Why Islam Will Never Accept Israel

18. July 2010 by admin.

Why Islam will never accept Israel It is a common belief that the “Arab-Israeli conflict” is a conflict of two peoples fighting over the same piece of land and is therefore one of nationalism. Rarely, if ever, do we hear or read of the religious component to this conflict. However, if anything, the conflict is more of a “Muslim-Jewish” one than an “Arab-Israeli” one. In other words, the conflict is based on religion — Islam vs. Judaism — cloaked in Arab nationalism vs. Zionism. The fact of the matter is that in every Arab-Israeli war, from 1948 to the present, cries of “jihad,” “Allahu Akbar,” and the bloodcurdling scream of “Idbah al- Yahud” (slaughter the Jews) have resonated amongst even the most secular of Arab leaders, be it Nasser in the 1950s and 1960s or the supposedly “secular” PLO of the 1960s to the present. Indeed, the question must be asked: If this is really a conflict of different nationalisms and not Islamic supremacism, then why is it that virtually no non-Arab Muslim states have full (if any) relations with Israel? There is a common Arabic slogan that is chanted in the Middle East: “Khaybar, Khaybar! Oh Jews, remember. The armies of Muhammad are returning!” It would be most interesting to know how many people have ever heard what — or more precisely, where — Khaybar is, and what the Arabs mean by such a slogan. A short history of the Jews of Arabia is needed in order to explain this, and why Islam remains so inflexible in its hostile attitude towards Jews and Israel. Until the founder of Islam, Muhammad ibn Abdallah, proclaimed himself “Messenger of Allah” in the 7th century, Jews and Arabs lived together peacefully in the Arabian Peninsula. Indeed, the Jews — and Judaism — were respected to such an extent that an Arab king converted to Judaism in the 5th century. His name was Dhu Nuwas, and he ruled over the Himyar (present day Yemen) area of the Arabian Peninsula. In fact, it is most likely that the city of Medina (the second-holiest city in Islam) — then called Yathrib — was originally founded by Jews. In any event, at the time of Muhammad’s “calling,” three important Jewish tribes existed in Arabia: Banu Qurayza, Banu Nadir, and Banu Qaynuqa. Muhammad was very keen on having the Jews accept him as a prophet to the extent that he charged his followers not to eat pig and to pray in the direction of Jerusalem. However, the Jews apparently were not very keen on Muhammad, his proclamation of himself as a prophet, or his poor knowledge of the Torah (Hebrew Bible). Numerous verbal altercations are recorded in the Qur’an and various Hadiths about these conflicts between the Jewish tribes and Muhammad. Eventually, the verbal conflicts turned into physical conflicts, and when the Jews outwardly rejected Muhammad as the “final seal of the prophets,” he turned on them with a vengeance. The atrocities that were committed against these tribes are too numerous to cite in a single article, but two tribes, the Qaynuqa and Nadir, were expelled from their villages by Muhammad. It appears that the Qaynuqa left Arabia around 624 A.D. The refugees of the Nadir settled in the village of Khaybar. In 628 A.D., Muhammad turned on the last Jewish tribe, the Qurayza, claiming that they were in league with Muhammad’s Arab pagan enemies and had “betrayed” him. Muhammad and his army besieged the Qurayza, and after a siege of over three weeks, the Qurayza surrendered. While many Arabs pleaded with Muhammad to let the Qurayza leave unmolested, Muhammad had other plans. Unlike expelling the Qaynuqa and Nadir, Muhammad exterminated the Qurayza, with an estimated 600 to 900 Jewish men being beheaded in one day. The women and children were sold into slavery, and Muhammad took one of the widows, Rayhana, as a “concubine.” In 629 A.D., Muhammad led a campaign against the surviving Jews of Nadir, now living in Khaybar. The battle was again bloody and barbaric, and the survivors of the massacre were either expelled or allowed to remain as “second-class citizens.” Eventually, upon the ascension of Omar as caliph, most Jews were expelled from Arabia around the year 640 A.D. This brings us, then, to the question of why modern-day Muslims still boast of the slaughter of the Jewish tribes and the Battle of Khaybar. The answer lies in what the Qur’an — and later on, the various Hadiths — says about the Jews. The Qur’an is replete with verses that can be described only as virulently anti-Semitic. The amount of Surahs is too numerous to cite, but a few will suffice: Surah 2:75 (Jews distorted the Torah); 2:91 (Jews are prophet-killers), 4:47 (Jews have distorted the Bible and have incurred condemnation from Allah for breaking the Sabbath), 5:60 (Jews are cursed, and turned into monkeys and pigs), and 5:82 (Jews and pagans are the strongest in enmity to the Muslims and Allah). And of course, there is the genocidal Hadith from Sahih Bukhari, 4:52:177, which would make Adolph Hitler proud. “The Day of Judgment will not have come until you fight with the Jews, and the stones and the trees behind which a Jew will be hiding will say: ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him!”‘ Thus, the Arab Muslims had their own “final solution” in store for the Jews already in the 7th century. The fact that Muslims still point to these (and many other) hateful verses in the Qur’an and Hadith should give Jews — not just Israelis — pause to consider if there can ever be true peace between Muslims and Jews, let alone between Muslims and Israel. When the armies of Islam occupied the area of Byzantine “Palestine” in the 7th century, the land became part of “Dar al-Islam” (House of Islam). Until that area is returned to Islam, (i.e., Israel’s extermination), she remains part of “Dar al harb” (House of War). It now becomes clear that this is a conflict of religious ideology and not a conflict over a piece of “real estate.” Finally, one must ask the question: Aside from non-Arab Turkey, whose relations with Israel are presently teetering on the verge of collapse, why is it that no other non-Arab Muslim country in the Middle East has ever had full relations (if any at all) with Israel, such as faraway countries like Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan? Indeed, why would Persian Iran — conquered by the Arabs — have such a deep hatred for Jews and Israel, whereas a non-Muslim country such as India does not feel such enmity? The answer is painfully clear: The contempt in which the Qur’an and other Islamic writings hold Jews does not exist in the scriptures of the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and other Eastern religions. Therefore, people that come from non-Muslim states do not have this inherent hatred towards Jews, and by extension, towards Israel. But when a people — or peoples — is raised with a scripture that regards another people and religion as immoral and less than human, then it is axiomatic why such hatred and disdain exists on the part of Muslims for Jews and Israel. Islam — as currently interpreted and practiced — cannot accept a Jewish state of any size in its midst. Unless Muslims come to terms with their holy writings vis-à-vis Jews, Judaism, and Israel and go through some sort of “reformation,” it will be unlikely that true peace will ever come to the Middle East. In the meantime, unless Islam reforms, Israel should accept the fact that the Muslims will never accept Israel as a permanent fact in the Middle East.

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Iran’s Next Move

18. June 2010 by admin.

Iran’s Next Move

A senior Iranian official Thursday warned that Tehran would not tolerate the inspection of vessels belonging to the Islamic republic in open seas under the pretext of implementing the latest round of sanctions imposed on Iran by the U.N. Security Council (UNSC). Kazem Jalali, rapporteur of Parliament’s Foreign Policy and National Security Committee, said one such response would be Iranian countermeasures in the strategic Straits of Hormuz. This statement from the lawmaker is the latest in a series of similar statements from senior Iranian civil and military officials in recent days.

Iran making good on this threat hinges on a number of prerequisites. First, a country must actually move to exercise the option of boarding an Iranian ship. If that were to happen, the question then would be: Will Iran actually go as far as retaliating in the Straits of Hormuz? After all, such an action carries the huge risk of a counter-reaction from the United States, which cannot allow Iran to tamper with the free flow of oil through the straits.

At this point, it is unclear how Tehran will respond to one of its ships being searched. What is certain is that this latest round of sanctions has created a crisis for the Iranian leadership both on the foreign policy front and domestically, where an intra-elite struggle has been publicly playing out for a year. One may recall that prior to the June 9 approval of the sanctions was that the United States was not in a position to impose sanctions with enough teeth to force Iran to change its behavior.

That view still stands because the latest round of sanctions are not strong enough to trigger a capitulation on the part of the Iranians. But they have enough bite to prevent Iran from doing business as usual, especially with the European Union and the United States piling on additional unilateral sanctions. Perhaps the most significant development is the Russian alignment with the United States, which made the fourth round of sanctions possible.

Despite saying earlier this week that his country is ready to negotiate, there is no way Ahmadinejad can come to the negotiating table just as the United States has gained an upper hand in the bargaining process. He cannot be seen as caving in to the pressure of the American-led UNSC sanctions. As it is, the Iranian president has to deal with the domestic uproar that he is leading the Islamic republic to ruin, which makes efforts to regain his position among the warring factions and formulate a response to get the Islamic republic back in the driver’s seat even more difficult.Russia is no longer protecting Iran in the UNSC. Furthermore, imposing sanctions on Iran after it signed a uranium swap deal has been a major loss for Tehran. It has created a very embarrassing situation for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at home, where he has no shortage of opponents — even among his own ultraconservative camp. The U.S. move to allow the May 17 Turkish-Brazilian-Iranian uranium swap agreement to go through, followed quickly by a move toward sanctions suggests that Washington tried to exploit the intra-elite rift to its advantage and undermine the position of relative strength that Tehran had been enjoying up to that point. The U.S. move has not only exacerbated tensions between the warring factions in the Iranian political establishment, it has also forced Iranian foreign policy decision-makers to go back to the drawing board and re-evaluate Iran’s strategy vis-a-vis the United States.

While it has a number of cards to play, (e.g., Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan), precisely how Iran will respond remains as opaque as the infighting within the regime. But the next move has to come from Iran. This new situation has led international observers to engage in their own process of reassessing the situation on the Iranian domestic and foreign policy fronts.

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The Tragic Story of Afzal Khan’s 63 Wives

15. May 2010 by admin.

The Tragic Story of Afzal Khan’s 63 Wives

Prophet Muhammad, by giving divine legitimacy to polygamy and unbounded concubinage, not only degraded the status of women, but his prohibition of remarriage of his harem-inmates–likely fearing that it would divulge his sexual impotency to other men–also set on a legacy of many tragedies for Muslim women..

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Bijapur, the famous capital of the medieval Adil Shah dynasty (1489 to 1686), is a small city in Souther Indian state of Karnataka, whose charm lies largely in the remarkable architectural legacy of those days. Amongst its numerous architectural monuments of the Islamic past is Satth Kabar (Sixty Graves) that bears the memory of a very tragic incident in history of Muslim women.

Afzal Khan was the most powerful General or Sardar (Lord) in the court of the Bijapur Sultanate. He was responsible for many victories for Adil Shah Dynasty. In 1658, Sultan Ali Adil Shah II of Bijapur was preparing to launch a military campaign against Shivaji, the indefatigable Maratha ruler. Being constantly under pressure from Auranzeb on one side and Shivaji from the other, Adil Shah depended on his generals to stall the enemies, and counted General Afzal Khan among his most trusted warriors.

Though Afzal Khan was a brave man, he had but one weakness: auguries and omens. Prior to the campaign, Khan contacted astrologers who predicted doom—his death at the hands of Maratha soldiers. At that time, Afzal Khan had 63 wives in his harem. Fearing that his wives would remarry after his death, the anxious general chose to kill all of them. Some say they were pushed into a deep well, while others say that all the 63 unfortunate wives were slain by Afzal. The astrologers proved correct; for, Khan indeed die at the hands of Shivaji at Pratapgarh.

 

However, his wives lie buried just 5 km from Bijapur at a place now bears titular testimony to the uxoricide: Satth Kabar. Ironically, the tomb built by the general for himself, who wanted to be close to his wives in life and in death, stands adjacent to the one-acre burial ground surrounded by jowar fields. The site has now been declared to be of national importance under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act 1958, and is under the jurisdiction of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). Today, the tombstones are scarred by graffiti; people often come to the shady spot for rest.

“People need to hear the heartrending stories that cry out from these graves”, says the 65 year-old man who lives in a nearby house.

 

How Afzal Khan died?

Afzal Khan was aware that Shivaji was on Pratapgarh, and planned to lure him out into the open plateau of Deccan, where he could destroy his forces. Khan’s strength was his giant force. At that time he took with him a force of 12,000 soldiers, many cannons, and troops mounted on elephants, horses, and camels etc. Which was more than enough to crush the force of Shivaji’s newly established ‘Swarajya’ (Self-rule). Shivaji’s men were very few in numbers and Afzal Khan was aware of this fact too. That’s why he tried to bring Shivaji out in the open plains, where they could be destroyed quickly in an open battle.

 

In contrast, Shivaji’s men were masters of what is known as ‘guerilla war’, where one surprises the enemy with a sudden attack causing heavy casualties and retreat quickly. So Shivaji tried his best to avoid a direct confrontation in an open field.

To compell Shivaji to come down to the plains, Afzal Khan started demolishing the temples, the prestigious temple of Bhavani Mata. His idea was that Shivaji, a pious Hindu, would not tolerate such insult of his gods and goddesses; and immediately, he would come down to fight in an open battle. But Shivaji did not bite the bait.

Failing to lure Shivaji out into the plains, Afzal agreed to meet him at Pratapgarh, a fort near the town of Satara, a location which was strategically advantageous for Shivaji’s infantry. For the meeting, a large tent was set up at the foothills of Pratapgarh. It was agreed that the meeting would be unarmed: each side was to bring ten personal bodyguards, who would stand one arrow-shot distance away.

 

Both parties were, however, prepared for treachery: Afzal hid a kataar, a small and sharp dagger, in his coat. Shivaji wore armour under his clothes, and carried a weapon called bagh nakh (”tiger claws”), consisting of an iron finger-grip with four razor claws, which he concealed within his clenched fist.

As the two men entered the tent for meeting, Khan pretended to greet Shivaji with a hug, and stabbed Shivaji in the back with his hidden kataar. However Shivaji, due to the armour under his coat, was saved and opened his fist and disemboweled Khan with his bagh nakh. Afzal managed to hold his gushing entrails and hurtled outside, faint and bleeding, and threw himself into his palanquin. But Khan was decapitated by one of Shivaji’s bodyguards shortly down the slope.

Sambhaji Kawaji and Jiva Mahala, two of Shivaji’s bodyguards, were instrumental in protecting their king from Afzal’s bodyguards.

According to another version, on reaching the tent, Shivaji requested Afzal Khan to send his bodyguard Sayyad out of the place. As per the agreement, no one was to be present when Shivaji and Afzal Khan met. When Shivaji penetrated the tiger claws into Afzal Khan’s abdomen, injuring him fatally, Sayyad Khan entered the tent, running to his mater’s rescue. Just when Sayyad Khan was about to kill Shivaji, Jiva Mahal, a body guard of Shivaji, slashed Sayyad Khan, saving the life of his master.

Shivaji sped towards the fortress as his lieutenants ordered a bugle to be sounded. It was a pre-determined signal to his infantry, which had been strategically placed in the densely covered valley. All of Shivaji’s generals, including his Army Chief, Netaji Palkar, launched a surprise attack and routed Afzal Khan’s army. Afzal Khan’s son managed to escape with help from Maratha generals including Khandaji Khopade, another of many blunders committed by the Hindus against their struggle against Muslim invaders.

The severed head of Khan was sent to Rajgarh to be shown to Jijabai, Shivaji’s mother. She wanted vengeance for the murder of Shahaji, Shivaji’s father, in the captivity of Afzal Khan, and also for the death of her elder son, Sambhaji, also killed by Afzal Khan.

 

Ottoman Sultan Ibrahim Drowned his 280 Wives

Ibrahim I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1640 to 1648. He was the son of Sultan Ahmed I, and was unofficially called “Ibrahim the Mad” (Turkish: Deli İbrahim), due to his unstable mental condition. However, Ibrahim was one of the most famous Ottoman Sultans, succeeded his brother Murad IV in 1640. Murad had ordered his three other brothers executed. Ibrahim I was allowed to live because he was too mad to be a threat.

 

Ibrahim is known to have had an obsession with obese women, urging his agents to find the fattest woman possible. A candidate, weighing around 330 pounds (137.4 Kg), was tracked down in Georgia or Armenia. She was given the pet-name Sheker Pare (”Sugar Cube”). Ibrahim was so pleased with her that he gave her a government pension and (allegedly) a governorship. At that time, Ibrahim had 280 wives and concubines in his harem. But when he heard a rumor that his concubines were compromised by another man, he decided to kill them en masse. Ultimately, all the 280 members of his harem were drowned in the Bosporus Sea.

Eventually, Ibrahim was deposed in a coup led by the Grand Mufti. There is an apocryphal story to the effect that the Grand Mufti acted in response to Ibrahim’s drowning all 280 members of his harem. But there is other evidence to suggest that at least two of Ibrahim’s concubines survived the mass murder. Ibrahim was ultimately strangled to death in Istanbul.

 

Idi Amin of Uganda

Idi Amin Dada Oumee, commonly known as Idi Amin, was a Ugandan military dictator and the president of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. Amin took power in a military coup in January 1971, deposing Milton Obote. His rule was characterized by human rights abuses, political repression, ethnic persecution, extrajudicial killings and the expulsion of Asians from Uganda. The number of people killed by him is unknown, but an estimate from international observers and human rights groups says that it ranged from 100,000 to 500,000. After the fall of his regime in 1979, Amin fled to Libya, and finally took political asylum in Saudi Arabia in 1981, where he died in 2003.

Idi Amin officially had 5 wives (many believe the actual number was much higher), one of which he had killed and dismembered to show her children what happens to someone, who disobeys him. He is also said to have over 34 concubines and many mistresses in his harem. Many believe that he was suffering from STDs, syphilis being one of them. He also had over 20 some children.

 

More importantly, Idi Amin used to refresh his harem regularly by executing the old and condemned wives for inducting new and younger ones. Many of us might have seen the heartrending reports in news papers in 1970s, how the security guards led the wailing victims to the place of execution through thousands of onlookers. But the government of Saudi Arabia, by providing asylum to such a cruel killer, has made the world understand that, Idi Amin had not committed any serious crime or insulted Islam by killing his wives. At that time, some journalists reported that Idi Amin was even a cannibal, who used to taste the flesh of his executed wives.

 

Conclusion

From the above discussions it becomes evident that the status of women in Muslim world is worse than domestic animals. In Arabia, during the Prophet’s times, an Arab could confine his wife in a room and kill her slowly by refusing food and water to her. Even the authors of the Arab Human Development Report 2002, have categorically mentioned that women are not considered as full citizens in the Islamic world, and that this oppression of the women is one of the major reasons for the Muslim world’s backwardness.

 

There is another point to be mentioned in this context. It has been said above that, Afzal Khan killed his 63 wives as he was afraid that, after his death, other people would marry his wives. There is no doubt that Prophet Muhammad was in the grip of a similar fear, because of which he forbade the remarriage of his harem-inmates after his death.

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Destiny of West Bengal Hindus: The Coming Days of Slavery to Islam

5. May 2010 by admin.

Destiny of West Bengal Hindus: The Coming Days of Slavery to Islam

Originally Posted On 23 December 2009 

Dr Radhasyam Brahmachari

How fast-breeding Muslims are turning West Bengal (and entire India for that matter) into a Muslim-majority state and signs of the consequences that await its Hindu populations.

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The State of West Bengal: West Bengal is a state in eastern India, having Islamic Bangladesh on its eastern border. Geographically West Bengal is on the eastern bottleneck of India, stretching from the Himalayas in the north to the Bay of Bengal in the south. It has a total area of 88,752 square kilometres (34,267 sq mi).

The West Bengal region was part of a number of empires and kingdoms during the past two millennia. The British East India Company consolidated their hold on the region following the Battle of Plassey in 1757, and the city of Calcutta, now Kolkata, served, up to 1911, as the capital of British India. This region was a hotbed of the Indian independence movement through the early 20th century. In 1947, Bengal was divided along religious lines into two separate entities: West Bengal, a state of India, and East Bengal, a part of the new nation of Pakistan (which later became independent Bangladesh in 1971).

West Bengal, the most densely-populated state in India, occupies only 2.7% of the India’s land area, but supports over 7.8% of its population. The Figure 1 shows the political map of West Bengal and its 19 districts.

West Bengal suffered from large refugee influx during the partition in 1947, leading to political unrests later on. The partition of Bengal entailed the greatest exodus of people in Human History. Some 3.5 million Hindus migrated from East Pakistan to India, while only 500,000 Muslims crossed border from West Bengal to East Pakistan, although it was Muslims, who demanded a separate Muslim state and created Pakistan. The influx of Hindu refugees created crisis of land and food in West Bengal lasting more than three decades. The politics of West Bengal, since the partition in 1947, has developed round the nucleus of refugee problem. Both the Rightists and the Leftists in politics of West Bengal have not yet become free from the socio-economic conditions created by the partition of Bengal.

Again, the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 resulted in the fresh influx of millions of Hindu refugees to West Bengal, causing significant strain on its infrastructure. West Bengal politics underwent a major change when the Left Front won the 1977 assembly election, defeating the incumbent Indian National Congress. The Left Front, led by Communist Party of India (Marxist), has governed the state for the subsequent three decades. It may be mentioned here that in 1905, an abortive attempt was made by the British Government to divide the province of Bengal into two zones, but the plan was withdrawn in 1911 due to violent opposition by the people of both East and West Bengal.

Dr Shyama Prasad Mookherjee, the creator of West Bengal 

As a matter of fact, Shyama Prasad Mookherjee was the creator of the state now called West Bengal. He carved out West Bengal from the then East Pakistan and East Punjab from West Pakistan. He was basically an educationist but the crisis of partition, more pointedly the partition of Bengal, brought him into politics. When the British accepted partition of India and creation of the new Islamic state of Pakistan, it was decided that the state or a Pradesh would be considered the smallest unit. Or in other words, a state with majority Muslim would go to Pakistan and a Hindu majority state would remain in the Indian Republic.

At that time the Bengal Province was a Muslim majority state and hence the entire Bengal was waiting to be included into the Islamic state of Pakistan. But after the massacre of the Hindus by the Muslims in Calcutta and Noakhali in 1946-47, Dr Mookherjee was convinced that it would be devastating for the Hindus, if they continue to live in a Muslim-dominated state and under a government controlled by the Muslim League. It should be mentioned here that most of the districts of East Bengal were Muslim dominated while the districts of western Bengal were dominated by the Hindus. So, Dr Mookherjee demanded that the smallest unit should be a district, not a province.

Similarly, the entire state of Punjab was marked as a Muslim majority state and hence was to be included into Pakistan. But the districts of West Punjab were dominated by the Muslims while in the districts of East Punjab, Hindus and Sikhs were in the majority. Dr Mookherjee argued that the Hindus of the Hindu majority districts of Bengal and Punjab must have their right to self-determination. It was not possible for the British to deny his argument; as a result only the Muslim-dominated districts in eastern Bengal, renamed East Pakistan, went to the new Islamic state of Pakistan, while a new state of West Bengal was formed with the Hindu-dominated districts of Bengal, which remained with India. Likewise, all the Muslim-dominated districts of Punjab, renamed West Pakistan, went to Pakistan, and the Hindu/Sikh-dominated districts were included in the Indian Union as a new state, called East Punjab. The only Muslim majority district that was included into West Bengal, due to geographical reasons, was Murshidabad. And for the similar reason, the Hindu dominated district Khulna was included into East Pakistan.

Table 1 shows the demography in West Bengal, based on census reports of the Government of India from 1951 to 2001. It has been pointed out earlier that only one district, i.e. Murshidabad, was Muslim dominated during the partition in 1947. The Table-1 shows that, according to 1951 census, 44.6 per cent population of Murshidabad were Hindus, and in past 50 years the percentage of Hindus has come down to 35.12 per cent. It also shows that in 1951, the Hindu and Muslim population in the district of Maldah was 62.92 and 36.17 per cent respectively. But after 50 years, i.e. according to 2001 census, Hindu population has declined to 49.28 per cent while the Muslim population has increased to 49.72 per cent, turning it into a Muslim majority district. Another district that has become a Muslim majority district is North Dinajpur. In 1981, the Hindu and Muslim population in the district were 54.20 and 45.35 per cent, respectively. In 2001, Hindu population has declined to 51.72 per cent, while the Muslim population has increased to 47.36 per cent. At present, it has become a Muslim-majority district.

The Table also shows that in all the districts, except Coochbihar, Hindu population is declining and Muslim population is rising. There are mainly three factors for this explosion of Muslim population.

• Firstly, planned and deliberate rejection of family-planning measures by the Muslims;

• Secondly, the uncontrolled influx of illegal Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators through the porous Indo-Bangladesh border; and,

• Thirdly, through conversion of Hindus to Islam.

So far the first reason is concerned, it is necessary for the government to impose strict family planning measures upon Muslims. But no government has so far tried to take such a step over fears of earning their displeasure, thus, loosing their votes. Similarly, no government has ever taken any step towards halting the influx of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. On the contrary, every political party, hoping to swell their vote-bank, is inviting Bangladeshi immigrants and assisting them to obtain Indian citizenship.

Notably, illegal Bangladeshi intruders are not affecting West Bengal alone, but are also fast altering the demography of the neighbouring states of Bihar and Assam. According to estimates of the police and CID departments, nearly 30 million Bangladeshi Muslims have entered West Bengal, Bihar and Assam.  As a result, three bordering districts Bihar, namely Kishanganj, Araria and Katihar, and seven districts of Assam, namely Dhubri, Goalpara, Barpeta, Naogaon, Morigaon, Hailakandi and Karimganj, have turned into Muslim-majority districts.

Alarmingly, as the bordering villages of West Bengal, Bihar and Assam become Muslim dominated, they are being utilized as springboards by the jihadi terrorists and ISI agents. Moreover, mosques and madrasas are mushrooming in these districts, and Hindus are being evicted from their ancestral homes under threats and violence. The life and dignity of the Hindus and the honour of their women are no longer safe in those bordering villages.

Table 1: Change of Demography in West Bengal

District	Year	Hindu	Decreased	Muslim	Increased
Darjeeling	1951 2001	81.71 76.92	- 4.79	1.145.31	+ 4.17
Jalpaiguri	1951 2001	84.1883.30	- 0.88	9.7410.85	+ 1.11
Coochbihar	1951 2001	70.09 75.50	+ 4.60	28.94 24.24	- 4.7
North Dinajpur	1981 2001	54.20 51.72	- 2.48	45.35 47.36	+ 2.01
South Dinajpur	1981 2001	75.32 74.01	- 1.31	23.51 24.02	+ 0.51
Maldah	1951 2001	62.92 49.28	- 13.64	36.17 49.72	+ 12.75
Murshidabad	1951 2001	44.60 35.12	- 8.68	55.24 63.67	+ 8.43
Birbhum	1951 2001	72.60 64.69	- 7.91	26.86 35.08	+ 4.22
Bardhaman	1951 2001	83.73 78.89	- 4.84	15.60 19.78	+ 4.18
Nadia	1951 2001	77.03 73.75	- 3.28	22.36 25.41	+ 3.05
North 24 parganas	1971 2001	77.26 75.23	- 2.03	22.43 24.22	+ 1.79
South 24 Parganas	1971 2001	72.96 65.86	- 7.1	26.05 33.24	+ 7.19
Hooghly	1951 2001	86.52 83.63	- 2.89	13.27 15.14	+ 1.87
Bankura	1951 2001	91.16 84.35	- 6.81	04.4 7.51	+ 3.11
Purulia	1961 2001	93.13 83.42	- 9.71	05.99 07.12	+ 1.13
Medinipur	1951 2001	91.78 85.58	- 6.20	07.17 11.33	+ 4.16
Howrah	1951 2001	83.45 74.98	- 8.47	16.22 24.44	+ 8.22
Kolkata	1951 2001	83.41 77.68	- 5.73	12.00 20.27	+ 8.27
West Bengal	1951 2001	78.45 72.47	- 5.98	19.85 25.25	+ 5.4

(Source: Census Report 1951, 1961, 1971, 1981and 2001) Figure 2: Decline of Hindu Population in West Bengal (Courtesy: Mohit Ray)  

As pointed out above (see Table 1), Hindu population is in decline in all the districts of West Bengal, except Coochbihar, while Figure 2 illustrates the pace of this decline between 1951 and 2001. In 1991, Hindus constituted 75% of West Bengal population, which will come down to 70% in 2011. In 2034, the Hindu population will decline to 60%, and in 2051, it will dwindle to about 52%. In other words, entire West Bengal will become a Muslim-majority state in the next 40 years. 

It is needless to say that, as soon as the Muslim population would rise to 40% in 2034, it would be difficult for the Hindus to live in peace in the state. Secret IB report tells that Muslims will claim the land on the eastern side of River Hooghly as an Islamic state or a part of greater Bangladesh. In such a situation, there will remain two options before the Hindus: either to accept Islam or to become refugee again and flee their homes to other parts of India to save their lives, dignity and religious faith.

Table 2: District-wise Hindu and Muslim Population in West Bengal

District	Religion	Percentage of Population	Percentage of Population of Children (0-6 yr old)
Darjeeling	HinduMuslim	76.9205.31	76.1908.26
Jalpaiguri	Hindu Muslim	83.3010.85	80.4513.81
Coochbihar	Hindu Muslim	75.5024.24	69.8229.98
North Dinajpur	Hindu Muslim	51.7247.36	43.1955.93
South Dinajpur	Hindu Muslim	74.0124.02	69.4028.35
Maldah	Hindu Muslim	49.2849.72	43.0156.08
Murshidabad	Hindu Muslim	35.9263.67	29.3570.27
Birbhum	Hindu Muslim	64.4935.08	58.4241.15
Bardhaman	Hindu Muslim	78.8919.78	75.0323.62
Nadia	Hindu Muslim	73.7525.41	66.7132.55
North 24 Parganas	Hindu Muslim	75.2324.22	65.5234.01
South 24 Parganas	Hindu Muslim	65.8633.24	55.4143.85
Hooghly	Hindu Muslim	83.6315.14	78.9419.53
Bankura	Hindu Muslim	84.3507.51	81.8310.09
Purulia	Hindu Muslim	83.4207.12	81.6209.26
Medinipur	Hindu Muslim	85.5811.33	81.3615.36
Howrah	Hindu Muslim	74.9824.44	64.8134.68
Kolkata	Hindu Muslim	77.6820.27	70.2427.81
West Bengal	Hindu Muslim	72.4725.25	64.6133.17

(Source: Census Report, 2001)

Many apprehend that Hindus will be outnumbered by Muslims much earlier than the projection presented above, due to the fact that population of Muslim children is much higher than the population adults, as presented in Table 2. Particularly in the districts of North Dinajpur, North and South 24 Parganas, the population of Muslim children is much higher than the population of adult Muslims. As mentioned earlier, North Dinajpur has already become a Muslim majority district, while high Muslim children population in North and South 24 Parganas suggests that these two districts are on the way to becoming Muslim-majority districts.

It should be pointed out here that the swelling of Muslim population is not confined to West Bengal and Assam alone, but is an all-India affair. Table 3 shows how the Hindu populations are declining and Muslim populations rising throughout India. If continue unchecked, entire India may turn into a Muslim-dominant country in 5 to 6 decades. So, what the 800-year Muslim rule could not achieve with the help of sword would be achieved simply through unrestrained breeding, i.e. using the wombs of Muslim women as the weapon. Table 4 presents the state-wise Muslim populations of India. Table 5, below, shows the state-wise increase of Muslim and Hindu populations during the decade 1991-2001.

Table 3: Religious Composition of India’s Population, 1991–2001, (in percentage)

Year	Indian Religionists	Muslim	Christian
1901	86.64	12.21	1.15
1941	84.44	13.38	2.18
1951	87.24	10.43	2.33
1991	85.01	12.59	2.32
2001	67.56	30.38	2.06

(Source: Religious Demography of India by A P Joshi, M D Srinivas and J K Bajaj, 2003)

Table 4: Muslim population in Indian states.

State	Population	Percentage
Lakshadweep	57,903	95.47
Jammu & Kashmir	6,793,240	66.97
Assam	8,240,611	30.92
West Bengal	20,240,543	25.25
Kerala	7,863,842	24.70
Uttar Pradesh	30,740,158	18.49
Bihar	13,722,048	16.53
Jharkhand	3,731,308	13.85
Karnataka	6,463,127	12.23
Uttaranchal	1,012,141	11.92
Delhi	1,623,520	11.72
Maharastra	10,270,485	10.60
Andhra Pradesh	6,986,856	09.17
Gujarat	4,592,854	09.06
Manipur	190,939	08.81
Rajasthan	4,788,227	08.47
Andaman & Nicobar Islands	29,265	08.22
Tripura	254,442	07.95
Daman & Diu	12,281	07.76
Goa	92,210	06.84
Madhya Pradesh	3,841,449	06.37
Pondicherry	59.358	06.09
Haryana	1,222,916	05.78
Tamil Nadu	3,470,647	05.56
Meghalaya	99,169	04.28
Chandigarh	35,548	03.95
Dadra & Nagar Haveli	6,524	02.96
Orissa	761,985	02.07
Chhattisgarh	409,615	01.97
Himachal Pradesh	119,512	01.97
Arunachal Pradesh	20,675	01.88
Nagaland	35,005	01.76
Punjab	382,045	01.57
Sikkim	7,693	01.42

(Source: Census Report, 2001) 

Table 5: Increase of Hindu and Muslim Population, 1991 to 2001

State	Hindu (%)	Muslim (%)
West Bengal	14.2	25.9
Assam	14.9	29.3
Bihar (including Jhharkhand)	23.4	36.5
Delhi	44.1	82.5
Haryana	27.0	60.1
Punjab	28.7	59.6
Rajasthan	27.8	35.8
Himachal Pradesh	17.0	32.9
Jammu & Kashmir	24.7	29.5
Uttar Pradesh (including Uttarakhand)	24.2	31.7
Madhya Pradesh	21.7	29.5
Gujarat	22.1	27.3
Maharastra	21.6	34.6
Orissa	15.9	31.9
Karnataka	15.3	23.5
Andhra Pradesh	14.4	17.9
Tamilnadu	11.0	13.7
Kerala	07.3	15.8
India	19.3	29.5

(Source: Economic & Political Weekly, September 25. 2004) 

After the partition of Bengal in 1947, Hindus from East Pakistan—fleeing Muslim persecutions, including violence, rapes and forced conversion—came to West Bengal as paupers to save their lives and faith, and honor of their women. But next time, when the West Bengal is Islamized, they would have no place to go. It would be devastating for the Hindus of West Bengal. They would have either to embrace Islam, live as degraded dhimmis or drown themselves in the waters of Bay of Bengal.

As mentioned earlier, in the districts of West Bengal, bordering Islamic Bangladesh, where Muslims have already gained majority due influx of Bangladeshi Muslims, have been turned into mini-Pakistans, where jihad against the Hindus have already begun. It is becoming, day by day, difficult for the Hindus to live peacefully in those areas. Their life and property is becoming unsafe. Forceful eviction of the Hindus, looting their properties, raping and molestation of their women folk are becoming a daily occurrences.

Such incidents are not confined to the border districts alone, but also in isolated pockets of other districts, where Muslims may have gained majority. In the districts of North and South 24 Parganas, there are many such pockets where the Muslims have unleashed their jihadi activities against the Hindus. Several such incidents of oppression and violence by Muslims against the Hindus will be addressed in the next part of this article.

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What Every American Needs To Know About Jihad & Terrorism

25. April 2010 by admin.

The LONG TERM goal of jihad is world domination – a global Islamic state under Islamic law.

Jihad is not, as some Western apologists claim, simply a striving for individual perfection. Rather, jihad is an expansionist totalitarian ideology that seeks to establish a global Islamic state ruled by Islamic law, or sharia. Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s chief henchman said in the summer of 2006: “Jihad seeks the liberation of Palestine, the entire country of Palestine and to liberate every land that used to be a territory of Islam, from Spain to Iraq.”

 

The jihad’s IMMEDIATE Objective is “Death to America.”America,” declared Al-Qaeda spokesman Suleiman Abu Gheith, “is the head of heresy in our modern world, and [as a result] . . . we have the right to kill 4 million Americans — 2 million of them children — and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands. Furthermore, it is our right to fight them with chemical and biological weapons.” The Saudi Sheikh Nasser ibn Hamed gives an even higher figure for appropriate American deaths: “If a bomb was dropped on them [i.e. the Americans] that would annihilate 10 million and burn their lands to the same extent that they burned the Muslim lands – this is permissible….” Jihad demands the killing of “infidels” or their subjugation under Islamic law.

Since the time of the Prophet Muhammad jihad has offered three choices to the non-Muslim: conversion to Islam, submission under Islamic rule, or death. One manual of Islamic law states that if “the infidels” do not convert, “it is then incumbent on the Muslims to call upon God for assistance, and to make war upon them.”

 

The jihad kills women.

Jihadis believe, among other things, that women are inferior to men, and must be ruled by them; that a son’s inheritance should be twice the size of that of a daughter; that a husband should beat a disobedient wife; that adulterous or lewd women can be eliminated in “honor killings.”.

 

Jihad calls for the extermination of the Jews.In a Friday sermon in Gaza that was broadcast live on official Palestinian Authority television, Sheikh Ahmad Abu Halabiya summed up jihadis’ attitudes toward the Jews: “Have no mercy on [them], no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them…”

Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hizballah, takes the anti Semitism of jihad a step further, calling Jews “grandsons of apes and pigs” and cautioning that they are “a cancer which is liable to spread again at any moment.”

 

JIHAD KILLS GAYSJust before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Afghanistan’s Taliban regime punished two men convicted of homosexuality. The Taliban’s Islamic jurists had no doubt that death was the proper punishment. The only question was how to carry out the execution. One group of scholars believed that the homosexuals should be taken to the top of the highest building in the city, and hurled to their deaths. The other recommended that a pit be dug near a wall somewhere, the two men put in it, and the wall toppled so that they were buried alive. The jihad is not about American policy towards Israel or about israel’s policy towards the palestinians.Many, particularly on the American Left, believe that if the U.S. decreases its support for Israel, and if Israel surrenders further territory, jihad violence will cease. This is as naïve as it is untrue. The Muslim Brotherhood, for instance, the first modern Islamic terrorist organization and the direct ancestor of Hamas and Al-Qaeda, was founded in 1928 – twenty years before the founding of the State of Israel. Mahmoud Zahar, the Hamas Foreign Minister, says: “Even if the U.S. gave us all its money in return for recognizing Israel and giving up one inch of Palestine, we would never do so even if this costs us our lives.” The jihad is not the result of Islamists’ current grievances about Afghanistan, Iraq or other hotspots in the Middle East.The international media focus on conflict in Israel, Iraq and Afghanistan, but the jihad continues in a lower key and largely out of sight on a daily basis in places such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, Chechnya, the Balkans, and Nigeria, to say nothing of the “soft jihad“ being waged in Europe.

There is nowhere in the world where one can escape the jihad. Wherever Muslims are found, which is in almost every country on the planet, there are adherents of the ideology of jihad.

 

The jihad subverts democratic institutions.Jihadis in Europe have been forthright about their intentions. In England, for instance, Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, has said that the transformation of Britain into an Islamic state could come about by means of an “invasion [from] without.” But if this doesn’t happen, Bakri says that jihadis will convert the West to Islam “through ideological invasion …”  

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The Afghanistan Campaign, Part 3: The Pakistani Strategy

25. April 2010 by admin.

The Afghanistan Campaign, Part 3: The Pakistani Strategy

 Pakistan is central to the U.S. war in Afghanistan — and Islamabad views Kabul’s fate as central to its own. No other country is as pivotal to Afghanistan’s long-term fate as Pakistan is, and in this part of our series we examine the country’s long historical relationship with the Taliban and its strategy and objectives going forward.The Pakistani strategy of securing influence in Afghanistan is dictated by the unalterable reality of geography. With a long common border, a strong Pashtun population on both sides and active militant groups interconnected with each other across the border, Pakistan is forced to take an active role in Afghanistan. It’s the same sort of geopolitical imperative that bound the colonial British to the region, and before them the Muslim emperors, and before the Muslim emperors the Hindu rulers.Pakistan’s core is comprised of the provinces of Punjab and Sindh, which encompass the country’s demographic, industrial, commercial and agricultural base. From Punjab in the north, this heartland extends southward through Sindh province, flowing seamlessly along the Indus River valley into the Thar Desert. This means Pakistan’s core is hard by the Indian border, leaving no meaningful terrain barriers to invasion. (Indeed, the Punjabi population straddles the Indian-Pakistani border much as the Pashtun population straddles the Pakistani-Afghan border). This narrow strip of flat land is inherently vulnerable to India, Pakistan’s arch-rival to the east, a geographic arrangement that was no accident of the British partition. Hence, suffering from both geographic and demographic disadvantages vis-a-vis India — and with no strategic depth to speak of — Pakistan is extremely anxious about its security in the east and is forced to look in the opposite direction both out of concern for its depth and in search of opportunity.

West of the Punjabi-Sindhi core lay the peripheral territories of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Balochistan province. Though the Pakistani buffer territories of the NWFP and FATA are far more interlinked with Afghanistan than with Pakistan by virtue of the common Pashtun populations, they do provide Pakistan with some of the depth it lacks to the east and also protect against encroachment from the northwest. Having firm control of its own heartland and secure access to the sea through the port of Karachi, Islamabad must also control these buffer territories as a means of further consolidating security in the Punjabi-Sindhi core.In this effort, Afghanistan is both part of the problem and part of the solution. It is part of the problem because the Islamist insurgency that Islamabad once supported in Afghanistan has now spilled backwards onto Pakistani soil; it is part of the solution because Afghanistan remains a critical geopolitical arena for Islamabad. By securing itself as the single most dominant player in Afghanistan, Pakistan strengthens its hand in its own peripheral territories and ensures that no other foreign power — India is the immediate concern here — ever gains a foothold in Kabul. If India did, it would have Pakistan more or less surrounded. Indeed, the need to assert influence in Afghanistan is hardwired into Pakistan’s geopolitical makeup.

History

Afghanistan already was an issue for Pakistan when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in the final days of 1979. A secular Marxist government was in Kabul supported by arch-rival India and bent on eradicating the influence of religion (a powerful and important aspect of Pakistani influence in Afghanistan). When the Soviets invaded, Pakistan used Saudi money and U.S. arms to back a seven-party Islamist alliance. In the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal, Pakistan threw its support behind the much more hard-line Islamist Taliban and gave it the training and tools it needed to rise up and eventually take control of most of the country. Though Afghanistan was still chaotic, it was the kind of Islamist chaos that the Pakistanis could manage — that is, until Sept. 11, 2001, and the American invasion to topple the Taliban regime for providing sanctuary to al Qaeda.Thus ensued an almost impossible tightrope walk by the government of then-President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Pakistan was forced to abruptly end support for the Taliban regime it had helped put into power and around which its strategy for retaining influence in Afghanistan revolved. Islamabad tried to play both sides, retaining contact with the Taliban but also providing the United States with intelligence that helped U.S. forces hunt the Taliban. This engendered distrust on both sides in the process. The Taliban realized that they could not depend on or trust Pakistan as they once did, and from 2003 to 2006, American pressure on Islamabad to crack down on al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas directly contributed to the rise of the Pakistani Taliban. So as the Islamist insurgency in Afghanistan spilled backwards into Pakistan, the cross-border Taliban phenomenon began to include groups focused on the destruction of the Pakistani state. To this day, however, despite the inextricably linked nature of these Pashtun Islamists, there is still an inclination within many quarters in Islamabad to distinguish between the “good” Taliban, who have their sights set on Afghanistan and ultimately Kabul (and with whom Pakistan retains significant, if reduced, influence), and the “bad” Taliban, who have become fixated on the regime in Islamabad and have perpetrated attacks against Pakistani targets. There also are other, non-Pashtun renegade Islamist elements that have carried out major attacks beyond Pakistani borders that have risked provoking Indian aggression, such as the militant attack in Mumbai in 2008.Nevertheless, Pakistan has realized that the militant problem in Afghanistan has endangered the weak control it does have over the buffer territories of the FATA and NWFP and is applying military force to the problem on its side of the border. It also appears to be working closer with the United States in terms of sharing intelligence. Across the border in Afghanistan, Pakistan does not want to see the Taliban stage too strong a comeback because of the offshoots of the movement that are becoming problematic on Pakistan’s own turf.Strategy But the Afghan Taliban can neither be ignored nor destroyed. They still have utility for Islamabad and must be dealt with. This will require skillful handling on the part of the Pakistanis, who have lost a lot of leverage over the group. Islamabad’s strategy is to try and balance a domestic policy that seeks to militarily neutralize Taliban rebels on the Pakistani side of the border while working with the Taliban on the Afghan side to achieve its foreign policy aims. Pakistan’s intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, can provide devastating intelligence on the Taliban movement to the Americans, giving Islamabad leverage over Washington. And its long-standing connections to the group put Islamabad in a unique position to facilitate and oversee any negotiated settlement.So Pakistan is seeking to maximize its influence within the Afghan Taliban movement, gain control and ownership over any negotiation efforts and establish international recognition as the single most important player in Afghanistan. The West’s interest in withdrawing from Afghanistan puts Pakistan in a good position to succeed here. The Americans know Pakistan must be part of the solution and are anxious for Islamabad to provide that solution.But to succeed, Pakistan must again walk the middle ground between the United States and the Taliban. And once it is at the center of the negotiations, it must not only push both parties toward each other, it must also pull them in a third direction in order to satisfy its own aims — namely, to establish long-term conditions for Pakistani domination over Afghanistan.And to succeed in this effort, Pakistan will need more than just the Taliban. It must establish influence with the other key players in Afghanistan — particularly the government of President Hamid Karzai, who recently acknowledged that Islamabad will have a great deal of influence in the country but that he wishes to place limits on it as much as possible. And this is where things get tricky. The United States may ultimately have no choice but to work with Pakistan in attempting to secure a negotiated settlement with reconcilable elements of the Taliban. But Karzai is also seeking a deal with the Taliban, and if he can achieve one outside of Pakistan’s influence, he can try and minimize Pakistani influence in the negotiations (though Pakistan can no more be cut out of the negotiations than could the Taliban).

At the same time, Islamabad must find common ground with other regional players — Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — in order to roll back Indian influence in Afghanistan (there even appears to be an emerging axis of sorts consisting of the Americans, the Saudis and the Turks). But Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited New Delhi March 11 in order to coordinate and craft a common strategy for Afghanistan — a strategy being formulated between two countries that share a common interest in Afghanistan that runs counter to Pakistan’s and is coming closer to aligning with Iran’s.

In sum, Pakistan retains more levers in Afghanistan than any other single country, and with Saudi money and American might it is maneuvering to be the pivotal player in a powerful coalition with abundant resources. But Pakistan will continue to face challenges as it tries to distinguish between and divide the Taliban phenomena in Afghanistan and within its own borders.

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The Afghanistan Campaign Part 2: The Taliban Strategy

25. April 2010 by admin.

  

The Afghanistan Campaign Part 2: The Taliban Strategy

 

 

The Afghan Taliban is a group of insurgents who ultimately seek to secure power over Afghanistan, but first they must merely survive as a cohesive entity during the current International Security Assistance Force offensive. Nevertheless, the Taliban is a diffuse entity being pulled in many directions by multiple actors, and the precise definition of “securing power” and the appropriate strategy to regain that power are still being debated.

 

It was thus clear to the Taliban long before U.S. President Barack Obama’s long-anticipated announcement that some 30,000 additional troops would be sent to Afghanistan in 2010 that there would be more of a fight before the United States and its allies would be willing to abandon the country — a surge that is an attempt, in part, to reshape Taliban perceptions of the timeline of the conflict by redoubling the American commitment before the drawdown might begin.

And though it took the Taliban a while to regroup, a considerable vacuum began to grow in which the Taliban began to re-emerge, particularly amid poor, corrupt and ineffectual central governance. As early as 2006, it was clear that the Afghan jihadist movement had assumed the form of a growing and powerful insurgency that was progressively gaining steam; the situation was beginning to approach the point at which it could no longer be ignored. As the surge in Iraq began to show signs of success, the United States began to shift its attention back to Afghanistan.

While the U.S.-led coalition never stopped pursuing the Taliban, Washington’s attention quickly shifted to Iraq. In Afghanistan, the mission quickly evolved from toppling a government in Kabul to combating a nascent insurgency in the south and east. U.S. officials, led by the American ambassador to Kabul, Zalmay Khalilzad, first began the process of talking to the Taliban on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. All this took place while Washington continued to press Islamabad to do more against the Taliban.The Taliban were never defeated in 2001, when the United States moved to topple their government in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. They largely declined combat in the face of overwhelmingly superior military force. Though they were not, at that moment, an insurgent force, their moves were classic guerrilla behavior, and their quick transition from the seat of power back to such tactics is a reminder of how well — and how painfully — schooled Afghans have been in the insurgent arts over the last several decades.

Overall, the Taliban ideally aspire to return to the height of their power in the late 1990s but realize that this is not realistic. That ascent to power, which followed the toppling of the Marxist regime left in place after the Soviet withdrawal and the 1992-1996 intra-Islamist civil war, was somewhat anomalous in that the circumstances were fairly unique to post-Soviet invasion Afghanistan. Today, the Taliban’s opponents are much stronger and far better equipped to challenge the Taliban than in the mid-1990s; this opposing force is as much a reality as the Taliban and has a vested interest in preserving the current regime. The old mujahideen of the 1980s, whom the younger Taliban displaced in the 1990s, have grown steadily wealthier since the collapse of the Taliban regime and are now well-settled and prosperous in Kabul and their respective regions, benefiting greatly from the Western presence and Western money. This is true of many urban areas of Afghanistan that have been altered significantly in the eight years since the U.S. invasion and have little desire to return the Taliban’s severe austerity. In many ways, this fight for dominance is between not only the Taliban and the United States and its allies; it is also between the Taliban and the old Islamist elite, the former mujahideen leaders who did their time on the battlefield in the 1980s.

 

So, in addition to fighting the current military battle, there is a great deal of factional fighting and political maneuvering with other Afghan centers of power. At a bare minimum, the Taliban intend to ensure that they remain the single strongest power in the country, with not only the largest share of the pie in Kabul (the ability to dominate) but also a significant degree of power and autonomy within their core areas in the south and east of the country. But within the movement (which is a very diffuse and complex set of entities), there is a great deal of debate about what objectives are reasonably achievable. Like the Shia in Iraq, who originally aspired to total dominance in the early days following the fall of the Baathist regime and have since moderated their goals, the Taliban have recognized that some degree of power sharing is necessary. The ultimate objective of the Taliban — resumption of power at the national level — is somewhat dependent on how events play out in the coming years. The objective of attaining the apex of power is not in dispute, but the best avenue — be it reconciliation or fighting it out until the United States begins to draw down — and how exactly that apex might be defined is still being debated.

But there is an important caveat to the Taliban’s ambitions. Having held power in Kabul, they are wary of returning there in a way that would ultimately render them an international pariah state, as they were in the 1990s. When the Taliban first came to power, only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates recognized the regime, and the group’s leadership became intimately familiar with the challenges of attempting to govern a country without wider international recognition. It was under this isolation that the Taliban allied with al Qaeda, which provided them with men, money and equipment. Now it is using al Qaeda again, this time not just as a force multiplier but, even more important, as a potential bargaining chip at the negotiating table. Mullah Omar, the Taliban’s central leader, wants to get off the international terrorist watch list, and there have been signals from various elements of the Taliban that the group is willing to abandon al Qaeda for the right price. This countervailing consideration also contributes to the Taliban’s objective — and particularly the means to achieving that objective — remaining in flux.

To understand the Taliban and their current strategy, it helps to begin with the basics. The Taliban are insurgents, and their first order of business is simply survival. A domestic guerrilla group almost always has more staying power than an occupier, which is projecting force over a greater distance and has the added burden of a domestic population less directly committed to a war in a foreign — and often far-off — land. If the Taliban can only survive as a cohesive and coherent entity until the United States and its allies leave Afghanistan, they will have a far less militarily capable opponent (Kabul) with whom to compete for dominance.

Currently facing an opponent (the United States) that has already stipulated a timetable for withdrawal, the Taliban are in an enviable position. The United States has given itself an extremely aggressive and ambitious set of goals to be achieved in a very short period of time. If the Taliban can both survive and disrupt American efforts to lay the foundations for a U.S./NATO withdrawal, their prospects for ultimately achieving their aims increase dramatically.

And here the strategy to achieve their imperfectly defined objective begins to take shape. The Taliban have no intention of completely evaporating into the countryside, and they have every intention of continuing to harass International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops, inflicting casualties and raising the cost of continued occupation. In so doing, the Taliban not only retain their relevance but may also be able to hasten the withdrawal of foreign forces.

Judging from the initial phase of Operation Moshtarak in Marjah and what can likely be expected in similar offensives in other areas, the Taliban strategy toward the surge is: 1) largely decline combat but leave behind a force significant enough to render the securing phase as difficult as is possible for U.S.-led coalition forces by using hit-and-run tactics and planting improvised explosive devices; 2) once the coalition force becomes overwhelming, fall back and allow the coalition to set up shop and wage guerrilla and suicide attacks (though Mullah Omar has issued guidance that these attacks should be initiated only after approval at the highest levels in order to minimize civilian casualties). In all likelihood, this phase of the Taliban campaign would include attempts at intimidation and subversion against Afghan security forces.

Being a diffuse guerrilla movement, the Taliban will likely attempt to replicate this strategy as broadly as possible, forcing ISAF forces to expend more energy than they would prefer on holding ground while impeding the building and reconstruction phase, which will become increasingly difficult as coalition forces target more and more areas. The idea is that the locals who are already wary about relying on Kabul and its Western allies will then become even more disenchanted with the ability of the coalition to weaken the Taliban. However, the ISAF attempting to take control of key bases of support on which the Taliban have long relied, and the impact of these efforts on the Taliban will warrant considerable scrutiny.

For now, the Taliban appear to have lost interest in larger-scale attacks involving several hundred fighters being committed to a single objective. Though such attacks certainly garnered headlines, they were extremely costly in terms of manpower and materiel with little practical gain. And with old strongholds like Helmand province feeling the squeeze, there are certainly some indications that ISAF offensives are taking an appreciable bite out of the operational capabilities of at least the local Taliban commanders.

Conserving forces and minimizing risk to their core operational capability are parallel and interrelated considerations for the Taliban in terms of survival. If the recent assault on Marjah is any indication, the Taliban are adhering to these principles. While some fighters did dig in and fight and while resistance has stiffened — especially within the last week — the Taliban declined to make it a bloody compound-to-compound fight despite the favorable defensive terrain.

Similarly, the U.S. surge intends to make it hard for the Taliban to sustain — much less replace — manpower and materiel. Taliban tactics must be tailored to maximize damage to the enemy while minimizing costs, which drives the Taliban directly to hit-and-run tactics and the widespread use of improvised explosive devices.

There is little doubt that the Taliban will continue to inflict casualties in the coming year. But there is also considerable resolve behind the surge, which will not even be up to full strength until the summer and will be maintained until at least July 2011. Indeed, it is not clear if the Taliban can inflict enough casualties to alter the American timetable in its favor any further.

There is also the underlying issue of sustaining the resistance. Manpower and logistics are inescapable parts of warfare. Though the United States and its allies bear the heavier burden, the Taliban cannot ignore that it is losing key population centers and opium-growing areas central to recruitment, financing and sanctuary. The parallel crackdowns by the ISAF on the Afghan side of the border and the Pakistani crackdowns on the opposite side, where the Taliban has long enjoyed sanctuary, represent a significant challenge to the Taliban if the efforts can be sustained. Signs of a potential increase in cooperation and coordination between Washington and Islamabad could also be significant.

In other words, despite all its flaws, there is a coherency to what the United States is attempting to achieve. Success is anything but certain, but the United States does seek to make very real inroads against the core strength of the Taliban. One of those methods is to reduce the Taliban’s operational capability to the point where it will no longer have the capability to overwhelm Afghan security forces after the United States begins to draw down. There is no shortage of issues surrounding the U.S. objectives to train up the Afghan National Army and National Police, and it is not at all clear that even if those objectives are met that indigenous forces will be able to manage the Taliban.

But the Taliban must also deal with the logistical strain being imposed on it and strive to maintain its numbers and indigenous support. Central to this effort is the Taliban’s information operations (IO), conveying their message to the Afghan people. Thus far, the ISAF has been far behind the Taliban in such IO efforts, but as the coalition ratchets up the pressure, it remains to be seen whether the more abstract IO will be sufficient for sustaining hard logistical support, especially with pressure being applied on both sides of the border.

Similarly, there is the issue of internal coherency. Any insurgent movement must deal with not only the occupier but also other competing guerrillas and insurgents, whether their central focus is military power or ideological. The Taliban’s main competition is entrenched in the regime of President Hamid Karzai and among those in opposition to Karzai but part of the state; at issue are the Taliban’s sometimes loose affiliations with other Taliban elements and al Qaeda. The United States, the Karzai regime, Pakistan and al Qaeda are all seeking and applying leverage anywhere they can to hive off reconcilable elements of the Taliban.

The United States seeks to divide the pragmatic elements of the Taliban from the more ideological ones. The Karzai regime may be willing to deal with them in a more coherent fashion, but at the heart of all its considerations is the partially incompatible retention of its own power. Al Qaeda, with its own survival on the line, is seeking to draw the Taliban toward its transnational agenda. Meanwhile, Pakistan wants to bring the Taliban to heel, primarily so it can own the negotiating process and consolidate its position as the dominant power in Afghanistan, much as Iran seeks to do in Iraq. Each player has different motivations, objectives and timetables.

Amidst all these tensions, the Taliban must expend intelligence efforts and resources to maintain cohesion, despite being an inherently local and decentralized phenomenon. As Mullah Omar’s code of conduct released in July 2009 demonstrates, “command” of the Taliban as an insurgent group is not as firm as it is in more rigid organizational hierarchies. The reconciliation efforts will certainly test the Taliban’s coherency.

If history is any judge, in the long run the Taliban will retain the upper hand. In Afghanistan, the United States is attempting to do something that has never been tried before — much less achieved — i.e., constitute a viable central government from scratch in the midst of a guerrilla war. But the Taliban must be concerned about the possibility that some aspects of the U.S. strategy may succeed. Central to the American effort will be Pakistan — and Islamabad is showing significant signs of wanting to work closer with Washington.

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Demystification of the Islamic Rule in India, Part III

21. April 2010 by admin.

Demystification of the Islamic Rule in India, Part III

In the second part of my presentation I gave on the numerous atrocities on the native Indians by the Muslim Warlords and iconoclasts. In the third part of the series of these articles I will be giving you a few more examples where Muslim Rulers prove what true Islam is all about. Far from being the religion of Peace Islam is the epitome of tyranny and oppression. This is proved by the action of Muslim rulers who act with hate in their hearts while implementing the Sharia and the Quran down to the letter and spirit. However I would like to remind you that History does not record all the misdeeds of Tyrants. I have merely been able to touch the tip of the iceberg in so far as Islamic tyranny is in India is concerned. We have to remember that Islamic rule bled the Indian subcontinent for a period of 700 years. Hence it is not possible for anyone to ascertain the actual damage caused by the Islamic invasions and the Islamic rule in India. All we can do here is merely guess the tremendous atrocities that native Indians must have faced during the times of the Islamic rule.

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Name of the Book: Nuh Siphir Name of the Historian: Amir Khusru About the Author: The above mentioned book is the fourth historical mathnavi which Amir Khusru wrote when he was 67 years old. It celebrates the reign of Sultan Mubarak Shah Khalji.The Muslim Rulers he wrote about:1. Sultan Mubarak Shah Khalji (AD 1315-1320)Warrangal (Andhra Pradesh)

“They pursued the enemy to the gates and set everything on fire. They burnt down all those gardens and groves. That paradise of idol-worshippers became like hell. The fire-worshippers of “Bud” were in alarm and flocked round their idols…”

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Name of the Book: Siyaru’l-Auliya Name of the Historian: Sayyed Muhammad bin Mubarak bin Muhammad About the Author: He was the grandson of an Iranian merchant who traded between Kirman in Iran and Lahore. The family traveled to Delhi after Shykh Farid’s death and became devoted to Shykh Nizamu’d-din Auliya.The Muslim Rulers he wrote about:1. Shykh Mu’in al-Din Chisti Ajmer (AD 1236)Ajmer (Rajasthan)”…Because of his Sword, instead of idols and temples in the land of unbelief now there are mosques, mihrab amd mimbar. In the land where there were the sayings of the idol-worshippers, there is the sound of ‘Allahu Akbar’…The descendants of those who were converted to Islam in this land will live until Day of Judgment; so too will those who bring others into the fold of Islam by the sword of Islam. Until the Day of Judgment these converts will be in debt of Shaykh al-Islam Mu’in al-din Hasam Sijzi…”

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Name of the Book: Masalik’ul Absar fi Mamalik’ul Amsar Name of the Historian: Shihabu’d-Din ‘Abu’l Abbas Ahmed bin YahyaAbout the Author: He was born in AD 1301. He was educated in Damascus and Cairo. He is considered to be a great man scholar of his time and author of many books. He occupied high positions in Syria and Egypt.The Muslim Rulers he wrote about:1. Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq (AD 1325-1351)

“The Sultan is not slack in Jihad. He never lets go of his spear or bridle in pursuing jihad by land and sea routes. This is his main occupation which engages his eyes and ears. Five temples have been destroyed and the images and idols of “Budd” have been broken, and the lands have been freed from those who were not included in the daru’l Islam that is, those who had refused to become dhimmis. Thereafter he got mosques and places of worship erected, and music replaced by call to prayers to Allah… The Sultan who is ruling at present has achieved that which had not been achieved so far by any king. He has achieved victory, supremacy, conquest of countries, destruction of the infidels, and exposure of magicians. He has destroyed idols by which the people of Hindustan were deceived in vain…”

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Name of the Book: Rehala of Ibn Battuta Name of the Historian: Shykh Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Ibrahim al-Lawatt at-Tanji al-Maruf be Ibn Battuta.About the Author: He belonged to an Arab family which was settled in Spain since AD 1312. His grandfather and father enjoyed the reputation of scholars and theologians. He himself was a great scholar who traveled extensively and over many lands. He came to India in 1325 and visited many places. He was very fond of sampling Hindu girls from different parts of India. They were presented to him by the Sultan Mohammed bin-Tughlaq with whom Ibn Battuta came in close contact. He also married Muslim women wherever he stayed and divorced them before his departure.His Travel description:Delhi

“Near the eastern gate of the mosque, lie two very big idols of copper connected together by stones. Every one who comes in and goes out of the mosque treads over them. On the site of this mosque was a Budhkhana that is an idol-house. After the conquest of Delhi, it was turned into a mosque…”

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Name of the Book: Tarikh-i-FiruzName of the Historian: Shams Siraj Alif About the Author: The author became a courtier of Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq and undertook to complete the aforementioned history of Barani who had stopped at the sixth year of Firuz Shah’s reign.The Muslim Rulers he wrote about:Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq (AD 1351-1388) Puri (Orissa)

“The Sultan left Banaras with the intention of pursuing the Rani of Jajnagar, who had fled to an island in the river…News was then brought that in the jangal were seven elephants, and one old shoe-elephant, which was very fierce. The Sultan resolved upon endeavoring to capture these elephants before continuing the pursuit of the Rai… After the hunt was over, the Sultan directed his attention to the Rai of Jajnagar, and entering the palace where he dwelt he found many fine buildings. It is reported that inside the Rai’s fort, there was a stone idol which the infidels called Jagannath, and to which they paid their devotions. Sultan Firoz, in emulation of Mahmud Subuktign, having rooted up the idol, carried it away to Delhi where he placed it in an ignominious position.”

Nagarkot Kangra (Himachal Pradesh)

“…Sultan Muhammad Shah bin Tughlaq and Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq were sovereigns especially chosen by Almighty from among the faithful, and in their whole course of their reigns, wherever they took an idol temple they broke and destroyed it..”

Delhi

“A report was brought to the Sultan that there was in Delhi an old Brahmin who persisted in publicly performing the worship of idols in his house; and that people of the city, both Musalmans and Hindus, used to resort to his house to worship the idol. The Brahmin had constructed a wooden tablet which was covered within and without with paintings of demons and other objects. An order was accordingly given that the Brahmin, with his tablet, should be brought into the presence of the Sultan at Firozabad. The judges and doctors and elders and lawyers were summoned, and the case of the Brahman was submitted for their opinion. Their reply was that the provisions of the Law were clear: the Brahmin must either become a Musalman or be burned. The true faith was declared to the Brahmin, and the right course pointed out, but he refused to accept it. Orders were given for raising a pile of faggots before the door of the durbar (court). The Brahmin was tied hand and foot and cast into it; the tablet was thrown on top and the pile was lighted. The writer of this book was present at the durbar and witnessed the execution. The tablet of the Brahmin was lighted in two places, at his head and at his feet; the wood was dry and the fire first reached his feet, and drew him a cry, but the flames quickly enveloped his head and consumed him. Behold the Sultan’s strict adherence to law and rectitude, how he would not deviate in the least from its decrees!”

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Here Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq glorifies his own criminal acts in Bharat as sanctioned by the “holy” Koran.Name of the Book: Futuhat-i-Firuz Shahi Name of the Historian: Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq About the Author: Sultan had got the eight chapters of his work inscribed on eight slabs of stone which were fixed on eight sides of the octagonal dome of a building near the Jami Masjid at Firuzabad.Prayers of Temple-destroyers in this Book

“The next matter which by God’s help I accomplished was the repetition of names and titles of former sovereigns which had been omitted from the prayers of Sabbaths and Feasts. The names of those sovereigns of Islam, under whose happy fortune and favor infidel countries had been conquered, whose banners had waved over many a land, under whom idol-temples had been demolished, and mosques and pulpits built and exalted…”

Delhi and Environs

“The Hindus and idol-worshippers had agreed to pay the money for toleration (zar-i zimmiya) and had consented to the poll-tax (jiziya) in return for which they and their families enjoyed security. These people now erected new idol-temples in the city and the environs in opposition to the law of the Prophet which declares that such temples are not to be tolerated. Under divine guidance I destroyed these edifices and I killed those leaders of infidelity who seduced others into error, and the lower orders I subjected to stripes and chastisement, until this abuse was entirely abolished. The following is an instance: In the village of Maluh, there is a tank which they call kund (tank). Here they had built idol-temples and on certain days the Hindus were accustomed to proceed thither on horseback and wearing arms. Their women and children also went out in palanquins and carts. Then they assembled in thousands and performed idol-worship….when intelligence of this came to my ears my religious feelings prompted me at once to put a stop to this scandal and offence to the religion of Islam. On the day of the assembly I went there in person and I ordered that the leaders of these people and the promoters of these abominations should be put to death. I destroyed their idol-temples and instead thereof raised mosques.”

Gohana (Haryana)

“Some Hindus had erected a new idol-temple in the village of Kohana and the idolaters used to assemble there and perform their idolatrous rites. These people were seized and brought before me. I ordered that the perverse conduct of the leaders of this wickedness should be publicly proclaimed, and that they should be put to death before the gate of the palace. I also ordered that the infidel books, the idols and the vessels used in their worship, which had been taken with idols, should all be publicly burnt. The others were restrained by threats and punishments, as a warning to all men, that no zimmi could follow such wicked practices in a Muslaman country.”

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Name of the Book: Tarikh-i-Mubarak ShahiName of the Historian: Yahya Ammad bin Abdullah SirhindiAbout the Author: The author lived in the reign of Sultan Muizu’d-Din Abu’l Fath Mubarak Shah (AD 1421-1434) of the Sayyid dynasty which ruled at Delhi from AD 1414-1451.The Muslim Rulers he wrote about:Sultan Shamsu’d-Din Iltutmish (AD 1210-1236) Vidisha and Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh)

“In AH 631 he invaded Malwa, and after suppressing the rebels of that place, he destroyed that idol-temple which had existed there for the past three hundred years. Next he turned towards Ujjain and conquered it, and after demolishing the idol-temple of Mahakal, he uprooted the statue of Bikramajit together with all other statues and images which were placed on pedestals, and brought them to the capital where they were laid before the Jami Masjid for being trodden under foot by the people.”

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Name of the Book: Tarikh-i-Muhammadi Name of the Historian: Muhammad Bihamad Khani About the Author: The author was the son of the governor of Irich in Bundelkhand. He was a soldier who participated in several wars. His history covers a long period - from Prophet Mohammed to AD 1438-39The Muslim Rulers he wrote about:Sultan Ghiyasu’d-Din Tughlaq Shah II (AD 1388-89)Kalpi (Uttar Pradesh)

“In the meanwhile Delhi received news of the defeat of the armies of Islam which were with Malikzada Mahmud bin Firuz Khan…This Malikzada reached the bank of the Yamuna via Shahpur and renamed Kalpi which was the abode and center of the infidels and the wicked, as Muhammadabad, after the name of Prophet Muhammed. He got mosques erected for the worship of Allah in places occupied by temples, and made that city his capital. “

Sultan Nasiru’d-Din Mahmud Shah Tughlaq (AD 1389-1412) Prayag and Kara (Uttar Pradesh)

“The Sultan moved with the armies of Islam towards Prayag and Arail with the aim of destroying the infidels, and he laid waste both those places. The vast crowd which had collected at Prayag for worshipping false gods was made captive. The inhabitants of Kara were freed from the mischief of rebels on account of this aid from King and the name of this king of Islam became famous by this reason.”

Another Moghul ruler by the name of Babur who was in love with a young boy named Baburi glorifies his lecherously Islamic deeds in the Babur-Nama.

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Name of the Book: Babur-NamaName of the Author: Zahiru’d-Din Muhammed BaburAbout the Author: The author of this book was the founder of Mughal dynasty in India who proclaimed himself a Padshah (Ruler) after his victory in the First Battle of Panipat (AD 1526), and a Ghazi (killer of kafirs) after the defeat of Rana Sanga in the Battle of Khanwa (AD 1528) While presenting himself as an indefatigable warrior and drug-addict he does not hide the cruelties he committed on the defeated people, particularly his fondness for building towers of the heads of those he captured as prisoners of war or killed in battle. He is very liberal in citing appropriate verses from the Quran on the eve of the battle with Rana Sanga. In order to ensure his victory, he makes a covenant with Allah by breaking the vessels containing wine as also the cups for drinking it, swearing at the same time that “he would break the idols of the idol-worshippers in a similar manner”. In the Fath-Nama (prayer for victory) composed for him by Shykh Zain, Allah is described as “destroyers of idols from their foundations” The language he uses for his Hindu adversaries is typically Islamic.Zahirud-Din Muhammed Babur Padshah Ghazi (AD 1526-1530)Chanderi (Madhya Pradesh)

“In AH 934 (AD 1528), I attacked Chanderi and, by the grace of Allah, captured it in a few hours. We got the infidels slaughtered and the place which had been a daru’l-harb for years was made into daru’l-Islam.”

Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh)

“Next day, at the time of the noon prayer, we went out for seeing those places in Gwalior which we had not seen yet. Going out of the Hathipole Gate of the fort, we arrived at a place called Urwa… Urwa is not a bad place it is an enclosed space. Its biggest blemish is its statues. I ordered that they should be destroyed…”

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Demystification of the Islamic Rule in India, Part II

21. April 2010 by admin.

Demystification of the Islamic Rule in India, Part II

In my previous article I showcased the gross intolerance of the Muslim rulers during the Islamic rule in India. There have been bigots belonging to almost all religions and cultures. However when every ruler belonging to a particular religion is bigot, maybe there is a problem with the religion than with the man himself.

 

Yes, Islam is intolerant as it is bigoted. There are hundreds of passages in the Quran and innumerable hadith in the Quran that prove this fact. It is these passages of the Quran that motivated these men to become (UN) Holy warriors of Allah. After all there is a reward for every act of injustice committed against the kafirs in the name of Allah. Isn’t this reason enough for a man to become an animal and commit acts which mankind and history can neither pardon nor ever forget. Let us move further in our search of more evidences from the annals of Islamic history

To see the injustices and suffering cast on the native Indians by the Muslims tyrants.

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Name of the Book: Diwan-i-Salman

Name of the Historian: Khawajah Masud bin Sa’d bin Salman

About the Author: Khawajah Masud bin Sa’d bin Salman was a poet. He wrote poems in praise of the Ghaznavid Sultans- Masu’d, Ibrahim and Bahram Shah. He died sometime between AD 1126 and 1131. The Muslim rulers he wrote about:

1. Sultan Abu’l Muzaffar Ibrahim (AD 1059-1099)

“As power and the strength of a lion was bestowed upon Ibrahim by the Almighty, he made over to him the well-populated country of Hindustan and gave him 40,000 valiant horsemen to take the country, in which there were more than 1000 rais.The army of the king destroyed at one time a thousand temples of idols, which had each been built for more than a thousand years. How can I describe the victories of the King…”

Jalandhar (Punjab)

“The narrative of any battles eclipses the stories of Rustam and Isfandiyar. By morning meal, not one soldier, not one Brahmin remained unslaughtered or uncaptured. Their heads were leveled with the ground with flaming fire. Thou have secured the victory to the country and to religion, for amongst the Hindus this achievement will be remembered till the day of resurrection.”

Malwa (Madhya Pradesh)

“…On this journey, the army detsroyed a thousand idol-temples and thy elephants trampled over more than a hundred strongholds. Thou didst march thy army to Ujjan; the lip of infidelity became dry through fear of thee, the eye of plural-worship became blind…”

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Name of the Book: Chach-Namah

Name of the Historian: Mohammed Al bin Hamid bin Abu Bakr Kufi

About the Author: The Persian history was translated from Arabic by the above mentioned author in the time of Nasiruddin Qabacha, a slave of Mohammed Ghori.

The Muslim rulers he wrote about:

1. Mohammed bin Qasim (AD 712-715)

Siwistan and Sisam (Sindh) Mohammed bin Qasem wrote to al-Hajjaj, the governor of Iraq:

“The forts of Siwistan and Sism have been already taken. The nephew of Dahir, his warriors and principal officers have been dispatched, and infidels converted to Islam or destroyed. Instead of idol temples, mosques and other places of worship have been built, pulpits have been erected, the Khutba is read, and the call to prayers is raised so that devotions are performed at sacred hours.”

Multan (Punjab)

…”Mohammed Qasem arose and with his counsellors, guards and attendants went to the temple. He saw there an idol made of gold. And its two eyes were bright red rubies. “..Muhammed Qasem ordered the idol to be taken up. Two hundred and thirty “mans” of gold were brought to the treasury together with the gems and pearls and treasures which were obtained from the plunder of Multan. “

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Name of the Book: Jamiu’l-Hikayat

Name of the Historian: Maulana Nuruddin Muhammed `Ufi

About the Author: The author was born in or near the city of Bukhara in Transoxiana. He came to India and lived in Delhi for some time in the reign of Shamsu’d-Din Iltutmish (AD 1210-1236).

The Muslim rulers he wrote about:

1. Amru bin Laith (AD 879-900)

Sakawand (Afghanistan)

“It is related that Amru Lais conferred the governorship of Zabulistan on Fardaghan and sent him there at the head of four thousand horses. There was a large Hindu place of worship in that country, which was called Sakawand and people, used to come on pilgrimage from the most remote parts of Hindustan to the idols of that place. When Fardaghan arrived in Zabulistan he led his army against it, took the temple, broke the idols in pieces and overthrew the idolaters…”

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Name of the Book: Taju’l-Ma’sir

Name of the Historian: Sadru’d-Din Muhammed Hasan Nizamii

About the author: The author was born at Nishapur in Khurasan. He had to leave his ancestral place because of the Mongol invasion. He came to India and started writing his history in AD 1205.

The Muslim rulers he wrote about:

1. Sultan Muhammed Ghuri (AD 1175-1206)

Ajmer (Rajasthan)

“He destroyed the pillars and foundations of the idol temples and built in their stead mosques and colleges, and the precepts of Islam, and the customs of the law were divulged and established…”

Kuhram and Samana (Punjab)

“The Government of the fort of Kohram and Samana were made over by the Sultan to Kutuu-din.He purged by his sword the land of Hind from the filth of infidelity and vice, and freed it from the thorn of God-plurality, and the impurity of idol-worship and by his royal vigour and intrepidity, left not one temple standing…”

Meerut (Uttar Pradesh)

“Kutub-d din marched from Kohran and when he arrived at Meerut which is one of the celebrated forts of the country of Hind, for the strength of its foundations and superstructure, and its ditch, which was as broad as the ocean and fathomless- an army joined him, sent by the dependent chiefs of the country. The fort was captured, and a Kotwal was appointed to take up his station in the fort, and all the idol temples were converted into mosques.”

Delhi

“He then marched and encamped under the fort of Delhi…The city and its vicinity was freed from idols and idol-worships, and in the sanctuaries of the images of the Gods, mosques were raised by the worshippers of one God. Kutub-d din built the Jami Masjid at Delhi and adorned it with stones and gold obtained from the temples which had been demolished by the elephants, and covered it with inscriptions in Toghra, containing the divine commands.”

Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh)

“From that place (Asni) the royal army proceeded towards Benares which is the center of the country of Hind and here they destroyed nearly 1000 temples, and raised mosques on their foundations and the knowledge of the law became promulgated, and the foundations of religion were established..”

Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh)

“There was a certain tribe in the neighbourhood of Kol which had occasioned much trouble. Three bastions were raised as high as heaven with their heads, and their carcasses became the food of beasts of prey. That tract was freed from idols and idol-worship and the foundation of infidelity were destroyed”.

Bayana (Rajasthan)

“When Kutub-d din heard of Sultan’s march from Ghazna, he was much rejoiced and advanced as far as Hansi (a place in Rajasthan) to meet him. In the year AH 592 (AD 1196), they marched towards Thangar, and the center of idolatry and perdition became the abode of glory and splendour…”

Kalinjar (Uttar Pradesh)

“In the year AH 599 (Ad 1202), Kutub-d din proceeded to the investment Kalinjar, on which expedition he was accompanied by the Sahib-Kiran, Shamsu-d din Altmash… The temples were converted into mosques and abodes of goodness, and the ejaculations of bead counters and voices of summoners to prayer ascended to high heaven, and the very name of idolatry was annihilated.”

2. Sultan Shamsu’d-Din Iltutmish (AD 1210-1236)

Delhi

“The Sultan then returned from Jalor to Delhi. And after his arrival ‘not a vestige or name remained of idol temples which had raised their heads on high; and the light of faith shone out from the darkness of infidelity. And the moon of religion and the state became resplendent from the heaven of prosperity and glory.”

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Name of the Book: Kamilu’t-Tawarikh

Name of the Historian: Ibn Asir

About the author: The author was born in AD 1160 in the Jazirat ibn Umar, an island on the Tigris above Mosul.

The Muslim rulers he wrote about:

1. Khalifa Al-Mahdi (AD 775-785)

Barada (Gujrat)

“In the year 159 (AD 776) Al Mahdi sent an army by sea under Abdul Malik bin Shahabu’l Musamma’i to India. They proceeded on their way and at length disembarked at Barada (Baroda/Vadodra). When they reached the place they laid siege on it. The town was reduced to extremities and God prevailed over it in the same year. The people were forbidden to worship the Budd (idol), which the Muhammadans burned.”

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Name of the Book: Tarikh-i-Jahan-Kusha

Name Of The Historian: Alaud-Din Malik ibn Bahaud-Din Muhammed Juwaini

About the author: The author was born a native of Juwain in Khurasan near Nishapur. He was the Halaku during the Mongol campaign against the Ismai’lians and was later appointed the governor of Baghdad. He fell from grace and was imprisoned at Hamadan.

The Muslim rulers he wrote about:

1. Sultan Jalalud-Din Mankbarni (AD 1222-1231)

Debal (Sindh)

“The Sultan then went towards Dewal and darbela and Jaisi. The Sultan raised Masjid at Dewal, on the spot where an idol temple stood.”

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Name of the Book: Mifathu’l-Futuh

Name of the Historian: Amir Khusru

About the author: The author, Amir Khusru, was born in Delhi in 1253. His father occupied high positions in the reigns of Sultan Shamsu’d Din Iltutmish (AD 1210-1236) and his successors. Reputed to be the dearest disciple of Sheikh Nizamuddin Auliya, he became the lick-spittle of whoever came out victorious in the contest for the throne at Delhi. He became the court poet of Balban’s successor, Sultan Kaiqbad. He is regarded as a secular Sufi Saint by the general population in India. The curriculum history books in India describe him as a man of love and peace.

Muslim rulers he wrote about:

1. Sultan Jajalu’d-Din Khalji (AD 1290-1296)

Jhain (Rajasthan)

“The Sultan reached Jhain in the afternoon of the third day and stayed in the palace of the Raya he greatly enjoyed his stay for some time. Coming out, ho took a round of gardens and temples. The idols he saw amazed him… Next day he got those idols of gold smashed with stones. The pillars of wood were burnt down by his order… A cry rose from the temples as if a second Mahmud has taken birth. Two idols were made of brass, one of which weighed nearly thousand “mans” (a measure of weight).He got both of them broken, and the pieces were distributed among his people so that they may throw them at the door of Masjid on their return to Delhi.”

1. Sultan Alaud-Din Khilji (AD 1296-1316)

Vidisha (Madhya Pradesh)

“When he advanced from the capital of Karra, the Hindus, in alarm, descended into the earth like ants. He departed towards the garden of Behar to dye that soil with blood as red as tulip. He cleared the road to Ujjain of vile wretches, and created consternation in Bhilsan. When he affected his conquests in that country, hew drew out of the river the idols which had been concealed in it.

Devagiri (Maharshtra)

“But see the mercy with which he regarded the broken-hearted, for, after seizing the rai (kingdom), he set him free again. He destroyed the temples of the idolaters, and erected pulpits and arches for mosques. “

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What you have read above are not merely quotations from books written by people in the distant past. They are in fact real life events which must have devastated millions of native Indians. That was the time when Muslims were a powerful force, so in their arrogance they left their misdeeds recorded by their own writers. However we must not forget that life comes around full circle. With Islam spreading its tentacles around the world, who knows history might just be repeated on a much larger scale. Who knows, just maybe!

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Demystification of the Islamic Rule in India, Part I

21. April 2010 by admin.

Demystification of the Islamic Rule in India, Part I

by Ibrahim Lone

 

A lot has been said about the peace and prosperity that was abound in India during the Islamic Rule. Even British historians in their zeal to win over Muslims as their allies distorted the true history of the Indian subcontinent under Muslim rule. Apparently most Islamic nations including the breakaway nations of Pakistan and Bangladesh report a distorted version of Indian history under the Muslim rule. In this fabricated version of Islamic History India every attempt has been made by Muslim to portray Muslim rulers as great Secularist, which is an oxymoron in itself, compared to the native Indian kings who are portrayed as Cowards and incestuous rulers.

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Wole Soyinka, African Nobel Laureate, while delivering the 20th Nehru Memorial Lecture on November 13, 1988, made an important, though by no means a new, observation that the colonial histories have been written from the European viewpoint. Speaking about Indian histories, he said that there is a big question mark on everything that the British historians have written. He added that serious efforts are being made by historians back home to rewrite African history. Perhaps the time has come to rewrite the true Indian history but by historians of the subcontinent. Thanks to the attitude of Indian politicians and leftist historians, who dominate the scene, no effort has been made to unearth the true history is Islamic rule. Even the mere mention of the excess committed by Muslims on the natives is considered as non-Kosher. However thanks to Internet Forums such as FFI and Islam-Watch, the truth can finally be told and it is the truth that will eventually set us free. The barbarities of Muslim rulers cover no bounds. The Islamic rule in India covers large number of topics and a span of almost 700 years. It is not possible to cover all of these in one article. I will, therefore, break up my presentation into a series of articles which will cover various topics.It is common knowledge that, if you want to break a people, all you have to do is to attack their belief system. This was precisely the objective of Muslim rulers who came to India. The best way to undermine the Hindus and Buddhists in their own country was to destroy their Temples and Viharas and this is exactly what the Muslim rulers did.There are several books in which the Muslim scholars of yore have recorded the barbarism of the Muslim rulers; they devoted scrolls of paper to prove the destruction of the native Indian psyche. Of course, the Muslim theologians of today don’t put these treatises on display for they might just demolish the beautiful picture of Islam they paint in front of the world. So I will not give any arguments of my own, rather I will let the history written by the Muslim scholars themselves do the talking.The literary evidence stated below is in chronological order with reference to the time at which a particular work was written. Below I have listed the sources of my information, the authors of the treatises and the exact quotes from their books._____________________________________________________________________________Name Of The Book: Hindustan Islami Ahad mein (India under Islamic Rule)Name Of The Historian: Maulana Abdul Hai.About The Author: He is a highly respected scholar and taken as an authority on Islamic history. Because ofhis scholarship and his services to Islam, Maulana Abdul Hai was appointed as the Rector of the DarulNadwa Ullum Nadwatal-Ulama. He continued in that post till his death in February 1923.The following section is taken from the chapter Hindustan ki Masjidein (The mosques of India) of the above-mentioned book. Here we can see a brief description of a few important mosques in India and how each one of them was built upon plundered Hindu temples.1. Qawwat al-Islam Mosque at Delhi:

“According to my findings the first mosque of Delhi is Qubbat al-Islam or Quwwat al_Islam which, Qutubud-Din Aibak constructed in H. 587 after demolishing the hindu temple built by Prithvi Raj and leaving certain parts of the temple outside the mosque proper; and when he returned from Ghazni in H. 592 he started building, under orders from Shihabud -Din Ghori, a huge mosque of inimitable red stones, and certain parts of the temple were included in the mosque…”

2. The Mosque at Jaunpur:

“This was built by Sultan Ibrahim Sharqi with chiseled stones. Originally it was a Hindu temple after demolishing which he constructed the mosque. It is known as the Atala Masjid..”

3. The Mosque at Qanauj:

“It is well known that this mosque was built on the foundations of some Hindu temple that stood here. The mosque was built by Ibrahim Sharqi in H. 809 as is recorded in Gharbat Nigar”

4. Jami Masjid at Etwah:

“This mosque stands on the bank of the Jamuna at Etawah. There was a Hindu temple at this place, on the site of which this mosque was constructed..”

5. Babri Masjid at Ayodhya:

“This mosque was constructed by Babar at Ayodhya which Hindus call the birth place of Ramchandraji…Sita had a temple here in which she lived and cooked for her husband. On that very site Babar constructed this mosque in H. 963 “

6. Mosque at Benaras:

“Mosque of Benares was built by Alamgir Aurangzeb on the site of Bisheshwar Temple. That temple was very tall and held as holy among Hindus. On this very site and with those very stones he constructed a lofty mosque, and its ancient stones were rearranged after being embedded in the walls of the mosque. It is one of the renowned mosques of Hindustan.”

7. Mosque at Mathura:

“Alamgir Aurangzeb built a mosque at Mathura. This mosque was built on site of the Govind Dev Temple which was very strong and beautiful as well as exquisite..”

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Name Of The Book: Futuhu’l-BuldanName Of The Historian: Ahmed bin Yahya bin JabirAbout The Author: This author is also known as al- Biladhuri. He lived at the court of Khalifa Al- Mutawakkal (AD 847-861) and died in AD 893. His history is one of the major Arab chronicles.The Muslim Rulers He Wrote About:1. Ibn Samurah (AD 653) Siestan (Iran)

“On reaching Dawar, he surrounded the enemy in the mountain of Zur, where there was a famous Hindu temple. …Their idol of Zur was of gold, and its eyes were two rubies. The zealous Musalmans cut off its hands and plucked out its eyes, and then remarked to the Marzaban how powerless was his idol…”

2. Qutaibah bin Muslim al-Bahili (r. 705-715) Samarkand (Farghana)

“Other authorities say that Kutaibah granted peace for 700,000 dirhams and entertainment for the Moslems for three days. The terms of surrender included also the houses of the idols and the fire temples. The idols were thrown out, plundered of their ornaments and burned…”

3. Mohammed bin Qasim (r. 712-715) Debal (Sindh)

“…The town was thus taken by assault, and the carnage endured for three days. The governor of the town, appointed by Dahir, fled and the priests of the temple were massacred. Muhammad marked a place for the Musalmans to dwell in, built a mosque, and left 4,000 Musalmans to garrison the place…”"…’Ambissa son of Ishak Az Zabbi, the governor of Sindh, in the Khilafat of Mu’tasim billah knocked down the upper part of the minaret of the temple and converted it into a prison…”Multan (Punjab)”…He then crossed the Biyas, and went towards Multan…Muhammad destroyed the water-course; upon which the inhabitants, oppressed with thirst, surrendered at discretion. He massacred the men capable of bearing arms, but the children were taken captive, as well as ministers of the temple, to the number of 6,000. The Musalmans found there much gold in a chamber ten cubits long by eight broad…”

4. Hasham bin ‘Amru al-Taghlab Khandahar (Maharashtra)

“He then went to Khandahar in boats and conquered it. He destroyed the Budd (idol) there, and built in its place a mosque.”

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Name Of The Book: Tarikh-i-TabariName Of The Historian: Abu Ja’far Muhammad bin Jarir at-TabariAbout The Author: This author is considered to be the foremost historian of Islam. The above mentioned book written by him is regarded as the mother of histories.The Muslim Rulers He Wrote About:1. Qutaibah bin Muslim al-Bahili (AD 705-715) Beykund (Khurasan)

“The ultimate capture of Beykund (in AD 706) rewarded him with an incalculable booty; even more than had hitherto fallen into the hands of the Mohammedans by the conquest of the entire province of Khorassaun; and the unfortunate merchants of the town, having been absent on a trading excursion while their countrywas assailed by the enemy, and finding their habitations desolate on their return contributed further to enrich the invaders, by the ransom which they paid for the recovery of their wives and children. The ornaments alone, of which these women had been plundered, being melted down, produce, in gold, 150,000 meskals; of a dram and a half each. Among the articles of the booty, is also described an image of gold, of 50,000 meskals, of which the eyes were two pearls, the exquisite beauty and magnitude of which excited the surprise and admiration of Kateibah. They were transmitted by him, with a fifth of the spoil to Hejauje, together with a request that he might be permitted to distribute, to the troops, the arms which had been found in the palace in great profusion.”Samarkand (Farghan “A breach was, however, at last effected in the walls of the city in AD 712 by the warlike machines ofKateibah; and some of the most daring of its defenders having fallen by the skill of his archers, the besieged demanded a cessation of arms to the following day, when they promised to capitulate. The request was acceded to the Kateibah; and a treaty was the next day accordingly concluded between him and the prince of Samarkand, by which the latter engaged for the annual payment of ten million of dhirems, and a supply of three thousand slaves; of whom it was particularly stipulated, that none should either be in a state of infancy, or ineffective from old age and debility. He further contracted that the ministers of his religion should be expelled from their temples and their idols destroyed and burnt; that Kateibah should be allowed to establish a mosque in the place of the principal temple….”"…Kateibah accordingly set set fire to the whole collection with his own hands; it was soon consumed to ashes, and 50,000 meskals of gold and silver, collected from the nails which had been used in the workmanship of the images.”

2. Yaqub bin Laith (r. 870-871 Balkh and Kabul (Afghanistan)

“He took Bamian, which he probably reached by way of Herat, and then marched on Balkh where he ruined (the temple) Naushad. On his way back from Balkh he attacked Kabul…”"Starting from Panjhir, the place he is known to have visited, he must have passed through the capital city of the Hindu Sahis to rob the sacred temple — the reputed place of coronation of the Sahi rulers — of its sculptural wealth…”"The exact details of the spoil collected from Kabul valley are lacking. The Tarikh [-i-Sistan] records 50 idols of gold and silver and Mas’udi mentions elephants. The wonder excited in Baghdad by Baghdad by elephants and pagan idols forwarded to the Caliph by Ya’qub also speaks for their high value.”

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Name Of The Book: Tarikhu’l-HindName Of The Historian: Abu Rihan Muhammad bin Ahmad al-Biruni al-Khwarizmi.About The Author: This author spent 40 years in India during the reign of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni (r. 997-1030). His history treats of the literature and learning of the Hindus at the commencement of the 11th century.The Muslim Rulers He Wrote About:1. Jalam ibn Shaiban (9th century) Multan (Punjab)

“A famous idol of theirs was that of Multan, dedicated to the sun, and therefore called Aditya. It was of wood and covered with red Cordovan leather; in its two eyes were two red rubies. It is said to have been made in the last Kritayuga …..When Muhammad Ibn Alkasim Ibn Almunaibh conquered Multan, he inquired how the town had become so very flourishing and so many treasures had there been accumulated, and then he found out that this idol was the cause, for there came pilgrims from all sides to visit it. Therefore he thought it best to have the idol where it was, but he hung a piece of cow’s flesh on its neck by way of mockery. On the same place a mosque was built. When the Karmatians occupied Multan, Jalam Ibn Shaiban, the usurper, broke the idol into pieces and killed its priests…”

2. Sultan Mahmud of Gazni (AD 997-103 Thanesar (Haryana)

“The city of Taneshar is highly venerated by Hindus. The idol of that place is called Cakrasvamin, i.e. the owner of the cakra, a weapon which we have already described. It is of bronze, and is nearly the size of a man. It is now lying in the hippodrome in Ghazna, together with the Lord of Somnath, which is a representation of the penis of the Mahadeva, called Linga.”

3. Somnath (Gujrat)

“The linga he raised was the stone of Somnath, for soma means the moon and natan means master, so that the whole word means master of the moon. The image was destroyed by the Prince Mahmud, may God be merciful to him! –AH 416. He ordered the upper part to be broken and the remainder to be transported to his residence, Ghaznin, with all its coverings and trappings of gold, jewels, and embroidered garments. Part of it has been thrown into the hippodrome of the town, together with Cakrasvamin , an idol of bronze, that had been brought from Taneshar. Another part of the idol from Somnath lies before the door of the mosque of Ghaznin, on which people rub their feet to clean them from dirt and wet.”

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Name Of The Book: Kitabu’l-YaminiName Of The Historian: Abu Nasr Muhammad ibn Muhammad al Jabbaru’l-Utbi.About The Author: This author’s work comprises the whole of the reign of Subuktigin and that of Sultan Mahmud down to the year AD 1020.The Muslim Rulers He Wrote About:1. Amir Sbuktigin of Ghazni Lamghan (Afghanistan)

“The Amir marched out towards Lamghan, which is a city celebrated for its great strength and abounding wealth. He conquered it and set fire to the places in its vicinity which were inhabited by infidels, and demolishing idol temples, he established Islam in them. He marched and captured other cities and killed the polluted wretches, destroying the idolaters and gratifying the Musulmans.”

2. Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni (AD 997-1030) Narain (Rajasthan)

“The Sultan again resolved on an expedition to Hind, and marched towards Narain, urging his horses and moving over ground, hard and soft, until he came to the middle of Hind, where he reduced chiefs, who, up to that time obeyed no master, overturned their idols, put to the sword the vagabonds of that country, and with delay and circumspection proceeded to accomplish his design…”

3. Nardin (Punjab)

“After the Sultan had purified Hind from idolatry, and raised mosques therein, he determined to invade the capital of Hind to punish those who kept idols and would not acknowledge the unity of God…He marched with a large army in the year AH 404 (AD 1013) during a dark night…”"A stone was found there in the temple of the great Budda on which an inscription was written purporting that the temple had been founded 50,000 years ago. The Sultan was surprised at the ignorance of these people, because those who believe in the true faith represent that only seven hundred years have elapsed since the creation of the world, and the signs of resurrection are even now approaching .The Sultan asked his wise men the meaning of this inscription and they all concurred in saying that it was false, and no faith was to be put in the evidence of a stone.”

4. Thanesar (Haryana)

“The chief of Tanesar was…obstinate in his infidelity and denial of God. So the Sultan marched against him with his valiant warriors, for the purpose of planting the standards of Islam and extirpating idolatry..”"The blood of the infidels flowed so copiously, that the stream was discolored, not withstanding its purity, and people were unable to drink it…The victory gained by God’s grace, who has established Islam for ever as the best religions, notwithstanding that idolaters revolt against it…Praise be to God, the protector of the world, for the honor he bestows upon Islam and Musulmans.”

5. Mathura (Uttar Pradesh)

“The Sultan then departed from the environs of the city, in which was a temple of the Hindus. The name of this place was Mahartul Hind… On both sides of the city there were a thousand houses, to which idol temples were attached, all strengthened from top to bottom by rivets of iron, and all made of masonry work…”"In the middle of the city there was a temple larger and firmer than the rest, which can neither be described nor painted. The Sultan thus wrote respecting it: –’If any should wish to construct a building equal to this, he would not be able to do it without expending an 100,000,000 red dinars, and it would occupy 200 years even though the most experience and able workmen were employed’… The Sultan gave orders that all temples should be burnt with naptha and fire, and leveled with the ground.”

6. Kanauj (Uttar Pradesh)

“In Kanauj there were nearly 10,000 temples, which the idolaters falsely and absurdly represented to have been founded by their ancestors two or three hundred thousand years ago…Many of the inhabitants of the place fled and were scattered abroad like so many wretched widows and orphans, from the fear which oppressed them, in consequence of witnessing the fate of their deaf and dumb idols. Many of them thus affected their escape, and those who did not fly were put to death.”

I rest my case here and allow the readers to judge the facts for themselves.

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