Saturday 12 June 2010

The Concept of Khilafah (Islamic Caliphate)

When Tony Blair and George Bush talked about never allowing another Taliban style state to be established, what they in fact meant is the concept of the Khilafah. This is a system of governance where only the Shari’ah is implemented and where sovereignty and supremacy belong solely to God.

The Khilafah system is the dream of most Islamic movements around the world today as an ultimate objective, since the last remnants of this system were destroyed at the hands of Kemal Ataturk on the 3rd of March 1924. Called the Othmani Caliphate at its demise, the Khilafah system of governance existed ever since the lifetime of Messenger Muhammad when he established the first Islamic State in 622 CE. There was then an unbroken chain of Islamic States for 1302 years until its destruction in 1924.

The Khilafah system is not implemented anywhere in the world today; rather every country in the Muslim world today implements a form of capitalism, monarchy or other form of dictatorship or secular system. Unlike the leaders who rule today, the Khaleefah (or Emir/Amir/Ameer) – who has been given authority by the Muslims to rule over the Khilafah – must ensure that only the Shari’ah is implemented internally and that it is also carried to the world as the foreign policy of the State.

The Taliban had the dream of bringing back this unique system of governance. However, beset with civil war and attempts to overthrow them, they came close to reaching this ideal only to be halted in the final stages of their embryonic development.

So why would the West, and in particular George Bush and Tony Blair, be so vehemently against the re-establishment of such a system? Is it because they are concerned at how women were obliged to cover themselves in public, is it because they opposed capital punishment or is it because they understand that establishing the Khilafah means the re-emergence of this beacon of light on the earth and the beginning of the end of man made systems of law?

It is clear that the latter is the real cause for concern. The Khilafah system is in truth an affront to all capitalist or other man made systems of ruling because it rejects all their ideologies, foundations and institutions. It does not accept secularism, democracy, liberalism or freedom and nor does it accept for anybody to have any say over it such as the United Nations or their Security Council.

Hence, the Khilafah would be in one camp whilst the rest of the world would be in the other. Sovereignty for God verses sovereignty for man, the law of God verses the law of man, a civilisation based on divine commands verses a civilisation based on the whims and desires of man. This is the real reason why the American and British governments are firmly against its emergence.

The Muslim activists have known this ever since the destruction of the previous state at the hands of the British stooge Kemal Ataturk in 1924. Muslims witnessed the conspiracies and plots of the British and French, as they divided the remnants of the Islamic State amongst themselves after the First World War. They saw the Balfour declaration give Palestine to the Jews when it was already occupied by and in fact belonged to Muslims. They experienced the insistence of the British and French upon Kemal Ataturk’s new regime, post-Khilafah, that being the withdrawal of the foreign troops, from what became Turkey, would only occur after the reassurance that the Khilafah would never re-emerge.

With this in mind is it any wonder that attacks against the Taliban are translated immediately as attacks against Islam and Muslims directly by most Muslims around the world. Is it any wonder that ridiculing their ideology and belittling their belief shows Muslims the true hatred which the Bush’s and Blair’s of this world harbour towards Islam and is it any wonder that promises to stop any Khilafah system from being established is a challenge to all Muslims to redouble their efforts to please Allah and to prove these tyrants wrong.

However, the struggle to bring back the Khilafah is hard and wrought with difficulties because of the physical and intellectual hurdles which must be overcome. The physical ones consisting of the dictatorial regimes in charge over Muslim countries with their masters overlooking them. The intellectual hurdles consist of the false notions introduced into the mindset of Muslims by the secularists with their new religion, which is anathema to Islam and its correct understanding and implementation.

Having said this, the Islamic movements world-wide have begun to create political vacuums in many Muslim countries, where the masses are dissatisfied with their brutal regimes and are looking for an alternative to satisfy their basic needs and to protect their sanctities. The Muslim Ummah (community) has been described by scholars as a pregnant woman in her last stage of pregnancy – she has a short time before delivery. The only question is whether it will be a natural birth delivered through public opinion and awareness leading to change or whether it will be carried out via a caesarean operation requiring a military coup or bloody revolution.

There are unique aspects to the concept of Khilafah which cause concern for the capitalist camp. One such attribute is the fact that the Khilafah state does not have fixed borders; rather, it has always had frontiers which are expanded whenever the Islamic State can launch jihad to remove the obstacles in the way of implementing divine law or when the bordering country accepts Islamic law and order peacefully. This is contrary to the concept of nation states and the United Nations which prohibits annexation of countries and thereby maintains the hegemony of the current larger states over the divided and smaller (often Muslim) ones.

Another problem which the leaders of the capitalist world share is the fact that the Khaleefah, when appointed, will never agree to permanent peace with any nation; rather its foreign policy is built on the basis of temporarily having ceasefires so long as Islam is allowed to be propagated in the other country, though once the time limit expires the Islamic State may advance and annex the land to implement the Shari’ah there without notice. The maximum ceasefire allowed in Islam being 10 years.

A further reason why the Western camp will never tolerate the emergence of the Khilafah is that trade with other nations will never involve the sale of items which could strengthen their military capability against the Khilafah. Hence the fact that much of the world’s resources in terms of oil, uranium and various raw components of military machinery are to be found in Muslim countries is a strong motivating factor in countries such as the US and UK – having military and economic interests on Muslim soil – to promote democracy (i.e. man made law) and freedom (freedom from Shari’ah that is) even if it costs 1000s of lives. It was towards the beginning of the current Iraq war that a top US official actually warned the Saudi authorities that if they decided to cut oil supplies or subsidies to the US then the US military would look after these interests themselves, i.e. invade Saudi Arabia.

Capitalists and the proponents of secularism also know that the strength of a nation is not its physical capability or monetary wealth but rather its thoughts and concepts, its intellect and driving force. They also realise that once the Khilafah is established on Earth there will once again be education for the masses based purely on the revelation from the Qur’an and teachings of the Messenger Muhammad; Western corruption from Hollywood and the pornography, cosmetics and fashion industries exploiting the procreation instincts will be banned; consuming and trading in drugs and alcohol will be illegal; and monopolising wealth or commodities and engaging in usurious transactions will also be illegal.

Without such time wasting and taming influences, the emerging Islamic State will be able to concentrate on nurturing a nation of people that are willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of pleasing God.

The emerging Khilafah will therefore have a formidable army which will be very hard to confront. Even the few resistance fighters in Iraq with this mindset are keeping the full might of the US and UK armies busy. With no hang ups about what the United Nations might say and nothing to check their actions except the divine Text, the fear of the Khilafah will no doubt reach pandemic proportions.

Indeed the Messenger Muhammad said that he had been given things which no previous prophet of Allah (God) had been given before him, among them is the fact that the enemies of Islam and the Muslims feared his arrival and were consequently defeated one month before he even arrived at the battlefield.

In fact, it would not be an overstatement to say that the biggest nightmare that the capitalist camp could envisage for the future of it's interests in Muslim countries and indeed for its own future is once again having to confront the might and majesty of the Khilafah system of governance.