Articles

This article was contributed by Muhammad Ali Alula al-Hashimi, a scholar of international political economy specializing in African and Muslim countries. He is associate fellow at the Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance in London (UK), and founder and executive director of Harar Global Foundation in Washington, DC, a charitable and research organization. He is also a member of the First Hijrah Foundation, based also in Washington, DC.

History repeats itself. The less people know their history, the more inclined they are to repeat it. We find this particularly applicable to the affairs of the Muslim Ummah. For example, we know the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem to be one of the most beautiful buildings in the Muslim world, testament to the glory and magnificence of Islam and a matter of pride for Muslims.

By making the Islamic movement its primary target over the past three years, the regime has actually bestowed greater credibility on the movement as the only legitimate opposition to its oppressive policies and therefore, worthy of public support.

It seems the Americans never miss an opportunity to get sadistic pleasure out of humiliating Muslims. If it is not physical abuse like torture and rape, they are busy burning copies of the Qur’an.

The degeneration of Muslim societies has gone so far that nothing is considered sacred any more, not even the honour of Muslim women. On December 17, when six soldiers attacked and wrestled a young girl to the ground in Cairo, ripping her ‘abayah and exposing her body, it sent shock waves throughout Egypt as well as the broader Muslim world.

One of the most striking events in post-Revolutionary Iranian history unfolded in early December 2011 when Iranian state TV showed a captured RQ-170 Sentinel, the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) used by the US for spying. It is one of the most sophisticated planes in the US arsenal and had been kept largely hidden from public eye in order to not risk its top secret spy missions.

How long this standoff will continue is debatable but what we need to consider is how this situation has deteriorated to a point that the US feels it can attack and kill Pakistanis at will.

American hubris is predicated primarily on its claim to technological superiority. This is best reflected in the radar-evading stealth technology used in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) called drones. To be sure, these are deadly weapons.

For many Muslims and Islamic activists around the world, in so many different places and fields of work, the unity of the Ummah is a basic premise of everything we do. At the same time, differences of understanding, approach and methodology are inevitable in a global Ummah of more than 1.5 billion people.

The world is babbling with news about Iran being on the threshold of going nuclear, in a military sense. Israeli words are coming out of American mouths. US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told CBS news that Iran could build a nuclear bomb in a year or less (music to Israeli ears).