Middle East, News Watch

Saudi Arabia and Qatar – The Political Circus in The Gulf

At the 41st annual GCC Summit, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have restored ties ending a three year “spat” between the two countries. Gulf leaders signed a declaration at a summit held in Saudi Arabia hours after Riyadh announced it was lifting its air, land and sea embargo on Qatar. Qatar was also shunned by Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain which are expected to follow the footsteps of Saudi this year by restoring their political relations.

The bond of brotherhood has political ramifications

We are not an Ummah that stops trading, closes borders or cuts ties between the Muslim lands for political superiority. We are also not an Ummah that is subservient to the US’s foreign policy or to be told when to wage a war or blockade against the Muslims. Indeed we are an Ummah that worships one Creator, our problems are one, our Deen is one, our lands are one and our mission is one. Our Deen unites us and ruling by Kufr and being subservient to the Western powers divides and separates us.

[إِنَّ هَذِهِ أُمَّتُكُمْ أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً وَأَنَا رَبُّكُمْ فَاعْبُدُونِ]

“Indeed, this Ummah of yours is one Ummah, and I am Your Lord, therefore worship Me.” [TMQ 21:92].

Rather than making and breaking political ties and treaties between nation states that were created to divide the Ummah, the Muslims have to aspire to unite on the basis of Islam. Allah (swt) referred to us as Muslims and did not identify us based on the place we were born in or the colour of our skin.

Islam came to change relations that were predicated upon narrow nationalism and benefit with the bond of brotherhood among the Muslims. The bond of brotherhood in Islam is not only the strongest bond that can bring the Ummah together and unite it but it is also the bond that Islam instructs us to base our relationships on. This bond has political ramifications, a fact that the regimes in the Muslim world fail to understand.

The political circus in the Gulf region exposes the priorities of the regimes in those countries. From hosting American military bases that are used as supply lines against the Ummah to spearheading initiatives leading to the killing of Muslims in Yemen and Palestine. All of this is happening as a result of the “every country to their own” mentality that divides the Muslims and only unites them based on temporary political interests at a given time.

Only the Khilafah (Caliphate) will unite the Muslims, protect them and work for their cause rather than separating them using borders, flags and nationalistic identities that collapse at the sight of a temporary benefit. The Khilafah will perceive the current borders between the Muslim countries as only a method to split the Muslims and will dismiss any external suggestions to blockade or sanction a neighbouring Muslim Land.

[وَاعْتَصِمُواْ بِحَبْلِ اللّهِ جَمِيعًا وَلاَ تَفَرَّقُواْ]

“Hold fast together to the rope of Allah and be not divided.” [TMQ 3:103]

Political subservience

Astonishingly the current regimes are allowing the mere change of leadership in the US to start or end three years of political isolation between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Considering that Trump is now leaving, the regimes will leave the political decisions to be made by their masters in the West and will rush to place themselves in the new president’s good books.

And now a new US administration is preparing to move into the White House and President-elect Joe Biden has made it clear he will be taking a much tougher stance than his predecessor on certain Saudi positions.

As astonishing as this is, we have come to expect no less from the enslaved regimes in the Muslim world. The regimes that execute political instructions and strategies developed by the West to weaken the Muslims, the regimes that are happy to break ties with neighbouring Muslim countries yet better relations with the Zionist entity.

The even more astonishing fact is that the current regimes in the Muslim world are not only subservient to other than Islam but are specifically subservient to nations in the West governing by the rotten ideas of democracy, secularism and Capitalism. The regimes in the Muslim countries are enslaved to the same US with protesters storming into the Capitol building, a president that refuses to go and deeply divided states internally. President-elect Joe Biden called Wednesday’s storming of the US Capitol “one of the darkest days of our history,”

The “Extremism” card

As much as the regimes in the Muslim world try to justify their political decisions and subservience to the West by stating that this is for bettering diplomatic relations, they don’t seem to understand that the Western powers have never perceived them to be anything else than tools to execute their plans in the regions.

The “funding, supporting or facilitating extremism” card is frequently used by the US to either rule out certain countries or acknowledge them by taking them off that “extremism” list. Qatar is no different to Sudan, when the time came, the same card was used to instruct Saudi and the other countries to exclude Qatar.

Being at the forefront of rolling out the US’s foreign policies such as “fighting extremism” is like playing with fire. You will end up shooting yourself in the foot as the same policy will be used against you with the time suits America.

The West rn powers’ nightmare is the rise of Islam. The rise of a state which will unify the Ummah, unify its resources and land, lead by Quran and Sunnah and spread Islam with Dawah and Jihad. They are therefore working day and night, planning, spending time and money, tweaking their politics and using their agents in the Muslim world consistently to stop this rise from happening. However, all this money, this time, and these plans will soon come to an end and the Khilafah upon the method of the Prophethood will be re-established, even if the Mushrikeen hate it.

Allah (swt) says:

[وَيَمْكُرُونَ وَيَمْكُرُ اللّهُ وَاللّهُ خَيْرُ الْمَاكِرِينَ]

“And they were planning and (also) was planning Allah. And Allah is (the) Best (of) the Planners” [TMQ 8:30].

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Ghassan ibn Kamal