News & Comment
The Tragedy of Rohingya is a Battle for Survival of the Islamic Civilization

News:

Harrowing tales of mass killings, beheadings of children, and arson attacks on Rohingyan Muslims has hit the headlines again. This time however, the UN is warning of an imminent humanitarian catastrophe. While the world watches on, the scorched earth policy pursued by the regime in Myanmar shows little sign of abating.

Comment:

These days the massacre of Muslims makes a negligible impact on the global conscious scale. Muslim death statistics matter no more. Hurricane Harvey’s 60 dead victims in the US attract more media attention than Myanmar’s ethnic cleansing of thousands of Rohingyan Muslims.

State aggression against innocent Muslim minorities is now a legitimate form of self-defense. Myanmar has gone to extraordinary lengths to recast its brutal oppression of Rohingyans as a fight against terrorism. Myanmar has borrowed this well scripted playbook from the Jewish entity, India, Russia and China—countries that love to justify the use of disproportionate military force against unarmed Muslim civilians as the battle for civilization.

Myanmar’s scorched earth policy is creating another killing field, which can be added to the killing fields of Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya and Xinyang. The open season of bloodletting against Muslims is not limited to non-Muslim host countries trouncing Muslim minorities.

The West led by America is spearheading a vicious global war against Islam. The wars of Afghanistan and Iraq, the destruction of Syria and Libya, drone incursions into Pakistan and Yemen, dismemberment of Sudan are just some of the conflicts that have resulted in millions of deaths and record number of Muslims displaced.

If this is not bad enough, the open collaboration between the rulers of the Muslim world and their Western masters has poured humiliation on open wounds and devalued Muslim lives worldwide. This aspect of the war against the Islamic Ummah is by far the most lethal. The Muslim Ummah not only has to put up with the tyranny of the rulers but she also has to contend with the oppression unleashed by the West, Russia and China. The evil nexus between the rulers of Islamic countries and the great powers is clearly visible in the annihilation of Syria and Yemen.

This is not the first time the Muslim Ummah has faced enemies from afar and treachery within. The Crusader wars in ash-Sham and the Mongol occupation of vast stretches of Islamic lands witnessed Muslim genocide on an unprecedented magnitude. The Crusaders attacked Jerusalem and waded knee high in rivers of Muslim blood, while the Mongols turn the Euphrates blood red.

The principal cause behind the death and destruction of Muslims did not pivot on the strength of the Crusaders and Mongols, but lay in the political disunity of Muslims. In fighting between the Ayyubids, Seljuks and the Turkish tribes in Anatolia spurred the Crusaders, Mongols and the Byzantines to use Muslims as cannon fodder in their quest for territorial expansion.

The solution to this catastrophic situation did not involve asking for assistance from the Crusaders, Byzantines or the Mongols, nor did it require forming an alliance with one of these infidel powers to curb the reach of the other infidel power in the Islamic world. Instead, the solution necessitated the Mamelukes of Egypt to unify the ranks of the Muslim principalities and evict the occupying infidel forces. Expulsion of the infidel armies stoked fear amongst other non-Muslim powers and this prevented hostile treatment of Muslim minorities residing in their lands. Hence, political unity under a singular leadership solved two problems not one. After the Mamelukes, the Ottomans under the auspices of the Khilafah state carried forward the duty of protecting Muslim blood, both at home and abroad.

Likewise, the permanent solution to the callous slaughter of Muslim in Myanmar and elsewhere, as well as intervention of infidel great powers in Muslim lands lies only in political unity. Endeavors such as imploring the UN to intervene and asking Muslim rulers to find their spine and defend Muslim honour is futile, and greatly harms the Islamic Ummah.

What is required is for a powerful faction of the army in a strong Muslim country to take power by force, re-establish the Khilafah state (Caliphate) and unify the Muslim lands under a single authority. The Messenger of Allah (saw) said, «وَإِنَّمَا الْإِمَامُ جُنَّةٌ يُقَاتَلُ مِنْ وَرَائِهِ وَيُتَّقَى بِهِ»“The Imam is a shield behind which the people fight and behind whom they are protected.” Only then will the battle for the survival Islamic civilization end, and a new dawn of peace and security will emerge to encompass the whole world.

[وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ إِلَّا رَحْمَةً لِلْعَالَمِين] "And We have not sent you, [O Muhammad], except as a mercy to the worlds.” [TMQ: 21-107].

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Abdul Majeed Bhatti