The Left, Secularism and Islam

by nahida the Exiled Palestinian


The aftermath of Arab Revolutions; will it create a change of perception and a breakthrough of understanding amongst the Western Left?

The progressive and liberal left in the West find it hard to fathom an amalgamation between religion and politics. For them, religion and politics simply do not mix. As a person who have lived most of her adult life in the West, it is somehow uncomplicated to grasp why the secular left has arrived and got stuck in this cul-de-sac, in their way of thinking, in terms of looking-at and perceiving the world, fragmented, disconnected and boxed in.

The background of those who advocate this separation has its roots mostly in the Judaeo-Christian heritage; they have carried an understandable luggage of suspicion, hatred and contempt towards religion. In their history religions were used as tools of oppression, control, backwardness, division, and suppression of human freedom and intellect, something that we as Muslims didn’t experience.

The hierarchical system within the Church gives very little power and freedom of thinking to the individual at the bottom of the “pecking order”. The collusion of the Church for example with extremely violent and oppressive establishments is witnessed even today. The inexplicable wealth of the church hierarchy leaves those at the bottom of the socioeconomic structure feeling alienated and disfranchised.

As for the Judaic heritage, just a scratch at the surface would divulge an incredible amount of racist elements within the Talmudic texts that would surely put off anyone with the slightest sense of justice, respect to human dignity and human equality.

What the Left fails to appreciate however, is the entirely distinct reality, history and experience of religion for people in the Middle East.

We have watched demonstrators gathering at mosques, imams discussing the demonstrations in sermons and Friday prayer was chosen as the time to gather for the most impressive demonstrations.

Ignoring or dismissing the organic social structure and the immense role of religion ( i.e. Islam) in those countries reflects intellectual laziness if not total intellectual paralysis and blindness.

This inability to explore and understand what is really happening in those countries with a fresh and unbiased mindset can lead to erroneous analysis, conclusions and decisions, worse, it might flare up misplaced fears, apprehension, suspicion and even hatred against those who are actually on their side; the side of the oppressed majority.


It’s absurd to continue reading reports insisting that the Arab revolutions witnessed today are “secular” revolutions. This repeated mantra -by MSM as well as progressive media- becomes more meaningless as we look at live broadcasts and pictures of millions of Egyptians, Tunisians, and Libyans praying even at the darkest hours of their demonstration when viciously attacked by army killing machines.





This dismissal of the role of Islam in the revolution, while ignoring its centrality and importance to people in the ME becomes even more absurd as we examine polls coming from those countries:

Just an example:
In their response to the question: “Is it good or bad that Islam plays a large/ small role in politics?”

The survey “finds that Muslim publics overwhelmingly welcome Islamic influence over their countries’ politics. In Egypt, Pakistan and Jordan, majorities of Muslims who say Islam is playing a large role in politics see this as a good thing, while majorities of those who say Islam is playing only a small role say this is bad for their country. Views of Islamic influence over politics are also positive in Nigeria, Indonesia, and Lebanon.”






Why is it important for the “Western Left” to explore, understand, and accept these facts?


As long as the Left fails to come to terms with these facts, severe ethical problems would arise:
When good-intentioned “lefties” offer us THEIR “Secular-State Answer” to OUR problems; they bypass every thread of logic and commonsense.

By doing so, they actually juxtapose and transfer on us their own problems (living a lie of freedom, under a façade of democracy), their own history (struggling against the grip hold of their religious institutions), their own experiences (with their priests and rabbis), their own luggage (with the oppression from the religious hierarchy). They carry all this luggage, that Muslims don’t have and never had, then they project it on them, and try to impose their SOLUTIONS upon Muslims who have lived a very different encounter of history, an entirely different reality, with a totally different experience with regards to religion!

Contrary to the West, in the Arab world our experience with religion was and remains, for the most part, positive, constructive, energizing, enlightening and even liberating.

Furthermore, the revolutions that we witness today, were revolutions against Secular regimes with Secular, Liberal and Westernized DICTATORS who have strangled, oppressed, tortured and worked systematically against the wishes of the Arab people for decades. These regimes have silenced any call for reform or change under the pretext of fighting "Islamists" and keeping Islam away from politics.

In our “Eastern World”, historically, and up until recent times, where our region was plagued with colonialism, religion has managed to intertwine beautifully with politics, religion has formed the moral foundation and ethical backbone of the political arena.
Through the moral code inherent in Islam, the world of politics was protected against corruption and misuse of power.
Religion, as manifested by Islam was viewed by many as a natural and organic safeguard against the rise of egoistic fraudulent and oppressive rulers.

Despite the existence of a minority of “Imams of the Sultan” as we call them (those who sell their principles for the sake of the $ Dinar), throughout our history, Muslim scholars and Imams took a leading role in Liberation Movements from invading and imperialistic powers, and in opposing repressive tyrannical regimes; they have stood by the people; defending the weak, sharing with the needy, and working for the liberation of the oppressed.

By following Madeline Albright's call to Muslims that they would be accepted as part of political groups if they "are prepared to be part of a secular government", by insisting on secularism in countries where Muslims are a majority, and by insisting on supporting Muslim only if they separate religion and politics, the progressives fall into a paradoxical and very detrimental position; denying the other that which you call for, i.e. freedom of thought and freedom of choice.

Secularizing the Islamic world against the will of its people is nothing but another form of thought imperialism.



















Posted by nahida the Exiled Palestinian at 10:33:00 AM

Non-Islamic democracy is impossible in the Arab world

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Many westerners are quite gloomy about the prospects of democracy in the Arab world, following the historic revolutions that have taken (and are taking) place in several Arab countries. They are worried that true democracy in Arab lands might bring to power Islamic democrats who would seek to reconcile human rights, civil liberties with the Islamic rulings. In other words, they dread seeing the Islamization of democracy.
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Khalid Amayreh

Many westerners are quite gloomy about the prospects of democracy in the Arab world, following the historic revolutions that have taken (and are taking) place in several Arab countries. They are worried that true democracy in Arab lands might bring to power Islamic democrats who would seek to reconcile human rights, civil liberties with the Islamic rulings. In other words, they dread seeing the Islamization of democracy.

Some of these critics are quite ignorant of the truth about the Arab world and Islam, and with a good reason. Decades of anti-Islam incitement, spearheaded by Zionist circles, more or less succeeded in tarnishing the image of Islam in many western countries, portraying it as tyrannical and anti-democratic.

Others are quite malicious. They know that the re-adoption of Islam, even the reinstitution of the Islamic political authority, is the "natural way" for Muslim people. After all, Islam has always been the soul of Arabs, and asking them to abandon Islam, in favor of imported western ideas and ideals, would be tantamount to asking them to abandon their human and cultural identity.

Many, probably most, westerners seem to lament the demise of despicable tyrants such as Hosni Mubarak, Zeinulabedin Bin Ali. Some are expressing consternation about the imminent downfall of Muammar Qaddafi, the eccentric Libyan dictator who has impoverished and murdered his people in order to appease his megalomaniac tendencies.

There is of course a clear and large amount of hypocrisy in the Western approach toward reforms in the Muslim world. The West, which is not a monolithic power, backed and shielded Arab dictators for years, fearing that true democracy in the Arab world would bring to the forefront a new breed of elected leaders who are more or less unfriendly to western, especially American interests in this part of the world.

Nonetheless, western hypocrisy goes much deeper. For while people anywhere in the world should have the natural right to choose their leaders freely, Muslims are not supposed to choose leaders who are viewed as opposed to Zionist Nazism or American imperialism.

There is also conspicuous moral and logical inconsistency in American and even European stand on Arab and Israeli democracy. According to this inherently duplicitous western view, it is perfectly fine if Jews in Israel elect Nazi-like parties such as Habayt Hayuhedi (the Jewish home), Shas, National Union, and politicians like Avigdor Liberman and Benyamin Netanyahu, that adopt clear-cut fascist formulas. On the other hand, however, Muslims must be constantly warned against Islamic parties whose political formulas are actually very much similar to those of Christian democratic parties in West.

We are not denying the fact that there are some extremist Islamic groups, such as al-Qaeda that should be fought relentlessly as long as they behave the way they do.

However, viewing a billion and a half Muslims with different cultures and ways of thinking, as carbon copies of a tiny, fanatical group is both illogical and unfair.

Yes, the west may encourage Arabs and Muslims to show genuine concern for human rights and civil liberties. This kind of interference is innocuous and harmless. But we Muslims don't like to be told to refrain from electing Islamic parties. After all, we are Muslims, and telling us to not elect Islamic parties is tantamount to telling us to give up Islam itself and adopt another religion.

It should be clear to all that Arabs, like everyone else, have the right to elect their governments and leaders freely according to their conscience. Moreover, for the sake of mutual understanding and constructive future relations between a democratic west and a democratic Arab world, the former would have to give up some of its cultural arrogance and accept the timeless truism that people may thoughtfully and sincerely hold different views and lead different ways of life.

After all, God created us different when He could have created us identical.

I said that whether the West likes it or not, Islam has always been and continues to be the zeitgeist (spirit of the times) throughout the Arab world. Hence, it is an expression of intransigence or perhaps ill will on the part of some western circles to warn Muslims in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia against electing parties with an Islamic agenda.

The Muslims of Egypt have the right to elect a Muslim democratic party just as Christians in Germany have the right to elect a Christian democratic party.

As I mentioned above, there is a heavy legacy of misunderstandings, rumors and canards about Islam in the west, some dating back to the ancient hostilities between Islam and the west while many of the recent misunderstandings have been disseminated by Zionist circles, especially through the media over which Zionist lobbies have quite an influence.

While Muslims are not obliged to imitate or copy certain western aspects of democracy, there is nothing wrong in having learning and borrowing from the rich and long western experience of democracy.

Having said that, however, it should be sufficiently clear that Muslims are under no obligation to copy or adopt anything that is incompatible with the principles of our faith.

Uprisings for dignity sweep the Islamic East

Zafar Bangash

The unthinkable has happened in Egypt. The masses have consigned Hosni Mubaak, the most brutal Middle Eastern despot, to the dustbin of history. This became possible only because people shook off the fear that had paralysed them for 30 years. They have also crossed another important landmark: they refused to be provoked by the thugs unleashed by the regime. This would have provided the regime the pretext to unleash its massive firepower and crush the uprising as happened in Algeria 20 years earlier.

Protests have now spread to other parts of the Middle East with people rising up against long-time rulers in Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Libya, Algeria, Djibouti and Morocco. The response of the regimes has been equally brutal but people have not been cowed down. If earlier, people kept their heads down and their voices low against state brutality, now they are standing firm and defying the regimes’ shock troops.

Sometimes, seemingly insignificant events can assume global proportions. It was the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, an unemployed university graduate (not the first in Tunisia) that sparked the uprising forcing the Tunisian dictator general Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali to flee on January 14. According to reports, Ben Ali has since suffered a stroke in exile in Jeddah and is in a coma. If true, he deserves the fate but it would have been better if he were put on trial, something he denied tens of thousands of people during his brutal rule, and face the consequences for his crimes.


The uprising in Tunisia encouraged the Egyptians also to rise up, with protests quickly spreading to other countries as well. This in turn has caused immense panic in the desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia where the ailing old monarch, King Abdullah seems to have lost nerve completely. He is also upset with US President Barack Obama for “abandoning” Mubarak. Abdullah now feels the heat of the desert spreading.

But it is the change in Egypt that has great significance because the country is a leading player in the Islamic East. While influenced by the example of the intrepid Tunisians that surprised everyone, there was an Egyptian element as well involved. Last June, the Egyptian police beat to death Khalid Sa‘id, a 27-year-old internet buff. His crime? He had obtained a video of the police smoking dope that he wanted to post on the internet. He never lived to do so. There were sporadic protests against the killing but the spark was provided when Wael Ghoneim, a young Google executive opened a Facebook account in the name of Khalid Sa‘id, saying “We are all Khalid Sa‘ids”. This mobilized the Egyptian people who felt they had enough of tyranny and would not put up with any more humiliation.

Western commentators have tried to spin the uprisings in terms of people hankering for bread, lower food prices and jobs. While there is some truth to such assertions, what they have deliberately ignored is that the people’s uprising was and is for dignity and honour. They refuse to put up with the humiliations they have been subjected to for decades by their cowardly rulers that are completely subservient to the Zionists and the Americans. The people have said and continue to proclaim loudly that they are fed up with corruption, cowardice and the craven attitude of their rulers.

The rulers’ cowardice and treachery can be gleaned from the following episode. Even as Mubarak was teetering on the brink, he signed an executive order on February 8 prohibiting entry of Palestinians from Ghazzah even if they had valid visas. Similarly, hundreds of Palestinians were stranded at Cairo airport and other locations in Egypt unable to return to Ghazzah. The border was opened — but only one way into Ghazzah — on February 20 to allow the Palestinians to return home. The military regime has refused to lift the Zionist-imposed illegal siege of Ghazzah despite the Egyptian people wanting such restrictions ended. They must continue the struggle not only to demolish all pillars of the old regime completely but also break the siege of Ghazzah and reject the unjust peace imposed on them by the Americans and the Zionists if they are to achieve true dignity.

It must also be emphasized that simply getting rid of despotic rulers will not solve the problems afflicting the region, or indeed the Muslim world. There are systemic problems plaguing Muslim societies. The exploitative systems from the ground up must be uprooted, Iran-style, if people are to achieve true independence. Change will not come about at the hands of the militaries. They are instruments of oppression working to advance the US-Zionist agenda. The officer class in virtually every Muslim country — trained in the West and beholden to it, especially the Americans — is the bastion of nifaq in the local establisment. Unless the militaries are purged of the westoxicated officer class, no meaningful change can occur in the Muslim world.

Some rulers may have been driven from office, others may be running scared because their fragile state structures stand exposed but the struggle for dignity and honour is far from over. There is also the real danger that their struggles will be hijacked by vested interests — as has happened in Tunisia where the trade unions have joined the regime and betrayed the masses — and people may be left out in the cold. It will depend on the sagacity and wisdom of these leaderless movements to stay in the field until they achieve total victory. That will not come about as long as the old state structures are intact regardless of the soothing words uttered by the ruling elite and the military to respect the wishes of the people.

If the people fail to heed this elementary lesson, they would find themselves in the same sorry state that the people of Pakistan are in today after 60 years of broken promises. The struggle and the sacrifices would then all be in vain.

Saudis panic amid unrest in the Islamic East

Zafar Bangash, Reflections

Nowhere is there more concern — and panic — about the rapidly escalating protests in North Africa and the Islamic East than inside the marbled, air-conditioned palaces of Saudi Arabia. While the House of Saud faces no imminent threat like despots in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen or Bahrain, the fear in Riyadh is genuine. The Saudis know their rule is illegitimate. It was the British that installed them in power by carving out a kingdom from the ruins of the Ottoman Khilafah to serve British colonial interests. Now the Americans are protecting them because the Saudis continue to pump oil to satiate the Americans’ addiction to black gold. But America has lost its clout on the global stage, thanks to its wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq. The US and its Arabian lickspittle can no longer dictate to the world.

The Saudis’ real concern is not only America’s loss of clout; their worry is that Uncle Sam ditched a long-time trusted ally Hosni Mubarak so casually. The Saudis may be cowards but they are not fools. They understand what is afoot. If the Americans can discard Mubarak whose regime was a major bulwark against the rising tide of Islam and loyal ally of the Zionist State of Israel, what chance do the pleasure-loving Saudis have if protests erupt in the kingdom? The Americans might abandon them just as quickly, oil or no oil. Further, the Saudis now feel alone in standing against the emerging power of Islam.

While there is little prospect of a Tunisian, Egyptian or Libyan style uprising in Saudi Arabia — most Saudis are bone lazy — it is the possibility of a palace intrigue that the Saudis worry about. True, a protest is planned for March 11 in Riyadh but it is unrealistic to assume anything significant would come out of it. Saudi society is far too tightly controlled and the religious establishment has been completely compromised to offer an alternative to the corrupt and decrepit monarchy. It is, however, developments elsewhere, especially in Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain that worry the Saudis so much. With Mubarak gone, the Saudis feel dangerously exposed. And to this end, to placate any hint of frustration in the people, the Saudi King on his return from a convalescense holiday in Morocco has offered up over $10 billion to his people in various economic concessions like the government of Algeria and Syria. The ailing and aged King Abdullah (he is 87 and suffering from multiple ailments) feels the Americans have betrayed their Arabian allies.

Uprisings in Yemen and Bahrain also have a direct bearing on Saudi Arabia. The kingdom shares borders with both. With Yemen, it is 1,100 miles long and many Yemenis — including the Bin Ladens — hail from there. Instability in Yemen can easily spill over into the kingdom. This explains the Saudis’ attack on the Houthis last year in one of the Forbidden Months, even if it was badly bungled, and exposed the Saudi military’s incompetence. Bahrain is even more problematic. The tiny Gulf State has a Shi‘i majority ruled by a Sunni minority. Bahrain is linked to the kingdom by a 15-mile causeway that is used by the Saudis not merely to drive across and enjoy Bahrain’s nightlife, but for a more serious purpose: in case of unrest the Saudis would rush in troops to Bahrain to contain it. It is better to fight their battle for survival in the streets of Manama than in Riyadh or Jeddah.

Further, any success by the Bahraini majority may encourage similar protests in the Eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia that have long been suppressed by the Nejdi tribe from Dar‘iyah. This in turn may spread to the rest of the kingdom and undermine the House of Saud.

Far from welcoming the people’s aspirations for dignified existence, the Saudi rulers stand completely exposed as the enemies of Islam and the Islamic movement. Saudi-linked and financed Islamic organizations should take note: the blood of innocent people killed in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Morocco and Yemen would be on their hands as well if they fail to sever links with the corrupt Saudi royals.

The Saudis view any challenge to the status quo as a direct threat to their survival. In fact, changes in the region are viewed as a gain for Islamic Iran, and its allies: Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas.

People in the Peninsula must grasp the opportunity offered by the uprisings elsewhere. They must also rise above sectarianism to establish a system based on the pristine principles of Islam. They can either walk in the footsteps of the noble Messenger of Allah (pbuh) or cling to the jahili practices of the likes of Abu Jahl and Abu Lahab. History will render a very harsh judgement if they fail to rise to the occasion. The choice is theirs.



Zafar Bangash is Director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought