Epilogue

Change is the keyword in the context of existence: We come into being through a process of change; keep changing all our lives, and when we lose the ability to change, we die.

Jehad was an effective tool for the Arabs because it helped them build a vast Secular Arab Empire, which eventually laid the foundation of a Spiritual Arab Empire. The former does not exist any longer, and the latter is more burdensome than beneficial to the Arab race in terms of scientific, technical and cultural progress. Civilisation of the Arabs owes a good deal to their House of Wisdom (Bait-Ul-Hikmat), which they set up in the reign of al-Mamun to translate the masterpieces of literature and science from India and Greece. This is how they built a tradition of gathering, increasing and disseminating knowledge during their heyday. In fact, the advent of the Arabian Prophet and the phenomenon of learning, experimentation and teaching were processes of change, which honoured the Arabs with grace, governance and greatness. But now they have fettered the forward movement of time. Thus to all those nations that draw inspiration from the Prophet as Model Flu Behaviour, which it 1,400 years old, time has become regressive. This is the reason that the Muslims have lost the dynamism, which inspires nations to live vigilantly, vigorously and vivaciously.

Jehad is a double edged sword because it can also be used by a Muslim against Muslim brethren for personal ambitions in the name of Islam. Take for example, Timur Lang (Tamerlane), who was born in 1336 in Transoxiana. He raided Baghdad and various cities of Mesopotamia on the pretext that the Arab rulers of the area were not doing enough to protect the pilgrims to Mecca and other holy places of Islam. With the purpose of striking terror into the Arabian hearts, he erected a huge pyramid in Takrit with the skulls of his Arab victims. In 1400, he repeated the same orgy of loot and murder in Aleppo. First, he gave over the city to plunder as a mark of Jehad; then he beheaded over 20,000 Muslims and built a tower with their heads. This champion of Islam even destroyed the splendid mosques of Nurid and Ayyubid times and allowed his troops to rape the Muslim damsels, who had taken refuge there to save their honour. As he heard that some of his soldiers had been killed in Baghdad, he returned like a hurricane to inflict the most dreadful punishment on the Arabs. He carried out such a vast massacre that he built no fewer than 120 towers with the decapitated Arab heads in different parts of the city. This practice of Timur was declared as fully Islamic by the Muslim divines for having all the elements of Jehad!

The abuse of Jehad is not restricted to individuals like Timur. It is equally rife among the Muslim nations. The recent Gulf War between Iraq and Iran, the two Islamic states, explains the point. They had declared Jehad against each other, though they both were pursuing national interests!

Jehad or the pretended holy war in the name of God, has no relevance to the modern world, equipped with the most lethal weapons that have the ability to kill entire mankind within a few hours. Elimination of religious war is the most urgent need of our times. Islamic belief in Jehad, shows primitiveness of the Muslim thinking, which has become a stark challenge to sanity. The philosophy of Momin-Kafir has stripped the Muslims of their humanistic feelings and they think in terms of Muslims only, believing in annihilation and enslavement of the non-Muslims.

As international affairs stand, it is the Muslim nations of the world that need protection, yet it is they, who are accustomed to satire-rattling. The recent NATO military action in Kosovo is an example of the high morality that has come to be associated with modern civilization. The way the Americans, the British, the Germans, the French and several other Christian nations got together to bomb day and night for eleven weeks a fellow Christian country to save the Muslims' rights, clearly shows that God lives in the West where people are inclined to think and act like humans and not as religious robots.

It is interesting to note that while the Christians were heavily bombing fellow Christians in Kosovo, the Islamic nations of the world did sweet nothing to help the Kosovan Muslims except making dulcet noises of brotherhood and questioning the noble motives of the West. This episode demonstrates that the Muslims have failed to keep up with the changing times. It is because Islam demands total adherence to the 1400 year old Prophetic Model of Behaviour.

The Muslims may claim that Islam is a perfect code of life for all times but this is just a presence. For example, owing to the divisive attitude of Islam, the Muslim nations must not form a part of the United Nations Organisation, but things have changed so completely that they have no choice but to join this organization or perish.

Similarly, Islam is fully opposed to the modern economic system which is founded on interest. The Koran forbids both receiving and paying interest but the Muslim nations have no alternative to this practice. All their financial institutions are based on interest, and they continue this practice under fictituous descriptions such as profit. What hypocrisy it is! The same remarks equally apply to their legal system, which is directly or indirectly borrowed from other nations. Take for example "Khula" i.e. woman's right to divorce her husband. There is no authority for this law in the Koran, which bestows this right on man alone. Even the hadith condemns it:

"Those women who break matrimonial ties and divorce (Khula) their husbands are hypocrites."
(Mishkat, Vol. 2: 3148)

However, owing to the pressure of Feminism, "Khula" is becoming fashionable in Muslim countries. Again, the Koranic behests about purdah (veil) have become impracticable in almost all Muslim nations, and the same is true about sex-segregation because men and women have found it economically impossible not to work together in offices, factories, hospitals, etc. For the same reason, even polygamy is legally discouraged in many Islamic countries.

There is a long list of Islamic practices, which has become outdated in modern times. Educated Muslims ignore them, yet verbally justify them to the fellow Muslims. This is a psychological malaise, which has become the major source of mental conflict for the followers of Islam.

The whole charade is in fact, a clerical manipulation. It is a conspiracy of the Muslim priest against ordinary Muslims. Most of them are power-hungry men, without any moral or intellectual virtue. Therefore, they wield the might of superstition to fool and snool the faithful irrespective of its consequences to the nation.

Religion is the weapon of superstition which has the same relationship with reason as darkness has with light, stupidity with wisdom and perversion with piety. This is why more superstitious a people, the easier it is for the priest to push, pervert and persecute them for his own gain in the name of the Supernatural, who seems to remain on cordial terms with him, no matter how antihuman his behaviour.

A look at the Papal office reveals this truth. Having raised Jesus to the status of Son of God through tales of miracles and mind-boggling stories of his spiritual greatness, Pope first thoroughly brainwashed the Christian mind with his own infallibility that Christ was supposed to have bestowed upon him as his vicar on earth, and then acquired the power of excommunication, which enabled him (Pope) to declare a Christian as a renegade and inflict upon him the punishment of apostasy. In the case of a monarch, it meant that he was disqualified to rule his Christian subjects, who must rebel against him. Thus, a Christian monarch reigned subject to the pleasures of the Pope.

History has noted that Henry IV of Germany incurred excommunication, and as a price of papal mercy, he had to strip off all his regalia, wear ordinary woollen clothes and stand bare-footed for three days in chilling cold weather before the gates of the castle at Canossa in 1077. It was only this act of self-humiliation that persuaded the Holy Father to pardon him.

Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor, suffered an even worse fate: he had to kiss publicly the feet of Pope Alexander III for the sin of not acknowledging him as Christ's Vicar!

As the world of Islam is receiving rays of enlightenment from the modern scientific progress, the Muslim masses are trying to rise from a long torpor of superstition. This is proving an alarming challenge to the pomp, power and prestige of the Muslim clergy, and they are all out to quell this awakening with an accelerated zeal of suppression through their proverbially effective weapons of religious bigotry, holy gossip and fatwas.

Tragedy of the Muslim world is that it has not been allowed to develop a culture of dissent. Like Christendom, it has not been able to separate politics from religion. This has exacerbated the Muslim social misery beyond description, and even the politicians, who are anti-Islamic at heart, find it convenient to fool, school and snool the masses in the name of the Prophet for being highly conditioned to his name. This technique works well because the Muslims sincerely believe that the Prophet shall compensate them for all their worldly sorrows by getting them into paradise!

The incessant Islamic propaganda has incredibly increased the social prestige of the Muslim clergy: Ayat Ullah Khomeini was able to oust the Shah of Iran and reverse the progressive march of Iran. As a result, this country has become a prison for woman, reduced to the status of a sexual toy for man. Afghanistan, once a green and happy land, has been turned into ruins through civil war, prompted by the zeal of Jehad. Not only the plight of women is no better than that of concubines, men also have been made to forget the meaning of civil liberties.

In the Indian subcontinent, however, Islamic propaganda has bestowed more power on the politician and less on the priest. This is the reason that Muhammad All Jinnah, whose character was the exact antithesis of the Islamic pattern of behaviour, succeeded in persuading the Muslims of India to partition their own motherland to please Allah, who is keen to create national disunity among the non--Arab Muslims to turn them against their own country and brethren for imposing Spiritual and Cultural Arab Imperialism on them in the guise of "Momin and Kafir." One wonders what kind of God uses the device of "Divide and Rule" to gain followers. God being universal, cannot stoop to such contrivances. Since Arabia is the chief beneficiary of this stratagem, it is the brainchild of Prophet Muhammad, who aspired to achieve immorality through Arab nationalism, which he termed "Islam" as the only religion allowed by Allah !

Since every vice is perpetrated by the priest and politician as a virtue in the name of Islam, it is high time that the Muslims seek guidance from reason and the universally established moral values. Owing to the immense destructive power of the modern weapons, nothing is more evil than war. It demonstrates the nature of Jehad in the context of our times. The Islamic philosophy seeks to establish a world-order founded on permanent annihilation of the human species, unless, like Allah and His angels, it adores Muhammad day and night. One can see clearly that the dream of paradise i.e., sex--after-death, is morally below the dignity of man because it involves him into a pattern of violence, which is the dictinction of lower animals.

Compared to Islam, Christianity has kept with the spirit of changing times. Pope John Paul II should be congratulated for declaring that he wishes to make a millennium pilgrimage to Ur (in Iraq), the birth place of Abraham, in the company of Muslims and Jews. This is an extraordinary statement for the Christian Pontiff, who ought to oppose Muslims and Jews in accordance with the established traditions of his predecessors.

The ever-increasing orthodoxy of the Islamic world, which emanates from its regressive attitudes and social frustration, is becoming a real danger to the stability of peace and survival of humankind. A faith which is just make--believe to avoid the realities of life, is a recipe for self--destruction.

Search for paradise, the most luxurious mileu for enjoying the choicest sex after-death, is a self-deception, and the God that offers this type of immoral temptation for securing worshippers, is neither Divine nor worthy of worship.

Islam is an ideology based on irrelevance because it seeks God's glory at the expense of human welfare. It is a doctrine of hatred ardently desiring to found human culture on the permanent strife of Momin (Muslim) versus Kafir (non--Muslim). This is the reason that Muslims cannot live with non-Muslims even if they are their own kith and kin. Look at India: the Muslims forced partition of their own Motherland to create Pakistan, which has become a living symbol of contempt for everything that is not Islamic.

An even worse aspect of Islam is its dictatorial nature, which does not allow culture of dissent under any circumstances. This is what creates cut-throat sects within Islam, which indulge in internecine squabbles and internal wars. The recent history of Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan explains this fact.

Women's rights are the special prey of Allah, who uses them to establish patriarchal societies for spreading male chauvinism to perpetuate His rule through man's lust, ferocity and barbarity.

Surely, God is neither so power-hungry that He will resort to such inglorious devices to glorify Himself nor is He a weakling, who is dependent on male power to enforce His greatness.

It is blasphemous even to think about God in such terms. A selfish Being cannot be God. To deserve this honour, He has to believe in the unity and dignity of people, and respect human rights. This is high time that the hidden motives of religion are examined in the light of reason.

Bibliography

1. The Koran Interpreted by Prof. Arthur J. Arberry, printed by the Oxford University Press.

2. The Holy Bible, King James version, Cambridge University Press.

3. Sahih Al-Bukhari, Nine Volumes (Arabic--English) published by the Kitab Bhavan, New Delhi, India.

4. Sahih Muslim, Four volumes (English translation) published by Nusrat Ali Nasri for Kitab Bhavan, New Delhi, India.

5. Jame Tirmzi, Two volumes (Arabic-Urdu) published by Muhammad Ali, Karkhana Islami Kutub, Urdu Bazaar, Karachi, Pakistan.

6. Sunun Ibn-e-Majah, Two volumes (Arabic--Urdu) published by Farid Bookstall, Urdu Bazaar, Lahore, Pakistan.

7. Mishkat Sharif, Three volumes (Arabic-Urdu) published by Farid Bookstall, Urdu Bazaar, Lahore, Pakistan.

8. Encyclopaedia Britannica. - 15th edition, 29 volumes

9. The Life of Mahomet by Sir William Muir.

10. The Bedouin by Shirley Kay.

11. The Two Yemens by Robin Bidwell.

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14. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, Volumes VI and VII.

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a. Our Oriental Heritage - three volumes
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16. The Mughal Harem by Prof. K. S. Lal.

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18. India's Rebirth by Sri Auro Bindo.

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22. Tuzuk-i-Jahangir or Memoires of Jahangir translated by Alexander Rogers and edited by Henry Beveridge.

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End Notes

It is claimed that Allah is the Creator, who has created man to embrace Islam, the true religion.

Since out of six billion people, who inhabit the earth today, just about one billion of them, call themselves Muslims, and the rest are opposed to this faith, Allah has, obviously, failed as the Creator.

To make up this deficiency, He incites His followers to wage a holy war against the infidels and affirms massacre, plunder and enslavement of their women and children as "good and lawful." Since such acts are considered atrocious even when measured by low standards of morality, one wonders if Allah is really Divine.

The situation is exacerbated beyond description when paradise, the abode of most luxurious sex, is declared as the reward for this unholy violence against humanity. This is called Jehad; it led to establishing a Secular Arab Empire, which eventually turned into a Spiritual Arab Empire as naturally as a larva changes into a butterfly.

A glaring example of this fact is to be found in the Partition of India, which took place during 1947. It was not brought about by the Arabic sword, but the zeal of the Indian Muslims to carry the yoke of the Spiritual Arab Imperialism voluntarily!

Besides sex and violence, Islam seems to have a third approach, which is rational. It declares that there is "no coercion in religion" (2:25 ) and the truth must be vindicated by proof (2:III). If the Muslim can prove that the contents and conclusions of this book are false or far-fetched, I shall be honour-bound to apologise publicly; otherwise they must hold their peace and rethink about the divine origin of Islam.

Chapter 1
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