An "Extremist"

CONTEST 2: UK Government Leaked Plans to Label Every Muslim an "Extremist"

Draft plans by the British government were leaked to the Guardian newspaper and BBC Panorama this week, which expose that the British government is once again playing politics with terrorism. The plans have nothing to do with preventing 'violent extremism' or promoting ‘community cohesion' as they tell people. The leak provides yet more evidence that the government's projects and funding for mosques, community centres, youth groups and women's groups are aimed at changing the deen that the Muslims hold. These projects are about gathering intelligence (though the police deny this) and their grants are so our communities become addicted to government money, so they can then dictate to us what we can and cannot think, believe or say

According to the Guardian, under the draft of the strategy Muslims would be considered as ‘extremists' if they believe in some of Islam's core ideas.

They will accuse you of ‘extremism' if you advocate a Caliphate (Khilafah) in the Muslim world - an Islamic state that unifies Muslim countries.

This Khilafah was explained by Allah's Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم who said:

"Bani Israa'il were ruled by the Prophets, every time a Prophet died he was followed by another Prophet, and there will be no Prophets after me, and there will be Khulafaa and they will be many. [What do you order us?] Fulfil your pledge of allegiance to them one after another, and give them their rights, and truly Allah will ask them about their responsibilities."
(Muslim)

But according to the British governments draft plans it is unacceptable for the Muslim Ummah to have a Khalifah. According to these draft plans other states in the world may seek strength through ever closer unity but the Muslim Ummah must remain divided - ruled by tyrants and despots who serve the west. According to these draft plans a Muslim can support political movements in Zimbabwe or Burma, but must cut their ties with the growing Islamic revival and the call for Khilafah and end to dictatorship in the Muslim world.

They will accuse you of ‘extremism' if you promote Shariah law - the law of Allah سبحانه وتعالى derived from the Quran, Sunnah, Ijmaa as- Sahabah and Qiyas. It is a law that is principled, which does not bend when placed under pressure, and that cannot be manipulated for any lobbyist. They manipulate the laws to suit capitalists and corporate interest groups even try to sell positions in the US Senate and votes in the House of Lords. The Shariah is the fundamental basis of Islamic law and the basis of the Muslims way of life. By attacking the Shariah their aim is for Muslims to abandon the halal and haram, the fard and the Sunnah and adopt their corrupt kufr criteria of benefit and pleasure that has brought so much harm to their own society.

They will accuse you of ‘extremism' if you believe in Jihad, or armed resistance, anywhere in the world including armed resistance by Palestinians against the Israeli military. So, for the British government, when the Israeli war machine massacred over 1300 people in Gaza, including hundreds of children, it would be ‘extremist' for the Muslims to resist this massacre - despite the fact that Allah سبحانه وتعالى tells us:

وَقَاتِلُواْ فِي سَبِيلِ اللّهِ الَّذِينَ يُقَاتِلُونَكُمْ وَلاَ تَعْتَدُواْ

"And fight in the Way of Allah those who fight you, but transgress not the limits" (Al-Baqara, 2:190)

They will accuse you of ‘extremism' if you argue that Islam bans homosexuality and that it is a sin against Allah. Islam has given us clear rules for relationships, marriage and families. These values are in decay in this society. Peoples' sexual desires are fulfilled in any way creating a society that is in moral decline. They are trying to impose upon us the same breakdown of families, unhappiness of children, and promiscuity and immorality that is so damaging western societies.

They will accuse you of ‘extremism' if you fail to condemn the killing of British soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan - even though this government sent these soldiers there to invade someone else's country; to kill and be killed in failed colonial wars which were motivated by greed and the seeking of wealth and power.

Muslims the world over are being forced to leave their Islamic values and adopt western ones. This is what they mean when they say that the war on terror is to spread 'freedom and democracy'. This is what was said in a report by a think-tank called Civitas that advises British politicians when they said:

"it is not enough for the vast majority of decent, peaceful, law-abiding Muslims to renounce terror in principle: they also need to renounce the view - frequently expressed by Islamists - of an inevitable war between Islam and the rest of the world. If they choose to live in Western liberal democratic societies, they must accept the values of liberal democracy - as Jews, Sikhs, Hindus and others have done for many years."

It is clear to everyone that this war on terror is nothing less than a cover for a wider war against Islam. Allah سبحانه وتعالى tells us in the Quran in that:

وَلَن تَرْضَى عَنكَ الْيَهُودُ وَلاَ النَّصَارَى حَتَّى تَتَّبِعَ مِلَّتَهُمْ

"Never will the Jews nor the Christians be pleased with you (O Muhammad) unless you follow their millah (religion)."

(Al-Baqarah, 2:120)

Yet the values of liberal democracy, which they expect Muslims all over the world to adopt as their political and social ‘religion', are not even values that all people in Britain believe in. About 40% of people in mainstream society do not vote in elections, and many of the remaining 60% do not trust their elected politicians. Every week we read alarming reports about how badly children, the elderly, women, immigrants and asylum seekers are treated or how people with a religious conviction or illiberal view are treated by liberal society. And we now also see the collapse of disaster capitalism, which has been the back bone of the secular liberal democratic system for the past 200 years.

Brothers and Sisters! Are these values, forced upon us in the UK and in the Muslim world, the values that we wish for ourselves and our children to adopt? Have we not seen the harm caused by the values in the west? Their way of life is one that has failed to bring harmony for their own society never mind for humanity. Their way of life is one that has encouraged individualism and selfishness, and the craving for material wealth. It is one that has meant ‘life liberty and the pursuit of happiness' even if it meant through colonising the world and making hundreds of millions of others suffer.

Every one of us has to understand that this is nothing less than an attempt to change the deen of the Muslims. Sometimes they have attacked the women's dress code and sometimes they have attacked the modesty and family values of Muslims. At worse we have even seen our beloved Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and the Noble Quran attacked. Yet this is what our Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم faced in his struggle in Makkah. He faced personal attacks, attacks on Islam, lies and slander. They labelled him صلى الله عليه وسلم with all kinds of names. Yet he responded with an intellectual dawah showing the superiority of the sublime Islamic values over those of kufr; proving the truth of the Islamic belief over other beliefs; meeting falsehood with the truth of Islam. And Allah made His صلى الله عليه وسلم call victorious.

This should be our calling when faced with this attack. The response to this is that every Muslim has to know his or her deen, and know the political and social values that are being forced on us - not just here but all across the Muslim world.

We should oppose government attempt to control our institutions but we should demonstrate and explain the superiority of the Islamic values and prove the truth of the Islamic belief. We must stand for Islam and expose falsehood when we see it.

Allah سبحانه وتعالى commands us:

ادْعُ إِلِى سَبِيلِ رَبِّكَ بِالْحِكْمَةِ وَالْمَوْعِظَةِ الْحَسَنَةِ وَجَادِلْهُم بِالَّتِي هِيَ أَحْسَنُ

"Invite to the Way of your Lord with hikmah and fair preaching and argue with them in a way that is better."

(An-Nahl, 16:125)

That is our duty - to focus our efforts towards this dawah in the west, as well as supporting the call to replace tyranny, dictatorship and kufr in Muslim lands with a just Islamic leadership that rules by Quran and Sunnah - the Khilafah, which can show the world what the justice of Islam can bring for humanity.

As to the success or failure of these plans, the very fact they have resorted to using bribery and force against Muslims, in order to achieve these goals, proves they cannot deal with Islamic ideas intellectually and that they have lost the battle of ideas. If any individual Muslim were to abandon the truth, he would do so to his own loss. But their plans can never succeed in replacing Islam in the heart of the Muslim community or anywhere in the world for Allah سبحانه وتعالى tells us:

يُرِيدُونَ أَن يُطْفِؤُواْ نُورَ اللّهِ بِأَفْوَاهِهِمْ وَيَأْبَى اللّهُ إِلاَّ أَن يُتِمَّ نُورَهُ وَلَوْ كَرِهَ الْكَافِرُونَ

"They seek to extinguish the light of Allah with their mouths; but Allah refuses but to perfect His light, though the disbelievers may resent it."

(At-Tawba, 9:32)