[This chain of posts were originally written in Arabic,
A friend of mine graciously offered to translate them to English, in order to
give COB readers of non-Arabic speaking background an insight into the
phenomenon of Daesh, which neither Arabic or Western media are interested in
probing,
Entangled in the complexities of religious, political and strategic wars, both
the Western and the Middle Eastern political commentators give their
assessments and judgements from their own perspective of self-interest: of
which those articles take an overview, but go beyond.
Please forgive the often teacherly style. Remember this was intended for
a Middle Eastern audience. Middle Easterners love to be told, whereas Westerns
like to be informed.]
The best form of criticism that
people can practise is self-criticism, because it enables them to correct their
own mistakes.
If they are able to recognise their own mistakes, then their recognition of the
mistakes of others, and their expression of such recognition, become honest and
free from devious objectives.
But this should not prevent individuals and groups from listening to others’
criticisms of them, because if the receivers of criticism regularly exercise
self-criticism: they should welcome criticism targeted at them, they will value
it and benefit from it or ignore it if they find it prejudicial or dishonest.
But if the receivers of criticism consider themselves as a monopoliser of
righteousness and virtue, then they will respond in a poignant and irrational
manner.
What prompted me to say this is all the defamatory statements I read about
ISIS, and which I see being aimed at Muslims in general and Sunnis in
particular.
I have written previously about this phenomenon, and reiterated that ISIS is
found to a varying degree in all religions and sects, and that those religions
and sects ought to search for ISIS within their own minds and psyches and fight
it right there, because this is where the fight is effective. I have also said
that if each religion and sect goes back into their own history old and recent,
they will find the ISIS mentality and psyche within, and realise that it has a
big role in instigating many of their own actions.
I must hastily say that ISIS has gone to the furthest of extremes in its
actions, but its softened and muffled existence in other sects is not any less
dangerous.
This existence provides it with the potential to explode with hatred, brutality
and barbarism under the right conditions, and with the blessings of clerics.
ISIS For All (2)
Some Arabs may find it rather
difficult to take a neutral stand towards the ISIS wars that are currently
raging their countries.
When danger draws near, they find
themselves having to support one group against another as their self-defence implies,
and this is their lawful right.
As for the wars themselves, their
financiers and provocateurs are doing their utmost to spread them, and indeed
they are spreading, so that people are polarized around their axes,
Thus the monster of rage and
brutality grows bigger by them,
All in the provocateurs’ hope to
achieve their own victory.
This is why astute and honest
people who do not wish any harm or destruction for anyone, ought not to allow
themselves to become ploys in the hands of their politicians, clergy and the
wealthy.
But so long as one believes that
the war of the Levant is the war of the righteous religion and the righteous
sect against the evil religion and evil sect, or if one sees that it is a war
of good politics and good regimes against bad politics and regimes , one makes
of oneself an easy target for political and religious propaganda that does not
stop at any deterrent and does not refrain from using any means including
twisting facts, exaggeration, covering up and fabricating stories: in order to
spread fear and panic so that it can take ownership of people’s hearts and
minds rendering them into instruments and fuel to pour over its fires.
The most effective protection
against this tragic state of affair therefore is for one to open up one’s heart
and mind to see that all religions and sects are just the same.
They differ in the attire of
their clergy and the decorative works of their shrines, but they are all just
the same,
And that politics are also all
the same. They serve those in power and in high positions and the nations that
support them, but they are all the same.
ISIS For All (3)
As for the worst criticism, it is the one
in which the criticiser aims to praise himself.
This should not be referred to as criticism. The words criticism and critique
should be used in the context of outlining the mistakes of others by providing
evidence and analysing facts, perhaps to suggest corrections and reforms.
But this is the art that men of clergy and politics have accomplished to
perfection.
When they lash out at each other and hurl upon each other abuse, accusing each
other sometimes of false accusations….they do so for the sake of inflaming
grudges and widening the gaps, only.
Naturally, they attempt to portray themselves in the image of the pure and
pious, because the listener assumes that if someone exposes the faults of
others he should be free from those same faults.
Invariably however, he who is obsessed with the failings of others carries
those same failings in himself; albeit in a slightly different manner.
I have recently read an article on Facebook
in which the writer argues that the campaigns of the Crusaders were not an act
of aggression, as portrayed by Muslims, but rather launched in order to protect
the Christians of the Levant and their land that was forcefully taken away from
them during the Muslim conquest, of which we see a repeat today in the actions
of ISIS.
This must be the strangest statement I have ever heard. It is as if the writer
expects his readers to know nothing about Europe during the Middle Ages and the
wars of Christians amongst themselves, and the Vatican that had the strongest
European army which it used to enforce its authority on kings and nations, to
bolster feudalism, to condemn witches and heretics and burn them alive in town
squares. Neither does he expect his readers to know about the religious wars of
Eastern Europe in the 1990’s, or about the Lebanese Civil War just before it.
[I should’ve mentioned also WWII and the
Holocaust: although one can argue that the atrocities were not committed in the
name of Christianity: one should bear in mind that anti-Jewish sentiment had
been rife for hundreds of years in Western and Eastern Europe alike, under a
Christian umbrella.
And the so-called White Supremacists and Neo Nazis of the present time ... all
see themselves as Christians carrying out god’s commands when they kill
non-whites and non-Christians ... randomly.]
Indeed the most ignorant of all are those
who assume ignorance in others.
I don’t intend to narrate
the stories of those frightening wars so as not to give the impression that I
absolve other religions from committing the same.
But this is one example of many, where the brutality and barbarism of ISIS, as
well as its backward cultural and intellectual stations are employed as
ammunition to propagate the rottenness of religious grudge from infested chests
that cough it out on others to spread the infection, all the way cloaking
themselves in civilized-looking attires, hiding the monster within, the very
same one that ISIS overtly exhibits.
ISIS For All (4)
The other self-praising group of
people by way of slandering ISIS are the Muslims, whose religious and political
agendas and those of their leaders do not match those of ISIS’s.
This gives them ammunition to
defame ISIS for the purpose of revealing their own understanding of Islam to
the world.
In reality however, if you were
to assemble representatives of ISIS together with representatives of any other
Muslim group and ask them to debate: you will not find any doctrinal difference
between the two.
It then becomes obvious that the
different Muslim groups differ only on matters of political alliances that are
linked to the global political divides.
I don’t want to hurt anyone’s
feelings, but when light is shed on the actualities: emotional enthusiasm fades
away, leaving those who harboured it with shock and disappointment.
I therefore do not see any
difference between the regime that is practised in Iran or the one practised in
Saudi Arabia or any other state whose law is based on what is called Islamic
Shariah: and that of ISIS.
Neither do I see any difference between
those and any Islamic party such as Muslim Brotherhood or any other.
I just happened to recently watch
on TV an interview with a Hamas leader in which he said that Hamas is not an
extremist organisation like ISIS.
Being non-extremist does not mean
that it contradicts with ISIS on doctrinal matters, but rather means that it
does not pass judgements and execute them as hastily as ISIS.
This is because all of those
groups and sects, extremists and moderates, ancient and contemporary, those
that are internationally endorsed as well as those that are labelled as illegal
syndicates: they all adopt the same interpretation of The Book, and differ only
on how severely they punish those who break those interpretations.
Furthermore, they all have an
agenda to create an Islamic state in the form of the one that was created
fourteen hundred years ago, according to their knowledge of the history of that
time.
This is because in their minds,
time has stopped there and then, and the knowledge that humanity is entitled to
has come to a close, and their god will not be content with them unless their
ancestors are happy with them in their graves.
`
ISIS For All (5)
Then there are those who find in
ISIS lucrative material to conjure conspiracy theories, counter-conspiracy
theories and counter-counter conspiracy theories ...
To their understanding, launching
such theories is the proof to their intelligence, astuteness and political
savviness, as if they are saying to the rest of the world: “you can’t let this
one go past me”.
I have said repeatedly on this
page that conspiracies work only on the people who willingly partake in them:
If Arabs and Middle Easterners
are so convinced that the entire world is conspiring against them, they should
collaborate and reconcile,
This will spoil all conspiracies
immediately and instantly.
It is neither by lethal weapons
nor via satellites that conspiracies are thwarted, but by the immunisation of
psyches against malice egoism greed and love of spitefulness and gloating.
If these go away, with them will
go arms dealers and all of those who donate weapons on condition that they get
used.
Furthermore, good intention
brings about peace and security.
This simple remedy is much more
effective than weapons and satellites.
And if it is said, how can we
think and act in this manner all the while our enemies do not harbour for us
except evil?
The answer is that those who you
call enemies are your enemies because you do not harbour for them except evil.
You say it is self-defence, but in reality, for as long as this passion exists
it is a two-way street.
Arabs, Persians and Turks beg at
the doors of industrial nations saying give us weapons so we can fight each
other. If they are given weapons, they will say that it is a conspiracy, and if
the weapons are declined, they will say it is a conspiracy. They should not be
surprised if the world ridicules them while they brag about their glories of
days bygone.
I don’t know if they will wake up
from the terrifying sleep in the house of death.
This is unquestionably huge wrath
from their Lord.
If they are people of religion
and Book, then is this because they adhered to the norms of heathenry and its
stones.
And if they are with no religion,
it is because they have exchanged the fallacies of their clergy with the
fallacies of materialist beliefs.
Their love for discord, animosity
and war is immense, and for as long as they harbour them time will supply them
generously: every time a problem is resolved, a new one emerges.
ISIS For All (6)
As for those who love ISIS in
varying degrees, let us examine them group by group.
The biggest group are those who
sympathise with ISIS, but they do not go as far as joining it. These
sympathisers will either welcome ISIS when it enters their cities and homeland
or they will take the side of neutrality.
These are the Sunni Muslims who
have been taught by their clerics in the houses of rituals and different media
that Islam is their religion: in accordance with the interpretations of their
clergymen and the history they have written.
They have been told that they
ought to obey the commands of their lord according to how those laws have been
interpreted, in order for them to gain his contentment and support: for him to
make them victorious over their enemies.
The majority of members of this
group, if not all, are practising religious followers, who perform the rituals
and consume Halal food, marry and divorce, inherit and bequeath property
according to their Shariah.
However, they think that this is
not enough to receive the full contentment of their lord, because if he was
content of them, he would have supported them and made them the strongest
nation on earth. So they look around and see themselves as vanquished and
oppressed peoples, ploys in the hands of stronger nations of heretics who play
with their destiny, rob their natural resources, gloat about humiliating them
and take advantage of their underdevelopment to sell them everything from
weapons to perfumes.
Their clergymen tell them that
those other nations wouldn’t have advanced industrially and technologically if
they did not “steal” the scientific knowledge of Islam from the Quran and from
ancient Muslim scientists.
They see the corruption of their
rulers who do not implement Shariah law as they themselves understand it, as
the law of the land. They are also aware of the fact that some of their rulers
are not even Sunni Muslims, and this is something that their clergy forbids to
them.
This is how these individuals
move step by step towards what is known as extremism.
In reality, extremism is no more
than restricting their understanding to the literality of some verses of the
Quran by arguing that they were descended from heaven as such. So they fall by
the wayside of that determining divide: for the Word has been in their minds,
before and after the Book was “descended”, and it is to this and nothing else
that the Book is a pointer. And the words are incapable of reaching The
Destination unless the minds do.
It said to them that He reaches
vision, but vision does not reach Him.
Hence they found a god who
creates them to torment them.
This is how those people find in
ISIS a hope for deliverance from the dominium of the devil over them, and for
the entire nation of Islam to return to its former glory and victory over
non-Sunni s.
And just like this belief system
brought about victory fourteen hundred years ago, it must do so now as well.
This begs the question: Where
were the Muslim and non-Muslim Arab rulers and thinkers when those beliefs were
being forced into the people’s during the last century?
Muslim clerics regarded this as the
fashion of this time, whilst the non-Muslims found in it a justification to
return sectarian prejudice with counter-sectarian prejudice.
And political leaders capitalised
on it in order for them to reach their own political aspirations.
And so, the passions that heat up
and spread ISIS are the passions of peoples whose leaders and thinkers failed
to lead, and even turned into followers instead.
Woe to nations whose shepherds
follow their sheep.
ISIS For All (7)
Another group of people who love
ISIS are those who join it to fight within its ranks and do whatever they can
to support it. They come from countries that have predominantly Muslim
population, and these are a distinct group from those who come from Western
countries who I shall speak about later on.
The majority of those Muslim
nations are poor, have corrupt political and economic systems and are ruled by
dictators who serve the rich, their own tribes and relatives, and the Superpowers.
Economic crises plus political
instability and unemployment as well as illiteracy and ignorance in general are
not the only reasons that prompt them to under-value their lives in order to
attain a promised paradise.
Some of those come from wealthy
families and have academic qualifications that permit them to find employment
in any country they wish, thereby earning good incomes allowing them to afford a
decent living.
Undoubtedly this group suffers
from the same trauma that the previous group does: the oppression by
Superpowers, the humiliation of defeat and being on the margins of other
nations….
But I do not see this as
incentive enough to abandon their families and countries and throw themselves
into the webs of death.
This should not be called
martyrdom, as they insist to name it. Because by their own beliefs: they have
enemies who reciprocally wish to die fighting them, and they too insist on
calling themselves martyrs.
No one wants to cotton on to this
paradox: to the Muslim clerics it is the most significant ammunition that they
use to kindle wars and inter-religious strife; and to the non-Muslim clerics it
is the most significant ammunition that they use to kindle wars and
inter-religious strife. This is as obvious as the sun.
Clergymen do not have any vested
interest in stopping it and exposing its falsehood.
I remember as a young man an
incident during the first few years of the Civil War in Lebanon. Some fighters were
dying as they raided civilian populations of little towns and villages, they
were getting killed as they pillaged homes, killed innocent people and raped
women ... and their bodies were brought back home to be pronounced as martyrs.
I asked a person whose followers referred
to as knower of Shariah, one who did not make a secret of being a provoker of
religious grudge: “Are those indeed martyrs?”
He didn’t utter one word,
responded with a mild smile and as if he was trying to say: “I cannot be
affirmative, but I will not say that they are not, so they do not stop.”
He believed that with his silence
he has earned merit for judgement day.
ISIS For All (8)
As for those who join the
ranks of ISIS from Western countries, they are perhaps major contributors to
its foundation. They are young men who grew up, and perhaps were born in those
wealthy nations, in which education is compulsory and free for all children,
and where opportunities for work and success are available for those who work
hard and diligently.
But I have reiterated several times that man does not live by bread alone.
Those young men grow up in
countries in which they feel alien, because their home environment is different
from the Western culture, refuses it and looks down on it. This puts them in
social and cultural isolation.
Most of them have parents
who lack education and knowledge, and do not acknowledge this problem, and they
do not know how to help their children overcome those difficulties.
They cluster up in ghettos where they can find like-minded new migrants of same
religion, and this exacerbates the problem.
Their parents tell them that they are far better than Westerners. This is how
they deal with their inferiority complex and their inability to integrate in
their new environment. They replace it with an unrealistic superiority complex.
They believe that they are better than Westerners by virtue of their glorious
history, religion and Shariah, and that their lord favours them over others
because they were born Muslims and that they will go to paradise if they obey
him.
Many of them fail to get
proper education and the necessary vocational skills that would enable them to
succeed in those countries, and many of them do not see in their parents and
relatives good role models, because many of them fled their homelands escaping
from financial and personal safety problems with the intention of capitalising
on welfare and free medical care systems without having to even work and pay
taxes.
As they grow up and reach
their teens, they deviate from their traditions and beliefs. They find
themselves in situations that their upbringing at home did not prepare for, and
from which they cannot find a way out. They get bogged into promiscuous sexual
relationships and drugs and they deviate and lose their way.
Some of them lose all
chances of success in life and then realise that their youth is coming to an
end without achieving anything. They start feeling remorseful and fearful of
the punishment of their god that their clergymen have engraved onto their minds
with the help of their parents. They get picked up by the preachers of paradise
who have themselves suffered from the same dilemma and ended up taking religion
as a refuge.
Western governments were
not at any time prepared to take in these Muslim communities. Perhaps they
thought that they would be similar to other migrant communities like the
Italian, Greek, East European and Asian that do not have religious or cultural
obstacles that prevent them from integrating in their new environment, while
retaining some degree to their traditions, language and cuisine.
We must however not forget
that the biggest factor in inflaming hatred within the hearts of those youth
towards the West are Western governments that blatantly take the side of
Israel, and have fought two huge wars against Iraq and left it dismembered and
dysfunctional. They also waged a huge war against Afghanistan without reaching
any positive outcome, together with many wars raging within the Arab World in
which Western countries get involved without any consideration to their
consequences, other than concern about the security of Israel.
Those
wars destroy homes and cities, killing innocent people, and all the while the
leaders of the West lecture about human rights and freedom….
ISIS For All (9)
Before I speak about those
who benefit from ISIS, from either their love or hatred towards it, I would
like to shed a light on the hate syndrome that manifests itself in mass
killings and suicide.
The West is not free from
this syndrome, but it is not called terrorism there, even though some of it is
motivated by political, racial, religious and economic issues ….. Perhaps the
term terrorism in this context does not suit the agendas of the political and
the religious institutions of the West.
Every now and then we learn about young
men committing acts of mass murder suicides in schools, universities, towns,
and houses of rituals….and I see in this phenomenon of devaluing life a
pathological condition.
This is a symptom of the same disease; mental, spiritual and moral bankruptcy
of people of both of the West and the Middles East alike.
It is a case of voidness of the souls of those young men who do not see any
value in life. Those of them who are Muslim seek a paradise where virgins line
up waiting for them, whilst those who are Western seek nothing more than
success in their social and romantic relationships and their daily pursuits. In
both cases, the one of them finds himself in constant fear of losing his only
purpose in life.
Surrounded by danger and threats, he ends up secluding himself or restricting
his social interactions to those who are like-minded.
In both cases, fear is personified in some enemy that symbolises to him all
those fears that he feels. To Muslims, this enemy is anyone who is not one of
them, and to Westerners, the enemy is anyone who is not one of them.
So let’s leave aside
political rhetoric and opportunism which aims at blaming others just for the
sake of scoring points in a verbal contest. This is the syndrome of an era in
which political and spiritual leaders have reached bankruptcy, and young men
are throwing themselves and others into death, thereby escaping life that they
deem aimless and meaningless.
For as long as clergymen
are busy arguing and lashing out at each other the ugliest of descriptions, as
if earth was meant to be an arena for their arguing and squabbling, and for as
long as politicians regard that their responsibilities do not go further than
economic management and establishing peace and order only in their own homelands:
then this void shall continue to reside in the psyches of their constituents.
The great spirits that are
God’s Spirit, were neither created to worship men nor stone, nor money and its
factories.
ISIS For All (10)
There are also those to
whom ISIS was offered on a silver platter. For they would never have dreamt of
a time in which terrorism reaches this level of power and sophistication,
threatening the security of the Middle East and putting its governments under
the threat of total collapse.
This gives them the pretext for a military and political intervention in the
affairs of those states under the pretence of defending their friends.
The Middle East has turned into an open
slather for them to test new weaponry and its software, which they constantly
upgrade, and to train new pilots, and to flaunt and flex their muscles to their
allies and foes alike, because one of their basic doctrines is not to trust
anybody. And in order for them to be able to hold on to the self-bestowed
position of world police, a stature that no one dares to challenge.
Maintaining this stature is
obviously an important mission for their leaders: a mission which they will
elevate to high levels of priority in their elections campaigns, so they can
generate fear within their constituencies from the rising Islamic danger,
thereby portraying themselves as the rightful defenders of the homeland.
And thus they look advanced
and civilized, capable to inflicting death and destruction, not by using knives
and clubs, but by pushing buttons.
Their soldiers are clean-shaved, they smile to cameras in press conferences,
and choose their words carefully.
And Arabs split up between
supporters and opponents as mentioned earlier; each in accordance with their
political inclinations.
As the West needs an enemy
to justify its policies of usurping other nations, Arabs also need an enemy in
order to assert their interpretations of their Books and to give credibility to
the predictions of their Imams.
World leaders today, all
the way from the West to the East do not know of any objective of their lives
other than war and strife.
Amidst this chaos, some
people have recently taken photos of planet Pluto perhaps for the first time
since billions of earth years. Pluto was the moon of the three solar systems
that have now merged into one after they have sunk in natural gravity and its
burning sun, as I have mentioned in previous letters.
It used to orbit around those systems in order to pull them closer to each
other by its gravitation, and its majestic circular face would fill the sky
with light and colour, and people would fly with joy and glory and leap from
one orbit into another to get to know and love each other and marvel at each
other's exquisitely unique beauty.
Gone is this time, ever since people grew to like separation from the Law that
is the Quintessence. And they descended in a darkness that is lit by fire, some
preceding some, and they are in a gap from the Law.
They wait for a flash of lightening to take a step. God has taken away their
self-luminance because they repudiated it, and they were left without
luminance, as mentioned in The Book.
ISIS For All (11)
I must admit that I like
ISIS, because I hope it will bring the end of paganism and heathen laws.
It is the puss of the religions of the Middle East, by which the Middle East
can eject its toxins and diseases and cleanse itself from their venom.
The extent of the love or
hatred of people to it points to what is within their selves, and once they are
able to liberate themselves from it, ISIS will vanish. But it will persist for
as long as the ailments of the Middle East are there.
And if the enemies of ISIS
manage to eradicate it, it will reincarnate itself as another group under
another name and will be stronger and more radical.
ISIS, as it is now, is the combination of all Islamic theories, those which are
against each other as well as those which are allied, the Sunni-inclined as
well as the Shiite-inclined.
It is also within the heathenry of non-Muslim religions.
To say that it is a Western
conspiracy against the East or an Eastern conspiracy against the West does not
yield any benefit, and the remedy has to be borne within the psyches of the
people of the Middle East.
Those of them who are
Muslims, Christians or Jews must reconsider their understanding of their Books:
which are One Book.
And for as long as there is a tiny speck of doubt within their minds, it will
grow and become conceived as huge load that will crush them and their enemies
combined.
Every time a Book came to
them it corrected their mistakes. They refused it and thus became more
ignorant.
So the Jews rejected Union (Tawhid) and took upon themselves nationalism.
And the Christians rejected Union and surrendered themselves to the son of man
as a god and the son of god for their sins to be absolved.
And the Muslims rejected Union and took upon themselves a mundane law (Shariah)
and the rituals.
And the Druze did not understand what came in the Books and the Books of
Philosophy (Hikmah), so they closed them all and forbade knowledge for
themselves and others.
[The Arabic word Tawhid
which I’ve translated to Union on this Page: is translated wrongly to
"monotheism" in Western languages.
Monotheism is the belief in one god, so all Abrahamic religions are monotheist.
But it is obvious that those religions have each a god of their own.
The god of those religions is a concept. It demands of them different things
and inspires different things.
[Tawhid is a stage of
awareness, that does not require surrendering one’s mind to any concepts or
beliefs, and it is achieved by compassion and freedom of one’s mind from all
its conceptual fetters: until it is one with Existence. And this is not to be
taken as a definition, there’s no definition for Tawhid whatsoever.
[This stage of awareness is
in fact taught in all the Books. Religions have been unable to notice it, this
is how in their minds the Books precipitated in their physical understanding.
Tawheed is far beyond the reach of those groups of people, however grand the
titles they have awarded themselves.]
This is how the Books and
the Books of Philosophy turned into their opposite by the Law of Existence.
And for as long as you see
clergymen cloaked in peculiar attires, giving themselves religious titles,
adopting certain Books and cursing others, then nothing will change until those
religions and sects annihilate each other.
This
Levant is the "Middle Nation", the one that was meant to be a beacon
for the rest of the world with its knowledge, thought and morality. It is now
oblivious to the challenges of knowledge, thought and morality that the world
is confronting…because it believes that time has stopped in a gone by era of
its own fabrication.
