. .

.. .
VOL. 46, NO. 11 Rabø‘ al-Thœnø – Jumœdå al-Álå 1439 (January 2018)
P.O. Box 747 Gormley, ON L0H 1G0, Canada (905) 887-8913 crescent.icit-digital.org
ISSN 0705-3754 LCM 77031986
Editorial board: Zafar Bangash, Mu˙ammad Ó al-‘Œßø, Afeef Khan
Affiliated with the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT), icit-digital.org

Contents
Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Rohingya: don’t allow criminals to succeed
New global architecture Iqbal Jassat
Zafar Bangash
Dangerous to be female in India
Editorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Khadijah Ali
Jerusalem and the Muslim world
Canada’s long, dark history of Islamophobia
What future for Arabian regimes? Hayy Yaqzan

Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Islamophobia: wide gap between Trudeau’s

More people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows rhetoric and Muslim fears
Ab¥ Dharr Matthew Behrens

Is Canada a Metis civilization? Special Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Eric Walberg Understanding the true nature of Zionism
Zafar Bangash
Cover Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Al-Quds: heart of Islamic unity Islamic Awakening: was it worth it?
Dr. Kevin Barrett Tahir Mahmoud

US recognizes Jerusalem as capital of Zionist State Book Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Dr. Firoz Osman Enlightenment Unitarianism
Dr. Kevin Barrett
UN General Assembly slaps Trump over Jerusalem
Waseem Shehzad Islam – Fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Man’s bond with God is the engine of history
News & Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Mu˙ammad Ó al-‘Œßø
Who would want to have dinner with Bin Salmœn?
Yusuf Dhia-Allah Letters to the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

From the editor’s desk...

Muslims need clarity of thought and purpose

We live in a strange world. This is supposed to be the age of
information but the level of ignorance among the general
public has reached the stratosphere. Unfortunately this is
also true of most Muslims.
Despite being the recipients of the last and final message
that was exemplified by the noble Messenger (r), most Mus-
lims have lost their way in peripheral issues. This is truly sad.
Instead of being examples to an errant humanity, we are
engulfed in petty squabbles that dissipate our energies and
keep us divided.
There are two reasons for this, one historical and the
other contemporary. Historically, Muslims were ambushed
when the Umayyads subverted the khilœfa∆ into mul¥køya∆.
This was the first disaster that befell the Ummah, weakening
it to such an extent that when the colonialists arrived in
Muslim lands, they faced little resistance.
Colonialism had a devastating impact. It not only disrupt-
ed Muslim societies but also affected Muslim thinking in pro-
foundly negative ways. Instead of thinking in terms of Islamic
values, they have adopted Western ideas. Thus Muslim soci-
eties are no longer Islamic. Muslims may reside in these soci-
eties but they do not adhere to Islamic principles or values.
Muslims need to undergo a revolution in thought in
order to determine their true destiny. Without such clarity of
thought and purpose, Muslims will continue to wander aim-
lessly as has been the case for many decades.

Contents 1
 R E F L E C T I
NEW GLOBAL
ARCHITECTURE
By Zafar Bangash
Since the Second World War, the US had dominated much of the world on
the strength of its military, the vast network of its intelligene apparatus,
and the power of its dollar. The collapse in 1991 of the Soviet Union mere-
ly added to American hubris. Nearly 85% of the world’s central banks
maintained their reserves in US dollars. Additionally, in 1973, the Amer-
icans forced the Saudis — the world’s largest oil producer at the time — to
trade oil only in dollars; hence the term petrodollars.
At the beginning of this century, the euro emerged as a rival to the US
greenback. The euro has captured 20% of the reserve currency market
diminishing the dollar’s dominance. Now another currency — the Chinese
yuan — is making itself felt on the global financial markets. The yuan is
emerging on the strength of the Chinese economy that is already the sec-
ond largest in the world. In a decade or so, it is expected to surpass the US
Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The US also has a huge trade deficit with
China, not because of unfair trade practices or lousy deals, as Donald
Trump alleges, but because American corporations make lousy products.
They have also outsourced most manufacturing jobs overseas to gut the
wages of American workers.
The yuan’s rise is inevitable because of the strength of the Chinese
economy and Beijing’s massive trade with other countries. China has also
entered into bilateral agreements with a number of countries whereby they
would trade in each other’s currency, bypassing the dollar. This has already
happened with Russia and moves are afoot to make similar arrangements
with Turkey, Pakistan, and countries in Southeast Asia. These are hopeful
signs and would certainly further diminish the dollar’s influence.
China has more than $2 trillion in reserves. It is gradually divesting
dollars and acquiring gold. In fact, both Russia and China have agreed to
back other countries’ reserves with gold. This was the arrangement until
1971 when then US President Richard Nixon de-linked the dollar from
gold. The yellow metal priced at $35/oz at the time is now trading at more
than $1,200. This reflects the precipitous drop in the value of the dollar
whose victims are other countries.
On the military front as well the US has suffered massive blows.
Despite its huge stockpile of weapons and obscenely high military budget
(officially at $650 billion per annum), the US military has not won a single
war on its own. This may sound strange but it is true. Let us look at the
record. The US has never fought a war on its own; it always gathers allies
(it actually coerces them to join) to fight weaker opponents. Despite this,
2 CRESCENT INTERNATIONAL – January 2018
O N S
the US and its allies have not succeeded.
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria offer recent exam-
ples. North Korea continues to defy US threats.
After its defeat in Afghanistan at the hands of
ragtag bands of Taliban fighters, the US decided
to use proxies. Al-Qaeda and ISIS emerged to
cause havoc in Iraq and Syria. In both places, the
takførø terrorists have been defeated and their ter-
ritorial possessions reduced to isolated pockets.
This came about as a result of determined help
from Hizbullah and Islamic Iran to their allies in
Iraq and Syria. Western media outlets harp on
Russia’s air force achieving victory in Syria but
deliberately ignore the more important role
played by Hizbullah and Iran. According to mili-
tary experts, the air force contribution to any
modern war effort is about 10%. It is troops on
the ground that make the real difference. Russia
does not have boots on the ground in Syria; the
US does — about 2,000 of them — and it has
established illegal bases in the country.
Washington alleges that it is fighting ISIS ter-
rorists. This is a lie; ISIS is a creation of the US
and its allies. Following their defeat in Syria, ISIS
terrorists were transported by American helicop-
ters to Afghanistan. Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s spe-
cial envoy for Afghanistan, said last month that
there are more than 10,000 ISIS terrorists now
operating in Afghanistan, thanks to US support.
There is no reason for US Special Forces to
be present in Syria anymore; there never was a
genuine reason in the first place. Their presence
in Syria is illegal. General Qassem Solaimani,
Commander of Iran’s Quds Force, in a message to
the US last month warned it to get its troops out
of Syria or they will be driven out. Unlike the
US, Iranian commanders do not make empty
threats; they fulfill them.
Thus, the twin pillars of US hegemony — its
dollar and military — are both in decline. Amer-
ica’s crumbling infrastructure, shuttered facto-
ries, and crumbling cities with collapsing bridges
and rotting water pipes are proof positive that the
US is in terminal decline. Even its European
allies — Britain, France, and Germany — have
had enough of American hubris. They are chart-
ing their own course in global affairs.
A new multipolar world is emerging, one that
promises a better future for humanity than Amer-
ica’s exceptionalism. g
Zafar Bangash is Director of the Institute of Contempo-
rary Islamic Thought (ICIT).
 E D I T O R I A
JERUSALEM AND
THE MUSLIM WORLD
Even on a critically important issue like the future of Jerusalem where
al-Masjid al-Aqßå, the first qibla∆ of the Muslims is located, Muslims
rulers are divided. This was apparent from the attendance, or lack there-
of, at the special meeting of the mostly impotent Organization of Islam-
ic Cooperation (OIC).
The meeting was called by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
and held in Istanbul on December 13. Conspicuous by their absence
were the rulers of “Saudi” Arabia (the medieval kingdom sent only an
official from the foreign ministry), the United Arab Emirates, and
Bahrain. All of them are American puppets and have cultivated close
links with the Zionist entity.
Is Jerusalem important to the world of Islam? Not according to the
Arabian rulers who described it as a “side issue.” Their principal obses-
sion is with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which they describe as posing
a greater threat to their miserable existence than the Zionists who have
escalated oppression and killing of the hapless Palestinians.
The OIC meeting was a good first step — not doing anything is not
an option — but what practical results emerged from it? The final com-
muniqué declared “East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Pales-
tine” and invited “all countries to recognize the State of Palestine and
East Jerusalem as its occupied capital.” They also declared US President
Donald Trump’s decision “null and void legally” and “a deliberate
undermining of all peace efforts” that would give impetus to “extremism
and terrorism.”
The summit failed to agree on concrete steps against Israel or the
US. For instance, a number of OIC members have diplomatic relations
with the Zionist entity including Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, and
several African countries. Would it not have been more meaningful if
diplomatic relations with the pariah state as well as its patron saint, the
US, were cut off? Instead, many Arabian regimes are deepening rela-
tions with Israel. They consider Islam and Islamic self-determination as
greater threats to their illegitimate hold on power.
President Hassan Rouhani put his finger on the problem when he
said, “Some countries in our region are in cooperation with the United
States and the Zionist regime and determining the fate of Palestine.”
L S
This was an indirect reference to the secret
meetings between Zionist and Arabian officials
including Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner
and Saudi Crown Prince Mu˙ammad bin
Salmœn at which the pair decided to impose an
Israeli solution on the Palestinians. Palestinian
Authority head, Mahmoud Abbas, was sum-
moned to Riyadh on November 10 and offered
a $10 billion bribe to accept Abu Dis as the
capital of a future Palestinian state. He was told
to forget about Jerusalem — even the eastern
part of it — and forego the right of return for
Palestinian refugees. To his credit, Abbas
refused the offer.
At the OIC summit, Iran tried to include
the entire city of Jerusalem as the capital of
Palestine into the final declaration. Regret-
tably, the slavish rulers — including the Pales-
tinian leadership — had already accepted
defeat and could not muster the courage to pro-
tect their rights.
The Jerusalem saga has exposed the puppets
and corrupters and also made clear who are
truly committed to the liberation of Palestine.
The resistance front has emerged stronger
despite many conspiracies hatched against
Islam and the Muslims. The battle lines are
clearly drawn. On the one side are the tyrants
and oppressors. These regimes led by Saudi
Arabia are pushing for total surrender to US
imperialism and Zionism. On the other side is
the resistance front led by Islamic Iran that
stands for freedom, truth, dignity, and justice.
Committed Muslims worldwide must wake
up to the reality confronting them. The puppet
rulers who pollute Muslim lands with their
policies of appeasement and surrender are not
the ones to lead them to victory. In fact, the
very existence of Muslim nation states, most of
them totally artificial, is the negation of all that
Islam stands for. They reflect the defeat and dis-
memberment of the Ummah. Unless these
regimes are consigned to the dustbin of history,
Muslims will not succeed in their quest for dig-
nified existence.
The road to Jerusalem passes through
Riyadh, Cairo, Amman, and a host of other
Arabian capitals. Muslims must internalize this
point so that the real struggle for the liberation
of Jerusalem, al-Masjid al-Aqßå and the Holy
Editorials 3
Land can begin in earnest. This is the task of the global Islamic move-
ment and all Muslims everywhere must join it.
Muslims must also bear in mind that the United Nations, despite its
limited utility will not liberate Palestine. After all, it was the UN in vio-
lation of its own charter that helped pave the way for the Zionist colo-
nization of Palestine, the ethnic cleansing of its inhabitants, and the
balkanization of the Arab world.
The liberation of Jerusalem and Palestine from the clutches of Zion-
ism will come about as a result of armed struggle as demonstrated by
Hizbullah in Lebanon and the valiant resistance waged by Islamic Iran
WHAT FUTURE FOR
ARABIAN REGIMES?
The current geographical configuration of the Muslim East (aka the
Middle East) is the direct result of the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916.
It was a grand conspiracy against Muslims whereby the heartland of
Islam was parceled into nation-states and power handed over to illegit-
imate but ruthlessly ambitious tribal leaders. Since they had no support
among the masses, they remained dependent on the colonial powers
that have played havoc with the lives of tens of millions of people.
Some of these regimes camouflaged their illegitimacy under the
guise of Arab nationalism while others took refuge behind an Islamic
façade. Both now stand exposed. Arab nationalism suffered successive
defeats at the hands of Zionist nationalism until it was forced to surren-
der to Zionism. Those who carried the Islamic flag, in particular the
Bani Saud-ruled kingdom, were exposed by the victory of the Islamic
Revolution in Iran in 1979.
For decades, the Arabian regimes tried to present themselves as
“champions” of the Palestinian cause. This was a complete fraud but it
took successive military defeats at the hands of the Zionists to expose
their incompetence. Recent developments, especially relating to the
future of Jerusalem, have forced these regimes to come out of purdah and
declare their subservience to imperialism and Zionism openly. This is a
positive development since the Muslim masses will no longer be fooled
by their rhetoric.
4 CRESCENT INTERNATIONAL – January 2018
in defence of its land and rights in the eight-
year imposed war by the Arabian potentates
and their Western masters. There are reports
that Hizbullah and Hamas plus al-Hashd al-
Sha‘bø militias of Iraq have agree to coordinate
their military, economic, and political activi-
ties. This is a positive development and if prop-
erly implemented, will lead to the defeat of US-
Zionist-Saudi conspiracy against Islam and
Muslims. g
The Arabian rulers’ extreme incompetence,
cowardice, and venal character are now out in
the public domain. They never had legitimacy
to begin with because they did not allow the
masses to exercise their fundamental right to
choose their own leaders. Without the support
of the masses, these regimes are forced to
depend on outside powers but there is a huge
price to pay for such support.
It is the Bani Saud-ruled medieval kingdom
that finds itself at the end of the rope today.
Ruled by an incompetent and erratic young
prince, Mu˙ammad bin Salmœn — who has
taken on his clan cousins as well as the religious
establishment (one would not want either as
dinner guests!) to grab maximum power in his
own grubby and blood-stained hands — may
have bitten more than he can chew. There are
distinct signs of the impending demise of Bani
Saud. After all the misery it has wrought, it
would come none too soon.
Civil wa, a distinct possibility, may lead to
the rotting Kingdom’s disintegration. If the
Najdi Bedouins who masquerade as “Custodi-
ans of the Two Holy Masjids” are driven from
power, this will hasten the demise of their
regional puppets as well.
The global Islamic movement has two tasks
ahead of it: one internal, the other external.
On the internal front, removal of Bani Saud
from power is an essential prerequisite for the
liberation of the Holy Lands all the way from
Makkah to Jerusalem, the latter of which lies in
the clutches of the illegitimate Zionist.
We can look forward to positive changes in
the coming years provided Muslims make the
commitment to bring about such change. g
 O P I N I O
More people know
Tom Fool than Tom
Fool knows
By Ab¥ Dharr
Events are moving at an accelerated pace in and around the Holy
Lands. And the players who used to “do their thing” in the dark are
now being exposed by the light of incredible events unfolding with a
fast-tracked tempo. Some of the developments were unthinkable just
last year: Emmanuel Macron, the French president, virtually appeal-
ing for better relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Asad who up
to a few months ago was a “president who had to go.” Ballistic mis-
siles are being fired from Yemen into the zionizing kingdom of Saudi
Arabia. There is a looming crisis between Algeria and Saudi Zionist
Arabia because sports fans in Algiers displayed a gigantic picture of
Donald Trump and Saudi King Salmœn cheek-to-cheek during a soc-
cer match in a stadium. And then there is the telltale warm up of the
political and intelligence relationship between Zionist Tel Aviv and
two-faced Riyadh. The US veto in the United Nations’ Security
Council shielded the Tel Aviv regime from world the backlash of pub-
lic opinion, which rejects al-Quds/Jerusalem being the capital of the
Zionist Israeli nation-state. Trump has also issued back-channel
threats to his allies — the filthy rich Saudi royals and “khaløjø”
crowned heads — to “pay up” or else the US will withdraw its mili-
tary and security umbrella from the Arabian Peninsula. Trump’s
financial craving demands nothing less than all the assets and
reserves of the Arabian princes of possessions and amirs of affluence.
Even if they comply, the monarchs and princes of insolvency may still
have to stand in a court of law to pay for all the American war budget
that ensued after 9/11: the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen,
etc. American vice-president Mike Pence canceled or delayed his trip
to the Muslim East (aka the Middle East). These and other dizzying
episodes have placed the holy land geography on a precipice of
Armageddon consequences.
The official American Trumpist reaction can be characterized as
Zionist from head to toe. The Zionists have taken note of the fact
that Turkey convened a quick conference of the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in response to Trump’s designation of al-
Quds as the capital of the Zionist entity. What worries these Ameri-
can Israeli firsters is not the convening of rotten political elites as
N
much as sensing a potential closing of ranks
between Turkey and Islamic Iran. The Amer-
ican representative to the United Nations
speaks with a vibe of dual-racism (American
and Sikh) when she leads the verbal charge
against Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims who
are solidly against the zionization of al-Quds.
Her bigoted statements in support of Israel
may be understood in light of every politician
in the US pleading for a political future —
one that requires approval of the American
Zionist deep state.
In pursuit of her future political dream,
ambassador Nikki Haley came out swinging
against Islamic Iran saying that she has proof
that the ballistic missile launched on Novem-
ber 4 from Yemen into Saudi Arabia was an
Iranian missile. This accusation fits in neatly
into the Zio-American policy of fomenting
sectarian war in the Islamic hemisphere. It
also fits in with scaring the Arabian royals
and blackmailing them into signing military
contracts up until their last riyal and dirham.
This scare tactic policy emanating from
Washington and Tel Aviv may convince the
rash and reckless royals to auction off their
oil wealth to the businessmen who comprise
Trump’s cabinet and their acolytes — the
wealthiest cabinet in American history. The
strategists in Washington and Tel Aviv are
gambling on the political elites in the Muslim
East and cannot circumvent the strategy of
Islamic Iran that is aligned with the Muslim
and oppressed masses throughout the holy
land region. The imperialist and Zionist mass
media railing against Islamic Iran is meant,
among other things, to shift worldwide atten-
tion from the Zionist-imperialist designation
of al-Quds as the capital of the Zionist tribal
nation. The more Muslims begin to close
ranks in their joint effort against the Zionist
thieves who stole the Holy Land, the more we
can expect the Trump-Netanyahu alliance to
go into higher gear against Islamic Iran.
There appears to be, on the horizon, a
meeting of minds between Islamically inclined
politicians in Turkey and Islamically proven
statesmen in Iran. The Trump-Netanyahu-
Salmœn axis of aggression is incensed by this
development and will do everything under the
Opinion 5
Sun to spoil it. Trump is under fabricated pressure points: the Repub- the State of Israel, ‘Adel al-Jubair, the foreign
lican candidate whom he endorsed as congressman from Alabama lost
to his Democratic rival; European allies don’t agree with him in des- “The US is serious about solving the Israeli
ignating al-Quds as the capital of clannish Israel, and North Korea
has poked his political eye with its nuclear grandstanding. The guy
(Trump) is a businessman. He can’t handle the political blows coming
at him internally and externally. So he lashes out at the weakest and
wealthiest politicians; hence his drive to empty the coffers of the
thoughtless princes and idiotic amirs
living over a sea of precious industry
rich oil in the birth land of Islam.
These silly sultans and ridiculous T HE SAUDI ROyAL
rulers in Arabia cannot figure out that
they will be cornered into a conflict
CLAN WILL NOT
against Islamic self-determination for SURVIVE THESE
which they will pay with their money
and their blood.
TUMULTUOUS TIMES.
Back to Nikki. You claim you THE SAUDI KINGDOM
found one missile that is traceable to
Iran (which Iran refuted categorical-
IS SHOWING SERIOUS
ly) and then you want to develop a SIGNS OF INTERNAL
war scenario against the Islamic
Republic out of your “evidence” that
FAILURE AND
Ansarullah in Yemen used this “one DEGENERATION…
missile” against your Saudi commer-
cial and military hardware customers.
Look who’s calling the kettle black!
Couldn’t someone use your same “missile evidence” to indict you and
your Zionist and imperialist bosses for the American manufactured
bombs, missiles, and mortars that have been raining destruction from
the skies upon the people in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pales-
tine, etc? With those explosives, ammos, and shells you have killed
and maimed millions of people. You forced millions of others into
exile and refugeedom. You are pathetic. Your veneer of democracy,
human rights, and justice is wearing thin. Even those who are legally
blind can see you for what you are: war criminals, criminals against
humanity, and in some cases genocidal maniacs. There are millions of
people — no exaggeration — who are dying and will die in Yemen
because of your bullets, mines, and projectiles along with your poli- cause, speech without profit, change without
cies of starving them to death through boycotts and sanctions — and
with all that you argue that you are the citadel of civilization! Only in a stranger, and mistaking foes for friends.
if there is a demonic definition of civilization!
The Saudi royal clan will not survive these tumultuous times.
The Saudi kingdom is showing serious signs of internal failure and
degeneration; Yemen has sapped their internal bonds morally, social-
ly, and militarily. The Zionist-imperialist cosmetic makeup that was
plastered on the Saudi royals is quickly fading away. Just open your
eyes and see the imperialist Salmœn and the Zionist Jubair. Don’t be
fooled by their superficial ßalœ∆ and their aesthetic appearances.
They trapped hundreds of thousands of their own fiqhø persuasion
into civil wars in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, etc. and now they want
to trap the Muslims of the world into a Sunnø-Shø‘ø war. At a time
when the imperialist businessman in the White House comes out and
tells the world his government recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of authors/abu-dharr.
6 CRESCENT INTERNATIONAL – January 2018
minister of Saudi Arabia, comes out and says,
Palestinian issue!”
You read it here first; that the following
will occur is just a matter of time:
1. The clueless Arabian officials are going
to pay with treasures and treasuries for
blindly toeing the Zionist-
imperialist line.
2. The Arabian Peninsula
regimes will perish as they
foment further warfare among
the Muslims, especially if they
ever pull the trigger of war
against Islamic Iran.
3. The “religious class” in the
desert kingdom of Saudi
Arabia will “blow back” at the
royal family with their takførø
impulse and all hell will break
loose in that artificial kingdom.
4. The US may finally come to
its senses when it sees hun-
dreds of millions of Muslims
determined to rip up both
Arabian and Hebrew Zionism.
5. The nucleus of Islamic Unity is taking
shape. And that rebirth of Islamic con-
solidation is easy to locate for those
who have an Islamic pulse in them; as
it is obvious for those who have an anti-
Islamic thump in them.
It is befitting here to remind these Arabi-
ans, if they care not to listen to Allah (Â) to
take heed of their proverb: A foolish man may
be known by six things — anger without
progress, inquiry without object, putting trust
It is not Allah’s will [O you who deny
Allah’s power] to abandon the commit-
ted Muslims to your way of life: [and]
to that end He will set apart the nox-
ious from the virtuous… (3:179). g
Abu Dharr is the pen-name of a senior Islamic
movement intellectual who contributes this month-
ly column, discussing key issues concerning the
global Islamic movement. For his introduction to
this column, see https://crescent.icit-digital.org/

IS CANADA A METIS
CIVILIZATION?
Part 2: “Six Miles
Deep — forever”
By Eric Walberg
Six Nations, southwest of Hamilton, Ontario, is the largest reserve in
Canada, with 27,000 members, though only 12,000 live on the
reserve. It is a mini-multicultural nation, the only reserve in North
America that has all six Iroquois nations living together.
The Haldimand Proclamation, negotiated by Joseph Brant on
behalf of the Six Nations in 1784 in gratitude for native support of
Britain against the American revolutionaries, was, until 1924, gov-
erned by the traditional native government, now called the Hau-
denosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council (HCCC). It promised the
lands “six miles deep from each side of the river beginning at Lake Erie
and extending in that proportion to the head of the said river which
them and their posterity are to enjoy forever.”
This agreement was a decree, never formalized as a treaty, promis-
ing what translated into 950,000 acres of what is arguably Canada’s
most fertile, scenic, and resource-rich land. As this became apparent in
the 19th century, the decree was downgraded by the government, using
a new survey in 1821, to 674,910 acres. Canada prides itself in “win-
ning” the war of 1812, but despite fighting for the British then, the
result for the natives was to have their earlier promises betrayed, in the
first place via the theft of 90% of the land promised to the Six Nations.
Canada was becoming “independent,” but for the colonizers only.
Ignoring the proclamation, colonizers moved into Six Nations ter-
ritory, the land was cleared, and became unsuitable for hunting. Only
a small section, now the Six Nations reserve was left, though it too was
mostly denuded and is now primarily used to grow tobacco. The Six
Nations were forced to surrender lands to the Crown purportedly to
raise funds for the perpetual care and maintenance of Six Nations.
Soon, the Crown had expropriated approximately 600,000 acres in
questionable (illegitimate) transfers. The Crown appointed “Indian
Agents” who gave Six Nations’ land to friends and families, or sold
land in order to pay their own salaries. Forty years after the Haldimand
Treaty was confirmed, Six Nations were dispossessed of 90% of their
original grant.
From approximately 1840 to 1865, the Six Nations Confederacy
council met in a log building near Middleport (since, confiscated). In
1856, against protests from the Onondaga chiefs, Indian Department
superintendent Jasper Gilkison established a council building in what
is present day Ohsweken, about 6 km southwest of Middleport.
In 1924, the Canadian government dissolved the native governing
structures completely, and installed the elected
council system according to the 1876 Indian
Act, in the case of the Haudenosaunee, the Six
Nations Elected Band Council (SNEBC). This
divided the natives, who were forced to accept
the changes, resulting in a schism in the com-
munity with those who held onto traditional
governing structures, embodied in the Great
Law of Peace, that exists to this day.
The traditionals have no government
recognition or funding, weakening their ability
to function effectively. But at moments of cri-
sis, the two power structures have worked
together, however hesitantly. The elected
council for the Six Nations, the SNEBC, is
run like a Western-style local government, and
is headed by Chief Ava Hill. The Hau-
denosaunee Confederacy is governed more dif-
fusely, incorporating traditional roles of each
of the member tribes. There are 50 chief posi-
tions, though not all are filled.
But for the Great Law to function, at least
half of all the members must actively support
the traditional ways (really it should be unani-
mous). That is the bottom line, according to
native rights activist Nicole Lebrasseur, who is
working through the Canadian People’s Union
to popularize the Great Law as a prototype for
all Canadians, as a way to fight neoliberalism
and corporate globalization, where corporations
continue to erode citizen democracy (represen-
tation). “The Six Nations can be the germ of a
renewal of genuine democracy for all nations,”
says Nicole Lebrasseur.
Current standoff
The current Grand River land dispute hit the
mainstream media in 2006 when the Six
Nations formally reactivated their 1995 suit
against Canada and Ontario, protesting to raise
awareness about their land claims, in particu-
lar, 40 hectares in the Haldimand Tract in
Caledonia, Haldimand County. Henco Indus-
tries Ltd had purchased it in 1992, and
planned to develop it as the upscale Douglas
Creek Estates.
When the contested land was officially reg-
istered for real estate development in 2005,
this led the traditionals, the HCCC, to stage
protests, closing roads, and at times escalating
to damage of electricity generation and even
the burning of a bridge. While not condoning
the actions, the elected band council benefited
continued on p. 33
Opinion 7
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 C O
AL-QUDS:
HEART OF ISLAMIC UNITY
Zionists of all stripes have unholy plans for the Holy Land
By Dr. Kevin Barrett
t the heart of Islam’s mission
A is taw˙ød, the concept of
absolute, indivisible divine
Oneness. Before Allah’s (Â) revela-
tion to Prophet Muhammad (r), Jews
and Christians had strayed from this
teaching, which was at the core of all
of the messages of all of the countless
prophets sent to humanity. Jews fell
into the error of seeing the one and
only God as merely their own tribal
idol — one god among many. They
have stubbornly continued to confuse
their tribal identity with the univer-
sal divine Creator. Christians, for
their part, fell into the error of con-
fusing the Prophet ‘Øså (a) with the
one unique God. This led to such
erroneous doctrines as the trinity
and, later, secular humanism, the
false worship of the merely human.
Just five years after the death of the
Prophet Muhammad (r) Muslim
armies defeated the Byzantines, and
Khaløfa∆ ‘Umar ibn al-Kha††œb for-
Dr. Kevin Barrett is a US-based jour-
nalist, commentator, and radio broad-
caster. He hosts the TruthJihad radio
program as well as manages the Veter-
ansToday website.
V E R S T O R I
mally liberated al-Quds. The seeming-
ly improbable Muslim liberation of
Jerusalem/al-Quds was made possible
by the sectarianism, mutual persecu-
tions, and oppressions that had
become endemic under the Byzan-
tines. Christians persecuted Christians
based on arcane sectarian dogmas.
Christians persecuted Jews; Jews perse-
cuted Christians (and slaughtered tens
of thousands of them when Persian
conquests gave them the chance). The
Byzantine emperor who presided over
all this strife, and indeed contributed
to it, taxed his subjects into penury.
For these and other reasons, the
Muslim liberation of al-Quds was wel-
comed or tolerated by a significant
portion of the Byzantine population.
These Jewish and Christian sympa-
thizers, who viewed the coming of
Islam as liberation from oppression,
were proven right when the new Mus-
lim rulers proceeded to live simply,
lower taxes, and enforce religious tol-
eration. The Muslims soon set to work
rebuilding al-Masjid al-Aqßå, and a
few short years later, the magnificent
Dome of the Rock, which has stood as
a symbol of divine unity — and as
Islam’s greatest historical and archi-
tectural monument — ever since.
E S
Muslim stewardship of Jerusalem/
al-Quds has existed almost as long as
the religion of Islam itself. It is a sym-
bol of taw˙ød in the realm of earthly
affairs. Muslims, professing divine
Oneness while tolerating and pro-
tecting other faiths, have for the most
part proved just and able guardians of
the holy city and its sacred sites.
Only two bloody historical inter-
ludes have interrupted Muslim stew-
ardship of the Holy Land: the
Medieval Christian crusades, and
today’s ongoing Zionist genocide.
Both of these two ill-fated ventures
represent blasphemous betrayals of the
perpetrators’ own core religious values.
Christians claim to follow a
prophet known as the Prince of Peace
— a prophet who taught absolute
non-attachment to worldly power
and material goods. yet the Crusaders
took greed and indiscriminate mass
murder to new levels of barbarism.
The nominally Christian Crusaders,
on their way to the Holy Land, mas-
sacred Jewish communities while
sparing a few survivors from the
banking elites, who (at swordpoint)
taught the Crusaders the fine arts of
usury. The result was the world’s first
international “Christian” usury syn-
Cover Stories 9
 would be accomplished by God, not
man. Heretics like Shabtai Tsvi and
Jacob Frank taught that Jews should
make it happen themselves, rather
than waiting for God; but they were
satanists, not Jews, and their teach-
ings were repudiated by a consensus
of rabbinical authorities. This rejec-
tion of Zionism as a satanic heresy
remained central to majoritarian
Judaism until the 1940s.
It was only after World War II
that the shock effect of German
crimes against Jews jolted the global
Jewish community into relinquishing
this central tenet of its religion and
embracing the crimes of Zionism.
Today, a small remnant of faithful
Jews, Naturei Karta, upholds the tra-
ditional Jewish faith; while the vast
majority of those who call themselves
Jews have retreated from that faith,
many of them embracing one variety
In the wake of US President Trump’s announcement about the status
or another of Zionist idolatry.
of Jerusalem, a pro-justice protester holds a banner as he marches
Today, the 9/11-instigated 32-mil-
toward the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 12-8-2017. All
lion-Muslim genocide against Israel’s
across the Muslim world, in particular, protests decrying the new US
enemies, alongside recent attempts to
policy spontaneously erupted. However, sadly, even weeks after the
secure total Zionist hegemony over
announcement was made, no majority Muslim country in an official
Jerusalem/al-Quds, have brought us
capacity has severed diplomatic or economic ties with the US — just
to a level of barbarism, division, and
another indicator of the disconnect between the hearts of the people
strife far beyond that of the medieval
and the loyalties of their rulers.
Crusades. The Holy City, long a sym-
bol of unity-in-diversity under Mus-
lim rule, has become an emblem of
dicate, the Knights Templar. Then that in the Temple and the hatred and disunity under Zionism.
when they arrived in Jerusalem/al- Porch of Solomon, men rode Ironically, this is happening at a
Quds, the Crusaders massacred all of in blood up to their knees and moment when communications tech-
the inhabitants they could find — bridle reins. Indeed, it was a nologies have brought the world
men, women, and children alike. As just and splendid judgment of together, allowing us all to witness
Karen Armstrong writes in Jerusalem: God that this place should be the chaos as it unfolds.
One City, Three Faiths, filled with the blood of unbe-
lievers since it had suffered so ow should Muslims react
The streets literally ran
with blood. “Piles of heads,
hands, and feet were to
long from their blasphemies.”

oday’s even bloodier Jewish-

be seen,” says the Provençal
eyewitness Raymond of
Aguiles. He felt no shame: the
massacre was a sign of the tri-
umph of Christianity, espe-
cially on the Óaram, “If I tell
the truth it will exceed your
powers of belief. So let it suf-
fice to say this much, at least,
T Zionist conquest and ethnic
cleansing of the Holy Land
— which, like the Crusades, has been
perpetrated with the help of an inter-
national usury syndicate — follows
the Crusader example of betraying
the invaders’ own core religious prin-
ciples. Judaism has always taught that
the Jewish “return” to the Holy Land
H to this appalling situation?
The key concept is unity.
We must remain devoted to taw˙ød
and work for unity on the pan-Islamic
and human levels. We must make
every effort to unite with all fellow
Muslims — and with justice-loving
non-Muslims as well — in defense of
al-Quds. Differences of race, lan-
guage, nationality, and religious
school of thought should be de-
emphasized and put on the back

10 CRESCENT INTERNATIONAL – January 2018

burner as we come together to defend
the Holy Land.
Al-Masjid al-Aqßå is built on the
site where the Prophet Muhammad
(r) ascended through the heavens
during his night journey to the
Divine Presence. On the way he had
friendly meetings with the earlier
prophets including M¥så, considered
by Jews the founder of Judaism, and
‘Øså (Ç), considered by Christians
the founder of Christianity. Al-
Masjid al-Aqßå thus represents the
coming together, in peaceful self-sub-
mission to the one God, of the found-
ing figures of the three main branches
US Recognizes
Jerusalem as Capital
of Zionist State
A major step for the Zionist Project
By Dr. Firoz Osman
he December 6 announce-
T ment by US President Don-
ald Trump recognizing
Jerusalem as the “capital” of Israel is a
Dr. Firoz Osman is the co-author
of, WHY ISRAEL? The Anatomy of
Zionist Apartheid — A South
African Perspective. He is Executive
Member of the Media Review Net-
work, an advocacy group based in Johan-
nesburg, South Africa.
of Middle Eastern monotheism… and
by extension, the coming together in
friendship of all monotheists.
This is not the vision of Zionism.
The Jewish Zionist movement openly
professes its aim to destroy al-Masjid
al-Aqßå and build a blood sacrifice
temple in its place. The completion
of their blood sacrifice temple, they
believe, will coincide with the arrival
of a Zionist Messiah to rule the world,
imposing global Jewish-Zionist hege-
mony, from that site.
The Christian Zionist movement
has a slightly different aim. They
believe that by building the blood
major step forward for the Zionist
project since the infamous Balfour
declaration of 1917, whereby the
British created Israel in historical
Palestine from the rib of terrorism.
A primary objective of the Zionist
Project, which emanated from
Europe ,was to occupy and control
Palestine, and to dominate the region
as a bastion of Western civilization.
This colonial project received the
support of the white supremacist gov-
ernment in the US, and right-wing
sacrifice temple, Zionists will “force
God’s hand” and compel Him to send
Jesus(a) back to earth to wage
nuclear war and kill all Jews along
with the majority of the rest of the
human race.
Obviously both the Jewish Zionist
and Christian Zionist plans for the
Holy Land are unholy, indeed satan-
ic. They aim at strife and division,
not peace and unity. They will
insha’Allah be defeated in our lifetime,
and Jerusalem/al-Quds will reassume
its place as a beautiful symbol of
peace, friendship, and unity on earth
under the One God. g
extremist parties in Europe.
The outcry by the aggrieved in the
Arab and Muslim World and their
pleas for justice will be of no effect.
The rulers of the regional Arabian
regimes are more concerned in sal-
vaging and securing their illegitimate
thrones and power base rather than
worry about the fate of Jerusalem
where al-Masjid al-Aqßå, the first
qibla∆ of the Muslims is located.
Most of them have bought into
the fraudulent US and Saudi-created
“threat” that Iran allegedly poses, rel-
egating the just cause of the hapless
Palestinians to total irrelevance. The
plan now is to form this grand
alliance against the resistance move-
ments and Iran, the only bulwark
against their hegemony.
In this endeavour the US and
Israel have bought the cooperation of
the young, ambitious, murderous, and
reckless Saudi crown prince, Bin
Salmœn (BS). His profile fits neatly
with the erratic and war-mongering
nature of Trump and Netanyahu.
The complicity of the Palestinian
Authority with Israel in pursuing the
illusion of a “peace process” has come
to a dead end. The fraud of a “two-
state” solution is glaringly evident.
Cover Stories 11

US fraudster-in-chief, Donald Trump (left), used to communicating
in slogans and vituperations for his criminal overlords, said that
Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is a great deal for the Israelis and
a great deal for the Palestinians. What he meant to say is “We have
the power to do whatever we want and see it however we want; and
the rest of you can go and eat crow.”
There is no alternative but to return to
the time-honored and internationally
sanctioned armed resistance against
the heinous oppression by Israel.
For the Zionists there will be no
Israel without Jerusalem. And there
will be no Jerusalem without the
building of the Temple of Solomon
inside the 35-acre al-Aqßå Masjid
compound referred to as al-Óaram al-
Sharøf, or the Noble Sanctuary, by
Muslims, and as the Temple Mount
by Jews.
heodor Herzl, an Austrian
T
Jew, developed in 1896 the
ethnic-cleansing racist colo-
nial ideology of Zionism. Its main
goal was the establishment of the
Greater Israel Project in the heart of
the Arab and Muslim world, extend-
ing from the Nile River in Egypt to
the Euphrates River in Iraq, as a Jew-
ish-only homeland for what is termed
12 CRESCENT INTERNATIONAL – January 2018
the “Jewish People.”
The racism of political Zionism is
a perfectly coherent system that
inspires all the laws and practices of
Israel. It encompasses all the odious
characteristics of colonialism includ-
ing ethnic cleansing, regular mas-
sacres, bombardment of entire civil-
ian populations, wars of aggression,
dispossession, exile, systematic ra-
cism, apartheid, and destabilisation.
With a massive infusion of finan-
cial, diplomatic and military help
from the colonial powers the Zionists
accomplished this project to establish
the state of Israel on colonized Pales-
tinian land after the genocide and
ethnic-cleansing of a majority of
Palestinian Arabs, both Christian
and Muslim.
Significantly for the Zionist Proj-
ect, the disintegration of the
Ottoman Sultanate fragmented
Islam’s Arab heartland into some 40
weak and dependent territories and
oil-rich protectorates.
Jerusalem, which houses the Aqßå
compound, belonged to the interna-
tional community under the adminis-
tration of the UN. It was granted this
special status for its importance to the
three Abrahamic faiths.
The illegal Israeli control of East
Jerusalem, including the Old City,
which Israel occupied in 1967, vio-
lates several principles of interna-
tional law, which outlines that an
occupying power does not have sov-
ereignty in the territory it occupies.
In fact, Article 42 of the 1907 Hague
Regulations (HR) states that a “terri-
tory is considered occupied when it is
actually placed under the authority of
the hostile army. The occupation
extends only to the territory where
such authority has been established
and can be exercised.”
According to their common Arti-
cle 2, the four Geneva Conventions
of 1949 apply to any territory occu-
pied during international hostilities.
They also apply in situations where
the occupation of state territory
meets with no armed resistance.
The UN Charter and the law
known as jus ad bellum regulate the
legality of any particular occupation.
Once a situation exists that factually
amounts to an occupation the law of
occupation applies — whether or not
the occupation is considered lawful.
Therefore, for the applicability of
the law of occupation, it makes no
difference whether an occupation has
received Security Council approval,
what its aim is, or indeed whether it
is called an “invasion,” “liberation,”
“administration,” or “occupation.” As
the law of occupation is primarily
motivated by humanitarian consider-
ations, it is solely the facts on the
ground that determine its applica-
tion. The Zionist entity claims to
derive its legitimacy from the UN
General Assembly vote of November
1947. yet since its illegal implanta-
tion in Palestine, the Zionists have
done everything to repudiate every
law, every UN resolution, whether
passed by the Security Council or the
General Assembly, in their relentless
drive of colonization. And this
process involves the dispossession of
Palestinians from their lands, includ-
ing in Jerusalem.
alestinians in the holy city
P (Jerusalem), who number
around 400,000, hold only
permanent residency status, not citi-
zenship, despite being born there —
in contrast with Jews who were not
born in the city. And, since 1967,
Israel has embarked on a quiet depor-
tation of the city’s Palestinians by
imposing virtually impossible condi-
tions for them to fulfill so as to main-
tain their residency status.
Israel has also built at least 12 for-
UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY
SLAPS TRUMP OVER
JERUSALEM
Despite Trump’s pit bull at the UN, world unites on Jerusalem
By Waseem Shehzad
nly by using its veto power
O on December 18 did the
US escape censure at the
UN Security Council for its ill-con-
ceived and dangerous declaration of
Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The
other 14 members of the council were
tified Jewish-only illegal colonies in
East Jerusalem, housing some
200,000 Israelis, while rejecting
Palestinian building permits and
demolishing their homes as punish-
ment when they build their homes to
prevent their collapse. The Zionists
dub them “illegal.”
The city of Jerusalem is very
important to Muslims, with a rich his-
tory intimately linked with prophetic
history. Al-Masjid al-Aqßå holds
immense significance in Islamic reli-
gious tradition and Muslims main-
tained the sacredness of this city in the
full sense of the word, including main-
taining the tolerant multi-religious
and multi-faith character of Jerusalem.
The Zionists have distorted and
misrepresented the history of the
region established by Islam over the
adamantly opposed to Donald
Trump’s December 6 announcement
that amounted to throwing a match
into a stack of hay.
It was, however, a different matter
at the UN General Assembly three
days later. More accurately reflective
past 1,300 years. They have over-
turned the demography of Palestine,
controlling and Judaizing the Old
City and East Jerusalem as a whole.
The Trump declaration recogniz-
ing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital shat-
ters the illusion of the US as an “hon-
est broker” interested in a just resolu-
tion of the illegal Israeli colonization
of the Holy Land, the facade of an
endless “peace process,” and the two-
state solution.
The Zionist Project has taken a
step forward in entrenching Israel as
the forward base for Western imperi-
alism intent on dominating the Mus-
lim world. An intifœ∂a∆ (uprising)
against the oppressors, not only in
Colonized Palestine, but also against
the illegitimate Arabian rulers, is
inevitable. g
of global public opinion, the General
Assembly on December 21 delivered
a tight slap on Trump’s face. It reject-
ed by 128–9 his illegal and dangerous
declaration over Jerusalem.
The motion presented by Egypt
and co-sponsored by Pakistan,
though largely symbolic because gen-
eral assembly votes are not legally
binding unless passed by a two-third
majority, demonstrated that some-
times symbolism is more important
than legality. Trump’s December 6
announcement to recognize Jerusa-
lem as Israel’s capital was also symbol-
ic; no country has opened its embassy
in Jerusalem and it is not expected
many will follow the US decision.
Several countries do not even recog-
nize Israel, rightly considering it a
colonial squatter entity that has ille-
gally occupied the land of the Pales-
tinian people, much less Jerusalem as
its capital.
At the General Assembly vote,
there were 35 abstentions including
Cover Stories 13
 are not really states but islands inhab-
ited by indigenous natives, some of
which have been known to indulge in
cannibalism. In that sense they are in
good company with the imperialists
and Zionists who have shed the blood
of millions of innocent people in
recent decades.
“The United States will remem-
ber this day,” US Ambassador Nikki
Haley hissed into the microphone at
the UN General Assembly. The
daughter of Sikh immigrant parents
(her given name is Nimrata Kaur
Randhawa but having no self-esteem
in the presence of her slave masters,
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley in a not-so- she “conked” her name to Nikki
veiled threat to the world community that, except for the cowards Haley) is trying to ingratiate herself
who abstained, almost unanimously rejected America’s designation to the Zionists — the real masters of
of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, New York, 12-21-2017. It’s America. She follows in the tradition
telling to see how the notion of sovereignty is leveraged to satisfy the of her notorious predecessors,
geostrategic interests of the power club in the world. North Korea is whether white or black: Madeleine
a sovereign nation that wants to have its own independent nuclear Albright, Susan Rice, and Samantha
program; Iran is a sovereign nation that wants to have an indepen- Power. All of them specialized in
dent foreign policy and a peaceful nuclear program; Syria is a crude rhetoric, were vicious, and
sovereign country that has never accepted the colonization of the reflected deep antipathy toward Mus-
Holy Land; and Yemen is a sovereign country that wants to have a lims while being shamelessly servile
representative government free of outside interference, and yet the to the Zionists. Add to that John
sovereignty of not one of these nations is respected, honored, or Bolton, a pit bull who was let loose in
acknowledged as they have all been singled out for attack by the the UN and one can begin to under-
United States and its proxies around the world, not innocuously just stand why the US is so hated globally.
at the UN, but with real bombs that kill, private armies that “America will put our embassy in
terrorize, economic embargoes that starve, psychological warfare Jerusalem,” Haley thundered. “No
that intimidates, and media propaganda that demonizes. vote in the United Nations will make
any difference on that,” contemptu-
ously dismissing concerns even from
close allies Britain, Germany, and
Canada that prides itself on being a although Pakistan has in recent France. “But this vote will make a dif-
country that promotes multicultural- weeks developed some spine and has ference on how Americans look at
ism at home and peace abroad. Simi- rejected America’s insulting demands the UN and on how we look at coun-
larly, Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was especially vis-à-vis Afghanistan. tries who disrespect us in the UN,”
born in blood and tears after a brutal she threatened adding that the US
war in 1991–1995, abstained. Con- hat great powers stood pays the bulk of UN budget and
trast this with Serbia and Macedonia
that voted against the US.
There were 21 countries that
W with the two internation-
al pariahs (the US and
Israel) in voting against the motion
expects respect in return.
This was a brazen display of
American hubris and a shameless
made themselves absent in order not at the UN? The list includes such attempt at blackmailing countries
to arouse Trump’s ire because he had military and economic “giants” as into towing the US line regardless of
crudely threatened to cut off aid to Guatemala and Honduras (both vir- how ill-conceived Trump’s decision
countries that support the motion. tual US colonies), Togo (an African is. “When we make generous contri-
Interestingly the two countries that basket case), and Micronesia, Nauru, butions to the UN we also have a
sponsored the motion — Egypt and Palau, and the Marshall Islands. legitimate expectation that our good-
Pakistan — have both been recipi- Readers could be forgiven if they will is recognized and respected,”
ents of American aid in the past, have not heard of the last four. They Haley added. Trump was even more

14 CRESCENT INTERNATIONAL – January 2018

blunt in his pronouncements about
terminating aid to countries that
refuse to toe the American line. Prior
to the vote, Trump had warned the
193-member assembly, “We are
watching.” Watch he did but his
threats did not deter the overwhelm-
ing majority of UN member-states
from repudiating his illegal and
immoral decision.
rump would not have acted
T without first lining up the
pathetic Arabian rulers
behind him. Led by Saudi Arabia,
they were joined by such other illegit-
imate rulers as those in Bahrain (that
serves as a brothel for US troops and
the profligate Saudis), the putative
Emirati potentates, and others of their
ilk. It was apparent from their reac-
tion — or non-reaction — to Trump’s
announcement. Saudi Crown Prince
Mu˙ammad bin Salmœn did not even
bother to mention Jerusalem with a
visiting American delegation a day
after Trump’s announcement. It was
the Americans that forced the issue
but despite this, Bin Salmœn shrugged
it off and moved on to other topics.
Robert Satloff of the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy
(WINEP) was in Riyadh as part of an
American delegation. He had an 80-
minute meeting with Bin Salmœn
who not once raised the issue of
Jerusalem. A week later (December
14, 2017) Satloff published an article
on WINEP’s website titled
“Mohammed bin Salman Doesn’t
Want to Talk About Jerusalem.”
He wrote, “If we hadn’t asked him
directly about Trump’s announce-
ment, it may never have come up…
He limited himself to a single word of
disappointment about the President’s
decision — literally — and then
quickly turned to where Riyadh and
Washington could work together to
limit the fallout and restore hope to
the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.”
That a pro-Zionist think tank like
WINEP with close links to the even
more rabidly Zionist outfit, the
American Israel Public Affairs Com- Jerusalem after prompting from Sat-
mittee (AIPAC), would force Bin loff, makes it even more remarkable.
Salmœn to address the issue of The Saudis’ Bahraini slaves were
Jerusalem speaks volumes about the similarly dismissive with the tiny
latter’s priorities. AIPAC is a Zionist island’s Foreign Minister Khœlid bin
attack dog that rips any politician or A˙mad Œl Khaløfa∆ calling it a “side-
official that dares oppose Israeli poli- issue” in a December 20 tweet. He
cy even if it is to the detriment of the went on, “It’s not helpful to pick a
interests of the US. fight with the USA over side issues
The fact that the meeting at while we together fight the clear and
which Satloff was present happened present danger [of Iran].”
just after Trump’s declaration on Can the Arabian potentates stoop
Jerusalem, that it lasted over an hour,
and that BS only mentioned
any lower? Not surprisingly, they get
kicked in the teeth so frequently. g
Despite overbearing pressure and canvassing from the White House
before the vote in the General Assembly, more than 120 countries
defied US President Donald Trump on 12-21-2017, voting in favor of
a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for the United
States to drop its recent recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Of the member-nations, 128 countries voted in favor of the UNGA
resolution, nine countries voted against, and 35 countries abstained.
The text of the resolution, “Affirms that any decisions and actions
which purport to have altered, the character, status, or demographic
composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are
null and void…” The document also calls upon UN members to
“…refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in the Holy
City of Jerusalem.” Confronted with the possibility of a diplomatic
setback for the US, Trump adopted a defiant tone that he and his
advisors will at some point turn into policy, “Well, we’re watching
those votes… Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t
care. But this isn’t like it used to be where they could vote against
you and then you pay them hundreds of millions of dollars and no-
body knows what they’re doing.” And who keeps an eye on the US?
Cover Stories 15
 N E
WHO WOULD WANT TO HAVE
DINNER WITH BIN SALMAN!
Bin Salmœn burns his own as he burnishes his own holdings
By Yusuf Dhia-Allah
he word chaos accurately cap-
T tures the essence of recent
events inside the Bani Saud-
ruled kingdom. While the Western
corporate media fawn over the crown
prince’s naked power-grab describing
it in breathless headlines as “reforms,”
the reality is quite different.
Mu˙ammad bin Salmœn has shaken
two of the most important founda-
tions that enabled the medieval king-
dom to survive for so long. The twin
deals, one with the religious establish-
ment and the other within the ruling
family, have been demolished.
The medieval kingdom moves
into unchartered territory with an
erratic and inexperienced prince at
the helm. He may believe that strik-
ing deals with imperialist America
and Zionist Israel would help him
save his hide and keep his hold on
power; the deals with the two most
evil regimes in the world may in fact
prove to be a recipe for disaster.
Uncle Sam and nephew Moshe are
there for the money; they thrive on
sucking the blood of other people.
Bin Salmœn (BS) will also discover
this as many others before him are
now reviewing in their graves.
The wholesale arrests carried out
16 CRESCENT INTERNATIONAL – January 2018
W S & A N A L y
on November 4 were unprecedented
in scale as far as the Bani Saud clan is
concerned. It would be too charitable
to call the medieval kingdom a
regime; Bani Saud act like a mafia
that controls the state; its resources
are treated as personal fortune. With
an army of Saudi “royals” — it is not
clear how many there are but a rough
guesstimate is 7,000 plus — money
was being spread very thinly. This
had become even more untenable fol-
lowing the precipitous drop in oil
prices starting in 2014, again engi-
neered by Bani Saud to undermine
Islamic Iran’s influence in the region.
Far from causing harm to Iran, Bani
Saud have suffered massive financial
losses as a consequence.
This could not have come at a
worse time. Bani Saud are in the
midst of a succession battle and con-
sequently crisis. King Salmœn is old
(82), suffers from dementia, and
numerous other ailments. He wants
to make (or is being forced to make)
his inexperienced and arrogant son
the king. Even though several sons of
‘Abd al-‘Azøz ibn Sa‘¥d are still alive,
the forced transition to the next gen-
eration is not proving easy. The Saudi
Constitution, for whatever it is
S I S
worth, states that the brother next in
line (from among the sons of ‘Abd al-
‘Azøz) would accede to the throne
once the king dies or is incapacitated.
Salmœn however has discarded this
and wants his son BS to take over the
reins of power.
BS’ cousins — and there are a
whole lot of them, some with much
greater experience and far smarter
than him (this, of course, is relative,
as there are no geniuses in this lot) —
are not happy with this development.
The November 4 arrests were carried
out under the guise of fighting cor-
ruption but the fact is there is not a
single Saudi “royal” who is not up to
his neck in corruption including Bin
Salmœn (BS). He recently made some
very expensive purchases: $500 mil-
lion yatch, $300 million mansion in
Paris and a $450 million Leonardo da
Vinci painting totalling $1.25 billion
in all. Where did the blighter get
such fabulous wealth from?
BS wanted to eliminate potential
rivals especially Mit‘ab bin ‘Abdillœh,
who was dismissed from his post as
Commander of the National Guard.
He was a strong contender for the
throne. Another rival, Mu˙ammad
bin Nœyif had already been sidelined
 amid much fanfare. Bani Saud have
consumed one-third of their reserves
in three years; in another six, their
reserves would be wiped out.
Some of the detainees were tor-
tured and landed in the hospital.
Mit‘ab was one of them and it is
reported that in return for paying $1
billion, he secured his release. Similar
deals have been struck with other
detainees after undergoing what the
notorious Donald Rumsfeld would
describe as “enhanced interrogation
techniques.” What goes around
comes around. BS’ cousins, business-
men, and bankers were lured to the
Ritz Carlton Hotel for dinner with
him. Would anyone accept a dinner
invitation from BS in the future?
One prince, however, is fighting
When the Chateau Louis XIV sold for over $300 million two years back. Al-Walød bin ˇalœl has report-
ago, Fortune magazine called it “the world’s most expensive home… edly refused to cough up the $6 bil-
” The 2015 purchase appears to be one of several extravagant lion ransom demand from BS,
acquisitions — including a $500 million yacht and a $450 million according to the Wall Street Journal.
Leonardo da Vinci painting — by a prince who is leading a sweeping He has demanded an open and fair
crackdown on corruption and self-enrichment by the Saudi elite and trial. This is unlikely because there is
preaching fiscal austerity at home. The ownership of the chateau, in no independent judiciary in the prim-
Louveciennes, France, near Versailles, was carefully shrouded by itive kingdom. Judges deliver verdicts
shell companies in France and Luxembourg. Those companies are based on what the ruler wants.
owned by Eight Investment Company, a Saudi firm managed by the Besides, an open trial would expose
head of Crown Prince Bin Salmœn’s personal foundation. Eight the extortion racket BS is running.
Investment was the same company that backed the clown prince’s Bin ˇalœl’s challenge, however, has
impulse buy of the 440-foot yacht from a Russian vodka tycoon. thrown a monkey wrench in BS’
plans. Other princes may be embold-
ened by his example and mount their
own challenges.
and placed under house arrest. he arrests two months ago
The other reason for the arrests
was to grab their wealth to finance
BS’ grandiose but foolish plans. The
T were preceded in September
by the arrest of a number of
religious figures. There are believed O
n the external front, BS’
policies have been equally
disastrous. In both Syria
Kingdom’s revenues have depleted to be 40,000 political prisoners in the and Iraq, Bani Saud policies have
rapidly due to multiple wars, massive Kingdom. These include academics, been completely defeated despite
arms purchases, and other reckless lawyers, and civil rights activists. The their unleashing the takførø terrorists
ventures. The population is also get- judicial system is nonexistent; judges on innocent people. True, the takførøs
ting restless because essential services deliver verdicts to please the rulers, have caused havoc in much of the
have been cut and taxes have been not Allah (Â) even though the Muslim East (aka the Middle East)
imposed. With high unemployment medieval kingdom claims its laws are and beyond and irreparable damage
— it is believed to be around 40% based on the Qur’an and the to the fabric of unity in the Ummah,
among the youth (ages 20–30) that Prophet’s Sunnah. but the demons have been roundly
constitute about 60% of the popula- It is estimated that at least $100 defeated, at least in the Syria/Iraq
tion — opposition to the ruling family billion would be recovered from the theater of war.
is growing even if the Western media arrested princes and moneyed class. Even in yemen, which is Bin
keep talking about how popular Bin But even this is not enough to pay for Salmœn’s pet project, the Ansarullah-
Salmœn is (how do they know?). the various projects announced by BS led Islamic movement, far from being

News & Analysis 17

defeated, has valiantly stood its
ground. Instead, Saudi policy has suf-
fered massive blows even if they con-
tinue to kill and maim at a horren-
dous scale. A million are on the verge
of starvation. Jamie McGoldrick of
the UN Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs said on
November 14 that seven million peo-
ple were already in “famine-like con-
ditions” in yemen. Millions of others
are suffering from cholera. He urged
the Saudis for the umpteenth time to
lift the blockade of yemen. McGold-
rick’s plea fell on deaf ears.
Unless the Saudis kill all the peo-
ROHINGYA: DON’T
ALLOW CRIMINALS
TO SUCCEED
Israel and India still selling arms to Burmese military
By Iqbal Jassat
s the crisis facing the Rohingya
I Muslims in Burma over? Heart
wrenching images of feeble old
women, little babies, and desperate
toddlers fleeing from a marauding
Burmese military may have moved off
TV screens, but does it mean that
Iqbal Jassat is Executive Member of
the Media Review Network, Johan-
nesburg, South Africa.
18 CRESCENT INTERNATIONAL – January 2018
ple of yemen — an impossible feat —
their policy is doomed to failure.
They suffered another blow when ‘Alø
‘Abdullœh Íœli∆, the former long-time
president and one-time ally of
Ansarullah, was killed on December
4. Íœli∆ had betrayed his allies and
joined the Saudi camp only to find
himself speedily dispatched to the
other side never to return.
While BS may temporarily ride
out the storm amid much contrived
applause from the fawning and paid
Western media, the two sets of ene-
mies he has fingered at home will not
be easy to contain: the religious
their plight is over?
Close to a million Rohingya are
huddled in miserable conditions
across Myanmar’s border in
Bangladesh. They fled there — not
because they voluntarily decided to
migrate — but due to a deliberate
pogrom calculated to drive them off
their ancestral homes and lands.
The perpetrators responsible for
this horrific ethnic cleansing are
seemingly oblivious of their criminal
establishment and the resentful roy-
als. There are already reports of rum-
blings of revolt within both. While
the Bani Saud clan always lived in
fear, fearful even of its own shadows,
now the threats are real. Bin Salmœn
seldom ventures out without a mas-
sive security detail accompanying
him wherever he goes.
How long can he escape death?
The daggers (or guns) are out for him
and it would come as no surprise if we
hear one fine morning on television
that his ponderous bulk has been
divested of life. It can come none too
soon. g
conduct. Such contemptuous behav-
ior is usually associated with large
chunks of impunity. Their mirror
image is Zionist Israel where war
criminals in high office believe that
they are untouchable. Taking their
cue from Israel, the Burmese military
feels confident that notwithstanding
a global outrage against their wanton
brutality, the storm will pass.
Indeed the storm will pass if glob-
al solidarity movements confine their
responses to alleviating the humani-
tarian situation without confronting
the political beasts responsible for it.
The interventions to provide
basic health care, shelter, food, and
education are necessary, but to draw a
line there, without tackling the root
cause of the catastrophe engulfing the
Rohingya, is exactly what Aung San
Suu Kyi’s regime desires.
As is widely known, Suu Kyi has
been annoyed with media and human
rights groups for unsettling her so-
called credentials as a “freedom-loving
democrat.” Taking the gaze off her and
the responsibility she has to restore
the honor, dignity, and freedom of
Rohingya Muslims would be tanta-
mount to allowing the storm to pass.
 Living in perpetual poverty as
“stateless” people with no certainty
that they will be allowed to return
home cannot and must not be an
option. It is an injustice to ignore or
downplay their right to return. Just
look across the Muslim East to see the
agony and despair caused to Palestin-
ian refugees whose right of return has
been trampled by Israel for 70 years
despite scores of UN Security Coun-
cil resolutions.
Thus to delink the Rohingya crisis
from politics and view it solely as a
humanitarian issue, plays into the
hands of Suu Kyi and the Burmese
military chiefs. That the pitiful misery
of a million or more Rohingya Mus-
lims is caused by an intolerant and
belligerent faction of Buddhist monks
whose Islamophobic views enjoy the
Charred remains of Rohingya men, women, and children in the Pen-
support of the military and the gov-
indasan village. Burmese state agencies appear to have deliberately
ernment, must neither be forgotten
fostered the ethnic cleansing campaign to divert populist anger away
nor removed from the equation.
from the devastating impact of a semi-private pipeline project, and
By the same token it can be
instead toward the most easy and vulnerable target at hand.
argued that the UN Security Council
has failed to intervene. Issuing state-
ments without displaying any serious
resolve is merely a sop to deflect from that are intertwined for they share A recent New York Times report
its failure of ensuring that criminals repulsive values such as exclusivity, talked about how Myanmar was
be held to account for the mass racism, apartheid, and ghettoizing stalling efforts to help the Rohingya.
killings. yet again one may justifiably populations of a different creed. This is hardly surprising considering
question the relevance of the Inter- Unfortunately for the Rohingya, how the crisis started. Witnesses have
national Criminal Court if its legal uprooted and displaced by a political described, how Myanmar’s army
institutions fail to provide security elite that is emboldened by the burned down Rohingya village after
and justice for the Rohingya. alliance of India and Israel, the future Rohingya village, terrorizing and
looks bleak. Having to contend with massacring civilians — of any age,
ountries such as India and less than ideal conditions in including infants — with one appar-

C Israel have not backed off

from supplying weapons to
the Burmese military. Their shame-
less conduct is reprehensible. Particu-
larly outrageous and thus not surpris-
ing is the fact that neither of the two
rightwing leaders — Narendra Modi
of India and Benjamin Netanyahu of
Israel — have the credentials to
speak out against human rights viola-
tions. Just as Aung San Suu Kyi is
saddled with the question of the
Rohingya, Modi and Netanyahu
carry the albatross of Kashmir and
Palestine around their necks. This
troika represents political ideologies
Bangladesh’s refugee camps without
any recourse to justice is an indict-
ment of the powers that the interna-
tional community possesses but fails
to exercise.
“The Rohingya are the wretched
of the earth,” said Leonard Doyle, a
spokesman for the International
Organization for Migration, the
agency helping coordinate relief
efforts. “Nobody wants them. I’m
talking about 7-year-olds who have
witnessed their parents get their
throats slit who are standing in bare
feet on the border right now, asking,
‘What’s going to happen to me?’”
ent purpose: to erase the Rohingya
from the landscape.
The report sheds light on how
Myanmar’s leaders steadily stripped
away their rights, making it extreme-
ly difficult for the Rohingya to get a
government job or a passport, go to
school, or even be legally married.
Government soldiers preyed upon
them; revered Buddhist monks open-
ly called them insects and snakes.
The criminals responsible for the
horrific massacres and ethnic cleans-
ing have to face prosecution, not the
luxury of remaining in a position to
act as judge, jury, and executioner. g

News & Analysis 19


DANGEROUS TO BE
FEMALE IN INDIA
Officials showing little resolve to stem violence againt women
By Khadijah Ali
ndia may have a female foreign
I minister: Sushma Swaraj. It also
had a female prime minister
(Indira Gandhi) more than four
decades ago but this is not reflective
of the true state of the plight of
women in India.
Let us deal with Indira Gandhi’s
case first. Her own bodyguards shot
and killed her. This was not because
of the fact that she was a woman; her
real crime was attacking the Golden
Temple in Amritsar, the Sikhs’ holi-
est of holy places. Thousands of Sikhs
were massacred in the military opera-
tion in June 1984. The Sikhs vowed
to avenge this sacrilegious act result-
ing in her murder in October 1984.
Lest people think that India
respects women because some have
made it to the top, they should think
again. Hinduism, the predominant
religion in India, is extremely intoler-
ant of women. Sati, the horrific prac-
tice of a widow burning herself on the
funeral pyre of her dead husband is
still practiced in some parts of India
although it has subsided somewhat
under intense international pressure
and opprobrium.
Discrimination is inbuilt into
Hinduism’s Caste system whereby
people are divided into socio-eco-
nomic classes at birth. People belong-
ing to the “upper” castes discriminate
against those of the lower castes. The
very notion of upper and lower castes
is an assault on human dignity and
honor. There is no escape from the
straitjacket the caste system imposes.
Dalits or Untouchables, people in
Hinduism’s lowest caste, are treated
worse than animals. There are more
than 200 million Indian Dalits, who
are condemned to a life of extreme
degradation and cruelty.
The cow is worshipped and con-
sidered the Hindus’ mother — how
strange can they get? — and, there-
fore, holy; yet human beings are so
terribly abused.
iven that women are badly
G mistreated, most people
prefer to have sons rather
than daughters. Unfortunately mod-
ern science has also provided a help-
ing hand whereby ultrasound tests
determine the gender of the fetus.
Female fetuses are aborted resulting
in skewing the population balance.
For every 1,000 men, there are only
933 women in India according to the
2011 census. The trend has contin-
ued to worsen since.
With a total population of 1.2 bil-
lion, there is a huge shortage of girls
in the country. The skewed gender
inequality has led to an alarming rise
in rape cases in India.
Hinduism itself promotes promis-
cuity. This is apparent in the images
and statues one finds in temples all
across India. Statues of busty women
in suggestive poses are a common
sight in temples. Coupled with sexual
abuse of women and girls of lower
castes, one can begin to draw a pic-
ture of the horrific reality of women
in India.
A cursory glance at statistics indi-
cates that rape cases have steadily
increased. Further, that the over-
whelming majority of those accused
of rape crimes is between the ages of
18–25 is indicative of the fact that
gender imbalance in society is a
strong factor in rising rape cases.
This is apparent from rape statis-
tics between the years 2004–2010:
2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . 18,233
2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . 18,359
2006 . . . . . . . . . . . . 19,348
2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . 20,737
2008 . . . . . . . . . . . . 21,467
2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . 21,397
2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . 22,172
Despite the toughening of laws
against rape crimes following the hor-
rific gang rape of the physiotherapist
student, Nirbaya, in December 2012
on a Delhi bus, the upward trend has
continued. If in 2012, there were
24,923 cases of rape, by 2015, these
had climbed to 34,210 and in 2016,
these rose to 38,947 cases. It is impor-
tant to bear in mind that these figures
refer to reported cases.
Often, women do not report rape
for two primary reasons: stigma
attached to victims, and the police
themselves are notorious for assault-
ing and raping victims that report the
crime. Both act as strong deterrents
to reporting.
The 2016 reported rape cases
(38,947) translate to more than 106
rapes per day or nearly 4.5 rapes each
hour, according to The Times of India
(December 1, 2017). This means a
woman or girl is raped every 14 min-
utes somewhere in India.
News & Analysis 21
 qually horrifying is the fact
E that at least 2,116 victims of
rape were girls in the age
groups of 1–12 years. And in 94.6%
of the cases, offenders included
neighbours, family members, rela-
tives, husband/live-in partner,
employer/co-worker, etc.
The former minister for Women
and Child Development, Maneka
Gandhi, said that there was an
increase in the number of sexual
offences against children in the
country. The number of cases of rape
of children had increased from 8,541
in 2012 to 12,363 in 2013 and
13,766 in 2014 (The Times of India,
August 08, 2015).
The overall figures for crimes
against women — such as physical
violence including acid attacks, or
mental abuse — are similarly alarm-
ing. There were a total of 338,954
crimes against women registered in
CANADA’S LONG,
DARK HISTORY OF
ISLAMOPHOBIA
Early-1900s Islamophobia had nothing to do with terrorism
By Hayy Yaqzan
xactly a year ago (January 29,
E 2017), a white right-wing
Christian terrorist, Alexandre
Bissonette entered a masjid in the
22 CRESCENT INTERNATIONAL – January 2018
2016. Most of the victims were sub-
jected to “cruelty by husband or rela-
tives” (32.6% of cases), followed by
“assault on women with intent to
outrage her modesty” (25%), “kid-
napping and abduction of women”
(19%) and rape (11.5%).
Kidnapping of women/girls to
force them to marry is also wide-
spread. In 2016, there were 33,796
women/girls that were kidnapped/
abducted with the view to force them
to marry.
According to India’s National
Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) data,
260,304 cases of crimes against
women were sent for trial in 2016.
This resulted in 23,094 convictions or
a less-than-10% conviction rate. This
hardly evokes much confidence in
police competence or the legal system.
Where there are a record number
of rapes, there is the sexually trans-
mitted disease, AIDS. India is one of
Sainte-Foy neighbourhood of Quebec
City and opened fire on the 50 or so
Muslims who had gathered there for
the nightly prayer. Six people were
the leaders in spreading the deadly
disease because of lack of safe sex and
lack of medical facilities. Truck driv-
ers also spread the disease. They ply
tens of thousands of miles of roads
across India and indulge in sex with
multiple women along the route. It
could be called AIDS on wheels.
And then there is India’s Red
Ribbon Express, a special train osten-
sibly to increase awareness about
AIDS. The train touches 50,000 vil-
lages. The special train is reserved for
AIDS victims with the view to pre-
venting the spread of disease to non-
AIDS affected victims.
Whether the Red Ribbon Express
train has helped increase awareness
about AIDS is debatable; what it has
shown is that in India, AIDS is a
huge problem. It is spreading rapidly
because of loose social mores and the
increasing cases of rapes across the
country. g
killed and 19 injured. Canada’s Mus-
lim community was jarred by the hor-
rific attack, especially since it target-
ed Muslims while offering prayer.
The incident apparently came as
a surprise to many. Canada is lauded
internationally for its perceived com-
mitment to multiculturalism and
inclusivity, and even more so given
the “sunny ways” attitude of current
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and
his government. But this shooting
came as a reminder that Islamopho-
bia may have deeper roots in Canada
than is often realized. It is always
lurking under the surface.
Even when their numbers were in
the few hundreds, Muslims in this
country in the early-20th century
already faced what may retroactively
be seen as traces of Islamophobia.
The 1907 Anti-Oriental Riots in
Vancouver targeted the Chinese,

One of the surviving photographs of detainees at the Kapuskasing
internment camp. Male internees were forced into hard labor — in
Jasper and Banff they cleared thick forest for roadways. They faced
deplorable living conditions that bred tuberculosis and pneumonia.
Japanese, and Sikh communities, but
were severely discomforting as well
for the Muslims who had settled
there. In 1912, an Indian-born Mus-
lim, Husain Rahim, was arrested in
BC and faced up to 14 years in jail.
His crime? He was a South Asian
immigrant of non-British parents and
he had had the audacity to vote in
local elections (the case was eventu-
ally dismissed as there was no evi-
dence that he had actually voted)! In
that same year, Toronto’s first known
Muslim, Regip Assim, faced discrimi-
nation in finding employment
because of his background.
Two years later (1914), 27 Muslims
were among the 376 passengers of the
Komagata Maru, most of them politi-
cal refugees trying to escape the
oppression of British rule in South
Asia. Canadian authorities refused to
let them disembark. After a two-
month standoff in Vancouver harbour,
they were denied entry and harshly
told to go back. Many of them had no
choice but to return to India, where
some were massacred and others
detained immediately upon landfall.
In May 2016, more than a century
later, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
issued an apology for this incident.
Elsewhere in Canada in 1914,
Muslims fared even worse. As a sub-
servient Canada entered the First
World War on Britain’s side, it found
the Ottoman Sultanate in the oppos-
ing camp. In the course of the war,
hundreds of Ottoman-Canadians
were herded into the country’s 24
internment camps. Others were
forced to carry special identity cards
and regularly report their activities to
local authorities until as late as 1920,
after the conflict had ended.
The case of the Turkish Muslim
labourers of Brantford, Ontario is a
shocking example. They were round-
ed up in the middle of the night in
November 1914, arrested, and even-
tually transferred to the internment
camp in Kapuskasing, a small town
deep in northern Ontario. After the
war, almost none of them returned to
Brantford. After the end of the Sec-
ond World War, the Canadian gov-
ernment suspiciously ordered that all
records relating to the Kapuskasing
internees be destroyed, making it
very difficult to learn about their fate.
All of this can be pieced together
from the fragmented records that are
available about the history of Mus-
lims in Canada. Unsurprisingly, the
1910s are the only decade in Canadi-
an history in which the recorded pop-
ulation of the Muslim minority
declined, rather than increasing. But
the Islamophobic attitudes certainly
did not end there, and one is left to
wonder what else may have occurred
that we have no record of.
In 1926, for example, an estab-
lished Muslim fur trader in the
Northwest Territories named Peter
Baker complained to the then Minis-
ter of the Interior, Charles Stewart,
about new laws that hampered his
ability to trade with Indigenous
Canadians. Stewart responded that
the new laws wouldn’t be necessary
“if it was not for those damned Syri-
ans and Jews going around and fool-
ing the poor Indians!”
Meanwhile, back in NWT, Baker
was decried by his competitors as a
“Jew”; this was meant as a derogatory
label in an effort to drive down his
thriving business. Perhaps it was in
response to this that Baker, like
many other early Muslim settlers,
changed his name; in his case, from
Bedouin Ferran to “Peter Baker.”
Remarkably, Canadian Muslims like
Baker have at times even been vic-
tims of some Canadians’ long-stand-
ing anti-Jewish prejudice.
his history challenges the
T
narrative that Islamophobia
in Canada originated in
response to the September 11, 2001
attacks or any other recent event, for
that matter. Those who may reject
this retroactive use of this concept
should consider the fact that the
Oxford English Dictionary lists the ear-
liest use of the term “Islamophobia” to
1923 in the Journal of Theological Stud-
ies, and the way it was used itself indi-
cates that the term was in wider use
than one might expect. In any case, it
News & Analysis 23
is safe to say that many of the atti-
tudes that constitute Islamophobia
were present long before Canadian
Muslims did anything to provoke the
development of this irrational fear.
Nor, at least in the Canadian case,
did Islamophobia begin as an issue of
the Canadians’ apprehensions about
“Islam as a political force.” All of the
historical incidents mentioned above
took place before 1931; in that year,
the recorded population of Muslims in
Canada was a meagre 645, out of some
10 million Canadians in total. Mus-
lims had virtually no political repre-
sentation at that time; Peter Baker
himself would go on to become one of
the first Muslim elected officials in
the country in the 1960s. The Mus-
lims did not even have a masjid!
It is disingenuous to imagine that
such a tiny, unorganized, and widely-
dispersed community could actually
do anything dangerous for even the
Minister of the Interior to feel threat-
ISLAMOPHOBIA:
WIDE GAP BETWEEN
TRUDEAU’S RHETORIC
AND MUSLIM FEARS
Muslims required to wear terrorism label like scarlet letter
By Matthew Behrens
uring a funeral oration for
D victims of last January’s
Quebec City masjid mas-
sacre (January 29, 2017), Justin
24 CRESCENT INTERNATIONAL – January 2018
ened. What seems more likely is that
preconceived irrational notions
about Islam and Muslims probably
carried over from Europe, where they
have festered for centuries, and creat-
ed a “box” into which Muslims were
put, regardless of what they actually
did or stood for.
This is not to deny that Muslims
have sometimes unwittingly fueled
the rise of Islamophobia through
their words and deeds, especially in
recent years, and for that they ought
to be held accountable. Islamophobia
is known to surge after incidents that
are deemed to be terrorism and in
which Muslims are implicated, such
as the October 2014 shooting on Par-
liament Hill in Ottawa. Such flagrant
attacks are followed by condemna-
tions and reassurances from Muslim
leaders that they do not represent the
Muslim community and certainly not
the justice- and peace-oriented
teachings of Islam.
Trudeau promised that “we will rise
from this darkness stronger and more
unified than ever before. That is who
we are.”
This is also not to suggest that
Muslims should disregard the solidar-
ity that Canadians of many back-
grounds show toward dismantling
Islamophobia, or, for that matter, the
love and support of the many friends
of the Muslim community in its 164-
year history in Canada. Rather, this is
meant as a reminder that it is always
important to understand the roots of
oppressive attitudes and the systems
that support them, rather than mere-
ly scurrying from one unfortunate
incident to the next.
For the record, Alexandre Bis-
sonette did not even pretend to have
a coherent reason as to why he
entered a masjid to murder a group of
innocent Muslims. “Where was he
radicalized?” is a question every
Canadian deserves an honest answer
to. Arriving at it will require, among
many other uncomfortable efforts,
putting Islamophobia in Canada in
its historical context. g
But two years into Trudeau’s man-
date, many Muslims in Canada could
be forgiven for wondering whether the
prime minister’s self-assured paean to
diversity and tolerance is, in fact,
“who we are.” An Angus Reid poll two
weeks after the massacre found 46% of
Canadians hold negative views of
Islam, while the Ontario Human
Rights Commission’s newly released
“Taking the Pulse” report found that
44% of Ontario residents believe
“police are at least sometimes justified
in profiling or targeting” Muslims.
While some of the blame appears
linked to Donald Trump’s Muslim
travel bans and Islamophobic tweets,
they tend to overshadow a historic
home-grown discrimination that saw
a 253% increase in police-reported
hate crimes against Canadian Mus-
lims from 2012–2015. And in the
lead-up to the last federal election,
 racial and religious back-
grounds as well.”

hile that hatred has also

W been manifested on the

streets of Toronto and
other Canadian cities by white
extremist demonstrations — part of a
national trend of violence committed
by well over 100 racist groups —
Canada’s spy agency, the Canadian
Security and Intelligence Service
(CSIS), has studiously avoided treat-
ing far-right agitation as a security
risk. Instead, the latest public CSIS
threat assessment named “Islamic”
extremism as the nation’s number one
threat, despite a paucity of evidence.
CSIS could learn a thing or two
Masuma Khan, a vice-president of the Dalhousie Student Union,
from the NCCM’s continually updat-
had to face disciplinary action over a Facebook post about Canada
ed online map of hate crimes, a chill-
150 celebrations. She wrote the post on June 30, in response to
ing litany describing tales of racist
another post by the Nova Scotia Young Progressive Conservatives
graffiti, women having their ˙ijœbs
(NSYPC), which criticized a motion by the student union not to
ripped off, death threats, the fire-
participate in Canada 150 celebrations on July 1 and to label such
bombing of a masjid, and a bullet fired
events “an act of colonialism.” The student union “should prioritize
into an Islamic centre where children
advocating for student issues, not attacking Canada,” the NSYPC
were studying. When Mississauga Lib-
message said. Masuma Khan responded, “At this point, f*** you
eral MP Iqra Khalid introduced the
all… I stand by the motion I put forward. I stand by Indigenous
non-binding motion M-103 to con-
students… Be proud of this country? For what, over 400 years of
demn Islamophobia and study racial
genocide?” She signed off with the hashtags #unlearn150, #whitefra
and religious discrimination in early
gilitycankissmyass and #yourwhitetearsarentsacredthislandis. On
2017, she received thousands of hate
July 5, Michael Smith, a graduate student in history, filed a written
messages, forcing her to change office
complaint about Ms. Khan's Facebook comments, alleging that
protocol, from door locks to selective
“targeting ‘white people’ who celebrate Canada Day is blatant
answering of the phones.
discrimination.” Smith then wrote an op-ed for the National Post
Perhaps few have experienced the
newspaper about the debate at Dalhousie and Khan’s comments.
growing anti-Muslim sentiment as
After the piece came out, Khan became the target of social-media
intensely as Dalhousie University
comments telling her to “pack her bags.”
international studies student Masuma
Khan, who continues to face a daily
barrage of mutilation, rape, and mur-
the Trudeau Liberals voted to support Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of der threats almost six months after
some of Stephen Harper’s most regres- the National Council of Canadian she posted on social media about the
sive legislation, from the inflammato- Muslims (NCCM). He adds, decision of her student council to
ry Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultur- abstain from Canada150 celebra-
al Practices Act to the infamous C-51 This rise in Islamophobia also tions, calling them an “act of ongoing
(Anti-Terrorism Act), both of which occurs against the backdrop of colonialism that glorifies continued
disproportionately target members of a time where there has also theft from, and disenfranchisement
the Muslim community. been an alarming and well- of, the indigenous peoples of Turtle
“Canadians should not be smug documented rise in the growth Island (Canada).” Khan’s subsequent
nor take for granted the impact of of far-right extremism, which post calling out white fragility result-
global trends and also the role various targets not only Muslims and ed in the threat of disciplinary action
Canadian actors may play in promot- those perceived to be Muslim for an alleged student code of con-
ing Islamophobia here at home,” says but Canadians from other duct violation.

News & Analysis 25


Alexandre Bissonnette, who is a fan of US President Donald Trump,
French far right leader Marine Le Pen, and the separatist Parti Que-
becois, was convicted of murder and attempted murder charges, but
incredibly not terrorism. That charge is reserved for Muslims.
While the action was only with-
drawn after a national outcry — with
one Dalhousie professor noting that
none of the male dentistry students
implicated in the notorious 2014
posting of misogynistic and homo-
phobic messages ever faced such
sanction — Khan continues to live
with the fallout.
“I get called a terrorist when I
walk down the street, I get spat on, I
get told to go back home when I was
born in Halifax, I get death threats, I
get called anti-Canadian when I
stand up for Indigenous rights,” says
Khan, who questions whether her
safety is being taken seriously when,
despite the well-publicized threats,
the university has not been proactive
in offering her security.
This fall, her campus began offer-
ing “emergency ˙ijœb kits” for women
whose head coverings had been spat
upon or violently removed. The kits
include bystander resources, numbers
to lodge complaints, and safety tips.
Khan says they are akin to first aid
kits, unfortunate necessities on stand-
26 CRESCENT INTERNATIONAL – January 2018
by in the event of attacks.
Despite the threats, Khan says she
is refusing to be quiet, noting “even
when I’m not speaking out I’m still
not safe.” She also points out that a
family member who is not involved
in her realm of political action is
nonetheless on the no-fly list for
sharing the same birthdate and last
name as someone else the govern-
ment considers a risk.
n Ottawa, the federal govern-
I
ment plays a two-track game,
issuing anodyne statements
about diversity while pursuing an
agenda that, rhetoric aside, still mir-
rors the Harper era. While even con-
servative leaders like Britain’s Theresa
May have directly criticized Trump’s
incendiary anti-Muslim tweets and
actions, Trudeau has been silent. The
prime minister was slow in condemn-
ing Quebec’s face covering ban (Bill
62) and absent the day MPs voted on
the contentions M-103 Islamophobia
motion. Also of concern was the
October 2017 decision not to lay ter-
rorism charges against the Quebec
masjid shooter, Alexandre Bisson-
nette, which critics say perpetuates
the harmful stereotype that only Mus-
lims are terrorists, and never victims.
During his 2015 election night
victory, Trudeau shared an anecdote
about meeting a woman in ˙ijœb who
reportedly told him she was voting
Liberal “because she wants to make
sure that her little girl has the right to
make her own choices in life and that
our government will protect those
rights.” Two years later, those words
rang hollow in a Parliamentary com-
mittee room addressing the Liberals’
problematic security legislation Bill
C-59. On December 12, London,
Ontario’s Zamir Khan informed MPs
that his 3-year-old son Sebastien has
been marked as a possible security
threat on the “No Fly List” since birth.
“For families with flagged infants,
the associated delays further compli-
cate an already challenging travel
schedule,” said Khan, who co-found-
ed the fast-growing group No Fly List
Kids. The organization is concerned
that C-59 promises no proper redress
system to eliminate information that
wrongfully pegs their youngsters as
security risks, a stigmatization with
traumatic results.
“As these children grow older,
they become aware that they are the
reason for the ever-present waiting
and security scrutiny,” Khan notes.
“When the children grow into
teenagers and young adults, particu-
larly young men, their innocence
becomes less obvious… Their delays
become longer and the scrutiny more
intense. This has meant that some
families have missed flights and that
the kids shy away from air travel for
fear of stigmatization. This is not a
future I want for my son.” g
Matthew Behrens is a Canadian
peace and social justice activist with the
organization, Homes Not Bombs. An
edited version of this story appeared in
the December 21, 2017 edition of
NOW Magazine, Toronto.
 S P E C I A L R
UNDERSTANDING THE
TRUE NATURE OF ZIONISM
Israel and Zionism go hand in hand
By Zafar Bangash
This article was first published
in the CI April 2010 issue. It
is being reproduced here in
view of recent developments
in the Holy Land.
n its long tortuous his-
I tory, Europe has
spawned many de-
monic ideologies — colo-
nialism, imperialism, na-
tionalism, fascism, Nazism, and Zionism, to name just a few
— but while most have been repudiated, at least theoreti-
cally, Zionism is venerated as a religion. Zionists masquer-
ade it as a badge of honor. It would be difficult to find any-
one calling himself a colonialist or imperialist these days,
although there are plenty of countries peddling these ide-
ologies under the guise of other labels (humanitarian inter-
vention, the right to protect, etc). Nor would one find any-
one openly proclaiming to be a fascist or a Nazi. yet there
are plenty of people who proudly claim to be Zionists. They
come in all stripes: Jewish, Christian, Hindu, atheist and
(yes) Muslim.
It is important to clarify at the outset what Zionism, or
to call it by its correct name, political Zionism, is not.
Despite strenuous efforts by its proponents, Zionism has lit-
tle or nothing to do with Judaism, the religion of millions
of people.
True, Zionist ideology was first propounded by people of
Jewish background — Theodore Herzl, Ze’ev Jabotinsky et
al. — but they were not religious at all. In fact, they consid-
ered Judaism as an impediment in their colonial enterprise.
E P O R T S
Herzl was a racist. He pro-
pounded the idea, in the
wake of the Dreyfus affair
in France (year 1894), that
Jews could not assimilate in
other, primarily Christian
European societies; they
needed a separate home-
land of their own. Even
before Herzl announced his
racist idea at the first Zion-
ist Conference in Basle, Switzerland (1897), most rabbis
had condemned political Zionism. The Philadelphia Con-
ference of November 3–6, 1869 adopted a resolution that
stressed the radical opposition between the universalist
principles of Judaism and those of political Zionism.
So how did political Zionism, a racist colonial enter-
prise, succeed in establishing itself in the heartland of Islam
despite strong opposition from leading rabbis and the
indigenous population of Palestine? By the turn of the last
century, British and French colonialists were busy instigat-
ing revolts in the Muslim East (aka the Middle East) by
buying the loyalty of Arabian tribal chiefs to use them
against the Ottoman Sultanate. The toxic brew of Western
colonialism, Arabian nationalism, and political Zionism
facilitated the imposition of the Zionist entity in Palestine
through the infamous Balfour Declaration.
On November 2, 1917, British Foreign Secretary Lord
Arthur Balfour, in a letter to Baron Walter de Rothschild,
outlined the British government’s favorable view of estab-
lishing “in Palestine a home for the Jewish people…” While
Balfour stated, “nothing shall be done which may prejudice
Special Reports 27
the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish
communities in Palestine,” he deliberately ignored their
political rights.
That the overwhelming majority of inhabitants of
Palestine were Muslims and Christians whose fundamental
rights were being violated was of little consequence. In typ-
ical colonial style, Balfour promised the Palestinians’ land
to European Zionist Jews.
nlike European racists that have a long and gory
U history of persecuting Jews and other minorities in
their midst, Muslims have not perpetrated any
pogroms or indulged in inquisitions against religious or
other minorities.
Whenever Jews suffered persecution in Europe or Rus-
sia, they found refuge among Muslims, hence the presence
of Jewish communities in North Africa, Turkey, and Iran to
this day. yet European racists transferred their “Jewish prob-
lem” to Palestine.
The tiny minority of Jews in Palestine — 7% in 1919
and even at the time of Israel’s creation in May 1948
through a scandalous vote in the United Nations General
Assembly (November 1947) — the 30% Jewish population
owned a mere 6.5% of the land. yet it was given 56% of
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is now available online
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Don’t forget to refer to our
Daily News Analysis
where we provide our unique
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(see p. 40 for subscription details).
28 CRESCENT INTERNATIONAL – January 2018
Palestinian territory. The rapid increase in Jewish popula-
tion from 7% to 30% in 29 years (1919–1948) was not the
result of natural growth; it was achieved through illegal
Jewish immigration into Palestine.
Even Hitler’s WWII bloodbath did not convince the
overwhelming majority of Jewish people to settle in Pales-
tine. But Zionist leaders missed no opportunity to empha-
size the importance of Jewish migration to Palestine and
lamented the lack of interest among European and North
American Jews.
While Zionists denounce anti-Semitism and advance it
as the principal justification for the creation of a separate
homeland for the “Jewish people,” anti-Semitism is a twin
of Zionism and needed for its survival. Herzl himself wrote,
“The Jews constitute a single people and cannot be inte-
grated into other peoples. But they do become assimilated
by any society if they find themselves secure in it for a long
period. And that will never be to our interest.” Thus, Herzl
considered anti-Semites as indispensible allies in his quest
to create the Zionist State in Palestine.
Today’s Zionists are no less eager to align themselves
with racists and bigots. In fact many Zionists, especially in
the US, are leading Islamophobes. In Palestine, the Zionists
have not only expropriated Palestinian land — today the
Zionists control more than 93% of the original land of Pales-
tine through theft, forcible occupation, and other illegal
means — they have also built roads, neighborhoods, com-
munities, and settlements reserved exclusively for theJews.
This is what apartheid South Africa had done, hence the
designation of Israel as an apartheid state. The apartheid
wall through which the Zionists have cut off Palestinian
families and villages, stealing in the process more Palestin-
ian land, caps it all. In a ruling handed down in July 2004,
the International Court of Justice described Israel’s
apartheid wall as illegal. Zionists are also masters at forging
history. From the biblical claims that “God promised them
this land” described as a “land without a people” (Palestini-
ans are non-people in Zionist mythology), they have gone
about uprooting Palestinian families from their homes and
villages, often at gunpoint and frequently using it as well, to
indulging in mass starvation and killings. By using the Bible
as a real estate manual, ironically by people that do not even
believe in God, the Zionists have added the myth of selec-
tive history to their spurious claims to Palestine.
They claim that they have a historic link with Palestine
because Prophets David and Solomon (Ç) ruled the Holy
Land 3,000 years ago. It is as if in Zionist mythology,
nobody existed before the Hebrew tribes arrived in Pales-
tine — not the Philistines (hence the name Palestinians),
the Moabites, the Hittites, the Amorites, or others — and
subsequent to the 73-year rule of David and Solomon
nobody else inhabited this land until the Zionists arrived to
inhabit it. The guilt-ridden Christian West that has histor-
ically perpetrated bloodbaths against the Jewish people
accepted such infantile claims at face value.
Nothing could be more spurious than the claim of
Christian charity assuaging the guilt of European Christen-
dom. Christian charity requires the good believer to give
from what he has; nothing could be more un-Christian than
to “give” stolen property to someone else. Similarly, noth-
ing could be more personal than Christian morality, and so
how is Christian dogma appropriated to govern the behav-
ior of nation-states, which in reality wanted to solve the
Jewish problem through expulsion?
he fact is, Europe and the numerous squatter/colo-
T nial entities it spawned — America, Australia,
New Zealand, to name a few — never stopped
being racist; long before the Third Reich, the so-called
“final solution” was discussed in Britain, and a thoroughly
assimilated Jew, constrained most of the time to live in his
own ghetto, was still not tolerable to the European racist.
And so European racism set upon a course to solve two
problems with one master stroke.
Perceiving themselves to be locked in a life-and-death
struggle with Islam, the real purpose of the creation of the
Zionist State of Israel was to position a colonial beachhead
in the heartland of Islam that would empty Europe of all its
Jews and simultaneously act as a permanent impediment to
peace and progress in the Muslim world.
Israel admirers never tire of reminding the world that it
is the “only democracy” in the Middle East. Hitler’s Third
Reich was also a democracy yet it perpetrated the biggest
bloodbath in European history. The Zionists are busy repli-
cating the Nazis’ horrible record in the Holy Land.
There are also a number of racist laws in force in Zionist
Israel. One is the Law of Return. Under this law, any Jew
living anywhere in the world is automatically entitled to
Israeli citizenship upon setting foot there. That the over-
whelming majority of Jewish people who occupy Palestine
today have no links with the land whatsoever is of little
consequence. Palestinians who have lived there for millen-
nia, have to prove their ownership to land or property
before they are given any rights. Their papers were often
stolen or destroyed by the very Zionist marauders who
invaded Palestinian villages and towns in 1947–1948. Tens
of thousands of Palestinians were murdered and others driv-
en out through a campaign of terror — and this was before
1948. This is even more critical for Palestinians in
Jerusalem; if they are away from the city for more than three
months, they lose the right of return. Similarly, every effort
is made, fair and foul, to force them to leave. Palestinians
are denied building permits not only for new homes but are
also refused permission to rebuild. Palestinian home demo-
litions are a common practice of the Zionists to target
Palestinians involved in resistance activity.
Concurrent with this was the policy of land grab, the
most important consideration after illegal Jewish immigra-
tion into Palestine. If a core group of Jewish settlers, the
vanguard of the Zionist movement, did not occupy a core
area of territory, the Zionist enterprise would not succeed.
This is what the Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling
referred to as “territoriality” being at the centre of the Zion-
ist project. At the time of Israel’s creation, the 30% Jew-
ish/Zionist population owned only 6.5% of the land yet
they grabbed 56% of the territory, quickly expanding it fur-
ther through terror.
Three instruments were particularly effective in this
theft: the Jewish National Fund (set up in 1901), the Land
Ordinance Act of 1943 and, the Emergency Laws decreed
in 1945, the latter two courtesy of the British colonial occu-
pation of Palestine. The first stipulated, in typical colonial
style, that land acquired by it cannot be resold or even
leased to non-Jews. The Land Ordinance Act was applied
under the rubric of the “public interest” while under Emer-
gency Law the military governor was given powers to sus-
pend all the rights of citizens. The most convenient pretext
used was that of “security” or by declaring certain areas
“prohibited.” The Zionist occupiers of Palestine have all
these repressive instruments to dispossess the indigenous
Palestinian population.
All this is done under the absurd and bogus claim that
Jewish people are superior to Palestinians and they cannot
live side by side with them as neighbors. How else should
one describe racism? And regardless of what the cowardly
Western rulers and their puppets say, Zionism is racism.
hat most people — and unfortunately the bulk of
W Muslims falls into this category as well — fail to
recognise is that Israeli racism is integrally con-
nected to the Israeli nation-state. Were it not for the state
apparatus, the military, political, economic, and criminal
resources required to pull off this grand deception and occu-
The Islamic Book Trust
www.ibtbooks.com
World’s premier online
bookstore for Islamic books
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Special Reports 29
pation of the Holy Land would not be possible. Zionism will
never become a bitter historical memory unless its eradica-
tion is coupled with the dismemberment of the State of Israel
and the thorough dezionisation of its Jewish inhabitants.
However even this is not enough, as the tentacles of
Zionism extend far beyond the borderless pariah State of
Israel into the Arabian and imperialist capitals of the world.
It is not enough to say that imperialist America and colo-
nialist Europe prop up the Zionist cancer in the Muslim
world. The Zionists would never have lasted a day without
the willing 80-year complicity of Arabian despots, dictators,
presidents, and princes from Morocco to the Persian Gulf.
And we are witnessing this complicity explode into the
open with the Arabians’ embrace of Zionist Israel.
Thus the will to make Israel disappear into the pages of
history must also be the will to look for an Islamic post-
national alternative to the nation-state fiasco that currently
ISLAMIC
AWAKENING: WAS
it WORTH IT?
Short-term losses pave way for long-term gains
By Tahir Mahmoud
even years after the Islamic Awakening (aka Arab
S Spring) movement erupted, the question that preoc-
cupies many people’s minds is: was it worth it? This
column will not only argue that it was worth it, but that it
was absolutely necessary and it is a great blessing even in
places where events went completely off-track, like in Libya
and Syria.
Prior to the first uprising in 2011, which overthrew the
illegitimate and oppressive regime in Tunisia, the people in
the Muslim world only daydreamed in cafes, masjids, and
their homes about a day when foreign propped tyrants
grips the whole world. Were such a will to reassert itself into
people-to-people associations across the world, then Jews
would once again be free to settle anywhere in the Muslim
world, not just in the walled-off military bunkers of Tel
Aviv and Haifa.
And this directional course has its starting point at the
heart of the Arab world, indeed the entire Muslim world:
Makkah. Jerusalem will never be free so long as its sister
holy precincts in Makkah are not liberated from the cryp-
to-Zionist clan of Saud and its people are not cleansed of
their tribal-cum-nationalistic perversions acquired from the
sons of Israel.
This is the only way to eradicate Zionism — as ideology
and as social construct. All partial solutions will land us in
the same spot we are in today. Until this racist ideology is
uprooted and eliminated utterly and irrevocably, there will
be no peace in Palestine or anywhere else in the world. g
would be toppled. After the Islamic Awakening, the people
of the MENA region saw that the dream of resisting despots
can be converted into reality.
The Islamic Awakening movement was a natural socio-
political process, which got subverted into an imperialist
project. Nevertheless, the indigenous process broke the
invincibility perception many people had about NATO-
backed regimes in the MENA region. Today, imagining the
fall of the Sisi regime (in Egypt) or the Bani Saud regime
(in the Arabian Peninsula) is quite conceivable. This in
and of itself is a huge achievement.
As the people of yemen aborted the Saudi instigated
sedition to be led by yemen’s former dictator, ‘Alø ‘Abdullœh
Íœli˙, the people of the MENA region realized that one
does not need NATO air support as in Libya to bring
tyrants to justice.
The Islamic Awakening movement also provides an
opportunity to learn from the failures in Egypt, Libya, and
Syria. In all of these locales, the Islamic movements, which
were at the forefront of events, committed strategic mis-
takes. Part of the solution to any problem is the realization
of how and where one has committed a mistake.
As pointed out by ICIT director, Zafar Bangash, in
Egypt “…the Ikhwan and Mursi assumed that if they played
within the existing system and surrendered to US-Zionist
interests, they would be allowed to complete their term in
office.” This mistake will most probably make Islamic
movements in the MENA region realize that strategic com-
promise with oppressive regimes and their NATO benefac-
tors is not a viable option. This point has been emphasized
Special Reports 31
numerous times by one of Turkey’s most popular Islamic
activists and scholars, Alparaslan Kuytul.
In Libya, the US backed Qatari regime utilized the
naivety and greed of some individuals within the Islamic
movement in Libya and used them as a stepping stone for
the NATO invasion. As a result Libya collapsed as a state,
but eruption of the migrant crisis forced Europe’s ruling
caste to realize that they are no longer immune from the
chaos they instigate in the MENA region.
While Syria faced the worst kind of NATO sabotage, it
made it out of the crisis in far better shape than Libya and
Egypt. In September 2017, yaakov Amidror, former head of
Israel’s National Security Council, summed up the main
reason behind the carnage in Syria. Amidror stated, “We do
not interfere in the question of who will rule in Damascus;
we interfere with the question of how strong Iran and
Hizbullah will be in the region.” From day one, Crescent
International had argued that the crisis in Syria has nothing
to do with freedom or human rights, but it is all about weak-
ening Islamic Iran. The unfortunate reality is that even
though there are numerous videos of Syrian “Islamic” rebels
being treated in Israel, some narrowminded Muslims still
view the conflict through the sectarian lens.
ost-2011 events, no regional dictator can afford to
P disregard the popular backlash. Violence is no
longer the monopoly of corrupt and oppressive
regimes. Of course the elimination of monopoly on force by
illegitimate regimes created its own problems, like ISIS and
others, but these are short-term problems that are slowly
but surely being eliminated.
Another strategic lesson that has been learned from the
Islamic Awakening movement is that the so-called Islamic
organizations with ties to and influenced by Salafist/Saudi
ideas are not capable of presenting not just a civilizational
alternative, but an Islamic organizational alternative, nor
can they provide even rudimentary long-term solutions to
Muslim societies.
ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other NATO-facilitated groups
with the Umayyad takførø mindset have failed to run a state
and manage a society in Afghanistan, when the Taliban
were in power, in Chechnya between 1996–1999, parts of
Nigeria, Somalia, and more recently in Libya and in some
parts of Syria and Iraq.
NATO regimes hoped that the failure of the Saudi tied
“Islamic” movements would discourage Muslims from pur-
suing an Islamic socio-political model for Muslim societies.
Of course the opposite has happened. Muslim masses
became more motivated in seeking an alternative to the
NATO propped “Islamists.”
Detractors of the positions presented above will be
quick to point at insecurity and economic hardships created
after the 2011 events. There is no denial that post-2011
events caused a great deal of misfortune, but these are short-
32 CRESCENT INTERNATIONAL – January 2018
term sacrifices and obstacles. The long-term gains from
making ordinary people realize that tyrants are not invinci-
ble and that people will no longer remain silent in the face
of abuse of power, are huge assets for future changes that are
bound to occur.
At the moment the Syrian, Bahraini, and yemeni the-
atres are going through positive turning points. In Syria, the
NATO project to eliminate Iran’s and Hizbullah’s presence
collapsed completely. Prior to 2011, the Syrian regime was
an equal partner with Iran and Hizbullah; today the sur-
vival of Syria depends on Iran and Hizbullah, thus the most
powerful forces resisting Zionism in the region have become
more influential in Syria than prior to 2011. Through the
Syrian theatre, Hizbullah, the only regional actor to kick
out Zionists from occupied land, graduated into a regional
military and political power, which even its detractors now
openly admit.
In Bahrain, the ruling kleptocracy remains entrenched
only because of a foreign army propping it up. The people’s
resistance has not died down and is only gaining more legit-
imacy domestically and internationally. The people’s move-
ment in Bahrain learned from the Libyan and Syrian fiascos
and is refusing to accept foreign military “assistance.”
erhaps the most strategic events are taking place in
P yemen where the region’s most hard-core pro-Zionist
regime is bogged down in a quagmire. In all locales
where the people’s revolutionary movement was scaled down
or subverted, Riyadh’s money and lobbying with Washington
played a significant role. This convinced many leading
scholars and activists of the fact that if the Saudi regime does
not fall, all other regional changes will be secondary.
Due to unpopular Saudi policies, the Saudi soft-power
emanating from its occupation of Makkah and Madinah has
lost its appeal even within its own constituency and it can-
not be revived without collapse of the Saudi monarchy. The
Saudi brand no longer appeals even to scholastic Wahhœbøs,
to wit the desire of the “new” royals to rebrand themselves
in the mold of modernism and a more “moderate” form of
Islam that is approved by the secular establishments and
governments in Europe, the United States, and Israel.
Observation of online activities of Wahhœbø “scholars” and
organizations reveals that the ones possessing “legitimacy”
are those who at least partially distance themselves from
the Saudi monarchy, and the ones who are not, simply view
them as cash cows.
In addition to the above, the presidency of the irascible
and short-tempered Donald Trump created the first strate-
gic divide between Washington and European powers,
which provides an opportunity to further isolate the US
and thus limit its destructive impact.
The Islamic Awakening movement created short-term
difficulties, but if properly utilized, these short-term hard-
ships can be utilized as long-term opportunities. g
metis civilization, from p. 7
from them, the national publicity they generated, creating the condi-
tions that pushed the federal and provincial governments into action to
solve the dispute. Call it the elected council natives playing the good
cop to the traditionalist bad cop.
In May 2006, natives occupied Douglas Creek Estates and 21 were
arrested, prompting several hundred natives, some of whom were
masked and were armed with baseball bats, axes, and hockey sticks, to
return to the site. The police retreated and the natives reclaimed the
site and set up roadblocks along the access street. During the evening,
the protesters put hundreds of tires across the highway, doused them
with gasoline, and lit them.
“As the world has seen, our protest has been firm but peaceful. Our
people are responding without weapons, using only their bodies to
assert that we are a sovereign people with a long history and that we
cannot be intimidated,” said Six Nations Confederacy Chief Allen
McNaughton. When the community’s chiefs asked people to abandon
the barricades, it was the clan mothers who overruled them, leading a
cultural reawakening in their traditionally matriarchal community.
Local non-natives were furious and in June more than 400 area res-
idents and businesses filed a class-action suit against the Ontario
provincial government for its failure to protect them adequately. This
was settled in July 2011, with the government paying the non-natives
$20 million and prosecuting several demonstrators.
In 2007, another development site within six miles of the Grand
River in nearby Brantford was blocked off by protesters. On September
13, Sam Gualtieri, a builder, was attacked in a confrontation with
occupiers at the 90-home Stirling Woods development and seriously
injured. Mohawk native Richard Smoke was convicted of assault for
resisting Gualtieri when he tried to force Smoke and several others to
leave his daughter’s house, which he was helping build as a wedding
present. Smoke later apologized to Gualtieri in court.
The 2006 government promise read, “It is the intention that the
land title be returned to its original state, its status under the
Haldimand Proclamation.” The historic road-block stand-off over
Caledonia and the Burtch Lands ended in 2010 with the province
promising to hand it back to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, but
instead putting it in a federal corporation, with a Six Nations Elected
Council member on the board.
Elected Council vs. Confederacy
The stand-off in Caledonia continues, pitting the SNEBC against the
traditional Confederacy. In 2010, the SNEBC rescinded a motion that
recognized the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Council as the leader for
the Douglas Creek Estates site in Caledonia. “The Confederacy nego-
tiating team has been there for four years with limited success,” said
SNEBC rep Chief William Montour. At the same time, Mohawk
farmer Kristine Hill, who had been farming a section of the nearby
Burtch Lands (formerly seized by the Ontario government and used as
a prison) under authorization of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, was
evicted after an injunction was filed against her by the government on
behalf of the SNEBC, the elected council. A decision on this case,
along with a contempt of court charge, was delivered in an Ontario
court in September 2017.
“We the Onkwehonwe of Kanonhstaton are
still standing strong,” said Ronda Martin, in
front of the blockade decorated with Hau-
denosaunee and Mohawk Warrior flags, built of
what appeared to be part of a decommissioned
electrical tower. “We ask again for the public’s
patience as we work on some very complicated
issues.” In a YouTube video uploaded by Turtle
Island News on August 17, Doreen Silversmith
listed off three demands of Six Nations people
at the barricade. They include that the province
and the Canadian government return to the
negotiation table with the Confederacy, that
Ontario honour its promise to really return the
land, and that Six Nations elected band council
withdraw its injunction against Hill. This latest
blockade ended peacefully in early September,
but after the court ruling upholding the evic-
tion, the matter remains unsettled.
The current stand-off is over who has
authority over these lands reverting to native
control — the traditionals or the Elected
Council. The traditionals are more interested
in agricultural and woodlands use, the Elected
Council want to use it for housing. The Elect-
ed Council is cooperating with the Ontario and
federal governments by accepting the corpora-
tion fig leaf for the development of the lands,
but claims to be resisting the government and
striving for the same goals as the traditionals.
The confederacy is refusing to acknowl-
edge the Ontario government corporation,
which would still leave Canadian officials in
control through the elected council. Ontario
Premier Kathleen Wynne threw the gauntlet,
playing games with the band, in an attempt to
undermine the authority of the HCCC, by uti-
lizing the factions the government has created
to get what they want: the complete and total
assimilation of the Six Nations.
There are 28 land claims by Six Nations,
which have been on the books since the 1990s
when litigation against the federal government
was filed. This, as well as other court chal-
lenges made through the Elected Council since
then, have all stalled without ever being heard
and without the SNEBC being able to achieve
any headway.
There is hope, as other bands have been
moving forward toward real governing autono-
my (Yukon, Nisga’a), having healed the inter-
nal divisions created by the 1924 government
reorganization of native governance. Islamic
principles of governance can help here. This is
the subject of Part 3 of this series: Prospects
for Metis civilization. g
Special Reports 33
 B O O K
ENLIGHTENMENT
UNITARIANISM
European Enlightenment is no stranger to extended flirtations with Islam
By Dr. Kevin Barrett
Islam and the English Enlighten-
ment 1670–1840 by Humberto Gar-
cia; Pub: Johns Hopkins University
Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 2012, 368
pages. Price: $49.49 Hbk; $50.81
Amazon Kindle.
he story of How Islam Creat-
T
ed the Modern World, as Mark
Graham’s 2006 title puts it,
is fairly well known. Even Eurocen-
tric scholars admit that most of the
“advances” credited to Western civi-
lization have Islamic roots. Graham
shows how the standard Western nar-
rative of Islamic custodianship of the culture, science, and
philosophy of the ancient world during Europe’s Dark Ages
misses the way the Islamic world adapted and creatively
developed its ancient inheritance. The European Renais-
sance was therefore less of a rediscovery of ancient Greco-
Roman civilization than an adaptation of contemporary
Islamic civilization.
But Europeans were and still are loathe to admit this.
Europe’s identity was largely founded on a rejection of
Islam, as reflected in the epic tales of Charlemagne, Roland,
and El Cid, and in the theological fulminations of popes,
prelates, and even poets (Dante Alighieri, the all-time
greatest Christian poet, was a brilliant plagiarist who bor-
rowed most of his material from Ibn ‘Arabø and the Islamic
Isrœ’ and Mi‘rœj literature — yet remained fundamentally
hostile to Islam).
Despite such hostility, the European Renaissance grew
34 CRESCENT INTERNATIONAL – January 2018
R E V I E W
out of an appropriation of Islamic civ-
ilization. Since then, the West has
adapted and developed what it bor-
rowed, just as the Islamic world has
adapted and developed what it had
itself inherited from ancient sources.
But few realize that Islamic influences
on Western culture have continued
beyond the Western Medieval and
Renaissance periods. One little
known area of influence is Islam’s
contribution to the English Enlight-
enment — the subject of an excellent
2012 study by Vanderbilt University
professor Humberto Garcia. Thanks
to Garcia’s book, I was surprised to learn that some of my
Unitarian ancestors were practically crypto-Muslims, and
that their Islam-inspired radical agitations were a major
force driving the Enlightenment.
Growing up in a Midwestern family of lapsed Unitari-
ans (we visited the famous Frank Lloyd Wright church in
Madison, Wisconsin only occasionally) I was never taught
what Unitarianism was or where it came from. As best I
could discern, Unitarianism means spending one or two
Sundays a year in a uniquely beautiful church, singing
Kumbaya, and preaching tolerance and diversity with bare-
ly a mention of God.
hough today’s Unitarians are a harmless and some-
T what ineffectual lot, supremely in tune with the
dominant zeitgeist of “secular humanism on
steroids,” the founders of Unitarianism were dangerous rad-

icals who challenged the power structure of their day and
the belief system on which it was based. The three central
tenets of Unitarianism amounted to a harsh dismissal of the
central irrational elements of Christianity. First, Unitarians
insisted on the unity of God (what Muslims call taw˙ød) and
therefore rejected the Holy Trinity. Second, they rejected
the doctrine of Original Sin — the perverse idea that a per-
fect God would create a totally flawed, “fallen” world, and
that human beings were the most horrifically flawed part of
creation. Third, they emphasized the importance of using
human reason in understanding scripture. In all three of
these doctrines, the founding Unitarians were essentially
rediscovering truths that had been clearly stated in the
Qur’an more than 1,000 years earlier.
Garcia shows how these radical (and radically rational)
ideas challenged the superstitions on which the European
church-state power structure was built. From the divine
right of kings to the trinity to the crucifixion as redemption
from original sin, obscurantism and mystification were at
the heart of the power process that forced people to unques-
tioningly accept the oppressive hierarchies under which
they lived.
Unitarian ideas were so dangerous that they had to be
left unpublished, softened, or disguised for public consump-
tion, lest the person expressing the ideas find himself
imprisoned or worse. Henry Stubbe’s pro-Islamic The Rise
and Progress of Mahometanism, for example, was written
circa 1671 and privately circulated thereafter. But it
remained unpublishable until 1911, more than three cen-
turies later (anyone publishing it would have been risking
his neck). Stubbe praised Islam’s policy of tolerating and
protecting religious diversity, favorably contrasting it with
the repressive practices of Christendom in general and Eng-
land in particular.
Stubbe’s dangerous ideas influenced several generations
of English Unitarians as well as allied freethinkers, radicals,
and social reformers of various stripes. In this English
Enlightenment tradition, Garcia writes,
Islam is the ally of the radical Enlightenment, an
underground international movement that defined
its theological and political heterodoxy through bor-
rowed legends, stories, and motifs associated with var-
ious prophetic strains of near eastern monotheism.
The Tory defenders of the status quo attacked English
Enlightenment figures as “Protestant Mohametans.” In lan-
guage that sounds eerily like the Islamophobia of today’s
right-wing lunatic fringe, Tory pamphleteers imagined a
vast international conspiracy of pro-Enlightenment Unitar-
ian protestants working with Muslims from the Ottoman
lands and Morocco with the common aim of overthrowing
Christian civilization in general and the British monarchy
with its state church in particular.
s Garcia shows, these fears, while grossly exaggerat-
A
ed, were not entirely groundless. Stubbe’s work
reached an audience of English followers of the
Hungarian Count Teckely, who led a Protestant Republican
rebellion against the Austro-Hungarian Habsburg Empire,
allying with the Ottomans and fighting alongside them in
the ill-fated Battle of Vienna in 1683. Garcia writes of
English Teckelites, or radical dissenters who ground-
ed a reformist agenda on constitutional principles
that required a heretical rereading of the Islamic
prophetic tradition. Stubbe promoted such an agen-
da during the same period that the Hungarian “mal-
contents” were forming an alliance with the
Ottoman Porte. The Rise and Progress of
Mahometanism makes three controversial claims:
first, that Islam revived Arian Christianity, an anti-
clerical messianic Judaism that upheld Christ as a
prophet and, as a result, was marginalized by the per-
Book Review 35
 secution of corrupt Trinitarian churches. Second,
that Christianity’s decline and Islam’s rise is a legiti-
mate response to the combined influence of Trini-
tarianism and the clergy, political theologies that
promote despotic monarchies. And third, that
Mahometanism is a natural faith worthy of admira-
tion. The Prophet’s civic laws have accomplished in
less than a century what Trinitarian Christians could
not in over a millennium: his laws have anchored a
state-sponsored (rather than ecclesiastical) tolera-
tion policy for all religious minorities on a solid con-
stitutional foundation that originated with Noah’s
covenant as prophetically renewed by Abraham,
Moses, and Christ. Like Teckely, Stubbe treats
Islamic toleration as the antidote to the religious
and political contentions that have plagued Europe
and England since the Protestant Reformation.
The Tory propagandists had good reason to fear that Stubbe
and his school might consider allying with Muslim polities
against the British crown,
Stubbe has no qualms about justifying Islam’s rise to
geopolitical domination, because the true opponents
to the Christian faith are the Trinitarians, “enemies
to all human learning”: St. Athanasius, for his false
teachings about the “son of God,” and Emperor
Constantine, for rigging the Nicene Council elec-
tions in favor of the Trinitarian heresy. Stubbe
argues that Islam was spread not by the sword but by
the word.
Imam al-‘Œßø’s unique
khu†ba∆s now online
Every week for the last 34 years, Imam
Mu˙ammad al-Œßø has led Jumu‘a∆ Íalœ∆
outside of Washington’s Islamic Center,
in protest at its subservience to despotic,
pro-Western, and anti-Islamic Muslim
governments. Now his passionate and
insightful khu†ba∆s can be accessed online:
www.islamiccenterdc.com
www.icit-digital.org
36 CRESCENT INTERNATIONAL – January 2018
Garcia’s account suggests that the real source of 17th
and 18th century Islamophobia was a sort of unconscious
ideological inferiority complex. Stubbe’s critique of Con-
stantinian Christianity, the Nicene Council, and Trinitari-
anism was difficult to refute, so his opponents resorted to ad
hominem attacks.
Stubbe’s influence sparked what Garcia calls “Islamic
republicanism” — radical egalitarian opposition to the
British crown, the power hierarchy atop which it sat, and
the state church it had created to serve its own interests.
These institutions ran on mystification whose ubiquitous
injunction was to just believe and obey, don’t ever question
or critique. And the supreme example of mystification in
service to tyranny was the Trinity.
This underground Islamic republican movement res-
onated throughout the 18th and early-19th centuries, ally-
ing itself with other Enlightenment currents that culmi-
nated in the French Revolution. Naturally the Islamic
Republican affinity for the French revolutionaries, and
later its flirtation with a self-proclaimed Mahdi named
Napoleon “Ali” Bonaparte, made the movement seem even
more terrifyingly subversive to the guardians of the British
establishment.
efore reading Islam and the English Enlightenment I
B had no idea that Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous
poem Kublai Khan, which I encountered in English
literature seminars, is a disguised disavowal of the great
Romantic poet’s earlier flirtation with pro-Bonaparte
Islamic republicanism! The “stately pleasure dome” of the
poem, Garcia explains, represents the utopian Napoleonic
Islamic republican dream that Coleridge and Robert
Southey had fallen for in their youth, but grew disillu-
sioned with in later years.
Like Coleridge and Southey, two other leading British
Romantics, Percy and Mary Shelley, went through a phase
of equating their radical utopian ideas with Islamic republi-
canism — in their case what Garcia calls “‘Gnostic’ Shi‘ite
Islam.” Like Coleridge, Percy Shelley disavowed this phase
of his intellectual journey in a poem that has become a
canonical classic. In Garcia’s reading, Shelley’s The Revolt of
Islam announces Shelley’s own revolt against his youthful
Islamic republicanism. Mary Shelley, however, took a differ-
ent path: Garcia reads her novel The Last Man as critical of
her husband’s turning against Islamic republicanism and
Islam in general.
Garcia’s book is worth reading not only as a fascinating
slice of hidden history, but also as a meditation on the past
with suggestive implications for the present. Today, as the
Islamic Republic of Iran comes into the crosshairs of a deca-
dent and desperate Zionist-led West, it is instructive to
learn that the specter of Islamic Republicanism as a civiliza-
tional alternative has been terrorizing Western tyrants for
more than three centuries. g
 I S L A M – F U
man’s bond with God is
the engine of history
Tafsør of S¥ra∆ al-Nisœ’, the fourth s¥ra∆ of the Qur’an
By Imam Mu˙ammad Ó. al-‘Œßø
his central task in history of
T reformulating society accord-
ing to Allah’s commands
demands the energy of the central stir-
ring in man, “Verily, the hours of
night impress the mind most strongly
and speak with the clearest voice”
(73:6). The night is the time for psy-
chological fortification and motiva-
tional invigoration, while the day is
for operational achievements and
practical progress, “…whereas by day
a long chain of doings is your por-
tion” (73:7). The struggle is recipro-
cal and reinforcing, as night and day
go together, with the objective being to drive the human will
into its natural state of congruence with the divine will,
“But [whether by night or by day], be conscious of your
Sustainer’s name, and devote yourself to Him with unqual-
ified devotion” (73:8).
Unlike the behavior of today’s spiritual Muslims who
want to polish their souls in the “seclusion” of prayer, not
wanting to be sullied with the tarnish of the people or soci-
ety they belong to, the improvement of self in this
Qur’anic/Muhammadi model was always on par with and
equivalent to the improvement of society. When
Muhammad (r) was ordered to stay up during the night he
was aware of his time-sensitive, society-changing, and
trans-subjective role. The struggle against the deviations
inside a person is the same as the struggle against the devi-
ations inside this same person’s society at large, sponta-
neously and simultaneously,
N D A M E N T A L S
Say, “Verily, no one could ever
protect me from Allah, nor
could I ever find a place to hide
from Him, if I should fail to con-
vey [to the world whatever illu-
mination comes] from Allah and
His messages” (72:22).
The combination and the syn-
chronization of self and society is still
an issue that only a few outstanding
and involved Muslims have been able
to grasp. A paralyzing dichotomy of
Muslims has on one hand the “Sufis,”
who are consumed in a self without a
society, while on the other the “dœ‘øs,” who are consumed in
a society without a self. This discrepancy has left a field of
mischief wide open for satanic forces to play off these two
contradictory and often mutually exclusive positions. If
only these two sides could see their own mutual need of
each other and their combined need of Allah (Â), the
Muslim domain as we know it, and the larger world in gen-
eral, would be considerably different,
He [alone] knows that which is beyond the reach
of a created being’s perception, and to none does He
disclose anything of the mysteries of His own
unfathomable knowledge, unless it be to an apostle
whom He has been pleased to elect [therefor]: and
then He sends forth [the forces of heaven] to watch
over him in whatever lies open before him and in
what is beyond his range of perception — so as to
Islam – Fundamentals 37
 make manifest that it is indeed [but] their
Sustainer’s messages that these [apostles] deliver;
for it is He who encompasses [with His knowledge]
all they have [to say], just as He takes count, one
by one, of everything [that exists] (72:26–28).
Unlike the attitudes of today’s reformers, redeemers, and
revolutionaries, who are looking for a “quick fix” with the
objective of establishing an “Islamic” analog to Western
civilization in terms of power and influence, the transfor-
mation of society is not achieved by a military coup d’état,
nor by a social class of people coming to power, and certain-
ly not by the trickle-down economic benefits that come
from the freewheeling of a free market. The much needed
transformation of society in today’s world comes from and
with the transformation of man’s relationship with Allah
(Â). That relationship has to be adjusted, corrected, and
perfected. This is the relationship that is at the core of
human development and the one that amounts to the
engine of human history.
ometimes ordinary people get caught up in the heat
S of the moment, allowing themselves to be convinced
by erroneous arguments made by “experts.” They
tend to believe that empires and imperial power set the
stage for humanity and are in control of events. Even as
they are interacting with the Qur’an, they forget it is their
well-disposed and gracious relationship with Allah (Â)
that raises their lives (the life of self as well as the life of
society) and it is their impolite and ill-mannered relation-
ship with Allah that profanes their lives (the life of self as
well as the life of society). Allah’s communication to man is
the crux; after that, it is man’s social and cumulative reac-
tion to it that counts. With this understanding in mind, it
becomes a matter of great urgency and a matter of life and
death to make Allah’s words and meanings accessible to all
human beings, all human societies, and all intelligent
beings, the jinn included.
In times preceding the contemporary world, Allah’s
Prophets (Å) spread the word and publicized the gospel. In
so doing they did what was expected of them, they lived up
to their duties, and they discharged their responsibilities.
When they returned back to their Sustainer they did so
knowing they gave it their all. As if this has not been under-
scored enough already, these prophets and apostles did not
restrict their communication of Allah’s message to theories
and hypotheticals; they, in addition to the words of truth
they expressed, were busy trying to consolidate the truth in
a social behavior that meets Allah’s standards and that
secures His will in man’s interactions, relationships, and
social development. In other words, they wanted Allah’s
(Â) message to be the norm, the standard, the model, and
the pattern of human behavior and social conduct. Doing
this became their signature jihad.
38 CRESCENT INTERNATIONAL – January 2018
At first blush, this may sound easy — if it is all taken out
of context. But in the context of the real world to which
this message was repeatedly presented, it is well known that
these prophets in transmitting thoughts and feelings, ideas
and solutions, and rules and laws had to dispel negative
images and deliberate misinformation produced and publi-
cized by their opponents. These men of God were accused
of insanity and blasphemy. Not only did they have to
endure all this, they were required to fight back with the
truth that comes with justice, and with justice that comes
with the truth. There were establishments, systems, and
governments that were, for national security reasons, for
economic purposes, and for status quo expediencies at
lethal odds with God’s men of scripture — His Prophets and
Messengers (Å).
Then came Allah’s final prophet, Muhammad (r), who
demonstrated to everyone that a deviant society — even a
primitive one as existed in Arabia during his generation —
will never countenance or tolerate a human attempt to dis-
mantle its own social, economic, and military structure. If
the difference between an Islamic theory or ideal and what-
ever happens to be opposing it is strictly abstract and intel-
lectual, then why cannot the opponents of Islam relinquish
their grip on power and use their persuasive powers to
rationalize their own theories? Why is it so hard for them to
let the Islamic and non-Islamic theories clash in an open
public forum where neither has a base of institutional power
behind it and then let the best theory win? But that did not
happen and it will never happen; and the committed
Muslims need to be cognizant of this reality. The way
counter-Muslims behave is that they will use any power at
their disposal, usually illegitimate, to hold out and refuse
the Islamic appeal to the average man and to the larger
population. When that “ram it down your throat” approach
becomes a “social law” it is not the Muslims’ choice to
throw in the towel and make believe they can change soci-
ety by words alone. If they learned anything from Allah’s
final Prophet (r), it should be that it takes power to diffuse
power, and that it takes the power of truth to diffuse the
power of falsehood. In this manner, “…there will be no
fitna∆, and the døn will be Allah’s” (8:39). g

letters
More “moderate” BS?
Following Saudi crown prince
Mu˙ammad bin Salmœn’s announce-
ment that the medieval kingdom
would henceforth follow “moderate”
Islam, a number of other policies
have come to light. The new policy
of moderation will have the following
features. At the time of Hanukah, a
huge menorah will be installed atop
the clock tower in Makkah that
dwarfs the Ka‘ba∆. The menorah will
be encased in glass to protect the can-
dles from being blown out. That
would be sacrilegious, something the
“moderate” kingdom would not want.
Then leading up to Christmas, a
huge cross will be mounted atop the
same tower in Makkah. BS, dressed as
Santa Claus (he has the girth and
would not even need to put a pillow
around his waist), would hand out
Christmas gifts to pilgrims coming for
‘Umra∆. Each pilgrim will get a deluxe
edition of the King James Bible print-
ed at the King Fahd Printing Complex
in Madinah, together with a silver
cross on a chain. Pilgrims will be
required to wear the cross around their
necks during †awœf. The chief mufti of
Saudi Arabia has issued a fatwa saying
this is permissible in Islam!
“These steps are aimed at culti-
vating friendship with our Jewish and
Christian cousins,” said BS, according
to a report carried by the Saudi Press
Agency. Meanwhile the Kingdom
will vigorously pursue the wicked Ira-
nians, Hizbullah, and Houthis
because they are all Shias!
Tariq Akhtar
Los Angeles, CA, US
Kashmiris’ plight
There is a long list of places where
Muslims are suffering. Whether in
Palestine or yemen, the Rohingya or
the Kashmiris, the list is endless. It is,
however, troubling to note that some
Muslims’ plight is ignored. The Kash-
miris fall into this category. Apart
from Pakistan, few other countries or
Muslims in other parts of the world
pay much attention to their plight.
This must change. The long-suffering
Kashmiris deserve no less.
Ibrar Butt
Montreal, PQ, Canada
“Celebrity” shaykhs!
Western culture tends to produce
narcissists and exhibitionists. Unfor-
tunately some converts to Islam bring
this disease with them. This is espe-
cially true of some white converts.
They jet-set to conferences insisting
on traveling in business class, staying
in five-star hotels and walk around
with an entourage of admirers.
Such conduct is contrary to the
teachings of Islam and the Sunnah of
our beloved Messenger (r). He was a
modicum of modesty who easily
mixed with the people around him.
He asked for no special privileges.
This was evident from his participa-
tion in the construction of al-Masjid
al-Nabawø as well as digging the
trench prior to the Battle of al-A˙zœb.
We pray that these celebrity preach-
ers would come down to earth and
begin to live the true Islam as demon-
strated by the noble Messenger (r).
Ali Mukhtar
Denver, CO, US
Negative influences
Our surroundings influence our
thinking and shape our conduct.
That is why it is said, one is known by
the company he keeps. Muslims liv-
ing in the West cannot remain
immune from its negative influences.
For Muslim parents to impart proper
education to their children, they
themselves must live and exhibit cor-
rect values.
Shehnaz Bukhari
Chicago, IL, US
Letters to
the Editor
Letters for publication should be
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of the paper, and clearly marked
“for publication.” The writer’s name,
address, and telephone number must
be given. Letters may be edited or
abridged to fit. Send to:
Crescent International
P.O. Box 747, Gormley, ON,
L0H 1G0, Canada
email: crescent@ca.inter.net
Letters 39
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