Yusuf al-Qaradawi |
Reading the words of al-Qaradawi, who is arguably one of the most influential Muslim clerics on the planet whose TV show is followed by 60 million Muslims, one might wonder how anybody could ever think of Islam as an ally of Russia. But then, reading the rest of the article which quoted him, we see that he also “called on pilgrims to pray for topple (sic) of Bashar al Assad, elimination of Syrian army, Iran, Hezbollah, China and Russia“. If we think of the logic of his own words, the list of enemies he names, and if we consider that he believes that Russia is the worst of them, does that not indicate that Russia must therefore be the main force behind of the others, behind Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and China? If so, then unless we assume that the Russians are irrational, we can probably conclude that Russia sees Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and China as allies which, of course, it does. And since Syria, Iran and Hezbollah are most definitely Muslim, this clearly shows two fundamental things: there are many different brands of “Islam” out there (Hassan Nasrallah would definitely not agree with al-Qaradawi’s point of view) and some of these brands of Islam are already objective allies of Russia. So, once again, we need to set aside the vast category of “Islam” and look a little deeper into what has been going on inside the Muslim world.
The following is a self-evident truism:
The Muslim world is not a united, coherent, entity with a common goal, ideology or ethos. While some Muslims want to entertain that fiction, and while all Islamophobes are more than happy to support and propagate such claims, they are patently false. While all Muslims share certain common beliefs, this list is extremely short. In fact, all that is required to convert to Islam is a single heartfelt recitation of the Sahhadah: “there is no god but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God”. Everything else is left to the interpretation of the various of various sects and schools of jurisprudence. This is why all the usual generalizations about Islam are so misleading – they ignore the immense diversity of Islam, from Morocco to Indonesia, from Saudi Wahabism to Kazakh Sufism.
And yet, some generalizations can be made, even if accompanied by various disclaimers and caveats.
The first is that the richest segment of the Muslim world is definitely the one of the type of Sunni Islam found around the Persian Gulf, in particular the one represented by the Saudi type of Wahabism. This Saudi brand of Islam combines three separate elements into one explosive mix: a primitive but extremely aggressive ideology, immense disposable income and a militant dedication to proselytism and expansion.
Second, Sunni Muslims are all potential targets of Saudi/Wahabi indoctrination and recruitment efforts. This does not mean that all Sunnis will turn into al-Qaeda types, but that Saudi/Wahabi recruitment efforts have already been successful in pretty much all Sunni groups, regardless of geography or tradition. Conversely, this also means that for traditional Sunni Islam the brand of Wahabism the Saudis are spreading is a most dangerous foe.
Third, The United States have to be credited with the following: they took a local, largely irrelevant, sect and, with the complicity of the House of Saud, they literally federated all the Wahabi crazies worldwide into if not one organization, then at least one movement. While the USA initially wanted to organize the resistance against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, they have since always commanded, if not always controlled, these movements worldwide, and they still are doing so today. From the US and Turkish “black flights” in Bosnia, to the arming of the KLA in Kosovo, to 9/11, to the uprisings in Libya and Syria, the United States have always directed the Wahabi crazies towards the enemies of the US global Empire.
Fourth, in contrast to the rest of the Islamic world, the Shia have always been a determined opponent of Wahabi Islam and the US Empire. Conversely, this also means that for the US Empire and the Wahabi crazies, the Shia are at the top of their enemy list and that they will spare no efforts into weakening, subverting or destroying any Shia movement or country. Remarkably, so far they have failed and that in itself is a testimony to the formidable intelligence, courage and resilience of the Shia people.
What does that mean for Russia?
While there are some circles which fully subscribe to the “clash of civilization” theory and who consider Islam as a threat (see in my previous installment the “Islam through the prism of the “clash of civilizations” section), there are also several influential groups who very much see Islam as a natural ally:
Shevchenko |
a) Orthodox patriots: best represented by the views of the well-known journalist Maksim Shevchenko, these are Russians nationals who as patriots, but not Russian nationalists, believe that Russia has a vocation to be an multi-ethnic country and civilization and who, as Orthodox Christians, believe that traditional Islam shares most, if not all, of the key values of Orthodox Christianity. Shevchenko, who is a long-time Orthodox activist, is also a specialist of the Caucasus region who has extensive contacts in the various Muslim communities in Russia. Unlike the “Orthodox Ecumenists”, Shevchenko has no interest at all in finding some theological common ground with Islam, for him the value of Islam is in what it stands for culturally and politically. The fundamental belief of Shevchenko and those who support his ideas is that traditional Islam is the natural ally of Orthodox Christianity and the Russian civilization in its struggle against both Western imperialism and Wahabi extremism. Needless to say, Russian Islamophobes absolutely despise Shevchenko and they regularly spread rumors about his (totally fictional) conversion to Islam.
Massoud |
b) The security services: Russian security services have enough analysts and experts to fully realize the potential of an Orthodox-Muslim alliance against their common enemies. It is not a coincidence that a former KGB officer like Putin put so much efforts in supporting the Kadyrov clan in Chechnia. There is an old tradition in the Russian security services to seek alliances with some Muslim movements against common enemies. From the long-standing alliance of the Soviet GRU with Ahmad Shah Massoud, to the SVR’s support for Assad, to the FSB’s support for Akhmad and Ramzan Kadyrov – the Russian security services have always sought allies in the Muslim world. They have always done that due to a mix of pragmatic considerations and real admiration for their counterparts (I can personally attest to the real and sincere admiration in which Massoud was held by commanders of the Kaskad/Vympel Spetsnaz force). Putin has personally stated many time that the traditional Muslim communities can count on the absolute support of the Russian state and that this support for traditional Russian Islam is a key strategic objective of the Russian state.
Christian or Muslim? |
c) Orthodox traditionalists: take a look at this photo, it shows some of the dresses which would be considered traditional Orthodox dresses in modern Russia. Though not exactly identical, they are very similar to what many Muslim women would wear, are they not? Now compare that with the kind of civilization model the various Pussy Riots, Gay Pride parades and other LGBT movements present. The fact is that traditional Islamic and traditional Christian Orthodox ethics are very similar, and that they stand for the same values: traditional families, moderate patriotism, social responsibility, modesty, sobriety, charity, honor and respect for traditions including for other traditions. At a time when most Russian TV stations are spewing a constant stream of immorality, materialism and outright filth, Orthodox Christians look with understanding and admiration at those Muslim families who raise their children with respect for the elders and the traditions they represent.
Recently, there have been a few high visibility scandals around the issue of whether Muslim girls should be wearing a scarf over their heads in public schools. Just like in France, some Russians felt threatened by such religious displays, in particular in the southern regions of Russia were immigration is a big problem, but interestingly the traditionalist Orthodox commentators sided with the Muslim girls saying that they are actually giving a good example to Russian Orthodox girls too. It is a fact that before the Bolshevik Revolution almost all rural Russian women wore a headscarf which is very much a traditional Russian way of dressing (those doubting this are welcome to check any Russian matrioshka doll).
d) The Russian foreign policy establishment, while not necessarily as pro-Islamic as the Russian security services, is also largely convinced of the importance of supporting countries such as Syria and, in particular, Iran, which most Russian diplomats see as a key Russian ally in the Middle-East. There also is, however, a strong pro-Western minority in the Russian foreign service which does believe that Iran has to submit to the orders of the UNSC even in cases where the UNSC takes decisions which are highly unfavorible to Russia. This is also the group which prevailed at the time when Russia betrayed Gaddafi and did not veto a resolution which was clearly designed to allow a US/NATO agression on Libya (Russia also betrayed Iran on several occasions at the UNSC). Still, the prevailing thought, in particular since Putin’s return to power, is that Iran is an important ally that Russia must support.
The Russian state, as a whole, is not a unitary actor. In fact, there is a lot of very intense infighting taking place right now, and there is strong evidence that at least two clans, one associated with Medvedev and one associated with Putin, are now in the midst of a covert war against each other. This topic, and what that means for Islam, will be the subject of the next installment of this series.
The Saker
The fact that this clown has the largest audience in the Muslim world speaks volumes about modern Islam.
This Yusuf al-Qaradawi clown along with others are financed by the likes of Qatar and other Sunni states and businessmen.
There was a website that detailed this but I think the link is on my old computer.
Not the 1st time Yusuf al-Qaradawi has said something bad about Russia in the past he issued a FATWA urging Muslims to fight in Chechnya against Russian forces.
“Prominent Islamic scholar of the modern times Yusuf al- Qaradawi released a special Fetwa (Islamic Shariah regulation based on the consensus of eminent scholars of the world), where he defines the armed fight of the Chechen people against the Russian aggression as one of the best kinds of Jihad in the Cause of Allah.
In the Fetwa Yusuf al-Qaradawi defined that it is a direct duty of all Muslims around the world to back Chechen Mujahideen.
Fetwa:
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
It is the duty of every Muslim to back oppressed Muslims in all parts of the world. No doubt that Chechens fight in defense of their lands, honor and religion, and hence they are doing one of the best kinds of Jihad in the Cause of Allah.
Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi – I think – Allah knows best– that the marvelous fighting carried out by our brothers in Chechnya is considered one of the best kinds of Jihad in the Cause of Allah. They fight – in defense of their lands, honor and religion – a tyrannical oppressive force, which does not fear Allah nor have mercy on any creature. There is a scholarly consensus (Ijma’) that whoever fights in defense of his religion, land and household, and is killed in that fighting, is considered a Martyr (Shahid).
We all know that the people of Chechnya did not launch an attack against anyone; however they have been attacked and killed in their homes. But we are sure that Allah the Almighty will help them put their enemy to rout, grant them victory and help them gain supremacy in their lands. Allah, Exalted be He, says: “Permission to fight (against disbelievers) is given to those (believers) who are fought against them (believers) victory”. (Al-Hajj: 39)
The recent days augurs victory for Chechnya, and the Promise of Allah will for sure come true soon. Allah, Exalted and Glorified be He, says, “If Allah is your helper none can overcome you…” (Al ‘Imran: 160)
Allah Almighty knows best.”
http://www.network54.com/Forum/84302/thread/1082834921/Fetwa+of+Yusuf+al-Qardawi+about+Jihad+in+Chechnya
He is not the only one. Major Muslim organisations have urged Muslims to fight in Chechnya against Russia.
@jack:Yusuf al-Qaradawi and other so-called ‘experts’ who predicted fire and brimstone in Chechnia, the Kremlin did win this war, and the insurgency could not *nothing* to prevent the reconstruction of Chechnia and, in particular, Grozny. So for all their Fatwas, the Yusuf al-Qaradawi types do not have what it takes to defeat a nation (or two, Russians *and* Chechens) determined to kick them out. I really believe that Wahabi crazies are a moral threat to already weak regimes, but against a strong power, they run.
@VINEYARDSAKER
Wahhabi crazies are just a scape goat.
I think only a few of the terrorists recruited except the most senior ones with foreign ties truly believe in the Wahhabi world view.
Before joining RT Peter Lavelle’s Untimely Thoughts and Robert Bruce Ware who he usually interviewed on the Caucasus was one of the best sources in regards to the dynamics of what is happening in the Caucasus.
Regional authorities dependence on aid from Moscow and local criminal clans and corruption are helping fuel the Islamic insurgency in the region although the interview is from 2004 after the Beslan massacre.
http://www.network54.com/Forum/84302/message/1094608937/Q%26amp%3BA-+R-B-+Ware+-+Chechnya%27s+future
jack:Wahhabi crazies are just a scape goat
For whom? Any analysis which begins by “the Muslims they” is, as far as I am concerned, dead on arrival. The only people who benefit from a conflation of all forms of Islam and all Muslims into one group are the Zionists. Now, while the terms Wahabi, Salafi, Takfiri or ‘al-Qaeda types’ are really different, it has become the common Russian usage to use ‘Wahabi’ (Ваххабиты) to refer to these groups makes sense to me, since the money is mostly Saudi. For a theological discussion this would be inadequate, but from a political sciense point of view that seems rational to me.
But, to repeat, your insistance on lumping any and all form of Islam and any and all Muslims into one group is logically false and morally wrong and cannot, repeat, *CANNOT* yield a fact-based and logical analysis or thesis.
@ The Saker,
“The only people who benefit from a conflation of all forms of Islam and all Muslims into one group are the Zionists.”
No truer words on this subject have been spoken.
You are so *correct* nobody benefits more than the murdering Zionists.
Thank you!
Regards & Godspeed to you.
Carmel by the Sea
Hi Saker,
I’ve greatly enjoyed your series, I hope the length of the current piece isn’t an indication that you’re about to wrap it up.
In any case, this pieces does have some shortcomings:
1. Neither Syria, nor Bashar al-Assad should in no way, shape or form be considered any kind of manifestation of Islam. Putting his own private faith to one side for a minute, he is the head secularist regime and party. As such he is completely against Islam, or any other faith, being anything more than a private artifact of people’s lives. In fact, it’s hard to get any more ‘anti-Islam’ in the Arab world than Bashar and the Ba’ath.
2. Mr. Qaradawi and his ilk unquestionably regard the rafidhi Shi’a, and especially savafi Iran with a much more intense hostility than any other entities on this planet. They equate, or at least try to equate Iran’s role in the region with Israel. It’s actually a good bit of fun to watch their some of the subtitled youtube videos of these guys at work. It’s actually more than a little impressive.
It’s good to know there are some in Russia that have a somewhat positive outlook on Iran. I think most Russians would be shocked to find out how much suspicion Iran regards their country with. The communist era did not endear Russians to Iran at all. And even it’s behavior during that period is not really distinguished from it’s Tsarist era. Russian, French and British imperial policies, in that era, and going forward are all regarded with the same amount of enmity. This enmity has colored Iranian perception of these countries ever since.
Machination of Imperial Russia aside, there have actually been no small number of intellectuals and poets, who heavily influenced by communist ideology during the cold war, escaped the Pahlavi regime by fleeing to Russia. They were mostly treated to decades long stints in the Soviet Gulag system. On top of all that was the threat of the communist party in Iran and it’s perceived prioritization of Russian interests over Iranian sovereignty.
Even putting all that aside, Russia’s behavior in the modern era inspires little confidence. Whether it’s the cosiness with Israel, the debacle that is Bushehr, or the debacle that is the S-300 system, or Russia’s propensity to sell it’s veto in the security council in exchange for short term concessions of dubious merit. Iranians can’t help but harbor serious doubts about Russia’s strategic acumen and reliability on the one hand, and it’s honesty and intentions on the other.
At the end of the day, what all of this means is not that Iran won’t be able to work with Russia for the time being. But it will only do so on relatively minor matters, where their own exposure is minimized. And that any genuine, long term, strategic partnership is next to impossible.
@anonymous: I hope the length of the current piece isn’t an indication that you’re about to wrap it up.
Not at all, there are still several installments ahead and then a “summing up” installment where I try to bring all these seemingly disparate topics together and see what the future might hold.
Neither Syria, nor Bashar al-Assad should in no way, shape or form be considered any kind of manifestation of Islam
You are absolutely correct, of course, and I have also made the point in the past that Baathists are first and foremost secularists, even if they like to pretend otherwise. However, in the Russian discourse today, Syria and Libya are lumped into the concept of “Islamic world” which, while misleading, is still used on a daily basis.
Mr. Qaradawi and his ilk unquestionably regard the rafidhi Shi’a, and especially savafi Iran with a much more intense hostility than any other entities on this planet.
While I agree with you, let me ask you this: do most Shia understand that? I ask this because I observe in amazement how many Shia go out of their way to uphold the “one Umma” myth, while being gradually encircled by Wahabi types who hate them body and soul. I even wrote a post about the “War against Shia Islam”, but when I look at Shia fora they don’t seem to feel the threat. Why is that?
I think most Russians would be shocked to find out how much suspicion Iran regards their country with. The communist era did not endear Russians to Iran at all. And even it’s behavior during that period is not really distinguished from it’s Tsarist era
Most are unaware of that, and know little about past Russian-Iranian relations. In the expert community, they are very much aware of that, but they consider that times and international dynamics have fundamentally changed and that objective factors clearly point to a need for a strong Russian-Iranian alliance.
or the debacle that is the S-300 system, or Russia’s propensity to sell it’s veto in the security council in exchange for short term concessions of dubious merit
Not jumping ahead to th next installment, I would stress that there is a very real difference between the Medvedev and Putin camps here.
But it will only do so on relatively minor matters, where their own exposure is minimized. And that any genuine, long term, strategic partnership is next to impossible.
You might be right, but I hope that you are wrong. Russia is changing dramatically and while I would not recommend that the Iranian “trust” the Russians, they should be open to see if a qualitative change in relationship cannot be established on the basis of mutual interest.
Stay tuned for the next installments :-)
The Saker
Hi Saker,
The previous posting was me.
Shi’a have no illusions about how much they are targeted by Wahabist propaganda. But responding in kind would only be doing the Wahabists’ work for them. Fighting fire with water, rather than with ever increasing levels of return-fire, is judged to be the the preferred strategy here.
The Qaradawi’s of the world will never be convinced, but their influence can be contained.
Take a look at Pakistan, which is maybe the the society most effectively penetrated by Saudi dollars and ideology. Iran is almost mind-numbingly popular with the population at large. While only 10% of Pakistan is Shia, over 70% of Pakistanis have a strongly positive view on Iran, and Over 85% want their Iranian neighbor to develop a Nuclear Bomb. This really is a historically unprecedented situation. These two countries don’t even speak the same language.
This would have been impossible to accomplish if Shi’a were responding to Wahabist provocations in kind, or even offering defenses that could be misconstrued as lies or provocations.
The same kind of dynamic is in play in Lebanon, where traditional Sunni political forces are doing all they can to avoid a proportional representation, which they correctly judge would weaken them in the face of Hezbollah popularity. This would be an unthinkable outcome if Hezbollah wasn’t meticulous in embracing the cause of Muslim unity and rejecting sectarianism in it’s rhetoric.
I believe the Iranians do perceive a difference between Medvedev and Putin, but take it to be an issue of degree rather than a fundamental disagreement.
Masoud
Hi Saker, I hope you’re right, it just seems to me that Iran is simply a bargaining tool to leverage against the West, I think many independently minded Muslims have drawn this conclusion. I guess time will tell.
Rest in Peace Hugo Chavez :(
Salaam,
I would like to add to what Masoud had to say about fighting fire with water… As a Shia, I see what these Sunni so-called scholars are doing as haraam. They are clearly creating Fitna amongst the Muslims which is based on a political agenda… To do the same is haraam.. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Some one or group, amongst the Muslims , has to be the example of doing what is right for the Ummah as a whole, even if a majority of the Ummah is lost, which it is….And as we have seen throughout history, usually whoever is that example, is a minority amongst the people which more often than not ends up persecuted for doing so….such is the status of the Musilms trying to do what is right today…
You are absolutely right MARI…Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has taken up the mantle…and he will be successful indeed.
“Mr. Qaradawi and his ilk unquestionably regard the rafidhi Shi’a, and especially savafi Iran with a much more intense hostility than any other entities on this planet. They equate, or at least try to equate Iran’s role in the region with Israel.”
While I don’t know what Qaradawi’s real views are, I suspect he preaches what the Qataris pay him to preach. If they payed him to speak well of Iran and Shia’, he’d do it.
@Masoud, Anonymous Lurker, Mari, Anonymous & Lysander:
First, thank you all for your comments and insights. Second, while I do understand the rationale behind fighting fire with water, I have two problems with that, a practical one and a conceptual one. If you all could help me with understanding this issue correctly I would be most grateful.
Practical problem: Masoud, you mention Pakistan and you quote figures which I do not dispute, but which very much surprised me. When I think of Pakistan I think of a never ending string a vicious bombing of Shia mosques and festivals. I wish I had kept better track of them, but I am pretty sure that over the past year or so Shia were regularly attacked in Pakistan, usually during big meetings. Now if Iran has such a strong backing in Pakistan, how is it that the P{akistani goverment, (Sunni) religious authorities and civil society cannot stop that kind of attacks? Put differently, is the fire of anti-Shia hatred in Pakistan being fought with water (which should put down the flames) or is it allowed to continue with the silent complicity of the majority? Why is there no “Pakistani Kadyrov” to really strike down hard at these murderers?
Conceptual problem: maybe I am trying to understand a Muslim concept from a Christian point of view, but I am baffled by the fact that (assuming I understood that correctly here) Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the various Wahabi groups are considered part of the Ummah, albeit a misguided and even criminal one. If the actions of these Wahabis are haram, I suppose that they are far more haram than some minor, personal sin or error in judgement. Is there not a point at which the murder of innocent people, including fellow Muslims, turns into apostasy? Is there not a point when the use of the Quran, the life of the Prophet and the traditions to justify abominable crimes on systematic basis also turns into apostasy? My, possibly mistaken, understanding is that Wahabism is a relatively recent creation, which used to infect only a small number of Muslim countries and that it metastasized only courtesy of the CIA and the House of Saud. In that case, is thee no way to declare it “outside of the community of Islam”?
Thanks for any clarifications on these issues!
Kind regards,
The Saker
I don’t know about Masoud, but for me, it is correct that Wahabis who cause Fitna amongst other Muslims are not really Muslims, and a very dangerous element within the Ummah. Yet still, I believe that many, mostly Sunni Muslims, do not understand this, and prefer to see minorities, such as Shia Muslims, to be an even more dangerous elements within Islam, especially influenced by political divisions in the region.. another reason why Shia and the Sunni Muslims who understand the situation, have to be very careful how they deal with this internal Muslim dilemma …
Just a couple of things after taking a quick look at the essay and the comments.
1. Add to the strengths of Wahhabism and Salafism the strategic partnership between these currents and the imperialist interests of the West. This partnership goes century and half back to relations between the founder of pan-Islamism Jamal Eddine “al-Afghani” with British political intelligence and up to the present amalgam of the Saud family and right-wing Republican elites, Muslim Brothers with the State Department, and “international terrorists” with Anglo-Saxon state agencies and private intelligence complex.
2. Iranian clerics are not and, in principle, cannot be Russia’s allies. They are just the Shiite inflection of the same strategic partnership with the West, and the Iran-contra affair is just the visible tip of the iceberg of this alliance of convenience between modern reactionaries, the monopolistic West and Iranian quasi-theocracy. The only Iran that can be natural ally of Russia is a democratic Iran of workers, peasants, and the intelligentsia.
@Valentin Zorin:Iranian clerics are not and, in principle, cannot be Russia’s allies (…) The only Iran that can be natural ally of Russia is a democratic Iran of workers, peasants, and the intelligentsia.
Here I respectfully disagree, if only because I do not believe that Russia is a “democratic country of workers peasants and intelligentsia”. Paradoxically, the Iranian Islamic Republic is far closer to the historical cultural/political model of Russia (see: http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2013/02/russia-and-islam-part-three-internal.html) that current Russia. Besides, Iran is democratic and social in the sense which Putin uses when he says “Russia is a social country”. The big difference between modern Russia on one hand and historical Russia and modern Iran on the other, is that modern Iran and historical Russia are/were deeply religious cultures and that this religious focus was reflected in the system of government.
Also, Iran is not a quasi-theocracy at all, it is a democracy kept in check and directed by Islamic values, exactly what Russian philosophers like Khomiakov, Tikhomirov, Rozanov, Solonevich, Iliin, Solzhenitsyn, Ogurtsov have advocated for Russia. And I personally believe that for Russia a system of “Orthodox Republic” (transposing the idea of “Islamic Republic”) would be far more natural and the pseudo-Western pseudo-democracy.
Finally, Iran-Contra just proves that the Iranians were happy to use the weaknesses and outright stupidity of the Americans. I really don’t see how one can deny that since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 the West did everything in its power to subvert, destroy, and even occupy Iran (using Saddam, of course). In fact, the Islamic Republic of Iran was much more a real enemy of the West than the Soviet Union of the last decades before 1991.
YMMV of course. Cheers!
The Saker
The thing you refuse to acknowledge is that while Muslim religious sects and countries are different and have conflicting interests they see things in black and white terms in regards to Muslims and non-Muslim and when there is an inevitable conflict between Muslims and there non-Muslim inhabitants over the world usually in the most violent and gruesome manner because the Koran says that if Muslims are fighting non-Muslims on their land then it is the duty of Muslims around the world with billions of dollars in Mid East money and military and intelligence service expertise both Sunni and Shia and every religious sect with a resulting failed state with clan warfare and ethnic cleansing of its non-Muslim population.
One of the most active Islamic political movements in Eurasia and Russia is not Wahabbi other than the Gulen movement is Hizb-ut-tahrir.
The only real progressive Muslim countries or regions that are not willing colonies essentially of Britain and the US are ones were Islamic identity is not a big issue like Tatarstan or Turkey and the more Islamic they are and Muslim values are incorporated into society and the body politics of the country the worse it becomes just look at Pakistan.
Iran is not a democracy it is a theocratic dictatorship the most progress in the region among all the other countries but has a secret police and restrictions that keep the current ruling clerics in power not to mention death penalty law for things like adultery and being gay with sentences like stoning and hanging.
Russia is not particularly democratic with a kind of crony capitalism problem but they were attempting at more liberal reform under Medvedev and talking and proposing measures about tackling corruption, political reform, etc. without incorporating failed liberal western policies by western backed opposition and NGO to become like Serbia but is not bound a failed theocratic ideology like Communism or Islamism that they have in Iran.
Alexander Dugin regarded as Putin’s ideologue although he failed to come up with a good Eurasia economic/political identity movement has wrote books dealing with Russia and the post Cold war order incorporating ideas of the French new right and geopolitics with the latest being The Forth Political Theory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QrnJKf-hhE
Saker,
The headlines you read about Pakistan are about the terrorism in Pakistan. Actions of terrorists in Pakistan are related to their Saudi and US funders and backers, rather than popular sentiment. Electoral success of Wahabi inspired political parties is generally confined to places like the North West Frontier Province.
President and head of the Pakistan People’s Party, Asif Ali Zardari, who is by the way extremely corrupt and unpopular, happens to be Shia. It would be impossible for him to be accepted into Pakistani society to such a degree if the headline’s you are judging Pakistan by were accurate barometers of the country’s sentiments. Zardari happens to be Baluch himself, but that’s another mater.
Here’s a report by tft:
http://www.terrorfreetomorrow.org/upimagestft/TFT%20Pakistan%20Poll%20Report.pdf
70% of Pakistanis are favorable towards Iran and Iranians. Only Saudi Arabia and China were more regarded more favorably.
Here’s another poll by TFT from 2006:
http://www.terrorfreetomorrow.org/articlenav.php?id=87
The very first question about is about Nuclear Weapons, and 70% of Pakistani’s explicitly support it their too.
I’m sure you can find more data on the matter, this was just from a quick google.
Also keep in mind that Pakistani’s don’t speak Arabic, and have a relatively free press, so their are immune, to a large extent, from a lot of the anti-Iran propaganda that is reaching a fevered pitch in Arabic countries.
Let me address the question of whether Wahabists are *truly* Muslim.
This is in many ways an odd question. There is no Muslim equivalent of ‘The Church’, so no decision needs to be made on who is or isn’t a member of it. There aren’t any ready standards as to when to ‘excomunicate’ or ‘shun’ someone who professes to be a Muslim. In the minds of most theologians, the question of whether or not a specific person is or is not a Muslim is between them and God alone.
Salafists/Wahabists currents of thought, are responsible for many religious innovations with which a large majority of Sunni and Shia Muslims, don’t buy. Not least among these is the practice declaring people and community’s they disagree with as apostates. It should be clear why Shia especially find it important to reject the principle that underlies this behavior, independent of any arguments that appeal the specific content of any specific beliefs held by a specific individual or community.
Masoud
P.S.
Not too long ago, there was a lot of chatter about the Balouch separatist movement in Iran. The sectarian makeup of Sistan and Baluchistan province, as well as the massive terrorist attacks being carried out by Jundullah were presented as irrefutable evidence of the popular base of this movement, by western backed media that introduced Abdolmalek Riggi to their audience as a freedom fighter.
Well, IRI intelligence caught Mr. Rigi, as well as other leaders of that movement, put them on trial, and for the most part executed them. Iran’s Eastern border has been relatively calm ever since.
In the last year, talk of the Iran-Pakistan pipeline started becoming serious. Lot’s of people didn’t like that talk.
Now Pakistani Baluchistan seems to have come down with a case of very well funded and organized sectarian hate.
@Masoud
The problems of Pakistan and the backlash of from terrorism is of its own making.
Since the 80’s and especially the 90’s working with Saudi Arabia it has supported radical Islamic separatist movements sparking wars in Russia, India, Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Balkans.
Pakistani ISI were so active in the first Chechen war they were said to be actually running it that continued and extended more after the war ended running camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan itself.
They supported the most radical elements in Afghanistan before and after the Soviet-Afghan war and installed the Taliban regime in power and kept it in power creating oil companies and consortium with Saudi Arabia to transport Turkmenistan gas through Afghanistan and Pakistan and tried but failed to get the US on board as documented in the $116 trillion dollar 9/11 lawsuit.
http://www.investigativeproject.org/case/463
Pakistan working with Saudi Arabia was/is the number 1 whore of the US and western intelligence and now that US forces are occupying the country are facing the same extremist mind set from the regions that it helped cultivate against its own regime after 9/11.
@VineyrardSaker
I hope you like this.
Shaykh Abdulhakim Murad
We would rather feel that there existed some authentic connection between our worldview and that of the Western elite: but such a link appears no longer to exist. It is not that we are extreme. It is not we who destroyed the bridge. We are simply holding to the norms generally recognised by our species for 99% of its history. It is the West that is extreme, that has grown strange, that seems to have gone mad.
And yet amidst this hideous visual cacophony, occasional insights can be observed; and these can be of an almost revelatory intensity. Almost all 20th century Western artists have been well aware of their cultural situation, as wreckers of a religious view of the world, and as the depictors of its chaotic, formless, ugly successor. A few, however, have recognised the persuasiveness of the alternatives. And a very few, those who have escaped the besetting racism and Islamophobia of European culture, have acknowledged the beauty and depth of Islam.
One such artist was the Russian, Kasimir Malevich. Malevich lived and worked around the time of the Russian Revolution, a time of the concatenation of the thousands of rival movements, religious, mystical, atheistic, or aesthetic, which collided in the early 1920s, only for the satanic force of Josef Stalin to emerge from the ruins. It was, for a few brief and heady seasons, a time when the dead weight of the country’s inherited hierarchies, both religious and royal, seemed to have been removed to make way for a vision that was not only more just, but also more spiritually sighted.
One manifestation of this was the demand by the young artists of the Left that the authorities abolish all representational forms of painting. Figurative art, they rightly pointed out, is inherently oppressive. It privileges youth over age; wealth over poverty. In its religious modes it attributes gender and race to the divine. Hence the revolutionary slogan:
A White Army officer
when you catch him
you beat him
and what about Raphael
it’s time to make
museum walls a target
let the mouths of big guns
shoot the old rags of the past!
The Bolsheviks themselves were horrified by this. For them, representational art provided the foundation for all mass propaganda. And in due time, Stalin and his successors patronised and enforced the crude style of Socialist Realism, images of muscular peasant men and women gazing up at the new socialist dawn. The titanism and human-worship of the Renaissance had been restored; only the desire for greater freedom was removed.
But in the white-hot heat of the moment, when the old was crashing down with the Winter Palace and the Kazan Cathedral, and the new, in the form of Soviet gigantism had not yet had its triumph, a crack in European culture appeared that for a brief but remarkable instant admitted the light of Islam.
@saker
hope you enjoy this piece..
By Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murard
Malevich’s greatest work is a painting called Black Square. This is a square, painted completely in black, against a white border. He called it his ‘absolute symbol of modernity’, a modernity which he hoped would be pure and spiritual, as opposed to the congealed decadence of 19th-century Western materialism.
He chose the image of a Black Square because it is the total inversion of the Western tradition of recording the writhing diversity of the manifest world. He wrote, later, that when painting it he felt ‘black nights within’, and ‘a timidity bordering on fear’, but when he neared completion he experienced a ‘blissful sensation of being drawn into a desert where nothing is real but feeling, and feeling became the substance of my life.’
What on earth could this mean? The modern British writer Bruce Chatwin, who knew Islam well, commented as follows:
‘This is not the language of a good Marxist, but of Meister Eckhart – or, for that matter, of Mohammed. Malevich’s Black Square, his ‘absolute symbol of modernity’, is the equivalent
in painting of the black-draped Ka‘ba at Mecca, the shrine in a valley of sterile soil where
all men are equal before God.’
Here we have the key to understanding Malevich’s achievement. In this painting, which for Muslims must be the most significant work of 20th century art, a cultured Russian finally breaks through the carapace of solidified reality, and intuits the nature of truth. Simplicity is beauty. And it is depth, instilling awe, and an authentic rather than sentimental emotion.
Malevich, in a moment of cultural turmoil, and of intense, blazing realisation, had stumbled upon the principle of pure beauty. Only the Real is real; manifestation and its diversities are chimera. The line between the two is razor-sharp: Qul ja’ al-Haqq wa-zahaqa’l-batil, inna’l-batila kana zahuqa. ‘Say: Reality has come, and falsehood has vanished; falsehood was ever evanescent.’ This was, after all, the aya recited by the Prophet (s) as he rode around the Ka‘ba, pointing with his stick to each of the 360 idols in turn, upon which they fell over into the dust.
Malevich died, and Socialist Realism ruled triumphant. But for a second in Europe’s history, the truth had been glimpsed.
At the centre of the Islamic religion lies the Ka‘ba. Uniting the aspects of the divine beauty and the divine majesty, it is ‘a place of resort and safety for human beings’. It lies in a city protected by the prayer of Ibrahim al-Khalil, alayhi’l-salam: ‘My Lord, make this land a sanctuary.’
The Ka‘ba has many meanings. One of these pertains to the Black Stone, which is the point at which the pilgrims come closest to its mystery.
‘Ali ibn Abi Talib narrated that when God took the Covenant, He recorded it in writing
and fed it to the Black Stone, and this is the meaning of the saying of those who touch
the Black Stone during the circumambulation of the Ancient House: ‘O God! This is
believing in You, fulfilling our pledge to You, and declaring the truth of Your record.’’
The Ka‘ba therefore, while it is nothing of itself – a cube of stones and mortar – represents and reminds its pilgrims of the primordial moment of our kind. Allah speaks of a time before the creation of the world:
‘when your Lord brought forth from the Children of Adam, from their reins, their seed,
and made them testify of themselves, He said: ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They said, ‘Yea!
We testify!’ That was lest you should say on the Day of Arising: ‘Of this we were
unaware.’’ (7:171)
When we visit the House, we are therefore invited to remember the Great Covenant: that forgotten moment when we committed ourselves to our Maker, acknowleding Him as the source of our being. The Black Stone itself is, according to a hadith which Imam Tirmidhi declares to be sound, ‘yaqutatun min yawaqit al-janna’ – a gemstone from Paradise itself.
if you wish yo see the full article.
http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/ahm/sunnah.htm
enjoy your holidays.
@Mazen: Malevich’s Black Square, his ‘absolute symbol of modernity’, is the equivalent in painting of the black-draped Ka‘ba at Mecca
That is a very interesting thought for which I am grateful to you. I need to look into that further.
The Black Stone itself is, according to a hadith which Imam Tirmidhi declares to be sound, ‘yaqutatun min yawaqit al-janna’ – a gemstone from Paradise itself.
Is that to be understood spiritually or literally?
Cheers, kind regards, fi amanillah,
The Saker
@Saker
The Black Stone itself is, according to a hadith which Imam Tirmidhi declares to be sound, ‘yaqutatun min yawaqit al-janna’ – a gemstone from Paradise itself.
Is that to be understood spiritually or literally?
First of all I’m 23 yr old student, I don’t have the correct knowledge and its inappropriate for me to answer. But, I called a scholar in the city which i reside who’s intellect and spirituality I uphold dearly and with the utmost respect. His reply was by the consensus of scholars it is to be taken literally.
Take Care
Mazen
Calling Yusuf al-Qaradawi a clown is giving him too much credit
He is a pimp. A carrier of disease to which sadly as Saker points out Sunnis are more susceptible.
spot-on!
Abdelnour
A revealing statement by STRATFOR’s George Friedman proves a 100 years old concept: KEEP RUSSIA AND GERMANY SEPERATED! – Same as Mackinder proposed 1904 and Zbigniew Brzeziński from the TC adopted in his book from 1997…
Plus a roller coaster ride on the tracks of global his-story….
FarSight3 in German at: http://wp.me/p5gE0B-b4
The Umma is potentially a firm ally of Russia and of China. Polarised verbally at the time of the 9/11 False Flag deliberately by the United States and then it has made regime obliteration it’s foreign policy, whereby US Islamic allies are bombed to stone-age status. Splintering Islam itself into an effectively terrorised entire Umma, now over two thirds ready to destroy the West if only to survive it and allow the over two billion Islamics live…free of Western fascist extinction of faith based populations. If Russia openly laid out it’s rules of acceptance into Russian citizenship identity and safety to the Umma: keep our laws, respect us as you respect Islam, Russia will welcome any and all Muslims.
Since the US plan is to move all Islamics out of Europe to go back to flattened original, countries killing millions more Muslims, such an invitation could triple the devoted Russian population who will lay down their lives to save her from the Anglo West. Mirroring and strengthening China’s population as more of them are allowed to see and to feel the Anglo-Western promise of annihilation. The Chinese Uigurs could be tamed and brought into mainstream modern China as assets.
There is a hadith of 70 000 jews from Isfahan. How do you view this in term of politics? http://www.google.com.bn/search?q=70+000+jews+from+isfahan&biw=1366&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=vid&sa=X&ei=r59LVerjC8TKmwW32IDABg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAg