It would be naïve to assume that the division of the
Middle East was done solely to benefit the local Arabs. It is likely that the
British wanted to retain a degree of control over the strategically important
oilfields which they and the Americans had discovered and developed there.
Whilst the British and Americans no doubt played all
sorts of dirty games in the region and propped up all manner of unsavoury
regimes in order to keep the oil flowing; this happened all around the world.
Whereas in other parts of the world the trend has been
for these brutal regimes to give way to democracy; in the Islamic world this
hasn’t happened. Islam considers democracy to be an abomination.
This is
because it creates man made laws which are above Allah’s Law (Sharia). For this
reason, any attempt to impose democracy on an Islamic country is very likely to
fail. Islamic parties will simply get themselves elected and then work towards
replacing democracy with Sharia (as is happening in Pakistan).
For this reason, Islamic societies tend towards either
totalitarian theocratic rule (Sharia) or a dictator brutal enough to prevent
this from happening. Attempts at democracy are usually either outright bloody
failure (Iraq, Afghanistan and Algeria) or propped up by a secular military
(Indonesia, Turkey). In the case of Malaysia, (which the British expended a
great deal of money and lives to turn into a functioning democracy) a single
(Muslim) party has held power since independence.
This suggests that it isn’t
all that democratic anyway. Muslim populations will be exploding in the Western
democracies over the next few decades. This is likely to create the same sort
of problems there.
During the period of Western control of Islamic lands,
Islam lost most of its overt political power. It survived however, mainly in
its religious form. Muslims enjoyed a period of relative freedom. Women could
walk unveiled, secular education became accessible to many and the compulsion
for Jihad was mostly put on hold.
Unfortunately for the Muslims however, a
culture does not change easily in a few years, or even a few decades. Islamic
societies were still burdened with many practices which severely retarded their
economic progress.
The only industry which did boom was the oil industry. This
was mainly run by Western companies and was unable to move elsewhere. Most of
the profits from this industry which came back were lost in corruption[1].
In 1928, an Egyptian school teacher by the name of
Hasan al-Banna, founded a society called the Muslim Brotherhood. This was a
fundamentalist group dedicated to the reintroduction of traditional Islamic
teachings (Koran and Sunnah) and law, (Sharia) to the Muslim world.
It also
advocated the forced imposition of Islamic rule over the whole world. They
believed in the use of violence to achieve their goals. They understood however,
that the West was too powerful to defeat in this way. Instead, they set about
utilizing the other tactics of Jihad such as “Taquiya” or sacred deceit,
corruption and infiltration.
Whilst the brotherhood has had strained and often
bloody relations with many of the secular Arab dictatorships, it found a warm
welcome in some of the Gulf States. A number of wealthy Arabs shared the same
goals as the brotherhood. Conveniently, they also had the money to put their
plans into action.
One of the Brotherhoods offshoots is Al-Qaeda and you can
see this structure in its organization. Wealthy Saudi, Osama Bin Laden is at
the top supplying funds. Spiritual leadership meanwhile comes from his Egyptian
No 2, Al Zawahiri. Organizational skills and planning, (for the 9/11 attacks at
least) were provided by Egyptian Khalid Sheik Mohammed.
The brotherhood’s motto is:
“Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader.
Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest
hope.”
The Brotherhood has a number of violent Jihadi groups
under its influence. These include Al-Qaeda and Hamas but it has many more
offshoots which do not overtly support violence. The following is a list of its
North American subgroups:
·
American Trust Publications
·
Association of Muslim
Scientists and Engineers
·
Association of Muslim Social
Scientists of North America
·
Audio-Visual Centre
·
Baitul Mal, Inc.
·
Foundation for International
Development
·
International Institute of
Islamic Thought
·
Islamic Association for
Palestine, parent group of CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations)
·
Islamic Book Service
·
Islamic Centres Division
·
Islamic Circle of North America
·
Islamic Education Department
·
Islamic Housing Cooperative
·
Islamic Information Centre
·
Islamic Medical Association of
North America
·
Islamic Society of North
America (ISNA)
·
ISNA Fiqh Committee
·
ISNA Political Awareness
Committee
·
Islamic Teaching Centre
·
Malaysian Islamic Study Group
·
Mercy International Association
·
Muslim Arab Youth Association
·
Muslim Businessmen Association
·
Muslim Communities Association
·
Muslim Students Association
·
Muslim Youth of North America
·
North American Islamic Trust
·
Occupied Land Fund (later known
as the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development)
·
United Association for Studies
and Research
I expect this pattern is repeated in most countries of
the world, especially the Western democracies. In the UK, the largest Islamic
organization is the Muslim Council for Britain which is a Brotherhood
organization. Since this list was published the Holy Land Foundation has been
closed down. They were successfully prosecuted for funding terrorist
organizations in Palestinian territories. CAIR was named as an unindicted
co-conspirator.
[1] http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/results/#CountryResults
2011 corruption index Top 10 least corrupt countries, 9 are majority
Christian. Bottom 10 most corrupt countries, 6 are majority Muslim.
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