Prophet and Nationalism (2)
ISLAM: The Arab Imperialism
by Anwar Shaikh
Chapter Six
PROPHET AND NATIONALISM (2)
Nationalism is the natural and most effective weapon of a
Prophet, who wants to be loved and worshipped as the only God
because of his immense dominance-urge, which tolerates no equal
or rival. This is the reason that Muhammad made the following
principle as the cornerstone of his prophethood:
"There is no God but Allah."
Allah is the Arabic name of God. Apparently, it signifies
monotheism (existence of One God) but as Allah, along with His
angels, worships the Prophet, it is Muhammad, who is the only God.
Muhammad maintained his uniqueness by a further claim that he was
not only the greatest but also the Last Prophet.
Seeking mass acknowledgement as the only God through proclamation
of prophethood is a very difficult task, indeed, because the
claimant wants this honour eternally, and not for a limited
period. Nationalism is the most suitable vehicle for achieving
this end: the Prophet raises a devoted band of his own nationals,
who speak the same language, share the same cultural traditions,
and love the same motherland. It makes unity easy for achieving
the goal. The Prophet's wisdom lies in assuring his followers
that their dignity or degradation is proportionate to their
sincerity of belief in him, and acting upon the Law that he has
given them; the master stroke is that the Law such as the Koran
is projected as divine and eternal. Since Prophet is the fountain
of the Divine Law, devotion to it, in fact, becomes an act of
adoring the Prophet, who is depicted its ultimate goal because it
is he who gets his followers into paradise.
However, it should be understood clearly that a Prophet is the
most sincere leader of his nation in terms of wishing them glory,
greatness and grandeur. It is because the loftier his nation, the
greater his chances to be established as the Divine through its
efforts: surely, a cat is more capable of performing higher deeds
than a mouse. Unless, a Prophet has strong national leanings, he
cannot arouse the national pride of his people. There is a stack
of evidence available to demonstrate that Muhammad was a great
national leader because he believed in the racial superiority of
the Arabs, and he used the device of Prophethood to achieve this
goal. Yet the Muslims insist that Muhammad had nothing to do with
nationalism, and his message is based on human love and
international brotherhood.
Instead, they claim that being a Prophet, Muhammad came to
eliminate the last traces of shirk i.e. idolatry, which holds
that there are other gods besides Allah; so enthusiastic was he
in this respect that he declared all sorts of images including
portraits and pictures as un-Islamic. This truth is fully
attested by the following hadiths reported in Volume 7 of Bokhari:
840, 841, 842, 843 and 844.
How desperate Allah is for making people believe in Himself to
the exclusion of all others! Yet, He claims to be the All-mighty,
and the Creator. If it were true, He could have arranged creation
in such a way that man would not have believed in any god but
Allah, who could have thus saved a lot of nagging chagrin to
Himself and also spared the most horrendous torture that anti-idolatry
forces have caused to human-kind by way of religious hatred,
leading to mutual destruction and carnage. If Allah really sent
Muhammad for this purpose, then it proved to be an abortive
exercise because there are infinitely more images in the world
today than when Muhammad came to destroy them. Even the Muslims
themselves have become the worst kind of idolaters; they all want
to stuff their pockets with currency notes that carry the figure
of some national hero; they possess cameras to photograph their
loved ones, own television sets to watch pictures and have film
industries in their countries.
Surely idol-bashing could not have been the apostolic purpose of
Muhammad. If it was, then both Allah and Muhammad failed
completely because, instead of disappearing, idolatry has
multiplied itself. It does not prove that Allah is All-wise or
All-Mighty. Does it?
However, when we assess the greatness of Muhammad in national
terms, he tops the list of national heroes. The evidence to this
effect is so overwhelming that only the naive will fail to see it:
The people of Muhammad i.e. Arabs, were divided into small
tribes, perpetually at war with one another; poverty and
ignorance had reduced them to extreme insignificance. On the
contrary, the Jews, who settled in various parts of Arabia i.e.
Mecca, Medina and Taif, enjoyed a high status owing to their grip
on national trade and commerce. The Jewish superiority sprang
from their religion, which states:
1. The Jews are the chosen people of God, and hence the superior
race. (God could not choose second-class people to call them as
his own. Could He?)
2. Yahwe, the Jewish God, had laid it down as the basic principle
for the Jews that they should pursue the course of riches. In
fact, they should be so wealthy that they ought to lend and not
borrow.
3. The Bible had bestowed supernatural reverence on Jerusalem,
the chief city of the Jews.
4. It was a Prophet, called Moses, who had welded his people into
a nation and enthused them with the zeal of racial ideal
demanding power, pomp and prestige.
As the Arabs practised idolatry, closely resembling the *Indian
model, they did not have direct consciousness of a Prophet or
Messiah. Since it is the Jews who popularised these concepts,
which had contributed to their national unity and uniqueness,
adopting their doctrines to create a similar Arab nationhood,
would be a great model to follow. Not only the national appeal of
the Jewish principles was tempting to Muhammad, but the fact that
Abraham was a common ancestor to both the Jews and the Arabs also
proved to be an irresistible factor. However, there was one major
drawback: the Torah declared the Arabs inferior to the Jews
because they are held as descendants of Ishmael, fathered by
Abraham but borne by Hagar, who was Sarah's bondwoman of Egyptian
origin, whereas Isaac, was borne by Sarah, Abraham's wife.
Therefore to vouch for the superior birth of Isaac, the Jewish
ancestor, the Bible declares: "But my (God) covenant will I
establish with Isaac .." (Genesis 17: 21).
Though God gives Isaac priority, He does not neglect Ishmael:
"And also of the son of the bondwoman (Ishmael) will I make
a nation, because he is thy (Abraham's) seed" ( Genesis 21:
13 ) .
In chapter 17: 20, this Divine undertaking is more pronounced:
"And as for Ishmael .... I have blessed him, and will make
him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes
shall he beget, I will make him a great nation."
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* For details, see my article: "India And Democracy."
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However, a deeper study of the Old Testament shows that Ishmael
is not being shown these favours in his own right but because he
is someone from Abraham's seed. It is the divine Covenant that
makes a person God's Lieutenant or Vicar on earth with godly
powers, properties and priorities. And this covenant is with
Isaac. This is the reason that God declares:
"For thou (the Jews) art an holy people unto the Lord
thy God: the Lord thy God, hath chosen thee to be a
special people unto Himself, above all people that are
upon the face of the earth" (Deuteronomy 7: 6).
To maintain the Jewish superiority, God emphasises:
"The Lord shall open unto thee (Jews) His good
treasures .... and bless all the work of thine hand:
and thou shall lend unto many nations, and thou shall
not borrow." (Deut. 28: 12).
Again, the Bible (Genesis 22: 9-12) states that the honour of
being sacrificed to God was bestowed on Isaac, to make him the
worthy father of the Chosen race.
These verses, not only announce superiority of the Jewish race,
but also hold the Arabs in gross contempt compared with the Jews.
A nationalist of the stature of Muhammad could not digest such an
insult. His national pride prompted him to devise an alternative
to degrade the Jews and elevate the Arabs. The following hadith
explains this truth:
"Of the two tribes that God chose as the best were
the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac. God preferred
the children of Ishmael (Arabs, to the children of
Isaac - the Jews). Then God created Muhammad in
the chosen tribe of the Quresh (the descendants of
Ishmael ) and then he chose his family as the best
among the Quresh families and created Muhammad
as the best of all men." (Jame Tirmze, Vol. 2)
One can see here the racial pride of the Prophet; he not only
exalts the Arabs over the Jews but also prefers his own family (Hashemites)
to the rest of the Arab clans. Finally, he asserts his own
superiority over each and every member of mankind to rank as
Khair-ul-Bashar (the best of men). It is strange that the non-Arab
Muslims eagerly quote the Prophet's Address of the Last Hajj to
prove that there is no colour distinction or nationalism in Islam.
This address is, obviously, a forgery because it contradicts the
principles and practices of the Prophet. Again, one should
remember that members of the Prophet's audience at that occasion,
were all Arabs except a few slaves of the African origin. As the
Arabs have different colours, the Prophet's remarks regarding
colour apply to the Arabs and not the Africans, who were never
given high posts in the Prophet's administration. One must also
remember the famous hadith:
"Love of one's motherland is an integral part of faith."
The above quoted hadith clearly testifies to the Prophet's
national zeal and demonstrates his effort to convince his fellow-Arabs
that they are superior to the Jews, whose racial ties were forged
into a distinct nationhood with the force of religious
manipulation. Obviously, this is the reason that Muhammad,
following the Mosaic model, invented Islam to glorify Arabia.
Muhammad was a wise man. He knew that the Jews of Arabia had
tremendous economic resources and social expertise. If they could
be persuaded to become a part of the Arab nationalism, Arabia
would stand to gain a great deal from this amalgam. Therefore, as
a first step, he held out an olive branch to them. It was a
psychological approach, which sought national union by exploiting
the common ancestry starting with Abraham. It was a serious
attempt to raise a Super Semitic Nation. Consider the following
facts:
1. The Prophet commences his national campaign by acknowledging
the Jewish claim of racial superiority. The Koran says:
"Children of Israel, remember My (God's) blessings
wherewith I blessed you, and that I
have exalted you above all beings."
(The Cow, 11-115)
2. It is difficult to change one's relgion, but the Prophet
Muhammad's genius made it easy to swallow the pill of conversion.
He declared Islam was not a new religion but a continuation of
the faith that Allah had handed down from Prophet to Prophet:
"He (Allah) has laid down for you as religion that He
charged Noah with, and that We (Allah) have
revealed to thee ( Muhammad ) and that we charged
Abraham with, Moses and Jesus ...."
(Counsel, XLII: 11 )
3. With a view to alleviating the Jewish fear that accepting
Islam might destroy their national identity, the Prophet Muhammad
even accepted diminution in his own status; he declared that
Islam is the religion of Abraham, the Jewish patriarch:
" ... your religion (Islam) being the creed of your
father Abraham: He named you ( the followers of
Muhammad) Muslim." (The Pilgrimage, XXII: 75)
4. To drill home the message of Jewish-Arab unity, the Prophet
bestows lavish praises on Abraham:
"Follow you the creed of Abraham (Islam), a man
of pure faith, and no idolater."(The Bee, XVI: 120)
5. "No, Abraham in truth was not a Jew: neither a
Christian, but he was a Muslim."
(The House of Imran, III: 60)
6. "We (Allah) chose him (Abraham) in the present
world, and in the world to come, he shall be among
the righteous." (The Cow, II: 120)
7. Adoption of Jerusalem as the Kibla or direction of worship by
Muhammad, is the master stroke of his political acumen, which
also proves that for raising a Super Semitic Nation, he was
fraternal, flexible and far-sighted. As I shall explain in
another chapter, it was a political act of high courage, which
could not be taken without stupendous good will. In fact, it was
a supreme example of sacrifice, which only a man of Muhammad's
stature could envisage. Had the Jews listened to the Prophet, the
unrivaled glory that Kaaba has enjoyed for the last fourteen
centuries, would have belonged to Jerusalem, bestowing divine
reverence on the Jews, instead of the unspeakable condemnation
that they have suffered in the world of Islam since its inception.
The Jewish refusal to embrace Islam, turned the Prophet against
them, and he decided to raise a purely Arab nation instead of a
Super Semitic Nation. Considering the ferocity of the Prophet's
anti-Jewish action, it is obvious that he t hought of Judaism as
a permanent threat to the Arabs and his creed. Therefore, he
prepared a master plan:
1. To raise a pure Arab nation by eliminating the Jews from
Arabia.
2. To make Islam the tool of self-perpetuating Arab Imperialism
in such a way that, although it is sharp, shocking and shattering
in purpose, its appeal must be hilarious, hooking and hypnotising.
In fact, it must create similar mental conditions in the non-Arab
Muslims as a flame does in moths and they become eager to cremate
themselves on it.
3. Realising the world-wide spread of the Jews and their
influence stemming from their commerical expertise, he made Jew-hating
a doctrine of the Islamic faith so that the Muslims all over the
world must join the Arabs in condemning the Jews in the
international arena.
I may discuss part one of this Prophetic Plan in this chapter,
but shall deal with section two, i.e. Islam, the tool of self-perpetuating
Arab Imperialism in chapter seven, and section three in chapter
eight headed as "The Clash of Prophets."
1. Elimination of Jews
Hadith no. 4363 (Muslim) states that the prophet said: "O ye
assembly of Jews, accept Islam and you will be safe ... you
should know that the earth belongs to Allah and His apostle, and
I wish that I should expel you from this land."
Here is the story of Banu Kainuka:
a. The Banu Kainuka, a Jewish tribe, were beseiged in A.D. 624.
After a fortnight, they surrendered. The Prophet wanted to
execute the lot of them. Abdullah bin Ubayy, who had been their
ally, begged mercy for them. The prophet turned his face away to
ignore the plea but Abdullah persisted in his pleading and caught
hold of the Prophet's arm. The Prophet cursed him loudly and
commanded him to release his grip but he would not do so until he
had compassion on the captives. In support of his action,
Abdullah enumerated the virtues of his Jewish associates and *
said, "I will not let thee go until thou hast compassion on
my friends; 300 soldiers armed in mail, and 400 unequipped - they
defended me on the fields of Hadaik and Boath. Wilt thou cut them
down in one day O Muhammad?"
Though fallen from the pulpit of power, Abdullah was still too
powerful to be ignored. "Let them go!" the Prophet said
reluclantly; "the Lord curse them, and him (Abdullah) too."
Though the Prophet spared their lives, he banished the whole
tribe of Banu Kainuka from Arabia.
Here, the stance taken by Abdullah bin Ubayy clearly demonstrates
that the Arabian Jews were not faithless and treacherous people
as depicted by the Muslim historians. They honoured their
alliances and fought for their principles. It is unfair to
denegrate a people for struggling to hold its traditions and
liberties.
b. Invasion of Khaiber
"What do they seek to hasten Our (Allah's)
chastisement? When it lights in their courtyard, how
evil will be the (morning) of them that are warned!
So turn thou (Muhammad) from them for a while,
and see; soon they shall see!
Glory be to thy Lord, the Lord of Glory .."
(The Rangers, XXXVII: 175-80)
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* The Life of Mahomet, P. 242
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What do these Koranic verses imply? They state that the Prophet
had extended an invitation of embracing Islam to the Jews of
Khaiber but they ignored the call. For inducing a false lull, the
prophet allowed them sufficient time to feel smug about the
warning (i.e. embrace Islam or else). Then all of a sudden,
without giving them a notice of battle, as had been the custom of
the invaders for centuries, the Prophet attacked the Jews of
Khaiber. The hadith no. 4437 (Muslim) describes the event:
"When we entered the town, he (the Prophet) said:
'God is Great. Khaiber shall face destruction .... it
is a bad day for them who have been warned (and
have not taken heed).'" The people of the town had
just come out (from their houses) to go about their
jobs. They said (in surprise): "Muhammad has come.
We captured by force."
It is really astonishing that the Prophet attacks a people
without any ultimatum, ignoring the established customs of
warfare, especially when their only crime is that they refuse to
accept him as the Apostle of God. Even a more stunning attitude
is that of Allah, who feels so proud of the situation that He
exclaims: "Glory be to thy Lord, the Lord of Glory!"
The situation that arose from this raid has been described in
hadith no. 3325 (Muslim) and explained in the footnote by the
annotator (in note no. 1870). As a result of the successful
invasion, whatever the vanquished possessed, became property of
the victor by grace of Allah. In the huge holy booty, was
included a dazzling Jewish beauty of seventeen called Safiyya,
the daughter of Huyayy bin Akhtab, the Chief of Quraiza and al-Nadir.
She was the wife of Kinana, the keeper of the great treasure,
reluctant to disclose its secrets. The Prophet ordered al-Zubayr
bin al-Awwam to "torture him until you extract what he has."
As a result, there was "kindled a fire with flint and steel
on his chest until he was nearly dead." Once the treasure
was discovered, he lost his significance, and was put to death at
the Prophet's behest.
The pious victory turned the profane prisoners of war into
possessions for the holy crusaders; one of them called "Dihya"
came forward and said, "Messenger of Allah, bestow upon me a
girl out of the prisoners." He said: "Go and get any
girl." He made a choice for Safiyya bin Huyayy.
Dihya's fellow-crusaders, realising what had happened, reported
to the prophet: "She is worthy of you only .....we have not
seen the like of her among the captives of war." It is easy
to see that it was not a reference to her social status but the
bewitching beauty. The Prophet summoned them, and said to Dihya:
"Take any other woman from among the prisoners."
Hadith no. 3329 (Muslim) describes the rest of the episode, which
took place the day when her entire family had suffered decimation
along with her husband. The Prophet freed Safiyya on the
condition of marrying him. Anas, the narrator of this hadith adds
that the prophet "then sent for my mother and asked her to
embellish her (Safiyya). Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him)
then got out of Khaiber (and kept moving) until when he was on
the other side of it (Khaiber); he halted and a tent was pitched
for him (to pass the night.)"
Next morning a simple nuptial feast was held. Thereafter the
journey to Medina started, Safiyya being seated behind him.
Reaching close to the destination, their camel stumbled, and they
both fell down. As people rushed to them, the Prophet said:
"We have received no injury. We entered Medina and there
came out the young ladies of the Household ( i .e. Prophet's
other wives ) . They saw her (Safiyya) and blamed her for falling
down."
The faithful have advanced some incredible arguments for
Muhammad's marriage to Safiyya, but the fact is her alluring
beauty. The Prophet stopped his journey while he was just on the
other side of Khaiber and still within the tactical reach of the
enemy if he could take revenge. Some sceptics have pointed out
that the prophet should not have consummated his marriage with
Safiyya immediately, as he did, because she was a young widow.
According to his own law, he must have allowed sufficient time to
establish that she was not pregnant.
c. Treatment of Banu Quraiza
Having expelled Banu Nadir from Arabia, the Prophet Muhammad
decided to exterminate Banu Quraiza, another Jewish tribe.
Since it is the habit of the Muslim expositors to turn, twist and
treat every event to suit their own palate, I shall ignore their
explanations of this highly doleful episode of history to dwell
on the actual handling of the Jews by the Prophet. For the sake
of consistency, I may quote it from my own book: "Faith And
Deception."
According to Aisha, the Prophet had just returned from the Battle
of Ditch, and had hardly taken off his armour when the angel
Gabriel appeared and told him to destroy Banu Quraiza (hadith no.
4364 - Muslim). Just see, how proudly Allah narrates this event
in the Koran:
"And He (Allah) brought down those of the People of
the Book, who supported them from their fortresses
and cast terror in their hearts; some you
(Muhammad) slew, some you made captive.
And He (Allah) bequeathed upon you their lands,
their habitations, and their possessions,
and a land you never trod. God is powerful
over everything." (The Confederates, XXXIII: 25)
The besieged Jews, having suffered for twenty-five days,
surrendered on the condition that their fate would be judged by
Saad bin Muaadh, a chieftain of the Ansar. The hadith no. 4369 of
the Sahih Muslim contains his judgement, which states " ...
kill their fighters and capture their women and children."
The Jews were taken out from their fort, and like animals, were
penned up in separate yards. They prayed all night to their Lord
God for mercy while a long deep trench was being dug up by the
zealous Muslims at the command of the Prophet. It was a mass
grave for the Jews, who had defied Muhammad to protect their
faith, possessions, wives and children. As the sunrays were about
to break through the curtain of darkness, the grave was ready to
provide a last refuge to the victims of helplessness. Having said
prayers to the Most Compassionate Allah, the Prophet, who claimed
to be Mercy for all beings, took a seat by the dreadful pit to
supervise the operation personally. The Jewish men were brought
in bands of five or six, without knowing their destination. Each
man, with his hands tied at the back, was commanded to lie down
and stretch his neck over the bank of the ditch, where stood Ali
and Zubair, who removed heads from their bodies with massive
swords. By dusk, the job was completed. The pleasure of Allah and
Muhammad led to the cold-blooded killing of 800 Jewish men, which
in terms of today's inflated population, would equal 80,000 men.
Their children were enslaved and women turned into concubines
with a view to providing the faithful with the foretaste of
paradisiac delights.
Saad bin Muaadh's decision was a demonstration of extreme
cruelty, especially when the Prophet Muhammad claimed to be
"Mercy for all beings," and not just for the Muslims.
The Muslim scholars justify this verdict on the pretext that Saad
was not in a good mood owing to ill health. This in fact, is an
anti-Islamic attitude because another hadith states as a
principle that a Qazi (judge) must not give judgement when in a
bad state of mind. The attitude of the Muslim scholars is false
because the hadith no. 4371 (Muslim) clearly states that the
prophet fully approved of the judgement by saying: "you have
judged their case with the judgement of God, the Exalted and
Glorified."
Among the Jewish women that fell to the Muslim faithfuls as
spoils of the war, was an enchanting young beauty of twenty-two,
called Rihana, whose husband, parents and closest relations had
just been massacred and buried at the Prophet's command. He
wasted no time in inviting her to accept his Prophethood and
become one of the wives, but she failed to understand how the
"Mercy for all beings" could make such a proposal when
she was being choked by grief, pain and sorrow. When she refused
to embrace Islam, the prophet took her for a concubine, which is
an unmarried slave woman. The Islamic law allows the master to
use her sexually, but treats her children as legitimate! The
Prophet owned another concubine presented to him by the Governor
of Egypt as a personal gift. Her name was Mary (Mariya); she bore
him a son called "Ibrahim."
From the above episode, one can clearly see that the treatment of
Banu Quraiza and other Jewish tribes, is a pathetic model of
ethnic cleansing. The Jews suffered this fate when they refused
to become Arabs. We cannot find an example of such extreme
nationalism so early in history. Yet the Muslims believe that
Islam does not recognise nationalism. They insist that it is a
message of international brotherhood!
It is a gross misconception. Here is the truth that exposes the
true nationalistic nature of Islam:
1. In fact, Islam is based on the racial pride of the Prophet
Muhammad, who wanted to exalt the Arabs over the Jews. For sake
of convenience, I re-quote the hadith:
"Of the two tribes that God chose as the best were
the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac. God preferred
the children of Ishmael (Arabs) to the children of
Isaac (the Jews). Then, God created Muhammad in
the chosen tribe of Quresh (the descendants of
Ishmael) and then He chose the best family among
the Quresh and created Muhammad as the best of
men." (Jame Tirmze, Vol. 2)
Since every word of this hadith emits the national pride of
Muhammad, it is difficult to imagine that Islam can have any
purpose other than serving the cause of Arabia. When we look into
it more carefully, it transpires that Islam represents a narrow
concept of nationalism, which restricts the right of governing to
the Quresh, that is, the Prophet's clan only:
2. "May Allah destroy those who intend to humiliate the
Quresh." (Jame Tirmze, Vol. 2)
3. " ...the prerogative to rule shall remain vested in the
Quresh, and whosoever is hostile to them, Allah shall destroy him.."
(Sahih Bokhari, Vol. 4)
4. "The right to rule shall belong to the Quresh even if two
men existed." (Bokhari, Vol. 4)
One must remember that Volume 9 of the Sahih Bokhari clearly
states that Abu Bakr was chosen as the First Caliph on the
authority of these hadiths because he belonged to the Quresh
tribe, and the other Arab clans had to withdraw their claims.
This fact became entrenched as the political doctrine of Islam.
This is why all the caliphs, both in Baghdad and Spain, came from
the Quresh family over a period of many centuries.
5. That the Prophet was a staunch believer of Arab nationalism,
is confirmed by his extreme love for Mecca i.e. Arabia, his
homeland:
The Prophet said, "O Mecca, by Allah you are better than any
part of the earth, and dearer to me than the rest of the world."
(Jame Tirmze, Vol. 2)
6. "He who aggresses against Arabia, shall not win my love,
nor will I intercede for him." (Jame Tirmze, Vol. 2)
7. For bestowing Divine reverence on Mecca (the home town of the
Prophet), he claimed that when Allah expelled Adam from the
Garden of Eden, He ordered him to go to Mecca and build there the
House of God. And so, he did.
Nobody wants to have his house built in a desert if he can have
it in a green valley. Why did God prefer the Arabian desert?
Again, as Adam was the first person, who ever lived, there could
not have been such a thing as Mecca or Arabia. No faithful has
ever considered this point. It is a proof of their total
brainwashing.
8. The Kaaba, i.e. Mecca was projected as more sacred than
Jerusalem because it was claimed by the Prophet that it had been
rebuilt by Abraham.
There is no historical proof that Abraham ever visited Mecca. He
was an inhabitant of Ur in Mesopotamia, hundreds of miles away
from it. If it was a fact, the Old Testament would have certainly
mentioned it. It was an attempt of the Prophet to make Arabia the
centre of international adoration so that foreign nations must
accept the Arab cultural hegemony.
9. To make sure that Mecca becomes the hub of international
reverence, the prophet declared that even God was worthy of
worship owing to His association with Mecca.
"I have only been commanded
to serve the Lord of this territory (Mecca)
which He has made sacred." (The Ant, 27: 91)
10. One should remember that Moses had associated God with Israel
only to make the Jews a special people. The Prophet Muhammad
followed this model to create a Divine Arab nation, which should
be culturally obeyed and loved by all other people. See the
following:
"YOU (the Arabs) are the best nation ever brought
forth ... bidding honour, and forbidding dishonour..."
(The House of Imran, III: 105)
Here the non-Arab Muslims, especially the Indians, the
Pakistanis, the Bangladeshis, who have lost all sense of national
honour owing to a long period of political humiliation, buttress
their psychological degradation by pretending that in this verse
"you" means the Umma i.e. the international community
of Muslims. The stark truth is that when this verse was "revealed,"
there was no Umma but the Arab Muslims. Examine the following
verse to understand its true meaning:
11. By the Clear Book,
behold, We have made it an Arabic Koran;
haply you will understand ..."
(Ornaments XLIII, 1-4)
There is no room for any ambiguity here: The Koran has been
delivered in Arabic so that "you" - the Arabs must
understand it. Therefore, Islam is meant for the Arabs only
because it is their language.
This discussion clearly demonstrates that the Prophet Muhammad
was a great nationalist. To raise a pure Arab nation, he carried
out a systematic programme of ethnic cleansing, and to motivate
his people with a supernatural zeal, he assured them that they
were appointed by Allah as the Best Nation, charged with the
international duty to bid honour and forbid dishonour. (III-105)
This divine duty of the Arabs "to bid honour and forbid
dishonour" is what makes them Warden of humanity, and thus,
entitles them to declare Jehad i.e., holy war against infidels to
achieve their secular aims.
A Prophet, as stated earlier, is a man of super ego; he wants to
be treated as God's Superior without discarding his mantle of
humanity because this indirect approach makes his actions look
unselfish and a part of divine duty. For raising himself to such
unique status, he needs a strong and well-disciplined nation,
thoroughly devoted to his cause. This type of ambition requires
followers, who are so drunk with the wine of faith that they make
fun of reason, the foundation of humanity. This is why a Prophet
uses revelation as the tool for realising his dreams: without
doubt this is the most effective means of brainwashing, which
reduces a man to the level of a monkey, and he cannot see the
difference between honour and dishonour: honourable is what
serves his purpose: the rest is dishonourable.
The prophet Muhammad being a great visionary, knew that the
history of nations is subject to rise and fall. Therefore, a
fallen nation cannot keep a Prophet on the pulpit of divinity.
With the force of sagacity, he made Islam, the self-perpetuating
Arab Imperialism in such a way that it is very hard, indeed, to
penetrate this truth that lies concealed under its most alluring
cover of piety, purity and probity.
In the next chapter, we may have a glimpse of this mystery.