THE VICIOUS DESTROYERS OF A GREAT RELIGION

I have never left my readers or those who attend my lecture mainly to grown up students in various colleges that though as Hindu I revere the Prophet of Islam as the one teacher who told his followers: "...When you walk in search of knowledge you are walking in the path of the God; the ink of the scholar is holier than the blood of the martyr...". When Muslims followed this great lesson they conquered a large slice of civilized world. Muslims produced brilliant kings like Harun-al-Rashid, the greatest of medieval philosopher, like Avicenna, the greatest medieval physicians like al-Razzi. It is they who brought about the enlightenment in Europe and literally brought civilization to it. None of this is possible without the application of reason, without questioning established ways of thinking or without forbearance.

Only when in the 13th Century under the advice of a mad Khalifa Muslim Court all the books and entire libraries except the Holy Quran were destroyed. I have often alluded to the birth in Saudi Arabia of Mohamed-ibn-Abdul Wahhab, founder of a sect called Wahabi. He misunderstood the gentle religion of Prophet Mohammed, a religion which by its name, stands for peace. He misunderstood the causes of Muslim decline and the political and military ascendancy of the Christian West. He concluded that the degeneration of Muslim empires was caused by their abandonment of fisrt principles. Wahhab misconstrued what the Prophet had preached, picked up stray lines and convinced himself that his faith decreed death and annihilation to all mushrikhum, i.e. polytheists. By his definition, Christians, Jews, Shias and Hindus, among others, are  polytheists, who have forfeited their right to live. He wanted to use jihad as 'cleansing' was against fellow Muslims. The Holy Quran clearly forbids aggression; 'fight in the way of God against those who fight against you, but do not commit aggression... (Quran 2:190-92)'

During my recent vacation trip I visited, as is my habit book stores in search of latest publications. Amongst the books that I picked up one turned out to be, as the cover page indicates, the story ISIS. It is a joint authorship of Mr. Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan. First one is a reputed  columnist on foreign policy and the second is a Middle East analyst and columnist for the The National. Both are experts of foreign affairs. The book claims to be the story of what ISIS is seeking and why they are such a threat to the World. It claims to disclose a revelatory look inside the World's most dangerous terrorist group. No wonder that the British Prime Minister David Cameron told BBC to stop calling barbaric ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shan)    and he also announced that there will be national one minute silence on Friday in honour of people killed in Tunisia. He said that there would be major training exercise in London over the next two days to test Britain's preparedness for serious terrorist attacks. He also said that it was thought the killer in Tunisa could be part of 'an ISIL-inspired network'.

The book that I mentioned shows al- Zarqawi as the founder of this foundation and its ideology it is he who first discovered Salafism, a doctrine, that in its contemporary advocates a return to theological purity and the traditions of the prophet Mohd. the most vicious part of his doctrine is that Salafis deemed western style democracy and modernity not only fundamentally irreconcilable with Islam but the main pollutants of the Arab civilization which after World War 1 stagnated under the illegitimate and apostate regimes in Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq. At the most extreme end of their continuum, the Salafists are also adherents of Jihad, a word that denotes'struggle' in Arabic and contains a multitude of definations. .al- Zarqawi had his first meeting with Osama Bin laden in Talibans de-facto capital Kandhar. He also had much more promiscuous definition of kuffar ('unbelievers'), which he took to include all the Shia and any fellow Sunnis who did not abide by a strict Salafist covenant. Bin Laden had never drawn a bulls eye on these categories before, no doubt for filial reasons: his own mother was a Syrian Alawite, or a member of the offshoot of the Shia sect.

Iraq has a Sunni population of about 20%, a overwhelming Shia majority and the curds in Iraq were ruined by a Sunni minority under dictator Saddam Hussain. This was change by the American Conquest and large number of Shia Minister became the new rules, ISIS is determined to restore Sunni rule. al-Zaqawi made his plan clear: The Shia, it read, were "the insurmountable obstacle, the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious scorpion, the spying enemy and the penetrating venom". This genocidal rhetoric was followed by genocidal behaviour. The Shias have been slaughtered without any mercy. In June 2014 the ISIS boasted that they had executed 1700 Shia soldiers, the Iraqi army had surrendered. The Human Rights Watch confirmed the existence of mass execution sites of Shia with collective death toll of 770. In Mosul, the very same ISIS took the city, it stormed Badoush Prison and hauled off its some 1500 of its inmates. It drove them all out to a nearby deserts and separated the Sunnis and Christians from the Shia. Members of the first two categories were carted away elsewhere; the Shia were first abused and robbed, then lined up and shot over ravine after they each called out their number in line.

What was happening to Shias may well be described what American Soldiers found when they opened the doors of a dungent prison in which they found 160 blind folded Shia prisoners all those who had been held there for months in overcrowded room filled with fesis and urine. It is not as if Shias are retaliating in some places but this new Sunni terrorist organization must shock the conscience of the World. Muslim intellectuals in India must protest and condemn this.