Replies to post #925 on 'Idea of the day' trading in and out for profit

[Ike Latif]

He would have liked another poor nation like Pakistan to become a mass producer of orphans, widows and misguided intolerant psychopaths.


OSB: The government of Pakistan should have the wishes of the people in view. It should not have surrendered to the unjustified demands of America. America does not have solid proof against us. It just has some surmises. It is unjust to start bombing on the basis of those surmises.

HM: Had America decided to attack Pakistan with the help of India and Israel, what would have we done ?

OSB: What has America achieved by attacking Afghanistan ? We will not leave the Pakistani people and the Pakistani territory at anybody's mercy.

We will defend Pakistan. But we have been disappointed by Gen Pervez Musharraf. He says that the majority is with him. I say the majority is against him.

Bush has used the word crusade. This is a crusade declared by Bush. It is no wisdom to barter off blood of Afghan brethren to improve Pakistan's economy. He will be punished by the Pakistani people and Allah.

Right now a great war of Islamic history is being fought in Afghanistan. All the big powers are united against Muslims. It is ' sawab ' to participate in this war.>

As if hell point Afghanistan is not big enough a hell he has single headedly created and master minded with another fool Mullah Omar. How this crazy mumbo-jumbo would have saved Pakistan from his underground cowardly cave is beyond me. He says US has done no harm to Afghanistan. The economy of that nation whatever was left of it until the war started is now in the ground. The nation is practically bankrupt, the nation that had 800 $ / capita incomes has now been reduced to a nation of rubble. The chief economic activity is to collect and sell junk; even ‘residual bomb junk’ is very much in demand. Rubbish and garbage collection in search of food is widespread; most of the children and women collect rubbish for finding some morsels of food. This is the vision of a true Islamic state of Osama. Today Afghan nation with no GDP and 40$/capita income lowest in the world, that has what puritan Islam has bequeathed for Afghanistan and that is why I tell all those people who like to support them to take ‘one way ticket’ to hell hole.

In his interview Osama says he would have saved and defended Pakistan from his cave, like he has saved Afghan nation by mercilessly putting the poor people of that nation as human shield for his own safety. . As bombs would have fallen on our cities in Pakistan, taking out our communications, our energy and our dams including our strategic assets, that would have given him new satisfaction. A new pariah state would have emerged, if in desperation any crazy crook would have used the A- bomb, that would given him ultimate victory of a war that would have consumed few millions and set back the Islamic world by a few hundred years back to cave age. Not that it would have mattered.

O&O are main agents of guaranteeing travel back in time for any nation, any nation wanting intellectual backwardness associated with ‘nothing to lose’ situation, O&O in Kabul assure total new pariah state status in no time guaranteed. That is their perverted joint vision of a great nation, which should be in majority composed of fatherless, penniless, lonely and shoeless idle population. His own Arabs are well and save in Saudi Arabia, as he proudly says al his wife’s are Arabs and all his daughters are married to Arabs, his Arab pride not withstanding when it comes to hiding like a coward he uses the poorest nation on earth as his shield.

I hope this vermin chooses to fights his proxy battle against the Kings of Saudi in his own land instead of the land of the poorest people, using them as shield and canon fodder is evil. It is premeditated and deliberate attempt to blackmail nations, now his only way out is to export this war to the entire easy to fleece Islamic world, I hope these people read him well. This evil needs no mercy.


Iqbal Latif

[Ike Latif]

HM: If America got out of Saudi Arabia and the Al-Aqsa mosque was liberated, would you then present yourself for trial in some Muslim country ?
OSB: Only Afghanistan is an Islamic country. Pakistan follows the English law. I don't consider Saudi Arabia an Islamic country. If the Americans have charges against me, we too have a charge sheet against them.>

Afghanistan is an Islamic country because it takes the society and women from photo number 2 and three to the photo on the top.

http://www.ciriello.com/46women3.html

HE LIKES Afghanistan also because they make sure those Afghan children and their families who have been suffering from 23 years of war, which has displaced millions of families and created an estimated 800,000 war widows should continue to suffer. He likes to shelter himself amongst the children and women that is his definition of a great society. When thinking becomes so degenerative, answers are few.

The social indicators of children in Afghanistan under Islamic Taleban are among the worst in the world - for example, United Nations figures show that a quarter of all children born in Afghanistan will die before they reach their fifth birthday.

This is the vision of the great Islamic society of Osama.



Iqbal Latif

[Ike Latif]

Allow us to nail the edict of reformation on the forehead of our nation Mr John Mckay. On.....
< Mr Latif,

I find your constant attacks on islamic people an affront. Why are you so against muslims. Just because most of them outside the US are stupid and uneducated that is no reason to keep picking on them. I thought this was an trading thread not a political witchhunt forum.
Stop equating terrorism with Islam. Islamic people want peace the same as we do.
No wonder everyone has deserted this thread.

Regards

John>

How would you feel if someone calls and incite people of your nation to overthrow your government? Osama AND Omar the pedigree of people I handle are too hot to handle, if in your opinion Saddam, who gassed is own people or Assad who killed thousands in Hama or Suharto who swept the slate clean in East TIMOR should be saved from criticism in name of true Islamists who are mostly peaceful, than my path is different from yours.

How many times you have seen this condemnation of mass murders on Al Jazeera or any Islamic newspapers? Why should you let us be cursed in this manner, by you walking away saying that most of Islamists are peaceful actually you are helping the cause of fanatics. What most Muslims will say:
"Islam would never support the killing of innocent people. Allah of the Holy Qur'an never advocated killings. This is all the work of a few misguided individuals at the fringes of society. The real Islam is sanctified from violence. We denounce all violence. Islam means peace. Islam means tolerance."

What knowledgeable Muslims should say:
That is what most Muslims think, but is it true? Does Islam really preach peace, tolerance and non-violence? The Muslims who perpetrate these crimes think differently. They believe that what they do is Jihad (holy war). They say that killing unbelievers is mandatory for every Muslim. They do not kill because they wish to break the laws of Islam but because they think this is what true Muslims should do. Those who blow-up their own bodies to kill more innocent people do so because they think they will be rewarded in Paradise. Lack of will to confront facts and hiding the ugly faces of our society in fear of inciting the war of civilisation have brought us to this critical crossroad, where the very stability of our country is at stake. Do you know what is it like to see 5 million refuges as a result of Islamic infighting in Refuges cams around Peshawar?

The Qur'an tells us: "not to make friendship with Jews and Christians" (5:51), "kill the disbelievers wherever we find them" (2:191), "murder them and treat them harshly" (9:123), "fight and slay the Pagans, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem" (9:5). The Qur'an demands that we fight the unbelievers, and promises "If there are twenty amongst you, you will vanquish two hundred: if a hundred, you will vanquish a thousand of them" (8:65).
Allah and his messenger want us to fight the Christians and the Jews "until they pay the Jizya [a penalty tax for the non-Muslims living under Islamic rules] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (9:29). Allah and his messenger announce that it is acceptable to go back on our promises (treaties) and obligations with Pagans and make war on them whenever we find ourselves strong enough to do so (9:3). Our God tells us to "fight the unbelievers" and "He will punish them by our hands, cover them with shame and help us (to victory) over them" (9:14).

Do you know what it likes to walk without shoes in below zero degree? How a woman feels once she is tied up to that shuttlecock type of veil? The Kurds live in absolutely hopeless conditions, persecuted by Turks and Iraqis. The Armenians were practically decimated by the Turks, the Bangladeshis given the real treatment of torture by my fellow countryman. In a blatant attempt all these subjects are taboos for our society to discuss, it is always a perpetual battle to eliminate evil and install pure values. Some liberals want to look away, yes it is too hot to handle, but without confronting, without questioning and without deliberating or bringing up to surface are we going to move an inch? Are you asking me to walk away from a subject that has risk of my life as I offend some?

No, I don’t offend anyone, I offend my own nation and I need to tell them, wake up call, lets put our act together, and lets try to start a new war against our wretched mind boggling poverty. Unfortunately our poverty is rooted in our ideological intolerant positions, we buy misery and pain as we are taught that pain and misery is virtue and we shall be rewarded in the next world.

The worst impact of the ideological divide where rich Islamic nations have tortured any ray of enlightenment within their own confines and have refused to look at the poor ones as being part of Ajam- non Arabs not worthy of attention have left 800 million people future at stake, they are fooled by O&O type of reformers who ask them to over throw their government and install new puritan dictatorships who may start this new extreme terror of running planes in to cities. This is unique threat and this needs to be talked about. You say majority is good, are you aware of the fact that even the educated class knowing well that Osama represents bigotry support Osama in Middle East. The street supports Osama, now Osama enters a new lexicon that of Palestine in his interview, where were these poor Palestinians when he was calling for overthrow of Saudi government, you can be so simple as to get this as kind of freedom struggle, he is playing with the tinder, he has now declared Jihad of Kashmir as his problem and Palestinian as his issue an even Chechnya, now with this broad brush he wants to win over the entire world Muslims, and you say that most of them are peaceful, yes they may be peaceful but everyone is peaceful until a chance comes by him, I want to educate them of pitfalls. When the chance come by they should not be foolish enough to say yes, say big no to these terrorists, we have a war on hand, and we little people have a responsibility on our hand to educate and break taboos.


John, Are you aware of the fact that support for this Terrorists Inc runs huge as people on streets think of them as reformists that would lead them to houries as promised in Quran? The overwhelming support of street was the reason that Saudi backed out from open support of the attacks. The most troubling aspect is the fatality part of this whole equation, everything is in credit here, no rewards here but next world entering as a ‘shaheed’ or martyr is the biggest reward, that kind of reward Mr Mckay puts a spin to the basic social contract humanity has with each other to live and let live. I am completely perplexed by the fact that how can ultra rich Saudis and Gulf citizens who were saved from pangs of Saddam horror can support the icons of terror, it is this strange logic that encourages me to write more nonsensical things that befriend neither a Muslim nor a Christian.

It was a trading activity thread, since 11th Sept the biggest attack on economic life line of the world has been made, if you have cared to read his interview today he says his attack were to bring down the symbols of capitalism and strength of US, for some economic activity and global political problems may not be inter-related, in my opinion the future of our economic activity depends on the ability to win this war waged against mankind by evil. This kind of threat that has to be rooted from the bud.

Terror Inc. is biggest threat not only to freedom but to economic future of the world, the short sightedness displayed by some to think trading markets in face of this unique kind of threat that has no similarities of the past may keep DOW up here is very wishful. In face of Nazism or in face of major annihilation, prosperity and confidence is the biggest victim. War ravaged economies do not have stock markets in 5 figures, the interrelatedness of the markets to security, preparedness and ability to respond will determine the future course of our societies as far as growth factor is concerned. Horses for courses, right now the biggest market challenge is to stop the terror cycle and bring the confidence back and revive the spirit of collegiality amongst comity of nations. The economy is servant of good governance, respect of life and lust of living, all these components go haywire in a screwed up model that most of these puritans are prescribing.

The reason I bring these very important issues is to shake the conscience of the Islamic world. Muslim’s should stand up and talk, they need to stop this ambivalent approach; the question of ‘moral equivalence’ is very valid here in your post. Most of the Islamic nations are peace loving but not courageous to condemn this terror-infested mentality. I am against this thinking in the Islamic world that ‘west’ is responsible for all the evils; I think that Islamic world should grow up and take its responsibility. It is also a theological question, are the laws good 1400 years ago valid today, can the world live with those kind of thinking, until we don’t have open debate on these issues, the dormant nature of our actions that we think that ‘all is well’ breeds the kind of things that destroy and shatter confidence overnight. We use to talk of integrated, globalised world, in minutes we were in middle of civilisation clashes, the Islamic world fails to see what US has done in Bosnia to save Muslims and in Kosovo too.

They talk of Chechnya which is again a nation infested with bandits and banditry that has been way of life for centuries and has nothing to do with US, rather US has been forcing Russia to keep an easy hand on them. Why did US bomb Yugoslavia for months? No one wants to talk about that. They talk of Palestine; the Palestinian issue is just one stop convenience for every Islamic fundamentalist. Saddam who represents secularism changed his standard to standard of prophet by inscribing Allah-o-Akbar on it soon after invasion of oil rich sisterly Kuwait. Osama who has long scores to settle with his own people and kingdom of Saudi Arabia is no now calling for a worldly uprising; this is in his opinion a modern age crusade. Assad, Saddam, Osama are symbols of tyranny who happen to hijack gullible Islamic nation at all important junctures, they could have done it to my nation Pakistan also, I think I know the sensitiveness and I am completely aware of my responsibility as a poster, not to hate anyone but my responsibility as human being to shake the conscience is above all the most important thing. I my have offended your pacifist feeling and love for Islam but I assume you that I know that the present course of Islamic thinking is not the right course for mankind, we need to change our direction of thinking, we need to find the enemy within ourselves, we need to go back to education, pluralism, tolerance and farsightedness, without that we are doomed, do you know that 76% of the 1 billion plus Islamic world thinks that on that fateful day of 11th of Sept, no Jew was present in WTC. Now with this kind of background I don’t know where are your peaceful Islamists. I am writing on many forums, if you want I will pass you the links and all these forums predominantly pro-Osama, with my lone voice as minority, never I have been told that why do I write what I write!

Mr Mckay, note one thing, I live in Islamabad, I feel this as my human responsibility, and I have my driver from Malakand ( where 1500 people have travelled to fight this Jihad) and my servants from village near ‘Akora Khattak’ this is the place where that school where Mullah Omar studied is situated. I will be killed like a rat one day but I want my kids to know that their father stood the ground, one day these posts will be great posts for my kids, I don’t wont to bring them up as cowards!! My dancing and my nightlife will come to an end, but I rarely even think about the consequences, humanity and its survivals are far bigger goals Mr. Mckay..

Every day, when I find time when I am there, most often than not I talk with same style and vigour with those people, I have some solid points to make, they get convinced, you as an American think that I am offending Muslims, that is little difficult for me to comprehend. O&O want to incite a bloody revolution in my country in name of ‘anti-western Islamic puritanical agenda’ if we in minority does not bring facts on surface our gullible nation will be swept by these professional criminals, by bringing the contradictions and issues that have confronted our nation so far, in open, we try to create openness where if someone can convince me I will be part of that culture or I will convince someone on my way of thinking, this is a very healthy exchange and I don’ see any need any kind of appeasement required for people who have nothing but significant determination that ‘Islam’ wins even when they lose. Remember the Iraqis calling the mother of all victories, when actually 60,000 Iraqi soldiers laid arms within 48 hours of ground action? We as nation of Islam have to answer the misdeed we have conducted towards our won brethren, we need to hold those people accountable and this is our renaissance, don’t stop us form that, you had ours 500 years earlier, we are small Luther’s, let us live. Allow us to nail the edict of reformation on the forehead of our nation.

I have an open personality, and a name and I don’t throw stones from an anonymous house or hidden in the cave, I am a small pawn very much possible to be eliminated, when I take this chance I take it because if everyone thinks the way you are thinking that no problems exist, than we are doomed, this ideological narcissism is dangerous.

This is the real Islam. Please go ahead be my guest.

What most Muslims will say:
"Islam would never support the killing of innocent people. Allah of the Holy Qur'an never advocated killings. This is all the work of a few misguided individuals at the fringes of society. The real Islam is sanctified from violence. We denounce all violence. Islam means peace. Islam means tolerance."
What knowledgeable Muslims should say:
That is what most Muslims think, but is it true? Does Islam really preach peace, tolerance and non-violence? The Muslims who perpetrate these crimes think differently. They believe that what they do is Jihad (holy war). They say that killing unbelievers is mandatory for every Muslim. They do not kill because they wish to break the laws of Islam but because they think this is what true Muslims should do. Those who blow-up their own bodies to kill more innocent people do so because they think they will be rewarded in Paradise. They hope to be blessed by Allah, eat celestial food, drink pure wine and enjoy the company of divine consorts. Are they completely misguided? Where did they get this distorted idea? How did they come to believe that killing innocent people pleases God? Or is it that we are misguided? Does really Islam preach violence? Does it call upon its believers to kill non-believers? We denounce those who commit acts of violence and call them extremists. But are they really extremists or are they following what the holy book, the Qur'an tells them to do? What does the Qur'an teach? Have we read the Qur'an? Do we know what kind of teachings are there? Let us go through some of them and take a closer look at what Allah says.
What the Qur'an Teaches Us:
We have used the most widely available English text of the Qur'an and readers are welcome to verify our quotes from the holy book. Please have an open mind and read through these verses again and again. The following quotes are taken from the most trusted Yusufali's translation of the Qur'an.
The Qur'an takes away the freedom of belief from all humanity and relegates those who disbelieve in Islam to hell (5:10), calls them najis (filthy, untouchable, impure) (9:28), and orders its followers to fight the unbelievers until no other religion except Islam is left (2:193). It says that the "non-believers will go to hell and will drink boiling water" (14:17). It asks the Muslims to "slay or crucify or cut the hands and feet of the unbelievers, that they be expelled from the land with disgrace and that they shall have a great punishment in world hereafter" (5:34). And tells us that "for them (the unbelievers) garments of fire shall be cut and there shall be poured over their heads boiling water whereby whatever is in their bowels and skin shall be dissolved and they will be punished with hooked iron rods" (22:19-22) and that they not only will have "disgrace in this life, but on the Day of Judgment He shall make them taste the Penalty of burning (Fire)" (22:9). The Qur'an says that "those who invoke a god other than Allah not only should meet punishment in this world but the Penalty on the Day of Judgment will be doubled to them, and they will dwell therein in ignominy" (25:68). For those who "believe not in Allah and His Messenger, He has prepared, for those who reject Allah, a Blazing Fire!" (48:13). Although we are asked to be compassionate amongst each other, we have to be "harsh with unbelievers", our Christian, Jewish and Atheist neighbours and colleagues (48:29). As for him who does not believe in Islam, the Prophet announces with a "stern command": "Seize ye him, and bind ye him, And burn ye him in the Blazing Fire. Further, make him march in a chain, whereof the length is seventy cubits! This was he that would not believe in Allah Most High. And would not encourage the feeding of the indigent! So no friend hath he here this Day. Nor hath he any food except the corruption from the washing of wounds, Which none do eat but those in sin." (69:30-37) The Qur'an prohibits a Muslim from befriending a non-believer even if that non-believer is the father or the brother of that Muslim (9:23), (3:28). Our holy book asks us to be disobedient towards the disbelievers and their governments and strive against the unbelievers with great endeavour" (25:52) and be stern with them because they belong to Hell (66:9). The holy Prophet prescribes fighting for us and tells us that "it is good for us even if we dislike it" (2:216). Then he advises us to "strike off the heads of the disbelievers"; and after making a "wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives" (47:4). Our God has promised to "instil terror into the hearts of the unbelievers" and has ordered us to "smite above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them" (8:12). He also assures us that when we kill in his name "it is not us who slay them but Allah, in order that He might test the Believers by a gracious trial from Himself" (8:17). He orders us "to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies" (8:60). He has made the Jihad mandatory and warns us that "Unless we go forth, (for Jihad) He will punish us with a grievous penalty, and put others in our place" (9:39). Allah speaks to our Holy Prophet and says "O Prophet! strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and be stern against them. Their abode is Hell - an evil refuge indeed" (9:73).
He promises us that in the fight for His cause whether we slay or are slain we return to the garden of Paradise (9:111). In Paradise he will "wed us with Houris (celestial virgins) pure beautiful ones" (56:54), and unite us with large-eyed beautiful ones while we recline on our thrones set in lines (56:20). There we are promised to eat and drink pleasantly for what we did (56:19). He also promises "boys like hidden pearls" (56:24) and "youth never altering in age like scattered pearls" (for those who have paedophiliac inclinations) (76:19). As you see, Allah has promised all sorts or rewards, gluttony and unlimited sex to Muslim men who kill unbelievers in his name. We will be admitted to Paradise where we shall find "goodly things, beautiful ones, pure ones confined to the pavilions that man has not touched them before nor jinni" (56:67-71).
In the West we enjoy freedom of belief but we are not supposed to give such freedom to anyone else because it is written "If anyone desires a religion other than Islam (submission to Allah), never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter He will be in the ranks of those who have lost (All spiritual good) (3:85). And He orders us to fight them on until there is no more tumult and faith in Allah is practiced everywhere (8:39).
As for women the book of Allah says that they are inferior to men and their husbands have the right to scourge them if they are found disobedient (4:34). It advises to "take a green branch and beat your wife", because a green branch is more flexible and hurts more. (38:44). It teaches that women will go to hell if they are disobedient to their husbands (66:10). It maintains that men have an advantage over the women (2:228). It not only denies the women's equal right to their inheritance (4:11-12), it also regards them as imbeciles and decrees that their witness is not admissible in the courts of law (2:282). This means that a woman who is raped cannot accuse her rapist unless she can produce a male witness. Our Holy Prophet allows us to marry up to four wives and he licensed us to sleep with our slave maids and as many 'captive' women as we may have (4:3) even if those women are already married. He himself did just that. This is why anytime a Muslim army subdues another nation, they call them kafir and allow themselves to rape their women. Dear fellow Muslims:
Is this the Islam you believe in? Is this your Most Merciful, Most Compassionate Allah whom you worship daily? Could Allah incite you to kill other peoples? Please understand that there is no terrorist gene - but there could be a terrorist mindset.







Iqbal Latif

[Ike Latif]

I think you missed this post of mine..

http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2001/August/Islam/index.html

Iqbal Latif

[Ike Latif]

How do yuo explain this..
MOHAMMAD Junaid's mother was led to safety from the blazing World Trade Centre by New York's brave firefighters and policemen.

But 26-year-old Junaid's thank you has shocked New York.

In return for saving his mum's life, the Islamic-American has turned traitor and bought a one-way ticket to Pakistan to sign up for the Taliban and kill Americans.

Junaid left on what could be a suicide mission one week after his mother – an office worker on the ninth floor of the north tower – was among the survivors.

About 4500 others were not so lucky, and lost their lives in the terror strikes on September 11.

"My mother was in the north tower of the World Trade Centre but I still feel absolutely no remorse about what happened on September 11," Junaid said.

"I saw the towers collapse but felt nothing for the Americans inside. I may hold an American passport, but I am not an American – I am a Muslim."

Junaid offered his own personal jihad against his own country when in Islamabad, Pakistan, as he waited to cross the border into Afghanistan to join the Taliban.

"I did not feel any remorse for the Americans who died," Junaid told Britain's ITN television network.

"I'm willing to kill the Americans. I will kill every American that I see in Afghanistan. And I'll kill every American soldier that I see in Pakistan."

Junaid's parents migrated from Pakistan.





Iqbal Latif

[Ike Latif]

Dear John.. read this one, you may have overlooked this.

Open Letter to Osama bin Laden..The self-inflicted death of intellect in Islam a thousand years ago is the main cause of the retrogressive and unenlightened mullah culture in Muslim societies today.

Your self-selected messiahism is too opportunistic and shallow to become a political movement of a revolutionary sentiment among the dispossessed Muslims of the world. If you are offended at the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, let me tell you something: the great majority of us Muslims do not give a damn. Izzat Majeed writing today.....


The vast majority of the Muslims of the world do not care about your proclamations and your antiquated notion of Islam. You helped create the Taliban (some say you actually rule over them). If the sheer barbarism of the Taliban regime is your version of an Islamic society, then you must be a true dreamer to think that any Muslim with half a brain will listen to you. The long lost tribal simplicity and austerity that once characterised the practice of Islam interest no one today. The self-inflicted death of intellect in Islam a thousand years ago is the main cause of the retrogressive and unenlightened mullah culture in Muslim societies today.

Look at what you have done, Osama bin Laden. The carnage in New York, in the full glory of a sunny day and the glare of ever-hungry television, has unleashed forces that are as ambivalent and as conspiratorial as any sea change in the river of history.

Ambivalent because, like you, all that these forces of imperial power understand is that clear and present danger, however concocted, can only be met with the exercise of naked military might. But at the same time, sheer force needs to be tempered with political accommodation on a varied and shifting political and ethnic battlefield.
Conspiratorial, because what you have invited to the region, under the shadow of your terrorism and by now half-forgotten mumbo jubmo of post-war anti-colonialism in the guise of so-called jihad, is today's one and only imperial superpower. ....


The majority of the Afghans want you and your 'foreigners' to leave them alone. By helping create and then lording over the Taliban you have lost any chance of winning the hearts and minds of the long-suffering people of Afghanistan. I am sure every single Afghan woman would love to put you in a burqa and flag you for your medieval and tyrannical version of Islam.

You will leave a legacy of terror which for a moment lit up the hearts of the poor, uneducated and downtrodden Muslims of the world and then vanished in the caves of darkness and despair. You should have stuck to your original petty war against the Saudis and, perhaps, you would have brought some change for the better there. Instead, you brought wretchedness to proud but hungry and abused Afghans, with your empty slogans and your money and showed them a new hell where bombs and chocolates fall from the skies.
We Muslims cannot keep blaming the West for all our ills. We have to first get our own house in order before we can even make any credible struggle possible to rid us of ignorance, living-in-the-past chest thumbing and intolerance of the modern world. Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) on returning from a battle, said: "We return from little jihad (jihad al-asghar) to greater jihad (jihad al-akbar)." True jihad today is not in the hijacking of planes but in the manufacturing of them.

The embarrassment of wretchedness among us is beyond repair. It is not just the poverty, the illiteracy and the absence of any commonly accepted social contract that defines our sense of wretchedness; it is, rather, the increasing awareness among us that we have failed as a civil society by not confronting the historical, social and political demons within us.

The social and political acquiescence to this condition by the vast majority of our people has given rise to cultural paralysis and a totally bogus interpretation of Islam based on self-serving political agendas. Without a reformation in the practice of Islam that makes it move forward and not backward, there is no hope for us Muslims anywhere. We have reduced Islam to the organised hypocrisy of state-sponsored mullahism. For more than a thousand years Islam has stood still because the mullahs, who became de facto clergy instead of genuine scholars, closed the door on ijtehad and no one came forward with a dynamic and evolving application of the message of the Holy Quran.

All that the mullahs tell you today is how to go back a millennium and more. We have not been able to evolve a dynamic practice to bring Islam to the people in the language of their own specific era. Little wonder, therefore, that the bulk of our mullahs are illiterate in any modern or ancient sense of the word. They are simply illiterate. Period. Oxford and Cambridge were the 'madrasas' of Christendom in the 13th century. Look where they are today - among the leading institutions of education in the world. Where are our institutions of learning?

The basis of ignorant mullahism issues from a fundamental debasement of the human being. Ours is an ongoing inquisition that thrives on ignorance and poverty. The pathetic ruling elites of the Muslim world remain trapped in their own abandonment of any knowledge about Islam. You cannot lead all of us to a barbaric social order and call it Islam. Most Muslims live in the dark ages already. The last thing they need is the growing darkness in your caves and the stale intellect that is anti-human and anti-progress.

Go and read the Holy Quran again and again until you see what great dynamism and modernism the Almighty has given us through His Word.

In verse 143 in Sura Al-Bacarah (the Cow), the Almighty says: "And thus have we willed you to be a community of the middle way." It is this God-ordained 'middle way' that we Muslims have lost. And we must find it in harmony with today's and tomorrow's hope for moderation and a better quality of life for us all.



Iqbal Latif