By Cdr( R) Munir Varraich, Sweeden

What we witness in America and the West today, are the “effects” of the “causes” which are buried deep in the Muslim Mindset, which, in the last 300- 400 years had developed complexes, both an inferiority type and a superiority type,  after the West had successfully overthrown the so called  “Muslim Empire”.  A phrase wrongly embedded in the Muslim Mindset because those Empires had other names such as Ottomans and Moghals and Abbassis etc. Those were never referred to as Islamic or Muslim Empires. The first time any historian used a collective name – Dares Salam – was Arnold Toynbee in his works on history. The maximum the Muslim Mindset can claim was that the religion of those Empires was Islam.

That is nothing special because every Empire had some belief system. Sumarians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Iranians, Arabs, and so on, all had some kind of religious beliefs or moral code that formed the “moral justification” to rule or enslave large populations of humankind. Even today, USA has the so called “American Values”,  whatever those are,  which form the “moral justification” for their presence around the world – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan etc.

US has not given any “religious name” to cover up its “moral justification”. There is a reason. After World War II, the two super powers – USA and USSR – did not have any  “religion” as such but it was “technology” and “materialism” on which was based the “moral justification” of both the super powers.  That distinguishes the two super powers of the 20^th century from earlier Empires.

Until the collapse of the USSR, in 1989, the foreign immigrants in the US and the West were referred to as pro-west or anti-west. The religious persecution was not a basis for seeking asylum in the western democratic countries.

However, the scenario changed in 1979. The ex-USSR invaded Afghanistan and the Afghans retaliated to defend their homeland.  In the neighboring Pakistan, a military dictator, General Zia ul Haq, President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Crowned himself as  “Ameer-ul-Momineen”, the “Leader of the Righteous”  at the UN General Assembly Session in September, 1980, and branded the Afghan National War as a “Religious War” – JIHAD – Islam’s War against an “Infidel USSR”.

The terminology which was used by the leader of the Muslim World about the Afghan National War, was not provided by the western think tanks nor the CIA, Pentagon or the CFR of USA. But those “words”  were chosen by the Ullema (religious leaders) of the Muslim World. To choose such phrases charged by religious fervor  is the working of a “defeated mentality” which cannot  not come up with a better terminology and  falls back on the crutches of “religion” and “past glory” of the so called “Islamic Empire”. Marxist reasoning and terminology could not have been used by a “Believer” Muslim, nor  the phrases and reasoning of Western Secularism because that had already been branded as “the Great Satan” by Ayatullah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 “Islamic” Revolution in Iran.

Religion was re-introduced in inter-state relations for the first time after the Russian Socialist Revolution  of 1917.

A Bi-Polar secular world outlook was overshadowed by a religious cloud and with that started the lightning and thunderstorms which swept away one of the super powers – USSR – and has put the other super power in a very precarious state, shaking the very foundations of secular and progressive thought process, so essential for world peace.

The Muslim World at that point of time – 1979  onwards until 1989  – had united and gathered under the “Banner of Jihad” lured by the Ullemas of the Muslim World, not for once bothered about the consequences of  promoting “violence in the name of religion” in the name of Islam, which according to the same Ullemas’ claim, is a “Religion of Peace”.

The “defeated mentality” of the Ullemas swung the Muslim Mindset  of embracing an emotionally charged style of religion which to the observer was nothing less than “fanaticism.” That state of mind is the prerequisite of creating a mindset which shuns logic and reason and makes religion “opium”. And when merged with the concept of “jihad” in any religion is a sure recipe for producing “suicidal bombers” ready to enter the “Promised Paradise” of the mullah with the press of a “button”.

There is a yet another factor which has brought this “Un-Happiness” upon the once “Happy Muslims” in the USA and the West.

During the 1400 years of  Islam there have been a number of learned Muslims who had updated the interpretation of the various injunctions of Islam. One of those being the “Ama’al-e-Saleh” which can be translated  as “Right action at the right time”. If this one injunction is adhered to then the Muslim Mindset would be directed in their actions by “common sense” and “rationality”.

However, the reality is that “fanaticism” and “common sense” have nothing in common.

The latest of such an interpretation about “Jihad” was put forward by one Wise Man of the World at the turn of the nineteenth century, who had declared that “all wars in the name of religion are forbidden”.

In Islamic terminology it can be translated to mean that  “religious wars in the name of Islam (Jihad) are forbidden”. Such “common sense” teaching did not make sense to a “defeated mentality” 120 years ago. And, unfortunately, it did not make any sense to the Muslim World which acted exactly the opposite of those “words of wisdom” at the turn of the 14th century Hijra in 1979-1980.

Muslims started their new 15th century Hijra by becoming “Jihadis” in 1979 to 1989 and started the Islamic Inquisition within their countries and became a nuisance for Mankind.

The rest of the World – especially the Christian West – started their 21st century with a Big Bang on 11th September 2001 – by becoming “ANTI-JIHADIS”.

The West had had its turn of “religious bezerkness” and had already crossed their “Jihadi” threshold of Christian Inquisition in 1400 C.E. when “common sense” was declared “heretic” by the Church and thousands of Muslims, Jews, Christians and men of knowledge and wisdom  were tortured and burnt on the stakes in Europe.

The battle between “common sense” and “non-sense” continues and will not end until “common sense” and “rationality” prevails. In this process all those Muslims who happen to live in the US and the western countries, have a choice:

Follow their “Ullemas” who preach “Jihad” and remain “unhappy” forever. Or follow the “Common Sense”  which the Quran teaches –  to be loyal to the country you live in by being a law abiding citizen and not to follow anyone who tells you to “create mischief in the land”.

However, it can be argued that there is “provocation” on the part of the US and the West when the US and Europe gang up together in the UN Security Council  to take over the resources of Muslim countries. But that is politics and not religion. There are many Christian countries which the US and Europe have attacked for their resources. That does not give licence to the Christian immigrants to “create mischief in the land”.

To counter such “provocation”,  the Muslim Mind has to come up with a strategy based upon better ideas and evolved techniques,  which must not have “Jihadi ” and “self pity” methods but much more sophisticated instruments based on how to cater for the demands of such a political and expansionist mindset. After all, Islam claims to be a “religion which understands Human Nature and caters for all its needs”.  Let the Ullemas come out with such a strategy. But that requires consistent hard work, physically and intellectually.

Why is the Muslim Mind not ready to put in the required “hard work”? That is a valid and a logical question. That is a phenomenon  in the life of every religion when priesthood takes command and  teaches  “short cuts” to get to Paradise, and takes the common man away from logic and rationality. And because of that a lethargy sets in, which is both physical and intellectual. That is what has gripped the Muslim Mindset since a very long time.

Who is going to put in the required hard work – to bring the Muslim Mindset out of its lethargy?

Will that work  also be undertaken by the US and the West ?  A Christian Charity of a sort ? And dished out to the Muslim World in a plate like the many inventions of the “heretic” and “satanic” mind?

Or perhaps, ironically  the work of “propping up that tottered Islamic Society”  will be given to the declared  “Non-Muslim Minority”  in Pakistan and the Muslim World, because that “non-Muslim Minority” is the only “group of believers”  which “have a firm faith in the continuity of supernatural revelation” and because of that they also have a firm faith in “common sense” and “rationality” and have chosen to spread the message of “love for all and hatred for none”.