I have written quite a lot about the rather messed-up human history. To this end, I have written extensively about the often-bad role of medieval Muslim nomadic warriors in Asia. I have argued against the conquests of the Iberian Peninsula and India. I have been thinking for a long time about writing about the role of Sufism in transforming India. This is the first article in that spirit. I would like to acknowledge that parts of the following text was generated by Google’s Gemini after various interactions with it. I have also now arranged all the articles of the journey to Jerusalem series under a common tag of this name. If you are looking for a particular article in this series, or what is in this series at all, please go to the tag cloud on my website and look for Journey to Jerusalem. My overall ambition is that warfare and conquering other peoples countries is a bad idea and it can never lead to peace. And a tolerance and acceptance of others is much better, along with intercommunal and interfaith harmony. I personally prefer the Sufi path. And I am sure if you read enough about it, you will begin to love it too. It is a path of love of God and love of humanity. This is what we need in our turmoiled world.

My last Journey to Jerusalem article was partly focused on reflecting on events surrounding the year 712 AD and the conquest of SIndh by the Arabs. Before that, I also wrote about why the Dome of Rock is a misplaced monument and that it should not have been built. I have been thinking about this article for a long time, but I could not write it due to certain obligations. My theme is to write about the conquest of India by Muslim invaders over the past thirteen hundred years. This is a critical topic that I believe must be understood by Muslims, Indians, and the rest of the world too. The reason is that most of the things are misunderstood by most human communities, and that confusion can be misleading.

By the way, Arabs invaded India only once. As I wrote earlier, this happened in 712 AD. I also wrote that Walid bin Abdul Malik ordered this invasion to persecute the fleeing daughter of Imam Ali bin Abi Taalib (RA). This is extremely important to understand. Most Muslims consider Sindh as the door of Islam to India, as Islam arrived here through this invasion. However, the truth is that Walid belonged to a murderous clan that was against the family of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) himself. Rest of the story can be found in my previous article.

After this eighth century attack of Arabs on India from the Arabian sea till the end of the tenth century, there was a lull of Muslim attacks. By the beginning of the eleventh century, the famous battle of Peshawar happened between Indians and Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni. An interesting aspect about this person is that he is a very controversial person in Pakistan. Many consider him as a hero. However, among the highly educated echelons of Pakistan, he is considered as a plunderer. When I was a child I read about some literature about him in which he was taken in a very high esteem. In my point of view the truth of the established history is that his father was provoked by the Maharaja Jayapala of North India who had started becoming insecure of the growing power of Sabuktigin in Ghazni. By preemptively attacking him the Raja literally stirred the hornet’s nest so much so that the severity of the retaliatory invasions led him to commit suicide. On a personal level, I only consider this man to be a justifiable conqueror of India. After all, this was the protocol of medieval times; you provoke someone and then it really depends if you can sustain the retaliation or not. I think that this is a timeless law of nature. Sabuktigin was a slave who had elevated to the status of a ruler. He was of Turkic origin.

After this came the turn of the Ghauris, who are much despised in India to this day. Ghauris originated from somewhere in Persia. They were literally nomadic people who had converted to Islam at some stage. Initially, they advanced to Ghazni and sacked the Ghaznavi sultanate. They torched Kabul and the city literally burned for seven days and seven nights. Later on they marched to Delhi, conquered it and made it their capital. I personally find it very problematic to defend this invasion. Delhi sulatane was formed at this time. This was followed by the slave dynasty’s rule in northern India. Mostly these rulers were of either Persian or Turkic origins.

Later on came the era of two very famous expansionist imperialists. One of them was Genghis Khan. He remains a famous person to this day. I read an article on geopolitics a few years ago in which it was stated that one in every eighth person in Asia happens to be his descendant. His name needs no mention. And his barbarity needs no advertisement. His reputation has always remained two steps ahead of him to this day. He belonged to Mangolia.

The second was Tamerlane. He is also a very famous warrior. He was was Turkicized Mongol who also descended from an extremely ferocious general of Genghis Khan. Legend has it that he was a memorizer of the Holy Quran too. From an early age he had a personal ambition to conquer the world. He plundered Asia multiple times from the East to the West of Asia. In the East he clashed with the Delhi Sultanate and in the West with the Ottoman empire. He was driven by an ambition to conquer the world. After him the Delhi sultanate was restored in India. His cruelty, barbarity, and brutality were second only to Genghis Khan.

Then came the famous king Babur who set the stage for the Mughal empire in India. He was a descendant of Tamerlane and Genghis Khan from his father’s and mother’s sides, respectively. He was surely a Mongol, and hence the name Mughal. In the name of God he clashed with Ibrahim Lodhi, the last Sultan of the Delhi Sultanate. As a matter of fact, he mustered support from Gujjars, a scheduled caste of the Indian subcontinent, of Sohawa (a town now in Northern Punjab in Pakistan). He made a fiery religious speech to them before he attacked Delhi. It is needless to mention that Ibrahim was already a Muslim.

Babur’s son Humayun became the king after the demise of his father. He was later overthrown by Sher Shah Suri in the name of God. And eventually, Sher Shah was overthrown by Akbar in the name of God, too. Akbar lived to become one of the greatest emperors in human history. He ruled India for over fifty years. Among the many good things he did for India, he did so many bad things too, including introducing a new religion which was a mixture of Hinduism and Islam. It is highly forbidden in Islam to make innovations in the religion of God. However, Akbar was largely inspired by his desire to rule. After Akbar, his son Jehangir came to the throne. He was followed by his son Shahjehan, who is also the founder of the famous Taj Mahal.

Shahjehan’s son Aurangzeb incarcerated his father and had his elder brother Dara Shikoh assassinated. Daara was the heir apparent to the throne. Aurangzeb ruled India for another fifty years too. But by the end of his tenure, the Mughal empire was already in decline. There were a few more Mughal kings and then the British took over India and colonized it for around ninety years. This brought an end to the conquests of Muslims in India.

Reading this tale of plunder and murders, one should wonder that what was wrong with each of the murdered kings (who were also Muslim) that the murderer killed him or put him in the jail in the name of God. What were their differences that they could not decide through dialogue or diplomacy? And why should they have fought with each other due to personal differences, as a Muslim person is not supposed to live a life for personal goals and ambitions but as a duty to God. I am leaving the Hindu inhabitants of India aside for a moment. I am talking about the nature of conflicts between the Muslim warriors only.

This is a well-known story of the conquests of Muslim warriors in India. They were killing each other in the name of God. And they were doing these excursions in somebody else’s country. This is what the normal Muslims do not understand. This is what they must appreciate. And this is why I have written this article.

No matter what the beliefs of Indian people, and no matter how inhumane or inhygienic their rituals, the truth is that India is the country of the Indian people. Moreover, India is not mentioned anywhere in the Holy Quran, let alone its conquests. India was also a friendly country towards emigrants. Once upon a time, Jews and Christians had migrated to India. Later on, persecuted Muslims, especially from the progeny of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his household, had moved to India. Normally, it was people fleeing from their hostile origins who would come to India. Imam Hussain was considering moving to India. Imam Hussain was married to a Persian princess whose sister was married to an a prince of an Indian state. Indians were happy to host Imam Hussain (RA).

Moreover, Islam was already becoming comfortable in India due to the advent of Sufi saints. As early as the eleventh century, famous Sufi saints had started settling in India. Sufis would come alone to India, without any armies or armaments. They would start living in India like common people. Their conduct and behavior was sufficient to motivate Indians to convert to Islam. Around half a million Rajputs are considered to have converted to Islam due to the peaceful company of Hazrat Baha ud Din Zakariya (RA). Khawaja Ghulam Mohi ud Din Chishti (RA) settled in Ajmer, that was the traditional house of Rajputs, the foremost warrior class of India.

The message of the sufis was always love of God and the love of humanity. There is a central concept in Islam that a person owes two types of rights. One is the rights of God. The other type is the rights of human beings. It is said that God can forgive the rights of Himself, but not of human beings. And the rights of human beings revolve around care and compassion, not subjugation and murder.

Conquests were not only not required, they were quite evil. They have had a very negative effect on the Indian psyche. It does not matter that India is a racist society, or that all Indian people are not equal, or that it was already an occupation of Indo-Aryan over Dalits. These are widespread notions that can be found in common chit chat to academic literature. But it does not matter. The real ingredient required to mold human hearts is love. With love humans can be molded to good. Subjugation was a bad idea.

The post Journey to Jerusalem: Conquest Upon Conquest first appeared on Psyops Prime.]]> https://psyopsprime.com/consciousness/journey-to-jerusalem-conquest-upon-conquest/feed/ 0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 2536 https://psyopsprime.com/consciousness/journey-to-jerusalem-from-indus-or-nile/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=journey-to-jerusalem-from-indus-or-nile https://psyopsprime.com/consciousness/journey-to-jerusalem-from-indus-or-nile/#respond Mon, 14 Oct 2024 11:21:05 +0000 https://psyopsprime.com/?p=2497 I have written a bunch of articles on this theme about journey to Jerusalem by now. Sometimes I think that Jerusalem is the center of

I have written a bunch of articles on this theme about journey to Jerusalem by now. Sometimes I think that Jerusalem is the center of gravity of our world. There is a strange mystique about this town. And there is something about this place that has intrigued human generations over the millennia. Wars have been fought over it. And I don’t know how much more will be lost before something is gained about it. Anyhow, my argument has always been that Jerusalem, and the country that surrounds it, belongs equally to Jews, Muslims, and Christians. In saying that, I don’t take end-times prophecies into account, as when the time comes, Christ will reclaim the country for himself. My argument is that till the time (Jesus) Christ comes back, the job of us ordinary human beings should not be to turn every prophecy into a self-fulfilling prophecy. And if we have to live peacefully, we have to behave and embrace plurality. I like to say this to anybody who belongs to one of these Abrahamic religions. People who do not belong to one of these religions, Jerusalem is not dear to them, and they should not worry about associating it with it as such.

Every religion has its epistemology, and that of Islam is quite profound. Nonetheless, when early Muslims seized Jerusalem and its country from the Roman Empire, they peacefully and respectfully settled Jews and Christians around it. This is not only cool, it is also a yardstick for how to come to terms with the future of the country in terms of Muslims. This is to say that Muslims should make room for this idea in their psyche that this is a shared country. Other parties, who will not embrace this idea of plurality, shall do this to their own peril.

Speaking of epistemology, Islam, like all other religions, purports itself to be the one true religion of God. This is backed by a strong epistemology to the extent that when newly converted Muslims from Western countries convert to Islam, and when they look at the glorious history of the religion, they rationalize the many conquests Muslim conquerors have made around the Eurasian landmass in medieval times. This is fine. But my purpose in writing this post is that those conquests sometimes did have nefarious motives. Actually, a long list of conquests can be made in which one can argue that they were all nefarious. So, the belief or impression that Muslims were conquering the world to spread Islam is not true.

For instance, in 712 AD, Walid Bin Abdul Malik sent an army to conquer India. When I was a child, I was sold this story that there was an Arab cargo ship that was sailing between Sri Lanka and the Arab lands, and was looted by pirates near what is now Karachi. Deebal was the name of the port back in the day. Walid, as the commander of the faithful, sent an army to Sindh to fight with the local king, Raja Daahir. This is absolutely the wrong version of the story, as it is also not mentioned like this in Chachnaama, a chronicle of the history of SIndh from the times Muslims started invading it.

The truth, as it is written in Chachnaama and elsewhere, is that the daughter of Imam Ali (RA), Ruqayya-bint-e-Ali (RA), had fled to India while trying to escape from the persecution of the blood-thirsty Banu Umayya. Walid (the Umayyad caliph) had asked through a letter to Raja Daahir to return her to his men, or else be prepared for an invasion. The brave Raja stood his ground and did not return. Upon this, he was invaded. This happened in 712 AD. This is the same year in which he sent an army to Spain and conquered it. Muslims ruled over there for 700 years, and the Spanish people still hate us. So much so that we lament the loss of our lost glory, even though Spain belonged to the Spanish people in the first place. There is no mention in the Quran or the Hadith about Spain, let alone its conquest. And Walid had no legal mandate to conquer Spain. He was an illegitimate ruler whose grip on the driving seat of Islam had crystallized due to three generations of his family’s machinations against the family and companions of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). This is a well-known fact in Islamic history. Both Shia and Sunnis know this, and this is largely the cause of their rifts, too. So why don’t they speak up against it? By the way, this was the same year that Walid the moron conquered Central Asia, all in the name of Islam. He was a debauch who would amass the wealth coming from these territories to build palaces for himself and his kin in Damascus and elsewhere where his relatives were. Back in the day, many companions of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) were against the extravagant lifestyle of the Umayyads, as this is not what Islam is about. Moreover, with that stolen money, he built the Dome of the Rock in 712 AD. So you see that this year in human history is almost like the year 1492, but in which many wrongs were done. I argued in a previous article that the Dome of the Rock is misplaced and shouldn’t have been built on the site of the Temple of Solomon (although I also argue that since it is there now, other faiths should kindly respect it as a gesture of goodwill).

So why do I write about all of this? I am a fifteenth-generation Muslim myself. My own ancestors were proud Hindus. But as an intelligent species that humans are, it is our job to come to the truth. Early Muslims were not necessarily expansionist. Agreed that they clashed with the Roman and the Persian empires. But these clashes were foretold, for one thing, and were with largely agnostic empires, for the other. The result of these clashes was that liberation followed for Christians and Jews. They could live freely in the country of Jerusalem. But Hazrat Umar (RA), who seized all of the Middle East from the Roman empire, did not expand further north of Syria, although he could have done that. Similarly, Iman Ali (RA) had a law that Muslim soldiers could not buy lands in foreign countries where they served. His argument was that the land belonged to the local people. And that Muslim soldiers should just do their job (i.e., maintain law and order) and get the hell out of the country when their tenure is finished. This is what makes Islam a charming enterprise and not the possibility of conquests.

The post Journey to Jerusalem: From Indus or Nile first appeared on Psyops Prime.]]>

War in the Middle East, Gaza, is not coming to an end. A few months ago, I wrote a couple of articles about the history of Jerusalem, particularly close to the era when early Muslims conquered the city from Heraclius, the Caesar of the Roman Empire, back in those days. One can only hope that peace will follow. Much has happened since then. The whole Gaza Strip has almost been destroyed. Rafa has been plundered. All the infrastructure is now ruined, with hospitals and schools demolished. Thousands of additional innocent people have been killed since then. My argument in my first article was that the early Muslims, who were largely the companions of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), ceased Jerusalem nor from Christians and neither from Jews, but from the Roman Empire. This idea is important for me, at least. For a long time, I used to think that Muslims took the city from the Jews. Later, for the past twelve years at least, I used to believe that the city was taken from the Christians. However, a more recent, profound, and careful study of history revealed that not only did Muslims take the whole country of Palestine/Israel from the Roman Empire, but they also took almost the entire Middle East from the latter. Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and western Mesopotamia were won from the Roman Empire. The eastern Mesopotamia and Persia were acquired from the Persian Empire. I am personally against a country invading and conquering another country. But these countries were already occupied by two major world powers of the time, and they were also quite notorious.

In my second article I wrote that the whole region of Palestine/Israel would be much better off if it were a one-state democratic country overseen by international peacekeeping forces and existing under security guarantees. I also wrote that if Jews wished to have homelands of their own, other world powers should get together and provide them with lands in all the major continents. Although this idea may seem fantastic and unrealistic, if Israel can be given billions of US dollars in aid and deadly weaponry to murder Palestinian civilians, why can’t new countries be achieved? It only takes sincerity with the Jewish people to do so.

In the first article, I wrote that the acquisition of Jerusalem by the Muslims was a peaceful affair. I wrote that when Sophronius, the Bishop of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, offered the Muslim Caliph the opportunity to pray inside the church, the latter refused to do so. His concern was that later generations of Muslims would make it a precedent to convert it into a mosque on the pretext that their Caliph prayed inside the church. This is a very touching and epic story for me about religious tolerance in Islam. I ended the article at this point, although the story continued for the rest of the day.

After the prayers, Calpih Umar (RA) went to the Temple Mount. He was accompanied by Sophronius and some of the companions of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). One of the companions was Hazrat Kaab bin Ahbaar (RA). Hazrat Kaab (RA) was a Jewish Rabbi from Yemen before he converted to Islam. He is a key figure in the remains of the day. There, he was requested by Sophronius not to settle Jews in the city. Contrary to his request, the Caliph settled Jews in the city, who had been repeatedly expelled from the Holy Land by the Romans for centuries. He then asked Hazrat Kaab (RA) as to where to settle the Jews. Hazrat Kaab (RA) mentioned a place in the west of the Temple Mount that is known as the Jewish quarter to this day. Then he went to the site of the second temple (or the Temple of Solomon) too. This site is Holy for both Christians and Jews. This is also sacrosanct for Muslims as it is mentioned as Masjid Al-Aqsa in the Holy Quran, and it is the place from which the Holy Prophet (PBUH) is mentioned and believed to have ascended to heavens. Caliph Umar (RA) wanted to build a mosque on this site. However, he refrained from doing this because of the importance of the place for Jews and Christians. Instead, he chose a spot on the Temple Mount just south of the old temple. Masjid Al-Aqsa was built on this spot. This is another very epic story for me that raises the image of Caliph Umar (RA) in very high esteem in my view. This makes me quite proud. How much concern he had for the feelings of Jews and Christians that he did not build a mosque on the site of the old temple. This is quite wonderful.

At this point, I would like to urge you to understand the personality of Hazrat Umar RA, a key companion of Prophet Muhammad PBUH. His story of conversion to Islam in itself is quite remarkable. Initially, he would not convert to Islam because he thought that the religion the Prophet Muhammad PBUH preached was dividing people. On the day on which he converted to Islam, he actually embarked from his home to assassinate him after consultation with the polytheist tribes of Quraish of Makkah. It was upon his listening to some verses of the Holy Quran that changed his mind forever, and he converted to Islam in an instant. The rest is history. Faith literacy is a good thing. You will find the following lecture very inspiring on the life and personality of Hazrat Umar RA. It is nice to know why such a headstrong person eventually converted to Islam.

Where did the second temple go then? The Dome of the Rock was built on the site of the Second Temple. Who built that? Abdul Malik bin Marwan, when he became a Caliph. Who was he? Much can be said and must be said about this character and his progeny. In short, I would say that these were dynastic politicians who had created an empire on the blood of the descendants of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) himself. They belonged to the Banu Umayyah clan of the Quraysh, who had a generations-old rivalry with the family and household of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). In the name of God, they were conquering the rest of the world that they should not have. Just as in the name of God they were killing the grandchildren of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that they should not have.

After Abdul Malik, his son Walid bin Abdul Malik became the Caliph, the Commander of the faithful. He rebuilt the dome just as he conquered Spain, India, and central Asia, and just as he kept martyring more grandsons of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). I will write in more detail someday about the conquest of these countries and lands. But today, just as educated people can have an aversion to Islam due to its expansionist past, we have the problem of the Dome of the Rock. This is built on the second temple, and we have a real problem. Jews, if nobody else, need access to it.

By the way, having highlighted the problem of the dome, I would just like to share some thoughts about how to resolve the problem. This is important for people of all Abrahamic faiths to understand.

I think that Muslims worldwide should agree to open the dome for people of all faiths. And I expect that people of all faiths to respect it as some reconstruction of the second temple. Construction of the second temple was funded and supported by Cyrus the Great after all. So this reconstruction could be considered a gift by the Muslims. What is bad about this? And people of the world could be saved from a lot of conflict. The Al-Aqsa mosque in the south could be retained by Muslims, and the church of the Holy Speluchre by the Christians. The same status could be maintained for the rest of the Holy sites in the Holy Land, including all the synagogues. The world could be a happy place again.

The post Journey to Jerusalem: The Misplaced Dome first appeared on Psyops Prime.]]> https://psyopsprime.com/consciousness/journey-to-jerusalem-the-misplaced-dome/feed/ 0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 2418 https://psyopsprime.com/geopolitics/journey-to-jerusalem-from-crusades-to-democracy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=journey-to-jerusalem-from-crusades-to-democracy https://psyopsprime.com/geopolitics/journey-to-jerusalem-from-crusades-to-democracy/#respond Sun, 10 Dec 2023 10:27:13 +0000 https://psyopsprime.com/?p=2268 Given the current conflict in the Middle East, there doesn’t seem to be much hope for peace in sight shortly. There are calls for a

Given the current conflict in the Middle East, there doesn’t seem to be much hope for peace in sight shortly. There are calls for a ceasefire. But, no matter how deeply each party may need that, they are not going for one. Then there is this all-time lingering question; the creation of a Palestinian state. Even here people are deeply divided. Some call for the importance of having a two-state solution. There are others, who are quite pessimistic about that. There is a small bunch of people, who for one reason or the other, advocate the creation of a one-state.

I have held a personal view about this matter for a long time, that I will share here today. I believe that a solution for peace based on the creation of two states can never be long-lasting. The two-state solution tries to mend the many problems that happened in the region between 1948 till now. Most proponents of the solution argue that Israel should revert to the status quo ante of 1967 borders. Based on those borderlines, two states should be created, one for the Jews and the other for the Palestinians. The latter are predominantly Muslims, in a demographic sense.

And here lies the biggest problem with the idea. No matter how the boundaries shall be carved for such a solution, a basic issue that the proposal forgets is that Christians also live in the region. The whole land of Israel/Palestine is somehow sacrosanct to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. People belonging to these faiths have been living there for centuries. Each city or town has a religious emblem that belongs to either of the religions. There is either an ancient synagogue, a historical church, or a beautiful mosque present in every town of the country. The religious heritage of all of these entities is so intertwined that it is indeed quite cruel to take it apart. Similarly, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim lives were also tightly woven into each other throughout the country for so many centuries.

Jews of the present day profess that they must own almost the whole country for themselves because she belonged to their kings and prophets. They claim that historically it is their land for thousands of years. And despite the fact that many of the Jewish people in Israel’s political administration are Ashkenazi Jews, their demand does make a lot of sense. Why should it matter that Ashkenazi Jews are indeed not descendants of Israelites, and hence Semetic, but belong to a different branch of the progeny of Prophet Noah i.e. Japheth? If they are Jewish and they want to live in the land of Israel/Palestine, why shouldn’t they be able to do so?

Palestinian Muslims also have a very compelling argument. They claim that they are the Israelites whose ancestors used to be Jews or Christians once upon a time. They converted to Islam at some stage are natural heirs of the land. Hashim, who was the great-grandfather of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is buried in Gaza. Although not an Israelite, he was still Semetic as he descended from Prophet Ishmael (PBUH). Prophet Abraham (PBUH) descended from Sam, the son of Prophet Noah (PBUH), and he is considered the forefather of the Semitic people. Palestinian Muslims also argue that they could still keep on living in peace with Jews and Christians the way they had been living for centuries before 1948. And why shouldn’t they profess to coexist peacefully? There is no reason for that.

Christians, Palestinian and worldwide, are either quiet on this matter or they tend to side with the Palestinians in the sense that they do advocate the creation of a sovereign Christian state for the Palestinians, who, as I argued before, are largely Muslim demographically. They do not speak much about the creation of a Christian state. At least from the rallies, campaigns and protests that are going on around the Western world weekly, there is no shout about the creation of a Christian state. They only talk about freeing Palestine.

But we must remember that an affinity for Jerusalem and the Holy sites brought Christendom to the Crusades around a millennium ago. This was also a very gory affair. I will write my thoughts about it in a different post. My point at present is that even if the present generation of Christians is not very worried about claiming a part of the land of Israel/Palestine for themselves, their latter generations may not choose to abandon their claim in the long run. Hence, what we may see a few hundred years from now could be another series of crusades on the two-state solution.

So we need a more prudent and long-lasting solution to the conflict that has been going on for exactly three quarters of a century. What could be that? Creation of a three-state solution? A separate state for each of the three major historical faiths of the land? A three-state solution is going to divide the country so badly that it will almost entirely erase the historical heritage. Moreover, there will then be the question of who is going to get what. Clearly, all portions of the landmass of Israel are not equal to each other in their value. There are coasts, deserts, arid and arable pieces of land. How shall a fair division come about?

The three-state solution is not a viable one at least for me. I personally believe that any fair solution should be based on creating a one-state. This one state-country should be democratic. Hence, what they might settle for is that, let’s say, they could agree on something like having a Christian president, a Muslim prime minister, and a Christian chief justice. Or they may choose to have a political hierarchy that is somewhat like that. They could have a law that treats Jews, Christians and Muslims according to their respective religious laws. And they could have their due religious freedoms. They could have the right to grow and prosper. They could have the right of being happy, but not at the expense of any other party’s misery. This could be a great country.

Many times nowadays in talk shows, when people try to say a word about the massive mistreatment of Palestinians, the talk show host asks this shunning question: But do you condemn Hamas? Or there is a school of thought that if Hamas were to lay their weapons, everything could be sorted out.

The democratic one-state should observe the complete disarmament of Hamas as well as Israel. Everyone should live under security guarantees provided by the major world powers as well as Middle Eastern countries. USA could be a natural guarantor, combined with Saudi Arabia, UAE, and even Pakistan. Ireland could be a very credible country to provide security guarantees, as the people of this country at large have a very clear conscience. Moreover, I propose to maintain a peacekeeping military force in the region. This force could be led by Ireland and every major country in the world could provide battalions to it, including the Saudis and Pakistan. By the way, I prefer Ireland because of her credibility. And given her past of being a country that had been colonized for almost a millennium, I believe that it will also stand with the oppressed.

I read some time ago a very logical argument that Christians and Muslims all have many countries in the world, and Jews have only one. And that Muslims are hellbent on destroying even that one country. That need not be the case. What I propose is that even apart from a democratic Israel/Palestine, the world powers should lobby to create a number Jewish states in multiple parts of the world. For instance, one of my thoughts is to have an exclusively Jewish country in every major continent including America, Asia, Africa, and Europe.

And why should it be a bad proposal? Muslims should not have a problem with this. After all, when early Muslims acquired the country from the Roman Empire, they happily settled Jews and Christians in it. Christians should not have a problem with it, as it will only enable easy access to their pilgrimage sites, which they are not talking about presently. Jews should also not have a problem with this, as in addition to having a democratic country of their own, they additionally have the possibility of achieving a few more countries in different parts of the world. The only requisite is to have a political will. And why should there be a shortage of political will on the part of major political powers of the world who spend billions of dollars to ensure a debilitating destruction of the Palestinians so that they might not pose a threat to Israel?

The post Journey to Jerusalem: From Crusades to Democracy first appeared on Psyops Prime.]]>

I just came across a Tweet by some Western person warning people to be careful about Mossad’s possible effort to create rifts between Muslims and Christians. I replied to the Tweet and then I felt compelled to write something in this context. Here is the post by the way, for your kind perusal.

I have been watching Israeli propaganda for 1 month now.

What important things did I notice?

Israeli propaganda is based mainly on trying to create intolerance and hatred between Christians and Muslims.

Zionists as a nation generally hate the Christian faith more than… pic.twitter.com/AXbQkq99hf

— Megatron (@Megatron_ron) November 25, 2023

Having said all of this, I just want to digress a little bit from this discourse and take the opportunity of being in the process of writing this to afford a bit of a flashback into history.

For a long time, I believed that Muslims took Jerusalem from the Jews in the early years of Islam. Then, at least for the past ten years, I thought that Muslims won Jerusalem from the Christians. Both of these concepts are not right as a matter of fact. Instead, the reality is that Muslims won Jerusalem from the Roman Empire. Heraclius was the Caesar of the empire at that time. He had been Caesar during the life of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and he had even clashed with Muslims during the lifetime of the latter. Later on, during the reign of the second Islamic caliph Umar (RA), he lost Jerusalem to the erstwhile. As a matter of fact, most of the Middle East was won by Caliph Umar (RA), but largely from the Romans. Only Persia was won from the Persian empire.

In Roman Jerusalem, Jews had been expelled lately, initially by the Persians, and eventually also by the Romans. And the Christians were also subjects of the empire. When Umar (RA) took Jerusalem, a pact was signed between him and the Bishop of the Basilica of the Holy Speluchre. This is church is the Makkah of the Christian world. The reason is the Jesus Christ is considered to have been both crucified as well as resurrected from this place. It is a site of Holy pilgrimage for Christians. After signing the treaty, the time of afternoon prayers arrived. The Bishop, Sophronius of Jerusalem, offered Caliph Umar (RA) to pray inside the church. The Caliph refused to do so on the thought that the later generations of Muslims would convert the church into a mosque on the pretext that their caliph prayed inside the church. This has been a very touching story for me and an example of extreme tolerance of Muslims towards a non-Muslim faith. And I believe that the real beauty of Islam lies in its tolerance and regard for other peoples’ feelings and emotions.

From his description, Sophronius sounds like a really nice and noble man too. It is a part of Islamic teachings to respect higher-ranking personalities from other cultures too. Respect is a central ingredient of Islam. After that, when the Caliph went out for a tour of Jerusalem, Sophronius accompanied him. Coming close to the temple mount, Sophronius requested the Calpih to keep Jews out of Jerusalem. I think this was possibly his only request. However, the Caliph could not grant this request. He established the well-known Jewish quarter close to the Temple Mount complex. And as he set it, he sought the advice of a very famous companion of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). His name was Kaab bin Ahbaar (RA). Kaab ((RA literally means may God be please with him and it is a salutation that is normally used with the companions of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH))) was a Jew from Yemen. And I am sure that the reason why the Caliph sought his advice was his Jewish past. Such is the sensitivity of Islam viz a viz other religions.

This, I suppose, was a major turning point in the history of Jerusalem. One aspect of this is of course that Muslims took charge of the city (rather the whole country) from Romans. Another very important aspect is that the Jews, who had been sent into exile by Romans during the first century, had been resettled in Jerusalem by the Muslims.

Professor Roy Casagrande on Palestine occupation

The bitter irony that is Zionism murdering the genetically Judean and Israelite descendants.

Note – Ashkenazi mass converted to Judaism 780 AD.
Prior, they were European Gypsy Pagans.
Source: https://t.co/WMhVqKhJrb… pic.twitter.com/TLIhpi9ctD

— Google 1940s terrorism press enter, image & read! (@_NicoleNonya) May 10, 2024

A good take-home message for Jews in this is that Islam is not a hostile religion to Judaism as it is portrayed in the media. The other important message is for the Muslims to take heed of the early Muslims and their tolerance and respect for other religions.

Anyhow, I will leave it to this for now. I shall try my best to muster more energy and spare more time to write more interesting things in the coming days. May God have mercy on humans. And may humans also have mercy on humans.

Photo by archer10 (Dennis)

Extension legacy

LAST Tuesday marked an unenviable end to six years of near-absolute power. Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa would not have wanted to go as he did, spurned by friend and foe alike. Even the general public – usually so enamoured of men in uniform – seemed unforgiving as he hung up his boots, with many taking to social media to express their criticism.

Photo by archer10 (Dennis)

Photo by larrywkoester

I have been an aghast learner for a good bit of my early adulthood. Actually, I was never a conscious learner at all. This is to say that learning was not my conscious choice. In the early years of my life, I was geared by a desire to making friends. To do this, I ended up agreeing with people on most matters, even if it didn’t matter.

Uncle wanted to become a politician. All that meant something to him was that perhaps the only significant people in the world are those who are at the peak of the ladder of the sociopolitical structure. To this end, he would make acquaintances, develop connections, and participate in political chores all in the hope that it would win him political victory. Winning was all the mattered!

As you grow up in life you realize that many of the personal ambitions you were set to achieve need to be revised and reset. One even has to throw away certain ambitions as useless and prune others to look better according to the needs of the time and circumstances. Personal philosophies cannot only change, but they also end up getting reshaped and challenged.

I was following a thread on Facebook in which someone from my friends’ list had posted the picture of a former military dictator of our country sitting in front of the Taj Mahal with his wife. He had written on the post that how the general had rationalized his amusement of seeing the beautiful palace, while if someone else would have done that, it would have been considered an act of treason.

Somebody wrote below it that there is a difference between an official visit and a clandestine meeting. It caught my attention certainly. I could not resist typing that it was the same general who initiated a war between India and Pakistan just at the time when the prime ministers of the two countries were having negotiations over the fate of Kashmir. That was an official meeting too. That meeting need heed from all corners of our society. That was about the peace process. Folks should have listened to that.

Later someone posted as to why our country has been a victim of poor generalization by the general officers. For one thing, the job of a general officer is to generalize an army. They are not hired to straighten up the rest of the country. There is another aspect to it as well. A great problem in our subcontinental society is the mindset of power worship. There loads of people who believe that power is Almighty and that might is always right. Believing such ideas, when folks climb the power ladder, they simply start endorsing the ideas of the previous generations of powerful people and the rest of the folks start accepting them considering again that might is indeed totally right. This vicious cycle never comes to an end!

Photo by qrevolution

Hinduism is not peaceful in its central doctrine. Being a caste-oriented religion, I think that this is the only racist religion in the world. They are only peaceful till the time something mightier is in sight. This could be a great snake or a great army. Look at some of the religious customs in Hinduism, they are not peaceful at all.

Having said this, I have to agree that Muslims also did not overtake India with peaceful mechanisms or morally inspiring motives, as we are taught in our early education. Sometimes the invasions were quite opportunistic. This reminds me of the story of the conquest of the sub-continent by Muhammad Bin Qasim. I think that the version we are sold is not the right one.

But to say that Muslims always encroached on India! Well, that may be true to a certain extent. But look at this story that is extremely commonplace in our country about the invasions by Sultan Mehmood of Ghaznavi. He is really portrayed as a brutal man. However, the truth is that his father was attacked first by the Indian king Jayapaala due to fear of the formers growing power in Ghazni. It was the attack by Jayapaala that led to the famous battle of Peshawar and eventually to the seventeen attacks by the Sultan.

Having said this, Indians claim Indian territory to be as deep into Afghanistan as bordering Ghazni. This is true as well as that at many times during the course of history, parts of Afghanistan were under various Indian dominions. This brings me to the question, what are Pashtuns fighting for (I am talking about the separatists).

The truth is, as George Friedman quoted once upon a time, that there nobody on the planet who can rightfully claim a place to his race. Everyone everywhere is an immigrant.

Photo by Black-Z-ro [200,000+ views]