This is a statement not only of Abdel Maged’s individual belief, but the belief that Islam inculcates and that is shared by hundreds of millions. It is the Caliphate that counts, the once-and-future Caliphate of Muslim aspiration, to unite as many members of the Umma, or Community of Believers, as possible, and to be the object of the loyalty of Muslims who live ourtside the Caliphate, including those who live in enemy territory, Dar al-Harb, which can now be islamized not through the Jihad of the Sword, that is conquest through qitaal, or combat, but through the Jihad of Pen, Speech (propaganda on behalf of Islam, to protect and to promote it) and, most importantly, a new instrument of Jihad, conquest through sheer numbers, that is demographic conquest.
The nation-state is a non-Muslim notion, and remains foreign to Islam even if there are Islam-dominated lands where the pre-Islamic heritage is so present (as with the pyramids in Egypt, or Persepolis, and many other pre-Islamic sites, in Iran), and a non-Muslim population either large enough, as the Copts in Egypt, the Christians in Lebanon, or if not large in numbers, still powerful enough so large as to dilute the call of Islam alone (as the Alawites, only quasi-Muslims, have since 1970 been in complete control of the Syrian military, and thus controlled Syria).
It is unrealistic to expect Muslims in the West to offer anything but a feigned loyalty to Western, that is non-Muslim, states. It is unrealistic to expect or demand of them that they accept or support Western laws, customs, understandings.It is unrealistic to expect that they will ever fight against fellow Muslims in a Western effort – though for their own reasons some might try to inveigle the West into fighting to remove this or that despot, as so many influential Iraqi Shi’a in exile did tp promote the idea, among members of the Bush administration, that removing Saddam Hussein’s regime — that is, the Sunnis — would work wonders in Iraq. And now we have Muslims demanding that the West intervene here to help remove Assad, or there to fight ISIS, or over there, to end chaos in Libya, or over here, to hold Yemen together. An the Saudis, who during the Gulf War allowed American planes and airmen to be pre-positioned in Saudi Arabia, legitimized thispresence by describing the American airmen as “our white slaves,” allowed in only in order to fight and die to protect the House of Saud.
Islam cannot be changed. It cannot be reformed. Calls for reform can come, and grand plans laid. But it won’t work. It is not possible, save for a handful of the most advanced — morally and intellectually — Muslims, to recognize what is wrong with Islam, and these people cannot be taken as a sign of things to come, the beginning of a movement full of hope. They are exceptional; no longer Muslims, some are open vocal apostates — Wafa Sultan, Nonie Darwish, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, and others, some are silent apostates, some can’t quite bring themselves even to recognize their own apostasy, but can be described as “Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only” Muslims. But they are few, and non-Muslim peoples in the endangered West should welcome the apostates, but not be deluded by their existence, nor listen to the “Sola Scriptura” (Qur’an only) solutoin of the Bright Young Reformers of the mustafa-akyol variety, and to allow themselves to believe that, if only everyone holds on, doesn’t get too alarmed, somehow things will come right with the Muslims already in Europe, and breeding rapidly.
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One Response
One way of categorising Islam in a way that maps onto the western idea of the nation state is to refer to it as the “Islamic Empire” (an organisation which is primarily a political/legal entity that shares a weak link with the “holy core” of a well known religion). Forsaking the Empire for any reason is known by the religious term “apostasy”, a word which when converted to political usage becomes “treason”. Back in the days when Britain used to worry about this most heinous of crimes the penalty imposed on traitors was death, often/usually by extremely nasty means. Perhaps we should reintroduce the death penalty for anyone in the UK (regardless of race or religion) who refused to put their (new?) home nation first? If this policy was adopted throughout the west it would solve our “Islamic Problem” at a stroke.