Having described what he saw as Islam’s Golden Age, which he seems to think lasted until the 15th century, though historians agree that it lasted only from the 8th to the 10th centuries, Mahathir Mohamed continued his keynote address with still more of his idiosyncratic history:
Then around the 15th Century of the Common Era, the Muslim civilisation declined. They neglected all acquisition of knowledge other than that on Islam. Scholars of Islam came up with differing interpretations. The result is the formation of differing sects at odds with each other.
Hadn’t Muslim civilization been declining for several centuries before that? Don’t we measure that civilizational decline from the conquest of Baghdad by the Mongols, under Hulagu Khan, in 1258, and the destruction of the Abbasid Dynasty and its enlightened court? Mohamed is right to note that Muslim intellectual interests narrowed to the study of Islam, with those 50-volume commentaries on the Qur’an, and those endless analyses of the chain of transmission (isnads) of the hadith – the stories about Muhammad’s sayings and deeds – in order to determine how reliable they were likely to be. This was a colossal expenditure of mental energy by Muslim scholars on what many of us regard as sterile quarrels. Did Muhammad really say to Habab ibn Bishr what Ibrahim al-Ansari said he did, or did he say it to claims he did, or did he say it to Khalid ibn al-As? Or could it be that the isnad-chain is so suspect, that Muhammad may just possibly not have said it at all? And which of his nine wives and two concubines did Muhammad favor? wives? And what were the precise words that Muhammad used to express his satisfaction when he learned of the death of Asma bint Marwan? How did they differ from what he said when he learned of the death of Ka’b ibn al-Ashraft? And just how hard did Muhammad punch Aisha in the chest? Subjects for endless discussion and dispute.
Again Mahathir Mohamed makes a bizarre remark. He claims that around the 15th century, “scholars of Islam came up with differing interpretations. The result is the formation of differing sects at odds with each other.”
The great sectarian division in Islam, that between the Sunnis and the Shi’a, did not begin in the 15th century but dates back to the first century of Islam. So does the Ibadi sect, now found mostly in Oman and in some oases in Algeria, which dates from 650 A.D. The Sufis emerged, similarly, not in the 15th century, but at least 500 years before, during the so-called “Golden Age of Islamic Civilization.” What sects emerged in the 15th century due to the “differing interpretations” of, presumably, passages in the Qur’an? Mahathir Mohamed doesn’t say.
Muslims lost their countries. They were dominated by European powers. They become colonies of the Europeans.
This repeated insistence that Muslims “lost their countries” and were “dominated by European powers” from the 18th century on has already been discussed in Part 2. It was pointed out that it was the Muslim Turks of the Ottoman Empire that “dominated” the Middle East and North Africa for most of that period. The Europeans – England and France – remained in the Middle Eastern countries only for a few decades, as Mandataries – that is, holders of Mandates, not colonizers. France was the Mandatary for Syria and Lebanon, Great Britain the Mandatary for Palestine and Iraq. The Europeans never dominated Iran, or Turkey, or Saudi Arabia. In North Africa, the French had protectorates in Morocco and Tunisia, but the only true colony was Algeria, from 1830 to 1962. Mahathir Mohamed’s attempt to blame the “European powers” for being “colonists” who prevented the development of the Muslim countries will not wash.
So, if the future remains as we are now, we will suffer continuous oppression – we will decline further and our great religion will be denigrated as a religion of failure, of oppression and terrorism.
Mahathir Mohamed speaks of “continuous oppression” being suffered by Muslims. That takes some gall. He has apparently forgotten that In his own country, Malaysia, the only people who are oppressed are the industrious Chinese and Hindus, who are forced to share their wealth with the Muslim Malays through the “bumiputra” system, which — among many other unfair provisions — allows Muslims to acquire equity in non-Muslim enterprises at preferential rates. Where do Muslims now suffer continuous oppression? Only in China — not in any country in the West. By the tens of millions, Muslims have been allowed to settle in Europe and North America. In the generous welfare states of Western Europe, they have taken full advantage of every possible benefit: free or heavily subsidized housing, free education, free medical care (far beyond what is attainable in Muslim states), unemployment benefits (even without having had to have been employed), family allowances, and more. How are they oppressed? Despite the many terror attacks by Muslims all over the world, in the West there have been no roundups or mass expulsions, and the political and media elites make every effort to minimize the role of Islam in these attacks; some news reports even deliberately fail to identify the perpetrators as Muslims; many among our elites continue to insist, along with Pope Francis, and despite all the contrary evidence, that “authentic Islam” has “nothing to do with violence.”
Mahathir Mohamed’s despair over the state of Islam is warranted. Everywhere in the world, the behavior of Muslims has eroded whatever naïve good will toward them may have once existed. Their refusal, or even inability, to integrate into the Western societies that have welcomed them, and treated them so well, has had its effect. More Unbelievers are turning to the Qur’an to discover what it is that explains Muslim behavior. There they discover more than 100 verses commanding violent Jihad against the Infidels, and also find declarations of contempt and hatred for all non-Muslims. Believers are told that they are the “best of peoples” (3:110) while Unbelievers are described as “the most vile of created beings” (98:6). And the Unbelievers realize that those many verses commanding Jihad, and the verses that express hatred for them as the “most vile of created beings,” explain that contempt for our laws, customs, and mores. And they understand, too, the contempt many Muslims display for Infidel women, who “deserve what they get” at the hands of Muslim men, including those grooming gangs of Muslim sexual predators who have ruined the lives of tens of thousands of English girls. Western Infidels are waking up to the permanent menace; alarmed, they find intolerable the establishment of No-Go Zones by Muslims, who have carved out territories in major cities in Europe where even the firemen now need police protection, and the police themselves enter only in groups.
Prime Minister Mohamed fears that “our great religion will be denigrated as a religion of failure, of oppression and terrorism.”
Failure? Let’s see. Despite receiving nearly $27 trillion in unmerited income since 1973, the result of an accident of geology, the Arab oil states and Iran have not created modern economies. They have failed to diversify their sources of revenue; the Arab Gulf states, in particular, count on oil and gas for 90% of their revenues. They rely, too, on foreigners to do all the work; in Qatar, 90% of the population consists of non-Qataris who work at everything from building those endless skyscrapers that define Doha, to serving as teachers, doctors, engineers, lawyers, salesmen, while the 10% who are Qataris are content to be waited on in this rentier economy. In Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E, and Kuwait, the percentage of foreigners in the population is more than 80%, and it is still the same story as in Qatar: the foreigners do the work, while the indigenous Arabs either do not work at all, or have undemanding government jobs that require them to show up at an office for only 2-3 hours a day; foreigners do all the heavy lifting in the Saudi economy. In Saudi Arabia, economists estimate that only 30% of Saudis work at all, and almost all of that 30% works for the government; the private sector is too demanding. Yes, that is what one should call a “failure” of Islamic societies, a failure of the religion to inculcate the habit of work.
What about “oppression”? Mohamed means “oppression of Muslims by non-Muslims.” But aside from the Chinese “re-education” camps for Uighurs, and Myanmar‘s expulsion of the Rohingya, there is no “oppression” of Muslims. They have been admitted into our countries, generously treated, and so far suffered no repercussions for their behavior, from thousands of deadly terror attacks to grooming gangs, to No-Go Zones, to microaggressions of every sort.
If there is “oppression” of Muslims, save for the cases of the Uighurs and the Rohingya, almost all of it comes from fellow Muslims. The Kurds in Iraq have long been oppressed by the Arabs; 182,000 of them were murdered by Saddam Hussein’s Arab army in Operation Anfal. Muslim Turks also oppress the Kurds in Anatolia, who would like less repression by the army, recognition of the Kurdish language as being on a par with Turkish, and a greater degree of autonomy. In Saudi Arabia the majority Sunnis deal harshly with any sign of dissent from the Shi’a minority who live in the oil-bearing Eastern Province. In Bahrain, the ruling Al-Khalifa family has suppressed, with the help of Pakistani troops, the Shi’a protesters who make up 75% of their subjects. In Iran, the Sunni Balochis in eastern Iran are persecuted by the Shi’a government. In Pakistan, both the Shi’a and the Ahmadis live in fear of Sunni terror groups that have attacked and murdered members of both sects. In Algeria, the shadowy government of Arabs known as “le pouvoir” (“the power”) has long tried to suppress the Berber language and culture, and only recently was Berber recognized, after many protests in Tizi-Ouzou and other Berber cities, as a national language. The inattention to Berber culture, however, continues as the Arabs pursue their historic policy of Arabization. These are only some of the most obvious examples of Muslims oppressing Muslims, over differences of sect or ethnicity; there are many others.
And then there is the third aspect of present-day Islam that Mahathir Mohamed fears damages the image of the faith: “our great religion will be denigrated as a religion of failure, of oppression and terrorism.” “Failure” — see above. “Oppression” – see above. As for “terrorism,” who can deny it? There have been over 36,000 terror attacks by Muslims since 9/11 alone. All over the Western world Muslim terrorists have struck, and with each attack more people see Islam as the menace it is, and that common-sensical recognition is exactly what Mahathir Mohamad most fears.
Muslim terrorists have struck all over Europe, in Madrid and Barcelona, in Paris (many times), in Toulouse, Tours, Nice, Magnanville, and St. Etienne du Rouvray, London (many times), Manchester, Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Wurzburg, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Malmö, Helsinki, Turku, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Beslan.
And in the United States, too, Muslim terrorists have attacked in Washington, New York (many times), Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Fort Hood, Little Rock, Chattanooga, Orlando.
For those, who have been paying attention, Islam is indeed, despite the fervent hopes of Mahathir Mohamed that it be see otherwise, a “religion of failure, of oppression, and terrorism.”
In sum:
The “failures” of Islam, economically and politically, are not the result of outside malevolent powers, European colonizers, or Zionist schemers. It is Islam’s reliance on authority, and discouragement of free and questioning inquiry, that stunts mental growth and, in particular, undermines the enterprise of science. It is Islamic fatalism – everything depends on the whim of Allah — that dampens economic activity, for why try so hard when in the end, Allah withholds or dispenses his bounty as he sees fit? That inculcated obedience to authority has political consequences, too – it makes despotism the default political system. After all, Muhammad himself, the Perfect Man and Model of Conduct, was a military warlord and a despot. Where democracy has been tried in a few Muslim states, it hasn’t lasted long enough for Western-style democracy to take root. Out of 57 Muslim states, none are full democracies, and only three states are today what The Economist calls “flawed democracies” (with low participation in the electoral process, media censorship, intimidation of political rivals, and an absence of freedom of speech and assembly, as these are understood in the West). These three “flawed democratic” states are Bangladesh, since 1990, Pakistan, since 2013, and Indonesia, since 1999.
The “oppression” of Islam of which Mahathir Mohamed refers is not, as he appears to think, mainly that of Muslims by non-Muslims, but is, rather, the oppression of Muslims and non-Muslims alike by Muslims. Sunnis oppress Shi’a in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt; Sunni Balochis fight Shi’a Persians in Iran; Arabs oppress Berbers in Algeria and Kurds in Iraq; Turks oppress Kurds in Turkey; a Sunni ruler represses his Shi’a people in Bahrain; Arabs oppress Berbers in Algeria, and so on, in a display of every possible permutation and combination of sect and ethnicity. There is no sign that any of this Muslim-on-Muslim oppression is diminishing.
Finally, “terrorism” by Muslims against non-Muslims continues unabated, and will not diminish until Muslims themselves find a way to expunge or reinterpret the many Qur’anic verses that instruct them to “strike terror in the hearts” of the Infidels. And how likely is that?
“Failure, oppression, terrorism” do indeed define the state of Islam today. Let us hope that we, the inoffensive Infidels, manage to not be pulled down with it.
Hindu American says
Very well written, RS.
Infidel says
It was Hugh, not RS who wrote it. Other than that, you’re right
Infidel says
This sounds like the House ‘impeachment’ hearings, when they had different State Department bureaucrats telling the congressmen whether he heard what she said about what he said about what ze said blah blah blah ?
Or like the REO Speedwagon song
Most of those Ukraine State Department bureaucrats could use a trip to Saudi Arabia to study isnads ?
Honestly, I wouldn’t call that a failure of any country: most countries do not have diverse economies. Along w/ the Arab states, Russia, Venezuela do not have diversified economies. Even the US is pretty much riding a purely energy driven boom: the innovation economy that we had in the 90s and even the last decade has been decimated, w/ most manufacturing moving either to China, or to other places, like Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan and so on, thanks to the policy of boardrooms to satisfy only the stockholders, while the country is hollowed out.
The bulk of those foreign workers are non-Muslims from countries like Sri Lanka, Philippines, Nepal, et al. What would they do if one day, those people have an uprising to overthrow those governments: the Arabs would be SOL. Why don’t they instead import ‘Palestinian’, Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian and slaves from other Arab countries? Or from other Islamic paradises like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mahathir’s Malaysia or Indonesia? Muslims who are not pampered and incapable of any real work?
Actually, only the Uyghur case is oppression. The Burmese Muslims have been expelled to Bangladesh, so the Burmese are no longer the ones oppressing them. If anyone is oppressing them, it’s the Bangladeshis, who’re not making them learn Bangladeshi and assimilating them into their country. They could easily do a swap w/ the Burmese – these Muslims for Bangladesh’s Buddhist Chakma and other Arakan/CHT tribes.
Another fine article, Hugh!
elee says
Muslims never create anything. They do not save, invest, husband capital, or build production capacity. They pillage kafirs, which has worked just fine for a millennium and a half. Why invent a vacuum cleaner and actually use it, when you can buy three Nepali women and rape them when they arent scrubbing the floors? Just remember, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Industrial Revolution, democracy human rights clean drinking water vaccines and everything else we take for granted and export freely…….its all kufr and innovation, and it is the clear duty of every pious Muslim to smash and destroy it all. This distinguishes Islam from the other scourges of civilisation through the ages…..somebody correct me if Im wrong, but I never heard of Mongols Tatars Goths Vandals or Huns imbuing their sociopathies with some sort of divine imprimatur. Everything they destroy pleases al Lah. If they win the world will live the din of Islam in starving mud hovels.
Phil Copson says
“….Actually, only the Uyghur case is oppression….”
—————————————————————–
Actually, is it “oppression” to educate people out of Islam, or to prevent them from following it ? I don’t recall any of these commentators who are now so exercised over the Uyghurs, exhibiting any concern over the imposition of communism on the Chinese by Mao Tse-Tung, or the imposition of Islam on the people of Iran by Khomeini – on the contrary, the Left absolutely loved it, and still do.
Any sensible country would go through the Koran etc striking out all passages calling for the genocide of Jews, the murder of apostates and homosexuals, the subjugation or conversion of non-muslims, the subjugation of all women of whatever background, slavery, FGM, jizya, and make it plain that anyone calling for these things will be prosecuted, imprisoned, their citizenship cancelled, and will then be deported to wherever their family came from, since they have plainly renounced their citizenship by calling for the imposition of Sharia Law on Western societies.
(Once all the supremacism has been removed, how much does that leave exactly – has anyone ever checked ?)
Sabri S. says
Very well written Hugh…I often get vilified on this site for bringing up the puppet regimes in muslim
lands that are propped up by these “Western Powers”. One person on this site even stated that this only happens because these muslim governments “invite them to occupy their countries”. What rubbish.
It appears that Islam does have an arab or pakistani problem, but one would forget that people all over the world practice their faith Culturally first, and religiously 2nd. I think more studies need to be done about why muslims in the west are thriving, and other muslims in those undeveloped countries are not. The are practicing the same faith, so I owe this difference up to the overall infrastructure and media freedoms in the west.
Infidel says
Sabri
Every race that has any Islam in it is infected: it’s not restricted to Arabs or Pakistanis. (Pakistanis, incidentally are as invented an ethnicity as the Palestinians: they’re simply Indian Muslims who managed to secede.) Whether its Turkic people (Turkey and the ex-Soviet ‘stans’), Iran and Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh (unless you consider them East Pakistani), Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Bosnia, non-Arab Africa and so on
Talking about the puppet regimes, they do not just invite, but beg Western powers to prop them up. When Obama was distancing himself from the Saudis to the preference of Iran, the Arabs lobbied the GOP hard to re-engage, and to an extent, it’s worked. I for one have advocated that the US leave the region completely, and park all military assets, be it CENTCOM, Incirlik or anything else, in Israel. Other than that, leave all Muslim areas, and you’ll see a 3-way war break out b/w the Arabs, Turkey and Iran. Also, the Russo-Turkey alliance will instantly evaporate, as those 2 countries have inherently competing interests, be it in Syria, Armenia-Azerbaijan and elsewhere.
Also, the ‘cultural’ practice of Islam does not preclude Jihad, as one might think. You’re partly right in that Azerbaijan, which is a Turkic but Shia country, prefers Turkey to Iran, while Tajikistan, which is Farsi but Sunni, prefers Iran to Turkey. But their ethnic attributes have not resulted in either country being positively opposed to Jihad: it’s just that they still have regimes led by people who were Communists during the Soviet era. Once that passes, watch for Erdogan like characters coming to power in Ashgabat, Nursultan, Bishkek and Tashkent
As for Muslims in the West, the only reason they’re thriving is that they’re a minority participant in a non-Muslim enterprise. Put another way, why don’t countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE have modern economies, given the endless money supply from oil? But look at Malaysia, which was once a Muslim minority country, then became a Muslim plurality and finally a Muslim majority country. The only reason Muslims prosper there is bhumiputra, where Malays can be parasites on the work of ethnic Chinese and non-Muslim Indians
gravenimage says
Sabri S.’s pretending that Hugh Fitzgerald is blaming the condition of the Muslim world on the ‘filthy Infidels’s is of course utterly absurd.
Sabri S. wrote::
I think more studies need to be done about why muslims in the west are thriving, and other muslims in those undeveloped countries are not. The are practicing the same faith, so I owe this difference up to the overall infrastructure and media freedoms in the west.
…………………
Is Sabri S. admitting that freedom lead to people being able to thrive?
In that case, why is he trying to impose his vicious, barbaric creed on all of us?
barbaracvm1 says
What would happen if all non muslims left the country for 60 days?
Infidel says
Which country are we discussing – the Gulf states or Malaysia?
Either case – I wish that happens. The Gulf states – let them absorb all the Palestinians, unemployed Egyptians, Jordanians and Lebanese, and then have them do the work that non-Muslim slaves were doing. At least, they’re fellow Arabs, if not from the Quraysh tribe. If that ain’t enough, take in more Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims: those people are current beggars who could use the help. Bangladesh looks like it will be getting back citizens who’ve been illegally living in India: they could relocate to Qatar.
And don’t make it 60 days: make it for good!!
James Lincoln says
According to the feature article by Hugh Fitzgerald:
“in Qatar, 90% of the population consists of non-Qataris who work at everything from building those endless skyscrapers that define Doha, to serving as teachers, doctors, engineers, lawyers, salesmen, while the 10% who are Qataris are content to be waited on in this rentier economy.”
That is correct.
A physician colleague of mine was recently recruited for a very high-paying job in Qatar. After visiting the country, he was completely disillusioned by the Islamic culture.
Upon his return, over a beer, he told me that no amount of money could entice him to take a job in an Islamic country.