, they thought that the Muslims were on their way for pilgrimage and they felt relieved and safe and started to prepare food for themselves. That was how the first band of Muslim Jihadists deceived their prey. Due to the prevalence of a sacred month, either at the beginning of Rajab or at the end of it (the opinion among the historians vary), Rajab being one of the four sacred months when there was a total ban on warfare and bloodshed in the Arabian Peninsula, Abd Allah b. Jahsh was, at first, hesitant to attack the caravan. Nevertheless, after much deliberation, the Muslims did not want this rich caravan to escape their hand. So, they decided to kill as many Quraysh as they could and take a large booty. They attacked the Quraysh while they (the Quraysh) were busy preparing their food. In the short battle that ensued, Waqid b. Abd Allah killed Amr b. Hadrami, the leader of the Quraysh caravan. NawfalAbd Allah escaped. The Muslims took Uthman b. Abd Allah and al-Hakam b. Kaysan as prisoners. b.
.Abd Allah b. Jahsh returned to Medina with the booty and with the two captured Quraysh men. He had already decided to give one-fifth of the booty to Muhammad, and divide the rest among them. The prevailing share of the leader of a plundering party at that time was one quarter of the booty. It is not clear why Abd Allah b. Jahsh decided on one-fifth booty, as Allah did not yet decide the provision of ‘Khums’ (leader’s commission on booty of plunder/theft) for Muhammad in verse 8:41. This verse was released after the Badr war, which took place after the plunder at Nakhla.
008.041 And know that out of all the booty that ye may acquire (in war), a fifth share is assigned to Allah,- and to the Messenger, and to near relatives, orphans, the needy, and the wayfarer,- if ye do believe in Allah and in the revelation We sent down to Our servant on the Day of Testing,- the Day of the meeting of the two forces. For Allah hath power over all things”.
Since this bloodshed took place during a sacred month, Muhammad was quite unwilling to start an un-ending cycle of revenge killings. The Quraysh also spread everywhere the news of the raid and the killing by Muhammad in the sacred month. Therefore, he rebuked them (the Muslims) for fighting in the sacred month and refused to take any share from the booty. Then verse 2:217 regarding fighting in the sacred month was revealed.
002.217 They ask thee concerning fighting in the Prohibited Month. Say: “Fighting therein is a grave (offence); but graver is it in the sight of Allah to prevent access to the path of Allah, to deny Him, to prevent access to the Sacred Mosque, and drive out its members. Tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter. Nor will they cease fighting you until they turn you back from your faith if they can. And if any of you Turn back from their faith and die in unbelief, their works will bear no fruit in this life and in the Hereafter; they will be companions of the Fire and will abide therein.”
This revelation permitted Muhammad to conduct war during the sacred months. Then Abd Allah b. Jahsh divided the booty, one-fifth going to Muhammad. He also decided to make more money by asking ransom for the two captives. However, Muhammad refused to accept the ransoms from the Quraysh until the two of his men, Sa’d b. Abi Waqqas and Utbah b. Ghazwan returned from searching the straying camel. He was afraid that the Quraysh might kill them if they found them. When Sa’d and Utbah returned unharmed, Muhammad released the two Quraysh prisoners on payment of their ransom of one thousand six hundred (1,600) Dirhams (one Dirham = 1/10 Dinar; one Dinar 4.235 gm of gold) per head. It is reported that, soon after his release, Hakam b. Kaysan became a Muslim, probably after witnessing the profitability of Islam. Later, he was killed at the battle of Bir Mauna. The other prisoner, Uthman b. Abd Allah returned to Mecca and died as an unbeliever.
The Islamic name of this first successful plunder is ‘Nakhla Raid.’ It was also the first raid on which the Muslims seized the first captive, and the first life they took. Rightfully, Abd Allah was called the Amir al-Mominun, that is, the commander of the faithful. After the success of Nakhla raid, Muhammad felt militarily strong to formally legalize and legitimize plunder. This successful raid on the Quraysh caravans fully alarmed the Meccans, because their prosperity completely depended upon the regular and uninterrupted trade to Syria. The trading with Abyssinia and Yemen was of lesser importance. Even the trading caravan towards Abyssinia and Yemen did not look safe from the marauding army of Muhammad. The Nakhla attack also greatly unnerved the Meccans. They now believed that Muhammad had very little respect for life and absolutely no concern for the sanctity of the sacred months. So, the Meccans resolved to avenge the bloodshed. However, the Quraysh restrained their hostility. Muhammad still had a few of his followers residing at Mecca, including his own daughter, Zaynab. The Quraysh did not take any revenge on the remaining followers of Muhammad (including Muhammad’s daughter) at Mecca neither did they make any attempt to harass his beloved daughter, Zaynab. Muhammad, after the success at Nakhla, contemplated a more severe and mortal attack on the Quraysh. Allah now gave him the permission to fight the unbelievers in verses 22:39-42, 2:190-194. As well, the raid at Nakhla was justified by the ‘expulsion’ of the believers from Mecca. However, the true reason was “until the religion became God’s alone”. That meant, until all the Meccans (or the world) accepted Islam.
022.039 To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight), because they are wronged;- and verily, Allah is most powerful for their aid;-
022.040 (They are) those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right,- (for no cause) except that they say, “our Lord is Allah”. Did not Allah check one set of people by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, in which the name of Allah is commemorated in abundant measure. Allah will certainly aid those who aid his (cause);- for verily Allah is full of Strength, Exalted in Might, (able to enforce His Will).
022.041 (They are) those who, if We establish them in the land, establish regular prayer and give regular charity, enjoin the right and forbid wrong: with Allah rests the end (and decision) of (all) affairs.
022.042 If they treat thy (mission) as false, so did the peoples before them (with their Prophets),- the People of Noah, and ‘Ad and Thamud;
002.190 Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors.
002.191 And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have Turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.
002.192 But if they cease, Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.
002.193 And fight them on until there is no more Tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah; but if they cease, Let there be no hostility except to those who practise oppression.
002.194 The prohibited month for the prohibited month,- and so for all things prohibited,- there is the law of equality. If then any one transgresses the prohibition against you, Transgress ye likewise against him. But fear Allah, and know that Allah is with those who restrain themselves.
Those who were reluctant to join in the war of plunder were reproved. Allah’s revelation on this came down in verses 47:20-21. These verses granted paradise to those who fight (or terrorize and plunder) for Islam i.e., Jihad and are killed.
047.020 Those who believe say, “Why is not a sura sent down (for us)?” But when a sura of basic or categorical meaning is revealed, and fighting is mentioned therein, thou wilt see those in whose hearts is a disease looking at thee with a look of one in swoon at the approach of death. But more fitting for them-
047.021 Were it to obey and say what is just, and when a matter is resolved on, it were best for them if they were true to Allah.
Allah then asked the Jihadis to “strike off the heads of the unbelievers; to make a great slaughter and bind them fast in bonds” in verse 47:3-4
047.003 This because those who reject Allah follow vanities, while those who believe follow the Truth from their Lord: Thus does Allah set forth for men their lessons by similitudes.
047.004 Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly (on them): thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens. Thus (are ye commanded): but if it had been Allah’s Will, He could certainly have exacted retribution from them (Himself); but (He lets you fight) in order to test you, some with others. But those who are slain in the Way of Allah,- He will never let their deeds be lost.
Furthermore, the true believers were expected not only to fight but also to contribute materially towards the cost of war (4:66-67, 9:88, 9:111), to kill and be killed. Those who did this were promised a higher rank in paradise (4:74, 4:95). The believers were asked to prepare with whatever force in their ability, troops, horses, etc. to strike terror into the hearts of the unbelievers.
004.066 If We had ordered them to sacrifice their lives or to leave their homes, very few of them would have done it: But if they had done what they were (actually) told, it would have been best for them, and would have gone farthest to strengthen their (faith);
004.067 And We should then have given them from our presence a great reward;
009.088 But the Messenger, and those who believe with him, strive and fight with their wealth and their persons: for them are (all) good things: and it is they who will prosper.
009.111 Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth, through the Law, the Gospel, and the Quran: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme.
004.074 Let those fight in the cause of Allah Who sell the life of this world for the hereafter. To him who fighteth in the cause of Allah,- whether he is slain or gets victory – Soon shall We give him a reward of great (value).
004.095 Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) and receive no hurt, and those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah with their goods and their persons. Allah hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit (at home). Unto all (in Faith) Hath Allah promised good: But those who strive and fight Hath He distinguished above those who sit (at home) by a special reward,-
009.073 O Prophet! strive hard against the unbelievers and the Hypocrites, and be firm against them. Their abode is Hell,- an evil refuge indeed.
009.123 O ye who believe! fight the unbelievers who gird you about, and let them find firmness in you: and know that Allah is with those who fear Him.
008.060 Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know. Whatever ye shall spend in the cause of Allah, shall be repaid unto you, and ye shall not be treated unjustly.
These messages were promulgated within two or three years after Muhammad’s arrival at Medina. This promulgation was not only for the refugees (Muhajirs) but also to all the men of Medina. This is the history and context of the “rightful war” being referred to by Muslim apologists.
To be continued….
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Mumbai Masala from “God remembers”- on a source of Islamic propaganda protected by India : 1
I came across some interesting propaganda from an Indian from Mumbai. We have to keep in mind this is a Muslim from India, who is allowed to run an Islamic “research” organization to carry out his propaganda based on highly selective and edited quotations from a certain class of sources in Mumbai, the site of a string of blasts in the public railway system by Islamic terrorists in India, a country whose Muslims amount to less than one-fifth in the overall population, a country that was one of the first to ban the “Satanic Verses” by Salman Rushdie, a country where a provincial government was sacked for not being able to “protect” a Muslim mosque built on territory disputed by the Hindus as the site of a holy temple which has been recorded by Islamic chroniclers to have been destroyed by the Mughal adventurer Babur, a country which however remains completely silent when numerous ancient and archaeologically important Hindu sites in Kashmir are destroyed by Muslims, a country that gags the voice of a woman of Bangladeshi origin writing about the “shame” of Islamic atrocities on Hindu women in Bangladesh and now a refugee because of the “fatwaists” in her own country. Apparently such a propagandist who declares with glee and with a smile that even though the “method” of destroying the twin towers was wrong, the fact is that right after that “attack” a large number of Americans converted to Islam, is welcomed by a visa in western countries whereas the elected Chief Minister of a neighboring province from a “not-anti-Hindu” party in India is denied a visa to attend a conference. What drew my attention was that his claims have been reproduced word-for-word by a Muslim as “counters” to my posts on how Islam came to India. I saw that this person had actually tried to offer an open challenge to the Pope, so it was clear that, his greatest weakness lay in a deep insecurity that needed compensation by provoking through outrageous comments and lies, and ultimately trying to draw attention to himself. So in my new sequence of posts I am not going to name him – the one-who-has-no-name : but the common face of a string of lies not supported by facts usually hurled at non-Muslims. This particular Indian should be an interesting study for anyone trying to understand what really went on in the minds of the early founders of Islam, as I feel that similar motivations of insecurity and inferiority/deprivation complex turned into megalomania, move both this one and the founders. I have left enough hints in the heading for anyone with some knowledge of Hebrew or Arabic to figure out the actual name!
LIE 1: ISLAM TRANSLATES FROM ARABIC AS “PEACE” AS IT IS DERIVED FROM SALAAM WHICH MEANS “PEACE”
Here I will quote from a reader’s comment to another reader’s similar claim that “Islam literally translates as peace” to one of my posts:
“Actually “Islam” does mean “submission” and not “peace”.
“Islam” is derived from the triliteral root s-l-m. The root means to “submit”…Salaam means peace… Islam means submission. Some confusion exists because people don’t understand how the term “peace” is arrived at, from s-l-m. There will only be peace when one side “submits”. That is why Islam dedicates so much time to subjugation. Once an enemy is defeated, they will be subjugated, at which time peace will ensue. Islam, as in the religion means submission to God, not peace.
The central belief and action of Islam is submission to Allah, not “Peace”. Rendering Islam as “Peace” makes the term senseless in the way of naming a religion. If you studied Qur’anic Arabic, as I did, you should know this. It is a pretty simple concept of Arabic. And my guess is you spent your time memorizing Arabic, and not studying it semantics or syntax.” Ibn al-Rawandi
LIE 2: THE QURAN SAYS THAT IF ONE INNOCENT HUMAN BEING [all muslims or non-muslims] IS KILLED IT IS AS IF ALL HUMANITY HAS BEEN KILLED, SIMILARLY IF ONE INNOCENT HUMAN IS SAVED IT IS EQUIVALENT TO ALL HUMANITY BEING SAVED [FROM AL MAEDA]
005.032
YUSUFALI: On that account: We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person – unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land – it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. Then although there came to them Our messengers with clear signs, yet, even after that, many of them continued to commit excesses in the land.
PICKTHAL: For that cause We decreed for the Children of Israel that whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind. Our messengers came unto them of old with clear proofs (of Allah’s Sovereignty), but afterwards lo! many of them became prodigals in the earth.
SHAKIR: For this reason did We prescribe to the children of Israel that whoever slays a soul, unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he slew all men; and whoever keeps it alive, it is as though he kept alive all men; and certainly Our messengers came to them with clear arguments, but even after that many of them certainly act extravagantly in the land.
Apart from the obvious quotation from Hebrew sources, and the fact that we have plenty of Hadiths and Ishaq’s biographical notes that show how far from truth the real practice of Islam was even by Muhammad himself from this injunction, note that all three translations specifically mention “Children of Israel” – primarily the Jews. The propagandist always quotes this verse as a “proof” of peaceful intentions in Quran, but strangely they always drop the “Children of Israel” bit. If Muslims claim that by the various convoluted claims of descent, Arab bedouins were also children of Israel, then also this injunction becomes valid only for the identifiable Semitic ethnicities of the Jews and the Bedouins. A host of questions are not cleared, (1) should we consider all Muslims as “children of Israel”? Does it mean then that all humankind are descended from the twelve tribes? If so then all humankind are “people of the Book”? Then no-one could be pagan by definition – including the early Meccans against whom Muhammad waged war – and different rules were applied to the “people of the book” and “pagans”? On the other hand if only the Arabs and the Jews are “Children of Israel”, then does this injunction apply to Muslims who are not of Arab or Jewish origin?
Who interprets what “corruption”, “mischief” means? If we go by the Meccan episode, this could simply mean non-acceptance of Islam, or debating it, or challenging it verbally – as we can and will show in this sequence. This propagandist shouts a lot that the Quran is quoted without context, but he most carefully remains silent on the verse immediately following the above from the Quran.
005.033
YUSUFALI: The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter;
PICKTHAL: The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an awful doom;
SHAKIR: The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement,
So we have the first clause for not being “innocent” – waging “war” against “Allah” and Muhammad : Note that nothing here states about who started the war – for example, if someone wages a “defensive” war to protect themselves from looting of caravans and settlements being raided and attacked it still deprives the “wagers” of this defensive war of their “innocence” and therefore liable for “Muhammad”ian punishments. In the next post I will describe at least six raids and attacks on the Meccan trade kafelas after Muhammad and his followers, who had began to physically attack their opponents in Mecca, were expelled or allowed to leave without any penalties on life, limb or property. Only after six such raids, did the Meccan Qureysh, took preparations to defend their life, property and means of livelihood – the “war against Allah” and his “messenger”. This will also be related to another big lie about the “context” of the so called “hate-murder-unbelievers” verses in Quran, so I will take it up in a longer next post.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )How Islam came to India and why now it needs to go from India -13 : economic decline under Islam – fate of producers
The profound economic wisdom of the Islamic rulers as reflected in their consistent policy of ruining the producers
A firman of Aurangzeb acknowledges the Jagirdars as demanding for official records only half but in practice actually more than the total yield[Moreland]. According to Dr. Tara Chand, “The desire of the State [Mughal empire in the second half of the seventeenth century] was to extract the economic rent, so that nothing but bare subsistence. remained for the peasant… [Aurangzeb’s instructions were that] there shall be left for everyone who cultivates his land as much as he requires for his own support till the next crop be reaped and that of his family and for seed. This much shall be left to him, what remains is land tax, and shall go to the public treasury.” [Tara Chand, History of Freedom Movement in India, I]
Iltutmish, Alauddin Khalji and Firoz Tughlaq’s or some of the Mughal emperor’s few irrigation works or repairs are much highlighted by the Thaparite School of Indian History. But there is no evidence that such works were undertaken with a view to raise the living standards of the agrarian producers, as the tax assessments were revised upwards so that the policy of leaving no significant surplus at the hands of the producers still remained effective. For example, a widely practised administrative measure was to advance loans to peasants [here the standard Islamic claims against usury apparently was invalid] to help them tide over their difficulties, which by the rule of penalizing and crushing taxation or other illegal demands simply added to various forms of bonded labour. Sher Shah’s instructions to his Amils reveal the general policy of the Islamic rulers “Be lenient at the time of assessment, but show no mercy at the time of collection.” The real concerns of Sher Shah Suri who is highly eulogized by the Thaparite School for his apparent claims of concern for the living conditions of cultivators, are revealed in his sending his “good old loyal [meaning his Muslim Afghan officials] experienced servants” to districts which yielded good “profits” and “advantages” and after two years or so transfered them and sent “other servants like them that they may also prosper.” [Abbas Sawani, Eliott and Dowson, IV] – such prospering implies only one thing, private enrichment of the Islamic elite at the cost of peasants.
Collection of Arrears
The Islamic scholars like Al Beruni, Ibn Batuta, or Abul Fazl point out the importance of the Indian rainy season and its impact on the productivity of the land [even now the Met Dept. of India’s brief moment of media glory is in announcing the forecasts of seasonal rainfall] and the overwhelming tax burden which as we have seen sometimes could amount to as high as three-fourths of the harvest given the crucial fact usually never mentioned that this was all taken by the Islamic rulers as revenue and therefore there was no reinvestment into the land from the side of the state [Republican India had some 50-50 division of harvest, “adhiyar”- but this meant half for the pure farmer-labourer, who is advanced not only the use of the land but instruments of agriculture and seed, while the other half went to the owner of the land and who has sole responsibility for land revenue]. The unrealistic and punitive uniformly high taxation led to inability of the peasants to pay their revenue regularly and the revenue collection used to fall into arrears. Contemporary sources indicate that remissions were rare- even in return for conversion to Islam. Sultan Firoz Tughlaq rescinded Jiziyah for those who became Muslim, but their land tax continued to be at the rate as before their conversion. [Firoz Shah Tughlaq, Fatuhat-i-Firoz Shahi, Eliott and Dowson, III], He instructed his revenue collectors to accept conversions in lieu of Kharaj.[Afif, Ishwari Prasad, Qaraunah Turks]. Rajas and Zamindars who could not deposit land revenue or tribute in time had to convert to Islam, with Bengal and Gujarat [the more productive revenue earners] providing specific instances which indicate that such rules were practised throughout areas under Muslim-rule.[Many of the Punjabi, and Bangladeshi Muslims “Rajas” or “Diwans” are historically known to be descended from Hindu rulers who were forced to convert if they wanted to live and continue in the possession of their lands. [Lal, Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, Lal, Indian Muslims, C.H.I., III; Census of India Report, 1901, IV, Pt. I, Bengal]. Remissions of Kharaj were never allowed and the arrears went on accumulating and the Muslim rulers tried to collect them with the utmost rigour. The Sultanate period saw the establishment of a full-fledged department by the name of the Diwan-i-Mustakharaj whose responsibility to inquire into the arrears against the names of collectors (Amils and Karkuns) and force them to realize the balances in full. [Barani, Tripathi, Some Aspects of Muslim Administration] Under the Mughals collections of arrears were carried out with Sultanate-style harshness. The detailed descriptions of the system in place indicates that the peasants were never relieved of accumulated arrears. The continuous extraction of surplus by the Muslim rulers and their deliberate policy of not allowing the farmers even to accumulate sufficient capital to plow back into production capacity meant that productivity either remained stagnant or declined in real terms. This in turn implied that the entire amounts and the balances could not be collected and was generally carried forward to be collected along with the demand of the next year. Vagaries of the climate would therefore sometimes push the cultivator over the edge, and led to suicides or complete abandonment of land and escape into the forests. The Muslim rulers reacted in three physical ways to this accumulation of arrears, abandonment of land, and escape into badlands or forests – (1) they demanded the arrears, owed by peasants who had fled or died, from their neighbour (2) peasants unable to pay to be sold together with their family as slaves [there are explicit descriptions about how families got separated in the process] usually by decree to Muslim buyers to ensure that only the minority Muslims [and not the vast majority] benefited from the fruits of the slaves labour and that enslaved women only multiplied Muslim numbers by reproduction (3) hunt down and torture to death escapees.[Moreland, India at the Death of Akbar, The Agrarian System of Moslem India, Irfan Habib, The Agrarian system of Mughal India]. We will later discuss again in the context of enslavement as a process of realizing revenues, how the so much talked about important still existing practices of “bonded labour”, “child bonded labour”, and “sex trafficking” or “sex slavery” probably started and took its most obnoxious forms under the Islamic Sultanate and “grand” Mughal rule. There were other significant social effects of this extraction process of revenues by torture, enslavement and armies which are still observable in Indian society which we will elaborate. The situation continued to deteriorate in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as attested to by contemporary historians Jean Law and Ghulam Hussain[Barani, Lal, Twilight of the Sultanate].
Artificial price control
An economically devastating idea of the Muslim rulers of India beginning with Alauddin [or his courtiers and the Ulama who are known to have been particularly active in trying to promote the Sahria way of “finance” as applied to non-Muslims], was to artificially keep the prices of commodities of daily consumption at an extraordinary low level. Alauddin constantly raided non-Muslim territorries without any pretext and as surprise invasions, and according to his contemporary Islamic scholars, sometimes simply to gather beautiful women of the non-Muslims for his harem or for the slave market [Barani] and also faced frequent Mongol invasions, requiring thereby a large standing army. According to Barani, it was calculated that even on moderate salaries, the required size of the standing army would have exhausted the entire treasure of the state in five or six years. Alauddin, decided to drastically lower the salary of soldiers; but enforced a reduction of the prices of commodities of daily use as sold in the markets or in the special soldier’s markets where locals were compelled to bring their products [Barani].
Contemporary Muslim chroniclers show their profound knowledge and level of Islamic economic or financial theory, by admiring the administrative coercion that maintained these prices at extremely low levels and fluctuations, “not even of a dang (small copper coin)” were tolerated irrespective of variability in weather and productivity. But “when a husbandman paid half of his hard earned produce in land tax, some portion of the remaining half in other sundry duties, and then was compelled to sell his grain at cheap rates” to the governments,[started by Alauddin who procured grain with great severity, to keep Government godowns full -Barani] it is easy to see what the effects would be not only on the producers but long term on the path to economic destitution itself [Lal, History of the Khaljis]. Indian historians typically acknowledge the destructive effect on the economy of the Mughals [Irfan Habib- Agrarian system of Mughal India] but stop short of making the possible obvious connection to the success of European colonialism over India replacing the Mughals, with that of this economic degeneration [Irfan Habib, Potentialities of capitalistic developments in the economy of the Mughal India]. The tall claims of “Islamic finance” notwithstanding, the Muslim’s basic inability to understand the dynamics of economies more complex than the desert oases or looting of “kafelas” revealed itself painfully in the many sultans after Alauddin Khalji who took pride in competing with him in keeping prices low. These Sultans as well as their Ulemas completely failed to understand how such drastic state intervention and artificial price stability at extremely low levels not only crippled production and impoverished the producers over the long term, but also led to a general impoverishment of the intermediate sectors or those involved in the pure process of circulation. Shams Siraj Afif enthusiastically describes and lists the low prices during the reign of Firoz Tughlaq, claiming that while Alauddin had to make strenuous efforts to bring down the prices, in the time of Firoz Tughlaq they remained low without resorting to any coercion. “Like Alauddin, Sikandar Lodi also used to keep a constant watch on the price-level” in the market [Nizamuddin Ahmad, Tabqat-i-Akbari, I, Farishtah, I], Abdullah, in his Tarikh-i-Daudi, writes that “during the reign of Ibrahim Lodi the prices of commodities were cheaper than in the reign of any other Sultan except in Alauddin’s last days”, and adds that while Alauddin maintained low levels of prices through coercion in Ibrahim’s reign prices remained low “naturally.”This simply indicated that Alauddin’s measures had by this time been completely institutionalized and become a “natural” part of the economic order. Historians generally agree that Sher Shah followed Alauddin in formulating his agrarian policy and Akbar in turn adopted many measures of Sher Shah. During the Mughal period prices generally went up, [Abul Fazl, Ain, I] although as late as in the reign of Aurangzeb, sometimes the prices reported were regarded as exceptionally low. But since the land revenue extracted the major portion of the peasant’s surplus and there are indications that such extraction increased as the Mughal empire matured, this increase must have neutralized gain from increased prices.[Moreland, From Akbar to Aurangzeb].
Fiscal policy in taxation and its effects
Irfan Habib, who has made extensive studies of the Mughal economy from the Marxist viewpoint provides some important economic data and analysis. Although Habib’s major impetus was in trying to analyze the favourite Marxist theme of transition from feudalism [or pre-capitalist forms in Marxist jargon] to capitalism as applicable to India, we can find some revealing clues as to how the Mughal system which essentially continued and intensified the processes of exploitation started under the Sultanate, also landed India into utter ruin and open to colonial aggression – simply from continuation of early Islamic practices in India.
The Zamindars[landlords] typically collected from 10-25% in land rent as their share, and this was mostly collected in kind from the peasants and has been shown to dominate all other forms of dues extracted by the Zamindars[ Irfan Habib, Agrarian System of Mughal India]. “Mal”, usually translated as “land revenue”, was actually not a land rent in the modern sense of the word, but a share of the crop or harvest on the land. This was in general a complex procedure, with the revenue being imposed in kind, but the demand was fixed by a sophisticated sample survey system [we have hints of this surprisingly modern statistical procedure as early as the pre-Islamic Indian text of Arthasastra] used to estimate the total production [“Kankut”]. Typically this demand in kind was converted into demand in cash, and often at aribtrary conversion ratios – leading to cash nexus appearing as an established institution at least in the Delhi region as early as the 14th century [ Moreland, Agrarian system of Moslem India]. The conversion into cash demand appears to increasingly dominate over time, and even if revenues were sometimes collected in kind they were either used to build up stores or sold in markets to raise cash.
The areas from which the revenue went directly to the royal treasury, were called “khalisa”, and in 1647, the estimated treasury revenue amounted to 13.6% of the total [Irfan Habib, Agrarian system of Mughal India], and this was mostly collected in cash. The remaining portion came from “jagirs” or fiefs assigned to the elite and significant followers entrusted with supplying military contingents to the “Badshah”. The jagirdars or mansabdars [officials specifically responsible to maintain military units – even the princes could be mansabdars] were assigned lands in lieu of personal pay, maintenance of soldiers [some Mansabdars also drew pay in cash from the administration directly]. This entire class, with a few exceptions of some of the “Hindu” collaborator jagirdars who had their own inherited and traditional territories, consisted of urbanized Muslim elite, and was almost entirely of foreign origin [Moreland, India at the death of Akbar, M. Athar Ali – The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb- Bombay, 1966]. They were deliberately prevented from growing local “roots” by a system of regular transfers within three years, and the jagirs were explicitly declared to not to be hereditary or fixed to ranks. This lack of continuity and stability prompted the growth of extraction of surplus in the form of cash. When the Badshahs tried to make mansabdars more dependent on central authority they also paid the Mansabdars in cash and therefore the revenue demand from Khalisa lands also were mostly in cash. This led to a fabulous hoarding of bullion by the elite and removal of substantial amounts of capital from the production cycle, to which we will come to later.
This cash for kind substitution had several significant effects : (1) because of the high rates of taxation, the peasants were in general at the margins of sustainability, and with little surplus to reinvest, together with the vagaries of the weather and river systems, became increasingly dependent on financiers who could advance cash against future harvests – the cash nexus. The elite was significantly involved in this extortion process by which cash from one cycle of surplus could be advanced for the next cycle, and at a low-surplus equilibrium, the peasant communities could be easily pushed into a debt trap. There is significant evidence of debt bondage beginning to take shape at this specific period – a fact usually suppressed in standard Thaparite representations of this period. (2) the overwhelming pressure to convert production into cash meant turning the surplus into commodity production for the market, which therefore over time led to a shift in emphasis on production of high-grade cash crops – thereby reducing production of consumption article of the common producer. (3) production of high-grade cash crops, and their conversion into cash also developed demand for increasingly costly elite consumption items requiring even more cash and hence increasing taxation. (4) development of unprecedented escalation in usury – in the form of loans advanced at exorbitant rates of interest to peasants to meet Muslim revenue demand-for example in 18th century Bengal, 150% per annum at the simple rate was usual, but the loan was usually advanced only for a couple of months at a time at the end of which period the interest was added to the capital, and so on. In rural Maharashtra the interest rate was 24% per annum, but on smaller loans and the practice of breaking up calculation cycles into shorter periods within the year, the interest rates amounted to 40% [Comparative studies in Society and History , VI(4), and Thomas Coats – Transactions of the literary society of Bombay,III, London, 1823] (5) growth of finance capital and the demand for cash crops led to conversion of traditional tenant-owner relations, with the consolidation and conversion of lands previously cultivated for consumption into lands explicitly producing cash-crops for the market. This meant removal of a large number of peasants from owner, tenant farmer category into landless rural “proletariat” or agrarian labourers. Typically this meant loss of the minimal food security enjoyed by these dispossessed people. This also changed mutual client-dependency relations between the Zamindars and the ryots [tenant farmers] into debt bondage relations. [A fact that should be investigated further than the few existing studies looking into the origins of the “bonded-labour-slavery” in modern India – and surprisingly the Thaparite School of Indian History bypasses this origin issue completely by trying to force connections to supposedly pre-Islamic “roots”, whereas even the works of “Marxist” historians like Irfan Habib points firmly towards its origin within the known Islamic period].
To be continued……
part 12: economic decline under Islam – fate of producers
part 1: enslavenment of non-Muslims
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 4 so far )India gets NSG waiver – looking beyond the drama
It was high drama and almost the typical unnaturally concocted Hollywood thriller at the NSG meeting that finally saw through a waiver specific for India, mainly under possibly a lot of arm-twisting led by the USA and also perhaps a good deal of contribution to this arm-twisting on a much more subtle level by the UK, France, Russia. The Indian Foreign Minister’s statement that this will solve India’s energy requirement problem, can at best be dubbed hogwash. Any new proposed nuclear reactor design takes around one and half years to be approved by the IAEA, and around five years to set up. So India is unlikely to get direct benefits in the power sector from this NSG agreement until about seven years from the present. The last significant opposition will now be coming from within the USA, by representatives of interests both within the country as well as from outside ranged against India. The reason these attempts will only perhaps be able to delay the final ratification of this agreement but not prevent its eventual clearance through the US Congress, is because of the political realization of the ruling elite in the Western circles of the importance of bringing India under its strategic control.
What does India gain after all? It does not gain much in terms of nuclear power or nuclear weapons technology. India had already developed quite sophisticated technology of its own during the first tentative engagement by the USA of India after the 1998 tests by India. Current projections of India’s power supply sources assign only around 3-4% of total production capacity, compared to almost half being produced by hydel, and nearly half being produced by coal. India has one of the largest publicly known reserves of Thorium, which can be reprocessed to bring it to usable fissile forms. On its own India would perhaps have needed a much longer time to achieve this, which may, just may be shortened using technological collaboration from some NSG countries. Apart from this India can only benefit from multilateral trade of nuclear substances and technologies, as an exporter and processing hub. There will be some cosmetic benefits perhaps too in the areas of dual processing technologies and access to space technologies, and perhaps some cascading effect in subsidiary technology such as computer chips etc., but it has to be remembered that in many of these latter areas, India is quite advanced on its own.
India now has accepted serious virtual limitations on its weapons programme. The 1954 Acts of the US Congress and the Hyde Act is binding on all US administrations until a future Congress repeals or reforms these acts – and it has to be remembered, that non-proliferation concerns appear to come along only when India is seen to be gaining in weapons technology – such as the formation of the NSG specifically after India’s first tests, and not after the first tests by China, UK, or France, or the passage of the Hyde Act specifically targeting India.
India’s main benefits will be strategic. India is now firmly in the Western camp, and is going to be a virtual ally of the USA in the latter’s strategic concerns in Asia. India will probably play a balancing role between Russia and the USA, its already well-known concerns about China making it a blocker of Chinese imperialism, and serve as a strategic heavyweight in the extremely volatile current climate of Jihadi Islamic aggression in the entire Middle and South Asian region. But it is China and Pakistan who have been primarily responsible in pushing India to ally itself with the USA. In Pakistan’s sole national project of destabilizing India and spread Islam, with tacit and sometimes not so secret help from China, and both country’s continuing aggressive actions against the territories of India – lies the main reason for what has ultimately led to the NSG meeting. But to take India beyond this meeting, and on its own feet, requires a superhuman effort on the part of its leaders and its people – as nothing will come out of even the strategic aspects of this agreement unless India outpaces the Chinese economy, modernizes its society and comes out of the influence of retrogressive religions like Islam, and becomes a fully capable military establishment able to take on China, a country which will now help the Islamic aggressors against India much more surreptitiously and at an increased rate, if necessary.
Postscript: Apparently the Indian government will convey its “disappointment” with Chinese “behaviour” to China!! The various spokespersons acted so surprised on media, as if they never expected such “behaviour” from China! I simply find it unbelievable that such “intelligent” people pretend so much ignorance. Did they think that by simply doing everything to gag the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan refugee protesters, India will have given enough sops to China to please it? Politicians and diplomats who are “surprised” should not at least be given the responsibility for security of a nation. On my post dated 1st August, I had clearly written
“USA’s diplomatic efforts ably seconded by India, almost had made it a foregone conclusion that IAEA would pass this safeguards by consensus. More difficult will be getting consensus at NSG, where some EU countries as well as China can cause significant trouble for India. It will be USA’s networks and dependence of these countries on the USA that can only see India through. Passage of the 123 agreement through the Congress may also hold some hiccups as there can be strong last-ditch lobbying by Pakistan as well as other interest groups within USA who from various considerations of race, religion, etc as hidden motivations can try to put restrictive conditions in the hope that India will be sufficiently provoked to reject the whole agreement altogether.”
What, I, not-a-politician, not-a-diplomat could see more than a month ago, surely these “professionals” cannot pretend not to have seen! Who are they trying to hoodwink – the Indian people?
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )The fascinating case of religious Maoists in Orissa : especially Maoists who find only one religion evil and all others worth protecting
As I had proposed in my earlier post on the Kandhmal incident in Orissa, India, after long speculation in the media about the stunning silence of the Maoists about their “role in the assassination of Laxmananda Saraswati”, one week after the assassination suddenly a statement has appeared out of thin air – supposedly coming from the Maoists : The Central Committee of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (?) declares “The Sangh Parivar leaders like Praveen Togadia have been trying to divert the people by uttering lies that it is not the Maoists but Christian organizations that had carried out the attack on the VHP leader…Saraswati was a rabid anti-Christian ideologue and persecutor of innocent Christians who was responsible for the burning
down of over 400 churches in Kandhamal district alone.” This “Maoist” statement warned the VHP of “more such punishments if it continued violence against religious minorities in the country” and called for a ban on groups linked to the Sangh Parivar, such as the VHP, its youth wing Bajrang Dal, right-wing Hindu political party Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This is a most unusual Maoist group indeed! A Maoist group that finds only one particular religion as the “persecutor”, finds all “Christians” innocent, deplores “rabid anti-Christianism”, and most significantly is absolutely against “burning down Churches” – and still calls itself “Maoist” – unbelievable!
The statement which uncannily resembles standard Marxist harangue from the Left leaning section of the Thaparite School of Indian History, and those that daily shout about the “danger of Hindu Right Wing” in mainstream Indian politics, became necessary as the involvement of “real” Maoists became suspect, and the Government was probably quite desperate. A section of the “well-wisher”s of the Christian leadership might also have thought that it was important to reinforce the arrow of suspicion towards the Maoists. This only shows that the statement originated from people who have never seriously studied or observed Maoist strategic thinking and their ideological framework. Even if local “Maoists” were involved, it is now more obvious that it was far from actual Maoism. For most authentic Maoist groups in India and abroad, their ideology requires them to treat all religions as “opiates of the people” – the Indian Maoists have traditionally been in fact more “Maoist” than Mao himself. In certain parts of the world, there have been attempts from within the Christian groups to align with radical movements – the radical Liberation Theology in the Latin American nations for example. But Church authorities have moved quickly enough to expel these elements whom they thought were getting too close to Communism.
What could have really happened? There are three possible scenarios :
(1) The major Maoist recruits could have initially come from the minority Panas group from which also a large number of conversions into Christianity took place. But the clan ties were stronger than both Maoism or Christianity and hence when it became crucial for the Panas community to try and regain their Scheduled status to get various State benefits [which they lost under the Indian constitution as in general just like the Majority caste Hindus or Muslims, for Christians too, reservation is not available based on religion, and these religions are not considered to be so “backward” as to need reservation] the entire community pitched in and the “Maoist” clan brothers helped their non-Maoist brothers out.
(2) The Maoists have had a deal with suppliers of arms and ammunition, either from the Jihadi networks or from other foreign religious movements which have promised or delivered sophisticated arms and ammunition, in return for collaboration in elimination of their common threat – the Hindu organizations in the state. The dense forest cover allows the real identity of these “Maoists” and their alliances to be hidden.
(3) Or what could be most dangerous, that those who are operating in the guise of Maoists are no Maoists at all but simply an extension of various foreign interests. If a section of the Church has played into this, it will be most unfortunate, as I don’t think they realize the real processes of change in the “Hindu” attitude in India.
Suppose now a serious military campaign is unleashed against the Maoists whose main strategy has always been to use “inaccessibility of terrain” to “live like fish among the water of people” and expand fluid “base areas”, and have always failed in the face of determined “encirclement campaigns”, so that the Maoists face extinction in the state. My prediction is that there will be an immediate huge media campaign to denounce the “persecution of Christians in the name of tackling Maoist extremists”. But having started this game now, whoever wished well for the Christians did a great disservice to Christianity – first it has associated Christians with Maoist Communists, and second, they in reality will have no defence in case a strong Indian government at the centre decides to liquidate the Maoist threat forever, thereby also eliminating those the well-wishers are lobbying for.
On August 30 the Delhi based private news channel NDTV 24X7 quoted “unnamed government sources” as saying that their assessment was that Christians had no role in the killing of Saraswati, and that the probe was leading to Maoist culprits. I find it highly amusing that both bloggers as well as Indian media usually reports this statement from NDTV, and the Christian organizations reports of an “estimated 50,000 Christians” living in the jungles abandoning their homes in fear of attacks, while they remain completely silent that this same channel also showed a documentary, where they also showed violent attacks on “Hindu” tribals, destruction of their villages, and their women and children hiding out in open jungle to escape from fear of attacks by “Christians”. The documentary makers tried their best not to appear “pro-Hindu”, which implies that the evidence of attacks on Hindu villagers were too numerous to ignore completely and liable to show up NDTV as completely biased later on if not at least partially represented.
Wherever I have gone in India, I have almost always observed genuine respect and tolerance for Christians by Hindus – but I do not think that Christians in the West would show the same tolerance towards the Hindus if the Hindus practised items of their culture that the Christian West thought obnoxious [the issue of public slaughter of cows for festivals and eating beef nad hence also the related issue of illegal beef trade- which is not favoured by the Hindu tribals] or react most favourably to disparagement of Christian practices and beliefs by the Hindus. The role of Christian missionaries in education and healthcare in India is acknowledged by the Hindus with great warmth and genuine gratitude. But I think the modern Christian missions in India have to think carefully before they get involved in the fractures of Indian society. Many Hindus celebrate Christmas as their own festival, and many of the Bhakti sects of Hinduism in India have no problem in displaying Jesus as a manifestation of their “supreme lord”. The stereotypical portrayal of the Christian Missionary as a “benevolent father” was and continues to be common in popular movies. I have never seen a similar religious accommodation of the “Hindu” within Christianity – where typically the best representation of the Hindu is that of a “poor ignorant bewildered fallen soul” “mired in darkness” and needing “salvation”.
This is a misunderstanding between Hindus and Christians, and is being exploited by forces that have their own designs on controlling India. A strong government that was determined in liquidating Maoism could actually ultimately prove beneficial for the image of Christianity in India, as otherwise these sort of media campaigns will only ultimately consolidate the so much “feared” “Hindu Right”.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )India’s N-deal shenanigans : US congressman’s leak – brinkmanship or utter lunacy?
Indian and US media have flashed the news of the leak of a “secret letter” by a senior US-Congressman, that reportedly promises (1) to stop all N-trade with India if India ever tests (2) to force other countries in NSG also to stop N-trade with India if India ever tests (3) there is no guarantee of perpetual N-fuel supply to India. If true, coming from a senior US-Congressman, this is wonderful news about the maturity and statesmanship of US politicians. If it was a “secret letter” which had apparently been sent 9 months ago from the Presidential administration, the Congressman or his sucessors and associates have broken several clauses of the confidentiality regulations, and in a country which often jails people for 5 lifetimes or more for “treason”, he should be liable for some penalties. If the politicians were hoping to provide some fuel for the murmurs of dissent within NSG, then it is not of much help as the only way it can work in favour of the Congressman is if the “promises” in the “secret letter” are now taken up by the “dissenters” within NSG as a demand to be publicly declared and included by the USA in the revised draft proposal for N-trade with India.
In reality what mostl likely happened was that the Bush administartion deliberately kept the draft agreement “vague” in full knowledge and consultation with its Indian counterpart, so that both administrations could “explain” away and satisfy their respective detractors in their countries and politics. Having seen that the N-deal was being hotly pressed forward, this Congress-lobby panicked and wanted to play up the opposition he hoped would arise against India. It is also possible that the State Department itself leaked the document in the hope of reassuring the dissenters that it will indirectly take stern “action” against India if the latter departs from “Western control”.
Why would a senior US-Congressman or his successors be so obsessed with preventing India’s maintaining and upgrading its nuclear weapons capability by testing as and when required in the face of nuclear weapons capable hostile countries like Pakistan and China? There are two sources of opposition and hatred for India within the USA. The first comes from a very narrow interpretation of Christianity aligned and meant to support and justify racial supremacy concepts, which associates the “best form” of Christianity with a certain “skin colour” and inverts historical quirks such as the success of European colonial land-grabbing as a justification for megalomania. The danger in such logic for Americans themselves is that it masks the real factors that led to European success, and the short term historically specific nature of these factors, which are most unlikely to recur in the future. As the history of warfare amply shows, no society could monopolize and maintain its “military” success forever after using “surprise” once – either a technological “surprise” or a “strategic surprise” – once used these are known to others. Europeans can never again hope to dominate the world on their own as they had done during the colonial period, when they could use the complacency and philosophically sophisticated relaxed attitude of more advanced civilizations, to extract capital from them. The second comes from strong lobbying by and commercial connections with China, as well as the influence of heavy capital investments circulating in the US economy from oil-rich Islamic countries.
The anti-India [anti-Hindu pro-Islam??] lobby in the USA is showing its ignorance of Indian society by not realizing that what it is trying to do is only consolidating the position of its hated foe which it so fondly dubs “the Hindu Right” – the BJP for example, which has consistently claimed that the N-deal as negotiated by the UPA government is a sell-out of crucial national strategic interests of India. The question will obviously arise as to why a senior US-Congressman is obsessed and paranoid with India maintaining its nuclear weapons capabilities – and is determined to abort its crucial defense capabilities in the face of known militarily aggressive and nuclear weapons capable hostile neighbour countries – is this a first stage in the grand eventual Islamo-Chinese coalition to finish off non-Muslim India? India should stick to its right to test at most under the concession that testing of nuclear weapons delivery systems or any nuclear testing by neighbours will immediately prompt India to test both delivery systems as well as nuclear warheads. No European country came to India’s defence when Pakistan attacked it or China invaded it, and even in the future they will only express their “righteous indignation” if the Islamo-Chinese alliance invaded India, but never come to preserve India’s non-Muslim cultures [as for a strong driving force within the European elites, commercial interests come first and Islam would still be preferable to the “hated” pagans]. In the end, in the greater interests of preservation of non-Muslim cultures all over the world, preservation of India as primarily and distinctly non-Muslim and non-Communist is of utmost importance – Christianity may prove unable or unwilling to tackle Islam, the West’s dependence on and greed for Islamic-oil and capital can make it rather soft to any aggression on India from Islamic or Chinese sources.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )How Islam came to India and why now it needs to go from India – 12 : economic decline under Islam – fate of producers
The fate of the Indian producers under Islam :
The quality of work of the urban artisans and craftsmen was internationally acclaimed and without parallel in the Muslim world as testified by Timur who invaded India in 1398, was highly impressed with Indian craftsmen and builders and on his return home from India he took with him architects, artists and skilled mechanics to build in his then mud-bricked Samarqand, grand edifices. Babur too was pleased with the performance of Indian workmen and described how thousands of stone-cutters and masons worked on his buildings in Agra, Sikri, Biana, Dholpur, Gwalior and Koil and “In the same way there are numberless artisans of every sort in Hindustan”.[Baburnama]
Up to the 13-14th century, contemporary Indian writers and foreign travellers do not generally talk about poverty and give an impression of the relative prosperity of the agrarian producer. Poverty or deprivation is not mentioned among the detailed and numerous socio-economic observations and studies of Hindus by Alberuni, the famous 11-th century scholar companion of Mahmud Gaznavi. Minhaj Siraj, Ibn Battuta, the Shihabuddin Abbas Ahmad in his Masalik-ul-Absar, Al-Qalqashindi in his Subh-ul-Asha, Amir Khusrau and Shams Siraj Afif (13-14th centuries), talk of the prosperity of the people. Barani conveys his overwhelming glee at the actions of contemporary Muslim rulers against prosperous Hindu landlords and cultivators. Ibn Battuta writes “When they have reaped the autumn harvest, they sow spring grains in the same soil in which autumn grains had been sown, for their country is excellent and the soil is fertile. As for rice they sow it three times a year”. Shams Siraj Afif testifies to the prosperity of Hindu Orissa when Firuz Tughlaq’s invaded it as “The country of Jajnagar was in a very flourishing state, and the abundance of corn and fruit supplied the wants of the army, the numbers of animals of every kind were so great that no one cared to take them. Sheep were found in such countless numbers”. [Similar references can be found for the south in Kincaid and Parasnis, A History of Maratha People, I, Yule – Ser Marco Polo and for rural Vijayanagar in particular by Abdur Razzaq in Mutla-us-Sadain, Eliott and Dowson, Domingo Paes and Fernao Nuniz also indirectly indicate this through their description of items of common consumption traded in the urban markets]. Typically where and when Muslim power became weak, the prosperity of the ground level producers appear to increase. For example when the Delhi Sultanate weakened in the 15th century, or in areas outside the control of Islam, such as Orissa until the very late Sultanate and early Mughal incursions, or Vijaynagar in the south [mostly modern Karnataka, but almost coast to coast and a much larger extent at its peak say under Devaraya III or KrishnadevaRaya] from the peak Sultanate period to early Mughal period. Archaeological excavations around the Khajuraho site in Madhya Pradesh, has revealed the presence of extensive fortifications and innumerable temple sites with obvious indications of a high level of culture and consumption backed by a sound economy- not unnatural perhaps for pre-Islamic India, but what is strange is the fact that this seems to be a sexually, militarily and economically thriving Hindu kingdom flourishing in the middle of Islamic military dominance of the Delhi Sultanante at its peak power in central and northern India with the highly significant reality that cultural icons of Hindus including massive temples from this Delhi Sultanate period only survive in kingdoms that militarily resisted the Muslims for a long time into the Sultanate period – the Bundelkhand region and Orissa.
By the late Sultanate and Mughal period however almost all foreign and many Indian writers like Domingo Paes, Fernao Nuniz, Linschoten, Salbank, Athanasius Nikitin, Varthema, Barbosa, Hawkins, Jourdain, Sir Thomas Roe talk of the grinding poverty of the Indians. Pelsaert, the Dutch traveler during Jahangir’s reign, writes: “The common people (live in) poverty so great and miserable that the life of the people can be depicted or accurately described only as the home of stark want and the dwelling place of bitter woe, their houses are built of mud with thatched roofs. Furniture there is little or none, except some earthenware pots to hold water and for cooking”. His contemporary Salbank, writes of people between Agra and Lahore says that the “plebian sort is so poor that the greatest part of them go naked”.[Moreland, India at the Death of Akbar]. Medieval India under Muslims inherited an agriculturally and technologically resourceful economy from the pre-Islamic period [an economy that had sustained the enormous looting careers of the Islamic horde for nearly 500 years], and the Islamic historiand as well as Mughal court records show the obscene luxury and wealth of the Mughals and their minuens. These records also point out the inherent features of Islamic rule that impoverished and almost ruined the Indian economy.
In Contrast to Central Asia, Persia or Afghanistan, the conquest of India as well as conversion of its people was only partial. This fact is usually held up by Islamic apologists as grand proof of the “tolerance” of Islam and its spread “not by the sword”, as I come across the infinite arrogance of statements both from Muslims as well as White Christian “scholars-in-love-with-Islam”‘s profound wisdom – that “the Muslims who ruled India for 1000 years could have crushed and converted the Hindus completely if they wanted to”. They can get away with this moronic misutilization of their own ignorance, because the Thaparite School of Indian History which declares itself the sole speakers on behalf of India and Indians have managed to completely erase the records of the persistent non-Muslim resistance beginning right from the fall of the Chahamans and Gahadavalas until the dissolution of the Mughal empire by the Sikhs, Marathas, and Rajputs. The Muslim chroniclers’ trumpeting of unqualified victories for their Turko-Afghan or Mongol kings are matched by a significant number of inscriptions of Hindu kings claiming military successes.[A.B.M. Habibullah-s The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India, First ed., Lahore, 1945].
The Sultanate and the Mughal period shows almost continuous stiff resistance to Muslim rule and many parts of India under Muslim rule erupt into open rebellion. As we will see later this was one weakness of the Islamic setup in the same way that the pressures of the Cold War brought the USSR down – this resistance needed maintenance of ever increasing number of military personnel thereby increasing the drain on the economy in several crucial ways. To suppress the resistance, apart from more traditional Islamic ideas of spectacular tortures that shows a much greater understanding of Sadism in Islam than De Sade himself, Alauddin Khalji (1296-1316) decided that it was “wealth” which was the “source of rebellion and disaffection. It encouraged defiance and provided means of revolt”. Barani reports that he and his counsellors apparently came to the conclusion that if somehow people could be impoverished, “no one would even have time to pronounce the word rebellion”. Barani says that the Islamic theologians in Alauddin’s employ declared that the Hidaya stipulates that when an “infidel country” is conquered, the Imam can divide it among the Muslims. He can also leave it in the hands of the original inhabitants, “exacting from them a capitation tax, and imposing a tribute on their lands. If the infidels are to lose their lands, their entire moveable property should also be taken away from them. In case they are to continue with cultivating the land, they should be allowed to retain such a portion of their moveable property as may enable them to perform their business.”[trs. of the Hidaya, Chapter IV – by Charles Hamilton] The Sultans divided the conquered land among Muslim officers, soldiers and Ulema in lieu of pay or as reward. Some land was kept under Khalisa or directly under the control of the ruler. But in almost all cases the agrarian labourer remained the original Hindu cultivator. As an infidel he was to be taxed heavily, although a minimum of his moveable property like oxen, cows and buffaloes (nisab) was to be left with him [Muhammedan Theories of Finance, Aghnides]. The Shariah stipulation was to leave with the original cultivator only as much as would be necessary to maintain production, but ensure that they remained at the bare subsistence level. This was the principle used by Muhammad in many of his take-overs of the fertile oases or land made fertile by the hard labour of Jews. It is significant to note that a recent TV documentary on the “Moors” in “Al Andalus”, the commentator laments the “Christians” living off the “Islamic agrarian producers” for a whole year without ever mentioning that it was simply a very old and Sunnah supported Islamic practice as applied to Muslims themselves.
For Moreland “the question really at issue was how to break the power of the rural leaders, the chiefs and the headmen of parganas and villages” [Moreland, Agrarian System of Moslem India] prompting Sultan Alauddin to enforce a series of measures to crush them by striking at the economic basis of their defiance [Barani – Fatawa-i-Jahandari] which affected the entire social structure of non-Muslim communities. Alauddin started by raising the land tax (Kharaj) to fifty percent [compared to IltutmishBalban’s usually and formally one-third of the produce but in reality perhaps much more to satisfy the private greed of Muslim collectors in the field]. Further all the land occupied by the rich and the poor “was brought under assessment at the uniform rate of fifty per cent” thereby reducing the chiefs practically to the position of peasants. Alauddin levied house-tax and grazing tax, and all milk-producing animals like cows and goats were taxed. According to Farishtah, animals up to two pairs of oxen, a pair of buffaloes and some cows and goats were exempted. This concession was declared to be on the principle of nisab, namely, of leaving some minimum capital to enable one to carry on with one’s work.[Hidaya,Muhammedan Theories of Finance-Aghnides]. There were additional taxes like kari, (from Sanskrit/Hindi Kar), charai and Jiziyah. The sultans of Delhi collected Jiziyah at the rate of forty, twenty and ten tankahs from the rich, the middle class and the poor respectively.[Afif]
The Sultan had “directed that only so much should be left to his subjects (raiyyat) as would maintain them from year to year without admitting of their storing up or having articles in excess.” Alauddin’s punitive taxation were highly lauded by the Islamic writers. In India contemporary writers like Barani, Isami and Amir Khusrau praised his role as “a persecutor of the Hindus”. Foreigner Maulana Shamsuddin Turk, a Muslim theologian from Egypt, was delighted to observe that Alauddin had made “the wretchedness and misery of the Hindus so great and had reduced them to such a despicable condition that the Hindu women and children went out begging at the doors of the Musalmans.”[Barani, Isami, Futuh-us-Salatin, Agra text, Tarikh-i-Wassaf, Bombay Text, Book IV-V]. Summing up the achievements of Alauddin Khalji, the contemporary chronicler Barani emphasises, “that by the last decade of his reign the submission and obedience of the Hindus had become an established fact. Such a submission on the part of the Hindus has neither been seen before nor will be witnessed hereafter.” Thus all sections of Hindu society both the economically well off and the worst off were all reduced to poverty, and the Hindus in general were impoverished to such an extent that there was no sign of gold or silver left in their houses, and the wives of Khuts and Muqaddams used to seek odd jobs in the houses of the Musalmans, work there and receive wages.[Barani] The poor peasants (balahars) suffered horribly to the great joy of Ziyauddin Barani, [who is also a Maulana] who celebrates the suppression of the Hindus, and writes in greatdetail about the utter helplessness to which the peasantry had been reduced because the Sultan had left to them bare sustenance and had taken away everything else in kharaj (land revenue) and other taxes.[Barani]
Such a huge taxation burden could not be sustained and “One of the standing evils in the revenue collection consisted in defective realization which usually left large balances,”[R.P. Tripathi, Some Aspects of Muslim Administration], added to the corruption and extortion of low-level revenue officials. Sultan Alauddin created a new ministry called the Diwan-i-Mustakhraj which was entrusted with the work of inquiring into the revenue arrears, and realizing them.[Barani] In addition Alauddin anticipated the modern Indian governments [which has resulted in a disincentive for the grain-basket Punjab’s wheat farmers having tangible effects on the wheat reserves] by almost 700 years by compelling the peasant to sell all of his surplus grain at government controlled rates for replenishing royal grain stores which the Sultan had ordered to be built in order to sustain his market control [ Lal, History of the Khaljis] After Alauddin’s death (C.E. 1316) most of his measures appear to have been discontinued for a short time, but Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq who came to power in C.E. 1320 and revived Alauddin’s laws ordering that “there should be left only so much to the Hindus that neither, on the one hand, they should become arrogant on account of their wealth, nor, on the other, desert their lands in despair.”[Barani], Muhammad bin Tughlaq’s, [a successor of Ghyiasuddin] enhancement of taxation went even beyond the lower limits of “bare subsistence.” and the people left their fields and fled. This enraged the Sultan and he went on hunting parties to kill them as wild beasts. [Hajiuddabir, Zafar-ul-Wali; Barani; Ishwari Prasad, A History of the Qaraunak Turks in India]
Both W.H. Moreland and Irfan Habib [Agraraian System of Mughal India], who have specially studied the agrarian system of Mughal India, agree that the basic object of the Mughal administration was to obtain the revenue on an ever-increasing scale. The share that could be taken out of the peasant’s produce without destroying his chances of survival was the fundamental . In Akbar’s reign, in Kashmir, the state demand was one-third, but in reality it amounted to two-thirds [W.H. Moreland, From Akbar to Aurangzeb]. The Jagirdars in Thatta (Sindh) took half as tax. Geleynsen writes in 1629 that in Gujarat the land tax was three-quarters of the harvest. This is supported by De Laet, Fryer and Van Twist. [Moreland in Journal of Indian History, IV, pp. 78-79 and XIV, p. 64]. Abul Fazl, the administrative chronicler of Akbar writes that “evil hearted officers because of sheer greed”, used to proceed to villages and mahals and sack them. [Abul Fazl, Akbar Nama, Beveridge’s translation]. By Shahjahan’s period, as we have already mentioned, Manucci describes how peasants were compelled to sell their women and children to meet the revenue demand. Manrique writes that the peasants were “carried off to various markets and fairs, (to be sold) with their poor unhappy wives behind them carrying their small children all crying and lamenting”. Bernier writes that the “unfortunate peasants who were incapable of discharging the demands of their rapacious lords, were bereft of their children, who were carried away as slaves.” The weeping widower ShahJahan who found time to console himself with the captured younger women of Hindus from his raids [look at part 1 of this series on enslavement] further proved his Thaparite “lack of religious motivation” by ordering that such Hindus peasants and their family should be sold to Muslim buyers only. Given this scenario, the peasantry had no interest in cultivating the land. Bernier observes that “as the ground is seldom tilled otherwise than by compulsion, the whole country is badly cultivated, and a great part rendered unproductive. The peasant cannot avoid asking himself this question: Why should I toil for a tyrant who may come tomorrow and lay his rapacious hands upon all I possess and value without leaving me the means (even) to drag my own miserable existence? – The Timariots (Timurids), Governors and Revenue contractors, on their part reason in this manner: Why should the neglected state of this land create uneasiness in our minds, and why should we expend our own money and time to render it fruitful? We may be deprived of it in a single moment. Let us draw from the soil all the money we can, though the peasant should starve or abscond”. This encouraged the revenue collector to be extremely exploitative on the and the peasantry fatalistic and disinterested. The result, according to Bernier, was “that most towns in Hindustan are made up of earth, mud, and other wretched material; that there is no city or town (that) does not bear evident marks of approaching decay. Wherever Muslim despots ruled, ruin followed” so that similar is the “present condition of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Palestine, the once wonderful plain of Antioch, and so many other regions anciently well cultivated, fertile and populous, but now desolate. Egypt also exhibits a sad picture.”
part 13: economic decline – fate of the producers – effects of taxation
part 1: enslavement of non-Muslims of India
part 4: myth of peaceful role of Sufis in conversion
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 3 so far )India’s NSG fever : the China-Islam-Europe axis
In my previous posts on this subject, I had repeatedly tried to dampen the apparent euphoria in Indian circles about the passage of the Indo-US N-deal through the IAEA. Like many others, I had tried to point out that the greatest difficulty would be at the NSG. This was predictable from at least two different angles: the first was that at that time China was preparing for the Beijing Olympics, and needed all possible cooperation from the international powers to suppress the Tibetan protests, secondly the powers that are most likely to be opposed to any significant increase in India’s strategic defence capabilities because of their own designs on Indian territories would be misled by their ignorance of how far India has changed in recent years to hope that internal dissent would prove sufficiently strong to scuttle the process anyway from within India. Once the IAEA passage went off relatively smoothly, these powers were likely to be panicking, and would begin lobbying in earnest to delay the passage through the NSG if not scuttle it altogether. The three natural allies in this game against India would be the forces represented by China, the Islamic expansion movement within Asia, and the smaller countries in EU. Each has its reasons, and we can analyze them one by one.
China has yesterday come out with a statement in its official mouthpiece [ and therefore of the state and therefore of the Communist Party of China] that passage of the N-deal with India would represent “a blow to non-proliferation”. This coincides uncannily with the apparent views of the leading non-proliferation groups within the EU. This could be a calculated move on the part of China to utilize the dissent from within EU, or a coordinated move. China’s real reasons for opposing this deal has as much to do with the “geo-strategic” interests it accuses India of – China was the aggressor in 1962, and invaded Indian territories without warning or a formal declaration of war – a-la-Islam. China knows that even historically they have had to fight with indigenous Tibetans for control over Tibetan territories – we have concrete evidence for this at least from the 1st millenium CE. China occupied Tibet by force and desperately wants to push through to the Indian Ocean. It sees India as the largest obstacle to its dominance in South Asia. After Mao’s split with the USSR mainly due to Russia’s formal split with Stalinism, Mao was quite worried at the growing ties between the Russia he did not understand or thought a betrayer to the “Stalinist cause” and India, as well as the protection nd asylum given to the Dalai Lama by India and decided to bring in pressure on India. China still holds on to Indian territory in the East and the North, and its main objective is to isolate Tibet from Indian reach [thus it helped the Nepali communists to come to power] and sever any strategic land connection that India can possibly have with Russia. China very possibly helped Pakistan with Nuclear and missile technology, as Pakistan has not shown any other independent parallel comprehensive development in indigenous technology and scientific research in other areas that could justify its “sudden” and “miraculous” nuclear weapons capability. China has also consistently tried to cultivate the Muslim nations, and especially Pakistan and Bangladesh who it knows to be vehemently opposed to the existence of a “non-Muslim” India. Chinese communists encourage Islamic movements against India since in the limitations of Communist ideology they think that they can “manage” Islam, whereas the Islamic forces use China according to their successful tactic as revealed in the Quran and in the Sunnah of the prophet – ally and use one “unbeliever” against another, until they are all weakened and ripe for subjugation. By China’s statement against India, China shows that it is now a completely blinded fool driven only by its imperialist ambitions and blind also to the growing Islamic insurgency in its own backyard. China also knows its economic importance for the smaller countries of the EU. so it may be more than a coincidence that these countries and China appear to speak in the same language as regards India.
For the smaller EU countries, their considerable markets in both the Islamic world as well as China, for dairy and meat products, as well as other manufactured exports [as so aptly evidenced by the retreat of certain North European countries over “freedom of expression” as applied to Islam, because of a boycott of products from that country in the Middle East], it is understandable that the non-proliferation argument will appear to be strongly appealing and most important. In this it will not be convenient for them to remember that many of them as a part of NATO are installing a missile defence system in anticipation of attacks from a country which has had no history of attacking them and is much farther away geographically compared to both Pakistan and China from India – two countries which are both nuclear missile-delivery capable and have already militarily attacked India and still hold on to Indian territories. Their economic dependence on the oil from Islamic countries, and Chinese markets will obscure them to the real defence needs of India in possible future testing and upgrading of nuclear weapons capabilities as deterrent and strategic neutralization of danger from aggressive Chinese imperialism and Jihadi Islamic aggression.
As for the Muslim countries, their theologians are always baying for non-Muslim blood and non-Muslim lands and women. With immense physical coercion this theocracy has managed to indoctrinate its subjects in an atmosphere of physical violence which is used to root out physically any alternative idea, of science, of modernization, of liberal modern humane ideas of equality between genders or of freedom of speech and thought. India’s vibrant much freer culture is a thorn on the sides of the Alims and the Ulemas of Islam whose flock are being constantly tempted by the visions in the neighbouring country of the “pagans”. In this their natural allies are “sympathetic” admirers of Islam in EU countries and business or governmental strategic interests, as well as the extreme paranoid jealousy of the Chinese communists who like Muslims do not like ideological competitors who can tempt their flock and therefore undermine their narrow selfish megalomania.
In the end, I personally feel that Europe with its classic shortsightedness that gifted the world with the horrors of colonial looting and destruction of civilizations, will only be concerned with the Islamic horror as and when it threatens its own gates, and not otherwise. Thus they may even help indirectly the Islamic cause by proving mostly a reluctant ally of the USA in the latter’s bid to neutralize the Jihadists, and may even decide to oppose strengthening India in order to preserve their commercial and strategic interests with the Islamic countries and China. It is already known that the EU exports to the Islamic middle East is three times that of the USA to the same region.
It is important for Europe to realize that China’s rise to importance started with its formal role in tying up a large Japanese occupation force in the Pacific theatre during WWII. However this importance was simply formal as the internationally recognized Chinese government and an ally of the Western allies, was the so-called Nationalist government under Chiang-Kai-shek and the Kuomindang – a government which consistently failed in preventing the Japanese advance, but consumed a huge amount of resources as supplied by the USA. Even the Communists in the North were not much of a success although they at least managed to carry on a guerrilla fight against the Japanese near the coastal areas of occupation. There was a time towards the close of the Pacific war, when USA toyed with the idea of supporting the Communist Red Army and suddenly Mao waxed eloquent about US friends. Turn of political climate in Washington removed the pro-Chinese element in US state policy, and Mao went back to his “anti-imperialist” stance. It is significant to note that Chinese success in recovering their country only gained momentum after the surrender of the Japanese, and Stalin did not initially allow the Communists to occupy Manchuria which surrendered to the Russians and not to the Chinese. The Communists could only make their major moves to occupy the whole of China after 1948, when Soviet support turned in their favour due to Stalin’s realization of the process of Cold War. Throughout the war, the Chinese were more an absorber of military resources and money from the Allies rather than an effective contributor. Contrast this with the tremendous amount in men and material supplied by India, and its contribution to winning the war for the Allied forces, which remains rarely acknowledged.
Not India’s current policy-makers, but the future generations should start thinking of who they can really rely on in their strategic plans to exist in the face of determined Islamic expansion programmes.
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