West...Beauty, Muslims...Justice

[Rootsie]

The West is in Search of Beauty, the Muslims in Search of Justice

By Dr. Abderrahman Ulfat
reprinted from:  http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_14246.shtml

Editor's Introduction]/b]:  Dr. Ulfat resides and works in Saudi Arabia. It has been my pleasure to have come to know Dr. Ulfat over the last few months through correspondence and telephone conversation. This in-depth analysis of the history of relations between Muslim/Arab and the West clarifies their divergent paths which have led to the current, critical state of world affairs. We believe it delivers with poignancy, historical background and timely lessons for understanding international relations today. As such, it deserves careful reading and serious consideration, worldwide. With penetrating insight and honesty, he offers a refreshing understanding of the Arab/Muslim world against a backdrop of soundbite racism and nationalism propelled by the corporate media. Dr. Ulfat's Ghandian conclusions are elegant and stand in stark contrast to the oppressive, militaristic approach to conflict-resolution that prevails in today's world. We are honored and grateful to Dr. Ulfat for this opportunity to publish his work on Axis of Logic. Dr. Ulfat's biography is included at the end of this treatise. - Les Blough, Editor 

Introduction

President Bush has been as defiant of world opinion as was Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader whom he drove out of Afghanistan. Driven by a religious zeal, both have aimed at pulverizing older civilizations; President Bush is using depleted uranium to end life in the seat of Islamic civilization; Mullah Omar was adamant on the destruction of what was left of the statue of Buddha in Bamyan. The sad conclusion is that not only democracy does not guarantee world peace, but that world peace is threatened in proportion to the weight of the player in world affairs. Mullah Omar earned his leadership through sheer grit, by overcoming the chaos in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, while George Bush, came to power through a decision of the Supreme Court, and transformed an era of high growth in the US into chaos and depression; charged by a crusading zeal to launch the Islamic world into ‘democracy’, his actions have sown the seeds of hatred against the US so far and wide that no government will be able to cope with the imminent outburst of radicalism as the consequence.

But Mr. Bush seems to be a mere pawn when pitted against the colossal issues, which he neither can grasp nor control. Therefore, one has to take account of the ever-darkening prospect facing humanity before Gulf War III transforms to WWIII, through a premeditated design called 'the clash of civilization'.

This article tries to lay bare the deliberate tendencies that concocted and launched the so-called 'clash of civilization' at its target: cutting the Islamic countries "to size". It also describes the spiraling weaknesses that rendered the Islamic world an easy prey, manipulated at will by the technological Prometheans of the modern world.

It concludes with the Vision that may help the fruition of the disparate attempts by Muslims to regain their once-respected position within the world community...

I.  A Civilization Out of the Desert Void

What are the inner tendencies of Western and Islamic civilizations? Are they drifting apart? If so, should one side abandon the World and go to another Planet as was suggested by John Lloyd? 1

The tendency of the two cultures, as they have left their marks in history, is clearly marked by the pursuit of beauty by one and justice by the other.2 So goes the paradigm that explains the drifting apart between Islamic countries and the West, while today, admittedly, Muslims do not strictly adhere to rules of justice; nor does the West fulfil the requirements of beauty par excellence. If Islam's tenacious relation with justice is amply documented, the Western search for beauty is axiomatic: it is exemplified by the art galleries, the operas, the movie industry, etc. as products of a beauty-prone culture.

Beauty, however, is ephemeral: to Hitler it was the physiognomy of the Aryan race. The British saw it in an empire without sunset, and George Bush sees it in the precision and penetration of a smart bomb to 'smoke out' Saddam Hussein. Beauty is also open-ended and defiant of restrictions, in that its pursuit allows the West unhindered passage into the future. The pursuit of justice is confining, as it demands submission to a given set of absolutes and imposes upon Muslims stringent requirements. Therefore, the increasing drift between the two is a natural consequence when the Muslims are bound by some strict rules, while the West makes its own rules as it pursues its goals in the guise of beauty. The sway of beauty on the West is paramount. Even Christianity was molded and shaped to the Western taste by the requirements of beauty-ridden of its absolutes. It was rendered malleable to adjust through time, and to become amenable to expression through art and music. All aspects of Western achievements are marked by a sense of beauty, nourished by unbound imagination and served by a pragmatism that allows it to leapfrog hindrances. Beauty, imagination and pragmatism are the ever-present trinity, whether we are looking at the ruins of ancient Rome, Greece or the mind-boggling achievements of Western societies today.

Hubris, however, is a natural behavioral offshoot of such an unbound Promethean thrust; otherwise, how could we explain such colossal ruinous acts which accompanied WWI, WWII, the War in Vietnam, and the Chess Game that is being played in Afghanistan, not to mention the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the Opium Wars and numerous others? How else could we describe the zeal for achievements cohabiting the thirst for destruction under beautifully packaged pretexts and rationalizations such as manifest destiny, white man's burden, globalization, etc.?

Nothing has a higher sway over the Muslims compared to strict monotheism, as the highest and the most fundamental principle of justice governing the relationship between the Creator and the creation. The fact that the initial antagonism with the Jewish tribes in Medina did not prevent Muslims to be the protector of Jews throughout history, is attributable to justice as the central theme in Islam. In the same vein, Islam shunned the formation of cults in opting for a rainbow-coalition of followers; in keeping with its universalism, it registered the participation of the whole of humanity in the formation of its civilization, where justice was the cementing factor in the whole effort. Non-Arab Muslims, to this day, although reverent to the Arabic language, never feel the lesser in stature to Arabs in Islam.

The essence of beauty and justice, as trademarks of the two cultures, are most clearly expressed when each cultural entity is at the zenith of its glory and stability and acts out of volition and not duress: for the Muslim side, the reign of Saladin and his treatment of the crusaders serves as a good example. For the West, the US today is the personification of the highest technological achievements and the profusion of hubris. The most glorious periods of Islamic history are associated with the existence of independent judges whom the kings obeyed. The rapid spread of Islam among the people, when freed from the demagoguery, is attributable to nothing less than the restoration of justice and human dignity that were vaporized by the two mighty empires at the time. The restoration of justice and human dignity unlocked human ingenuity, which powered the Islamic civilization to blossom from the desert void and to safeguard humanity from languishing under the decomposing corpses of the Roman and Persian empires.3

Hubris, however, prevents many a pundit to admit to this most straightforward explanation for the blossoming of civilization out of the desert void. How could they attribute justice to Islam and admit to its role in tapping human ingenuity? How could they acquiesce to ingenuity outside the confine of Western civilization? They find it convenient to forge an uninterrupted continuity, between the ancient and the new, in Western civilization as if Islam had no role to play in the resuscitation of that civilization from the ruins of the Dark Ages in the aftermath of the fall of the Roman Empire. The persistence of this neglect by the West, prompted Robert Briffault to devote a seminal work to the theme entitled: The Making of Humanity.

In Briffault's treatise, he explained how Islam rescued humanity when the Greek-Roman heritage and the Judo-Christian heritage were both eclipsed by the Dark Ages without a glimmer of hope. But this important fact has been wilfully ignored. The continued neglect and the resultant intellectual pollution seen in a curious interpretation of history, are permeating myriads of articles and books. The intellectual suffocation is preventing Muslims (especially those Muslims educated in the West who are in the seat of power in Islamic countries), to form a clear historic perspective about the role of Islam in the promotion of human civilization. The books that acquiesce to the true role of Islam are only a handful compared to thousands that deny it. For the Islamic world the recognition of this role is all the more necessary for launching a rational self-assessment, without which any correction of course is unlikely.

continued...

[Rootsie]

II. Bernard Lewis has got it all wrong

The recent attempt by Bernard Lewis, the doyen of Middle Eastern studies according to George Shultz, in the book entitled What Went Wrong?, is not helping the situation. According to Lewis, the Islamic countries, by not following the West in three areas, have succumbed to the thralls of backwardness: (1) The status of women, according to him, is "probably the most profound single difference between the two civilizations". (2) They have also failed he notes, "to accept or even to recognize", what he terms, "the underlying philosophy and the socio-political context of [Western] ... scientific achievements", whose products, in warfare and medicine, again according to him, they are wont to accept. (3) Western science, technology and music, according to Lewis, have not developed roots in the Islamic world in general because of their heavy requirements, "to measure time exactly" and "to synchronize," which Muslims "do not seem to be able to acquire".

While noting a "dramatic change" from the end of the middle Ages where "independent inquiry virtually came to an end" in the Muslim world, Professor Lewis does not offer reasons why things went wrong for the Muslims, and why independent inquiry stopped. Therefore, the question posed by him in the title still begs an answer.

Lewis' three reasons for failure seem to be self-contradictory to say the least; the Muslims did establish a civilization from zero-base, and achieved within it an elevated status for women among other achievements that Professor Lewis acknowledges. They achieved what they did because they were masters of their destiny and were very rational in borrowing from others. They launched on an unprecedented translation effort, which lasted decades, to bring into the open what the Greek, Persian and Indian civilizations had to offer. They were rational borrowers, and excellent synthesizers for the purpose of higher welfare, and the process lead to notable achievements in welfare-enhancing disciplines such as agriculture and medicine.4 Today they are falling behind everyone else because they are mere imitators, just keeping in league with modernism, while their commitment to people's welfare is either marginal or nonexistent. As a result, their efforts in science and technology do not add up, are not tied to national goals and are mere efforts at copying. As such, the efforts dissipate and do not contribute to an up-lift of the intellectual base or general welfare. But Professor Lewis along with hundreds of others advises Muslims to continue the imitation, ad-infinitum, as robotic actors behind the West.

In his appreciation of the Islamic civilization, Professor Lewis is in the category of those who see the empty half of the glass. He states: "the Mongols overthrew an empire that was already fatally weakened indeed; it is difficult to see how the once mighty empire of the caliphs would otherwise have succumbed to a horde of nomadic horsemen riding across the steppes from East Asia."5 What he fails to see is the enormous constructive capacity in that "fatally weakened empire of caliphs," which absorbed that nomadic horde that played havoc with the entire world, and rendered them as instruments of "greatest cultural achievements," as he himself has phrased it. In modem times, one can cite Malcolm X's conversion to Islam, which changed him from a firebrand radical, who 'could turn on a riot or turn it off, at will', to a reformer who gave the black movement a new vision. For further clarification, in a larger contrasting context, Professor Lewis may wish to look at the "nation-building" work of the greatest power on the globe today, as reported in The Economist6:

"Afghanistan reclaimed its title as the word's top opium producer. After a drop in production under Taliban rule, the UN estimated that the country would produce 2,952 tonnes of the drug this year [2002]."

Or he may wish to look at the on-going "democratization" of Iraq for which a cancer-inflicted population, with depleted uranium, is going to be the basic ingredient.

But why did the Mongols succeed in bringing the empire to its knees? To be fair to the Muslims, the Mongols brought the whole world to its knees, and each victory boosted their morale and whetted their appetite for the next one, facts that an eminent historian cannot neglect; but Muslims who resisted the most, brought upon themselves the greatest destruction. This was when they had veered off from the essence of justice. A first sign of departure from Islamic norms was when Sultan Mohammed Khwarizm Shah murdered a caravan of three ambassadors and one hundred and fifty merchants, sent by Genghis Khan who wanted to establish a friendly and commercial intercourse.7 As a result of departure from the basic norms, decay was gnawing at the Islamic edifice and the level of self-respect was the lowest among the population. It is stated that the invading soldiers, in Herat, in order to make pillage more efficient, would order a resident, caught alone, to wait until they would corral others. Upon return they would find the victim obediently present on the spot. Such submissiveness to terror is an indication of total absence of justice in the society that was about to face the onslaught of Genghis Khan. History is being repeated nowadays with unprecedented parallels.

III. The Weakening and Continuous Decline

During the reign of Salahuddin (Saladin) Al-Ayubi (1138-1193), there was a kind of technological parity between the Islamic world and the West. But in sciences the Islamic world was far ahead, as the West had barely started establishing its universities--Oxford was founded in 1167, precisely 100 years after the establishment of Nizamiyyah in Baghdad in 1067. Ever since, as to how the two civilizations traversed different paths--one of ascension and the other one of descent--is an immensely important historic question. The poor state of historic analysis of Islamic world, however, does not allow for an answer.8 And the paltry explanation given in the concluding Chapter of Professor Lewis' book is also not making any dent in the puzzle.

But it is worth looking at the total picture: We know of the successive calamities that have befallen the Islamic world. What we do not know is how those calamities resulted in a complete uprooting of the institutionalized pattern of knowledge, in a way that knowledge never developed roots again. The 10th, 11th and 12th centuries were periods of internal strife between the Shia and the Sunni sects where blood was shed aplenty. In parallel to this internal strife, the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries were also times when crusades were launched to regain Jerusalem. The beginning of the thirteenth century marks the appearance of Genghis Khan; and Baghdad was sacked in 1258; the resultant death toll is estimated between 800,000-1,800,000 people. The tragedy was preceded by the greatest volcanic eruption in Medina in 1256, where volcanic fire changed the landscape. People interpreted the catastrophe as the Day of judgement.

Altogether there were four centuries of strife and struggle from within, and attempted invasions from without--the East and the West. From the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, when the Ottomans were in power in the age of gunpowder, Arabic language was dethroned and no longer allowed to play its previous role. Hence, there occurred a major intellectual break from the past. But the complete break from the scientific past was affected when the Turkish Empire was established and the Arabic language as a medium of research was institutionally frozen. This gave rise to the intellectual paralysis in the Arab world, which lasted hundreds of years, and the ensuing consequences reverberates even today.

Enter the rise of the British Empire, putting an end to the Ottoman Empire. A new colonization of Islamic land started. Almost immediately after physical colonization had ended, an assimilation bond was cemented between the newly independent Islamic States and their colonial masters. The intellectual vacuum, created during the Ottoman rule paved the way and further cemented Muslim imitation of the west on a grand scale. In virtually all Islamic countries, Western education was copied and its industrialization pattern was attempted repeatedly. Turkey became the leader in this imitation process, Iran and Afghanistan followed in its footsteps. The most distinguished student of Islamic history, the late Professor Marshall Hodgson, has explained the situation thus:

"In short, in the main area of Islamdom, the middle generation of the nineteen century was one in which governments, and at least the moneyed classes of people, were both pushing assimilation to modern Western life. Resistance of any kind was for a time at a minimum; acceptance of Western leadership and control, and even outright trust of Western good intentions, was at maximum."9

Perhaps the Muslim world did not go through enough assimilation to satisfy Bernard Lewis. The ensuing one and a half centuries of imitation has tied the intellectual and scientific pursuits in the Islamic world to a Western orbit and away from serving Islamic societies. The result is a parody, exemplified by Turkey itself. Turkey went the farthest in its imitation and the uprooting of its Islamic past, but has a hard time being accepted by the West, which was imitated 'lock-stock-and-barrel'. Turkey is now being blamed for falling short in the very notions that Islam upholds and by which it saved humanity when at the brink of extinction--justice and human dignity. But all Islamic countries are paying heavy price for such negligence toward justice and human dignity. It is no wonder that when all regions of the world, except Africa, declare high productivity, the Muslim countries can only show parasitical existence in their high level of dependence on others and in losing their educated manpower in droves.

The Western world is aiding and sanctioning this parasitical status quo. Very sophisticated policies and institutions, the UN, IBRD, WTO, etc., are empowered to corral developing countries, mostly Islamic, into submission to the one-size-fit-all policies emanating from "globalization", "privatization", "industrialization", "transfer of technology," etc. While heavy subsidies protect the agriculture in all industrialized countries, globalization is launched to pave the way for domination by the global giants. It is, therefore, time to ask whether these one-size-fits-all developmental policies are not the biggest insult to human dignity, undermining their diversity in history, culture and values.

Who pays for the costs of these big imitation-blunders, when one mode of imitation is discarded and a new one is shoved down the throat of the third world? Does not real respect for human dignity require trusting human beings with their his own development? Are the UN institutions nurturing and up-holding human dignity, or are they fat bureaucracies disbursing high salaries? One can test these notions in the "nation-building" scheme launched in Afghanistan with the following questions: How much development in Afghanistan is being done by Afghans and how much upon the NGOs? How much is spent, on what and at what salaries? How much seeps into the country, and how much is sucked abroad? At the end of the game, when the country is "satisfactorily democratized," how many Afghans will lose their sanity, leave alone dignity, to Vodka, drugs, and prostitution!

[Rootsie]

IV.  Huntington Invented the "Clash" to Crush the Muslims

At this critical juncture, under the rubric of "globalization", Muslim countries, and especially the Arabs, are demanded to embrace a number of reforms: change the educational system, because some right-wing think tank sees it as a propagator of terrorism; embrace democracy as practiced in the West; make the laws transparent; open the markets by removing the hurdles and swim with the global sharks regardless of the level of preparedness. Only after such changes will these countries be treated as members of human community. But before acceptance is granted, one important dimension of their ugliness needs surgical treatment--their explosive rate of population growth. The war in Iraq will engulf the whole region; if not, other means will be found, which will guarantee smaller size and lower fertility in Muslim populations, commensurate with "sustainable development", environmental requirements, and at parity with 'civilized pattern' of population growth--a beautiful tableau, which captures the fascination of all members of the Western alliance, Russia included. If one doubts Western intentions in "cutting the Islamic world to size", then one has to offer convincing reasons for the use of depleted uranium (DU) in Afghanistan in weapons that are 400-times more lethal than what was used in the first Gulf War. Nothing else could guarantee better a degenerated population in Afghanistan in the future. The reason for the impatience to attack Iraq should become obvious now that the underlying context is laid bare, and the weapons are upgraded.

Such is the price that Muslims have to pay now that the fountain of life, population growth, has dried for the West while still flowing for the Islamic world. It is of no consequence that Islamic countries bear no responsibility for drying the fountain of life in the West. The continuous desecration of the family, and a Promethean thrust in pursuit of material goals, are the reasons behind the disappearance of the family and low fertility in the West. But the Islamic world has to pay the price for this self-inflicted wound by the West, in the same manner as they had to vicariously atone for Hitler's guilt in Palestine, and accept an appended Israel to the region. Only this time the 9/11 has provided the best of alibis for the West to inflict on the Islamic world as it sees fit, and to "cure" what it conceives as "the rot" inside Islam and the Islamic world; Professor Bernard Lewis had seen that in his expression: "the longer sequence and larger pattern of events, ideas, and attitudes that preceded and in some measure produced them." In other words, he saw before others, as he stated in The Financial Times, that the "rot inside" will be realized. Professor Huntington had preceded him by providing the proper epitaph for this notion in The Clash of Civilizations10

Having developed his theme in the aftermath of America's defeat by a Confucian coalition (China and Vietnam) and Russia's failure in Afghanistan, the professor called for utmost military preparedness against Islam and Confucianism. The scheme was made to be attractive to Russia at a time that it was coming back to the Western fold. Since China could not be touched, its inclusion as a target was an academic nicety to hide the naked ferocity, against the Islamic countries, but why? For an explanation we have to turn to the internal situation in the US: The overwhelming sway of the Zionists over US foreign policy has been a source of resentment to many; many have lost their political careers as a result. Senator Fulbright was an outstanding example who in vain, tried to define some limits to the US support for the Zionist State. Senator Charles Percy, a presidential timber, was an earlier victim along with Senator Paul Findley and many others. Pat Buchanan described the U.S. Congress as the "occupied territory", under the siege by the Zionists. The situation became very tenuous in the world's largest democracy, as well as for democracy as an institution. Professor Huntington came to the rescue and charged himself with the task of finding an outlet for the inundated political tension before it triggered the repeat of the holocaust. At the same time his scheme was to guarantee the survival of the military-industrial complex that was destined for a natural death with the demise of the USSR.

Targeting the Islamic world was the optimal solution, for which the priory philosophical justification was established through the Clash of Civilizations, to be complemented by Professor Lewis's posterior rationalization. The two wise men had the insight as to what the Islamic culture was capable of nurturing: to perfectly time the explosion of three planes, by some elements armed with razor blades and scissors, while Professor Lewis gives them poor grade for synchronization and coordination! Need one be reminded that maneuvering passenger planes in uncharted directions, after a smattering of training in much smaller planes, is a Herculean task! Was it then a miracle in answer to the prayers of the Christian coalition that brought about a President11 whom the Supreme Court had to install; and Perle-Wolfowitz & Associates just happened to be there to implement the inevitable "clash"? Must one then hail the "beautiful", well-coordinated political craftsmanship in the West, and reserve his wrath for the lack of it in the Islamic world?

But how was the actual "clash" brought about, and why? After all Osama bin Laden has confessed to the act. He knew Afghanistan better than any Afghan, an asset that served him well in his exploitation of the country for his cause. But those who knew him the best and had access to his thinking were the intelligence agencies in the US, Russia and Israel. He was imbued with a great deal of zeal for the service of Islam, but void of any vision in how to go about it. Were he to be a genuine reformer, Afghanistan would have been his preoccupation for the rest of his life with no time for anything else. His participation in Jihad and his wealth provided him with the moral, political and material capital about which a benevolent reformer could only dream.

To serve the needy, would have been his best path to the hearts and to the Almighty. But he avoided it, except where it served his agenda. As a result, he threw away a spiritually appealing ideal. Others superimposed their agenda and steered him toward a "revolutionary" course. With Taliban coming to power, and the political situation shifted his way, he turned towards the "liberation" of Palestine, an issue to which every Muslim finds himself emotionally attached. By submitting to his radical mentors he forsook serving the needy for "a pie in the sky". But this was not the only time that Afghanistan paid a price for an Islamic zeal void of vision. During the Russian invasion, General Zia-ul-Haq's zealous coalition with Ikhwan-al-Muslimin prevented any political participation by Afghans who did not join the parties that were sanctioned by him. The Taliban, as became clear, were also coached by Pakistan toward the preclusion of any intra-Afghan understanding, and the return of the intellectuals. To this day Afghanistan pays a price for such deliberate and repeated political alienations. Meanwhile the Islamic world was fed up with Afghanistan, and did not have a vision out of its being embroiled in factional fighting.

Void of strategic outlook, for avoiding perils and opportunities to exploit, the Islamic world in its totality, lacked the facility and the wisdom to do something useful for that country, which was left at the mercy of bin Laden, the spies and the West. One would have thought that having been the victim of the great blunder, after WWI, when the then super power reneged on its promise to give the Arabs their freedom, they would have acquired a sharp sense of strategic thinking; alas nothing had changed. Such, was the situation in a country that had benefitted the world by stopping the Soviet expansion, for nothing in return - as its flowing rivers continuously benefit others.

But in the West those who wanted a "clash" between the two "civilizations", found Osama bin Laden's zealous and revolutionary program as music to their ears. Afghanistan, in the throes of starvation, provided a cheap bargain.12 Exploiting the situation had many advantages: It allowed for a diversion of the accumulated wrath in the US toward a specified target: the Muslims, the fastest growing segments in the world. It provided great opportunity for a US military presence, in strategic locations, which a lesser calamity could not have justified to the world community. It also put the Palestine issue more fully under the Zionist mercy. It provided the opportunity for debilitating the fertility factor in the Arab world once and for all. It lent the West the opportunity for a strategic positioning vis-B-vis China. The economic benefits from controlling oil, 80% in the hands of Muslims, would be another windfall.

Of course, Osama bin Laden would not have wilfully provided all these benefits to the West, but such was his dilemma; endowed with wealth, power and prestige, he submitted to be led and used by others. Saddam Hussein, however, had preceded him in this folly; by allowing himself to be lured to invade Kuwait, he provided the Western Alliance with undreamt opportunities, of which the US could not wait to reap a second harvest.

more...

[Rootsie]

V.  A Vision for the Reawakening

The Arabs have never been in greater danger than they are today, and have never been as divided as they are today. Unless the "leaders" harness their capabilities and potentials to serve their people, their teeming resources and strategic opportunities, are targets of opportunity, which the fortune hunters from without exploit without mercy while aiming at their destruction. They have to end their wholesale assimilation to the West, and break the siege of the gravitational pull from a "black hole", which has rendered them as parasites, deprived of the will for self-expression. The brainpower in the Islamic world has gone on an imitation spree that has lasted two centuries. Bernard Lewis wants more of the same! No original thoughts have come to the fore. The only ones active and full of initiatives in the Islamic countries are the radical fringes; some of whom, in their attempt to break away from the Western collective siege, were entrapped in the mysterious concoction of 9/11. Only one Nobel Prize in literature was won, which may have been given for the promotion of a special brand of literature. The only ingenuity shown by the intellectuals in the Islamic world was to think radically along the Soviet line, while feeling comfortable in Western attire puffing on their Havana cigars. Discarding a leftist agenda after the demise of the Soviet Union and stampeding toward democracy, they are shocked that its contents are emptied by a superpower, which defies all rules in the pursuit of its nefarious purpose.

America is on its path of revenge. It is moved by its crusading sentiments and the Zionist agenda. Depending on the level of resistance in Iraq, the US will gauge its strength in launching attacks on Syria as a backer of Hezbollah, on Somalia, where the American forces were humiliated, and Iran, perceived by Israel as its potential enemy, and where Americans were imprisoned for 444 days. The reality of Zionist and the neo-Crusader's agenda is going to unfold through what they can achieve on the ground. Muslims are in need of no pundit or interpreter to tell them of their powerlessness and the brutality and connivances of their enemies.

When the radical fringe of western civilization rebelled against the rest, under the banner of communism, it was the blood of one million Muslims that brought the radicals back to the fold. The freedom of Eastern Europe and many countries in Asia was a direct consequence. The US became the sole superpower without the Pentagon lifting a finger to earn the title. Muslims sacrificed and the world benefited. But when the radical fringe in the Islamic world rebelled, it is the Muslims as a whole who now have to pay the price. The Muslims have witnessed the humiliating submission of Iraq to the dictates of the Security Council against the hubristic rejection of the results by the Super Power. The UN disarmed and prepared Iraq, the US went in for the over-kill! The international community looked on. The weapons of mass destruction are yet to be found. How can Muslims be expected to swallow these dictates of the "clash of civilizations", so-called?

If the Islamic countries do not find ways to utilize their potential for the welfare of their people, the radical fringes will enlarge the circles of opportunities for more disasters. For that to be prevented, only in the long term, the education system has to be drastically revised; not because it generates radical thoughts, one wish it did, but because it stifles thought and propagates parasitism.

Islamic thought has remained dormant for more than six centuries. Only a deeply felt genuine desire for serving the destitute, all over the globe, can reactivate it, as it did during the rise of Islam. Let the West pursue its progress through the star wars, and bulldoze its way through globalization. Let the Islamic world pursue its success in the cause of justice and the service of humanity inside and outside the Islamic world. Only then, will Muslims be heeding the dictum which summarizes their eternal Vision and the mandate which qualifies them to be the witness to what is done to humanity:

"You are succoured by the Creator, in proportion to your care for the destitute."

No other worldly theme is more recurrent in the Quran; none carries greater challenge and potential for the revitalization of the Islamic nation; none is a better means for disarming the radical fringe; in the wake of a holistic approach to the elimination of poverty, none opens greater avenue for learning, especially in malnourished disciplines such as environmental sciences, sociology, history, anthropology, economics, agriculture, medicine and medical sciences for the poor, etc.; nothing will be more democratizing and humanizing in restoring Islamic personality, which is chiselled out of shape by external impacts; nothing more revitalizing for the real potential to flourish; nothing more soothing or cathartic to the pathetic conditions of humanity as a whole, where philanthropy is used cosmetically to hide enormous indecency by the Robber Barron States. Accepting the challenge will correct the course and set the arena for a meaningful practice of religion instead of spewing rhetoric and sermonizing hypocritically. It will end the meaningless but roaring role that Muslims have assigned to their religion in conducting their affairs; it will allow Islam to glitter on its own, and not to be perceived as an object of fear, or ridicule. Islam will then dwell in its natural habitat. It will herald a new dawn for humanity and will ensure progress. The ensuing results from the vision may even persuade the West to pursue "beauty" with justice. It might even tame its lust for destruction, environmental havoc and wastefulness. We have trailed long enough on a Western orbit; it is about time to take the lead.

REFERENCES
1. Wanted--The Next Big Idea, Financial Times, Jan.12/13, 2002.
2. Karen Armstrong's two books, Mohammed, and A History of God… shed ample light on Islam's tenacious relation with justice.
3. Robert Briffault, The Making of Humanity, London: George Allen & Unwind Ltd. 1919. The book is devoted to the re-emergence of civilization, due to the rise of Islam, when neither the Greek-Roman heritage nor the Judo-Christian legacy were capable to rescue the situation from the ever-lasting "dark welter of degradation" that prevailed over the "Dark Continent" in the aftermath of the Roman Empire.
4. In medicine the achievements are well known. For their achievements in irrigation devices, which later on allowed the Europeans to convert to various industrial apparatus, see Donald R. Hill's, "Mechanical Engineering in Medieval Near East," Scientific American, May 1991, pp. 64-69.
5. Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response, Oxford University Press, 2002
6. The Economist, August 31, 2002
7. Edward Gibbon, The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. III, p. 628, The Modem Library.
8. Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, Vol. II, p. 373, The University of Chicago Press, 1974.
9. Ibid, Vol. III, p.233.
10. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilization, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993. Elsewhere, I have dealt with the tenuous nature of this thesis. See the article entitled, "Let the Next Big Idea be Decency," Arab News, June 26, 2002.
11. How George W. Bush became President when the vote counting was stopped in Florida, by an unprecedented intervention from the Supreme Court, is revealed in Michael Moore's Stupid White Males.
12. Men and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! ReganBooks, 2001.
13. Bob Woodward, Bush at War, Simon & Schuster, 2002. He states the price tag for, bribing and forming, anti-Taliban coalition at $70 million. Although he gives details of the long involvement of the CIA in Afghanistan (p. 53 especially), he contradicts that, however, by the general impression conveyed of a total lack of preparedness before launching the attack on the country. His book polishes President's image, which was badly tarnished in Michael Moore's book cited above.