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

Islamic JihadThe negative impact of the European imperialism on the former colonies of Africa, Americas, Asiaand elsewhere has now ended with their withdrawal. But the footprints, left behind by the Islamicimperialism, continue to cause misery, even havoc, in the lands Muslims had conquered. Muslim converts’failure to cope up with the rest of the citizens, such as in India, has been discussed already. There is no end insight for this ongoing pernicious impact of Islam. On the contrary, wherever the European colonists have lefttheir footprints, namely as settlers in Canada, United States, Australasia and South Africa among other places,they have been an asset for those nations.Critics and historians, who engage in evaluating the impact of the Islamic and British rules in India,should pay heed to what India’s latest Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the first Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru said about the British and Islamic impact on India. In a speech at Oxford in 2005, Singh,breaking tradition, said of his assessment of the British impact on India, ‘Today, with the balance andperspective offered by the passage of time and the benefit of hindsight, it is possible for an Indian primeminister to assert that India’s experience with Britain had its beneficial consequences too.’ He added: ‘Ournotions of the rule of law, of a constitutional government, of a free press, of a professional civil service, ofmodern universities and research laboratories have all been fashioned in the crucible where an age-oldcivilization met the dominant Empire of the day.’ 669Nehru, on the other hand, rather reluctantly drew the unavoidable conclusion on Islam’s impact onIndia that ‘Islam did not bring any great social revolution in its train which might have put an end to a largeextent to the exploitation of masses. But it did lessen this exploitation so far as the Muslims areconcerned…’ 670 Nehru’s appreciation of Muslim rulers’ racist policy of relieving exploitation of the minisculeMuslim population was possible only by sucking the blood, heart and soul of the much larger non-Muslimpopulation.669. Rediff.com, British Raj was beneficial: PM, 9 July 2005; http://us.rediff.com/news/2005/jul/09pm1.htm670. Nehru (1989), p. 145201