5 years of Mukto-Mona

The Invisible �Islamic� Superstate.

fatemolla

(Dedicated to MM�s 5th anniversary).

Published on May 31, 2006 

One may think �Islami State� perished forever after Kamal Ata Turk uprooted the last �Islamic� Caliph Abdul Majid in 1924 -1926. But recently from the coffin of history it is resurrecting in a shape world�s all Kamals put together cannot destroy. The purpose of Islamic State is to force Muslims to obey Sharia and non-Muslims to accept Sharia in their land. Once those are achieved Islamic state is virtually established regardless of its shape. Things are going that way. Before going to international arena let us look at Bangladesh, a country under strong grip of political Islam.

Few powerful Political Maolanas recently unveiled a plan of a sequential Pyramid-network of Sharia Courts from villages to Unions to Sub Districts (Upojilas) to District headquarters to Divisional headquarters to its �Supreme Sharia Court� Baitul Mukarram. They will probably name it �Sharia-Advice Centers� or �Sharia Mediation Board� etc to bypass legal complexities. They will force and blackmail people big time in the same way the recently uprooted Canadian Sharia Court did. Their brochure stated that Muslims would be apostates if they went to secular court instead of theirs. Lest we forget Bangladesh is already swamped with thousands of Islami institutions, organizations, Islami Banks and Islamic Charities etc. With their strong backing the Sharia SuperCourt has no serious opponent in its dream to establish an invisible Islamic State in Bangladesh.

The same thing is happening in international arena in a much larger scale. It started with the flood of Islami organizations, mostly political, like �Islamic parliament�, �Islamic Universities�, �Supreme Sharia Councils�, �Islamic Mediation and Arbitration boards�, mosques, Sunday Islamic schools, charities, food-cloth-book stores, conferences, seminars, and private Islamic gatherings. Many Muslims submitted to them, politicians submitted to vote-worship and Corporates to dollar-worship. Media Mughals and Police departments started training employees to understand and deal with Muslims better.

During last decades five thousand Islamic lobby groups worked hard and got some Sharia Laws (Polygamy, Mahr, Instant Divorce etc), albeit partially, accepted for Muslims in France and Germany. Britain�s Islamic Shari�a Council (ISC) and European Fatwa Council efficiently utilized Internet to create a parallel legal system with dozens of thousands of Fatwas in archive. Western Muslims contact them for problems and willingly apply their Sharia-verdicts on their lives. That is the invisible governance of �Allah�s Law�. The first Sharia court in Western soil established in Toronto (Canada) functioned for long 15 years until the parliament shunned it in 2005 due to explosive Anti-Sharia movement of three organizations, two if them Muslim. In Europe many �Islamic� organizations such as EAD (Europe-Arab Dialogue) used many millions of Govt Euros and succeeded to established Arab culture as Islamic through slogans like �Mutual Understanding�, �Interfaith Dialogue� etc. Politicians suffered knee-jerk for Muslim votes, Corporates for Muslim-wallet.

The world was already divided on faith-lines. Pol-Islam took its advantage and added a dollar-angle to it. It knows very well that any pack that contains the word �Islam� is bound to loosen up Muslim-wallets.

While Islamic scholars are still debating its Islamic validity and many are reported to fund killers-criminals, the �Islamic� banks are flourishing exponentially. Western Corporates were quick to respond. Many major banks opened their �Islamic� wings, KFC put signboards of �Halal Meat� and Pizza Hut proposed �Islamic� head-covers. Big organizations like PetroGulf are working in the oil sector according to Sharia-rules. The latest hero of this drama is �Mecca Cola� that became a super hit in the national and international market. Who before 1400 years could imagine that Mecca�s name would be successfully used in business to earn money?

Recently pol-Islamists came up with another triumph. They invaded global financial market to compete the Corporates with the same tool the Corporates developed. It started huge chain of �Islamic Financial Products� including Sharia-Credit Cards, Sharia compliant Hotel-chain, Sharia Capital Protected Notes, Sharia compliant equities, Sharia Mutual Funds etc. The competition is becoming fiercer with each passing day so much so that a dramatic development took place. Western Corporates are desperately looking for �Islamists� to employ to develop their own �Islamic� wings. As Financial Times reports:-

�A talent war for financially-literate Islamic scholars has erupted as Western investment bankers rush to sell their services to devout Muslims. Leading banks are scrambling to find Islamic experts who can issue religious edicts (fatwas) approving new financial products, such as "Islamic" bonds, hedge funds or loans. At present, devout Muslims will only buy such instruments if a recognised sharia scholar, such as a mullah, has issued a fatwa to approve it�.

This is only the beginning. In coming years we will certainly see more and more �Islamic� products like �Mecca Cola� and so-called �Sharia-Credit Cards� compete brand names. Backed by huge amount of Petro-dollars few of the major players are Bahrain, Johannesburg, South Africa, Dubai Islamic Bank, The Supreme Council for Shari'a in Nigeria (SCSN) etc.

We want to see Muslims prosper in world market but not to sell Islam. It would be really Islamic if Islam�s name is not abused to make money as it is rampantly done in BD. In many places the Quran warned against it (Bakara 41, 79 etc.).

Instead of Hedaya - spiritual guidance Islam became a business for profit that actually worships not God but dollar. No other religion was ever engaged in institutional money-making like this.

It is not the Islam our Prophet brought.

Hasan Mahmud 25 may 36 Muktishon (2006)