Islamic State: Sign Arnold Toynbee's prayer not granted

By M. I. Bhat

When Israel was wreaking death and destruction from air, sea and ground over imprisoned Palestinians in Gaza, rulers of the Muslim world in general (save Iran) and Arab world in particular lapsed into comma unable to even whisper a word of protest against Israel. Reason: Their master and savior, the US President, had declared, "Israel has right of self-defense." Three years back when Obama declared Bashar al-Assad must go, these Muslim rulers led by "the Saudi Royal Government," like faithful vassals, tried their best to beat one another to accomplish the job.  Now, when the Islamic State (IS) fighters - whom they created, funded and trained against Syrian Government -- broke open off their leash both the savior and his toadies forgot Assad.

The US President declared Islamic State fighters are scourge that must be destroyed. Videos of alleged beheading of journalists provided the proof. However, without pondering for a moment why the beheadings are BLOODLESS or recalling Bush's fake intelligence, Collin Powell's fake anthrax vial or Tony Blair's fake satellite pictures, the Kings, kinglets and wannabe kings across much of the Muslim world responded in one voice - Yes, and hounded for the kill. Wow! We have the valiant air force of the Muslim heartland, the Saudi Kingdom (recall the Saudi flag bearing the first article of the Islamic faith) in concert with the US, British, Canadian, French and Australian air forces targeting the "enemies of Islam" in the "Islamic State!" What a fraternity! Perhaps Saudi-version of Sharia-compliant?

It is these Muslim rulers that the Saudi Grand Mufti exhorts Muslims at large to obey and be loyal. However, neither this Grand Mufti nor any of his types ever tell us ordinary Muslims what makes, for instance, Saudi King or the GCC kinglets or Abdullah of Jordan, Mohammad of Morocco or Sisi of Egypt any different from Saddam Hussein or Mummer Qadaffi or Bashar al-Assad except that the latter weren't too chummy with the US establishment. Or, how does IS' alleged atrocities over-weigh their religious beliefs and conscience than those committed by the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria -- George Bush's "This crusade" and Gen. Wesley Clark's leak "we are going to take down seven countries in five years" - or Israeli carnage in Gaza against which they never ever uttered a word. Let someone read out the following to the Grand Mufti:

USA commits atrocities in the Middle East

"We [...] ignore the virtual library of videos and other imagery the U.S. generated, images widely viewed (or heard about and discussed) with no less horror in the Muslim world than ISIS's imagery is in ours. As a start, there were the infamous "screen saver" images straight out of the Marquis de Sade from Abu Ghraib prison. There, Americans tortured and abused Iraqi prisoners, while creating their own iconic version of crucifixion imagery. Then there were the videos that no one (other than insiders [the US Government refuses to release those for fear of creating more anger and backlash from Muslims across the globe]) saw, but that everyone heard about. These, the CIA took of the repeated torture and abuse of al-Qaeda suspects in its "black sites." In 2005, they were destroyed by an official of that agency, lest they be screened in an American court someday. There was also the Apache helicopter video released by WikiLeaks in which American pilots gunned down Iraqi civilians on the streets of Baghdad (including two Reuters correspondents), while on the sound track the crew are heard wisecracking. There was the video of U.S. troops urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. There were the trophy photos of body parts brought home by U.S. soldiers. There were the snuff films  of the victims of Washington's drone assassination campaigns in the tribal backlands of the planet (or "bug splat," as the drone pilots came to call the dead from those attacks) and similar footage from helicopter gunships.... And that's only to begin to account for some of the imagery produced by the U.S. since September 2001 from its various adventures in the Greater Middle East.

"All in all, the invasions, the occupations, the drone campaigns in several lands, the deaths that ran into the hundreds of thousands, the uprooting of millions of people sent into external or internal exile..."

Just only hours ago the world heard yet more of the moral decadence that the Champion of Human Rights plumbed itself to when the redacted summary of the torture report was released. Lo and behold, US is afraid "release of the report would be used by extremists to incite violence!!!!!!!!!!!!"(italics mine) There is no amount of shame enough for such insolence!!!

But let us not forget that in all this US moral depravity the rulers of the Muslim world were - against the wishes and sentiments of their subjects - on the side of the US Government and its military. It is mind-numbing how Saudi rulers and their acolytes among the Muslim world find common ground with the US and its Western allies in destroying one after the other Muslim country, in the process killing and maiming millions of Muslims! We had one Muslim ruler arresting innocent Muslims in the name of fighting America's war on terror and selling them off to the US torturers for a few petty dollars; some others providing facilities and torturers for torture.

Yet the Grand Mufti invokes the religious obligation on Muslims of loyalty to their rulers!!! Perhaps under his-authenticated Saudi ruler's sharia!!

Let the Grand Mufti explain why this selective amnesia? Why selective application of religious obligations? What about religious obligations on the Muslims rulers to save the life and property of, for instance, Palestinian from Israeli brutal regime? Why not question King Abdullah about his role in the death and destruction of Libya, Yemen and Syria? .Why not question President Obama about selective parameters for the definition of terror and brutality or evil and scourge? Why not ask him what makes one set of killers and torturers "Veterans" and to be feted and respected and the other the "evil" and "scourge" that need to be eliminated and destroyed? Why should Muslims be stopped from joining IS fighters but not the American, British ex-soldiers and others from joining anti-IS fighters/Syrian army or the Europeans from joining Ukrainian army against Russian-speaking East Ukrainians? Why should Muslims, or for that matter rest of the world, live by American norms and rules particularly when they change according to America-only interests? Today every Muslim has been reduced to a terrorist in the eyes of every other person despite being on the receiving end of the Western governments, not just in recent times but for the past few centuries. Why?

The West brands even ordinary Muslims as terrorists

Yet, not satisfied with branding every ordinary Muslim as a terrorists, the Western propaganda goes further to trace its roots to the practice and spread of Wahhabism (which in reality is adherence to pure and strict monotheism plus Sharia, but for the West it translates simply into terrorism!) among Muslims by the Saudi ruling class. It is partly true: Yes, if we go by the type of religious literature that comes out of the Kingdom - specifically about the strict Quranic interpretation of monotheism. And it ends there. As for Shariah - No, and a loud one at that. The very fact of their being in power and then its hierarchical transfer over the generations, their political associations and decisions and their life style, everything absolutely contradicts Shariah (or the Wahhabism for the West). They never complied with nor lived by it. The killing of Juhayman al-Otaybi and his followers in 1979 inside the Grand Mosque in Makkah was the final message to anyone seeking application of Shariah to the ruling class in Saudi Arabia.

Monotheism and Sharia do not countenance dynastic rule or empires.  Primarily and fundamentally they are about justice - justice with the Creator and His creation. But in Saudi Arabia monotheism and Shariah (watered down, though: drugs and alcohol, no; usury, ok) are for the ordinary, controlled and subjugated Muslims; for the "Royalty" the US President (be that White or Black) trumps both Allah and Sharia, and his pleasure the ultimate goal. After all power and luxury have to be safeguarded. Slowly and steadily the Saudi "Kings" have been gnawing little by little even at the truncated Sharia in search for the American authentication of Islam as a whole.

That may be ok for the Muslim ruling class and their "Herodian" proletariat but not for the large sections among the ordinary Muslims, let alone "Zealots" among them. Courtesy of the spread of electronic media and internet, a practicing Muslims, in fact any religious group for that matter, are not anymore dependent upon their compromised religious leaders (like the Grand Muftis of Saudi Arabia or Egypt) to know and understand what their religion stands for or demands of its adherents. Plus thanks to alternate media, nobody needs MSM for news or the real story-behind any news.

Together the two sources of knowledge and information have made it abundantly clear for the ordinary Muslims world over that the US Government has declared a brutal war on them and their religion, Islam, never mind whichever way or language the US Government and its allies may package it; and their own rulers (Muslim Zionists) are actively facilitating and partnering the US in it. Therein lie the seeds of current turmoil in the Muslim world and seemingly the build-up to the forced final war between the two civilizations. Also, therein lies the lure for Muslim youth to rush to join the IS fighters.

Six and a half decade back the British historian, philosopher of history and international relations expert Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975) in his book The Civilization on Trial (Oxford, 1948; Chapter: Islam, the West and the Future) had forewarned the West against "evoking the militant spirit of Islam - even if it had slumbered as long as the Seven Sleepers." From what we are witnessing it appears his prayer "Absit omen" was not granted -- courtesy of the US' arrogance and injustice against Muslims in favor of Zionist entity, Israel, and its own urge for global rule.

Abdul Aziz ibn Saud may have succeeded, with the help of British empire (then in decline), in sabotaging Al-Azhar University initiative at the revival of the Islamic Caliphate under the aegis of International Islamic Caliphate Congress in Cairo in 1926 but now he should be turning in his grave watching how his recent descendants in partnership with their American saviors (now in declining) have become instrumental in creating thirst among Muslim masses -- including among their "Westernized' proletariat -- for its revival even at the cost of their blood. The first and worst loser in this struggle is going to be the Saudi ruling clan and their puppets in the Arab League countries - good for Muslims, good for Islam and good for the world peace.

M.I. Bhat