Introductory comment

Time is running out for the republican State of Pakistan. Only those who see with one eye will fail to recognize the evil reality that clients of Israel now control strategic decision-making both in Pakistan’s government as well as in the Armed Forces. The writing appears to be on the wall for Pakistan – unless Pakistani Muslims can rid themselves of those clients of Israel. The best way to do so appears to be through massive peaceful public demonstrations similar to those which brought down the USSR with narry a nuclear risk, rather than civil war which will automatically invite external military intervention that will eventually dismember Pakistan.

Scholars of Islam have a duty to prepare Muslims for destructive attacks that are soon to be launched which will target not only Pakistan but perhaps, Turkey and Iran as well. The situation is not entirely hopeless since at least the Iranian Armed Forces do not appear to be under the control of Israel’s clients. In fact Iran seems to have already succeeded in building a strategic alliance with Russia. It is interesting to note that an authentic Hadīth has prophesied an end-time Muslim alliance with Rūm (i.e., Byzantine Christianity that was based in Constantinople), and Russia is part of Rūm. The Saudi and Pakistani governments and Armed Forces on the other hand, are allied with the Anglo-American-Israeli alliance which does not form part of Rūm.

Those who control power in Britain, USA, and Israel, and who now have a strategic ally in India, are already waging unjust war on Islam and Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere, but most of all in the Holy Land (otherwise known as Palestine). Their ruthlessness is such that they would wage war even upon their own people if such were deemed to be necessary for achieving their messianic goal. The 9/11 terrorist attack on America which killed thousands of innocent people was an ominous example of what they are capable of doing. The recent US military occupation of Haiti in consequence of a massive earthquake for which the US Armed Forces seem to have been mysteriously prepared (right down to drills conducted on the very eve of the earthquake), displays for the umpteenth time the extent to which they would commit monstrously evil deeds in dogmatic pursuit of goals such as the overthrow of Venezuela’s courageous government. Earthquakes have now become their mysterious new weapon of war. Will Caracas and Islamabad soon be targeted with massive earthquakes? Or will a nuclear device be exploded in USA or a very prominent American assassinated, and Pakistani or Iranian Muslims be held responsible, so that causus bellum can be created?

Their messianic goal is to deliver to Israel the rule over the whole world so that a false Messiah can rule the world from Jerusalem with a fraudulent claim to be the true Messiah. That goal cannot be achieved so long as Pakistan possesses nuclear military power. Hence the most important attack that must now be anticipated is on Pakistan’s nuclear installations.

The French have a proverb: ‘plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose’, i.e. the more it (appears to) change - the more it is (in fact) the same thing.

Muslims are being slaughtered in Afghanistan, North-West Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia and elsewhere, and we anticipate more of the same “from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates’ as well as in Venezuela, Bolivia, Iran and elsewhere. Yet many still do not recognize the falsehood of the claim that all the intimidation, bloodshed and mass slaughter is being perpetrated in the name of establishing democracy. In fact the substance of the Judeo-Christian European alliance which drives the current barbaric Anglo-American-Israeli world-order does not appear to have changed in the last 150 years. Consider the following words of Chief See-at-hl, delivered in a speech directed at the President of America in 1855. This same address could have been delivered by Malcolm X 100 years later in 1955. And if we had the eloquence of those two men we could speak the same words today, 150 years later, in a world now ruled by the same white slave-master who now hides behind a deceptively innocent black face.

Imran N. Hosein

I would like to acknowledge a dear student of mine, Siti Rabeah Abdul Malek (Umm Ridwan), who very kindly directed my attention to this great speech.

قُلْ أَعُوذُ بِرَبِّ الْفَلَقِ {1}

مِن شَرِّ مَا خَلَقَ {2}

WHAT IS FAMILY? 

“O ye who believe! Fear Allah, and give up what remains of your demand for usury (i.e., the interest due on a fixed deposit, or on any other loan on interest), if ye are indeed believers.”  If ye do it not (i.e. if you persist in your claim or demand for the interest due to you), then take notice of (a declaration of) war from Allah and His Messenger: but if ye turn away (from such claim or demand), then you are entitled to the return of your capital sum (placed in the fixed deposit or otherwise lent); do not enter into (such) unjust transactions, nor allow yourselves to be subjected to such.

If (you forgo the interest due to you and then find) the debtor in a difficulty (in respect of returning the capital sum that was lent to him on interest), grant him time till it is easy for him to repay. But if ye remit it by way of charity, that is best for you if ye only knew.

And (in this matter in particular, i.e., lending money on interest) fear the Day when ye shall be brought back to Allah. Then shall every soul be paid what it earned, and none shall be dealt with unjustly.’ (Qur’an, al-Baqarah, 2:278-281)

“As matters stand in the Muslim world today, it is the decline of religious leadership from the Islamic standard in a serious measure that constitutes a major cause of its inability with regard to its emergence from the abyss into which it has been descending since some time. The remedy for the situation is obvious.” - Fazlur Rahman Ansari, ‘The Qur’anic Foundations and Structure of Muslim Society’.

The Quranic Foundations and Structure of Muslim Society (in two volumes) was written by the distinguished Islamic scholar and Sufi Shaikh, Maulana Dr. Muhammad Fadlur Rahman Ansari (1914-1974), and was first published in Pakistan in 1973 just a few months before his death in 1974. It is not only a masterpiece of modern Islamic scholarship, but it also courageously identifies serious deficiencies in contemporary Islamic scholarship as one of the major causes of the decline of the Muslim world. The author of the book, who holds a doctorate in philosophy, was a graduate of Aligarh Muslim University, India, where he studied philosophy and religion. He derived his Islamic philosophical and spiritual thought from the outstanding Islamic scholar, Dr. Muhammad Iqbal, as well as from his spiritual mentor, Maulana Abdul Aleem Siddiqui, and the great teacher who taught him Islam at the Aligarh Muslim University, Professor Syed Sulaiman Ashraf.

There is no doubt whatsoever that this essay is going to provoke both positive and negative responses from readers. But our purpose in writing it is to provoke enlightened responses from our intelligent readers — responses that would dispel complacency over (what this writer perceives as) unfortunate instances of misguided tradition. Let us at the outset remind the Muslim reader of the prophecy of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah Most High be upon him) concerning the Day of Judgment:

“Narrated Anas ibn Malik:

One day when the Messenger of Allah was sitting amongst us, he dozed off. He then raised his head, smiling. We asked: What makes you smile, Oh Messenger of Allah?
He said: A Surah has just been revealed to me, and then recited: ‘In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Verily We have given thee al-Kawthar (fountain of abundance). Therefore turn to thy Lord for prayer and offer sacrifice, and surely thy enemy is cut off (from the good).’ Then he (the Holy Prophet) asked: Do you know what al-Kawthar is? We said: Allah and His Messenger know best. The Holy Prophet said: It (Kawthar) is a fountain (spring or river) which my Lord, the Exalted and Glorious, has promised me, and there is an abundance of good in it. It is a cistern and my people will come to it on the Day of Resurrection, and cups there (for drinking) would be equal to the number of stars. A servant will be turned away from (among those gathered there). Upon this I shall say: My Lord, he is one of my people. He (the Lord) will say: You do not know that he created new things (in Islam) after you. Ibn Hujr made this addition in the Hadith: “ He (the Holy Prophet) was sitting amongst us in the mosque, and He (Allah) said: (You don’t know) what he innovated after you.”
(Sahih Muslim)

Some declare, with their heads buried ‘ostrich-like’ in the sand, that there is no ‘Trinity Cross’ problem facing this country, or that it is a ‘non-issue’. Others recognise the problem but choose to do nothing about it, or to peddle disinformation and scurry around inventing flimsy and irrelevant defences for an unjust and, hence, indefensible status quo. We are saddened by this, but not surprised.

How should we, Indian Muslims in the Caribbean, commemorate the event of our arrival in the Caribbean almost 200 years ago? If we do not ourselves respond at this time to this subject in a manner consistent with our faith in Allah Most High, and with our mission as Muslims in the world, then our great grandmother’s tears would be shamelessly exploited by those who pursue a sinister agenda on behalf of the slave-master who brought us from distant India to these shores, and who still rules the world.

If God is a man, that’s bad news for women – because masculinity would then be divine – and hence only the male would have been created in the divine image. This explains why the feminist revolution has redefined God as being both male and female. Islam declares that Allah Most High created both the male and the female but is neither male nor female. In addition, He never appeared in the person of anyone, male or female. And so neither at point of creation, nor at any time thereafter, has the male ever defined the female in Islam. Islam is thus unique in offering to women the opportunity to pray to a God who is not a man.

Nor has Islam ever discriminated between the male and the female in an unjust way. A woman complained to the Prophet (peace be upon him) that divine revelation in the Qur’an was addressing men only. What about women? she asked. In response, revelation came down in the Qur’an that addressed both men and women in such constant repetition that the matter was conclusively settled that Allah Most High does not discriminate in matters concerning gender in any unjust way. Indeed the blessed Prophet declared that all of mankind (male and female) would stand before Allah on the Last Day “as equal in His sight as are the teeth of a comb.”

The secular feminist revolution rose upon the world from the West with an essentially godless agenda to liberate women from the “shackles” of the ages by totally transforming her status, role and function in society. In so doing it has turned the previous religious and sacred order upside-down in such a way that the sun now appears to be rising from the west.

Secularism led to materialism which in turn denied woman any reality beyond her material reality. Consequently the young beautiful woman became the goddess of the age. But she was a goddess who was shamelessly exploited in advertising to sell everything. She became a thing enjoyed, exploited, abused, degraded and discarded when her physical beauty and sex appeal began to wane. Then a host of schoolgirls would rush in to replace her. Even the national calypsonian gave his view on the subject quite some time ago when he sang of the prostitute, “… and if you catch them broken (i.e., in financial difficulty), you can get them all for nothing.”

The Qur’an likened the creation of the male and the female to that of the ‘night’ and the ‘day’, implying that they complement each other “… like twin-halves of a whole.” But they are also functionally different; hence a successful and harmonious male-female relationship requires that the ‘day’ (i.e. the male) must function as ‘day’ and not try to become ‘night’, and similarly the ‘night’ (i.e., woman) must function as ‘night’ (which covers and conceals) and not try to become ‘day’. Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) ordered, “. . when a girl reaches the age of puberty nothing must be seen of her body except this and this (he pointed to the face and hands).” And so Muslim women have always covered themselves in Hijab—concealing arms, legs, bellies, head, hair, etc., in loose-fitting clothing.

Since women have a basic function of bearing and rearing children it was necessary that they be freed of an obligation to earn their livelihood. Thus the Qur’an obliged men to maintain, as well as to guard and protect them, and, in turn, obliged a woman to be obedient to her husband or guardian. Men and women ought to marry in Allah’s blessed name, and live in accordance with His guidance. Then, says the Qur’an, “… Allah places love and kindness betwix their hearts” in consequence of which they experience Sukun, i.e., peace, contentment and tranquility.