Roots Of Nationalism In The Muslim World by Shabir Ahmed

The missionary movement had a devastating impact on the Muslim world. What the Kuffar could not achieve in a thousand years by the use of force, the missionaries achieved within a century.

The organic growth of the missionary movement and its open and effective participation in the educational movement resulted from the attempted reforms by the Islamic State in the 19th Century. The establishment of schools, colleges and universities enabled the missionaries to infuse the Kufr culture with the culture of Islam. The concept of offensive jihad was attacked, the Western principle of equality of all citizens before the law was preached, and doubts raised about the suitability of Shari‘ah in the age of technology. Tolerance of religions was taught, even if the proponents of these religions contravened the limits of the Shari‘ah. History taught from a certain angle was used to inject pride amongst the various Muslims and last, but not least, the idea of nation states was proposed as the only means of revival and progress for the Muslims.

The missionaries had a lasting impact on the minds of the Muslims and they succeeded in creating animosity between the citizens of the Islamic State in the name of religious freedom and managed to initiate among the Muslims, Christians and Druze various kinds of religious activities related to the ‘aqeedah.

The mistake of the Islamic State in allowing these missionaries to operate in the first place, and its inability to counteract the attacks on Islam subsequently, meant that the likes of Mustapha Kamal and Rifa’a Badawi Rafi al-Tahtawi7 were attracted by Western ideals and they became subservient, consciously or unconsciously, to Western concepts. Most of these people were actually educated by, or had some other contact, with European countries, and it was this exposure that mesmerised them. They dreamt of revival of the Muslims based on the Western thought of separating deen from the state, not realising that it was not the deen that was at fault but the correct understanding of Islam, and the method of its application was the failing point.

The rise of such people, some of whom were actually on Western payrolls, enabled the West to launch the final phase of their conspiracy - that of the political invasion of the Muslim world. This was done by the encouragement and support of various nationalistic ideas, which were later solidified by the establishment of Arab and Turkish political parties such as the Turkiyyah al-Fatat Party, the Union and Progress Party (also known as ‘Young Turks’), the Arab Independence Party and Covenant (al-‘Ahd)

Party. Revolts against the ‘Uthmani Khilafah were organised and financed by the West through these nationalistic political groups and some key individuals. One such individual was Sharif Hussain8 of Makkah, who was paid £200,000 a month by the British Foreign Office to campaign for an independent Arab state, which was promised to him through McMohan, the British High Commissioner of Egypt, in 1916, “The two districts of Mersina and Alexandretta [both now in Turkey] and portions of Syria lying to the west of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo, cannot be said to be purely Arab, and should be excluded from the limits demanded...As for the regions lying within those frontiers where Great Britain is free to act without detriment to the interest of her ally France...Great Britain is prepared to recognise and support the independence of the Arabs.”9

This is how the deadly seed of nationalism was implanted in the Islamic State. By the turn of the 20th Century the fever of nationalism had spread to all corners of the Islamic State, shaking the State violently as never before.

The final and the most brutal assualt on the Islamic State was launched in the wake of the 1st World War by the Europeans when they despatched their forces to conquer the once invincble state. The Islamic State, aftre centuries of decay, just crumbled without any resistence. When General Allenby entered al-Quds (Jeruslame) in 1917, he said, “Only today the Crusades have ended.”10

The dream of every European then became a reality.