Friday, May 4, 2007
The disaster of Arab Imperialism
Irshad Manji: “What about Islamic imperialism? Eighty per cent of Muslims live outside the Arab world yet all Muslims must bow to Mecca.”
by Ferdinand III
The Arabs exploded out of their poor, isolated peninsula impelled by their insane leader’s last words, to conquer the planet for Islam – a political construct based on the 3000 year old pagan Arabian cult. Spirituality was the not the concern of Islam. Political unification of the disparate Arab tribes; excelling the Jews and Christians in the marketplace of economics and societal control; and forming the basis of Arab supremacism and chauvinism [men ruled, women are slaves], were Islam’s key preoccupations. Imperialism across Africa, Southern Europe, Russia, and all across Asia exemplified Arab lust for power and domination. Islam was the spiritual weapon of choice.
Arab supremacism is obvious. The word for infidel ‘kaffir’ was originally applied to blacks to denote their inferior slave status. Arab hatred of blacks permeates their literature. Today’s Darfurian tragedy has long historical antecedents. Arabs were the great black slave traders exceeding by factor of 3, white slave trading to the Americas. The Arabs abetted by black middlemen, sent 30 million blacks into the Arab and Muslim heartlands – many of whom of course died.
Arab racism extended beyond blacks. The Hindu Kush mountain range in Afghanistan denotes ‘Hindu death’ in Arabic. Estimations of the number of Buddhists and Hindus murdered by Arab incursions and Muslim armies from central Asia and northern parts of India are nigh impossible, but most likely 150 million were killed. This twin genocide is never discussed in polite multi-cult loving company.
Arab imperialism has of course never meant Arab unity. The Sunni-Shia civil war which started in 656 A.D. and which still rages today ensures disunity, as do national and state differences in cultural and socio-economic development. Though the Arabs slaughtered and slew their way across a huge swathe of the globe, they were rarely if ever, ‘united’ as a real empire.
The Arab expansion into North Africa for instance resulted in different states with different societal makeups in Egypt, Sudan, Libya, and Morocco. These states were varied by race, culture, creed and type of Muslim orthodoxy that controlled the state. The same occurred in Syria, Iraq, and the Gulf States. Non Arab tribes or cultures simply assimilated Islam and became Muslim warriors par excellence, including the Turks, the Pathans, the Persians and the Sudanese.
In both the pre-modern and modern era Arab pan-nationalism was used as a chimera to hide state based imperialism. In the early 19th century for instance the ruler of Egypt, the Albanian pasha Mohammed Ali, expanded Egyptian territory into the Levant and south into Sudan – all under the guise of ‘Arab solidarity’. Himself an Albanian, Ali had little real interest in pan-Arabism, other than as a convenient excuse to increase Egyptian power. It is an often repeated story in Arab imperialist history.
Hussein’s modern Iraq which started 3 major regional wars and chattered on incessantly about pan-Arabic unity in destroying Israel was more concerned with Iraqi power, influence and control over Arab affairs, than any quaint ideas about Arab brotherhood. The same was true of Nasser and his ‘United Arab Empire’ with Syria formed in 1958, in which Nasser and the Egyptians assumed power over a weaker regime. The goal was Egyptian empire building, not Arab unity per se.
In any event the use of Islam has meant a de facto subservience to Arab ideals by Muslims across the world. Arabic ideas expressed in the Koran [Arab Muslims rule the rest obey], were used to enslave blacks in the Sudan and Mauritania; and were the same beliefs used to justify the occupation and destruction of the Berbers in North Africa and the Nubas, Dinkas, Nubians and other black peoples.
This pattern was repeated through Asia and Southern Europe. Islam was and is the political tool used by Arabs to control their empire. Muslims are subservient to Islamic doctrine which is premised on the Arabic ideals of the Koran, and the Hadiths or stories about Mohammed the mad founder of the ideology.
Facing Mecca is one sign of non-Arab submission to Arab power. The Hijaz or piligrimmage is another and attracts 2 million Muslim visitors per annum. This is quite a prize in booty and money for the Arab merchants of Mecca and beyond. It is an outstanding form of ransom and tribute. Kissing of black stones sacred to the Arabs; throwing of rocks at little pagan Arab devils; running between 2 hills as pagan Arabs did; the various postures of submission during ‘prayer’; the chanting of memorized and for most non Arabs incomprehensible liturgies 5 times daily in Arabic; all these strictures and more denote a submission to Arab power and ideology by non-Arabs.
Islam is in short a fantastic tool of imperial control. Persians and other non-Arabs weary of Arab assertions of power. Persia is no friend of the Arab empire, but its Muslim ideology allows it to form alliances with Sunni Syria, or Arab run Gulf states, as it seeks to offset US ambitions in Iraq and beyond. There are many exogenous factors and of course the attraction of oil money, to tie the Sunnis and Shias together against Western interests.
The centrality of the Arabs inside of Islam is of course beyond a doubt. In hadith no. 5751 (Mishkat, Vol. 3) Mohammed is reported to say: "Love the Arabs for three reasons because (1) I am an Arab (2) the Holy Koran is in Arabic and (3) the tongue of the dwellers of paradise shall also be Arabic."
Arab supremacism is clear. Arab cultural mores inform Islam. This is why the Islamic world is such a disaster. The carnage in modern day Iraq is nothing more than the real world of Arabic culture – chauvinistic arrogance, pride, ignorance, hate, sloth, greed, lies, vengefulness, all bound up in a death cult. The worst, the bloodiest, the most savage imperialism in the history of mankind has been Arab imperialism. Culture is king, and Arab culture is the sick ideology that developed Islam and infects 1.5 billion people today.
Arab imperialism is however a story that is never told.
Good White Paper to read:
The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies:
http://www.biu.ac.il/Besa/MSPS69.pdf
‘Arab Imperialism: The Tragedy of the Middle East’