Samir Sadek, Mira Al-Bitar
It is no wonder that totalitarian culture has spread in Islamic societies, especially Arab ones. This culture is based on violence and the elimination of the other, and it resulted from the sediment of fanaticism, exclusion, aggression, violence, terrorism, hatred, revenge, and the tendency to exclude in minds. All of this contributed to creating and shaping the current Arab Islamic personality.
All of this began before the call and much of it was transferred to the religion after the call, which gave the totalitarian culture sanctity and divine legitimacy. The new religion organized the affairs of the Bedouin, which were limited to one chief order, which was the spoils of war and how to deal with the spoils of war, especially dividing them in proportions dedicated and encouraging plunder and the piracy of the spoils of war. The new doctrine, which recommended forbidding evil, practiced evil, and set rules and regulations for dividing the spoils of war. Instead of forbidding theft, theft was legitimized and sanctified to the point of deification. The verse said: “And eat of what you have gained, lawful and pure.”
The pre-Islamic era moved to the new religion, meaning that the Bedouin way of life moved to it. The Bedouin way of life was a forced social condition imposed by the harsh nature of the desert, with no water or pasture, drought and a grueling struggle to secure the necessities of life, and wars that never stopped between the tribes because of competition and disputes over spoils, which rooted the spirit of revenge, raiding, killing, arrogance, violence and racism in the Bedouin soul. This is in addition to the practice of other evils such as polygamy and contempt for women because they are physically weaker than men and less capable than them of using the sword and collecting spoils, in addition to the dominance of the values of strength, conquest and oppression of the neurotic Bedouin.
The raids stopped because of the rust that afflicted the swords, and with the cessation of the raids, the revenues from war booty generally ceased. There were economic factors of a high degree of importance, perhaps more important than the rest of the factors in their impact, even on the Bedouin in the first place. It is the feudalism produced by the economy of raids after the Bedouin invasion of the East and West. The economy of raids led to what was mentioned of the dominance of oppression, conquest, and force, then the right of force opposed to the force of right. The economy of raids was applied even after the cessation of raids, and the application was manifested in the plundering of the property of others, which was practiced by workers and governors such as Khalid bin Abdullah al-Qasri, the governor of Iraq, or Musa bin Nusair, and others. These practiced the most extreme and harshest forms of plunder to secure material resources and even human resources such as captives for the Caliph, which impoverished the people on the one hand, and on the other hand humiliated and oppressed the people.
The reasons for the defeats of Muslim societies do not lie in the corruption of civilization, which they refused to adopt, nor in turning away from religion, but primarily in the economy of raids, which established the historical social stagnation and thus an isolationist process that did not benefit others and did not benefit from others except in material aspects such as tribute. The encounter with the peoples of the colonies was not accompanied by creative interaction, as the peoples of the colonies were more civilized than the invaders, and the invaders could have learned from the peoples of the Levant, the peoples of Egypt, India, the Berber peoples and others. Contact with the peoples of the colonies was limited to the economy of raids, that is, tribute and collection from others by force while they were humiliated.
In the medium and long term, those invasions, which were accomplished with astonishing speed, led to the building of a giant empire, and at the same time led to the rapid disintegration of that empire in various ways, including, for example, disputes, wars, and the agricultural paralysis that the inhabitants of the Levant practiced more actively to varying degrees before the conquests. The Romans took care of irrigation canals, construction, and the building of roads, and there was no that exhausting tribute. There was artistic life, theaters, and music, and there was thought, thinkers, emperors, and jurists from the people of the Levant, so that it can be said that the Roman law in force until now was made by Syrian jurists such as Banipal and others.
The Quraysh Caliphate of the Hejaz can be likened to the Ottoman Sultanate. Just as the Ottoman Sultanate destroyed itself, the Hejaz Caliphate also destroyed itself at the hands of its Bedouin ways and its unproductive sterility. The invaders produced nothing but rivers of blood and treasuries filled with loot, which the new religion legitimized by force. To divide it among the thieves and the leaders of the thieves, rules and regulations were established based on the principle of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Omar Ibn Al-Khattab was like Ali Baba, and we can ask today about the source of his Caliphate’s finances. Were not the funds of his treasury from the spoils of war? We have no knowledge of another source.
This point reminded us of one of the Salafist clowns, who openly promoted carrying out two raids annually in Europe, following the example of Ibn Abdullah, who carried out an average of two raids annually, in order to fix the Egyptian economic situation. Omar Ibn Al-Khattab has died, but he is still alive and well in the person of Sheikh Al-Huwayni. Al-Huwayni did not forget the yellow-clad girls, promising to kidnap some of them and then sell them or use them personally, imitating Ibn Abdullah.
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