GHYSLAINE ROC'S REPLY TO MARK ZUCKERBERG & CO FOR STEALING HER PRIVATE PROPERTY ON FACEBOOK (ZIOBOOK)
WHO GAVE JEW MARK ZUCKERBERG AND
HIS TEAM THE RIGHT TO OWN PRIVATE PROPERTY POSTED ON FACEBOOK AND BLOCK
MY ACCOUNT IN THE NAME OF AN UNLAWFUL AGREEMENT WHEN THE NETWORK STARTED AS A SOCIAL ONE - AFTER ALLOWING HER TO POST AS GHYSLAINE ROC FOR NEARLY 8 YEARS?
FACEBOOK RESPONDED TO "BMSD"'S COMPLAINT AS QUICK AS LIGHTNING (WITHIN SECONDS!) BY COMPLETELY BLOCKING MY ACCOUNT?
WHY DID THE BOGUS "BRITISH MUSLIMS FOR SECULAR DEMOCRACY" (BMSD) NOT REPLY TO ME PERSONALLY WHEN I SENT THEM A PRIVATE MESSAGE AND HAD ALSO AN EMAIL SENT TO THEM?
Anarchist Ep. 261 Ken O'Keefe: Become a World Citizen and Starve the State!
WAS
IT A CRIME TO USE A PEN NAME ON FACEBOOK WHEN THAT NAME IS KNOWN TO ALL
WESTERN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES, THE MONITORING JEWS, MOSSAD, AND SO ON?
IS IT A CRIME TO SUSPECT THE "BMSD" TO BE A COVER FOR BRITISH "ISIS" (ISRAELI SECRET INTELLIGENCE SERVICE) IN GERMINATION?
Not Facebook… Ziobook
Ziobook - Hazardous to the Truth
A message to the ZioNazi’s at ZioBook.
This is for all the good people posting the truth and getting
their accounts deleted, for that Ziobook, go f... yourself. For
all the ZioTrolls coddled and sheltered in their Ziobook home, how
about, go f... yourself. A person should use Ziobook only as
required, then treat it like the soiled condom of the most obnoxious
guest imaginable. TJP
Facebook has not received sufficient
flak for its policy of deleting accounts and posts of people who are
critical of the NWO and the genocidal, despicable, stolen state of
“Israel.”
While the jewish mob-owned “media” is
free to spread lies every hour or every day, people who try to expose
and counter the lies on social media face tall or insurmountable
obstacles.
This blogger has had at least 10 whole
Facebook accounts deleted without warning, loosing thousands of readers
and thousands of posts of my writings. They also delete almost any post
that they can find which exposes the truth about the jewish gangsters in
charge of the NWO and the seat of its slated one-world-government,
Israel.
The policy basically states that one
cannot criticize “identifiable groups,” yet there is only one of these
groups that receives protection: “God’s chosen people” aka “the jews,” a
group of people who believes that God gave them this planet and
everything on it, including you, as their “inheritance.” There is no
ambiguity about this in any jewish religious writings.
Jewish religious thinkers are indeed
extremely critical and in fact downright hateful of an “identifiable”
group: non-jews. Yet there is no censorship for jews. Only for
researchers who have discovered facts which cast a harsh but accurate
light on the nature of what the world is up against.
People are free to spread Islamophobia,
Christophobia, racism of all kinds, and ridiculous hasbara, but the
moment the truth about jewish supremacism is told, Big Brother shows up
to throw you into solitary confinement for 30 days, if they don’t just
choose the nuclear option to delete the account on the spot.
For whatever reason, Facebook has been
the place where I have been able to reach the most people, but again and
again, my accounts and my work have been terminated and deleted
relentlessly. Often just hours after one 30-day block is completed, a
new one will be issued. And this is done routinely, to thousands of
anti-NWO activists.
This is Big Jewry’s way of trying to
stop the flood of comments from people who have seen what has been
happening and who are utterly fed-up and are trying to spread awareness
of truth. Sort of like the proverbial little Dutch boy that tries to
plug a hole in the dam using his finger…
Here is a very incomplete list of the
kind of posts I have written that have been removed by Facebook because
in effect they are sledgehammers to the structural base of the NWO:
Once this kind of information is
sufficiently spread, a critical mass will be reached and there will be
too much awareness for the NWO to be able to continue, so please keep
publicly professing the truth.
Share this:
Paris -Reaction - SOLUTIONS! with Max Igan & Christopher Everard
SEE FULL SUPPORTING ARTICLE, LINKS & VIDEOS HERE.... http://kevbakershow.com/paris-reactio... To help support KBS please subscribe to Truth Frequency Radio via my archive page here.... http://truthfrequencyradio.com/kevbaker/ Visit my site... http://kevbakershow.com/ Tune into The Kev Baker Show, Monday to Thursday on www.truthfrequencyradio.com/listen-live Join the facebook @ www.facebook.com/truthtube451Kev Baker Show Kev
Baker has been on the front lines since 2009. Hailing from Glasgow,
Scotland, Kev was recently featured in VICE magazine as a front-line
consultant and expert on activist groups in the United Kingdom. You can
listen to Kev Baker on AM/FM in Colorado, Oregan, California, Sydney and
London or tune into any of the TFR internet streams or listening
options. Kev Baker has set his mark as a professional broadcaster
by featuring cutting edge analysis, current events and breaking news.
However he does not stop there! Together with his co-hostJohnny
Whistles, Kev is joined by a great panel of expert researchers and
whistleblowers in the field of space technology, metaphysics, human
origins, black operations and international terrorism. Seeking
the answers to age old questions and dechipering the world around you
painted by the mainstream media.. this is the Kev Baker Show! And remember... WHEREVER YOU ARE .... MAKE IT T.F.R. Show Archives -- www.truthfrequencyradio.com/kevbaker FACEBOOK -- www.facebook.com/truthtube451 Twitter www.twitter.com/TruthTube451 Youtube www.youtube.com/truthtube451 DJsNorthWest youtube http://www.youtube.com/user/DJsNorthWest Join my facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/Truthtube451
Les
terroristes vous tuent directement, les Charlie vous dénient
l'existence, à travers des mécanismes pervers, qui vous portent au
suicide ou au suicide collectif (acte terroriste), ou à la non
existence, qui des deux est le terroriste et qui des deux terrorisent
votre vie.
WHO GAVE JEWS THE RIGHT TO OWN PALESTINE (NOW IRAQ AND OTHER LANDS) AND MASS MURDER ITS INHABITANTS?
Nation of Islam Research Group Sends
Love, Honor, Respect to Our Supporters who fought back against
Facebook’s politically motivated attack! Social Media has become the
Voice of Truth among the people, and we have been honored to serve our
people, by Allah’s grace and permission, under the divine guidance and
direction of The Honorable Minister Louis FARRAKHAN. He has taught us to
be bold and uncompromising in the cause of TRUTH and to fight our
enemies with intelligence and truth.
The MIGHTY, MIGHTY Farrakhan Twitter
Army, under the masterly direction of Bro. Jesse Muhammad, put
full-force pressure on Facebook. The MANY friends of NOIRG stood strong
to force Facebook to release our page, like Bro. Ridgely Mu’min
Muhammad, Bro. Joe DeAngelo, Bro. Ilia Rashad Muhammad, Bro. Demetric
Muhammad, just to name a few of the many who showed support. Make no mistake about it, the Saviours’
Day 2017 program in Detroit, which exposed the REAL perpetrators of
9/11 and false-flag terrorism, SHOOK THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN to its very
core. ISRAEL & THE WAR ON ISLAM [https://www.noi.org/911revisited/]
was attended by 4,000 in Cobo Hall and many more via live-stream. It
was the largest event in the 9/11 Truth Movement EVER. It presented
IRREFUTABLE evidence that Israel is the perpetrator of 9/11—not
MUSLIMS—and that FACT MUST be exposed. Facebook’s locking the NOI
Research Group page is a DIRECT reaction to that damning expose’. WE THANK ALLAH FOR YOU, Brothers & Sisters, FOR YOUR STRENGTH, LOVE, and SUPPORT!
KalacHebdo : Je ne suis pas Charlie (Version non censurée)
Entretien
avec Omar Djellil qui revient sur les raisons de son rejet de la
campagne anti "je-ne-suis-pas-Charlie" orchestrée par la junte
dirigeante française... Nouvelle vidéo après la censure de sa première
vidéo...
Omar
Djellil revient sur l'interpellation de Dieudonné, sur la vaste
offensive contre les Cyber-citoyens et sur la traque par la caste
dirigeante des partisans du mouvement "Je ne suis pas Charlie !"...
Lasha Darkmoon (b.1978), is an anglo-American academic with higher degrees in Classics who lives and works in England.
Because of her radical political ideas in regard to 9-11 and the
role played by organized Jewry in international affairs—ideas that would
alienate her friends and family and make them ostracize her—she is
forced to conceal her true identity at the present time under a pen
name.
The need for the strictest anonymity makes it impossible for Lasha
Darkmoon to reveal her home address or telephone number to anyone; nor
to accept the numerous invitations she has received to appear on
people’s radio programs, to give talks and interviews, or to enter into
audiovisual communication with anyone. She remains a strictly reclusive
and private person whose only contact with strangers, for the
foreseeable future, must be through the written word.
Some of Lasha Darkmoon articles, widely published over the internet, have been translated into several languages—especially Sex and the Jews, Sex Plague, and The Plot against Art (10 languages).
Indian mysticism remains Lasha Darkmoon’s chief influence. Though
echoes of her favorite poets—Blake, Keats, Baudelaire, Yeats, and TS
Eliot—may sometimes be heard in her verse, Darkmoon’s work is marked
above all by a lush exoticism and otherworldliness.
Here are a few Lasha Darkmoon poems recited on YouTube and elsewhere
by talented performance artist Patrick Willis. The first of these, In
Memory of Rachel Corrie, was banned from YouTube after angry protests by
Jewish supremacists. Fortunately, a copy was made.
When I first published, AND I SUPPOSE WE DIDN'T GO TO THE MOON, EITHER?
(2015), I anticipated that it would be controversial. After all, it
exposes and debunks the moon landing theory (because we didn't go to the
moon); reveals that the musician who currently goes by the name, "Paul
McCartney", is not the original Beatle; explains that Saddam Hussein was
taken out by a B-1 bomber on 7 April 2003 (and was not found in a
spider-hole, tried and hung); that Osama bin Laden died on 15 December
2001 (and did not die in a raid on a compound in Pakistan in 2011); and
that a widely-accepted narrative about the end of World War II (which
claims 6,000,000 Jews died in gas chambers using Zyklon B) cannot be
sustained.
Windows on the World: Revising History Part 2: Saddam, Osama, Holocaust
So it was
gratifying not to be pummeled by attacks from partisans of the
Holocaust, much less moon landing lovers or fans of the Bush/Cheney
sponsored stories about Saddam and Obama's taking out Osama, which were
both political stunts of great importance to advancing the political
agendas of those administrations, respectively. And when a few odd
reviews popped up, I was really not overly surprised, because after 25
reviews, the book has a rating of 4.5 stars, which sound about right:
So it was
not really a surprise when "Dark Shadow" cast his disdain upon the book,
in a review that was remarkable for presenting the very positions that
are refuted and debunked by the book, which I took as a sure sign that
he had never read it. In good faith, therefore, I posted a reply, which
is a common practice on amazon.com. Imagine my astonishment when my rebuttal disappeared--was removed!--by amazon.com. So I posted it again and then again: three times in a row it was deleted!
Click on the
image if you have trouble reading it and it will expand. I thought this
was so very odd that I tried another tac and posted a single sentence
or two, explaining, "This review is completely absurd because it asserts
the very positions that are refuted in the book, which the author
obviously has never read". I thought surely that would be acceptable to
amazon.com; but no, once again. I have reposted this short review several times and each time, it too has disappeared. This is unbelievable:
This person
has obviously never read the book. This person is a racist who promotes
falsehoods to protect the image of Israel, which has benefitted
immensely from playing upon the Western sense of guilt for an event that
provably cannot have happened. 6,000,000 Jews were not put to death in
gas chambers using Zykon B.
It is
embarrassing when shills post, but I have come to expect it. We have 236
references to 6,000,000 Jews in dire straits or fear of loss of their
lives beginning in 1890, as the book explains. The number seems to
derive from a disputed passage in Leviticus, which has been interpreted
as meaning that "the chosen people" can return to "the promised land"
only when they are minus 6,000,000 "consumed in the flames".
But that
requires interpolation, since there was no sign in Hebrew for 6,000,000.
And the claim has no historical or empirical support. The International
Committee of the Red Cross visited all the camps and kept meticulous
records, which were revised in 1993 and supported the conclusion that
296,081 persons had died from all causes. More Catholics than Jews died
at Auschwitz.
The author's
ignorance is so vast that he has no idea that Zyklon B, as a form of
cyanide, would turn bodies pink; and its interaction with the walls of
chambers would turn them blue. But there are no reports of pink bodies
and the only walls that turned blue were those used for delousing, which
was being done to combat disease and keep inmates in good health. As
the book explains, these were labor camps and you can't get work out of a
corpse.
On Sandy
Hook, the theory he ascribes was long since abandoned on the basis of
new evidence and alternative hypotheses. No one died at Sandy Hook or at
the Boston bombing. Anyone who wants to know how we know can find "The Real Deal special Sandy Hook Update" and "The Real Deal special Boston bombing Update"
on YouTube. We know much more now, but you are not going to learn
anything from those who are here to disseminate disinformation of which
he is a stellar instance.
There are
plenty of phonies and frauds, but all 13 of the contributors to this
book are committed to truth with respect to the issues addressed here.
We are in the process of editing books on Sandy Hook and the Boston
bombing as well as another on 9/11. Anyone who wants an intro to 9/11
might want to visit the web site of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, which I
founded in late 2005, at 911scholars.org.
I added the
links to the "Sandy Hook" and "Boston bombing" updates here. In the
original, I used the word "racist" to bring home that deflecting
criticism of the Holocaust narrative is a form ofracism, where in
another version, I replaced that word with "Zionism". I had already
learned that Wikipedia is a Zionist operation, where they gutted my
entry after I participated in a conference on "Academic Freedom: Are there limits to inquiry? JFK, 9/11 and the Holocaust". But I am simply appalled at the growing indictions that even amazon.com is under the Zionist spell. Unreal!
Windows on the World: Revising History Part 1 Moon and McCartney
Dr Kalim Siddiqui (RA) Former Director of The Muslim Institute
Dr Kalim Siddiqui former leader of Majlis al-Shura fi Britanya (Muslim Parliament)
INTRODUCTION
This manifesto is the outcome of a process of consultation, writing and revision over several months. It is now being offered for wider debate in the Muslim community. We hope that a number of regional consultation conferences will be held all over the country in the next few months. To set that process of consultation in motion, the Muslim Institute has arranged a one-day conference on “The Future of Muslims in Britain”. This conference will be held in the Logan Hall, the Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1, on 14 July 1990. (Dr) Kalim Siddiqui
Director of The Muslim Institute
6 Endsleigh Street
London WC1H 0DS CONTENTS
Page No The Historical Situation 1 Assumptions 2 The Founders’ Council 3 The Council of British Muslims 4 The General Assembly of Muslims in Britain 5 The Council of Muslim Women in Britain 6 The Congress of Muslim Youth and Students in Britain 7 Relationship with the British authorities 8 Goals of the Muslim community in Britain 9 General guidelines for the life of the Muslim individual in Britain 11 A strategy for survival 13 History – the British obsession 14 History – the Muslim response 15 What is survival? 16 Mosques in Britain 17 Ulama in Britain 18 Role of trustees of mosques 19 The Muslim Agenda 20 The Satanic Verses 21; Islam in Britain 23; Da’wah 24; Existing Muslim or Islamic organisations 25; Education 26; Muslim Personal Law 27; The Muslim Law Commission 28; Financing higher education 29; Muslim Weekend Colleges 30; The Islamic University 31; The Muslim Ummah Fund 42.
Glossary 33
- 1 - THE HISTORICAL SITUATION
It is a matter of deep regret that the Government, all political parties and the mass media in Britain are now engaged in a relentless campaign to reduce Muslim citizens of this country to the status of a disparaged and oppressed minority. We have no alternative but to resist this invidious campaign. To do so Muslims in Britain must define their collective goals and move towards a consensus on major issues. The established network of 1,000 mosques and a wide range of organisations already serving the community must develop greater cohesion and dynamism. This manifesto attempts to provide a common text defining the Muslim situation in Britain. It also seeks to provide a framework for the healthy growth of all parts of the community as well as a common Muslim identity and purpose. Maxim: Muslims will resist and fight all forms of oppression.
- 2 - ASSUMPTIONS
Of all the major religions of the world, Islam is the most “politicised”. At its inception Islam created a political platform from which Muslims were to launch themselves on a global role as founders of great States, empires and a world civilisation and culture. Political and cultural subservience goes against their grain. Yet in Britain today Muslims are being asked to accept subservience and the total disintegration of their identity, culture and religion, as the only real options open to them. This manifesto is based on the following assumptions:
1. that Muslims in Britain have to accept neither subservience as their inevitable and permanent condition nor the disintegration of their identity, culture and religion;
2. that, despite being a minority, Muslims here can define and pursue goals compatible with the goals of the global Ummah, the world community of Muslims, of which they are an integral part;
3. that Muslims in Britain need to create institutions and mobilise resources in pursuit of these goals;
4. that for Muslims this is also the only way to secure an honourable place in the wider British society;
5. that the option of “integration” and/or “assimilation” that is on offer as official policy in Britain must be firmly resisted and rejected. Maxim: Muslims must develop their own identity and culture within Britain and as part of a global Muslim community, the Ummah.
- 3 - THE FOUNDERS’ COUNCIL
It is proposed that a Founders’ Council is created to adopt and launch this manifesto. The composition of the Founders’ Council will be announced in due course.
- 4 - THE COUNCIL OF BRITISH MUSLIMS (CBM)
Muslims in Britain need a platform to debate issues vital to them as citizens of this country. They also need a platform where all shades of opinion can be freely expressed. Above all, Muslims need a body that can speak with authority on their behalf. A process of debate and deliberation to guide Muslim opinion towards a consensus requires a “house of representatives”. However, the mechanism for achieving an “elected” house does not at present exist. Community-wide institutionalisation and organisation will have to reach a very advanced stage before an “electoral” process can be introduced. It is possible for a carefully selected, balanced and “invited” house to be “representative of the Muslim community in Britain. This is the only practical option open to us at present. This body will be known as The Council of British Muslims (CBM). It will act as a “Muslim parliament” in Britain. Maxim: Consultation and consensus is our method.
- 5 - THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF MUSLIMS IN BRITAIN
Once The Council of British Muslims has been set up, steps will be taken to create a General Assembly of Muslims in Britain. The General Assembly may consist of up to 500 members. The membership of the General Assembly will be by invitation. It will consist of individuals and representatives of organisations, including those catering for the specialised needs of women, youth, students, businessmen, professionals and academics, etc. The General Assembly will be so constituted as to reflect the full spectrum of Muslim life in Britain. Every effort will be made to invite a large number of women to be members of the General Assembly. The General Assembly will meet once a year.
- 6 - THE COUNCIL OF MUSLIM WOMEN IN BRITAIN
Muslim women have to play a crucial part in securing the future of Muslims in Britain. Muslim women in Britain are going into higher education and their numbers in the professions are rapidly expanding. But, ironically, women are more oppressed and exploited in the allegedly sexually “liberated” and “emancipated” west today than was the case in the traditional Islamic, or even non- Islamic, societies of Asia and Africa. Western-style “liberation” and “emancipation” does not meet the needs of Muslim women living in Britain. A sea-change in the lifestyle and social role of Muslim women in inevitable and desirable. It is for Muslim women themselves to develop an Islamic lifestyle in the context of the needs of the Muslim community in Britain. It is also for Muslim women to play a major part in the public life of the Muslim community in Britain. The position of women has long been the target of a vicious hate campaign directed against Islam itself. The west’s jaundiced view of women in Islam has gained strength by the attempt of women from some westernised Muslim families to feign a bogus “liberated” lifestyle. The fact is that a Muslim woman cannot be a western woman. Neither is the social role or lifestyle of Muslim women merely a question relating to modes of dress and hijab. The position of women in a Muslim community goes deeper than hijab, education, career, right to work, property, divorce, etc. Muslim women in Britain are in a unique position to develop a comprehensive lifestyle all their own in which they can develop their talents and achieve their ambitions to the full, always guided by Islam. However, this will only happen if Muslim women have a platform of their own. We propose the setting up of The Council of Muslim Women in Britain (CMWB). Maxim: Muslim women have a higher and nobler place in society than the so-called “emancipated” women have in the west.
- 7 - THE CONGRESS OF MUSLIM YOUTH AND STUDENTS IN BRITAIN
The public commitment of the Muslim youth in Britain to Islam and their Muslim culture and identity has been a major revelation of The Satanic Verses affair. There is clearly no “generation gap” between the first generation Muslim immigrants and their children born and brought up in Britain. What is more, our youth is largely uncontaminated by the culture of alcoholism, drugs, sexual promiscuity and other forms of delinquency that is rampant among the youth of mainstream British society. Studies have shown that Muslim children are among those groups who have performed way above average in schools, colleges and universities. The young Muslims, men and women, must be well represented in all the new and old Muslim institutions and organisations. “Islamic societies” have long been established in British universities, polytechnics and colleges of higher and further education. However, so far their activities have been limited to arranging Friday prayers and mixing a little Islamic culture with their secular education. Few Islamic societies have ever attempted to improve their members’ understanding of the Islamic philosophy of science or the wider questions of epistemology. Education for the sake of a secular career and lifestyle has remained unaffected by the existence of Islamic societies. We must now develop a specialised body to help the Muslim youth and students to fashion a lifestyle committed to the attainment of the wider and long-term goals of Islam and the Muslim community in Britain.
To achieve this goal and to provide youth and students a platform for the growth and development of their own potential, steps will be taken to set up a Congress of Muslim Youth and Students in Britain. Maxim: Muslim youth must participate fully in shaping the future of Muslims in Britain.
- 8 - RELATIONSHIP WITH THE BRITISH AUTHORITIES
1. Islam allows Muslims to accept protection of life, property, and liberty from non-Muslim rulers and their political systems. Muslims placed in this situation may also pay taxes and other dues to a non-Muslim State ...
2. Muslims living under the protection of a non-Muslim State must obey the laws of that State, so long as such obedience does not conflict with their commitment to Islam and the Ummah. Other minorities in Britain, notably Jews and Roman Catholics, do the same.
3. There are laws on the British Statute Book that are in direct conflict with the laws of Allah; these relate to such matters as usury, abortion, homosexuality, gambling, sale and consumption of alcohol, and the abolition of capital punishment; Muslims can neither agree with nor condone any part of a legal and social agenda which so flagrantly violates the laws of nature as well as of God.
4. Muslims will co-operate with the appropriate authorities for the maintenance of law and order and the promotion of peaceful and wholesome conditions for all our fellow citizens ...
5. Muslims will insist, and continue to insist for as long as it may be necessary, that the British State provide them, their religion and culture protection from gratuitous insult, obscenity and abuse ...
6. Muslims make it clear to the State, and all sections of British society, that they do not expect to be and will not tolerate being insulted and abused on grounds of their religion, culture and traditions.
Maxim: We are Muslims first and last.
- 9 - GOALS OF THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN
1. To perform the Qur’anic requirement of “enjoining right conduct and forbidding indecency”.1
2. To consolidate the Muslim population in Britain into an organised community in pursuit of the goals set by Islam ...
3. To achieve the highest possible level of collective taqwa and all-round moral and material excellence ...
4. To develop the Muslim community as an island of peace, harmony and moral excellence, free of promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases, drinking, gambling, drug-addiction, fornication and the related social and moral disorders which plague our age ...
5. To create and develop institutions capable of serving the Muslim community in such specialised fields as education, health, research, publishing, the arts, trade and investment ...
6. To develop and microcosm of unity in the Ummah across the cultural, ethnic and theological diversity that is found in the Muslim community in Britain ...
7. To create, where such do not already exist, specialised bodies for Muslims in the major professions, e.g., medicine, engineering, law, accountancy, teaching, etc ...
8. To secure for Muslim men and women at work or children in schools the right to worship, the right to halal food and the right to dress in the proper Islamic manner ...
9. To develop community and family based support for the less fortunate – widows, orphans, old, sick, infirm, disabled and the unemployed ...
Maxim: Muslims will pursue moral excellence under all circumstances.
1 Al-Qur’an, Luqman: 17.
- 10 - GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR THE LIFE OF THE MUSLIM INDIVIDUAL IN BRITAIN
1. Every Muslim, man or woman, must practice Islam in all its dimensions in order to achieve the greatest possible degree of taqwa in his/her private, personal, family, social and professional life ...
2. Every Muslim must pursue excellence in all departments of life, especially in the acquisition of all-round knowledge ...
3. Every Muslim must ensure that his/her and his/her family’s private and public life be committed to the pursuit of Allah’s good pleasure alone ...
4. Every Muslim must ensure that his/her lifestyle does not absorb the moral laxity prevalent in the secular culture of modern Britain today ...
5. Every Muslim must live within the Statute Laws of the United Kingdom ...
6. Every Muslim should seek to develop an identity in terms of the goals of Islam and participate in the struggle of the global Islamic movement toward these goals ...
7. Jihad is a basic requirement of Islam and living in Britain or having British nationality by birth or naturalisation does not absolve the Muslim from his or her duty to participate in jihad: this participation can be active service in armed struggle abroad and/or the provision of material and moral support to those engaged in such struggle anywhere in the world ...1
8. Every Muslim must contribute a regular proportion of his or her income to the Islamic movement instead of the habit of giving small or insignificant amounts only when faced with a “collection box” ...2
9. Every Muslim must pursue his or her personal goals within the framework of the Muslim community in Britain, of the Ummah, and of the global Islamic movement ...
Recent events have made it clear that Muslims in Britain, indeed throughout Europe and North America, will have to make a conscious effort if they are to survive. The time-honoured assumption that the generally liberal, open and tolerant ethos of the west would guarantee the survival of Islam and Muslims is a thesis no longer tenable. Muslims are faced with a vicious assault on their identity. Recent statements by leading figures in British Government and public life have made it clear that they expect, demand and will not be satisfied with anything less than our total “assimilation”. Essentially their attitude towards Islam has not changed since the Crusades; their strategy remains the same, only their tactics have changed. Muslims living in the west have to adjust to an environment that is far more hostile than had been assumed.
Muslim communities in the west now need a comprehensive strategy for survival. The Council of British Muslims will debate and develop a comprehensive STRATEGY FOR SURVIVAL as a matter of urgency, made more, not less, urgent by every day that passes.
Maxim: Survive we must, live we may.
- 12 - HISTORY – THE BRITISH OBSESSION
The history that is immediately relevant to the Muslim situation in Britain relates largely to British colonialism. The British colonial mind is the immediate source of their fear of Muslims. Muslims in Britain are viewed as “ex-colonials” who have received the additional favour of having been allowed to settle in mainland Britain. Britain as a colonial power, having “civilised” its possessions and then “granted” them freedom, now feels entitled to expect the ex-colonials to become British like the British. Any assertion of the superiority of Islam or Islamic culture or civilisation on British soil is not to be tolerated. The British State sees it as its duty to achieve total assimilation. Moreover, as the controversy over The Satanic Verses has revealed, the British also want Muslims to accept their view of all religions, including Islam. That is that all religious beliefs are a throwback to the Dark Ages of ignorance and superstition and therefore unacceptable in this day and age of reason, science and technology. Those who want to retain religious convictions must exercise them in the sphere of private conscience. No religion, least of all Islam, can be allowed a place in public affairs, even those affairs that affect Muslims themselves. Public policy cannot therefore take into account Islam or the Islamic sensibilities of Muslims. It is for Muslims to “grow up” and join the mainstream of western civilisation.
Maxim: British view of Islam and Muslims is rooted in colonial history.
- 13 - HISTORY – THE MUSLIM RESPONSE
The relevant Muslim response to the British view of Islam and Muslims is more complex but also determined in large part by the colonial experience. Among us there is the truly “ex-colonial” fringe that accepts the British view of Islam and Muslims and is offended by what it calls the Islam of the mullahs and the “ignorant” masses. This is the “modernist” position. They pay lip-service to Islam but are embarrassed by such strong assertion of our faith as has been visible in the Muslim campaign against The Satanic Verses. In today’s Britain these modernist, apologetic Muslims want to keep “politics” out of mosques and maintain a submissive posture towards the British government. In their role as a colonial power the British used the modernists to deflect and abort Muslim opposition to their rule; they promoted an emasculated form of Islam from which the component of jihad was subtracted. They are now attempting to do the same in dealing with Muslims living in Britain. The same language (“moderates”) is used to describe these individuals and the regimes that promote and support them. But the Muslim masses living in Britain today have seen through the game. The British design to destroy Islam and assimilate Muslims, in partnership with the modernist “Islamic lobby”, has been exposed by The Satanic Verses affair. Their plan to deflect and render ineffectual Muslim anger over The Satanic Verses was defeated by Imam Khomeini’s fatwa on February 14, 1989. Even before the fatwa, ulama in Britain had played a major role in mobilising opinion against The Satanic Verses. It was this initial awakening created by the ulama in Britain that made the total endorsement of that fatwa by the Muslim masses in Britain possible. The Satanic Verses affair has also exposed the insincerity of most Muslim governments, including the Saudi regime, towards issues that are vital for the defence of Islam and the honour of the Prophet of Islam, upon whom be peace. The new historical situation demands a new and comprehensive Strategy for Survival. Maxim: Muslims will not surrender to cultural blackmail.
WHAT IS SURVIVAL?
Survival does not mean physical “safety”, or a set of guarantees in such matters as “equal opportunities”, or the verbiage put out by the Race Relations industry, as Islam does not fit into any of their neat categories. Equally, British law does not, and cannot be expected to, provide an adequate framework for our survival. Recent events should leave no one in any doubt that the British Government is prepared to use the law against us as an instrument of oppression. The only survival kit that will work is the one that is entirely community based and integrated with a global Islamic movement that protects us in the way France or Russia once claimed to be the “protectors” of Christian communities in the Middle East. The shield of Islam is our only protection under all circumstances. Survival within Islam is the only form of survival that has any meaning. If we protect Islam, Islam will protect us. If we weaken our links with Islam we shall be swallowed up. Maxim: Only Islam can protect Muslims.
- 14 - MOSQUES IN BRITAIN
The creation of a network of about 1,000 mosques in Britain is one of the great achievements of the first generation of Muslim migrants to this country. In financial terms (at 1990 values), these mosques represent an investment of perhaps as much as £200 million. These mosques have to be developed into major foci of Muslim community life. The part played by the mosques in The Satanic Verses affair has shown that at times of crises Muslims turn to the mosque for guidance. However, so far the full potential of these mosques has not been realised. Among the first steps we should take is to put the khateebs and imams of mosques on financial terms compatible with their status and role in society. As a first step their salaries should be raised to £20,000 per annum. The management of the mosques should also begin to attract the attention and talents of Muslims born and educated in Britain. The mosques should begin to develop in the role of problem-solving resource centres. The ulama should cease to be mere employees. They should be offered membership of restructured committee structures. A new partnership will have to develop between the original founders and trustees, the ulama, and the younger generation of Muslims. New committees should begin to emerge in all mosques to chalk out a new and dynamic role for mosques in Britain.
Maxim: Mosques are the primary institutions of Islam.
- 15 - ULAMA IN BRITAIN
The ulama will always remain one of our major resources and a pool for leadership and knowledge. In a society where the bulk of available education is likely to be secular, the role of ulama as teachers, guides and leaders will be of paramount importance. The Satanic Verses affair has shown the leadership potential of the ulama, but the ulama will have to develop a wider range of capabilities over the whole range of social and political issues that confront the Muslims in Britain. This should include a better command of the English language and an understanding of the social, political and administrative systems and procedures of Government. Some of these roles can be undertaken with the help of Muslims who are doctors, civil servants, solicitors, policemen, probation officers, etc. Similarly, the ulama should begin to use their weekly wa’z (speech preceding khutba on Fridays) to inform the community of major changes that may be taking place, either in Britain or in the world of Islam as a whole. Every mosque should become part of the Islamic movement in its widest sense.
Maxim: Ulama must come forward in leadership roles.
- 16 - ROLE OF TRUSTEES OF MOSQUES
The founders of mosques and their trustees have performed a great service to the Muslims in Britain. Without their commitment and sacrifice we would not have the network of mosques that we have today. For their sacrifice and service the founders and trustees of mosques have secured them an honourable place in our society, for which they will be generously rewarded in the Hereafter, insha’Allah.
The founders and trustees of mosques must, however, realise that the role of the mosques must evolve to keep pace with changes in the Muslim society. Already more than half the Muslim population in Britain consists of people born here. The trustees largely belong to a generation from a different background. It is high time for trustees to start to bring in the younger generation as partners in the management of the mosques. The first step may be the creation or appointment of “management committees” comprising members of the younger generation. The mosques ought to begin to change in directions desired by the new generation, guided and advised by their elders. Unless this transition be conscientiously undertaken and sensitively managed, our mosques run the risk of becoming obsolete monuments to the religious practices of first-generation migrants. Were this to take place, our children and grandchildren would sell the mosques to the highest bidders in much the same way as lapsed Christians have sold their churches to us. The disused churches were fortunate to become mosques; the disused mosques of the future may be less fortunate.
The founders and trustees of mosques labour under a greater obligation to future generations than to the first generation of migrants. The mosques were built to secure the future of our children, not to stand as monuments to our past piety.
Maxim: Trustees of mosques must seek partnership with the younger generation brought up inBritain.
- 17 - THE MUSLIM AGENDA
In this section an attempt has been made to identify key areas that will occupy Muslim attention in the immediate future.
- 18 - 1. The Satanic Verses
This is a major conflict with implications for most aspects of our future in Britain; it also encapsulates the whole range of issues that are likely to dominate Islam’s relations with the west for a long time to come. The British Government refuses to acknowledge the validity of the Muslim position. In this conflict rational argument has come up against a blank wall of colonial and cultural presuppositions. The only alternative is for Muslims to extend their agitation to a point where the social, political and economic cost of keeping The Satanic Verses in circulation becomes prohibitive. At some stage we may have to engage in a campaign of civil disobedience1 in Britain. The Satanic Verses is not an ordinary “book”, it amounts to a declaration of war on Islam and Muslims. The circumstantial evidence, e.g., the size of the advance paid to the author, and the media and literary hype that accompanied its publication, leaves us in no doubt that The Satanic Verses is the result of a conspiracy. This means, above all, that Muslims have to fight a prolonged campaign to defeat the designs of the conspirators and their supporters.
The obvious solution to The Satanic Verses affair is for this book to be unconditionally withdrawn by the author and his publishers. We realise that withdrawal cannot mean the recall of all copies. However, withdrawal must mean (a) an undertaking that existing stocks in shops and warehouses will be pulped, (b) no further editions will be published in any shape or form, (c) the book will be removed from public libraries, and (d) anyone who wants to return his copy will receive a full refund. In addition, the author and publishers will pay an agreed sum to relieve the suffering of those, mainly in India, Kashmir, Pakistan and Bangladesh, who have been bereaved, maimed or injured in protests against The Satanic Verses. Muslims in Britain will continue to pursue the author and publishers of The Satanic Verses until this conflict is satisfactorily resolved. We are a law-abiding community seeking a peaceful settlement of a dangerous conflict. Such conflicts, unless peacefully settled, often lead to violence.
The Satanic Verses is not acceptable now and will not become acceptable at any time in the future.
1 See Alan Ryan’s article, “The Right to Disobey”, in The Times, April 4, 1990, and Tony Benn’s article, “When Principle is above the Law”, in The Guardian, April 4, 1990. Both Alan Ryan and Tony Benn would of course deny that their arguments can be used by Muslims. In our view we can and we must.
- 19 - 2. Islam in Britain
Muslims in Britain need to undertake a close examination of what, if any, legal and/or constitutional position could be secured for Islam in Britain, bearing in mind that a number of European States have accorded Islam the status of an “official religion”. This will include the question of laws against blasphemy to protect all religions. We must note that the existing laws against blasphemy have failed to prevent grossly obscene and sacrilegious attacks on the person of Jesus Christ, upon whom be peace, so much so that influential opinion within the Church of England, whose creed alone is protected, now supports the abolition of blasphemy as a criminal offence. The penetration of the secular creed into Anglican thought is a matter of deep regret. The operation of existing laws against blasphemy shows that their extension to protect Islam as well is unlikely to prevent the kind of attacks on religion that the “liberal” lobby claims is its right. The Muslim community may have to define “no go” areas where the exercise of “freedom of speech” against Islam will not be tolerated. It is only by taking a firm position now that Muslims in Britain may in the long term succeed in defining a common cause within a secular society. The one thing we must not do is to surrender to the demands of rampant, immoral secularism.
- 20 - 3. Da’wah
Performing da’wah, or inviting non-Muslims to accept Islam, is a basic duty of all Muslims. Muslims have come to live in the west in large numbers at a time when the western civilisation is beginning to develop disorders of the mind, body and soul as a direct consequence of unmitigated secularism. In this situation the role of da’wah is clear. However, the method of da’wah is often and unnecessarily contentious among Muslims. There are those who take the passive route, and there are those who believe in working through revolutionary change, beginning with Muslim societies and countries. In Britain, in the short-term, the great impact is likely to be achieved through the example of moral and material excellence set by Muslim individuals and families living in a post-Christian, largely pagan, society. The collective effort of the Muslim community in Britain to lead a muttaqi life in a corrupt environment is bound to play a major role in da’wah. Similarly, the taqwa of Muslim youth, the modesty of Muslim women, the stability of Muslim family life, the absence of drinks-, drugs- and sex-related crimes and the overall discipline of Muslims living in the west will itself send powerful signals to non-Muslims. But this will only happen if we succeed in arresting the “integration” and “assimilation” of Muslims themselves into the corrupt bogland of western culture and supposed “civilisation”. The emergence of a distinctive Muslim presence, individual and collective, is an essential first step towards effective da’wah.
- 21 - 4. Existing Muslim or Islamic Organisations
These organisations have played important roles in the life of the Muslim community. They will continue to exist and develop. It is anticipated that most will accept the framework offered in this manifesto. They may indeed already be pursuing at least some of the goals of the community identified here. The role of the established organisations and the new structures and institutions that may be created will be complementary and cooperative. We cannot imagine a situation in which it may not be possible to find areas of mutual cooperation with existing organisations.
- 22 - 5. Education
A great deal of very useful work is already being done in this field by a number of groups and organisations. However, a common syllabus for the teaching of Islam to Muslim children in Britain is an urgent need of all of those engaged in education. A Muslim Education Commission (MEC) will be set up to examine all the relevant issues such as voluntary-aided schools, single sex education, provision of Muslim teachers as religious instructors, collective acts of worship in schools, Islamic dress, and alterations to the National Curriculum where it can be shown that the content of that curriculum is inimical to Islam. The report and recommendations of the MEC would then form the basis of negotiations with the Secretary of State for Education and Science and the LEAs in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
- 23 - 6. Muslim Personal Law
The vexed question of the application of Muslim Personal Law in such matters as marriage, divorce and inheritance needs a Law Commission comprising Muslim jurists and lawyers to examine the situation and make recommendations. So far all approaches to the British Government on this issue have been vague, ill formulated, largely emotional and incompetent. In the past British courts have recognised Muslim marriage, divorce and inheritance issues decided according to Muslim Personal Law outside Britain. This issue may well revolve around the creation of a Muslim legal framework to decide cases that may then be recognised as valid in British Law.
- 24 - 7. The Muslim Law Commission
The Muslim community needs a standing commission to keep the legislative programmes of Government and opposition parties constantly under review. Similarly, the Commission would monitor cases decided in law courts that may have implications for the Muslim community. The Commission could also submit written proposals to Government and opposition parties on major proposals in their legislative programmes. The Commission may also initiate debate in the Muslim Consultative Council and the General Assembly of Muslims in Britain in order to create informed public opinion on major legal issues.
- 25 - 8. Financing Higher Education
The financing of students in higher education in Britain is moving towards greater parental contributions and student loans. This is an area in which mosques are equipped to play a significant role. Most mosque trusts have surplus funds lying idle in the banks. Some of these funds can be used to set up loan (gard-i hasana) schemes for Muslim students in higher education. A major advantage of such schemes will be the goodwill for Islam that this will create among young Muslims during the most formative years of their lives. This experience will give them a further incentive to strengthen the institution of the mosque and to maintain their attachment to it.
- 26 - 9. Muslim Weekend Colleges
At present, only small children receive supplementary education in mosques in the evenings and at weekends. There is a need for more advanced classes for teenagers, youths and adults. A curriculum of courses on such subjects as the Seerah1 of the Prophet (upon whom be peace), Tafsir2, Qir’at3, Hifz4, Islamic history, Islamic civilisation and culture, Islamic art, the Islamic movement and Muslim political thought, etc., can be offered at a network of Muslim Weekend Colleges throughout the country. Wherever possible such colleges should operate within mosques. Most mosques have large unused space; carefully designed “folding” partitions can be erected to create smaller classrooms.
1 Life. 2 Exegeses of the Qur’an. 3 Recitation of the Qur’an. 4 Memorisation of the Qur’an.
- 27 - 10. The Islamic University
Prestigious institutions are symbols of the maturity and identity of a community. Muslims, though only a minority in Britain, belong to a global civilisation and culture. Moreover, the intellectual tradition of Islam is a major part of our inheritance. We have a different worldview to offer. We adhere to a different philosophy of life, philosophy of knowledge and philosophy of science.
After the collapse of communism, the intellectual encounter of the future is liable to be between the west and Islam. The obvious platform from which to conduct our debate and make our contribution is the Islamic University. However, the Islamic University we need must not be a cosmetic and hypocritical creation of the Saudi regime; just another western university under the banner of Islam. We suggest that the intellectual foundations laid by the pioneering work of The Muslim Institute in London over the last two decades could provide a solid foundation on which an International Islamic University (IIU) could be erected. So far as possible, the proposed Islamic University should be locally supported and financed. A planning committee could start work on this long-term project almost immediately.
- 28 - 11. The Muslim Ummah Fund
Experience tells us that financial freedom, indeed strength, must be an essential part of our strategy. Already we know of instances where Muslims in public service have either been reprimanded, dismissed or had other pressures put on them. Some Muslim organisations in receipt of grants from public funds have had them stopped. All this for expressing their views in The Satanic Verses affair. We must mobilise resources and raise funds within the Muslim community on a large scale. Substantial funds will be needed for the implementation of the programme outlined in this manifesto. For example, such proposals as the establishment of the Muslim Education Commission, the Muslim Law Commission, a Loan Fund for Students in Higher Education, Muslim Weekend Colleges, and eventually the Islamic University, are all capital intensive. Each of the commissions will require full-time research staff backed by secretarial and office facilities. Members serving on the various commissions will have to be reimbursed their travelling and other expenses. Some may also have to be paid professional fees.
We propose to launch The Muslim Ummah Fund (MUF) with an eventual target of about £5 million a year.
- 29 - GLOSSARY
da’wah: inviting non-Muslims to Islam. fatwa: a religious opinion or, if given by the head of an Islamic state, decree. halal: permitted. hifz: memorisation of the Qur’an. hijab: modesty of women’s dress in public required by Islam. In particular, the wearing of a headscarf. imam: lit. leader. One who leads prayers. Also used for the leader of an Islamic state. insha’Allah: God willing. jihad: struggle (often armed) in the way of Allah. khateeb: one who gives the khutba, usually the imam. khutba: formal sermon before or after a congregational prayer. mullah: lit. master. Often used pejoratively for ulama. muttaqi: adjective from taqwa. gard-i hasana: lit. “beautiful loan”. A loan which is returnable at the convenience of the borrower or not at all. qir’at: recitation of the Qur’an. Seerah: Life of the Prophet, upon whom be peace. tafsir: exegeses of the Qur’an. taqwa: moral excellence acceptable to Allah. Also fear of Allah, piety. ulama: persons learned in the sciences of Islam (pl. of alim). Ummah: world body of Muslims. wa’z: general speech or lecture given before or after a formal sermon at a prayer meeting. Dr Kalim Siddiqui - Director of The Muslim Institute
Dr Pr Muhammad al-Massari and B.A.Frémaux-Soormally – Trafalgar Square
I have met with our Mujaahid Dr Kalim Siddiqui (RA) many times as well as with many other courageous members of the Majlis al Shura fi Britaniya (Muslim Parliament of Great Britain) like Pr Muhammad Al-Massari (exiled from occupied Arabia), Imâm Muhammad Al-‘Asi (Washington) and Imâm Musa (USA), Brother Ahmed Huber (Switzerland), Dr Yakub Zaki (James Dickie from Scotland) at the Muslim Parliament Conferences and have been promoting their works (as well as those of our wonderful Brother Minister Louis Farrakhan’s video conferences with minor edits because of our unfortunate doctrinal differences) for some two decades, but never found a single Muslim or Muslimah who was interested in them either in France, Belgium, Switzerland, England or Mauritius.Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui (not a relative of Dr Kalim) who replaced him as leader of the now defunct “Muslim Parliament”, has turned traitor and with other traitors bows down to the British establishment and he was co-founder with his acolyte Dr Shaaz Mahboob of the bogus “British Muslims for Secular Democracy” (BMSD), another government front used to control genuine grassroots Muslim activism.One of the trustees of the BMSD is woman journalist and media commentator Yasmin Alibhai-Brown from the very secretive and dangerous Sect of the Ismailis (Sect of the Assassins) with other (most probably) infiltrators or British spies. Our very beautiful Imâm Musa in front of the United States Capitol building
Addendum:My "Ghyslaine ROC" account on Facebook was blocked indefinitely minutes after I wrote a very short comment (just a few words!) denouncing the treachery of the BMSD! This proved my point that the BMSD is a indeed a ZIONIST FRONT! (BAFS)
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
DR KALIM SIDDIQUI'S AND SHEIKH IMRAN HOSSEIN'S VISION FOR ORTHODOX MUSLIMS AND ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS
DR KALIM SIDDIQUI'S AND SHEIKH IMRAN HOSSEIN'S VISION FOR ORTHODOX MUSLIMS AND ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS
En Juin 2013, à l'université d'Etat de Moscou, eu lieu un colloque composé d'intellectuels russes dont notamment le théoricien, sociologue, polyglotte et chrétien orthodoxe, Alexandre Douguine (Alexandr Dugin) et le Sheikh Imran Hosein, érudit musulman spécialisé en Economie et en Eschatologie Islamique.
Autour d'un échange intellectuel convivial sur la politique internationale à la lumière des eschatologies islamique et chrétienne orthodoxe, les penseurs présents mettront en évidence les corrélations et points de convergences entre les prophéties tant attendues par les musulmans et les chrétiens orthodoxes, notamment la Conquête de Constantinople pour les musulmans, le retour du Siège pour les chrétiens orthodoxes, la Cathédrale Aya Sophia de Constantinople, qui fut transformée en Mosquée lors de la chute de l'empire byzantin par les khalifs Ottomans et transformée ensuite en Musée.
Une rencontre qui rappelle l'alliance entre le monde musulman et chrétien orthodoxe que le Prophète (pbsl) prophétisa, et pour laquelle, notre honorable Sheikh Imran Hosein, combat !
DR KALIM SIDDIQUI was one of the leading intellectuals and Islamic movement activists of the modern era. As Founder and Director of the Muslim Institute, London, he played a leading role in developing the political understanding and thought of the contemporary Islamic movement, and in globalizing the movement after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. He also founded and led the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, which was a radical new sort of Muslim community institution when it was inaugurated in 1992.
Dr Kalim Siddiqui combined intellectual insight and understanding with movement activism and political leadership. Intellectually, his major contribution was to the political thought of the Islamic movement, in a series of papers published in the 1970s and 1980s, which presented radical and revolutionary in a way which ordinary Muslims found accessible and easy to understand. His intellectual work culminated in his paper Processes of Error, Deviation, Correction and Convergence in Muslim Political Thought (1989) and his last book, Stages of Islamic Revolution (1996). When he passed away in South Africa in 1996, he was working on a new project on political dimensions of the Seerah. His final paper on this subject was published after his death by the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT).
The two major institutions he founded and worked through, the Muslim Institute, London, and the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, both declined after his death. However, the ICIT was established in 1998 by some of his closest colleagues and associates, including Zafar Bangash (now Director of the ICIT), Imam Mohammed Al-Asi, and his son, Iqbal Siddiqui, to continue his intellectual work for the Islamic movement.
Kalim Siddiqui was born in British India on September 15, 1931. His family were small land-owners in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh), but his father worked as a sub-inspector of police. He first became politically aware and active as a teenager at boarding school in Faizabad in 1944-45. At this time, he became a student activist of the Muslim League during the Pakistan movement.
The Islamic symbolism the Muslim League used to mobilise the Muslim masses of India was one of the major attractions to him. He had received a six-volume set of Seerat-un Nabi by Shibly Nomani and Sayyid Sulaiman Nadwi as a gift from a teacher when he was 12, and considered the life and example of the Prophet as his inspiration from that time onwards.
He moved to Karachi in 1948, a few months after the partition of British India and the establishment of Pakistan. There his political maturity grew and he realized that the new State was little more Islamic than British India had been. As a student, he was active in a Khilafat Group dedicated to establishing khilafah in Pakistan, and founded and edited a popular political newspaper The Independent Leader.
He came to Britain in 1954 to study journalism. Other members of the Khilafat Group also came to London at about the same time. The was to learn skills which they could put to use for the movement back in Pakistan. But in London the group broke up as differences emerged between them and some members became more interested in developing their careers.
The young Kalim meanwhile was proving a natural at journalism. Starting at the Kensington News in west London, he gradually worked his way up the journalistic ladder through a series of local and provincial newspapers. In 1964, shortly after moving to Slough, where he lived for the rest of his life, he joined the Guardian as a sub-editor.
At the same time, he decided to build upon the limited education he had received in India and Karachi. He did O-levels and A-levels at evening school before going on to study International Relations at University College, London, and then completing a PhD in 1972. Throughout his student career, he also continued to work full-time to support himself and his family.
Throughout this period, however, he also remained involved in both Islamic affairs generally and Pakistani affairs in particular, and the thinking which was to form the basis of his future work was developed.
During the late sixties, he returned to Pakistan, where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Guardian and did fieldwork for his doctorate, which was later published as Functions of International Conflict -- a socio-economic study of Pakistan. Shortly afterwards, the East Pakistan war began and Bangladesh was created. It was during this period that he wrote his book Conflict, Crisis and War in Pakistan (1972), and that the first steps towards the establishment of the Muslim Institute were taken.
In hindsight, the establishment of the Muslim Institute in 1973 can be seen as the beginning of his main work; everything that led to this phase in his life was merely a prologue.
The establishment and early years of the Institute
The Muslim Institute was established in 1973-74, by a group of young Muslims that came to be known as the Preparatory Committee of the Muslim Institute. This group emerged from meetings of Muslim students and others in London University in 1972 onwards. The meetings began with an invitation to Dr Siddiqui to address a meeting of Pakistani students at University College, London, shortly after the publication of Conflict, Crisis and War in Pakistan. The invitation was from Zafar Bangash, then an engineering undergraduate, later one of Dr Kalim's closest colleagues, and now Director of the ICIT.
Shortly after these meetings began, Dr Siddiqui was awarded his PhD and started teaching International Relations at the University of Southern California's European teaching programme in West Germany. At the same time, he also remained on the staff of the Guardian. Nonetheless, the meetings continued, moving from London University to Dr Siddiqui's home in Slough when Zafar Bangash graduated and left UCL.
The subject of these talks was initially the state of Pakistan, recently torn apart by the 1971 war and the creation of Bangladesh. The group's initial was to establish a 'Pakistan Research and Planning Institute' (PRPI). But Kalim Siddiqui had always thought in broader terms than just Pakistan.
The Muslim Institute for Research and Planning
In July 1973, Dr Kalim was invited to attend an International Islamic Youth Conference convened by Colonel Mu'ammar Qaddafi in Tripoli. There Dr Kalim met Muslims from all parts of the world and discussed his with them. Among them were two South African Muslims who were to remain life-long friends of Dr Kalim and supporters of the Muslim Institute. These were Abu Bakr Mohamad of Durban and Ismail Kalla of Pretoria, at whose home he was to pass away over 20 years later.
He was so inspired the experience that within weeks of returning, he had written a book about it. This book, Towards a New Destiny, was a critique of Qaddafi's thinking and a plea for a new intellectual movement among Muslims. It provides a remarkable insight to Dr Kalim's thinking at time of the establishment of the Muslim Institute. He also took the same to the Preparatory Committee. The Pakistan Research and Planning Institute became instead the Muslim Institute for Research and Planning (MIRAP); the precise was suggested by Amir Ahmad, a long- standing friend of Dr Kalim. From then on, the focus of discussion became the writing of the Draft Prospectus of the Muslim Institute.
This was written by Dr Kalim but discussed in detail at meetings of the Preparatory Committee. Zafar Bangash has described it as "perhaps the most thoroughly debated and discussed document I have ever known". The writing of the Draft Prospectus took over six months; the text was finally approved and sent to press early in February 1974. Where Towards a New Destiny was an intensely personal work, the Draft Prospectus is a cold, crystal clear presentation of Dr Kalim's understanding and>
This can be summarised as laying the intellectual and practical ground-work for a future generation to re-establish the civilizational power of Islam through a series of Islamic revolutions.
Among the insights in these works which were radical at the time was that the west was totally and irredeemably an enemy of Islam; that no solutions to the problems of Islamic civilization could be based on western that western-educated Muslims were not equipped to lead the Ummah and could only contribute by acting in partnership with traditional scholars of Islam, the ulama; and that no quick fixes could be found for problems which had been almost 1400 years in the making. One of the remarkable features of the laid out in the Draft Prospectus of the Muslim Institute is that not one of them has been proven wrong by over 20 years of some of the most radical possible changes in the Muslim situation.
A few days after the Draft Prospectus of the Muslim Institute was finalized, Kalim Siddiqui suffered his first heart attack. He was seriously ill for many months and was to suffer from heart trouble for the rest of his life. Even then, in 1974, doctors advised him to retire from all forms of work and accept a full disability pension.
Instead, he resigned from the Guardian and the University of Southern California and committed himself fully to the Muslim Institute. He was determined not to waste whatever time he had left, but to fit in as much work for the Islamic movement in as possible. This was the attitude to his health he was to maintain over the next 22 years -- through two more heart attacks and two by-pass operations, in 1981 and 1995 -- as can be seen in his foreword to his final book, Stages of Islamic Revolution (1995).
Dr Kalim's work in the early years of the Institute
Over the next few years, he travelled the world, explaining and discussing his with Muslims everywhere and promoting the and work of the Muslim Institute. The Institute organised seminars and teaching courses, and published books and academic papers. By 1978, it was well-enough established to move out of Dr Siddiqui's home into offices at 6 Endsleigh Street, in Bloomsbury, the intellectual heart of London.
The same year, Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui gave up his teaching career to join the Institute full-time as Assistant Director, and Dr Kalim became Director of the Muslim Institute. Dr Ghayasuddin was Dr Kalim's right-hand man for the rest of his life and succeeded him as both Director of the Muslim Institute and Leader of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain. (Unfortunately, for a number of reasons that are not relevant here, both the Institute and the Parliament were to decline rapidly following Dr Kalim's passing. Neither now exists in any substantial or meaningful form.)
But Kalim Siddiqui's main interest was still in political thought, and the Institute's work remained predominantly in this direction. Two major papers prepared by Dr Kalim for conferences during the seventies remain important today. These are The Islamic Movement: A Systems Approach (1976) and Beyond the Muslim Nation-States (1977).
In these papers he developed major aspects of his political thinking. In The Islamic movement: a systems approach he hypothesised the existence of a global Islamic movement dedicated to re-establishing the civilizational power of Islam, and explored aspects of its work.
In Beyond the Muslim nation-States (1977), he critiqued both the existing political order in the Muslim world and Muslim attempts to emulate western social science, particularly political science. Both studies led him to similar conclusions: that, in the words of The Islamic movement: A Systems Approach, "the first priority... must be the development of integrated academic disciplines of economics, politics, and sociology, and alternative operational models for a future civilization of Islam."
Both these papers were presented at Islamic conferences convened by Saudi institutions in Saudi Arabia. Nonetheless, Dr Kalim did not hesitate to describe the existing Muslim states as illegitimate and un-Islamic. This is indicative of both Dr Kalim's own personality (he once commented that it was a wonder that he ever got invited to conferences after what he did to Qaddafi in Towards a New Destiny!) and of the state of the Muslim world at the time, when Muslim governments felt totally unthreatened by such as those of Kalim Siddiqui and the Muslim Institute.
Less than two years after Dr Kalim wrote that the challenge facing Muslims was to build a platform from which a future generation can make its escape, (Beyond the Muslim Nation-States), came the event which was to change both Dr Kalim's own life and the course of modern Muslim history: the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
The Impact of the Islamic Revolution
The Islamic Revolution in Iran surprised a lot of people. In September 1978, just four months before the Shah fled Iran, US president Jimmy Carter described his regime as an island of stability in a sea of turbulence . Dr Kalim had visited Iran in early 1978 and knew a number of active Iranian students in London. But he too saw little sign of a revolutionary movement with the potential to establish Islamic rule.
He later said that he realised that something very special was happening in Iran when he first saw Imam Khomeini on television. He realised immediately that this was no sham revolutionary educated in London, Harvard or the Sorbonne; this was a leader of Islam whose roots lay in the political traditions of Islam itself.
At the same time, he was shocked by the negative reaction to the revolution among many of the Muslims he knew on the Saudi 'conference circuit'. These were men who had talked a good fight during the 1970s but then tried to ignore the Islamic Revolution in Iran for fear of losing their Saudi patronage.
Dr Kalim, by contrast, threw himself into both studying and serving the new Islamic state. He recognised that this was possibly the breakthrough in Islamic history that he had expected to come decades in the future. But he also realised, as he said later, that the breakthrough could prove transitory, and he was determined to capture as much of its light as possible in case it did not last.
At the same time, he was aware that academic study of the new phenomenon was not sufficient; as a Muslim, it was his duty to help the embryonic Islamic state to survive the massive pressures being put on it by its enemies.
As a result, Dr Kalim visited Iran several times to see and understand the Revolution. The Muslim Institute also arranged a lecture course in London by Hamid Algar, translator of Imam Khomeini's writings into English. Dr Kalim and other Institute members also toured Britain, the US and other countries, addressing meetings to explain the true significance of events in Iran to excited but often uninformed Muslim audiences.
Dr Kalim's developing understanding of the Islamic Revolution can be traced through his writings of this period. These include The State of the Muslim World Today (1979) and The Islamic Revolution: Achievements, Obstacles and Goals (1980).
At the same time, Dr Kalim's insight into the broader historical situation was helping Iranians to understand the true depth of their own revolution. His insight into the nature of the revolution and the problems it faced can be gauged by his reaction to Imam Khomeini's appointment of Abol Hasan Bani-Sadr as president. Dr Kalim's comment: "The Imam will have to dismiss this man!"
Dr Kalim was to remain a close friend and supporter of the Islamic State of Iran for the rest of his life. He regarded this as the only possible relationship any Muslim could have with a genuine Islamic state. The relationship was often rocky; many Iranians did not like his regular criticisms of government policy, or his understanding of the Revolution as Islamic and relevant to all Muslims. Many Iranians would have preferred the revolution to have been purely Irani and Shi'a. But there were also many Iranians who held Dr Kalim in great esteem and affection, as was witnessed by the reaction to news of his death.
Dr Kalim always maintained that the limitations of Iranian functionaries and bureaucrats could be overcome provided the leadership remained committed to the global Islamic movement. He never met Imam Khomeini, but developed a personal relationship with Imam Sayyid Ali Khamanei, based on the Imam's admiration for Dr Kalim's last major paper, Processes of error, deviation, correction and convergence in Muslim political thought (1989). Dr Kalim considered this relationship the greatest possible honour in the last years of his life.
Crescent International and the global Islamic movement
Immediately after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Dr Kalim realised that one of its effects would be to give a tremendous boost to the Islamic movement whose existence he had hypothesised in the 1970s. Under the leadership of Islamic Iran, he hoped that this boost would prove sufficient to create a genuine, functional global Islamic movement rather than the theoretical one he had previously written about.
One of his immediate objectives, therefore, became to aid the emergence of this new, global Islamic movement. To do this, he teamed the Muslim Institute up with a Canadian Muslim newsmagazine, the Crescent International. This was a community magazine in Toronto, founded in 1972 by Lateef and Zahida Owaisi. Since 1975, it had been edited by Zafar Bangash, who had been a leading member of the Muslim Institute Preparatory Committee in London. He was also writing in support and defence of the Islamic Revolution in Iran during this period. In August 1980, Crescent was taken over by the Muslim Institute.
The Crescent International has been the major newsmagazine of the revolutionary Islamic movement ever since. In the early years, the bulk of its copy was written by Dr Kalim. Later, editorial responsibilities passed to Zafar Bangash, who gave up his engineering career to run the paper. For a four-year period from 1987 to 1991, an Arabic edition was produced under the Al-Hilal al-Dawli. The impact of these magazines has been far out of proportion to their circulation and readership.
Other Muslim Institute efforts to serve the Islamic movement included the Muslimedia news syndication service (1981-91) and a popular annual anthology series Issues in the Islamic Movement, seven volumes of which were published from 1982 to 1989. These brought together major writings on the Islamic movement and Muslim current affairs from Crescent, Muslimedia and other sources.
Because of financial and other restrictions, many of these publications have had to be closed down. But the Crescent International survives and is keenly read by Muslim academics and activists all over the world, despite being banned in numerous Muslim countries. It is now edited by Iqbal Siddiqui, and works closely with the ICIT.
Muslim Institute Conferences and Seminars
The other main way in which the Muslim Institute worked to bring together and consolidate the new global Islamic movement was by a series of world conferences and seminars in London during the 1980s. These were on difference themes relating to the Islamic movement and the contemporary Muslim situation.
The first of these, on the Political Dimensions of the Hajj, was in 1982. It was followed by seminars on State and Politics in Islam (1983), The Islamic Revolution in Iran (1984), What Future for Pakistan? (1984), The Impact of Nationalism on the Ummah (1985), Muslim Political Thought during the Colonial Period (1986), The Future of the Haramain (1988), The Implications of the Rushdie Affair (1989) and The Future of Muslims in Britain (1990).
These combined serious intellectual discussions on matters central to the work of the global Islamic movement, with unique opportunities for intellectuals and activists from the Islamic movement to come together. Among the many senior people who attended these conferences were Shaikh Fadhlullah of Lebanon, Shaikh Omar Abdul Rahman of Egypt, Shaikh Assad al-Tamimi of Palestine, Muallim Ibrahim Zakzaki of Nigeria, Shaikh Muhammad al-Asi of the USA and numerous senior ulama from Islamic Iran.
Following the establishment of the Muslim Parliament, such seminars on global issues continued to be held, but under the Muslim Parliament banner instead of that of the Muslim Institute. The two major conferences held in this period were on Bosnia and the Global Islamic Movement (1993) and Hiroshima to Sarajevo: Fifty Years of the United Nations (1995).
It is, therefore, wholly appropriate that the two institutions should have come together to convene a Memorial Conference, In Pursuit of the Power of Islam, as a tribute to Dr Kalim in November 1996. Unfortunately, this proved to be virtually the last effectively project run by them before the new leadership, following Dr Kalim's death, proved unable to sustain the institutions.
The Muslim Institute's overseas activities
During the 1970s, Dr Kalim had established contacts, friends and supporters all over the world. After the Islamic Revolution, he found that many of these people shared his understanding of the vision of the significance of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and his commitment to serving the embryonic Islamic movement.
Since the Revolution, therefore, the Muslim Institute has directly or indirectly established operations in a number of other countries, including Canada, South Africa, Pakistan, Malaysia and India. These have included publishing and distribution of Crescent International, Muslimedia, Al-Hilal al-Dawli and local newspapers; publication of books and videos; and the holding of seminars and lectures.
The Muslim Institute has also been active in other countries where the political situation is such that details cannot be given. Dr Kalim Siddiqui, his books and the Crescent International were banned in some Muslim countries. The Institute's work also included more direct assistance to Islamic movements, some of which are suppressed and underground in their own countries
"Salman Rushdie," Dr Kalim often said, "ruined my life." Until the Rushdie affair, Dr Kalim's work, even in support of the Islamic movement, was primarily academic and intellectual. He was largely insulated from the gaze of the wider British community, except when he was invited by the media, as an academic expert, to give an Islamic perspective on current news stories. His defence of Imam Khomeini's fatwa changed all that.
Before the Imam gave his fatwa in February 1989, Dr Kalim was not unaware of the Rushdie controversy, but had taken no major role in it. While it was undeniably serious, Dr Kalim took the view that campaigning for a ban on The Satanic Verses would be a major and pointless distraction from the main work of the Muslim Institute, and would serve only to give the book more status and publicity than it deserved.
That assessment changed with the Imam's fatwa. Dr Kalim was actually in Tehran when the fatwa was issued, leading to reports that he prompted it. This is an exaggeration of his role. In fact, he was at Tehran Airport when Dr Khatami, then the Minister of Islamic Guidance, later president of the Islamic Republic, came to meet him and asked what he knew about Rushdie and his book. Dr Kalim explained the situation to him and Dr Khatami left. Later the same day, back in his hotel as his flight had been cancelled, Dr Kalim heard that the Imam had issued his fatwa.
When he finally landed in London, the establishment, the literati and the media were up in arms. The British Muslim community, whose previous protests had been largely ignored, was under siege. This was a radically different situation to that which had earlier existed and demanded a radically different response. Dr Kalim became the community's champion against hysterical media and establishment attacks. The controversy raged for months and continues, on a smaller scale, to this day.
Dr Siddiqui's position remained precisely the same throughout. The fatwa had been pronounced by the Imam of the only Islamic state of the day and was therefore legally binding on all Muslims. However, Muslims in Britain had, under Islamic law, a prior and higher commitment to the law of the land in which they lived as a minority and therefore could not execute the fatwa in Britain. But such was Muslim anger at Rushdie's offence that there remained the possibility that some over-zealous Muslim might execute the fatwa nonetheless; therefore Rushdie would not be safe on Britain's streets.
Even as he was travelling from newsroom to studio, giving interview after interview representing the Muslim position on Rushdie, however, Dr Kalim was planning ahead also. He had always taken a keen interest in community affairs. Now he put the considerable intellectual assets of the Muslim Institute to considering the situation of Muslims in Britain.
The result was The Muslim Manifesto. This was published in 1990, at a Muslim Institute conference on 'The Future of Muslims in Britain' and laid out both the problems facing Muslims here and the duties and responsibilities the Muslim community had living in a non-Muslim country. The Muslim Manifesto was to become the foundation document of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain.
The Muslim Parliament -- a minority political system for Muslims in Britain
The Muslim Parliament of Great Britain was inaugurated on January 4, 1992, after nearly 18 months of intensive groundwork following the publication of the Muslim Manifesto. Along with the Muslim Institute, the Muslim Parliament is one of the two major institutions which Dr Kalim established to pursue his vision and which he has left as his legacy for the Muslim Ummah.
It is often said that the community work which is the main focus of the Muslim Parliament was a new direction for Dr Kalim. That this is not true can be seen by any perusal of his writings. The problems facing Muslims living as minorities in western countries is a theme from his earliest book on Muslim political thought, Towards a New Destiny (1973). In this book, he said that the challenge facing Muslim minorities was two-fold: to survive uncontaminated as Muslims in a hostile environment, and to contribute fully to the global Ummah's struggle to re-establish Islam as a civilizational force for good in the world.
Precisely the same points emerged again in his writings on the Muslim Parliament, particularly Generating 'Power' without Politics ( 1990) and The Muslim Parliament of Great Britain -- political innovation and adaptation, his opening speech at the inauguration of the Muslim Parliament (1992). Dr Kalim argued that to survive as Muslims in this country, the community must develop its own institutions capable of meeting its needs in every area without dependence on the British state or government. He particularly opposed direct involvement in mainstream British politics, saying that Muslims could only exercise influence here by becoming strong outside the system and exerting pressure on the system from outside.
Immediately after its inauguration, the Muslim Parliament set to work undertaking further research into the conditions and needs of Muslims in Britain, and established projects to improve their situation in important areas. These have included education, poverty, unemployment, anti-Muslim discrimination, the state of the community's mosques, and the halal meat trade. Much of this research was done by Jahangir Mohammed, Dr Kalim's Deputy as Leader of the Muslim Parliament from 1993 onwards.
In 1993, the Muslim Parliament established a registered charity, the Bait al-Mal al-Islami, to finance and administer those parts of its work which are charitable under British law. The Bait al-Mal has established welfare provisions for deprived families and those suffering from hardship, and assistance schemes for students from poor backgrounds.
Another major area of work has been education. Dr Kalim always maintained that education was the only way of breaking the cycle of poverty and social deprivation which has kept British Muslims poor and exploited at the bottom of Britain s socio-economic ladder. While the education debate among Muslims in this country concentrated on obtaining government funding for the handful of Muslim schools, the Muslim Parliament has always taken the view that the immediate need is for supplementary education to help Muslim children in state schools.
The third major institution of the Muslim Parliament network has been the Halal Food Authority, which was established in 1994 to monitor and regulate the halal meat trade in Britain, which unfortunately is largely fraudulent. Muslim Parliament research indicates that less than 20 percent of meat sold as 'halal' really is halal. This was an area particularly close to Dr Kalim's heart. The HFA established a network of approved abbatoirs and shops to provide the community with the only independently certified halal meat in Britain.
At the same time, the Muslim Parliament worked to help Muslims and the global Islamic movement overseas in their struggles. Some Muslims argued that the Parliament should concentrate on local issues and that taking a strong position on international issues would make it more difficult to work in Britain, but Dr Kalim never accepted this position, saying that Muslims in Britain had a responsibility to the global Islamic movement.
Central to this work has been the Muslim Parliament's work in support of Bosnia.. The Muslim Parliament's World Conference on Bosnia and the global Islamic movement (November 1993) contributed to the understanding of events there, and led to the establishment of the Arms for Bosnia Fund at a time when most Muslims were concentrating only on humanitarian work. Dr Kalim took a particular interest in this fund, and its successor, the Jihad Fund, used to help Muslim mujahideen in many parts of the world.
Dr Kalim's writings and>
Dr Kalim was always a writer by nature. His first job in Karachi was as founder-editor of the student newspaper The Leader. In London, he moved rapidly up the journalistic ladder, until he was a sub-editor on the national paper The Guardian. Although he then went into academia, he was not averse to returning the journalism when the Muslim Institute took over the Crescent International. For some time after the transformation of the Crescent from a community paper in Toronto to a newsmagazine of the global Islamic movement, he was effectively its editor-in-chief and main writer. He continued to write regularly for it for the rest of his life.
He also wrote a large number of books and papers. His first published book was Conflict, Crisis and War in Pakistan (1972). His PhD thesis was published as Functions of International Conflict -- a socio-economic study of Pakistan in 1975 . But by this time, his attention had shifted from Pakistan to the world of Islam as a whole; his first book on Muslim political thought was Towards a New Destiny (1973). From then on he produced books and papers on aspects of the global Islamic movement with remarkable regularity throughout his life. The most important of these have now been compiled by Zafar Bangash as In Pursuit of the Power of Islam (London: The Open Press, 1996).
The Draft Prospectus of the Muslim Institute (1974) presented the understanding of the Muslim historical situation with which he launched his work and, together with Towards a New Destiny, is essential reading to understanding his life's work. After the Islamic Revolution, his understanding of it developed in a series of writings through the 1980s, including his papers to the Muslim Institute seminars and his introductions to the Issues in the Islamic Movement series (1982-89).
The culmination of his writings and political thought was the paper Error, Deviation, Correction and Convergence in Muslim Political Thought, written in 1989-90. In this, he presented his understanding of the process of Muslim history, how things had gone wrong after the rightly-guided khulafa, why the initial breakthrough in Muslim political thought had come in Shi'a Iran, and what Muslims in other countries must do to establish Islamic rule in their own countries. The argument was warmly welcomed and endorsed by Imam Khamanei himself.
The main which emerges from all his writings is that the civilizational power of Islam needs to be re-asserted at every level. However, he does not expect this to be an overnight development; the problems of 1400 years cannot be solved quickly. The basic requirement is for Muslim scholars and intellectuals to re-write Muslim political thought on the basis of Islamic traditions and scholarship rather than western ones, and use this new Muslim political thought as the basis for a new civilization of Islam.
He also hypothesised the global Islamic movement long before its emergence after the Islamic Revolution, and commented on its nature and development throughout the eighties and nineties. He was particularly interested in the practical aspects of a functioning, global Islamic movement in a world totally dominated by western mechanisms of control. This was the subject of his The Islamic Movement -- A Systems Approach (1976), written well before Iran's Islamic Revolution. He developed his on the global Islamic movement in post-revolutionary writings, culminating in his final book Stages of Islamic Revolution (1996), which he described as 'a handbook for Islamic activists'. The first edition of this was rushed into print in South Africa to coincide with the conference in April 1996; he was thus able to see it before his death.
Any understanding of Dr Kalim's work must start with his writings. Stages of Islamic Revolution is crucial for this. Zafar Bangash s compilation of his major writings from 1973 to 1992, In Pursuit of the Power of Islam, is also of tremendous importance. A compilation of Dr Kalim's writings in Crescent International is also under preparation.
The way forward: Dr Kalim's legacy
Dr Kalim Siddiqui will be remembered as both an intellectual and an activist. In his own life, he was probably known best for his establishment of the Muslim Institute and the Muslim Parliament. The fact that both these institutions have virtually disappeared under the leadership that took over after his death is a tragedy. The ICIT is committed, however, to continuing the work of the Muslim Institute, and ensuring at least that the principles of the Muslim Parliament are not forgotten just because of management failures.
But Dr Kalim's and writings as important as his institutions, and it may well prove that the cold, calm light of hindsight will make them better understood and appreciated after his death than they were during his lifetime. Dr Kalim was never a man to sit back and contemplate the world around him. His commitment was to the Islamic movement and he understood that all his intellectual work must be such as to contribute to the ongoing work of the movement at the ground level.
His most important legacy, however, may well prove to be his example. Few people have ever demonstrated the sort of commitment and dedication to the work of Islam that he did. Through years of ill-health, and numerous other kinds of problems and pressures, he always kept his eyes firmly on the goal on the horizon and worked towards it. Nothing ever got in the way of his next important task, his next goal. He was also a man who inspired those around him to make similar sacrifices in pursuit of the same vision, and leaves behind him a team of people all over the world whose commitment is to exactly the same work.
The fact that vitually all of these people are now working with the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT) is one of the ICIT's greatest assets. Such people include Zafar Bangash (formerly Assistant Director of the Muslim Institute and editor of Crescent International), Dr Maqsood Ali Siddiqi (a Trustee of the Muslim Institute), and Haroon Kalla (formerly Deputy Leader of the Muslim Parliament); Imam Mohammed Al-Asi and Imam Abdul Alim Musa in the US; Dr Perwez Shafi in Pakistan; and numerous others all over the world. The onus on us now is to ensure that the work of Dr Kalim continues and provides precisely the sort of foundation for building a new civilization of Islam that he envisaged, insha'Allah.
isra haber
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Nouveauté Kontre Kulture : Gog et Magog, de Sheikh Imran Hosein
« Nous allons maintenant décrire des événements incroyables, qui sont encore en train de se dérouler dans le monde, et qui tous se rapportent à la Terre Sainte. Ces événements ne peuvent être expliqués sans recourir aux prophéties du Prophète Muhammad sur les “Signes de la Dernière Heure”, et en particulier à ses prophéties qui ont trait à l’arrivée des “gens de Dajjāl”, c’est-à-dire Gog et Magog. […] Le Coran nous a informés qu’Allah le Très-Haut fera en sorte qu’un jour un important conflit conçu par Gog et Magog ait lieu. […] Ce Malhama (Armageddon) est maintenant si proche que les enfants qui sont aujourd’hui à l’école vivront assez longtemps pour le voir. Les événements que l’on voit surgir dans le monde trouvent parfois leurs racines bien loin de la surface agitée aux yeux des peuples. »
Gog et Magog ! Voilà des figures bien mystérieuses dont on ne sait, avant d’avoir lu ce livre, si elles font partie d’une mythologie, d’une démonologie ou simplement de l’humanité. En 2003, George W. Bush, à la veille de lancer ses GI’s sur l’Irak, et cherchant un moyen de faire changer d’avis la France, qui avait refusé de participer à cette première opération mettant en action le Choc des civilisations, téléphona à Jacques Chirac, citant Gog et Magog, pour le mettre en garde et le prévenir de l’importance de prendre parti dans ce combat eschatologique. Intrigués, c’est à un professeur de théologie protestant, de l’université de Lausanne en Suisse, que les conseillers de l’Élysée demandèrent des éclaircissements. Car G. Bush, chrétien évangélique, croit, nous dit ce professeur, « que Dieu sera auprès d’Israël lors de la confrontation finale, donc que les ennemis de ce pays seront dans le camp de l’Antéchrist ». Si Gog et Magog, un regard islamique sur le Monde moderne avait déjà été écrit, c’est avec le plus grand profit que ces messieurs de l’Élysée auraient pu le lire, et peut-être qu’alors un tout autre regard sur ce Choc qui se prépare, aussi bien à l’intérieur des nations qu’entre elles, aurait conduit la France à poursuivre dans la voie qui était alors la sienne, celle de la paix.
Et c’est avec un même profit que chacun lira ce livre, afin de comprendre que les événements que l’on voit surgir dans le monde trouvent parfois leurs racines bien loin de la surface agitée aux yeux des peuples.
Sheikh Imran Hosein est un professeur en sciences islamiques, diplômé de l’Institut des études islamiques Aleemiyah. Il a étudié la philosophie et les relations internationales dans de nombreux instituts ou universités et a travaillé plusieurs années au ministère des Affaires étrangères du gouvernement de Trinité-et-Tobago. Il a vécu plus de dix ans à New York, a enseigné l’islam dans différentes universités, collèges, prisons, etc., aussi bien aux États-Unis qu’au Canada, et a participé à de nombreux dialogues inter-religieux avec le christianisme et le judaïsme. Il a été imam dans une mosquée de Long Island et a dirigé pendant dix ans les prières du vendredi au siège de l’ONU à New York. Il a été directeur de l’Institut des études islamiques Aleemiyah de Karachi, directeur de recherche du Congrès du monde islamique à Karachi également, directeur de l’Institut islamique pour l’éducation et la recherche à Miami, en Floride, et directeur de dawa pour Tanzeem-e-Islami of North America. Il a écrit plus d’une dizaine de livres sur l’islam et a donné de nombreuses conférences partout dans le monde. Né dans les Caraïbes, dans l’île de Trinité, en 1942, il vit et enseigne aujourd’hui à Kuala Lumpur, en Malaisie.
Like most visionaries and revolutionary thinkers, Dr Kalim Siddiqui, who passed away on April 18, 1996, was far ahead of his times.
“The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long that nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was... The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” (Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, 1979.)
These eloquent lines were written by a Czech novelist reflecting on the Soviet communist assault on his people’s literature and culture. But they express a universal truth experienced by many peoples in many contexts throughout history. Not only is history written by the victors, but all previous or alternative versions of history, and the cultural memories on which they are based, are disparaged, marginalised, subtly distorted or simply eliminated. The process is often thought of as one of historical self-justification on the part of victors, but usually goes deeper than that. Almost invariably, it also involves a deliberate, manipulative process of re-defining the present and so shaping the future.
In the Muslim world in the modern era, the most obvious example is the destruction of the Ottoman heritage by Mustafa Kemal’s aggressively westernising regime in Turkey. This was made possible first by the destruction of the traditional, Islamic intellectual elite in the 1920s, and even more so by the change in the Turkish script which made centuries of Ottoman intellectual work incomprehensible to most Turks. But many other Muslims have suffered similar assaults, in the communist ruled areas of Europe and Central Asia, or at the hands of other aggressively secularising regimes in post-colonial nation states elsewhere. The creation of ‘national’ identities, histories and movements in territories defined only by administrative imperatives of the colonial powers is just one example. Many others could be cited for each and every Muslim country in the world, and every Muslim community living under non-Muslim rule anywhere in the world.
Nor is this process of rewriting and manipulating the collective memory of peoples a purely historical one. The issues of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ have suddenly been discovered by western liberal elites since the success of populist political movements such as those exploited by Donald Trump in America and the anti-European ‘Brexit’ movement in Britain, but they are hardly new. They are simply the exploitation in western domestic politics of techniques of political propaganda and cultural-social-political manipulation that western elites have long used in other countries. Western liberals who now bemoan the use of false narratives to mobilise support behind Trump have themselves used precisely the same methods to bolster their own positions, and have supported or condoned the use of the same methods by western elites and their allies to pursue their interests in other parts of the world.
Examples are legion, in both Muslim and other countries. The false narrative created over the zionist colonization of Palestine is an obvious one, although one that is at least effectively countered thanks to the resistance of the Palestinians, the tireless solidarity of Muslims around the world, the goodwill of many other supporters, and the sheer effrontery and brutality of the zionist state, which has alienated many who might otherwise have supported it.
But many other examples are less recognised, and have been so successful that even many Muslims whose instincts are anti-western and anti-imperial are influenced by them. One such is the concerted rewriting of the history of the so-called “Arab spring” to demonise Islamic movements, such as the Ikhwan al-Muslimun in Egypt, to justify the repressive policies of authoritarian regimes, and to justify Western support of such regimes in the name of the ‘war on terror’. In this case, the Ikhwan did everything demanded of Islamic movements in terms of using ‘peaceful’, ‘democratic’ means of achieving power, and yet were quickly and brutally overthrown amidst a campaign of propaganda to prevent them disproving the lie that Islamic movements are bound to be unpopular, repressive and incapable of governing effectively.
Another is the characterization of the still-ongoing war in Syria, many understandings of which are defined by the western-dictated narrative of a popular uprising against a dictatorial regime backed by Iran and its regional allies. This narrative, supported by a long-nurtured sectarian narrative pitting Sunnis against Shi’is, has achieved general acceptance despite the fact that the war is in fact yet another chapter in the long proxy war being waged by the US against Islamic Iran and the ‘axis of resistance’.
In the same context, we see also the long-standing and well-established propaganda about Iran’s nuclear program. This has been used to both divert attention from, and justify when necessary, the US’s widely known but little discussed covert war against the Islamic state, which has included political interference, terrorism, economic warfare, technological attacks and assassinations, and which is still continuing behind the cover of the so-called nuclear deal agreed in 2015.
And to find an example beyond the Muslim world, we also have the politicking over the crisis in Ukraine, deliberately created by western powers when the country’s democratic government decided against an alliance with the European Union, but portrayed across the international media as an example of aggressive Russian expansionism.
These are, of course, big international issues of global geopolitical import. But similar strategies of propaganda and political misinformation are used at every other socio-political level down to the most local, creating interlinked false narratives of every kind, all serving – by design or effect – the same agendas of western domination and the marginalization of dissident voices.
To take just one example, we can look at the life, work and posthumous profile of the late Dr Kalim Siddiqui, with particular reference to the development and history of Muslims in Britain. He was a significant figure in British Muslim affairs from the 1970s onwards, as director of the Muslim Institute for Research and Planning. For almost two decades, from the Islamic Revolution in Iran to almost the end of the Bosnian war, through a crucial period in Western-Muslim relations, including the first Gulf War and the US occupation of the Arab heartlands of Islam, Dr Kalim’s was the dominant Muslim voice in British affairs, and an important one internationally. The Muslim Parliament of Great Britain that he established after the Rushdie imbroglio, and led until his death, had a massive impact at the time, provoking an establishment reaction that has shaped official British policy towards the Muslim community ever since.
And yet, like so many other Muslims around the world whose views and approaches are regarded as dangerously subversive by those in power, his work was both misrepresented and disparaged at the time, and subsequently written out of history in order to minimise their continuing impact and influence. In the many discussions of British Muslims in the media and academia in the 21 years since his death in April 1996, across a period when the position of Muslims in Britain has come under extreme scrutiny for obvious reasons, Dr Kalim and his work have seldom been given more than passing reference. Far more attention has been given to figures and institutions whose roles were less challenging, and therefore more acceptable, to the powers that be. And tragically for British Muslims now, even many Muslims have been misled by this deliberate marginalisation of a figure whose example and model could have offered so much in the current situation.
None of this would have surprised him, of course. An awareness of the nature and role of western academic and media institutions, honed by experience of working in both, was central to his work. In the paper ‘Beyond the Muslim nation-states’ (1976), he had critiqued western historical writing and social sciences. The establishment of the Muslim Institute was intended both to provide an alternative understanding of the history of the Ummah, and to plan for its future; one of the first academic committees it established was a history committee. As the Institute’s work on histories past and future were overtaken by contemporary events with the Islamic Revolution in Iran – events that Dr Kalim had predicted but did not expect to see in his lifetime – he had overseen the conversion of Crescent International to a ‘newsmagazine of the Islamic movement’ precisely in order to challenge the western domination of the international media in a pre-internet age. Later he would establish the Muslimedia news syndication service for the same purpose, as well as supporting numerous other Islamic media projects in Britain, Pakistan and other parts of the world. And all the same themes loom large again in his final book, Stages of Islamic Revolution (1996), written and published shortly before his death.
Twenty-one years later, Crescent International remains almost the only functional part of his legacy, the rest of the institutions he founded having folded under pressures internal and external, although the direct and indirect influence of his work remains strong in many areas. The world in which Crescent operates has also been transformed, by the technological advances of the digital communications and information revolutions, the intensity and brutality of the west’s war on Islam since 9/11, and the complexities of the socio-political strategies put in place to manipulate Muslim societies and movements as part of that war.
Such is the pace of developments in the modern world that Dr Kalim must now be regarded as a historical figure rather than a contemporary one, alongside such notables in the history of the modern Islamic movement as Imam Khomeini, Shaikh Hassan al-Banna, Maulana Maududi, Syed Qutb, Ali Shari’ati, Mohamed Iqbal, Muhammad Abduh, Muhammad Asad, Aliya Izzetbegovic, Abdullah Azzam, Shaikh Omar Abdul Rahman, and Shaikh Ahmed Yassin, stretching back perhaps to Jamaluddin al-Afghani, and including many whose names are long forgotten, if indeed they were ever known at all. But to say that is not to minimise his importance, for an understanding of the ideas and contributions of all these many and varied figures is essential for contemporary Muslims to understand the world they are living in, the historical situation and challenges they face, and the Islamic movement of which they are a part.
The western domination of the information and media landscape is not the only obstacle to Muslim understandings of their own history and circumstances, of course. Another major one, which Dr Kalim was well aware of, is the fact of being constantly under attack, overwhelmed by the need to react to current events. This is a situation hardly conducive to reflective thought and long term planning, for those fighting for their lives, or under an unrelenting onslaught of abuse and propaganda, and so concerned primarily to defend themselves and survive in the here and now, are unlikely to be able to find the time and space necessary to contemplate their yesterdays and lay the groundwork for their tomorrows. Keeping Islamic movements of all levels permanently on the defensive is undoubtedly one of the key elements of the west’s intense current war on Islam.
The understanding that these different levels of work are inseparable, and the ability to work on so many of them simultaneously, was one of Dr Kalim’s great contributions. But the variety and conflicting pressures of his different projects may have led to their being misunderstood and under-appreciated. Certainly the different imperatives of the Muslim Institute’s global perspective and intellectual work, and the Muslim Parliament’s local focus and practical community work, contributed to the tensions that destroyed both after his death.
Nonetheless, his emphasis on the importance of understanding history, both past and present, and on the necessity of reflective intellectual work even in the face of immediate challenges, provides lessons and models from which Muslims today could learn so much. As we struggle against power, and if we are to remain who we are supposed to be, instead of becoming what our enemies would like to make us, it is essential that we maintain control over our own history, through both the awareness of the nature and stratagems of our enemies, and the memory of the struggles and achievements of men such as Dr Kalim Siddiqui. Recognizing what our enemies would like us to forget, and ensuring not only that we remember it, but also that we learn from it, is perhaps, as its broadest level, is the real challenge facing us and our future generations.
[For more comprehensive information, you can visit www.kalimsiddiqui.com which is being developed as a permanent record of the work of the late Dr Kalim Siddiqui (1931-1996)]
The scholars of Islam are that assembly of ulama who have internalized the knowledge of Islam and communicate their understanding to the public. It is not enough to know facts, nor even to verbalize them. What is real is the implementation of this higher knowledge within the daily life of individuals and societies, persons and properties, families and nations, and regions and hemispheres. The body of Islamic scholars in our time is in a state of gestation. They are struggling to understand the Qur’an and Sunnah in context. Many, regrettably, are unable to see the Qur’an and noble Prophet (upon whom be peace) in the context of today’s world. These undeveloped scholars present an undeveloped image of Islam to the public. As a consequence we are unable to develop a relevant Islam that addresses the issues of our time and place. In analyzing this scholarly anaemia, we find a common blind spot shared by the overwhelming majority of such scholars: the issue of power. These scholars do not address the issues of power in Islam and in today’s world, and so have have contributed significantly to the emergence of a Muslim Ummah which is powerless and vulnerable. Some of these expedient scholars throw a passing reference to ‘power’ issues such as Kashmir, Algeria, and Iraq, but only to pre-empt potentially difficult questions. To add insolence to ignorance, most of these respected scholars (respected by a yet-to-mature public) wear the attire of the Prophet (peace be upon him). The late Dr Kalim Siddiqui stands out from this crowd as a rare scholar in his own right. Unlike formally qualified individuals, who imbibed religious information from formal Islamic universities and religious seminaries, many through mere rote learning, Dr. Siddiqui did not fit into this traditional image. His writings, speeches, presentations, and works were, however, Islamically centered, Qur’anically referenced, and prophetically driven. He could see issues that were beyond the bounds for the conventional Muslim scholar. Dr. Kalim could go with his fresh and relevant Islamic information and ideas where no other scholar in our time has gone before. Dr. Kalim broke new mental grounds as he observed the forces of kufr at work today against the Ummah, as he analyzed the forces of history, their results and their possibilities for today’s Muslims. Many ulama have trouble with the various versions of Muslim history: the Sunni, the Shi’i, and so on. A typical Sunni ‘alim would not quote from a Shi’i source, and vice versa. Dr Kalim had a unique ability to move comfortably between two versions of history and identify the positives and the negatives as they relate to each other and the issues of power, governance, and politics. This not only says volumes about his research abilities and his scholarly objectivity but it also indicates that he had no irritants in his heart against Muslims of any school of thought. We say this because it is precisely this subjective bias that has bedeviled other scholars and rendered their works one-sided or prejudiced. Dr Kalim was not a man who was impressed by petty arguments relating to fine fiqhi or theological points. He did not evaluate Muslims by the manner of their daily rituals as much as he was interested in assessing Muslims as to their fulfillment of their role as Allah’s empowered species on earth (khulafa). An alim who appreciates personal diversity (the personal fiqhi latitude of legitimate Islamic options) while insisting on collective unity of purpose (the consolidated character of a united ummah vis-a-vis the forces of kufr) is rare indeed today. Dr Kalim was not constrained, like other ulama, by his personal preferences in matters of salat, siyam or Hajj. He bypassed these, as should other responsible ulama, to concentrate on the issues of power and governance. Dr Kalim took a closer and sharper look at reality, as well as history. He realized that the problems we Muslims have today can all be traced to the absence of Islamic government, the seat of Islamic power and dignity. In his book Stages of Islamic Revolution, Dr Kalim track the fatal shift from the prophetic model of governance to a monarchical system during the Umayyads period and thereafter. He outlined the historical sequence that was to engulf and affect all Muslims, which he identified as ‘Islam, error, deviation, correction and convergence.’ These are all power concepts: Islam as a power, error as power usurpation, deviation as power inheritance, correction as the power of revolution, and convergence as the combined power of the Sunni and Shi’i forces of history. Finally, Dr Kalim saw in the Hajj an annual conference with the promise and potential for a worldwide impact beginning with the Ummah and then reaching the farthest corners of the globe. No one can speak about the prospect and the potency of the Hajj if they cannot address the deliberate Saudi control and command of the Hajj season, and their bid’ah of reducing Hajj to meaningless motions and directionless deliberations, a fact that has affected millions of people who travel to Mecca and Medina to feel only isolated moments of ecstasy amid the misery and emptiness that engulfs one. Dr Kalim, may Allah rest his soul in peace, felt the pains of the Ummah and was not tied by the pennies of its enemies. Thus, he was free to entertain the hope of the Muslim masses that one day the Hajj will be meaningful, dignified, and liberated. What distinguished Dr Kalim was his total attachment to the principles of the Qur’an and Sunnah when many others were attracted to anti-Islamic ways and means. Distinguished he lived, and distinguished he passed on. Muslimedia: April 1-15, 1998
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