|
|
Dear friends, My book is finally released. It is now available in your nearby bookstores and from online booksellers I personally feeling is that this book will have a significant humanizing impact upon radical Muslims, while making all others thoroughly aware of the reason and depth of the radical Islamic problem that knocks on our door. And given that I am getting very encouraging assessments top experts (see below), success of this book is likely play a crucial role in taming Islamic radicalism and violence that grips the globe. MA Khan, editor islam-watch.org Comments from experts 1. Prof. Sami Alrabaa, author of Karin in Saudi Arabia: "I read your book and found it fascinating. It is one of those few books which everybody, Muslims and non-Muslims, must read. It is objective and balanced. For example, when you discuss how moderates interpret Jihad and how radical/militant Muslims interpret it. "Islamic Jihad" is a comprehensive reference which entails in detail lots of facts about Islam and its prophet, in historical and current times. It is very well documented. All that makes it a must read to all of those who want to understand the driving force behind Jihad and terror." 2. Dr. Mervyn Brendle, James Cook University (Australia): "I have read some sections and… look forward to reading it in some detail. It appears to be a substantial addition to the vital work underway in expanding our understanding of the history, nature, and danger of the global jihadi movement." 3. Ibn Warraq, author of Why I Am Not a Muslim: "Based on meticulous investigation of the Quran, the author has abundantly demonstrated that Islam—more specifically, its doctrine of Jihad or holy war—unequivocally calls for forced conversion and enslavement of non-Muslims and for the establishment of an imperial Islamic rule globally. Thereafter, based on extensive study of the original biographies and traditions of the Prophet, he demonstrates how these commands of the Islamic God, of eternal relevance, were scrupulously applied by Prophet Muhammad: he engaged in forced conversion and enslavement, and established the first imperial Islamic state in Arabia. Through rich historical documentation, this book further demonstrates how Muslims have expanded and perpetuated these paradigmatic models of Jihad over vast parts of the world throughout history to this day. The author predicts that Islamic Jihad, in all likelihood, will intensify over coming decades with serious consequences for humankind, for the infidel and Western world in particular. This book, I believe, will be a very important contribution for making a thorough understanding of the rising challenges both Muslim and non-Muslim world faces from Islamic extremists." 4. Nonie Darwish, author of Now They Call Me Infidel "This is a must read book, very important and eloquently written, that sheds light on the violent imperialist nature of jihad: a main doctrine in Islam that can only be accomplished at the expense of violating human rights of non-Muslims as well as Muslims." 5. Nausheen Najib Rehman (Rehman is translating the book): "I had the good fortune of reading this magnum opus. The author demonstrates beyond any vestige of doubt with extensive documentation that the Jihadi violence and terrorism, which grips our world, comes from the very heart of Islam. This is a "must read book" for all. The author (M. A. Khan) and Dr. Ali Sina are like two barrel-guns against the threat of Jihad, the world faces." 6. Mumin Salih (writer): Your book is well researched and scholarly written. Its strength is in its style, rich insight, depth of analysis and the fact that it is well-sourced from Islamic own literature, including the Quran. It sheds light as it logically examines the history and life of Mohammed since his birth, and the complexities of his personality. Your book discusses the birth of jihad as pioneered by Mohammed in the form of dozens of raids, or ghazwas, which littered Mohammed's career after he established his state in Medina. The book also presents powerful arguments and critical examination of the teachings of Islam and its sanctioning of jihad. It brings to light the reality of jihad and the horrors of surrendering to its evil known as dhimmitude. Many of the Muslim scholars' arguments in defence of jihad and the claims that Islam was propagated peacefully were presented and convincingly disproved. I found the part about the Islamic conquest of India particularly interesting, especially I had little background information on the subject. Your book is an essential reading for all those who are interested in understanding the menace of jihad.
MA Khan's Preface
I was born and brought up in a conservative Muslim society. After graduating in India, I moved to the West for furthering my education. Despite my conservative Muslim background, I grew up with a liberal outlook. In my school and university days, my closest friends were Hindus and Sikhs: I felt more comfortable with them as they were more liberal, easy-going and humble with fewer religious scruples. I had wholly given up religious rituals by the time I completed my university studies: they just didn't attract me. When 9/11 occurred, I had lived in a liberal society for over a decade. I had become consciously convinced that religious rituals—prayers, fasting, pilgrimage—were all meaningless. I should be rewarded, I felt, for working hard, and intelligently, not for aping some wasteful rituals, which brings good to nobody. Non-Muslims were my best friends; shocking my Muslim peers, I ate haraam (prohibited) foods, drank alcohol (in moderation). Despite the kind of a liberal person I had become, let me be honest that I was not excluded from those Muslims who felt that the 9/11 attacks were justified, although I felt those perished in it died undeserving deaths. Muslim societies universally portray America as a mortal enemy of Islam, particularly for its stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. America's mindless support for Israel has been causing terrible oppression and untold sufferings to Palestinian Muslims. There was, undoubtedly, an overriding sense of justification for the 9/11 attacks amongst Muslims; it gave the unjust superpower a bloody nose: I, so little a Muslim, thought that way too. Weird as it may sound, I still believed in Islam. I thought the terrorists, acting in the name of Islam, were misguided. After 9/11, I slowly started reading about Islam: Quran, Sunnah and Prophet Muhammad's biographies; I hadn't read them in the thirty-five years of my life. I was shocked. I had been told all my life that Prophet Muhammad was the ideal human being: most merciful and just; that Islam is the most peaceful religion; and I believed it. But the Quran reads like a manifesto of open-ended war against non-Muslims for converting them or for subjugating them into horribly degraded dhimmi subjects. In his prophetic career, especially during the critical last ten years, Prophet Muhammad was anything but what a peace-loving, merciful and just person stands for. My curiosity grew. Over the past years, I have done extensively research on Islamic theology as well as on Islamic history: from Prophet Muhammad to modern times. It has been a harrowing tale of forced conversion, brutal imperialism and devastating slavery. It's a saga of great human tragedy—all in the name of Islamic holy war or Jihad, the foundational creed of Islam. This tragic tale is the subject of this book.
Peek inside
Obviously, there is a great deal of disagreement or denial about this extremist discourse of Jihad. Yet, it is undeniable that, out of misconception or not, the violent Islamist groups—with their unquestioned belief that they are fighting in the cause of Allah—will continue unleashing violence and terrorism against innocent men, women and children in the years and decades to come, causing incalculable damage and destruction to human life and society. Indisputably, Muslims are now a substantial and established group in almost every nation in the world. Due to high birth-rates amongst Muslims, their continued influx from the overpopulated Islamic world and decline of the native population, they may become, according to current demographic trends, the dominant religious group in many Western countries by the middle of this century. If the current tide of ascendant violent radicalism continues to thrive amongst Muslims, the stability of the tolerant, civilized world may face peril in the not-too-distant future. To secure the stability of the modernist, secular-democratic and progressive future of the world, nations must work unitedly for countering the ideology and activities of these radical Islamist groups, using both military and ideological means. As violent Islamists wreak havoc around the world, more so in Islamic countries, understanding the 'true meaning' of Jihad, their central cause, is of central importance for both Muslims and non-Muslims in order to devise effective counter-measures against them. Without understanding what Jihad truly means, it is impossible for authorities and the people to devise effective remedies against the growing violent trend in the name of Jihad amongst Muslims. This book is a small effort to give readers an idea of what Jihad truly means. It goes through the life of Prophet Muhammad as he progressively received revelation from the Islamic God (Allah) as contained in the Muslim holy book, the Quran. It will examine when and under what circumstances, Allah introduced the concept of Jihad into Islamic doctrines. It will demonstrate—based on the Quran, authentic prophetic traditions, and original biographies of Prophet Muhammad—how the Prophet of Islam had applied the doctrine of Jihad as he founded the Islamic creed during the last twenty-three years of his life (610–632 CE). Having thus made a sense of the religious foundation and prophetic model of Jihad, it will examine how this prototypical model of Jihad was perpetuated by Muslims through the ages of Islamic domination. It is worth noting beforehand that, in putting Allah's doctrine of Jihad into practice at the birth of Islam, Prophet Muhammad had established three major models of Jihadi actions: 1. Use of violence for the propagation of Islam, 2. Islamic imperialism, 3. Islamic slavery The historical accounts of these legacies of Jihad will be discussed in separate chapters in this book. CONTENTS CHAPTER I JIHAD: THE CONTROVERSIES ...................................................... 1 CHAPTER II BASIC BELIEFS IN ISLAM .............................................................. 7 CHAPTER III LIFE OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD & THE BIRTH OF JIHAD.. 13 The birth and early life (c. 570–610) ............................................... 14 Prophetic mission in Mecca (610–622) ........................................... 17 Was Muhammad driven out of Mecca? ....................................... 18 Were the Meccans a cruel people? ............................................... 22 Exemplary tolerance of Meccans. ................................................ 25 Muhammad's campaign of terror against Meccans (623–630)........ 26 The Seeding of Jihad: ................................................................... 27 The Raid of Nakhla: ..................................................................... 30 The great Battle of Badr: .............................................................. 31 The disastrous Battle of Ohud: ..................................................... 32 The Battle of the Ditch (Trench): ................................................. 34 The conquest of Mecca and capture of the Ka'ba: ....................... 34 Muhammad's exemplary forgiveness of Meccans ....................... 39 Muhammad's Dealing with the Jews ............................................... 42 Jewish influence on Muhammad's mission: ................................. 42 Muhammad's Exhortation to draw the Jews to Islam: .................. 43 Jewish doctrines in good light in Islam: ........................................ 43 Muhammad's bitterness with the Jews: ........................................ 44 Muhammad's violence against the Jews: ...................................... 45 Muhammad's dealing with the Christians ......................................... 51 Christian Influence on Muhammad's mission and creed: .............. 52 Influence of other beliefs and legends on Muhammad's creed ...... 56 Christian thoughts in Islam: ............................................................ 58 Condemnation of Christianity in the Quran: ................................... 61 Muhammad's hostility toward Christians: ...................................... 62 Muhammad's anti-Christian hostility in his death-bed: .................. 63 Muhammad's threatening missives to Christian rulers: .................. 64 Muhammad's expeditions against Christians: ................................. 64 Muhammad's dealing with Christian delegations: .......................... 65 Status of non-Muslims in Islam as accorded by Muhammad ............. 67 Idolaters in Islam: ............................................................................. 67 Jews in Islam: ................................................................................... 68 Christians in Islam: ........................................................................... 69 Muhammad's Jihad and its outcome ................................................... 71 CHAPTER IV PROPAGATION OF ISLAM: BY FORCE OR PEACEFULLY .......73 The early wars for spreading Islam ..................................................... 74 Propagation of Islam: Quranic commands and prophetic model......... 77 Muslim scholars on the wars for spreading Islam ................................ 79 Protecting sovereignty of the Islamic state: ...................................... 81 Overcoming tyranny of foreign rulers: ............................................. 83 Freeing weak countries from oppressive rulers: ............................... 85 Removing tyranny and oppression: ................................................... 86 Welcome in Spain: ............................................................................. 89 How so many Hindus survived in India? ............................................... 92 Why so many people in India are still Hindus? ..................................... 97 How conversion took place in India? ..................................................... 99 Conversion by the sword: ................................................................... 99 Conversion through enslavement: .................................................... 101 Enslaved women as reproduction tools: ........................................... 102 Humiliation & economic burdens contributing to conversion: ......... 105 Conversion under brutal Aurangzeb: ................................................ 109 Brutal Conversion in Kashmir: ......................................................... 111 Deceptive propaganda about conversion .............................................. 112 Voluntary conversion: ....................................................................... 112 Conversion of lower caste Hindus: ................................................... 112 Peaceful conversion by Sufis: ........................................................... 115 Conversion by traders in Southeast Asia: ......................................... 133 What enabled the conversion of the otherwise resistant infidels of Southeast Asia to Islam so quickly after Muslims gained political power? ............................................................................................... 139 Conclusion ............................................................................................ 146 CHAPTER V THE ARAB-ISLAMIC IMPERIALISM ............................................... 147 Islamic imperialism: Quranic commands & prophetic model .............. 149 The Perception of Islamic rule .............................................................. 152 Why Islamic rule is not colonialism? .................................................... 155 Economic exploitation in Islamic expansion ......................................... 158 The cultural imperialism of Islam ......................................................... 164 Contribution of Islam to conquered lands ............................................. 172 The underdeveloped society of the Arabs: ......................................... 174 Prohibition of intellectual pursuits in Islam: ...................................... 177 Islam egalitarian or racist? .................................................................. 179 Islam's extirpation of egalitarian Buddhism: ..................................... 183 How the Muslim world excelled intellectually and materially? ......... 185 Calling colonies home ............................................................................ 188 CHAPTER VI ISLAMIC IMPERIALISM IN INDIA ................................................ 191 The Islamic conquest and rule ............................................................ 194 India before the coming of Islam ........................................................ 201 An advanced civilization: ................................................................ 201 A tolerant and humane society: ....................................................... 205 Muslim codes of war: ...................................................................... 207 Indian tolerance in the eyes of Muslim chroniclers: ........................ 210 Tolerance & chivalry of Hindu rulers during Muslim period: ......... 212 Hindu-Muslim divide: A British invention? ........................................ 217 Hindu-Muslim discord, Partition of India & British complicity .......... 220 The 1947 Riots and Massacres: Who is Responsible? ......................... 225 The Mopla Rebellion: ....................................................................... 225 Direct Action riots in Calcutta. ......................................................... 226 Anti-Hindu riots move to East Bengal: ............................................. 231 Hindu counterattack in Bihar: ........................................................... 232 Riots move to Pakistan: ..................................................................... 234 Sikh and Hindu Retaliation: .............................................................. 237 Premeditated ethnic cleansing of Hindus and Sikhs: ........................ 239 Ethnic cleansing of Muslims: ............................................................ 242 Who bears the responsibility? ........................................................... 245 Islam's impact on the social, intellectual and cultural life of India....... 246 On Education and learning: ............................................................... 246 Caste system worsened: ..................................................................... 249 Islam created the practice of Jauhar: .................................................. 252 Sati worsened under the Muslim rule: ................................................ 252 Islam promoted child-marriage: ............................................ ............ 253 Islam created the deadly thuggee cult: ............................................... 254 Islam's impact on religious demographics: past & present ................... 257 Muslim rule and poverty ........................................................................ 259 Legacy .................................................................................................... 263 CHAPTER VII ISLAMIC SLAVERY .............................................................................. 267 Quranic sanction of slavery ................................................................... 269 The prophetic model of slavery ............................................................. 271 Slavery in the ancient world .................................................................. 272 Enslavement by Muslims in India ......................................................... 274 Enslavement by Muslims elsewhere ..................................................... 285 The Ottoman 'Dewshirme' .................................................................... 288 Status of slaves ...................................................................................... 290 Suffering of slaves ................................................................................. 291 Fate of slaves ......................................................................................... 299 Sex-slavery & concubinage ................................................................... 308 Eunuchs and ghilman ............................................................................ 312 Islamic slave-trade ................................................................................ 315 European slaves .................................................................................... 320 The Viking slave-trade & Muslim connection ..................................... 322 European slave-trade & Islamic complicity ..................................... 324 Denials of Islamic slavery ................................................................ 327 Humane treatment of slaves in Islam: .............................................. 329 Islam aggravated slavery: ................................................................. 331 Slavery, theologically & historically, an integral part of Islam ....... 332 Special cruelty and casualty of Islamic slavery ................................ 334 Abolition of slavery & Islamic resistance ........................................ 335 European struggle against Islamic slavery in North Africa ............. 336 The British struggle: ..................................................................... 336 The U.S. struggle and strike-back: ............................................... 341 The British-led European strike-back: .......................................... 344 Muslim resistance against the Ottoman ban on slavery .................... 345 Continuation & revival of slavery in Muslim countries .................... 346 Muslims bring slavery to the West ................................................... 349 Conclusion ........................................................................................ 350 CHAPTER VIII THE LAST WORD .............................................................................. 353 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................ |
|
__._,_.___
Jharkhand Forum's Norms http://www.jharkhand.org.in/posting_norms.htm
Add your Name in JHARKHAND Directory - http://directory.jharkhand.org.in
PROMOTION MESSAGE -
-: Not yet a member of Jharkhand Forum but would like to use it? :-
To post a message at Jharkhand Forum now you do not need to be member of Jharkhand Forum, simply email your message to Jharkhand@yahoogroups.com
If your message approved by Moderator then, it will be circulated among 12,000+ registered members of Jharkhand Forum. Also, your message will be published on more than 30 public websites / blogs such as - http://blog.jharkhandi.org and http://www.jharkhand.org.in/blog
To learn more about Jharkhand Forum - The Hottest Public Forum of India
please, Check out - http://www.jharkhand.org.in/about-jharkhand-forum
__,_._,___ |
