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Islam is missing in ISIS (Islamic State)!

Contemporary Debate

Summary: True Islamic State is the pride and joy of the Muslims, yet ISIS’s Islamic state is a disgrace. True Islamic State is a point of unity for the Muslims from all over the world however ISIS’s Islamic state is point of disunity and discord. This is not the example of a true Islamic State. This Islamic state has severely damaged the reputation of Islam and repairing this would take decades. This Islamic state has high-jacked the beautiful religion Islam and the nearly two billion Muslims of the world. In this state you will find everything but Islam. (Please read the full article below):

The recent declaration of an Islamic State in the Northern parts of Iraq has brought into sharp focus the concept of the Islamic state. In June, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria militia swarmed across Iraq, conquering huge swathes of territory and even threatening to topple the government in Baghdad. They called themselves ISIS initially and are now calling their conquered territory Islamic State (IS). IS is now in charge of a self-declared caliphate that is fantastically flush with cash, thanks to oil revenue from its conquered territories, huge ransom for hostages, the gold reserves it stole from the central bank in the northern city of Mosul, and other revenue streams.

Most people are curious to know what is a true Islamic State. If the ISIS version is all about brutality, murder and mayhem, why should the world accept establishment of such a deplorable state? They keep on asking me about Islam and violence and Islam and ISIS, the same questions over and over again. Many people have asked me about the true nature and objectives of an Islamic State.

In Islam, Muslims without a political authority to determine their own future and arbitrate on their religious, social, political and economic matters are like fish out of water. They are desperate to breathe freely, but the current state of the Muslim world does not allow them the space to create that safe and organic environment to live and practice their faith without fear or prejudice. Illegitimate governments, dictators and despots are ruling them with fists of iron and reigns of terror.

Unfortunately these rulers live at the patronage of powerful western countries. Our country, the United Kingdom, along with United States of America, France, Germany, Russia and China have carved up the modern world into domains of influence, and they provide the military hardware, intelligence and financial support to these extremely unsavoury and ruthless rulers.

Muslims have been desperate to break free from the reigns of terror but western support and despotic rulers’ brutal repression have kept the Muslim world from liberating themselves, establishing democratic governance and living under fair and just legal systems.

The advent of ISIS and their declaration of an Islamic State is a shoddy attempt to fill that gaping hole in the Muslim world. They do not have the knowledge, wisdom, charisma and legitimacy to claim the Islamic authority and leadership. What they do have is a pool of loose canons and bandits with guns, tanks and hatred to exterminate anyone who opposes them. This is no Islamic State, this is another state of terror!

In my view in this ISIS run Islamic State the key Islamic features are missing. I would like to outline my reasons as follows:

1. Islamic State has failed to uphold justice for all people:

The overriding purpose of Islam is to create and serve justice for all at all times and at all costs. There are numerous verses in the Quran that talk about the true objectives of Islamic law. It outlines how every Muslim is duty bound to behave in a fair, just and principled way. Muslims are told to never swerve from justice and not allow their hatred or personal dislike of others to come between them and justice. The purpose of an Islamic State is to be the guardian of justice. Yet ISIS has left in its wake a trail of destruction and injustice including imprisoning women and taking them as their captives and slaves. This colossal failure to be just to Muslims and non-Muslims, people of faith and no faith has clearly demonstrated to the world that this Islamic state lacks fundamental objective of Islamic State – to serve justice for all people. Therefore it is not an Islamic State but a state of injustice!

2. Islamic State is failing to protect life

God has given life as a gift and no one has the right to take it away unless it be taken by a legitimate authority such as at the order of a genuine court of law and administered by credible people appointed by a legitimate authority, furthermore, adjudicated by judges with sound knowledge and wisdom. And even then Islam only allows capital punishment for specific and most heinous crimes and under extremely stringent criteria of evidence.

The lives of so many innocent people have been summarily taken by this Islamic state without a due process, without a court order or even any regard to the Islamic principles. They have murdered journalists, ambassadors, diplomats and local inhabitants. This ISIS led state has failed to protect the lives of people and has demonstrated in its brutality, the same despotic tendencies as the surrounding Middle Eastern rulers. This is not an Islamic State, it is a state of murder and mayhem.

3. Islamic State is failing to protect property

Islam places a great deal of importance on protecting people’s property. Wealth and children are part of life’s beautiful and precious gifts. People do not get married, work hard, establish homes and own properties for them to be destroyed, looted or confiscated by rulers. ISIS led bandits have stolen and amassed wealth from local people in Syria and Iraq in the name of war booty. These deplorable tendencies are an affront to Islamic values and must be noted as loathsome. They have nothing to do with Islam.

The great companion of the blessed Prophet Abu Bakr as-Siddique ordered his soldiers with the following words:

“O people! I charge you with ten rules; learn them well! Stop, O people, that I may give you ten rules for your guidance in the battlefield. Do not commit treachery or deviate from the right path. You must not mutilate dead bodies. Neither kill a child, nor a woman, nor an aged man. Bring no harm to the trees, nor burn them with fire, especially those that are bearing fruits. Slay not any of the enemy's flock, save for your food. You are likely to pass by people who have devoted their lives to monastic services; leave them alone.”

This self-appointed and so-called Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has lead the way in the death and destruction of people and their properties and homes in both Syria and Iraq. He is no Caliph, but a mere bandit.

4. Islamic State is failing to protect intellect

The ISIS declared Islamic state has failed to attract any intellectual traction in the Muslim world and amongst any credible scholars from anywhere in the world. They have no intellectual or scholarly credence within their rank and file. What they have is a bunch of rejectionist hardliners from the Middle East and North Africa joined by a few disgruntled and confused western converts and impressionable young Muslims all hell bent on imposing an Islamic state on the Muslim world without ever following a due process.

They have also gained some popularity amongst young Iraqis from all backgrounds including the Kurds. These young thirty-somethings were born during the Iraq/Iran war, were growing up during the first Iraq invasion, western imposed sanctions, the second Iraq war and subsequent unstable and totally desperate state of occupation and subjugation. They have grown up in a war-ravaged country with memories of pain and poverty and have hardly been to a school to study basic literacy and numeracy let alone understand the Islamic sciences. A lethal mixture of ill educated and uneducated bunch of unintellectuals make up the core leadership of ISIS and its followers. In fact they probably don’t even know what is an Islamic state and what are its core principles or objectives?

They have not only failed to create an intellectual basis for an Islamic state but have also failed to protect the basic intellectual traditions of Islam. Many scholars have fled the area and expressed their dismay and disgust. This is not an Islamic state, but a state of ignorance!

5. Islamic State is failing to protect family

Thousands of families have lost their loved ones. Their sons, fathers and husbands have been arbitrarily executed by the ISIS killing machine. Families have been ripped asunder by their heartless and merciless activities throughout the conflicts. Children have been separated from parents and wives from husbands. We have reliable reports that place the responsibility of execution of innocent people in Syria at the hands of ISIS and at the order of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. They have destroyed the family unit by forcibly marrying girls and women. They have called them their war booty after executing husbands, fathers and brothers.

In Islam family is the most important institution of a stable society. What kind of a family do these ISIS soldiers imagine building with their war trophy wives, captives and concubines? What kind of children would they leave on this earth? Girls and women are not objects of sex and servants of men. ISIS’s behaviour is barbaric, anti women and simply unislamic. They are not protecting families, as would be the primary objective of a true Islamic State. ISIS is not running an Islamic state, they have created a state to satisfy their lust and entertain their ego.

6. Islamic State is failing to protect faiths of people

ISIS does not tolerate people with diverse views within Islam. They promote and strictly implement an extremely rejectionist and twisted interpretation of Islam. Anyone who belongs to other faiths is mercilessly cut down or forced to convert. This is in total contradiction to Islam. God says, “there is no coercion in religion” but under ISIS there is coercion in everything.

The Shi’a and Sunni divide was precipitated by American backed Noori Al-Maliki’s sectarian government in Iraq but that does not justify sectarian execution and dumping of bodies in mass graves. This is what the butcher of Bosnia, Milosevic did to the Muslims in Srebrenica, and this is what Hitler did to the Jews in Nazi camps. No real Muslim would ever carry out such mass murder.

Protecting faiths of other people is what God decreed and His blessed Prophet exemplified. The successor of the Prophet and the early rightly guided Caliphs institutionalised this duty to such an extent that people of other faiths preferred living under the Islamic State and would often migrate to live there. A person of other faith felt part of the Islamic State, protected and valued. Yet under ISIS people of other faiths are being killed and taking shelter in the mountains. This is not an Islamic state, it is a state of bigotry and intolerance.

7. Islamic State is failing to uphold human rights:

Every human being is born with dignity, honour and freedom. Nobody has the right to take that away from us. The sinners, criminals, virtuous, pious, scholars and ignorant all have dignity. Their dignity must never be denied. In the modern world we know this to mean human rights. It is enshrined in our faith.

In Northern Iraq under ISIS you have no rights and no dignity. You are subjected to their arbitrary and whimsical rules. The bogus Caliph decides what goes and the rest of the foot soldiers abide by his commands regardless of right or wrong. In most cases they don’t even have the capacity to know the difference. If they knew right from wrong, how is it that they would behead journalists whose role is neither political nor military, but to report stories for the world to see. Under what Islamic law did they find justification for their barbaric action? Even the dead are not given respite, their bodies are disposed of inhumanely. This is a crime according to Islam and according to international law.

This is not an Islamic state, but a state of barbarism and depravity!

8. Islamic State is lacking legitimacy:

ISIS led Islamic state lacks legitimacy. Legitimacy comes from people. People of Syria rejected them for their brutality and murderous nature. People of Iraq have been forced into submission by the ISIS brigade. Forced loyalty is not loyalty at all. People of Northern Iraq are scared of speaking out in case they would lose their loved ones. I know genuine and sincere people who have fled Iraq and have taken refuge in Turkey because of the ISIS land, property and women grab. Members of their families may get abducted and killed. They may get their daughters, sisters or wives taken away as slaves or forced to marry one of the ISIS soldiers.

ISIS carries no legitimacy according to Islam. For their only connection to Islam is their erroneous claim to it. They have failed to demonstrate their so-called Caliphate’s commitment to basic human values and the Islamic values of fairness, justice and dignity of all people. They have no legitimacy in the eyes of local people and they have no legitimacy according to Islam’s primary sources. They lack the universal and Islamic values of compassion, mercy, inclusivity and pluralistic outlook. In fact the ISIS members and its leadership under true Islamic rule would be considered as heretic and put to trial for bringing Islam to disrepute, murder, mayhem and destructions.

9. Islamic State is being led by a nobody

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a totally unknown person in the region. No one recognizes him as anything but a self-appointed and another illegitimate ruler in the Middle East. He does not have a track record in the community either in Iraq or Syria; he has provided no real services to the people, never been involved in any development or charitable programmes, has not taken any political stance or positions and certainly has not gained any recognition as an Islamic scholar. Most reputable scholars of the world have dismissed him as someone without any legitimacy. He is not a Caliph and certainly comes across as an opportunist.

When the Prophet passed away he did not appoint a successor and left the choice of leadership upon the Muslim masses. Abu Bakr As-Siddique was elected as the Caliph by popular choice. He was most loved by the people. He was the most honest and upright person. He was the fairest and most just person. He was a kind and compassionate person. He was able to bring communities and people together. He was one of the wisest amongst the companions. His legitimacy came from the people.

In Islam the Caliph is accountable to the public and must serve the people diligently. When the mandate is over or people do not give their legitimacy to a leader, it becomes time for that leader to move aside and allow the choice of the people to prevail. Who is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi accountable to? Do the people of Iraq have right to denounce him, crititicise him and dismiss him? The answer is no. When I spoke to my contacts in Iraq and in the city of Mosul they told me that if anyone dared speak a word of disapproval he would have them beheaded.

People did not freely choose this so called Caliph, the current ISIS leader and he shows no signs of accountability to the people. He is the judge, the jury and the executioner all in one. This is no Caliph, this is a caliph imposter!

10. Islamic State is lacking Islam

Islam is a religion of peace, justice and excellence. It provides a social structure that has inherent aversion to shamelessness, evil and oppression. It calls for charitable and benevolent conducts to eradicate inequality and class barrier based on wealth in society. It provides a political structure where power is devolved to local levels, consultation and referendum feeds the policies of government, leaders are elected directly by the people and are accountable to the people directly. The constitution forms the basis of the state and all its citizens enjoy freedom and equality.

Islamic state run by ISIS lacks all of the above and in truth they are causing oppression, injustice and fear amongst the local people. They are driving people out of their homes, instead of being the sanctuary for the oppressed and disposed. They are creating fear in the hearts of local people. They are the main cause of the loss of hope and aspiration in that world.

True Islamic State is the pride and joy of the Muslims, yet ISIS’s Islamic state is a disgrace. True Islamic State is a point of unity for the Muslims from all over the world however ISIS’s Islamic state is point of disunity and discord. This is not the example of a true Islamic State. This Islamic state has severely damaged the reputation of Islam and repairing this would take decades. This Islamic state has high-jacked the beautiful religion Islam and the nearly two billion Muslims of the world. In this state you will find everything but Islam.

I would like to make it clear once and for all, ISIS is not running an Islamic state they are running a rogue state devoid of Islam! Muslims around the world must raise their voices against this unislamic state and unite to stand together for the true message of Islam.

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