I have refrained from using the term “Fundamentalism” for a very good reason. Every Muslim is, by definition, a fundamentalist, in as much as he/she believes in, and tries to practice the fundamental teachings of Islam as much as possible. Obviously, a great majority of Muslims are not fanatics. They only have had the mis-fortune of being identified with a group of extremists by ill informed or biased public media subservient to vested interests.
. Prophet of Islam pledged to protect non-believers and asked them to pay a nominal Tax in lieu of military service. He declared that persons of faith, Christian, Jew, and Zoroastrian if they did good deeds would go to paradise. He discouraged gender discrimination and ordained human rights, which were quite revolutionary for the time.
Roots of “Muslim Fanaticism” can be traced back 1300 years to Abbasid caliphate. They had wrested power from Umayyad, in the name of the prophet’s family, and were apprehensive of the influence of the family whom the people venerated. In order to secure their survival, the caliphs prevailed upon a leading cleric to introduce the concept that Muslims should love, respect and honor only Allah, that the prophet being only a man like any other should be taken at his word only as far as the message (Quran) was concerned and that Muslims were not obliged to follow Hadith (Prophets sayings). By corollary, all the teachings of tolerance, peace, justice and equality went by the board. A ruler was to be obeyed in all respects, if he did not interfere with the practice of fundamentals of Islam.
This was a subtle and fairly successful attempt at undercutting and undermining the prophet’s family, whose leading male members were called Imams.
Ordinary Muslims could not stomach the strictures and continued to venerate the prophet’s family, the first four caliphs and his companions. Academicians sifted through the body of Hadith separating the ones prejudicial to the spirit of Hadith or bereft of common sense, with poor context and reference and interpreting Quran in the light of prophets Hadith and example of life (Sunnah).
Mainstream Islam had already divided into Sunnis (the majority) the adherents of The Quran and Sunnah and Shias (twenty percent, adherents of Ali, the fourth and the last caliph to be elevated to the office by consessus of Muslims). Extremists were on fringes and remained so for about a millennium till Abdul Wahab, a rather way ward cleric, shunned even by his father and brothers, tried to revive the intolerant, exclusionary (excluding nearly all Muslims and believers of other faiths) dogma. No body took any notice of him till he developed a symbiotic relationship with the house of Saud, who was vying with the ruler of Mecca (by the name of Shareef who claimed direct descendence from the prophet) in betraying fellow Muslims, the Turks, to the British and the French.
Wahabism, as the creed came to be known, was limited to Saudi Arabia. Saudis lived a Spartan life; one cannot spread out into luxury on dates and charity of Pilgrims.
Discovery of oil gave Arabs wealth beyond dreams of avarice. They started living it up, indulging in song, wine and women. When Wahabis objected they were paid off and given ample funds to export their creed to the rest of Muslim world.
Defeat of Turkey in WWI ranks with expulsion from Spain, failure of the 1594 siege of Vienna and 1857 war of independence in India as a defining event of the decline of Muslims; they had relinquished their hold on education, research, commerce, and industry. They slid further into the morass of depression and introspection and crept ever closer to fanaticism. Instead of analyzing causes of their decline they blamed non-adherence to true Islam for their sorry state.
This is not with standing many valiant reformers, educationists, and rebels who tried to revive the fortunes of fellow Muslims.
De colonization followed WWII. Muslim countries became independent – essentially in name only- they had no power, little education, commerce, or industry. Three “sovereign” nations Egypt, Syria, and Jordan supported by rest of the Arab world, failed to thwart the attempt of stateless Jews at colonization of Palestine. There were, of course, good reasons for Jewish victory. Egyptian army had guns, which failed to shoot. Syrians were worse and Jordan’s king was in league with the Jews.
The 1951 Coup de tat brought Nasser to power in Egypt. It was the time of Non-aligned movement. Nehru, Soekarno and Tito stood tall. Nasser joined them. In 1956 he wrested control of Suez Canal from the Anglo-French company, stood eyeball to eyeball with English and French and made them blink. France, Britain and Israel attacked, easily overwhelmed the Egyptian forces, but had to retreat ignominiously at the behest of Russian and American leaders. We took out a procession to protest the aggression in Karachi and went to the Pakistan Prime ministers house. All Muslim countries basked in Nasser’s glory, but did little to promote education, industry, commerce or freedom of expression and thought, democracy or good governments. Dictators came and went, kings fell and were restored, corruption and dishonesty became rampant.
Come 1967, Israel again defeated the combined Arab force and dealt another crushing blow to Muslim Psyche.
1971 civil war in the then East Pakistan culminated in ignominious surrender of Pakistan Army to arch rival India. That was televised through the world. That was another horrendous demoralizing event.
In 1973, Egyptian Army gave a more credible performance than any Arab country’s forces had for a thousand years, surprising Israelis and eliminating more than half of its Air/tanks force within forty-eight hours. (The feat was exceeded in 2006 by Hezbollah of Lebanon who with stood the might of Israeli armed forces and made them sue for cease-fire). Moshe Dayan, Israeli defense minister was reported to have said that nothing could stop Egyptian march into Tel Aviv. Inexplicably, Egypt halted its advance.
Muslims were trampled upon everywhere, be it Kashmir, Palestine, India, Algeria, Ethiopia, or East Pakistan.
It would be surprising if fanaticism festering for centuries would not finally break open. Its time came when Zia of Pakistan over threw ZA Bhutto. He had messianic delusions of restoring glory days of Islam. Zia, not an intellectual by any means, was nevertheless a very shrewd operator and saw the opportunity of redemption when Russians went into Afghanistan, and seized it both hands. The country on the brink of economic collapse, was flooded with US dollars. Zia a pariah after executing Bhutto, was lionized by western leaders (much like Musharraf after 9/11). Arms poured in, Mujahideen and Al Qaeda were trained by Pak-American forces and CIA spent hundreds of millions in perception management. USA fully avenged Vietnam defeat and drove Soviet Union out of Afghanistan with the help of Mujahideen, Al Qaeda and Pakistan, as they themselves had been driven out of Vietnam by Vietnamese with the help of China and Russia.
But Al Qaeda under the aegis of Osama bin Laden another messianic leader came to haunt Americans. They spread their wings, fought in Bosnia, Sudan, Algeria and developed sizable following in Pakistan, Indonesia and other Muslim countries.
Big powers use all available agents, regardless of their moral and religious persuasion. USA had no compunction in going to bed with Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussain. But after the end had been achieved, both were discarded and predictably behaved like jilted lovers. World trade towers were initially hit in 1993. American Embassies were attacked in Pakistan and Africa, a US navel ship was suicide bombed and American/western/Israeli interests targeted all over the world before 9/11 catastrophe.
Given wisdom is that Al Qaeda operatives perpetrated the dastardly deed. USA forces went after the organizers of the outrage and successfully demolished Al Qaeda structure, driving Taliban into caves or extinction and installing a puppet regime in Kabul. Of necessity they left the rest of the country to warlords or remnants of Taliban.
God save us from men of messianic vision. Bush wanted to rid the world of terrorism and spread liberty and democracy into bargain. He chose not Saudi Arabia, where all the Al Qaeda and Taliban funds came from or Iran, which openly defied it, but Iraq, which was secular and openly hostile to fanatics seemingly finished the job his father had (wisely) left undone. With great fanfare he even announced “Mission Accomplished on board a US ship.
Not being overly bright or surrounded by people known for their insight, he did not plan for long occupation or an exist strategy.
Terrorism does not exist, grow and multiply in a vacuum. Largely due to self inflicted wounds, taken advantage of by western imperialist interests, devastated by an uninterrupted chain of disasters spanning over the last five hundred years, Muslim psyche has been unrecognizably distorted, and this together with West’s neo-imperialistic campaigns, has spawned the hydra-headed monster of terrorism which feeds on hatred, injustice, poverty, illiteracy, and fanaticism. Attacking Afghanistan, going into Iraq demolishing Palestinian houses, arresting operatives here and there or freezing bank accounts, do not amount to more than cutting off one Hydra head. Two will sprout in its place.
My submission is that it is not a problem of Muslims alone. All humans in the world are in the line of fire. Extremist, intolerant and benighted version of Islam has taken hold of the imagination of Muslims from Indonesia the USA.
Let us look at a few worst affected countries. Israelis for all their power live under siege, not sure if they or their children would come back from work or school unhurt or even alive.
More than four thousand young Americans are already dead in Iraq; tens of thousands have been maimed. Cost in men and material is immeasurable. Civil liberties, Human rights, the very constitution of the country has been compromised, all in the name of self-inflicted paranoia. Over a million Iraqis have lost have lost their lives, more than four million have been injured and one in eight is in miserable exile. The country, once the most advanced in education, technology and health care, has been bombed to stone age. They can only bask in the reflected glory of a journalist who, risking his limb and life, threw a shoe at bush.
Terrorism is a state of mind brought on, not only by fanaticism, but also in a greater measure by desperation. Palestinians, Iraqis, and Al-qaida cannot take on their respective foes head on, so they send suicide bombers, which are morally no different from air bombing and cause corresponding “collateral damage”.
There are legitimate grievances, national devastation, poverty, illiteracy, exploitation of resources, virtual colonization, neo- imperialistic domination by global corporations which own western governments and treat third world governments as virtual serfs, and many other injustices which have to dealt with before terrorism can be brought to heel. Sheer brute force is certainly not the answer.
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