islamic-jihad-legacy-of-forced-conversion-imperialism-slavery

The Arab–Islamic ImperialismAnti-colonial resentment remains so intense amongst Muslims that it plays a critical role in fuellingthe ongoing anti-West hatred and violence amongst Islamic radicals. According to playwright and performerAdam Broinowski, suicide bombing by Muslim extremists is associated with ‘the legacy of colonialism andthe resentments’ against it and ‘probably involves a protest against (past) imperialism.’ 335 The legacy ofEuropean colonialism across the continents ‘has helped produce large, monolithic and increasingly restiveIslamic populations with a multi-generational sense of grievance,’ which fuels homegrown terrorism in theU.S. and Europe, thinks Jon Perr. 336However, it is surprising that Muslims refuse to acknowledge that their own past was not onlyimperialist but also no less brutal and devastating to the people whom they fell upon. ‘Islam offers a faithuntainted by colonialism and racism,’ claims Rocky Davis, aka, Shaheed Malik, an Australian Aboriginalconvert to Islam. According to him, ‘the difference between the Muslim and Christian faiths: one is for theoppressed and one’s for the oppressor, one’s for the colonizer and one for the colonized.’ 337 He told the ABCRadio that,Christianity is a culture of invasion, and if anyone can tell me that it’s not, I need people to openly debatewhether it be on live TV or in front of an audience, that Christianity was used as a weapon to invade allthe world’s indigenous peoples, Canadian Indians will tell you, Maoris will tell you, Cook Islands will tellyou, Africans will tell you, the English used Christianity to invade and conquer and enslave… And I wasnever invaded by a Muslim country. Everywhere the Christians went, they plundered and they robbed andthey murdered and they enslaved, and they raped. 338The Muslim Arabs, who were mostly uncultured lawless desert Bedouins, launched a massive campaign ofruthless conquest of the world from the Arabian Peninsula in the 630s. Within a century, they had establisheda huge kingdom spanning vast tracts of Asia, the entire Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. In the process,they exterminated a great multitude of people through mass slaughter, destroyed great civilizations of thetime, and obliterated the cultural heritage of many peoples forever. This violent and destructive aspect ofIslamic expansionism, which was followed by the centuries of devastating colonial rule, will be discussed inthis chapter.ISLAMIC IMPERIALISM: QURANIC COMMANDS & PROPHETIC MODELColonialism can be described as a system of governance in which powerful states establish sovereignty overweaker states or peoples for exploiting the wealth—resources, labor and market—of the ruled. It also oftendegrades latter’s socio-political norms and cultural values. Imperialism, although used interchangeably withcolonialism, refers more specifically to the political power and control exercised by powerful states overweaker ones either by indirect influence or by direct military power. Colonialism, therefore, is of wider scopein which imperialism is imbedded.The Quran entails an ideology for establishing a religio-political imperial state on the global scalethrough Jihad or holy war. Islam is a religious, social and political creed—all imbedded in one—a completeway of life. Allah commands Muslims to wage ceaseless Jihad, comprising violent raids and wars, against theinfidels for establishing the all-encompassing religious-social-political system of Islam over the whole earth.For example, the Quran commands:335. The Age, Deadly disease without cure, 19 June 2007336. Perr J, Homegrown Terrorism in the U.S. and Europe, Perrspectives.com, 13 August 2006.337. A new faith for Kooris, The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 May 2007338. ABC Radio, Aboriginal Da’wah - ‘Call to Islam’, 22 March 2006;http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s1597410.htm112