Table Of ContentLost Islamic History:
Reclaiming Muslim Civilisation‚ From the Past
Firas Alkhateeb
Hurst Publishers
London
Copyright © 2020 by Firas Alkhateeb
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any
means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the
written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles and reviews.
The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby
disclaims any responsibility for them.
Hurst books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:
Hurst Publishers
41 Great Russell St.
London
www.hurstpublishers.com
1-800-Authors (1-800-432-4617)
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links
contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no
longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the
author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the
publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
ISBN: 9781849043977 (sc)
ISBN: 9781849043977 (dj)
ISBN: 9781849043977 (ebook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 9781849043977
Hurst Publishers; Revised, Updated Edition (15 March 2020)
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgment
Chapter I
The Controversies
Chapter II
Basic Beliefs in Islam
Chapter III
Life of Prophet Muhammad and the Birth of Jihad
Chapter IV
Propagation of Islam: By Force or Peacefully
Chapter V
The Arab-Islamic Imperialism
Chapter VI
Islamic Imperialism in India
Chapter VII
Islamic Slavery
Chapter VIII
The Last Word
Bibliography
Endnotes
Chapter I
The Controversies
‘…one must go on Jihad at least once a year… One
may use a catapult against them when they are in a
fortress, even if among them are women and
children. One may set fire on them and/or drown
them.’ [Imam al-Ghazzali, the second greatest
scholar of Islam after Muhammad]
‘In the Muslim community, the holy war is a
religious duty, because of the universalism of the
(Muslim) mission and (the obligation to) convert
everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by
force.’ [Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, New York,
p. 473]
The tragic 9/11 attacks in the United States have dramatically changed the
world—a change, which will persist for a long time to come. Indiscriminate
violence worldwide by al-Qaeda and like-minded Muslim groups in the
name of ‘Jihad’ or Islamic ‘holy war’ against the infidels (non-Muslims)
has plunged both the Islamic and non-Islamic world into a crisis of security
and stability. There is also an ascending tide of puritanical Islamic
revivalism among the wider Muslim populace globally. Both these trends
pose an unprecedented threat to future security of the secular-democratic
nations, both in the West and elsewhere. The violent Jihadi groups—aiming
to establish puritanical Islamic rule globally, governed by the Islamic holy
law (Sharia)—seek to destroy the modernist, secular-democratic and
progressive world-order through indiscriminate violence, death, and
destruction. The nonviolent puritanical Islamic revivalism, which has a
wider appeal amongst Muslims, seeks to achieve the same goal, albeit
through different means: through ever-growing demand for the legislation
of Sharia and for the gradual suppression of practices and social behaviours
in Western societies—freedom of speech, mixing of opposite sexes, and
homosexuality etc.—deemed offensive to Islam.
A poll in 2006 found some 40 percent of British Muslims wanted to be
governed by Sharia laws, while some 60 percent of them wanted to see
Sharia courts operate for the mediation of Muslim affairs. A recent study by
the Center for Social Cohesion in the U.K. found some 4 percent of Muslim
students in British Universities support killing to ‘promote and preserve’
Islam; 32 percent thought that killing was justified in the defence of Islam;
40 percent support the introduction of Sharia law for Muslims in Britain
and 37 percent oppose it. Some 33 percent support the creation of a
i
worldwide Muslim caliphate, with only 25 percent opposed to the idea.
The study also found that extremism is on the rise amongst Muslims and
young Muslims are religiously more radical than their parents’ generation.
Although Muslims currently constitute only about 3.5 percent of the British
population, many aspects of Sharia law are unofficially practised widely in
the Muslim community.
Under these circumstances, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, said in February 2008 that the introduction of Sharia law in the
U.K. was ‘unavoidable’ and urged the government to consider its legal
ii
introduction. The British government has obliged to the popular demand
of Muslims by making the ruling of a Sharia court legally binding in Britain
in matters of divorce, financial disputes and even domestic violence. The
Court, wrote the Daily Mail, claimed ‘to have dealt with more than 100
cases since last summer, including six involving domestic violence, which
is a criminal rather than civil offence, and said they hoped to take over
iii
growing numbers of ‘smaller’ criminal cases in future.’ This is a step
toward establishing Sharia laws in the U.K.
The Islamic ‘Jihad’ or ‘holy war’ stands for Fighting in the Cause of
Allah, which Allah has introduced into the Islamic doctrine through a long
iv
list of verses in the Quran, such as verse 2:190. There are more than 200
divine verses of Jihad in the Quran. Osama bin Laden, the famous
protagonist of violent Jihad in our times, defines his Jihadi campaigns
v
against the infidels in religious terms as follows:
As to the relationship between Muslims and infidels, this is summarized by
the Most High’s (God’s) Word: ‘We renounce you. Enmity and hate shall
forever reign between us—till you believe in Allah alone.’ So there is an
enmity, evidenced by fierce hostility from the heart. And this fierce hostility
—that is, battle—ceases only if the infidel submits to the authority of Islam,
or if his blood is forbidden from being shed, or if Muslims are at that point
in time weak and incapable. But if the hate at any time extinguishes from
the heart, this is great apostasy! Allah Almighty’s Word to his Prophet
recounts in summation the true relationship: ‘O Prophet! Wage war against
the infidels and hypocrites and be ruthless. Their abode is hell—an evil
fate!’ Such, then, is the basis and foundation of the relationship between the
infidel and the Muslim. Battle, animosity, and hatred—directed from the
Muslim to the infidel—are the foundation of our religion. And we consider
this a justice and kindness to them.
Others have disputed this Muslim-to-infidel unidirectional and
unrestrained hostility as the theological foundation of Jihad. Many
moderate Muslims and scholars of Islam argue that the acts of
indiscriminate violence, as perpetrated by al-Qaeda and like-minded
Islamist groups, must not be called Jihad. Jihad, they claim, stands for a
peaceful spiritual struggle, totally disconnected from violence. Like
President Bush, they argue that Islam is a religion of peace and that
violence has no place in it. It is also widely claimed, including by many
non-Muslim scholars of Islam, that the hallmarks of Islamic history were
those of tolerance, peace, and equality, which Christianity failed to offer to
its Muslim (e.g., in Spain) and other non-Christian subjects (e.g., the Pagans
and Jews in Europe and Americas).
Speakers at a Counter Terrorism Conference (February 19–21, 2008),
organized by the East West Institute at Brussels, repeatedly argued that the
term ‘Jihad’ must be dissociated from violence of al-Qaeda because, for
most Muslims, Jihad ‘originally means a spiritual struggle and they don’t
want it hijacked anymore.’ Iraqi scholar Sheikh Mohammed Ali told the
conference that ‘‘Jihad is the struggle against all evil things in your soul…
There is no jihadi terrorism in Islam.’’ Emphasizing that Jihad can be a
struggle for elimination of poverty, for education or for something very,
very positive in life, General Ehsan Ul Haq, the former chairman of
Pakistan’s joint chiefs of staff, asserted that calling the terrorists Jihadists is
either reflective of a ‘‘lack of understanding of Islam’’ or unfortunately ‘‘an
vi
intended misuse.’’
Since the 9/11 attacks, orchestrated by al-Qaeda in the name of Jihad,
Muslims as well as many non-Muslim scholars and academics, have come
out in force to defend this nonviolent notion of Jihad. Daniel Pipes has
quoted several examples of the positive portrayals of the meaning of Jihad,
vii
which are summarized below.
Zayed Yasin, president of the Harvard Islamic Society, in a speech,
entitled My American Jihad, at the University’s 2002 commencement
ceremony, said, ‘‘Jihad, in its truest and purest form, the form to which all
Muslims aspire, is the determination to do right, to do justice even against
your own interest. It is an individual struggle for personal moral
behavior…’’ Harvard dean Michael Shinagel, probably with no knowledge
of Islamic theology, gave an emphatic endorsement of Yasin’s definition of
Jihad as a personal struggle for promoting ‘‘justice and understanding in
ourselves and society.’’ Professor David Mitten, advisor to the Harvard
Islamic Society, defined true Jihad as ‘‘the constant struggle of Muslims to
conquer their inner base instincts, to follow the path to God, and to do good
in society.’’
There are many in the U.S. academia propagating this view on Jihad.
Professor Joe Elder of the University of Wisconsin sees Jihad as a
‘‘religious struggle, which more closely reflects the inner, personal struggles
