Wounds may heal.. Scars remain.

By: Ahmed M. ELNAHAS – Montopoli, April 10^th 2015.

Objectively speaking.. What’s really at stake?

Dr. Bernard Haykel (scholar of Princeton University) reflects a common western vision when stating that “…people want to absolve Islam repeating like a Mantra that Islam is a religion of PEACE.. As if you could speak of Islam.. Islam is what Muslims do and the way they interpret their tests.. Tests that are common to All Muslims”..

Same as how other faiths are interpreted and applied by their followers I assume.. But today, debating that is of no prior concern of mine, because what I do fear the most is that we, the simple modern moderate Muslims, will keep on suffering as our esteemed religious and political references continue liquidating the entire matter of ISIL – as well as all the other groups more or less fanatic or cruel - as “NON-ISLAMIC” just to calm the waters by repeating that those have distorted and twisted the tests. (For more focus on the subject I refer you to Mr. Graeme Wood analysis ‘What ISIS really Want’.. Just search your web browser for Graeme Wood or the article itself).

Focussing on the acts while excluding the ideology will never give us a fair chance to confront that danger; and would allow that conflict to slide quickly into my worst nightmare: Global Islamic Slaughter.. Where everybody kills everybody in the name of whatever reason: liquidating apostates, defending minorities, alienating fanatic ideologies, fighting terrorism, humanitarian intervention, protecting cultural heritage, establishing democracy, upholding Human & Civil Rights…Etc. There are an infinity of reasons that can, and will, be used and preached to endorse the Business Of War!

In the end of the day, one cannot still say that the ongoing wars are against “Terror, Terrorists and Terrorism”; because by now it is quit obvious that the parties directly engaged in killing each other, regardless of what they stand for or believe in, are: the Shia (Iran, Hezb’Allah, the Houthi rebels in Yemen and their sponsors), the so called Moderate Sunni (Suadi Arabia’s conservative Wahabi  régime and its Arab Allies mostly liberal, laics and/or seculars) and the Radical Sunni and Shia movements (ISIL, Houthi and part of Al QAEDA along with many other emulators who consider all other but themselves as apostates “INFEDELS” and must be judged as such according to the rulings of the Holy Quran)!! Yet they are all Muslims!! More or less believers.. More or less practising.. More or less independent!!

Having said that, I couldn’t free my tired mind from the thought that the ongoing fierce and bloody conflict, in its very abstract nature, is a blunt confrontation that opposes the sacred natural “DIVINE LAW” to the profane man-made “POSITIVE LAW”.. A clear cut confrontation into the core definition of each..

Whereby the first, representing the supreme expression of “Justice”, remains immutable as it regulates the entire complexity of both individual and collective “LIVING”; but above all depends, as to its subject matter, on the opinions or superstitions of each human being whom, through these cultural and intellectual filters, will interpret and consequently apply it..

Instead the second, right or wrong it may be, regulates single aspects of the social life, stating objective and non ambiguous rules and norms that are obligatory to all citizens. As such, it can be modified or abrogated in function with the society’s social, political and economic evolution.

The radical Islamic fanatics (ISIL and other similar or affiliated groups) are implementing to the letter all the laws as described by the verses of the Holy Quran, especially with regard to war and conquest. And the Moderate Muslim references wear their forces finding ways to contrast that fact liquidating it by simply saying “.. it is not Islam”! While the rest of the world stands idly not knowing exactly who’s right and who’s wrong.. Which part do represent the last Monotheist Divine Doctrine and hold high its banner.

Western intellectuals, scholars and critics alike share a vision in that regard, that can be synthesized as follows: “Sharia being a divine law no doubt, thus immutable; it is interpreted and applied by the ministers* of God who has emanated it in the first place, and as such it coincides with the law of the Most Powerful, who have the concrete possibility to impose ‘his’ natural law on the others”. (*Imams, Emirs, Mullah, Sheikh…etc.)   

At this point, I’d forward my quest to the international Muslim society, Muslim Intellectuals, Muslim Scholars, Muslim Hierarchies and Muslim References everywhere in the world from each side of the three parts that are actually tearing each other in a war that is resuscitating old wounds from a far unburied tribal rivalries that will lead to nothing but an epical pause in human history made of painful regret, because the signs are not just alarming, they are horrifying!!

Here is my quest:

Shouldn’t you find in yourselves what may be left of Moral Courage to address this pressing issue (divine law vs. man law) instead of brainstorming ways to excommunicate and condemn each other?

You have for long abandoned your role and duty.. The heavy burden of teaching, tutoring and informing by adequately examining the timely evolution of the world and that of your societies; and to provide an indisputable demonstration that ISLAM as a constitutional set of social, political, economic and civil rules and norms, is adequately suitable for Modern Liberal Times.

For too long you have denied, for your own political and survival reasons, the importance of transparent teaching; by keeping the most important and significant transcriptions heritage of the elders in secret custody where only the lucky few of your ‘Cast’ have access to (just consider the shallowness of the intellectual and cultural levels that Imams in the mosques and their Ritual Callers enjoy to realise the enormity of the damage**); as such you’ve allowed ignorance and superficiality to reign over the individual interpretations of Islam as a way of life, reducing it to the mere practicing of certain rituals related to Islam’s five pillars of belief.

By such neglect you’ve procured an irreversible involution to your societies, thus offering a huge cultural void to be filled by too many adventurers and many more ignorant rulers; a lethal mix that hatched this present disaster.

But then again I suppose that it’s not wise to seek a solution to a problem from the ones who caused it in the first place.. Don’t you think??

Pass On The Word.

**From the contemporaneous Arabic Library I’d like to refer you to the late Mr. Yahia Haqqy’s master piece “Qandeel Om Hashem”; as well as to the Dean Of Arabic Literature Mr. Taha Hussein’s “Al Ayam”; just as a sample because in those works you’ll find the impact of our teachers’ ignorance on our life and living.. And still today, if you go to the inside villages of Egypt, or any other Muslim country, you’ll find the same traditional prepotency of folkloric and superstitious interpretation of the Doctrine.