KHALIFAHS NEED NOT APPLY
A Question & An Opinion
by Imran Anwar © 1996-2004
(Written 8 Years before Usama Bin Laden / Mullah Omar pitching themselves as Khalifa wanna-bes)
A few days ago I received some email from a fellow Muslim-netter. It was on the subject of us Muslims having a DUTY {"fard"} to be ruled by a Khalifa. I was reminded of a similar angry debate on this issue on a newsgroup perhaps an year or two ago. I responded to the email with the following opinion. What do you think? Let me know by email.
"I think we Muslims have enough problems to solve at our local level to go off in search of a pie in-the-sky solution to a "problem" that does not even exist. We cannot have free and fair elections in most Islamic countries, have corrupt "Kings" and "Emirs" in the Middle East, dictators in Libya, Iraq etc., extreme fundamentalists is other countries killing their own people to hold on to power, so-called "mohajirs" (after 40 years in Pakistan) in a sort of "civil war" in Pakistan, Bangladeshis killing each other on whether to go to elections or not, and Hamas boycotting Palestinian elections. For an "Ummah" that cannot even agree on if it should particip[ate in LOCAL elections it would be rather difficult to agree on a "Khalifah" without such a movement causing another 2 dozen "firqas" in Islam.
I have been in "heated" debates on this issue in the past and neither have the time nor energy to waste on discussing the pros-and-cons of the issue, or of where in the Quran we are told it is our "farz" to select a Khalifa, etc etc.
SO, while I wish you luck in your efforts in what must be meant as a sincere wish to help Islam and Muslims I wish we could focus our efforts and energy on more practical and real problems facing us TODAY.
We have the MOST corrupt and murderous regimes in Muslim countries, we have the LEAST educated public in Muslim countries, we have the highest birth rate and the lowest rate of economic development.
We are the fastest growing religion in the USA today, but we have the least representation in politics here. Much smaller groups like the Jews command immense power and influence through their media ownership, yet of all the corrupt characterless Arab Princes' investments not one has been targeted at buying newspapers like NY Daily News, or NY Post etc when they came up for sale, but instead at buying London stores, Las Vegas casinos, and luxury hotels.
No newspaper or TV station dares criticize even ONE Jew beacuse they get labeled anti-Semitic, newspapers do not even mention that the man who killed 5 people in Florida because he hated white people was Black. The blood thirsty militant wings of the IRA kill people in London but do not get called CATHOLIC terrorist organizations. But when an UNKNOWN person plants a bomb that kills 20 Algerians (who were prpbably all Algerian Muslims) the news story states that MUSLIM Bomber Kills 20 Algerians, meaning the BOMBER **must** be Muslim and the 20 MUSLIMS who were killed are now just Algerians. We have to fight this bigotry and discrimination through letters, faxes, phone calls, and we need people to work on these issues.
With your permission I would like us, and other educated and committed Muslims, to work on issues like that right now, to solve the problems in these nations AND expose media and social bigotry against Muslims, rather than make a play for political power that is more likely to be divisive than uniting for the Ummah. "
Imran Anwar welcomes comments and emailed opinions.
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