Integration with Kufr

[abujamal]

Integration

Voice of the Ummah
Vol 1 Issue 1
June 2005

The war on Islam is global and has many frontlines, one of which is to integrate the Muslims living in the west into their society. There has been a concerted effort into conveying terms such as “Modernist Muslims”, “Traditionalist Muslims” and “Fundamentalist Islamists”, therefore dividing Muslims into various camps, some of which are to be supported, some are to be manipulated and others are to be eradicated. Last year The Sunday Times revealed leaked confidential papers discussing the government project code-named "Contest," which is meant to tackle mass social and political disaffection amongst Muslims living in the UK, with its primary purpose, curbing the influence of Islam and integration..

These terms are not known in Islam as this Deen does not have different forms, it is a single comprehensive Aqeedah relevant for all times and for all people. The Kuffar are aware that they cannot challenge this Aqeedah, so for this reason they have devised methods of changing it and supporting certain groups and individuals from within the Ummah who are smitten by the Western culture to assist them in achieving this objective. The aim of the government is to isolate Muslims who refuse to compromise Islam by labelling them as “Fundamentalist Islamists”, while supporting what are defined as more moderate elements from within the clergy and the Muslim political groups, in a classic strategy of divide-and-rule.

“They (disbelievers) desire to extinguish the light of Allah with their mouths but Allah will not allow it to happen, for He seeks to perfect His light even though the disbelievers may dislike it.” [At-Tawbah:32]

To assist in the integration project, the government also intends to "promote awareness" of foreign-based “Sheikhs”, including Hamza Yusuf, Suhaib Webb and Tariq Ramadan. Yusuf, (born Mark Hanson), a self proclaimed adviser to George Bush in the War against Islam, and has been described in the media as the "rock star of the new Muslim generation."

Recently in Britain the home office devised a series of government backing training courses to create a new generation of “home-grown” Imams. The reasoning behind this is to have influential people within our communities to propagate ideas such as integrating into western societies. We are aware that for a Muslim who wishes to implement Islam completely in every aspect of his life, it is impossible for him to integrate into Kufr because the two are in complete contradiction with each other. As Islam and Kufr, like oil and water, cannot mix, they wish to redefine Islam in order for it to be in harmony with Kufr. The have also recognised the need accommodate Muslims by allowing us to build many mosques, provide us with “Islamic Mortgages” and give us a false sense of acceptance with the recent “Incitement to Religious Hatred” Legislation.

“Therefore, call them to the true Deen, stay firm on the Right Way as you are commanded and do not follow their vain desires.” [Al Shura:15]

We must remember that our source of legislation is the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet (saw) so we should refer to these sources when have a difference amongst us. It may happen that we are called “radicals” or “extremists”, when we stay firm on the Right Path (Al-Islam), however we must remember that these are terms that have been invented by the Kuffar in order to divide us further. The purpose of this division is to support those that convey an “Islam” which can live side by side with Kufr and to confront and oppose those that convey an Islam which is in strict adherence to the Quran and Sunnah, as it is only this Muslim that poses a threat to their way of life.

Recently, asked whether the pictures of Saddam in the media might further inflame tensions and inspire the fighters in Iraq, President Bush said: "I don't think a photo inspires murderers. I think they're inspired by an ideology that is so barbaric and backwards that it's hard for many in the Western world to comprehend how they think". It is obvious that he is talking about the Islamic Ideology (way of life) which is not acceptable by the Western world.

We advise our Muslim brothers that they will be disappointed if they try to integrate and think they will gain acceptance. The Kuffar will never be satisfied with them until they leave the fold of Islam completely. Look at the fate of the Muslims living in Bosnia. Due to 70 years of oppression under Communism, they integrated into society so much that they were inter-married with Christian Serbs and drank alcohol with them abandoning much of Islam. And even then, the Kuffar were not satisfied because ethey were still Muslims and confessed Islam. And this was sufficient for them to massacre and rape the Muslims when Yugoslavia disintegrated. In Srebrenica alone, all men aged 15 and above were kiiled by the Serbs in 1995.

There is much emphasis on integrating us into their way of life but we should bear in mind that that the Kuffar will never be satisfied with us until we completely follow their way thereby abandoning Islam. We must therefore ensure that we hold on tight to Islam, and reject any calls for the “modernisation” of Islam and the integration of the Muslims into western society.

“The Jews and the Christians will never be pleased with you, until you follow their faith” [Al Baqarah:120]

[al-muwahhid]

Book Review - Reforming Islam from within?

Western Muslims and the Future of Islam, by Tariq Ramadan, New York: Oxford University Press, pp272, 2005 PB, £9.99.

Tariq Ramadan is an Egyptian-Swiss Muslim writer and academic who is currently a visiting professor at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford. He has written a number of books on Islam including To Be a European Muslim (Leicester, 1999) and Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity (Leicester, 2001). In these books, Ramadan sought to ‘revisit’ the original sources of Islam, namely the Qur’an and the normative practice of the Prophet (sunnah) to provide Islamic answers to the challenges posed by Western modernity. According to Ramadan, the original Islamic sources need to be ‘revisited’ and ‘reread’ within the contemporary Western geo-political context so that the European, indeed, Western Muslims can successfully integrate into mainstream Western societies.

In the book under review, he goes a step further and argues that by reinterpreting the original sources of Islam within the context of their existential condition, Western Muslims can actually integrate into secular Western societies without diluting their Islamic faith. In his opinion, currently Western Muslims are leading a double life - an Islamic life at home and a Western lifestyle outside the home. He wants Western Muslims to be Muslims at both home and in the society. How does he propose we do that - assuming that his swiping generalisation about Muslim double life is correct? Ramadan argues that Western Muslims can overcome this problem by reinterpreting the Qur’an and sunnah within the contemporary Western context. In a nutshell, Ramadan is calling for an Islamic reformation. But is there a need for an Islamic reformation?
Islam has a long and chequered history of revivalism (tajdid) and reform (islah), thus calls for change and reform is nothing new or fresh in Islamic history. However, change or reform for the sake of change have always been resisted by Muslims and rightly so. Ramadan’s reformist approach to Islam may sound new to the westerners but it is certainly not a new phenomenon within Islam. Decades before Ramadan started writing on Islam, scores of eminent Western Muslim intellectuals like Ismail al-Faruqi, Fazlur Rahman, Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Ziauddin Sardar had advocated the need for reforming Islamic educational methodology and approach to modern science and technology so that Muslims could face the challenges posed by Western modernity.

Fazlur Rahman was perhaps the most sophisticated and radical Muslim thinker of his generation. He argued that the original sources of Islam needed to be understood and interpreted in a historical context so that Islamic principles, derived from the revealed scriptures of Islam, could be made relevant to people’s daily lives (see his Revival and Reform in Islam, Oxford, 2000). He even earned the wrath of the conservative ulama by calling for the revival of ijtihad (independent reasoning) in Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and urged Muslims to focus more on the spirit of the Divine revelation rather than cling unto a literalist interpretation of the Qur’an and the Prophetic sunnah.

Ramadan appears to have been influenced by the ideas and thought of Fazlur Rahman. However, unlike Rahman, Ramadan wants Western Muslims to extract the universal principles of Islam from its revealed sources and apply them within a Western context in order to create an independent Western Islam, different from Indian Islam, Chinese Islam and North African Islam. Should Western Muslims take Ramadan’s suggestion seriously and create an independent Western Islam that is compatible with Western modernity?

Ramadan claims to have acquired a rigorous and comprehensive understanding of traditional Islamic sources yet his interpretative approach to Islam vis-à-vis the Western context betrays a profound lack of understanding of traditional Islamic thought and worldview. This is perhaps due to his distrust of classical Islamic thought and methodology rather than his failure to study them. Either way, Ramadan’s approach to classical Islamic sources is far from being rigorous and comprehensive, in fact, it is very selective and highly questionable. Let me explain.

Ramadan accepts the authority of the Qur’an but he refuses to accept the vast corpus of traditional Islamic literature developed by the early Muslims. Within his interpretative framework, the works of Abu Hanifah, Malik, Shafi’i, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Tabari and others have no place other than when it suits his needs. Ramadan claims to be a reformist Muslim who is prepared to discard the traditional Islamic exegetical and legal sources in order to make Islam acceptable to the West. According to Ramadan, the future of Islam lies in the hands of Western Muslims, for they alone are in a position to develop a progressive interpretation of Islam, but this cannot be accomplished, he argues, if Western Muslims insist on clinging onto the traditional Islamic scriptural and legal sources as developed by the early Muslims. He wants Western Muslims to ‘reinterpret’ the revealed sources of Islam and develop a fresh understanding of Islamic principles. This, in his opinion, will open the door for Muslims to integrate fully into Western societies. Like Ramadan, I believe that Western Muslims must integrate into Western societies but, unlike Ramadan, I do not think it is necessary for us to discard our past in order to shape our future. The methodology proposed by Ramadan would, in my opinion, lead to assimilation rather than integration. How?

Well, according to Ramadan, cultural integration is a one-way process, that is to say, the onus is entirely on the Western Muslims to change their ways and integrate into Western societies without the West having to do virtually nothing in return. Unlike what Ramadan would have us believe, social integration is not a one-way road; rather it is a two way process. This means there has to be an element of give and take on both sides before full integration can take place. Yet Ramadan insists that Western Muslims must fit into Western societies even at the expense of their Islamic cultural heritage. Ramadan is only too happy to bend over backwards to appease his Western critics but he is reluctant to criticise the West for its failings. Why? For instance, in the international arena, partisan Western trade and foreign policy continues to perpetuate economic inequality and political injustice across the Muslim world, especially in the Middle East but Ramadan refuses to address these issues. Likewise, on the domestic front, Western Muslims continue to suffer disproportionately high levels of unemployment and are also subjected to racial and religious discrimination on a daily basis, living as they do in some of the most economically deprived parts of London, Paris, Berlin and Washington DC, yet Ramadan refuses to tackle these issues because he claims his ‘thinking is based at a higher level’. His thinking only appears to descend to the lower level when he wishes to criticise things he does not like within the Muslim communities, including independent Islamic schools, the mosques, the Muslim educational system and Islamic organisations, in addition to the traditional scriptural sources of Islam, the idea of an Islamic State, hudud punishments and the vast corpus of Islamic legal literature - Ramadan has problems with the whole lot presumably because they are viewed in a negative light in the West.
If Ramadan really wants Western Muslims to take him seriously, then he should not be afraid to tackle issues that concern them. Side stepping and overlooking real issues confronting Western Muslims or seeking to compromise or dilute what Muslims consider to be sacrosanct will certainly not encourage Western Muslims to fully integrate into Western societies. Additionally, even if we accept that there is an urgent need for Western Muslims to create an independent Western Islam, how do we know that Ramadan’s reformist methodology is not going to lead to the balkanisation of Islam? And what impact would the creation of numerous independent Islams including Western Islam, Asian Islam or even North African Islam have on the concept of one ummah? Ramadan’s Western admirers have hailed him as the ‘Martin Luther’ of Islam but does Islam really need to be reformed in the same way Luther reformed sixteenth century Catholicism? These are important questions, which both Muslim reformists as well as traditionalists need to ask themselves before they jump on the bandwagon of so-called Islamic reformism.

Unlike what Ramadan would have us believe, Western Muslims actually started the process of integrating into mainstream Western societies long before Ramadan started writing on Islam, yet strangely enough, he now claims to have initiated the whole process. According to Ramadan, “a silent revolution is sweeping Islamic communities in the West, as Muslims actively seek ways to live in harmony with their faith within a Western context” and he claims to be leading that revolution. His claim however has no basis in reality.

Historically, Muslims have been a part and parcel of the European landscape for the last thirteen centuries, firstly in Muslim Spain and then in the Balkans, so the issue of Islamic integration in the West is hardly a new phenomenon. The debate about integration of immigrant communities into mainstream Western societies only emerged following the influx of immigrants from the Sub-continent, North Africa and the Middle East during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Needless to say, this debate will continue for a long time to come but Western Muslims should ensure that they do not sleepwalk into the European melting pot and become thoroughly secularised like the European Jews.

Muhammad Khan
http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/paper/index.php?article=2215

[abujamal]

Well no guessing on which side Tariq's bread is buttered on.

[ivk]

According to Ramadan, the original Islamic sources need to be ‘revisited’ and ‘reread’ within the contemporary Western geo-political context so that the European, indeed, Western Muslims can successfully integrate into mainstream Western societies


The premise of his work is to succesfully integrate muslims into disbelief. How sad and disappointing for a muslim to lower and degrade himself such as this.

May Allah guide this noble ummah and expose the attempts of those who seek to tamper with this glorious deen.