The terror attack on the French resort town of Nice on France’s National Day, 14 July, in which 85 people, including children, were killed and several injured, is yet another blatant attack on humanity by Wahhabi jihadists, who abhor and shun universal the human values of freedom, equality and liberty.
The ISIS terrorists and their cohorts are working with active cooperation and guidance from international organizations, financed by the Wahhabis and Salafists of Saudi Arabia and other oil rich countries. The narrow, sectarian and anti-human philosophy of Wahhabism does not permit co-existence with non-believers anywhere in the world. This is evident from the spate of terror attacks in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, France, Bangladesh, India and elsewhere, in which innocents are being killed almost every day. This requires a rational scrutiny and critical analysis of the philosophy and mindset.
Ironically, a total lack of awareness about the driving force and guiding philosophy of the bloodthirsty terrorists is the greatest obstacle in containing this menace. “It is, therefore, important and urgent that all those who stand for humanism, co-existence, freedom of thought and worship and democratic values rise to the occasion, pool their resources and coordinate their intelligence to meet the developing situation in India and the world as a whole”, wrote Prof Bal Raj Madhok in a book.
According to Wahhabi theologians, their worldview knows only of unequal co-existence of believers with non-believers. Where the former rule, they can allow others to co-exist only as “zimmies”. The condition under which “zimmies” have to live in, has been spelt out in detail in Zakhirat-ul-Mulk, by Sheikh Hamdani, who has quoted many texts to prove the point.
Furthermore, it divides human history into two periods. The period before the rise of Islam is the period of ignorance or jahiliyat, and the period that followed it is the age of illumination or ilm. Anything and everything that belongs to the period of jahiliyat is unworthy of existence. This explains the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan and innumerable Hindu-Buddhist temples in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world. However, the political philosophy of Islam, as practised by some groups, revolves around the concepts of millat and kufr, Dar-ul-Islam and Dar-ul-Harab and jihad. According to the concept of millat and kufr, mankind is divided between two incompatible groups—those who put their faith in the Quran and thereby win the grace of God and entry into paradise. They constitute that part of mankind which is God’s own. All others who are non-believers are kafirs.
This is evident from the way the religious minorities, particularly Hindus, are treated in Pakistan where they are taken to be expendable commodities with no constitutional, legal or religious rights or security of life whatsoever.
The second is Dar-ul-Islam and Dar-ul-Harab. According to this concept, the land of the world is divided into two warring parts. The territories and lands held and controlled by the Muslims where the law of the Shariah prevails, is Dar-ul-Islam. The lands on which the writ of Shariat does not run are described as Dar-ul-Harab, or the land of war.
The third fundamental is jihad, which means continuous endeavour and struggles by the millat and Dar-ul-Islam to conquer Dar-ul-Harab According to Brigadier S.K. Malik, author of The Quranic Concept of War (Lahore, 1986), “The idea of Ummah…is incapable of being realized within the frame-work of territorial states.” Brigadier Malik goes on to say: “it would be recalled that even Iqbal in his lectures on ‘The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam’ went so far as to suggest that, Muslim states, to begin with, be treated as territorial states and that too only as an ‘interim measure’ since these are later on to be incorporated into ‘commonwealth of states’. Each one of these states has first to acquire strength and stability before it is able to prepare the ground on which a ‘unified state’ can appear on the historical scene.”
This explains why after losing territories in Syria and Iraq, the ISIS, unlike Al Qaeda, is seeking to gain control over territories all over the world by waging a war against humanity.
Over the years, Pakistan, the epicentre of global terrorism, has adopted jihad as a state policy to decimate and conquer India. “The rulers of Pakistan projected partition as a victory and Pakistan as successor of the Mughal Empire in India. The slogan that used to ring all over Pakistan, ‘Hans Ke Liya Pakistan, Lad Ke Lenge Hindustan’ (we have got Pakistan without much effort, we would get the rest of Hindustan by war), was a clear reflection of their mind and thinking,” wrote Prof. Madhok. Why is Pakistan waging a relentless proxy war through terrorism against India? This is explained by the Pakistani brigadier, who wrote how the enemy was “always met and destroyed inside his own territory”. “Terror struck into the hearts of the enemies is not only a means, it is the end in itself. Once a condition of terror into the opponent’s heart is obtained, hardly anything is left to be achieved. It is the point where the means and the end meet and merge. Terror is not a means of imposing decision upon the enemy; it is the decision we wish to ‘impose’ upon him,” he said.
“The strategy thus enjoins us to prepare ourselves for war to the utmost in order to strike terror into the heart of the enemies, known or hidden, while guarding ourselves from being terror-stricken by the enemy. In this strategy, guarding ourselves against terror is the ‘Base’; preparation for war to the utmost is the ‘Cause’; while the striking terror into the hearts of the enemies is the ‘Effect’. The whole philosophy revolves around the human heart, his soul, spirit and Faith,” he wrote (Ibid, p-58).