It is fortuitous (from an Indian POV) that the remarks were made by Mahathir (one or two of his grandparents are from Kerala) who despite his anti Western views is considered a relative moderate. First it dispels the myth that Malaysia is a country where all religions are treated equally. Who is going to believe that now ?Clearly the sentiments that Mahathir expressed are reminiscent of Islamist radicals and if a moderate like Mahathir can have such views, what about the vast majority of the Islamic ummah.
In a way this exposes the facade of the moderates in the Islamic universe - that they are hardly moderate by any stretch of the imagination.
Friday, October 17, 2003 Posted: 9:20 AM EDT (1320 GMT)
Mahathir urged Muslim youths to abandon suicide attacks and took aim at Islam.
Quote:We (Muslims) are actually very strong, 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for themÂ
-- Dr. Mahathir MohamadÂ
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia -- Malaysia's foreign minister has apologized for what he described as any misunderstandings over Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's assertion that Jews "rule the world", saying no offence from the remarks was intended.
Quote:"Please forget about anti-Semitism," Syed Hamid told reporters. "Islam has never advocated being anti anybody including the Jews."
[url="http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=4649"]Islamâs Other Victims: India[/url]
By Serge Trifkovic
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 18, 2002
Adapted from The Sword of the Prophet: A Politically-Incorrect Guide to Islam by Dr. Serge Trifkovic.
The fundamental leftist and anti-American claim about our ongoing conflict with political Islam is this: whatever has happened or does happen, itâs our fault. We provoked them into it by being dirty Yankee imperialists and by unkindly refusing to allow them to destroy Israel. But two things make crystal clear that this is not so:
1. The political arm of Islam has been waging terroristic holy war on the rest of the world for centuries.
2. It has waged this war against civilizations that have nothing to do with the West, let alone America.
This is why the case of Moslem aggression against India proves so much. Letâs look at the historical record.
India prior to the Moslem invasions was one of the worldâs great civilizations. Tenth century Hindustan matched its contemporaries in the East and the West in the realms of philosophy, mathematics, and natural science. Indian mathematicians discovered the number zero (not to mention other things, like algebra, that were later transmitted to a Moslem world which mistaken has received credit for them.) Medieval India, before the Moslem invasion, was a richly imaginative culture, one of the half-dozen most advanced civilizations of all time. Its sculptures were vigorous and sensual, its architecture ornate and spellbinding. And these were indigenous achievements and not, as in the case of many of the more celebrated high-points of Moslem culture, relics of pre-Moslem civilizations that Moslems had overrun.
Moslem invaders began entering India in the early 8th century, on the orders of Hajjaj, the governor of what is now Iraq. (Sound familiar?) Starting in 712 the raiders, commanded by Muhammad Qasim, demolished temples, shattered sculptures, plundered palaces, killed vast numbers of men â it took three whole days to slaughter the inhabitants of the city of Debal â and carried off their women and children to slavery, some of it sexual. After the initial wave of violence, however, Qasim tried to establish law and order in the newly-conquered lands, and to that end he even allowed a degree of religious tolerance. but upon hearing of such humane practices, his superior Hajjaj, objected:
"It appears from your letter that all the rules made by you for the comfort and convenience of your men are strictly in accordance with religious law. But the way of granting pardon prescribed by the law is different from the one adopted by you, for you go on giving pardon to everybody, high or low, without any discretion between a friend and a foe. The great God says in the Koran [47.4]: "0 True believers, when you encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads." The above command of the Great God is a great command and must be respected and followed. You should not be so fond of showing mercy, as to nullify the virtue of the act. Henceforth grant pardon to no one of the enemy and spare none of them, or else all will consider you a weak-minded man."
In a subsequent communication, Hajjaj reiterated that all able-bodied men were to be killed, and that their underage sons and daughters were to be imprisoned and retained as hostages. Qasim obeyed, and on his arrival at the town of Brahminabad massacred between 6,000 and 16,000 men.
The significance of these events lies not just in the horrible numbers involved, but in the fact that the perpetrators of these massacres were not military thugs disobeying the ethical teachings of their religion, as the European crusaders in the Holy Land were, but were actually doing precisely what their religion taught. (And one may note that Christianity has grown up and no longer preaches crusades. Islam has not. As has been well-documented, jihad has been preached from the official centers of Islam, not just the lunatic fringe.)
Qasimâs early exploits were continued in the early eleventh century, when Mahmud of Ghazni, "passed through India like a whirlwind, destroying, pillaging, and massacring," zealously following the Koranic injunction to kill idolaters, whom he had vowed to chastise every year of his life.
In the course of seventeen invasions, in the words of Alberuni, the scholar brought by Mahmud to India,
"Mahmud utterly ruined the prosperity of the country, and performed there wonderful exploits, by which the Hindus became like atoms of dust scattered in all directions, and like a tale of old in the mouth of the people. Their scattered remains cherish, of course, the most inveterate aversion toward all Moslems."
Does one wonder why? To this day, the citizens of Bombay and New Delhi, Calcutta and Bangalore, live in fear of a politically-unstable and nuclear-armed Pakistan that unlike India (but like every other Moslem country) has not managed to maintain democracy since independence.
Mathura, holy city of the god Krishna, was the next victim:
"In the middle of the city there was a temple larger and finer than the rest, which can neither be described nor painted." The Sultan [Mahmud] was of the opinion that 200 years would have been required to build it. The idols included "five of red gold, each five yards high," with eyes formed of priceless jewels. "The Sultan gave orders that all the temples should be burnt with naphtha and fire, and leveled with the ground."
In the aftermath of the invasion, in the ancient cities of Varanasi, Mathura, Ujjain, Maheshwar, Jwalamukhi, and Dwarka, not one temple survived whole and intact. This is the equivalent of an army marching into Paris and Rome, Florence and Oxford, and razing their architectural treasures to the ground. It is an act beyond nihilism; it is outright negativism, a hatred of what is cultured and civilized.
In his book The Story of Civilization, famous historian Will Durant lamented the results of what he termed "probably the bloodiest story in history." He called it "a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within."
Moslem invaders "broke and burned everything beautiful they came across in Hindustan," displaying, as an Indian commentator put it, the resentment of the less developed warriors who felt intimidated in the encounter with "a more refined culture." The Moslem Sultans built mosques at the sites of torn down temples, and many Hindus were sold into slavery. As far as they were concerned, Hindus were kafirs, heathens, par excellence. They, and to a lesser extent the peaceful Buddhists, were, unlike Christians and Jews, not "of the book" but at the receiving end of Muhammadâs injunction against pagans: "Kill those who join other gods with God wherever you may find them." (Not that being "of the book" has much helped Jewish and Christian victims of other Moslem aggressions, but thatâs another article.)
The mountainous northwestern approaches to India are to this day called the Hindu Kush, "the Slaughter of the Hindu," a reminder of the days when Hindu slaves from Indian subcontinent died in harsh Afghan mountains while being transported to Moslem courts of Central Asia. The slaughter in Somnath, the site of a celebrated Hindu temple, where 50,000 Hindus were slain on Mahmudâs orders, set the tone for centuries.
The gentle Buddhists were the next to be subjected to mass slaughter in 1193, when Muhammad Khilji also burned their famous library. By the end of the 12th century, following the Moslem conquest of their stronghold in Bihar, they were no longer a significant presence in India. The survivors retreated into Nepal and Tibet, or escaped to the south of the Subcontinent. The remnants of their culture lingered on even as far west as Turkestan. Left to the tender mercies of Moslem conquerors and their heirs they were systematically destroyed, sometimesâas was the case with the four giant statues of Buddha in Afghanistan in March 2001âup to the present day.
That cultivated disposition and developed sensibility can go hand in hand with bigotry and cruelty is evidenced by the example of Firuz Shah, who became the ruler of northern India in 1351. This educated yet tyrannical Moslem ruler of northern India once surprised a village where a Hindu religious festival was celebrated, and ordered all present to be slain. He proudly related that, upon completing the slaughter, he destroyed the temples and in their place built mosques.
The Mogul emperor Akbar is remembered as tolerant, at least by the standards of Moslems in India: only one major massacre was recorded during his long reign (1542-1605), when he ordered that about 30,000 captured Rajput Hindus be slain on February 24, 1568, after the battle for Chitod. But Akbarâs acceptance of other religions and toleration of their public worship, his abolition of poll-tax on non-Moslems, and his interest in other faiths were not a reflection of his Moslem spirit of tolerance. Quite the contrary, they indicated a propensity for free-thinking in the realm of religion that finally led him to complete apostasy. Its high points were the formal declaration of his own infallibility in all matters of religious doctrine, his promulgation of a new creed, and his adoption of Hindu and Zoroastrian festivals and practices. This is a pattern one sees again and again in Moslem history, down to the present day: whenever one finds a reasonable, enlightened, tolerant Moslem, upon closer examination this turns out to be someone who started out as a Moslem but then progressively wandered away from the orthodox faith. That is to say: the best Moslems are generally the least Moslem (a pattern which does not seem to be the case with other religions.)
Things were back to normal under Shah Jahan (1593-1666), the fifth Mogul Emperor and a grandson of Akbar the Great. Most Westerners remember him as the builder of the Taj Mahal and have no idea that he was a cruel warmonger who initiated forty-eight military campaigns against non-Moslems in less than thirty years. Taking his cue from his Ottoman co-religionists, on coming to the throne in 1628 he killed all his male relations except one who escaped to Persia. Shah Jahan had 5,000 concubines in his harem, but nevertheless indulged in incestuous sex with his daughters Chamani and Jahanara. During his reign in Benares alone 76 Hindu temples were destroyed, as well as Christian churches at Agra and Lahore. At the end of the siege of Hugh, a Portuguese enclave near Calcutta, that lasted three months, he had ten thousand inhabitants "blown up with powder, drowned in water or burnt by fire." Four thousand were taken captive to Agra where they were offered Islam or death. Most refused and were killed, except for the younger women, who went into harems.
These massacres perpetrated by Moslems in India are unparalleled in history. In sheer numbers, they are bigger than the Jewish Holocaust, the Soviet Terror, the Japanese massacres of the Chinese during WWII, Maoâs devastations of the Chinese peasantry, the massacres of the Armenians by the Turks, or any of the other famous crimes against humanity of the 20th Century. But sadly, they are almost unknown outside India.
There are several reasons for this. In the days when they ruled India, the British, pursuing a policy of divide-and-rule, whitewashed the record of the Moslems so that they could set them up as a counterbalance to the more numerous Hindus. During the struggle for independence, Gandhi and Nehru downplayed historic Moslem atrocities so that they could pretend a facade of Hindu-Moslem unity against the British. (Naturally, this façade dissolved immediately after independence and several million people were killed in the religious violence attendant on splitting British India into India and Pakistan.) After independence, Marxist Indian writers, blinkered by ideology, suppressed the truth about the Moslem record because it did not fit into the Marxist theory of history. Nowadays, the Indian equivalent of political correctness downplays Moslem misdeeds because Moslems are an "oppressed minority" in majority-Hindu India. And Indian leftist intellectuals always blame India first and hate their own Hindu civilization, just their equivalents at Berkeley blame America and the West.
Unlike Germany, which has apologized to its Jewish and Eastern European victims, and Japan, which has at least behaved itself since WWII, and even America, which has gone into paroxysms of guilt over what it did to the infinitely smaller numbers of Red Indians, the Moslem aggressors against India and their successors have not even stopped trying to finish the job they started. To this day, militant Islam sees India as "unfinished business" and it remains high on the agenda of oil-rich Moslem countries such as Saudi Arabia, which are spending millions every year trying to convert Hindus to Islam.
One may take some small satisfaction in the fact that they find it rather slow going.
Serge Trifkovic received his PhD from the University of Southampton in England and pursued postdoctoral research at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. His past journalistic outlets have included the BBC World Service, the Voice of America, CNN International, MSNBC, U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Times of London, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He is foreign affairs editor of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. This article was adapted for Front Page Magazine by Robert Locke.
Serge Trifkovic received his PhD from the University of Southampton in England and pursued postdoctoral research at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. His past journalistic outlets have included the BBC World Service, the Voice of America, CNN International, MSNBC, U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Times of London, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He is foreign affairs editor of Chronicles.
Just registered. Dunno if this link is germane to this thread... Posting because I am always struck by the same sort of excuse that the Pakistanis use to justify all aggression (that such outrages were simply "defensive" actions on the part of the perps)
He (Ahmed Shah Abdali) came to rescue Indian Muslims from the Marathas
The new debate on Ahmad Shah Abdali is an unfortunate attempt to tarnish the character and image of a pious Muslim ruler and warrior who is recognised as an Islamic hero by Afghans and non-Afghans alike. There are no 'ethno-centric' or historical points of views about it.
There is only one viewpoint that he readily answered the calls by the oppressed Muslims of Hind with courage and determination, and rescued the Muslims from extirpation at the hands of the Sikhs and Marathas. The Pakistani nation has therefore with consensus, recognized his deeds and aptly named its prestigious defence system after him.
The learned author, Mubarak Ali, in his article entitled, "Yes, he did plunder and massacre the Indians" (Dawn, Encounter, Aug 30) accuses Ahmad Shah Abdali of the following:
* Aggression and plunder like his so called 'mentor' Nadir Shah.
* Forcefully taking tender aged Princess Hazrat Mahal, the daughter of Emperor Muhammad Shah in marriage at grandfatherly age.
* Mir Taqi Mir who was in the service of Raja Nagar Mal, a Jat chief of Suraj Mal (the Jat ruler), narrates the stories of massacre caused by Ahmad Shah Abdali.
* Benefit of the Marathas' defeat went to the East India Company and not the Mughals.
Allow me to set the record straight.
Soon after creation of Pakistan the Sikhs, Dogras and other Hindu militant factions started heinous massacre of the Muslims in Kashmir. Within days the Pathans from Afghanistan and the NWFP answered their call and arrived to the rescue of the hapless, unarmed, battered Kashmiri Muslims.
Shall we call the arrivals and helpers as 'aggressors' and the Non-Muslim perpetrators of unheard cruelties as 'lovers of peace'? I feel if one does not find an answer to this enigma according to our religious injunctions and parry the question under different excuses then one would be making the truth appear a lie.
The answer may be found from an analysis of the circumstances the Muslims faced in Hind at the time of Ahmad Shah Abdali's invasion and the religious injunctions ordained for such a situation.
The incapable successors of Emperor Aurangzeb, their worthless courtiers, and short-sighted self-conceited and self-seeking ministers failed miserably to check the Marathas in Deccan and in northern India as well. Indeed, it was their intrigues and flirtation, which brought the Marathas under the walls of Delhi and encouraged them to intervene decisively in Imperial affairs ("Bulletin of the Deccan Research Institute" Nos. 3-4, p. 362-363.).
The warring political leaders and local governors felt no qualm of conscience in betraying national interests of the Muslims by joining hands with the Marathas and encouraging them to strike at the very root of the Mughul authority. On one occasion Govind Rai Pandit ravaged the entire Rohila territory up to Amroha, burnt one thousand and three hundred villages to ashes (Professor Hamiduddin Khan's Translation of "Life of Hafiz Rahmat Khan", p-98).
In 1753 AD, the emperor Imad-ul-Mulk himself on the instigation of Safdar Jang, invited the Marathas to chastise the Bangash and Rohila Afghans, thus paving the way for their rapid growth of political influence in the north. They followed this initial success by occupying Delhi and the Punjab in 1757 AD and made no secret of their plans to establish universal Hindu sovereignty replacing the weak and rapidly declining Mughul empire. Consequently, the growth of Maratha power was such that it seemed destined to overthrow the whole of India. Their power extending from 'Cuttock to Attock' was at its zenith. ("Life of Hafiz Rahmat Khan", p-97).
However, this extension of the Maratha influence did not improve the social and economic conditions of India nor contributed to the political stability of the country. Nevertheless, Imad-ul-Mulk was highly gratified with the unchallenged domination of his allies; and imitating Safdar Jang, who had undertaken the extermination of the Bangash and Rohila Afghans with the help of the Marathas, he sought to utilize their collusion for undermining the nascent power of Najib-ud-Doulah as Wazir of the Mughal Emperor.
The Marathas had formulated their own plan to conquer the whole of India. They dominated the imperial politics and led the Emperor and his minister by the nose. The internecine politics of the Muslim nawabs and rajas amply fitted with their ambitious scheme of reviving the Hindu empire in the country. They preferred an organized system of spoliation and their sole object seemed to be plunder and ruthless destruction ("Sir John Strackey Hastings and the Rohila War", Chapter 1). They prepared the ground for the local Hindus to rise against their Muslim rulers. They instilled feelings of hatred against the Muslims and attempted proselytising. The Sikhs in the Punjab would not have felt so infuriated against the Muslims if the Marathas during their occupation of the Punjab for more than a year had not influenced them by their example.
The Marathas presented a direct challenge to society, culture and religion of Islam, openly declared their intention of supplanting an effete Muslim authority in India. Najib-ud-Doulah was conscious of his helplessness in the face of a much superior Maratha power. He therefore sent a letter to Ahmad Shah Abdali impressing upon him the gravity of the Maratha menace, which, he represented, was a serious challenge to the "very existence of the Muslims in India". He urged upon him to march to India to "save the Muslims from complete annihilation".
From the perusal of the aforementioned historic facts it transpires that Marathas in connivance with certain Muslim petty local rulers had posed a threat to the Muslims of Hind. Protection of the Muslims against a threat from non-Muslims is a duty enjoined on all Muslims. It has to be performed by all Muslims, acting together, irrespective of their geographical location at any particular time. The words of Quran regarding the preparation for war are: "0 ye who believe Take protective measures". (4/71)
Allah has addressed the whole 'Ummah' and not any particular section or the inhabitants of any particular area or ethnicity. It is up to the 'Ummah' itself to take practical steps so that Muslims everywhere are adequately protected against aggression from the unbelievers.
Indeed, on another place the order enjoins deterrent preparation: "Make preparation against them to your utmost, in power including steeds, and thereby strike terror into Allah's enemy and your enemy, and others besides, whom you know not; Allah knows them". (8/60)
In this 'Ayyah' there are a number of points, which need constant and careful consideration:
* It clearly enjoins that all the resources of the Muslims Ummah should be pooled together to meet the threat to the existence, integrity and prosperity of Muslims all over the world.
* Preparations for war are to be made against all those who have shown themselves as enemies of the Muslims and of Allah. These enemies are those who commit aggression against a weak nation or persecute a weak minority irrespective of the fact whether the victims are Muslims or not.
At another place Allah warns the Believers: "And how should you not fight in the way of Allah and for the cause of the feeble among men, women and children who cry: Our Lord Nourisher! Rescue us from this town whose inhabitants are oppressors! Oh! Give us from Thy Presence a helper!" (4/75)
From the perusal of prevailing conditions of the Muslims of Hind and the above mentioned Quranic injunctions it is unmistakably clear that Ahmad Shah Abdali obeyed the Command of Allah and it would be an injustice to call him an "Aggressor who invaded Hind for plunder".
A Pakistani patriot has said, "Those who claim to be Muslims but lack the will for Jihad, like the conscientious objectors of the West, should be kept away from the ranks of the armed forces of Muslim people. Their presence will merely weaken the will of their comrades-in-arms when the going gets rough. Those alone should bear arms in the path of Allah, who have faith in His commandments."
Ahmad Shah Abdali was a mere commander of the Afghan contingent that accompanied Nadir Shah Afshar in 1739 AD, who was neither his 'mentor' nor a 'patron'. According to Sir Olaf Caroe the Afghan contingent was commanded by ten commanders, eight Abdalis and two Ghalzi Maliks ("The Pathans" p-253).
There is no proof that he joined the Nadir Shah's men in loot and arson. And it is an equally baseless assumption that he, following the footprints of his mentor, invaded India for plunder. Like Bahlol Lodi, Babur and Sher Shah Suri he too could have occupied the throne of Delhi and founded the Abdali Dynasty in Hind had he wished, but he returned to his country, leaving the incapable Mughals to rule.
In any confrontation, a hero of one side is often the villain of another. J. Nath Sarkar on the authority of a Maratha while mentioning Ahmad Shah's marriage with Princess Hazrat Mahal casts aspersion on the former as under: "This tender lamb was to be pounced upon by a fierce Afghan of grandfatherly age whose two ears docked and nose was rotting from a leprous carbuncle."
Ahmad Shah, in 1747 AD, at the age of 23 years became King of Afghanistan. In 1756-7 AD, when he married the Princess he was about 33 years of age, which by all standards is a marriageable age. Such political marriages were in vogue amongst the Mughals, Afghans and Rajputs of the time. Babur had married Bibi Mubarika, daughter of Malik Mansur Khan Yousufzaey soon after his invasion of the Yousufzaey territory (William Erskine "A History of India under Babar", p- 338. and Annette S. Beveridge, "Babur-Nama", Appendices 'K-AN', p-xxxvi.). Likewise, Emperor Akbar had married daughters of Rajput rajas.
S. Fida Yunas, an authority on the history of Afghanistan writes:-
"Alamgir Tsani, got his niece married to Prince Taimur (son of Ahmad Shah Durrani) while Sabiha Mahal, wife of Muhammad Shah Babri (mother of Ahmad Shah Mughal) gave her own daughter in marriage to the Durrani King. Seeing the downfall of the Mughals in India, Sabiha Mahal expressed her desire to accompany her son-in-law to Kandahar." ("Afghanistan, A Political History" p-105).
Ahmad Shah Abdali had contracted the nose cancer a few years before his death in June 1773 AD. He had been out in the field even in 1770 AD. J. Nath Sarkar's malevolent statement is therefore absolutely baseless which is contradicted by many authentic historical accounts.
Likewise, the writings of Mir Taqi Mir, whose patron was a Jat, are biased. According to him 'the Afghans looted grains from some and sold at higher prices to other wealthy persons'. They could have easily looted the wealthy people in the first place; why undergo rigmarole of first looting and then selling it. It does not stand to logic.
Payment of tribute (Jazia) by one nawab for averting or supporting a battle against his rival was in vogue at that time. It may be recalled that some of the Muslim petty local leaders had supported the Marathas against the Muslims. The pro-Abdali leaders, taking advantage of the confused situation, sorted out their old scores and indulged in loot and arson of property belonging to their opponents.
S.M. Lateef writes: "In this context, Mughlani Begum provided him (Sardar Jahan Khan Afghan) information about the hidden treasures of various nawabs particularly her own mother-in-law Sholapuri Begum, wife of Qamar ud Din." Imad-ul-Mulk, being the ringleader of the Maratha's Muslim allies, was made to pay heavy tribute. His life had been saved on the recommendations of Mughlani Begum, wife of Mueen-ul-Mulk and Shah Wali Khan Wazir.
In this context, Mufti Waliullah Farrukhabadi writes: "Ahmad Shah Abdali demanded tribute from Imad-ul-Mulk. The latter requested that one of the princes of the royal family be sent with him to the Ganges-Jamna Doaba and he would arrange plenty of money from there. Accordingly Ahmad Shah Abdali sent Jan Nisar Khan with a big contingent. He was accompanied by Mirza Hidayat Bakhash son of Alamgir Sani". ("Ahad-i-Bangash" p-143).
As for the benefits accruing to the British from Ahmad Shah Abdali's invasion of India, an in-depth study reveals that it was the hatred of the Muslims created by the Marathas in Bengal by their continuous raids for ten years, which prompted the Hindus of the Eastern Province to organize a conspiracy in collusion with the British to start a revolution in order to set up a foreign imperial regime by driving away the Muslims.
But for their clandestine political moves Lord Clive would not have won the battle of Plasey, four years before the Third Battle of Panipat, which laid the foundation of the British Empire in India. Maratha historian has correctly summed up the Maratha position thus, "The Marathas broke their own legs and burnt their own fingers over this affair (devastation of Bengal) while the men to profit were the foreign English" (Bulletin of the Deccan Research institute).
The petty Muslim rulers remained busy in destroying each other, paying heavy tributes to non-Muslim rajas for assistance in their internecine battles. Hafiz Rahmat Khan, who realised the gravity of the situation and tried to forge unity amongst the Muslims, was killed by Nawab Shuja-ud-Doulah of Oudh in the battle of Katra Miranpur in April 1774 AD, and thus removed the last straw from the path of the British to usurp power in Hind. Ahmad Shah Abdali had actually given a lease of one hundred years to the Mughal throne by defeating the Marathas who in 1757 had captured Delhi up to the Punjab.
The writer is author of "History of the Pathans" published in 2002.
Welcome Jr^2. Your post is a good example of the clash of civilizations. In particular how the same event is viewed in a different light depending on where you are sitting (or standing).
Hi jrjrao, <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> , welcome to IF, greatly enjoy your posts in paki thread in BRF :thumbsup
Rhytha, thanks for the welcome! <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> And it is so nice to be able to again exchange thoughts with Kaushal and others.
Meanwhile, this is quite a thought-provoking article by Sandhya Jain.
Iraqi guerrilla strikes against American forces have escalated sharply in recent weeks, especially since the rocket attack on the Rasheed Hotel where US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying, increasing both bodybags and the political costs of war for President George W Bush. That there will be little respite from violence as Ramzan proceeds is evident from reports that angry young Muslim men from several European and West Asian countries, inspired if not actually organised by the Al Qaeda, are hot-footing to Iraq for jihad against America.
Much of this is understandable to people and governments who could not find merit in Washington's case for war against the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein. Many point out that the Iraqis are a proud people, heir to a 7,000-year old history, who are resisting oil-greedy Americans out of national pride, not loyalty to the brutal Saddam. I do not know the strength of Iraqi nationalism, but I agree that hatred of the occupying Americans drives the suicide squads of Baghdad, just as it attracts non-Iraqi Muslim youth to that city.
Discerning Americans are beginning to realise that Islam is a force they will have to engage with, sooner rather than later. They are fearful when they learn that Islamic fundamentalists are teaching potential recruits that America is the "Great Satan," and hence a fitting object of holy war. They also know in their hearts that they belong to a soft state-one that can mindlessly bomb a nation into the Stone Age, as in the case of Afghanistan-but one that is unwilling to pay the costs of controlling the ground, as in the case of Iraq.
Washington's increasingly obvious failure in Afghanistan, where the Taliban are regrouping and warlordism is rampant, its pussy-footing with Saudi sponsors of Wahabi fundamentalism and its weak-kneed capitulation to the likes of General Pervez Musharraf, have convinced Islamic militants that America is unworthy of either fear or respect.
This is why US officials are beginning to fear that the twin towers tragedy can revisit them, and incidents of the kind that India grapples with daily can become a reality in their own back-lanes. The Americans, of course, have no solutions for their fears, because courage is not a commodity that can be bought off the shelf in a supermarket. They will just have to go through their karma.
My own concern is with the larger, hitherto unrecognised, significance of Iraq as a stage for the eventual meltdown of the two great monotheisms that have so tormented the world (not to mention their own people) since their inception. Here I would like to warn readers not to fall for callow slogans like Samuel Huntington's so-called clash of civilisations. To begin with, the two conflicting entities do not meet traditional Indian standards of civilisation, but more fundamentally, the crises gnawing at their insides are internal and not external.
Thus, what appears on the surface to be a physical war on the streets of Baghdad is on another plane two separate wars restricted to the adherents of these exclusivist faiths.
The crisis in the white Western world, centred on the Christian ethos despite lip service to pluralism, is too obvious to be seriously denied. The liberating material quest unleashed by the Renaissance has long exhausted itself, and even though the relentless drive for higher profits continues unabated, the limits of growth without general welfare are beginning to manifest themselves in poverty, starvation and growing unemployment in cities whose streets are supposed to be paved with gold.
Far worse for the West is its complete spiritual vacuum, which has left whole societies bereft of moral anchorage. This is best exemplified in the sexual scandals ripping apart parish after parish across the globe, which cannot be overcome merely by financially compensating the victims of abuse.
Christian leaders may recall that the total degeneration of the Roman state made it possible for their faith to strike root, after which they perpetuated themselves by the sword. Today, when American generals and writers try to invoke the Bible against the Quran, and posit Iraq as a form of the Crusades, they would do well to realise that well-exposed sex scandals and rumours of financial malpractices have made a mockery of the Church's moral pretensions.
Such an exposed entity does not inspire heroism or devotion. Nor can the White House invoke ordinary nationalism, because Americans never perceived a threat from Saddam Hussein. President Bush, therefore, will have to explain to his people why he forced them to war. And the European nations that sided with the war, and even those that opposed it, will alike have to face the issue of whether Christianity can be posited as a viable moral and spiritual force against Islam. Or will they admit that God, like Marx, is dead?
Islam, notwithstanding its apparent vigour, faces serious problems. Perceptive Western scholars have observed that Islam has been on the retreat in the political and economic spheres for over four centuries, since Europeans overcame Arab domination of the high seas. Islam since then has sought to recover its former glory, not by equipping itself for the contemporary world, but by seeking retreat into a pristine past when faith and power were united in the person of the Prophet and the Pious Caliphs. This dominant revivalist impulse has caused the failure of all reformist movements in Muslim societies all over the world.
The Iraq crisis, however, is of an entirely different genre. In the backdrop of Vietnam, it may not be unreasonable to presume that the US may withdraw from the country if the costs of war prove too high.
The Muslim world will then have to face the fact that the old Iraq cannot be put together again. Unlike Iran, which was a cohesive ethnic-religious society that could invite Ayatollah Khomeini to overthrow Shah Reza Pahlavi, Iraq is a Shia majority nation that was ruled by a Sunni oligarchy. But its tallest Shia leader (who was by no means accepted by all Shia clerics) was murdered soon after his return to the country, making it unlikely that faith and power can be united in Iraq in the foreseeable future.
Sunnis may also not easily accept the loss of power accompanying the fall of Saddam Hussein. With no eminent secular leader to unite the two sects, so-called Iraqi nationalism may soon come apart. Wishful thinking alone cannot guarantee the cohabitation of a people bent upon divorce. The ethnic Kurds, on their part, will not miss an opportunity to strike a blow for freedom.
In Iraq, the Muslim world will have to acknowledge that Islam cannot transcend sectarian differences and serve as the basis of a viable polity. It will have to accept that faith and power must remain separate realms if a coherent society is to be built upon the remains of America's failed imperialism. Islam will also have to answer questions regarding its social objectives, particularly the meaning of law, justice and order in the Islamic worldview, especially in the context of women. And as it strives to reinvent a proud ancient people, Islam will have to decide if its scorn for national boundaries is compatible with the sovereignty of the modern nation-state.
Methinks the US is making more out of this than they should. As far as Muslims fighting Muslims is concerned, we must remember that throughout history Muslims have fought Muslims more often than not. Even in India Babar fought against Ibrahim Lodi to capture the the throne of Dilli and when Tamerlang destroyed Dilli a hundred and thirty years prior to Babar, it was a Tughlak sultan who was on the throne who genuflected before him. The Moghals were constantly fighting against their co-religionists in Central Asia and Afghanistan( to regain their ancestral homeland ) almost throughout the entire 200 years of their reign And recently when Bush senior put together a coalition in 1991 it was primarily composed of Muslim nations.
Military's Religious Tolerance May Have Aided Infiltrators, Led to Complacency
By John Mintz and Gregory L. Vistica
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 2, 2003; Page A10
Just after the 1991 Persian Gulf War against Iraq, huge tents were erected in Saudi Arabia near the barracks of U.S. military personnel. Inside, day and night, Saudi imams sent by their government lectured the GIs about Islam and made aggressive pitches to convert them.
Saudi officials had promised that the discussions would touch only on Arab culture. But within months, about 1,000 soldiers, and perhaps as many as 3,000, converted to Islam -- the largest surge of Muslims ever into the U.S. armed forces.
"It was quite aggressive," said David Peterson, then the military's top chaplain in the region. In retrospect, he said, there was reason for concern that foreign clerics had gained influence over the troops, but military officials were slow to grasp the implications, he said.
Twelve years later, with three Muslim employees at the Guantanamo Bay prison accused of security breaches, some U.S. military officials are again wondering whether they have been inattentive to outside influences on the small community of Muslims in the armed forces. But even asking that question is a delicate matter for an institution that has long embraced tolerance of all faiths.
Some military officials believe that the al Qaeda terrorist network is trying to recruit Muslim members of the U.S. armed services and contractors who work with them. Other officers have expressed fears that some Muslim soldiers, sailors and airmen might one day decline to take up arms against fellow Muslims.
Air Force Gen. Ralph Eberhart, head of the U.S. Northern Command, the military's homeland defense unit, said terrorists who try to penetrate the U.S. military by playing on religious or ethnic identities will fail "99.9 percent of the time, with as many 9s as you can add."
Even so, Eberhart said, "there's no doubt in my mind there's an effort [by al Qaeda and other terrorists] to turn our people." Some in the military might be exploitable by terrorists or demagogues because, like other people, they "have sympathies for other causes or nations," he said.
"I'm concerned, and I know others [in the military] are concerned" that foreign extremists might have engineered the security breaches at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. Navy detention facility in Cuba where about 660 alleged al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are held, he said.
Military sociologist Charles Moskos is traveling to Iraq this month to poll troops about morale issues. He plans to ask whether Muslim soldiers seem to have their hearts in fighting fellow Muslims, and whether the troops trust Muslims in their ranks...
When writing under such a title and on such a contentious issue one should not be surprised at the reactions prompted. Sixty-six e-mails from everywhere other than Pakistan poured in. Most were repetitious from Hindus in India and from Hindu expatriates in other countries. Excerpts from a couple of reactions from our Hindu friends are illustrative.
One strong reaction from a seemingly rather rabid and unforgiving Hindu from India:
"Your column is misleading in its primary emphasis that historians in independent India deliberately twist history to portray Muslims as congenitally ill-disposed to Hindus.
"There is incontrovertible evidence that Mahmud [Ghaznavi] attacked the famous Somnath temple 11 times and pillaged it at will. [Mohammad Ghori] was repulsed several times by Prithviraj Chauhan before he was betrayed and captured. [Ghori] dragged him in chains to Afghanistan, blinded and killed him. Prithviraj's grave is still in Kabul awaiting consecration by an Indian government - that will show enough pride in its heroes who had the courage to stand up to Muslim marauders.
"The slave dynasty that ruled Delhi was the first that directly targeted Hindus by levying the hated poll tax, jizia, for the first time. Most Muslim rulers of India, one exception being Akbar, subsequently levied Jizia.
"The Bahmanis who ruled in the Deccan ensured that all Hindu temples were razed to the ground after they overran the Vijaynagar Empire in 1565 AD. For over three centuries, there was no worship at the famous temple of Lord Venkateshwara in Tirupathi as Hindus wanted to protect it from Muslim plunder and desecration.
"The Tipu Sultan you speak about so proudly was instrumental in forcibly converting over 10,000 Hindus in the Mysore kingdom to Islam, besides taking several Hindu mistresses more out of spite rather than mere sexual gratification. And he made Urdu the so-called court language. Even I, then a resident of Mysore, had to study Urdu as my first language when I started school in 1947!! It was abolished only in 1950 when the princely state of Mysore became part of the Indian Republic.
"Only the deliberately blind would fail to see the desecration of Hindu temples in Varanasi where the tyrant Aurangzeb deliberately built the Gyan Vapi mosque on the half razed Lord Shiva's temple lest Hindus ever forget their subjugated status. Babar's general Mir Baqui razed Lord Rama's temple at Ayodhya and built the Babri mosque that was destroyed in December 1992 by Hindu fanatics. And in Mathura the very same Aurangzeb built a mosque next to Lord Krishna's birthplace. Every Hindu's blood boils when he sees these atrocities being 'preserved' till today. After independence it was at Sardar Patel's insistence (and notwithstanding Nehru's opposition) that the Somnath temple was rebuilt and reconsecrated. Would any other country have countenanced such assault on its heritage? And would attempts to redeem their pride, self-esteem and past glory be deemed revanchist and anti-secular?
"Nehru had nothing but contempt for Hindus. His 'secularist' pretensions meant irreligion at its most benign and constant search for 'Hindu fundamentalists' at its most virulent. He could get the Hindu Code Bill (which overturned the centuries old Manu Dharma Shastra which governed Hindu personal law) made into law despite opposition from conservative Hindu leaders like President Rajendra Prasad. This was indeed a very progressive move as it gave Hindu women several rights (widow remarriage, divorce rights, equality in inheritance). Yet the same Nehru balked at making any changes in Muslim and Christian personal laws as he was scared of inviting a backlash!! So even today Muslim personal laws in India are far more obscurantist (i.e. against the interests of women) than those prevailing in even Pakistan (triple talaq, no rights for divorced women, polygamy for men without any hindrance).
"Nehru and his successors in the Congress party were tolerant of Muslim communalism considering it no more than a minority trying to feel secure!! Today this very same Muslim communalism has taken the form of radical Islamization, harbouring of Pakistani terrorists and a defiant display of Islamic identity as separate from mainstream Indian identity that members of all other religions follow. No wonder this gave rise to Hindu counter-terrorism and being far fewer in numbers and blinded by fanaticism (where calm thinking is a casualty) Muslims in India invariably get the stick in every violent confrontation.
"Which textbook in which school in modern India portrays Muslims as violent, fanatical villains as you claim? Unless to you the chronicling of the atrocities perpetuated by Muslim rulers before the arrival of the British is itself taboo. People are not so naove that they do not know (or wish to know) the evil deeds of their forefathers.
"India has more Muslims than ... Pakistan. India is an open, secular, liberal democracy. Muslims, who were 3.5 crores in number in 1947, today number 13 crores. They are represented in all walks of life and are equal citizens along with Hindus. Only those Muslims who kept out of the mainstream, shunned modern education and stuck to orthodoxy remain poor and incapable of securing gainful employment (like those who enrol in your madrassahs). Muslims, who embraced modern education, did not wallow in self-pity nor pine for Pakistan, prospered. They knew that Pakistan was the greatest source of misery for them as it tried very hard to infiltrate them with ISI-trained agents and lured them to commit terrorist activities. Many impressionable Muslims fell prey to these Paki designs and paid through their lives, having been shot by the police / army or lynched by Hindu fanatics.
"But what is Pakistan's record in treating the unfortunate Hindus who remained in Pakistan after 1947? From one crore then, their population is now about 10 lakhs. What happened? Answer - these hapless Hindus were brutally raped, murdered, forcibly converted and many driven out! The venom that is now poured about Hindus in your school textbooks is to instil among Paki kids permanent hatred about India. To Pakistan, India is synonymous with Hindus - ignoring its 13 crore Muslims, 2.5 crore Christians. Lip sympathy is expressed in Pakistan for the so-called 'plight' of Indian Muslims.
"Unfortunately, Pakistan's designs are not working out as planned as the world, post-9/11, is a very different place. The financial support the Saudis have been giving Pakistan to build its nuclear bombs, its madrasshas and creating Frankensteins like Osama and the Taliban is now dwindling. The whole world categorizes all Muslims as terrorists, actual or potential - unjustly perhaps, but in times like these reason is the first casualty."
And one from a young Indian student in a foreign land :
"It'd be nice if we can hark back to the 1971-87 era when Kashmir was put on the back burner. The only practical solution to the Kashmir dispute appears to be the conversion of the LoC into [an] international border. The Indian political leadership... across all party lines is more or less prepared for this solution, but the Pak military wants the Kashmir Valley. A lot of Indians are against this idea because that would be tantamount to polarizing the people on communal lines. It would have an impact on the rest of India. The Hindus would blame the Muslims and God knows what would happen then.
"We in India are inclined to believe that all Pakistanis are Jihadis. If that notion is incorrect, it would be a good idea for quite a few of us non-Muslims to visit Pakistan and see for ourselves.
"But first, terrorism has to stop. Quite a few Pakistanis are convinced that Kashmir would be in the headlines only through terrorism. Maybe that's true, but at what cost? I still can't understand how people can kill just to gain a place in heaven and courting death in the process. Terrorism hasn't been able to retard India's progress; in fact, in the last 10 years we have grown as never before. It's Pakistan that's feeling the pinch and keeps needing begging bowls and bailout packages.
"I'm afraid I'm only a student and not a policymaker, not even a media person. But I know that there are quite a few students like me spread over all of India... who aren't swallowed by anti-Pakistan sentiment. That's because of our liberal education policy where rational thinking is encouraged. I'd like to know how many Pakistani students share similar ideas."
A good sign - the Indian youngsters are more tolerant, they have more hope than have their parents' generation. And on the count of a 'liberal education policy', it would seem that India is ahead of us.
Brought to me the other day, by a Zoroastrian to whom it was given by a Christian in Switzerland, was a copy of an article entitled 'The Muslim Rule in India', written by a Muslim on the life and works of a Hindu scholar and historian. The common link between the Muslim writer, M H Faruqui, the Hindu historian, Bishambhar Nath Pande, my Zoroastrian friend and our mutual Christian friend is that all are men of goodwill, educated, rational and untouched by bigotry.
The article was first published in July 1998 in 'Impact International', based in London, which describes itself as 'a global Muslim newsmagazine', which started life in 1971 and is currently distributed in 85 countries. It is edited by M H Faruqui, a prolific writer on all matters pertaining to Islam, and has a readership of over 100,000.
Dr Bishambhar Nath Pande, author and editor and a senior member of the Congress party, disciple of Gandhi and friend of Nehru, was at the forefront of every non-cooperation movement against the British and was sent to jail eight times. He was first nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1976 and lastly in 1988.
He received an honorary doctorate from Soka University, Tokyo, in 1992, and the Khuda Bakhsh Award for his untiring work towards communal harmony in his country. Congress had in it a streak of Hindutva militancy which only really surfaced at the time of the Babri mosque incident, and it was this latent tendency that made Dr Pande's work all the more important. He authored ten books in English and fifteen in Hindi. He died in 1998 at the age of 92.
Pande was an extremely cautious historian, realizing that the history of India was largely compiled by the British for purposes of expediency, and thus were many myths created, as always happens when history is expediently distorted, amongst them exaggerations about the impact of the Muslim conquest and the Muslim rule over India and its Hindus. The Muslims were generally depicted, in history and in school textbooks, as murderous tyrants, intolerant of the Hindus and their mode of worship.
The educational policies dictated by various governors-general were aimed at strengthening the communal differences, playing off one community against the other, which the rulers deemed would be greatly to the advantage of the Raj. To use Pande's own words: "History was compiled by European writers whose main objective was to produce histories that would serve their policy of divide and rule."
Faruqui quotes from a lecture given by Pande in 1985, the Khuda Bakhsh Annual Lecture: 'Thus under a definite policy the Indian history books textbooks were so falsified and distorted as to give an impression that the medieval [i.e. Muslim] period of Indian history was full of atrocities committed by Muslim rulers on their Hindu subjects and the Hindus had to suffer terrible indignities under Muslim rule. And there were no common factors [between Hindus and Muslims] in social, political and economic life.'
He did not just talk; he acted. During the period Pande was governor of Orissa and thus chancellor of the state's five universities, he completely overturned the state curriculum, revised all the textbooks and set straight the historical record.
One of Pande's revelations of the truth and the overturning of an alleged historical incident concerned Tipu Sultan of Mysore, who, according to Indian textbooks, was responsible for the suicide of 3,000 Brahmins who objected to his forcibly trying to convert them to Islam. It transpired that the story emanated from a history of Mysore, written by a Victorian Englishman, and that no such incident had ever taken place. Tipu, whose own prime minister and commander-in-chief were Brahmins, far from indulging in forcible conversions, gave annual grants to 136 Hindu temples.
Pande, as relates Faruqui, has dispelled certain allegations against Emperor Aurangzeb who ruled over the Mughal Empire from 1658 to 1707, and who continues to be one of the most maligned of Muslim rulers, famed for his brutality, his bigotry, intolerance, murderous instincts and fanaticism - renowned as a 17th century 'fundo', Osama bin Laden and Mulla Omar rolled-into-one of his day.
The unravelling of this myth began in Allahabad, when Pande was chairman of the municipality and was dealing with a land dispute. One party had filed as evidence a bunch of 'farmans' in order to prove that Aurangzeb had not only gifted the disputed land for the construction of a Hindu temple but had also provided cash for its maintenance. Pande was sure that they were fake, bearing in mind Aurangzeb's reputation as a hater of Hindus, temples and statues of deities. So he showed the 'farmans' to a lawyer friend, a Brahmin and a scholar of Persian, who declared them to be genuine.
Pande believed firmly in the innate goodness of human nature, and remained to the end optimistic that India would eventually find its way out of its periodic bouts of communal violence, and that, with the setting right of the national curricula and a revision of all textbooks relating to subcontinental history, the heritage of communal discord and the distrust and hatred of one community for another would fade away into oblivion.
On the subject of the Muslim conquest and subsequent ruthlessness of the conquerors, one can do no better than turn to Hindu and Brahmin Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru - to his book 'The Discovery of India', and to what he had to say on the expansion of Islam and its arrival in India at the end of the 12th century:
".... frequent intercourse [trade and cultural relations] led to Indians getting to know the religion, Islam. Missionaries also came to spread the new faith and they were welcomed. Mosques were built. There was no objection raised either by the state or the people, nor were there any religious conflicts....
"Mahmud's raids are a big event in Indian history,.. Above all, they brought Islam, for the first time, to the accompaniment of ruthless military conquest. So far, for over 300 years, Islam had come peacefully as a religion and taken its place among the many religions of India without trouble or conflict... Yet when he [Mahmud] had established himself as a ruler... Hindus were appointed to high office in the army and the administration....
"It is thus wrong and misleading to think of a Moslem invasion of India or of the Moslem period in India, just as it would be wrong to refer to the coming of the British to India as a Christian invasion, or to call the British period in India a Christian period. Islam did not invade India; it had come to India some centuries earlier....
"As a warrior he [Akbar] conquered large parts of India, but his eyes were set on another and more enduring conquest, the conquest of the minds and hearts of the people... throughout his long reign of nearly fifty years from 1556 onwards he laboured to that end...."
Now, this is not what the Indian children are being taught. (Have ya ever been to India, have you read some of the books used in India? Do so then play the equal-equal BS!) Their concept of Islam and its establishment in the subcontinent is as different as is the attitude of Pakistani youth towards the Hindus of India. All the so-called confidence-building missiles hurled from one side of the divide to the other will not bring friendship and tolerance to the two nations unless their children are taught the truth, (Sir, just get the Paki Army to quit there terrorism/jihadi madness, everything else would fall in place, and you wouldn't have to waste BW with this BS) are not misled by rulers and politicians who, as with the British, practise the 'divide and rule' policy for their own survival and their prolongation in the seats of power. What easier way is there to do this than to distort history, facts, the truth and the minds and hearts of the present and future generations?
The federal and provincial ministers of education of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan are neither educationists nor is the subject of education dear to their minds or to their hearts. It is doubtful whether any of them have either the will or the ability to completely revise the national curricula when it comes to this country's history, consign the present textbooks on the subject to the WPB (their rightful place) and produce a new set of textbooks that deal with the compulsory subject, 'Pakistan studies', which are not deliberately designed to cripple the minds of our children.
Let there be no misunderstanding. The end that we, the vast majority of the Hindus seek is the harmonious coexistence of the Muslim and the Hindu in a multi ethnic multi religious environment in the Indian subcontinent. Where we differ with the secularists is that we do not believe such an end can be achieved by constantly appeasing the Muslim with sops and giving in to every demand that he/she makes and by rewriting history. The general modus operandi has become, whine loud enough about Hindu fundamentalists, and eventually everybody will believe you and your demands will be granted like the abomination that resulted in the overturning of the Shah bano case. But the truth can never be suppressed for long. All one has to do is to read the original works of Farishta, Utbi, Barani, AlBiruni to come away convinced like Will Durant in his history of civilization, that a major catastrophic holocaust took place in medieval islamic India for a sustained period of several centuries, that almost extinguished the Indic civilization.
It is sad that a courageous soul like Cowasjee has succumbed to the prevailing myths. I conclude my comments(nov.2) with the following sentence;
Quote:I am disappointed that Cowasjee, an upholder of truth for the most part, has forgotten the main reason why he is in Karachi in the first place and not in the land of his forefathers. It is not an accident of history that the Parsees are disappearing from the pages of History and they will soon become a distant memory. Read the passage in Naipauls Beyond Belief where a group of Parsee tourists at the tomb of Darius in Iran wept uncontrollably at the fate that had befallen their community.
[quote name='Kaushal' date='Nov 6 2003, 10:31 AM'] Methinks the US is making more out of this than they should. As far as Muslims fighting Muslims is concerned, we must remember that throughout history Muslims have fought Muslims more often than not. Even in India Babar fought against Ibrahim Lodi to capture the the throne of Dilli and when Tamerlang destroyed Dilli a hundred and thirty years prior to Babar, it was a Tughlak sultan who was on the throne who genuflected before him. The Moghals were constantly fighting against their co-religionists in Central Asia and Afghanistan( to regain their ancestral homeland ) almost throughout the entire 200 years of their reign And recently when Bush senior put together a coalition in 1991 it was primarily composed of Muslim nations.
[/quote]
Kaushal,
yes, USA is pushing more out of this.Kindly check in recent months american media is budy portraying muslims as terrorists in America. See the change in their attitude. Before they used to use words "TERRORISTS" after 9/11 but now in recent months they have started using words "MUSLIM/ISLAMIC TERRORISTS".
This change is planned.Reason for this is they want to make americans(civilians) prepare for future WAR with muslim countries or say more invasion or say they want to show americans that BUSH didn't did anything wrong by attacking muslim country(iraq).
Also note one more incident of a TOP US army general saying to people "they(militants) attacked us because we are a christian nation." Bush was present near him.Now there are possiblities :
1)It was just his exaggeration or sentimental outrage gainst terrorists.
I don't think so.Because top general like him are highly disciplined and trained people.They are not such weak to spill their emotions at public.so it can't be just his emotions.
2)He said it bcoz he think so.
If this is true then just think about it. If top general like him can't control his frustrations then imagine what is situation of other junior army personaals in US army???....[they must be waiting for orders from bush to invade every muslim country.. <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/huh.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />
3)It was said by him bcoz it was planned.
This is my option. <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='B)' /> I think so bcoz it fulfills many purposes.
a)It shows americans that their army is preparing for WAR against muslims.
b)It sparks a enthusiasm in americans about that we can fight with all muslims in world or we should fight final war now[we are losing patience now].
anyway, as expected bush denied that he think same like him.]
But this incident proved one thing.AMERICA is PREPARING for another WAR with MUSLIMS.
kaushal, have you read that article by acharya which shows how multinational corporations control world media.check it and get the fruit of game <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />
By the way someone answer me why americans are MADLY supporting a illegal immoral tiny nation like Israel from last 4-5 decades?
AND WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF CREATING ISRAEL? <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='B)' />
[In my opinion Israel conflict is in interest of some multinationals and Jews. ]
[url="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=4&u=/ap/20031109/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_lebanon_prisoners_7"]Israel releases prisoners for hostages.[/url]
While we whine when India spinelessly releases terrorists for hostages, we must realize that it happens in Israel too.
[quote name='acharya' date='Sep 24 2003, 06:29 AM']Hindus have not yet understood the gigantic nature of the plan against them from Islamic, Chinese and western front.
SInce Hindus do not have any narrative on other lands and civilizations; Hindus are not able to differentate 'us vs them' like other religions.[/quote]
This is the crux of the problem, Acharya, and you have put your finger on it. Hindus have to have a clear differentiation between themselves and "others", not in the negetive connotation of the others as mellichhas (based on ignorance), but a positive differntiation based on a positive identity and self image.
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' /> And it is so nice to be able to again exchange thoughts with Kaushal and others.
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