By Mohamed Jibril

The produced, intoxicating and mesmerizing knowledge of western scholars and its full-fledged, hegemonic and enduring hypnotization of less-sophisticated minds are evident. It is the very knowledge that, due to its proficiency of formulating, manufacturing, and manipulating history and politics, swayed blindly the colonized to acknowledge that the colonizers (who ruthlessly murder them, rape their women, destroy their villages, and take their resources forcefully…etc) are doing a favor for the colonized by civilizing them, liberating them, and, above all, coaching them the art of “democracy” and “freedom.” Apparently, a case in point being Mr. Bashir Goth’s imperceptive and unripe article, entitled; “Men Die For Other Men, Not For God,” which contains, despite its sweeping statements and empirical faux pas, numerous grave errors at best and insulting lexis at worst. First, Mr. Goth failed to grasp the historical factors that played a significant role for the rise of those whom he clumsily refers to as “Jihadist.” Secondly, he misquoted the arguments set forth by Sayyid Qutub of Egypt. Lastly, he falls into the trap of Cultural Talk, which politicizes culture and negates historical facts.

Before examining and correcting Mr. Goth’s blunder, I would like to draw the reader’s attention to the ambiguity and vagueness of his title, “Men Die For Other Men, Not For God.” One wonders whether Mr. Goth deciphers the message behind his title. First and foremost; Mr. Goth is not an Islamic scholar and, therefore, doesn’t have the authority to recommend a fatwa-like statement of whether a men is a Martyrdom or “Not For God.” Secondly, at the outset of his article, Mr. Goth wrote; “I can understand people rejecting change and determined to continue to live as the Prophet lived in the 14th century.” This is precisely the tone of the colonizers which justifies their brutal imperial mission and Mr. Goth fails to solicit: Do people, rationally, “reject change?” Alas, he didn’t comprehend the significant of this sentence (which he reads from somewhere else). To assist him appreciate his own sentence, historically speaking, in the late 16 th century, European colonizers launched their imperial mission by the name of “civilizing mission” in order to justify their cruelty. The “civilizing mission” holds the notion that non-European people (Mr. Goth is one of them) are “barbarians” and “savages” that lagged far behind the human progress of modernity and rationality and, therefore, it is the duty and the responsibility of European powers to assist these less-fortunate. Regrettably, Mr. Goth, who belongs to colonized people, agrees with them.

To come back to our discussion, Mr. Goth, first, fails to mention once, let alone realize, the significant historical factors that provoked these scholars. Instead, he thought, short-sightedly, he could find the answer in the Holy Quran and the Hadith. Contrary to Mr. Goth’s mirage, Islamic reformists had felt, long before Mawdudi and Qutb, that colonialism was the key challenge facing contemporary Muslims. One of the first reformers who posed the question was Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1839-1897) from Iran. Al-Afghani’s main goal was to enhance and improve his people’s educational level and his traditional “madrassah has included fiqh (jurisprudence), falsafah (philosophy), and irfan (mysticism)”. Al-Afghani had traveled many parts of the world and his experience of India, in the colonial period, convinced and “exposed him to Britain’s brutal repression of the 1857-58 anticolonial revolt in India.” Further, Al-Afghani faced the difficulty of improving his people’s education due to the colonial oppression. Therefore, he came into the conclusion that “if being modern meant, above all, free rein for human creativity and originality, how could a colonial society modernize by imitation?” Not going into great details, Al-Afghani’s doctrine has nothing to do with religion per se, either the Holy Quran or the Hadith, and it was far from a throwback to a premodern culture. Rather, it was a response to a colonial hegemonic domination and subjugation upon his people. The colonial powers in his time labeled him as a “fanatic,” “terror,” and “fundamentalist” in order to silence his critics and his mobilization of the colonized to realize their freedom. Though they might be other minor factors, this is the major crucial feature to study and appreciate if one desires to examine the raise of the Islamic reformers, which Mr. Goth fails to understand.

Secondly, Mr. Goth misquoted the arguments set forth by Sayyid Qutub of Egypt. Mr. Goth attempts to convince his readers that Qutb asserts in his book “Milestone,” that “After the hegemony of Islam, people will not have the liberty of thought to embrace any religion of their choice.” This quotation is fabricated by Mr. Goth and it is not from the Qutb’s book “Milestone,” which Qutb wrote while he was in the prison and which is one of my online library collections. Moreover, Qubt didn’t advocate anyplace in his book for the killing of children and innocent civilians. Either Mr. Goth took it from somewhere else or he added his own words to strengthen his groundless argument. Instead Sayid Qutb argues that

Islam is a declaration of the freedom of every man or women form servitude to other humans. It seeks to abolish all those systems and governments that are based on the rule of some men over others, or the servitude of some to other. When Islam liberates people from these external pressures and invites them to its spiritual message, it appeals to their reason, and gives them complete freedom to accept or reject it.

Indeed, “Islam does not force people to accept its belief, but it wants to provide a free environment in which they will have the choice to believe.” Yet, Mr. Goth naively called Qutb a “men possessed by certain demons” (Astaaq furu Laah). One can easily detect the contradiction between the two quotations. As a scholar, Qutb would most unlikely contradict himself in a same book. The problem with Mr. Goth is, therefore, he attempts to write about something that he has not studies.

To add insult into the injury, Mr. Goth goes on to announce that “it is modern age self-appointed prophets who have hijacked Islam for their own personal goals… such as Sayyid Abul A’la Al Mawdudi of Pakistan and Sayyid Qutub of Egypt [who] preached their own rigid brand of Islam and converted the Muslim youth into time bombs.” Once again, Mr. Goth appallingly fails to raise the question: what was Mawdudi’s and Qutb’s “personal goals” that motivates them to hijack Islam? His incomplete historical and political knowledge manifests itself. Briefly, let me examine whether Mawdudi has his own self-interest, as Mr. Goth inaccurately asserted, or the interest of the Muslims, Uma. First, Abul A’la Al Mawdudi (1903-1979) “appeared at the moment when the ulama, organized as the Jam’ihat-i-Ulama-i-Hind (society of the Ulama of India), were supporting a multireligious, decentralized yet united India against the demand, led by political intellectuals, for the creation of Pakistan.” As Al-Afghani, Mawdudi, concerned the marginalized and subjugated Muslims, contends that “if you really want to root out corruption now so widespread on God’s earth, stand up and fight against corrupt rule. It is useless to think you can change things by preaching alone.” Every rational mind would agree that Mawdudi’s main objective was to liberate his people, as well as all Muslims, from the corrupt rulers. Once more, it has nothing to do with religion per se. Rather it was a response to corrupt rulers within Muslim territories. Yet, those in power accused him being “fanatic” in order to silence him. Also, Mr. Goth preferred to call sheikh Mawdudi as man who is “inciting hatred from mosque pulpits” (Subhana Laah). It is obvious that Mr. Goth hasn’t comprehended the inspiration of political Islam.

Lastly, Mr. Goth falls into the trap of the Cultural Talk. One can easily argue that the meaning of Cultural Talk is alien to him. The Cultural Talk emphasizes and “assumes that every culture has a tangible essence that defines it, and it then explains politics as a consequence of that essence.” Based on this notion, these aforementioned scholars’ teachings are the basics of Islamic religion. Thus, it equates and qualifies the practice of “terrorism” as “Islamic.” This view is politically designed to suppress the historical facts and the affect of the enduring imperial hegemony and, also, to sort out these who resist the colonial domination. Bluntly, it ignores the fact, politically, that these people are refusing to live under colonial rule and shift the blame on the culture or the religion. This is very challenging to comprehend for Mr. Goth who just reads few articles written by western scholars or some Muslim ignorant/puppets.

In conclusion, Mr. Goth contradicted himself by saying that, “These Jihadist apostles have dominated the thinking of the Muslim world in for much of the 20th century….[and] it was difficult to find a voice higher than that of the revisionist apostles.” This statement begs the question: why do they “dominated the thinking of the Muslims world?” and, more importantly, why is it “difficult to find a voice higher than that of the revisionist apostles?” This indicates that the reason they “dominate the thinking of the Muslim world is that they have something to offer for the sake of their people and, as such, people agree with and trust them. And that is the very reason “to find a voice higher than that of” the scholars. If Mr. Goth asks these questions, before jumping into the conclusion, it would most likely compel him to find answers which, as a result, would enlighten his intellectual capacity. It is obvious that Mr. Goth lacks a critical and intellectual capacity to ask questions.

My email is: moh_jibril@yahoo.com

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