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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Jihad on its way to India

Nov 12, 2014 9:16 am By Robert Spencer

jihadis3Jihad on its way to India
by Kashi N. Pandita

The Daily Excelsior, the popular English daily of Jammu in Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, did not publish my article titled Ghazavatu’l-Hind: A Matter of Faith. However, some websites carried it.

I had cited various ahadith (Arabic plural of hadith meaning traditions come down by word of mouth) handed down by Arab historians that speak about Muslims enjoined by faith to wage holy war for the conquest of Hind – India.

Ayman al Zawahari, the lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, has broadcast the scripturally ordained Indian mission of his organization al-Qaeda. He professed to move beyond India — into Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal and Kashmir in South Asian region. In the days of Muhammad, all these countries were part of the region known to Arabs as al-Hind, and those living in these regions were called Hindi in Arabic lexicon.

Zawahari, hiding somewhere in Pakistan, issued a statement that al-Qaeda would hoist the Islamic flag over Hind. This gives the lie to the Pakistani claim that she would not allow terrorists to use her soil against India. Incidentally, at one time, they had also denied the presence of Osama in Pakistan.

Various campaigns of Muslim warlords from the region of Kherson and Turkistan in medieval times do not pass for ghazavatu’l-Hind, because they were for loot, killing and rapine, at best building a monarchical empire, and not for Islamizing the conquered territories, which is the precise objective of ghazatu’l-Hind. They carried home riches like the famous diamond Koh-i-Noor and diamond-studded throne Takht-i-Tawoos of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. Al Zawahari’s call has a different meaning.

The conflict between the radicals and liberals within the Islamic fold is at least a millennium old, starting with the rise of Ismaili movement towards the beginning of the 10th century A.D. But with the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014, the radical Islamists have split vertically into ultra radicals (Wahhabis and Salafis) and ultra-X radicals (Osamites and Baghdadis).

Nevertheless, they have many things in common: (a) destination: Islamic Caliphate, (b) methodology: al jihad, (c) orientation: martyrdom (shahadat). But there are areas of difference also, such as: (a) fighting tactics: Osamites for hit-and-run but Baghdadiites for open frontal attack, (b) recruitment: Osamites by an ethno-linguistic paradigm and Baghdadiites by absolute religious fervour (c) targets: pro-American elements for Osamites, but for Baghdadiites first Shia and then other religious denominations.

While in essence the two groups converge on the same ultimate destination, yet they are locked in a grim battle for individual achievement and the assertion of Islamic supremacy. Ayman al Zawahari has openly castigated the Islamic State for its localized agenda.

Now that Zawahari is preparing his Indian ghazava (campaign), first reaction is expected from Indian Muslim leadership, because India is the second largest home to the Muslim community in the world. It has to clarify its position vis-a-vis Zawahari’s plan of an Islamic caliphate. He pontificates that after the withdrawal of the British, India should be restored to the Muslims, from whom the Indian Empire was wrested.

If this is the logic, what about the Muslims who wrested power from indigenous Hindu rulers in India, including Kashmir? What about Iran, where Arab conquerors wrested power from the Sassanian monarchs of Zoroastrian faith in the mid 7th century A.D?

The question which Indian Muslims will be asked to answer is this: Are you with Zawahari’s ghazavatu’l-Hind mission or not? It means that Indian Muslims will have to evaluate the Indian political arrangement of secular democracy with a Muslim homeland created under the ideology of two-nation theory.

As far as the rest of the Indians are concerned, they will fight the ghazavites tooth and nail as resistant Armageddon.

The question is: why would al-Qaeda target India? What Zawahari has said in his televised interview is drawn from the brief he has from the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI. In a changed scenario, the US has reservations about providing crutches to the crumbling state of Pakistan, as she has been doing in the past.

In Pakistan, contradictions are deepening. The upswing in Islamic radicalism has the potential to of turning into Frankenstein; terrorist outfits are sustained by petro-dollar booty from Gulf States; there are catastrophic sectarian clashes; the army lusts for authoritarian power; and democratic urges are receiving rough treatment — this is the scenario in Pakistan of today.

Zawahari’s tantrum is bringing more pressures on the government in Islamabad. The ISI smells the US reviving her India-Pacific policy. The accession to power of the Modi government in New Delhi is an indication of phenomenal change in the thinking of the Indian nation about that country’s security and defence concerns. Attempts to destabilize India’s democratic and secular structure are actually meant to deal a hard blow to the visionaries of democracy in Pakistan.

If massive public protest fails to oust the elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, then accelerating the anti-India tirade by inciting religious frenzy among Indian Muslims will contain Nawaz Sharif in his Indo-Pak bonhomie.

Zawahari’s threat that he will create an al-Qaeda network among Indian Muslims is nothing new. The ISI has been at this work for years on end. The Bhatkal brothers are basking under the patronage of an Al-Qaeda-ISI combination at some unrevealed hideout in Pakistan.

We believe that, by and large, Indian Muslims are cognizant of the advantages that have accrued to them from the liberal democratic and secular policy of the Indian government. We also know that occasional statements with a communal tinge coming from sections of the Muslim leadership in India are essentially meant to fortify their pre-eminence in the community, relating to their social status against the rising ultra-nationalist tendency among youth leadership in the community, rather than provoking any serious anti-national propensity. To that extent, this irritant has to be accommodated.

Indian Muslims need to come out of the fear psychosis spread by externally sponsored radicalism. They have to understand that the time has come when they must stand up to what has made them prisoners of retardation and backwardness. This has to be their independent thinking, and they do not need the crutches of any political party.

A word of caution has to be said, though reluctantly. Indian Muslims have done a great disservice to their community by succumbing to the fear psychosis created in them deliberately by the political structure of post-independence India.

There is no dearth of their pseudo-sympathizers within the country. There are still people in this country who would drink with secessionists and dine with separatists, only to demonstrate that they are more loyal than the king.

Those who approached their top ecclesiastical epicentre to appeal to the people of the community to vote for a particular political party, but lost the contest at the end of the day, will not hold back their unsolicited largesse, even if they are made to rub their noses in the dust.

The threat from al-Qaeda’s leadership is a challenge to Indian Muslims to decide their role. Their rejoinder to Zawahari is expected to be clear and unambiguous. It has already come, albeit feebly; it needs to be articulated robustly.

Kashi N. Pandita is the former Director of the Institute of Central Asian Studies at Kashmir University in India. He is now a freelance journalist based in India.

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Filed Under: Al-Qaeda, India, Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh), Pakistan


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Comments

  1. ashton says

    Nov 12, 2014 at 9:20 am

    I’m from western india..
    This is nothing new, Pakistani muzzis are always greedy for land
    After grabbing the land they will impose sharia law …
    That’s all they can do for allah the idol from mecca

  2. mortimer says

    Nov 12, 2014 at 10:33 am

    Al Qaeda will be just as intolerant of Pakistani democracy as they are of all democracies. When large numbers of armed Al Qaeda inhabit Pakistan, there will be a great civil war. This war is small at the moment, but that could be changing. Meanwhile, Pakistan pretends to not like the airstrikes that degrade Al Qaeda.

    Islam creates a situation where everyone must constantly lie about virtually everything. What a dysfunctional country based on a dysfunctional philosophy.

  3. Edison says

    Nov 12, 2014 at 10:51 am

    Personally I would like to see someone do an article on what a democratic culture would look like after a takeover by Muslim’s.

    • sidney penny says

      Nov 13, 2014 at 7:31 am

      What democratic culture ?

      There is none and will be none.

      Its what Allah wants, not what people want

  4. Don McKellar says

    Nov 12, 2014 at 12:15 pm

    Shouldn’t the title actually be “Large Scale Jihad To Return to India”?

    I mean, they’ve certainly had their moslem jihad nightmares on a massive mass-murdering scale in their past. Starting in the 8th Century with monsters that continued on through Mahmud of Ghazni and the evil moslem warlord Timur and on and off through until the British Empire. Recently jihad activity has slowed to a trickle of hotel bombings and whatnot. So this is really back to the future, isn’t it?

    • Jaladhi says

      Nov 12, 2014 at 4:18 pm

      This what Muslims in India are counting on. They stayed in India after independence from the British instead of going to Pakistan, the Muslim homeland. Indians let the Muslims stay in India since India was going to be a secular state and on moral grounds couldn’t have said no to these Muslims who wanted to stay. However, Muslims in India never became a patriotic lot since their allegiance is always with an Islamic country right next door. These Muslims are counting on taking over India once again. The previous government of Congress party did a lot of damage in this respect since they always appeased Muslims for a vote bank. Hope, the new Modi government will put a brake to the appeasement politics. Or Hindus have lost India once again!!

      • Know Thy Enemy says

        Nov 12, 2014 at 8:33 pm

        Modi cannot do everything. The everyday Hindus too must do their part to strengthen Hindu institutions and to make Muslims weak. I can assure Hindus that to depend entirely on Modi will NEVER get you long term security!

  5. Alarmed Pig Farmer says

    Nov 12, 2014 at 5:37 pm

    If there is a really big mass murder operation, we’ll see what Modi is made of. Is he make of the truth, or of fiction? Of doing the necessary dirty work nobody likes, or of acting the Kabuki theater that only a fool (or a Moslem) would see as real matters being dealt with realistically?

    What’ll it be, Modi? Oh wait a minute, I’m getting ahead of myself. When will it be, Zawahiri?

    The inexplicable gaps and absences of the local and federal police during the Mumbia mass murder operation troubled me… until I found out how prevalent Moslems are in the local and federal police apparatus.

  6. LCforevah says

    Nov 12, 2014 at 6:50 pm

    Sometime in the ninety’s the Hindu population rose up against the Muslim population and did a lot of violence and vandalism. Murder, rape, you name it. Hindu men and women are quite capable of taking matters into their own hands with the slightest provocation. If ISIS starts something, there will be a great surprise. Hindus are not fat, lazy Americans waiting for things to resolve themselves.

    • Wtf? says

      Nov 13, 2014 at 5:41 am

      I support your view and it is well known the Hindu Indians can be just as foamy as the Muslims. I seem to remember they burnt some Christian missionaries in a car recently and are well into gang rapes of travelling western tourists. As for the fun of catching a bus as a young woman in New Delhi the list just goes on and on. Please feel free to kill as many Muslims as you like . However I would not insult the Americans, another supremist country called Japan awoke the sleeping bear about 70 years ago. We know how that ended. The Muslim scourge must be defeated by all the free thinking peoples of the world and therefore insults amongst allies is not a good start.

    • mister X says

      Nov 13, 2014 at 5:45 am

      Do you know why it happened ? In around 1993 Muslims desecrated Hindus temple that’s the reason there was massacre from both the sides
      Google it.. Who knows nowadays websites provide fake info, taqiyya propaganda

  7. cs says

    Nov 12, 2014 at 6:54 pm

    Funny, they were not, but recently they have become, Pakistan is very pious and has been radicalized over the years, very bizarre.

  8. The Renegade says

    Nov 13, 2014 at 12:43 am

    Pakistani Muslims have an identity crisis – although they have rich and common hindu ancestry/ culture with India, they are denying the same and are trying to identifying themselves more and more with those who enslaved them i.e. Arabs. It is almost like a stockholm syndrome where you fall in love with your captors. Pakistanis are in love with arabs and have all but forgotten their rich hindu ancestary and diverse culture that was destroyed by Arabs muslim invaders – same holds true for afghanistan which was also hindu/ buddhist.

    muslims from subcontinent are seen by arabs as the ‘conquered’ and are viewed by them as being ‘subjugated/ enslaved’.

    its like being a vampire – one bite – they cannot change back and they get a blood lust…….

    role of muslims is to destroy….. killing and violence is not going to defeat islam – we must target the ideology – ‘element of doubt’ is the cog that will bring this biggest lie perpetrated on humanity down.

    • Dipendu says

      Nov 13, 2014 at 12:58 am

      agree man simple best

    • Wtf? says

      Nov 13, 2014 at 5:32 am

      The great thing about Hindu India is that as a developing nation they will not hesitate to eradicate the Muslims. They can claim they made a mistake and all will be fine in the world community. India I hope you are as swift as the Chinese in the treatment of these Muslim idiots.

  9. S R Wakankar says

    Nov 13, 2014 at 7:14 am

    Whole non-Arab Asian region right from Iran to Indonesia and Mongolia to Australia including all the Central Asian “stans” and the Buddhist Far-East of China/Japan/and Korea is the Hindu World. ONNA (Organisation of non-Arab Asia) must be formed. There are some 40 nations in this huge region touching the Pacific. Hindu India is the king-pin or SOUL of this non-Arab Asian world. The RESISTANCE offered by Hindu India in the medieval era to Arab/Muslim Imperialism is an 8th wonder of world otherwise Hindu India would also have gone the way of Iran/Egypt and Syria. Pakistan is the natural product of this anti-Hindu/anti-Indian imperialism and terror and violence which was and is an integral part of it. The internal problems and contradictions of Pakistan are now surfacing and they have now a war on the Western flank-something unimaginable in 1947 when it was born. The day is not far off when Pakistan would finish off as the bastion of anti-Indianism and emerge as an Indian nation discarding the Arab hang-over.

  10. sidney penny says

    Nov 13, 2014 at 7:25 am

    Jihad on its way to India.

    What a heading! Jihad never left India.

    It continues even today.

    http://voiceofdharma.org/books/tcqp/chii4.htm

    The Calcutta Quran Petition

    7 While the Koran abounds with saying which incite violence, insult the religious beliefs of other communities and even exhort the Muslims to kill and murder non-Muslims, the problem is aggravated by yet another fact which has been true in the past and is universally true in our own times that unlike other communities Muslims are, and even fresh converts tend to become, highly orthodox people and follow the sayings of the book with a fanatical zeal with the result that whichever country has their sizable number amongst its population can never have peace on its soil.

    (This was said in 1985 and it is still true today 2014!)

    and here is another one

    http://voiceofdharma.org/books/jihad/

    JIHÃD THE ISLAMIC DOCTRINE OF PERMANENT WAR
    Suhas Majumdar

    In the present study, Professor Suhas Majumdar has seen through this scholarship, and demolished it brick by brick.

    He has rescued the doctrine of jihãd from under the mass of pretentious verbiage, and made it stand in its pristine purity.

    Let no one say any more that jihãd does not mean what it has meant all along in the blood-soaked history of Islam, and what we are witnessing today in Kashmir,India.

  11. Truth says

    Nov 13, 2014 at 10:28 am

    If India wants to, it can rise up and destroy every single Muslim on the planet earth (yes, all 1.2 billion of them).

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