Islamist hardliners approach to Jerusalem, inventing civil-Islamic conflict

CAIRO - 13 December 2017: It has been two days since Trump's decision, and we keep hearing those who tell us that what happened in the Jerusalem file occurred because of the Muslims being far from Islam, and the failure of the Islamic state in the Arab countries. The same old trade has wasted this nation for centuries. The takfiris (extreme Muslims) and their terror group counterparts do not want Jerusalem, and their hearts are not nostalgic for Al-Aqsa Mosque. However, they are addicted to the power trade and the exploitation of holy places to wage war on Arab regimes.

They partake in cheap trade in holy places to distract Muslims from the core of the issue, and they mislead people to market their notions that we are all non-Islamic and that if we return to Islam – "The special version of the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIL” – our lost dignity will return to us.

They are constantly misleading society, so we should fight their ideology early on within the society while we also fight to protect Jerusalem abroad.

This is the Great War in my opinion. I had addressed it in an earlier article about the relationship between the Islamic state and the civil state, and I tell you clearly, if the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was among us, he would not have put the Holy Quran on his weapon to defend Jerusalem. Rather, he would have thought and planned for the tools we possess in that confrontation. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) did not fight through prayers alone, nor by distinguishing between what is Islamic and what is otherwise in the arts of political and military action.

Who told you, my brother, that the Islamic state stands on the opposite side of civilizational liberalism, modernity, science and development. Take a look at the strategy adopted by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in the founding of his pristine state in Yathrib (present-day Medina). Watch and reflect to know that Prophet Muhammad was a symbol of civilization and modernity, as well as a messenger for enlightenment. He was a political leader who knew the boundaries at which the revelation stops in order to make the intellect work. He and his distinguished companions after him knew the boundaries that the intellect cannot exceed in its respect of the revelation and the sanctity of the word of God.

What the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) did in Medina was a civil and political miracle in an environment that had upset the mind and endowed itself to nomadism and ignorance. It is inconceivable that their present projects, which call for nomadism and ignorance rather than intellect, science and civilization, are related to Islam.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) sought the help of disbelievers against other disbelievers in the first stage of the “Dawah” (calling to Islam) in Mecca. It was the reality that forced him to seek help from one of the disbelievers to face the denial of the pagans of Quraish and their cruelty toward the Prophet. If one of the Muslims did this now, he would be chased by campaigns of “takfir” (apostasy) and sentenced to death.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) is the one who sent the first generation of Muslims to Abyssinia (present-day area of Ethiopia) to be under the protection of a Christian ruler in a Christian state. Had such action been taken by one of the Muslims today, the neo-fundamentalists would have questioned his faith and challenged him with the measures of loyalty and exoneration.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) is the one who drew a plan to migrate from Mecca to Medina, secretly holding alliances with the people Yathrib before he conveyed his alliance with them to the public, and he didn’t wait for Gabriel (peace be upon him) to lead him in the desert. The migration was a divine directive, but the planning and implementation were indeed human.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) was the one who planned the project of citizenship in Yathrib with the immigrants and Ansar (his supporters from Medina), as well as with his numerous alliances with the Jews of the city.

It was the Prophet (peace be upon him) who decided to meet the army of Quraish in Badr – far from his fledgling state – to protect women and children, and to protect the political gain that sparked the hearts of Mecca's heathens with anger and sorrow.

It was the Prophet (peace be upon him) who, when he ordered that his army be camped before Bir Badr, publicly admitted in front of his friends that the revelation had nothing to do with this war. When asked by some of his friends whether this decision was from revelation or war and strategy, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said, «It's war and strategy», and he came down at the advice of the war experts and set his troops after the well of Badr, depriving the heathen army of the water.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) is the one who suffered a cruel defeat at Uhud, after some Muslim soldiers violated his war plan against the army of Quraish. The defeat was not related to either the new religion or the revelation. Plans and implementation were the strengths or weaknesses of the prophetic project for political stability in his modern state.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) is the one who decided to dig the trench around the city to protect it from fear of the tyranny of the armies of "Al Ahzab"; he did not leave it up to the angels, but rather took the advice of his companion Salman. He did not await the revelation to decide what is best for the people of Yathrib in the face of the invading army.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) is the one who signed Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, which provided that all those who are extradited from Quraish must stay in Quraish and that he would not accept them if they migrated to Medina. In addition, all those who expiate from the people of Medina must be allowed by the Prophet to return to Quraish without harm. If an agreement of this content was signed by a Muslim political leader today, his people would rebel against him to defend the dignity of the religion, and he could even be assassinated by his own bodyguards or a handful of his soldiers.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) is the one who said to the people of Yathrib, “You know the issues of your life,” and he did not involve religion in agriculture, trade, state economics or the arts of governance, administration and war, which he adopted in the creation of his modern state. His companions did not stray off from his rational scientific approach in managing the state; Islam was one. The jurisprudence of his companions was extremely diverse in forms of succession, in the nature of enemies and friends, and in the financial and political management of the Islamic state.

Who then dares to make the political solution contrary to the Islamic solution, as if Islam did not already know the negotiating priorities, profit and loss calculations, and the arts of achieving religious and national goals with mental and negotiating merit? Who then dares to say that this is a political decision of Islam, and that another is not from Islam? Who then dares to imagine that the religion of God and the “Sunnah” (tradition) of His Prophet (peace be upon him) wanted us to have a rigid approach to the interests sent to Muslims, without understanding what God wanted us to be refined by reason and science?

Islam itself is a liberal, intellectual and civil religion with a historic testimony, and the companions themselves, in their diversity in the forms of governance and administration, proved that the revelation did not order us to take only one approach over another. It wanted to go from various modalities and ways in building, organizing and modernizing the state, and to investigate the administration of justice. I tell you, whenever the mind is absent and politicians merchandise religion in the name of God and justice, then know that it is not Islam or an Islamic state!!!

Wherever the mind and justice are together, you are into the fold of the state of Islam. Whenever we plan wisely, intellectually and with calculated pressures, we will take our rights in Jerusalem without the merchants of Jerusalem misleading us.