r.ahmad
The Triumph of the East? Who are the real winners?
Sat Aug 7, 2004 19:28
64.140.158.14

The Triumph of the East? Who are the real winners?


A response by Sh. Riyad Nadwi to Anthony Browne’s
Article in the Spectator.
On reading Mr Anthony Browne’s article ‘The Triumph of the East’ in the
Spectator, I thought the numerous contradictions and clichéd composition was
unworthy of a response. However, after seeing Mr Browne try to defend himself
on the BBC Newsnight programme (5th August 2004) by regurgitating chunks of
his article, I decided that a brief clarification on a few crucial points was
necessary after all. This article, which has numerous similarities to Daniel
Pipes’s (1990) article1 ‘The Muslims are Coming! The Muslims are Coming!’ is
centred around a single theme that Muslims are out to conquer the world through
immigration and proselytising, and the West should put a stop to both by
reversing the tide through a twenty-first century anti-Muslim pogrom.
Fear of Proselytising
From a Christian and Muslim perspective, the answer to a question of whether
one should proselytise is quite clear, but for people like Anthony Browne and
Daniel Pipes, the concept appears somewhat difficult to grasp. Followers of Islam
and Christianity believe in the truth of their faith and see it as their responsibility
to share their faith with others. Hence, Christians and Muslims feel encouraged
to proselytise on the basis of a simple logic; if one has something they believe is
good, they should not be selfish with it. Sharing one’s faith with fellow human
beings is part of religious kindness and generosity, unless of course one does not
consider others worthy of one’s faith for racial or other reasons. Proselytising in
Judaism is discouraged.
The crucial question about proselytising is whether those who are being invited
have the right to reject. In Islam, the right to reject is guaranteed in the words
of God. He says in the Quran ‘there is no compulsion in religion’2. Therefore,
people are free to accept or reject Islam when it is presented to them. Mr
Browne et al fail to see the contradiction in their claim that Islam is a vile and
dangerous religion whilst at the same time emphasising the fact that thousands
of freedom loving Westerners are adopting it as their faith. Muslim migrants in
the West do not wield swords to bring people into Islam, nor are they in control of
the large sections of the mass media through which people are constantly
brainwashed with ‘spin’ and misinformation. Coming to Islam is a choice people
make out of their own free will. So why is this being made into a problem now?
False statistics
The statistical claims Mr Browne includes to prove that Islam is the fastest
growing religion in the West are highly misleading and at best questionable if one
1 Pipes, D., (1990) The Muslims are coming! The Muslims are Coming, National Review.
2 Al-Quran. Surah Al-Baqarah (2) verse 256.
restricts analysis to the traditional meaning of the term ‘religion’. When one
looks at the bigger picture, one finds that Western society is not defined only by
organised religion but by an array of competing belief systems, of which Islamic
belief only accounts for a miniscule proportion. The whole idea that Islam is the
fastest growing belief system in the West is a fallacy created and promoted by
people with an agenda. For every one Westerner that accepts Islam, the Muslim
community loses ten followers to agnosticism. As a community, we are
struggling to keep the next generation in the faith. The statistics of drift are
undoubtedly alarming, and every week I receive several letters and telephone
calls from distraught parents asking for help and advice in bringing their sons or
daughters back to faith. I am sure that my experience in this is not unique.
Taking over the world
The Muslim world has been under an iron grip of military domination for decades.
Muslims are persecuted in some Muslim countries for practicing their faith and
seventy percent of the world’s refugees are Muslims. Despite this, we are being
warned that Islam is about to take over the world. If Mr Browne were, as he
would like us to believe, a competent journalist, he would acknowledge the fact
that rhetoric in the Middle East is a two way street. Living in the shadow of
Israeli oppression and witnessing its ability to dupe the major nations of the world
into supporting it’s plunder of Palestinian land day after day understandably
causes emotions to boil over into rhetoric. For millions of Muslims, the utterance
of strong words is the only source of comfort in which they can indulge. In
reality, if we want to know who is conquering whom, one should ask Palestinian
children, “who is taking over their world?” In all likelihood, they will point to the
Israeli tanks poised above the rubble that was once their home. In his selective
survey of plans for conquering the world, Mr Browne, for the sake of objective
and balanced journalism, could have highlighted the impact of a notable list of
pro-Israel neo-conservative projects3 on the Muslim world. An appropriate
example would be Professor Paul Eidelberg4, a professor of political science,
president and co-founder of the Foundation for Constitutional Democracy in the
Middle East as well as the president of the Yamin Israel Party. He is also a
member of the Advisory Council of the Ariel Center for Policy Research and of the
Editorial Board of one of Israel’s premier journal, Nativ, to which he is a frequent
contributor. Professor Eidelberg argues for a Hebraic world in his policy paper
entitled “The Clash of two Decadent Civilizations, towards an Hebraic Alternative”5
The executive summary reads:
‘Part I discusses the decadence of Islamic civilization. Part II discusses the decadence of
Western civilization. Part III discusses the basis of Hebraic civilization, showing how it
transcends East and West. Part I portrays Islam’s decline as rooted in hate. Part II
reveals the West’s decline as rooted in indifference. Part III reveals Hebraic civilization
as rooted in Hesed – kindness. What is called the “West” today is not equivalent to
Western civilization. The latter has been eroded and emasculated by multiculturalism
and feminism. The Great Books of Western civilization no longer set the tone of higher
education in the West. The quest for the True, the Good, and the Beautiful have been
replaced by relativism. Pop culture is the result. Spread abroad, it threatens Islam. In
reacting to this threat by means of suicide bombers, Islam reveals itself not only as a
3 For further reading see “Project for The New American Century” www.newamericancentury.org/
4 He (Ph.D. University of Chicago), is the author of many books including The Philosophy of the
American Constitution, A Discourse on Statesmanship, Beyond the Secular Mind, and Judaic Man.
Professor Eidelberg, who lives in Jerusalem,
5 Policy Paper published by the Ariel Center for Policy Research (ACPR). http://www.acpr.org.il/ t a religion that has exhausted its original creativity. Islamic
absolutism, like Western relativism, ends in nihilism. It is in the clash between Western
relativism and Islamic absolutism that we are to understand the world-historical
necessity of Hebraic civilization, whose restoration awaits the establishment of a New
Israel’
Although I have serious reservations about the authenticity of the Protocols of the
Elders of Zion, Professor Eidelberg is as authoritative as you can get. Far from
being the emotional statement of a religious scholar under trying circumstances
who has no position or say in government, Professor Eidelberg is an influential
player in Israeli politics. Given his view that a Hebraic civilisation will raise from
the ashes of a clash between the West and Islam, should we not then speculate
on reasons for the recent quality meltdown in global intelligence reports?
Perhaps more tellingly, one should question Mr Browne’s intention in cherry
picking from millions of lectures and hundreds of thousands of Imams’ statements
that could be misused to intensify a clash of civilisations.
The wider context should be clear. Mr Browne should consider the implications of
his shabby journalism and the possibility that he could be accused of being a cog
in a pro-Israel strategy designed to dupe the West into a proxy war against Islam
on multiple fronts for the benefit of Israel, a campaign that fears that if Muslims
continue to develop strong and active communities in the West, support for
unjust Israeli policies could dwindle.
Shaikh Riyad Nadwi M.A., Ph.D.
Oxford, UK
6th August 2004
http://WWW.OCCRI.ORG.UK