Islamic Imperialism

Islamic Imperialism
By Efram Karsh

I picked this book up in a lending library of the Unity Church in the people’s republic of Boulder. How a book from such a controversial author found its way there is beyond me. This book makes it very clear that our struggle is not about religious conflicts, but about the imperialist desires of the caliphate rulers of Muslim faith beginning with Muhammad. The author introduces his thesis with the following quotes:
· “ I was ordered to fight all men until they say “There is no god but Allah””
o Prophet Muhammad’s farewell address, March 632
· “ I shall cross the sea to their island to pursue them until there remains no one on the face of the earth who does not acknowledge Allah”
o Saladin, January 1189
· “We will export our revolution through out the world...until the calls there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah” are echoed all over the world.”
o Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, 1979
· “I was ordered to fight the people until they say there is no God but Allah, and his prophet Muhammad,
o Osama bin Laden, November 2001

Karsh then describes the backdrop history to color in the events those statements spawned. Within the fine brush strokes of this history you discover that Islam has been warring more amongst themselves than they have with infidels. They often found alliances with infidels convenient in their quests to rule their own Muslim world. Case in point; both Iran and Iraq went to the United States to supply their war with each other. This was very common during the crusades. The history is full of egregious Islamic deception rooted in a selfish quest for power.

I have read many books on the diplomacy surrounding war and in particular Islamic rationale for war with the West. They are consistent with Muhammad in his farewell address on the surface. However underneath there is a selfish quest for power on the part of a Caliph gone mad. What this book does is clearly demonstrates that the calls to Allah are mere rhetorical diversions to their real ambitions. Karsh labels it imperialism. A topic of world history in most cases and unfortunately continues as news in our newspapers today.

Karsh concludes with a call for Islam’s recognition of the concepts of nation states as a recognition of an everlasting fate-accompli, within their own world as well as their outside world. While Karsh makes this call he misses the errors made by the World Powers of the time in 1919 who did not draw up the boarders of the many small Islamic states that actually existed in the form of a millet system within the umma. Each region would be ruled by a caliph, imam or some voice of Allah, in competition akin to a survival of the fittest Muslim drama. This persisted up through and under the theme of Ottoman suzerainty and for the first in time in 1919 since the 800’s, Islam was not considered a power of any sort. He briefly suggest that on a larger scale beyond the Middle East Muslims favor democratic process found in republic states, as an example that his call has proven itself successful elsewhere. Interestingly, in those regions there is not the same degree of an overwelming thirst for power from Islamic origin

To sum up Karsh’s message he characterizes the plight that Nasser took Egypt through in 20th century. It represents the character of every Muslim Imperialist described not only in this book, but many others I have read. It goes as follows:

“that an idolized person had appeared who wanted his will to have, throughout the Arab countries, a degree of holiness, greatness and power which not even God’s prophets possessed… He ha made us feel every possible means that in Egypt and even the whole Arab world there could be only found one intelligence, one single power that could be relied on; the only thing ahead would be ruin. Thus was Fascism, Hitlerism, and Nasserism; all of them stand on a single base, which is elimination of minds and wills other than the minds of the leader.”

I am going to leave it there. I cannot improve on that. I equally do not have a solution. As current events unfold, there is an imperialism syndrome in the world today. There is a lot of jockeying and positioning for what I see as an eminent WWIII, or otherwise put the Crimean war, “take four”. Islam poses more of an immediate threat to both Russia, and China. Yet, they are happy to let the worlds leading power take it on the chin on their behalf and then rub salt in the wound. If it were not the United States it would simply be a different country taking the brunt of conflict, as history has shown.

In the past the quest for power seems to have had no protagonist other than a thurst for power. There is a sense of scarcity, which is only now blamed on oil, which drives a need for dominion that perpetuates imperial thinking as our Western world has equally demonstrated. As folks look to blame our current administration for not winning the peace, I struggle to find where any one else has ever done that. Wilson had it right in ideals, but he and the rest of the world failed to figure how to execute upon them.

To take a spin off of the authors assertion “A prominent Muslim Brother, Qutb, held lofty ideals about the original years of pure Islam (622-61). He described the degeneration in Islam’s direction. But he like too many of his predecessors, beginning with Mohammad, translated his interpretation of man’s jahiliya into a jihad. To be fair Qutb viewed jahiliya, man ruling man in ignorance or absence of God consciousness, to exist both within Islam and beyond.” History's big picture shows he is right. We continue to recognize the problem, but our response is wrong. If we are on a path for peace (big IF) we seem to keep getting in our own way.



Foot notes from my reading

Islamic Imperialism

Fatimin clan gave Islam its first real imperial presence

P 70 It seems little known how strong the Islamic foot hold was in Rome (Italy) in the years just prior to the crusades

p69 With Islamic power and position between far east and Europe in conjunction with Jews excluded from farming they evolved as the worlds businessmen. The crusades recognized this and began their Diaspora. This rote was taken over by Italian cities of Venice and Amalfi

p. 75-76 The Crusades must be viewed as a two-sided war with two divided factions. With Christians their was a schism between Rome and Constantinople. With Islam there was a schism between Shiites and Sunni.

p.79 Both sides of the Crusade wars were utterly convinced of the superiority of their religion. But their actions were guided by far more earthly combination of territorial and material ambitions.

p.96 Tsarina Catherine’s aspirations to wipe out the Ottoman Empire were thwarted by the rise and threat of Napoleon

p. 107 The Ottoman were courted by both sides at the beginning of WWI. They chose Germany as a way to expand Islam into Russia. A decision made in both fear of Russia and conquest of Asia, which became the U. S.S.R.

p. 119-123 It is interesting to read that Iran learned to despise Russia and England as early 1700. At that time the Orient was at a crossroad. Russia wanted the Black Sea. England needed Iran as a buffer. The battle for the Middle East made rivals of England and Russia. As Napoleon had aspirations on India, France allied with Russia.

What is intriguing here is Britain’s Imperial aspirations in the region. Other than defense of India, only an Empire on an uncherished land was in the offering. Russia on the other hand did have material cause in the 1800's

The Arab Caesar, Egyptian President Nasser, abducted power by converting from castigating Arabs to revering a pan Arab UAR. While oil may have had a part in his motives, and expelling the Imperial British who sponsored Israel, the author makes it quite clear that Nasser had one self serving interest for power.

In this same chapter the author makes it real clear that their is no Muslim unity. He has painted a landscape of a millennium of internal Islamic power plays holding out that Nasser is just one more.

p. 178 While Hakims quote on the previous page represents a history of power mongering, all worth quoting, Hakim states: What made Nasser's blunders more galling, was his total hostility to the idea of accountability.

p. 183 To further illustrate a Muslim empire agenda, cloaked in Muslim anti-Semitic posturing, Saddam extorted Kuwait for its oil until it could not comply. Then he simply invaded.

p 184 Today empire builders of Muslim decent wrap themselves around anti Israel sentiment to gain a pan Arab favor. This backfired for Iraq which took the Palestinian allies down with them. Arabs saw Palestine as a trader. But It was Israel who threw the PLO, a bankrupt organization, a lifeline

215-216 A Muslim brother Qutb held lofty ideals about the original years of pure Islam (622-61). He described the degeneration in Islam’s direction. But he like too many of his predecessors, beginning with Mohammad, translated his interpretation of man (jahiliya) into a jihad.

To be fair Qutb viewed jahiliya, man ruling man in ignorance or absence of God consciousness, to exist both within Islam and beyond. History's big picture shows he is right.