News:
Lately, President Obama has come under severe criticism from fellow Republicans for not labelling the war on terror as a war against Islam. If there is one thing top Republicans know, it’s that America can’t defeat terrorism unless we call it by its real name. Republican believe that by doing so they will have the moral clarity to fight and defeat Islam.
Comment:
In Washington, there is a growing chorus of Republican politicians calling upon the Obama administration to change its stance on fighting terrorism by changing the name of the war. “We are in a religious war with radical Islamists,” Lindsey Graham recently told Fox News. “When I hear the President of the United States and his chief spokesperson failing to admit that we’re in a religious war, it really bothers me.” Rudy Giuliani agrees, “If we can’t use the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism,’ we can’t get rid of them.” So does Ted Cruz. At the Iowa Freedom Summit in January he declared that, “You cannot fight and win a war on radical Islamic terrorism if you’re unwilling to utter the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism.'”
The Republicans’ stance has little to do with ideology and more to do with the sea change of public opinion that is sweeping the Muslim world and hardening American attitudes at home. Muslims identify more with political Islam than with secular liberalism as a way of organizing affairs. For instance a Pew study done in 2013, asked Muslims from 23 countries across Southeastern Europe, Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, their views on Sharia. The study found that “in 17 of the 23 countries where the question was asked, at least half of Muslims say sharia is the revealed word of God.” The top four in this group were Pakistan, where 81% believe this, Jordan that tied with Pakistan, and Egypt and the Palestinian territories, each with 75%.
Such trends are forcing the Republican Party to become more aggressive in its criticism of Obama in the run up to the 2016 US presidential. This is especially so, given that domestically American attitudes against Muslims have also hardened. According to Zogby’s Arab American Institute, which has been polling Americans on their views of religious and ethnic groups since the 1990’s, Americans’ dislike of Arabs and Muslims skyrocketed after 9/11 and has hardly budged since. Unfavorable ratings for Muslims have declined from a peak of 55 percent in 2010 to 45 percent in July, but at the same time, favorable ratings have plunged, from 41 percent in 2012 to 27 percent in 2014. Hence, Republicans want to harden their view towards Islam in a bid to win over non-Republican constituents who believe that Obama and the Democratic Party is failing in its war against Islam.
However, away from American shores, Muslims in the Islamic world view American wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, the present bombing campaigns in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere as nothing less than war against Islam.
Therefore, the narrative of ‘Clash of Civilization’ as espoused by Samuel Huntington is quickly becoming outdated and is being replaced by the narrative of ‘War of Civilizations’. In the coming months this view will mostly likely become entrenched in the Western minds. As for the Muslim world, it needs to adequately prepare for this war by establishing a true Islamic State that not only represents its interests, but is capable of unifying and defending Muslims from her enemies. The Messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم said,
«إنما الإمام جنة يقاتل من ورائه ويتقى به»
“The Imam is the shield behind which people fight and are protected.”
The onus is on Muslims to establish the rightly guided Khilafah State to repel Western interference in Islamic lands.
Allah سبحانه وتعالى says:
إِنَّ الشَّيْطَانَ لَكُمْ عَدُوٌّ فَاتَّخِذُوهُ عَدُوًّا
“Surely, Shaytan is an enemy to you, so take (treat) him as an enemy.”
(Fatir: 6)
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Abdul Majeed