March in Wootton Bassett

Introduction:

Wootton Bassett mourns dead British soldiers

In the first week of January 2010, Mr. Anjem Choudary’s group decided but not announced to do a march in the British town of “Wootton Bassett” in the interest of conveying muslim issues in Afghanistan and the negative impact of war against Taliban. The news was leaked and British public complained. In the interest of majority and elections,  Home Secretary banned Anjem’s organisation “Islam4UK” and “Al Muhajiroon” on 12th January. Mr. Anjem told in response that it was victory of Islam and muslims. An example of Wootton Bassett’s giving honour to dead soldiers is given in the link below:

Wootton Bassett sheds tears for soldiers

Mr. Anjem’s Comments after Islam4UK was Banned:

These were Mr. Anjem’s comments after he received the ban order from Home Secretary:

Anjem Choudhary speaks to public

“Islam 4 UK has been contacted by authorities to (force) shut down its operations, we stress this domain name will no longer be used by us, but the struggle for Khilafah will continue regardless of what the disbelievers plot against the Muslims. It is the duty of all Muslims to rise up and call for the Khilafah wherever they may be.

The Prophet (saw) said: “I have nothing to do with people (Muslims) who live with the disbelivers and do not command the good (call to shariah) and forbid the evil (expose and undermine that which is other than Islam).”"

We shall analyze the ideology of Mr. Anjem and his approach. At the same time, we shall discuss the benefits and disadvantages of outcomes of wars of Afghanistan and Iraq to a limited extent.

Khalifah, its Theory and Implementation:

I have published an article on Khilafah that can be read at the following link:

Why have a Khalifa for muslim ummah?

As mentioned in the article, except few Khalifas at the beginning of Islam, all were either Kings or Sultans. Those Kings who were not Sultans,  they named themselves Khalifa to earn the people’s respect because Khalifa is considered the top leadership position in an Islamic state. The successors of these Khalifas were their children, their lifestyle was lavish and did not represent general public and their interests. They rewarded and assigned death sentence to people at their will and likeness or hatred.

When we consider the definition of Khalifa and his job responsibilities, it is not very clear in the current world climate. Also, Sharia laws are mentioned a lot but not described in detail in the sense of theory and implementation. Also, if implementation of Sharia laws are are performed according to a particular sect at the cost of ignoring all other sects and other faiths, then these Sharia laws will not represent the true participation of Islamic and minority society.

The major concern is due to the fact that Sharia laws may be vowed to be implemented in the interest of oppressing other sects. Some countries where one sect is dominant, other sects are not allowed in government positions, practice their way of praying and following their religious requirements. They cannot protest against discrimination otherwise they will be put in jail where nobody will know their location and the number of days they are vanished. Even the education system and the Islamic universities in these countries are involved in hate of other sects. The dominant sects believes that their sect is the best and others are deviant from the right path.  It is the same case for all sects that they think that they are on right path due to their interpretation of Islam and others are on wrong path and that is the reason that different sects exist today. But, it is fine as far as each sect practices its beliefs according to their understandings and does not discriminate or create problems and hatred for other sects.

So, if implementation of Khalifa position and Sharia laws are to create the dominance of one sect that Khalifa belongs to and oppress other sects rather than treating them equally, then there is no need for such Khilafah. It is not only the matter for muslim sects, but also for other minority faiths as Khilafah is also supposed to take care of their needs and practices and not impose its penalties and discrimination on them.

Therefore, it is important that if Khalifah is implemented, the muslim people should be free to practice the sect they belong to and not harrassed, hated or discriminated in jobs, education or development of their population and land. If that freedom cannot be achieved in the Khilafah to be implemented, then muslim countries can keep their Presidents or Prime Ministers and the parliamanet will represent all the sects and minorities of the state.In this way, the decisions of the state will have the participation of all the groups of the community of state.

If the participation of all sects and minorities cannot be achieved in the current Presidential system, then even the name of state may be changed to “Republic of” instead of “Islamic Republic of” to reflect that country takes care of all faiths and sects. That does not mean that the country will protect the crazy practices of gays and unmarried sexual relationships and legalise them. Also, those ways that lead to destruction of muslim society will also need to be curbed and these will still be agreed by the participation of all sects in the development of the rules. But, the dominancy of one sect and curbing or minorities will be protected. The idea is that rules will still be based on Islam and the democratic law but it will allow freedom to all muslim sects and other faiths and not curb and oppress them.

Was Mr. Anjem Wise to March in Wootton Bassett:

As Mr. Anjem Choudhary had planned to march in Wootton Bassett, it was not a wise decision as that town is known for honouring British soldiers who die in the wars for Britain. Currently, these soldiers are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is correct that muslims are also dying in these countries, but when we observe deeply, there are and have been advantage to the wars being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Democracy is not we see and hear

Britain considers itself Democratic, so it should allow the march to happen as Britain is proud for freedom of speech. It has taken the decision even when Islam4UK did not formnally announce the decision to public yet. In any case, if an organisation is not participating in activities that are against the country, then letting the people to show their views is fine as long as these protestsn are peaceful and convey their message in educated ways. The banning of the organisation seems to be a step that is the outcome of panic that was created under the public outcry and pressure on Home Secreatary.

Iraq War and its Impacts:

US forces capture Saddam Hussain

The removal of Saddam Hussain has resulted in the ousting and ban of a regime that was known to discrimante, hate and kill other sects. There was no political and religious freedom at the time of Saddam. Now, the government of Iraq is made from people who represent the majority and all minorities of the country. Therefore, although it is very sad that many people were killed in Iraq and there was destruction of Iraq as well, but Iraq is now in a position where it can decide about its future roadmap and develop the country towards achieving those goals set by its multisect government.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died in Iraq war and more dying everyday

Of course, the unnecessary killings of Iraqi people and abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American forces and BlackWater is not acceptable and these forces should be punished for these crimes. Also, some of the practices of American soldiers have not been excusable at all, such as destruction of Baghdad library where many historical and rare books were part of the heritage of Iraq and Muslim ummah and the ripping off of museums which did not belong to Saddam regime but the public of Iraq.

We know that the decision of raiding Iraq was mainly to get control of oil wells and these should have been liberated from Americans now or soon and the weapons of mass destruction was a hoax to lure public into approval of war. But, getting Saddam regime ousted and putting in a government that represents the majority and minorities is the good outcome that is helping the progress and development of Iraq already.

War in Afghanistan and its Outcomes:

Taliban bombed girls schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan

In Afghanistan and Pakistan, in the name of Islam, the illiterate Taliban group imposed the non-tolerant sect of Islam and banned ladies from studies, practicing any business and work and going out for daily needs. During the life of Prophet Muhammad, women were free to move, go out in the city and do business, just as the wife of Muhammad (PBUH), Khadeeja (PBUH) did. So, therefore, these Taliban people were simply implementing their passive introvert culture in the name of Islam, which was oppressing to the women and not developing ladies who can bring up educated children and cannot participate in the development of economy.

Also, Taliban did not allow other sects and faiths to practice as so essentially treating the country as representative of their ideology and practices only. That non-tolerant behaviour, implementation of their introvert culture in the name of Islam and promotion of women illiteracy to keep the control of their women by men resulted in a country that is unstable and the country cannot grow and develop to face the growing world challenges apart from providing the basic needs of its people. What more? Taliban resort to violence to solve the problems rather going for the root causes and eradicate these by education, representation of all groups of society, tolerance and sound management practices. Therefore, it is improtant to curb such extremist groups from Afghan society if they do not accept the call for moderation and continue doing violence. Considering these circumstances, the allied and Afghan forces are doing good work to prevent extremism in Islam which is a very tolerant religion.

Taliban who were hero have now become zero!

The bad thing is that the same guys who fought for Americans to remove Soviets from Afghanistan and became heroes are now terrorists because they have taken up America instead of Russia. America that provided money and weapons is now stopping all the money, weapons and supplies to Taliban because they are against American treatment of muslims in Palestine, favouritism of Israel in all its bad deeds including the raiding of Gaza, banning and blocking of Hamas that came into power purely by fair elections, creation of unrest and development of nuclear technology in Iran, keeping its eyes closed of those oppressive muslim regimes who are not following democracies but are American loyals and the creation of interference in Sudan again for control of oil wells.These are the dual standards of west that muslims complain for and most probably muslims will have to use the same techniques to handle in the same way but they have bindings in religion that stops them from using any such hypocracies in life.

Muslims support Taliban because they are muslims but they do not understand the impact of Taliban regime if they come in power again. The development of muslim countries has many challenges to keep up with developed countries and these are not in terms of taking bad social and religious practices but in the interest of reaching the same level of education, development of infrastructure, indsustry and economy to stand in the frontline of developed countries.

Was Banning of Islam4UK a Victory of Muslims:

The calling of banning of “Islam4UK” has two facets:

The first one shows another blow in the name of Islam as it represents that muslims in UK were not promoting multi-culturalism and tolerance and brought it into public notice something that was showing the insensitivities of muslims for the people in UK although it was only the practice of Mr. Anjem and his associates. They think in a very narrow approach, are intolerant and ignore the diverse nature of UK as a society.

The second facet shows that if there is public outcry, all the rules of democracy are put into the recycle bin and for the sake of election, the British government would take steps to silence the noise and not follow the rules of democracy. It shows the same picture that was painted in my article before that we only have freedom till we are not politically correct. As soon as we go against the mainstream, we are punished for being different and not following the path taken by majority. Please read my article at the following address to know more about freedom of speech in the modern world:

Freedom of Speech

Is Interpretation of the Hadees Mentioned Applicable to a Multicultural Society?

Mr. Anjem may be right in quoting the Hadees in his comments, but even if it is authentic, it has been interpreted wrong and does not represent the strategy to live among a multi-cultural society as in case of UK. Firstly, as in Hadees, living among the disbelievers can be avoided by Mr. Anjem to relocate to a muslim country and then if he does not choose this path for himself and his family, he needs to be tolerant and rather be an example for unbelievers to follow him and accept Islam as religion instead of call to apply Sharia laws which mean that UK will have 2 judicial systems in parallel, one is general law and the other is Sharia law. Muslims can, of course protest for any laws discriminating muslims or against muslim practices but otherwise not having Sharia laws is not an issue. Our Sufis and Imams did not resort to power for spreading Islam but their personal qualities, religious and personal values, care of minorities and their treatment brought minorities to come into the unmbrella of Islam.

Conclusion:

As far as Mr. Anjem’s comment against war in Afghanistan as war against muslims, it is not true as the war is against those elements who will be a threat to multi-cultural and tolerant Afghanistan and so should be curbed as the group of Taliban does not accept anything except their ideology.

Regarding exposing and undermining others than Islam means that muslims should not opt for multi-cultural thinking but intolerance, so it will always create a war between other groups against Mr. Anjem’s group. Therefore, it is not a choice to practice by muslims in todays’ multi-cultural and diverse Islamic society.

I hope that Taliban and his allies will come to moderation and discourage the elements leading to destruction of society, education, tolerance, development of country, resources, economy, provision of basic needs to the people and pure Islamic values. Also, a muslim should be a leader to follow and  not the intolerant muslim who does not allow participation of minorities of society. This does not mean that a muslim society will accept Gay groups or umarried couples just because men want to save money when getting divorce and try many partners as they like.

At the same time, America and its allies should focus on root causes and not firefighting all the time and draining their resources which are only in advantage of defense equipment manufacturers. If America knows and does not use fishbone diagram to know the root causes of problems in muslim countries, then it is the fault of America to be illiterate when its people has so called big degrees from its universities.

Obama got Nobel Peace (Promise) prize

There are high hopes from President Obama for peace, but the award of Nobel Peace prize is something that has been awarded in pre-emption to lure him to restore peace rather than after achievement of world peace that he can be proud of. This award has also decreased the image of the prize as politically motivated rather real achievements as made by Nelson Mandela in South Africa. The two prize holders, one who has spent a lifetime for humanity and peace and the other one who promises peace and has not done any thing yet are entirely different in achievement and should not be in the same league. Instead, Obama should have been awarded Nobel Peace Promise Award that would show his promises to the world as he did not achieve any thing by that time. Even the submission of Nobel peace prize application was done after few months of taking his office when he was just settling in the White House.

The practice of British democracy has shown up in the banning of Islam4UK as it clearly signifies that anynone who goes against the path selected by government is not allowed to protest peacefully if majority public opinion is not supporting the protesters.

Last but not least, there is truth in the poster below: