Bullets and bombs are for battlefields, but when Israel is up against the entire ummah, that dimension is absent from her warmaking. Israel will win this war, but the cost will prove needlessly high. It is a religious war, jihad, in which the role of states is subordinate.
“Israel has shown its true face to the whole world, and people have seen the savageness. They are savages with what they are doing, their killing. They enjoy destroying the water tanks or whatever. What is the joy in destroying a water tank that would support people to drink? So they do it willingly and they laugh about it. Leave aside killing thousands of children.” — Dr Tareq Al-Suwaidan.
If anyone knows one thing about NATO, it is that it has a doctrine of an attack on one is an attack on all, the famous Article 5. This keeps even the smallest and weakest members of NATO safe from predatory powers that might attack them. Islam has its own Article 5 doctrine: Muslims are friends and helpers only amongst themselves, never to others; Muslims never rat on Muslims, even under oath; Muslims come to the aid of Muslims; and Muslims are, by definition, permanently at war with “those who believe not in Allah”. In other words, the Islamic Article 5 works at the level of the individual Muslim, more so than at the level of a state. That is the doctrine.
The reality is somewhat different. The ummah, the global collectivity of Muslims, is coming apart along several fault lines. This catastrophic disintegration of Islam cannot be stopped for the very simple reason that the kind of social being necessary to sustain Islam, one who hears and obeys, is in the centres of the Islamic world being supplanted by the social being necessary to sustain freedom, democracy and civilisation, the autonomous individual. This is a natural social development, unfortunately too little studied.
In short, over the last two decades or so, the values of civilisation have grafted themselves onto the hearts of so many Muslims that apostasy from Islam, once a carefully guarded secret, is now so widespread, so public and so proudly proclaimed that advocates for Islam have had to take time out from world-conquering to fight a rear-guard action against those leaving Islam. Of course, no such Muslim has any notion of what an autonomous individual is. They are only able to respond to the problem within the framework that they understand, as if they are still dealing with people who simply hear and obey.
Every fault line running through the ummah represents a different contradiction: between Islam and Islam; between Islam and Muslims; between Muslim and Muslim; and between Muslim as human being and Muslim as adherent of Islam. The last of these contradictions is the most significant for the present discussion. Autonomous individuals who avoid leaving Islam can do so only by attempting to reconcile their humanity with their religion, i.e., make a truce with themselves. Of course, this is impossible, because Islam recognises their “worthiness” only in the degree to which they conduct themselves consistent with what Allah loves and what Allah hates, and Allah hates everyone and everything that is not Islamic.
While they are under no external pressures, such Muslims can, with relatively reduced internal conflict, balance on the tightrope that is their lives, but the abyss is always beneath them and they can never lose sight of it. The slightest crosswind destabilises them. So it is with the most human Muslims in the West, where we see Islam towering as a fiery demon astride the path between intellectual Muslim and intellectual honesty.
The Palestinian massacre of Israelis on 7 October washed away all Muslim inner struggles and melded the Muslims into one. For a brief few days, as Muslims around the globe celebrated the “Palestinian moment of triumph” that “nothing can ever take away,” the ummah became a thing. Muslims felt historically relevant again, just as they did in 1989, when Ayatollah Khomeini ordered them all to murder Salman Rushdie. The euphoria was short-lived, however, for within a few days, the Israeli response to the barbaric mass-murder, mass-rape, mass-dismemberment and burning alive of 1200 of their people, the glorious-ummah bubble burst, leaving Muslims the world over in shock.
October 7 was their triumph, their ummah’s triumph. How dare the Jews—Jews!—take that triumph away from them? It was unconscionable. Only a savage, barbaric people would do such an unspeakable thing. And the completely unjustified Israeli slaughter of “our brothers and sisters in Falastin” went on for a whole year. Actually, the Israelis paused for the month of Ramadan, a big mistake, in my opinion, quite apart from the fact that no Muslim will ever acknowledge this generosity on the part of the Jews.
Right from the moment of Israel’s first response, confusion, bewilderment, pain and depression set in amongst the world’s Muslims and only deepened as the months went by. Hamas itself contributed to this downward spiral of the ummah’s spirit by hugely inflating the numbers of dead, and talking of starvation and genocide, when neither was taking place. To question Hamas’s claims while Falastin was under attack was, of course, unthinkable. To Muslims, loyalty is truth. So, on top of their “moment of triumph” being snatched away, they now also had to process a genocide of the ummah. The helplessness, the impotence, the pathos of the glorious ummah was being rammed into their scrambled brains day after day, night after night. The unjustness of the world in allowing “the genocide in Gaza” to continue was roundly condemned, but it did not assuage the Muslims’ pain. While many divested themselves of sound and fury, Muslims with higher sensibilities and intellects grappled with their own inner collapse. One platform that represents such Muslims is the British podcast The Thinking Muslim.
On 30 August 2024, Muhammad Jalal, owner and host of The Thinking Muslim, interviewed Kuwaiti Islamic thinker Dr Tareq Al-Suwaidan. What follows is an excerpt from that interview. Note that the transcript of this interview has not been made available and video subtitles have been disabled. The reader will quickly realise why. If thinking Muslims have attributes that other Muslims lack, intellectual honesty is not one of those attributes. It cannot be, because Islam is intellectually (and morally) indefensible, and a Muslim must always defend Islam, no matter what. The Thinking Muslim does not escape this predicament.
Muhammad Jalal: “Dr Suwaidan, the pain that we feel from Gaza is immense, and there are some scenes that we see on a daily basis. Our hearts are out of control. We feel a very deep sense of demoralisation. You talked there about values, can you remind us of the Islamic values that we need to hold onto in order to weather this really painful episode?”
Tareq al-Suwaidan: “Oh brother, I see TV like you do and I hear news like you do, but I trained myself not to be moved by emotions. Emotions are important, but emotions alone is not a good thing. You feel pain. That will cause psychiatric issues to you: depression, you can’t sleep at night, cry during the day, and so on. You will not live a normal life. With that, not only will we lost you, but you lost us, because we cannot benefit from you. And thus you will become an ineffective part of our [Islamic] revival.
“It is a major, major training in strategy that if you want really to do strategy, you leave emotions aside. You cannot have strategy while you are an emotional person. I feel the same thing, but I do not act this way. The moment I see more killing, immediately I will think, what can I do to stop this killing and punish these criminals that do these killings. That’s how I think. So, feeling the pain, if it will move you to do something, it will move you to donate, it will move you to make more prayers, it will move you to write, whatever, do something. But just feeling pain and crying will cause depression and we’ll benefit nothing from you. And Gaza will benefit nothing from you. This is the way we should think about it.
“But I think about it even in a deeper sense. I do follow seven news channels every day, and I’m talking American news channels, not only the Arab news channels. So I know the details of what’s going on, even in America. One of the things that I follow is the news from inside Israel. What do the Israelis say? What do the Israeli TVs say? What do the columnists say, in Israel?
“Brother, you do not imagine the pain they are going through (smiles). So yes, we are in pain, but they are also in huge pain, huge. And if we talk only about the economy, these ten months have destroyed their economy. If you read the details, it destroyed their economy not only now, it will continue to affect them for the next ten years. Their analysis is that they have lost $400 billion for the next ten years. Now all the American donations in the past ten years is $320 billion. So they will be in pain. They are feeling pain in every area of life.”
Keep in mind, dear reader, the words of Thabit bin Qays, endorsed by Muhammad, as reported in The History of Al-Tabari, vol 9, p69 [1712], “As for one who disbelieves [a non-Muslim], we will fight him forever in the cause of God [jihad] and killing him is a small matter to us,” and hadith Sunan an-Nasa’i 3988: “Killing a believer [a Muslim] is more grievous before Allah than the extinction of the whole world.” In other words, it is “a small matter” when Muslims kill non-Muslims, but “more grievous than the extinction of the whole world” when non-Muslims kill Muslims. Keep this in mind as the interview proceeds.
It is inconceivable to these Muslims, who are shattered by events in Gaza, that the pain Israelis are suffering might have something to do with what Muslims had done to them on 7 October. The massacre of 7 October is completely out of their thoughts, “a small matter,” when they react to events in Gaza. “Forget about last week!” barked Muslim thug Mohamed Hijab at broadcaster Piers Morgan, when he dared to bring up 7 October just a few days after the event. The subtext: Muslims are being killed now. This is more important than the whole world. Dr Al-Suwaidan brings this particular feature of the Muslim psyche into sharp relief, when he continues:
“For the first time, Israel has shown its true face to the whole world, and people have seen the savageness. They are savages with what they are doing, their killing. They enjoy destroying the water tanks or whatever. What is the joy in destroying a water tank that would support people to drink? So they do it willingly and they laugh about it. Leave aside killing thousands of children.
“So the first time they have shown their true face to the whole world. For the first time, countries have cut relations with them. UK itself is reviewing its stand in Gaza. That was unimaginable. The criminal justice has taken a stand against them, etc., etc., so many things. So yes, we are in pain, but they are also in pain.
“Brother, if the war continues, Gaza will feel more pain. Muslims will feel more pain. Sometimes, pain is good, if that pain will move you to do something. Gaza has been in pain for sixteen years, brother, under siege for sixteen years. Nobody felt it. Now when they moved, people are starting to cry about it. It’s not enough to cry about it; we have to do something. So if that pain is moving us, that’s good. If the pain of Gaza is brining the attention of the world, that is good. If the pain of Gaza is bringing Israel down, that is good. If the pain of Gaza is showing the true face of the savage Israel, that is excellent. So let’s look at the positive, not only the negative. Every time I see the pain, I swear to God, [I ask] what more can I do? Please — (facing the camera) — our audience, that is how you should think.
“When you see the pain, it is not enough to cry. Let me give an example. We are almost at the end of August. Schools will come back soon. I wish, I hope, for the new generation to revive the camps in the universities, and demonstrations, immediately! The moment schools come back, you should be ready to do it.
“Another thing that’s coming soon: the anniversary of October 7. So you have now about a month and one week to plan for that anniversary. You should not wait until that moment to do something. You should be ready to do something. This is how I think. Don’t let pain bring you down. Let pain move you.”
“If the war continues, Gaza will feel more pain. Muslims will feel more pain.” Note, dear reader, not Hamas will feel more pain, not Palestinians will feel more pain, not Arabs will feel more pain, but Muslims will feel more pain. On 7 October, the Palestinians acted for the ummah, for all Muslims, and are acknowledged to have done so by Muslims the world over. When Israel took the war to the Palestinians a few days later, the Palestinians again represented all Muslims. The ummah had come under attack in Gaza and, consistent with Al-Tabari v9, p69 [1712] and Sunan an-Nasa’i 3988, they completely forgot about their Jew-killing on 7 October and insisted that the whole world forget it, too, because Jews are now killing Muslims.
The tragic irony is that right from the moment news first broke of the Palestinian invasion of Israel from Gaza, Israelis went out of their way to stress that their fight was with Hamas, not with the Palestinians. Sometimes Israelis would go a step better by saying that their fight was with the Iranian regime. The interview above is but one of many similar all over the Muslim cyberspace. The ummah, the collectivity of all Muslims in the world, see Israel at war against them, all of them. The Sunni regimes seeking normalisation with Israel are condemned as collaborators with the enemy, “traitors” to the ummah.
The IDF has been going out of its way to avoid “civilian casualties” amongst “innocent Palestinians”, and achieved record low levels of non-combatant casualties, stunning, by any standards. Remarkable as these accomplishments are, such distinctions are meaningless because Muslims are under attack. Even one Muslim death would be spun into a genocide because it is one Muslim. When Hamas releases casualty figures that conflate combatants and non-combatants, they are not being disingenuous. This is also why charges of “human shields” do not impress Muslims. What is this human shields? What are you talking about?
Of course, right there on the battlefield, the IDF comes face to face with armed Hamas terrorists, but the rest of the population is simply unarmed Hamas terrorists. An “innocent civilian” can cause a great deal of harm, including death, without ever touching a weapon, even the ones stashed under their children’s beds. “Innocent civilians” joined in the raids upon Israeli communities, “innocent civilians” enrolled their children in Hamas summer camps, “innocent civilians” imprisoned and tortured Israelis in their homes, and “innocent civilians” refuse to leave buildings and areas about to be bombed, despite IDF warnings and pleas, because they are loyal to Hamas, the ones who brought jihad to the Jews and honour to the Palestinians.
In every Western democracy, Muslims have been bringing severe pressure to bear on their countries’ governments to change their foreign policy to one more hostile to Israel. Members of Parliament stood in and won elections expressly “for Gaza”. Palestinians in Gaza have had more sway over the British Parliament and the US Congress, than they have ever had over either the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. Muslims around the world cannot fire RPGs at passing Merkavas, but being as one with the Palestinians, feel themselves integral to the war in Gaza and under Israeli attack.
Bullets and bombs are for battlefields, but when Israel is up against the entire ummah, that dimension is absent from her warmaking. Israel will win this war, but the cost will prove needlessly high. It is a religious war in which the role of states is subordinate.
That Israel has allies in the Sunni world does not alter this basic reality. Refusing to acknowledge that she was up against Muslims around the world for fear of alienating her Sunni allies is to misunderstand the fault lines and rifts tearing that ummah asunder and why some Sunni states assume the stance that they do. As the interview above reminds us, the ummah will not go down without a fight, but at the same time, Muslims themselves will take their ummah down. We just have to know where, when and how we can help that process along, even accelerate it. When we say that Israel is the frontline in the war between civilisation and barbarism, this is much more than just a soundbite. It has substance, and hence implications for our approach to this war.
Picture credits:
Screenshot from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA-awBFhM1Q
Screenshot from https://saturday-october-seven.com
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