(Part 3)
By Abu Umair al‑Afghani
Starting from the 20th century, the role of Orientalists underwent a transformation; their name was changed, and they became part of Western universities under the name of Islamic education. After this, the Orientalist project was no longer as useful for employment because many individuals emerged from within the Muslim community itself who were committed to all Western interests and played a better role against Islam than the Orientalists themselves.
The harms inflicted by Orientalists upon Islam:
1- Dividing people within Islamic territories in the name of ethnicity and inciting ethnic prejudice among Muslims.
2- Fanning the flames of sectarian and religious differences among Muslims and pitting them against one another based on their schools of thought.
3- Pitting Muslims against each other under the pretext of power and fragmenting the Caliphate. For instance, in 756 AD, through deception and guile, Orientalists were able to separate Andalusia (modern-day Spain) from the Caliphate, dividing it into small factions which were subsequently captured by the Crusaders. Similarly, later in the same century, they separated Morocco and Algeria. Through their continued machinations, such disputes were consistently created among Muslims, causing the Caliphate to crumble piece by piece.
4- Spying for Crusader forces and providing them with intelligence about Muslims.
5- To weaken the faith of Muslims, they created doubts about Islamic jurisprudence and Hadith while appearing in the guise of Muslims, and wrote refutations against them.
6- Alongside these actions, the most dangerous work by the Orientalists was training people within the Muslim community with false beliefs and ideologies, who later caused more harm to Islam than the Orientalists themselves.
7- Another dangerous thing that Orientalists did while appearing as Muslims was the claim that Islam and politics should be separate. In Islamic history, no strong and reliable scholar has ever said that Islam and politics are separate, but these Orientalists spread this belief among Muslims.
Muslim youth must understand that separating politics from Islam is an absolute theory and conspiracy of the disbelievers, which is nothing but poison for the Muslim nation. Without politics, Islam remains incomplete, because one of the wisdoms behind the arrival of Islam from Allah was to establish justice on earth. And establishing justice is impossible without a government. Before the emergence of Islam, the rulers here had initiated oppressions and spread the darkness of tyranny across the face of the earth, until Allah Almighty brought forth Islam, a strong government was formed, and justice was established.
If government and religion were truly separate, the Messenger of Allah Muhammad (PBUH) would have entrusted the affairs of government to another king during his prophethood; however, the reality is that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) managed all affairs himself. When the theory of the separation of religion and politics entered the Islamic world, the Islamic Ummah never saw a good day again and gradually lost its grandeur. For a Muslim youth to remain a complete believer, it is essential to hold the belief that religion, politics, and government are interconnected.
8- Giving Muslims the idea that Islamic laws are now old, and that the Caliphate is an ancient and outdated system of government; therefore, for the sake of progress, Western laws and other human-made laws under the title of secularism must be established.
9- The Orientalists’ project was completed; they no longer needed to appoint Westerners in the guise of Muslims, because they had trained hundreds of thousands of students among the Muslims who could propagate their ideology. On March 3, 1924, the Westerners abolished the Caliphate through their trained student, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and the name of the Caliphate ceased to exist entirely. On that day, they achieved the goal they had labored for over hundreds of years, and their formula was successful: that the defeat of Muslims lies not in weapons, but in the destruction of their creed and ideology.
10- The 20th century was a time of failure and decline for Muslims. Westerners scattered and fragmented the Muslims, and instead of direct rule, they appointed so-called Muslims as rulers over them, individuals who were installed with their ideology, equipped with secularism, and committed to Western interests. Behind the scenes, Westerners governed, a situation that has now persisted for over a hundred years. In this manner, the West continues to rule over Muslims, trampling upon the resources, economy, ideology, and interests of Islamic countries.
