A brother asked:
An inevitable question: Why is there no Islamic economic empire to counter the zionist empire? In other words: Why is the world order opposing the Islamic order even before it is established?
I think we need to pose this question before we talk about any aqeeda battle.
Do you have an answer for this?
My response:
First of all, I am not sure about the term “Zionist empire”. Israel is a dependent colony, not the center of an empire. It represents a Western outpost in what was formerly an American imperial project in the region, and what is now a multinational project of corporate imperialism. But I understand your meaning.
We can, of course, similarly ask, “why is there no Latin American empire?” or “why is there no Southeast Asian empire?” or “why is there no African empire?” Because those regions, like ours, have been utterly dominated, exploited, undermined, and sabotaged. Local elites collaborate with the global elite and sacrifice the welfare of their own countries for the sake of their own personal benefit. That is how imperialism works.
The United States is the most powerful country in history, and it is the most insulated country in history; between two oceans over which it enjoys complete control. Militarily and economically, it has no rival. The collapse of the Soviet Union left us in a uni-polar world; any potential challenger to US power is crushed, any coalition of powers that aspire to defy US power is subject to extreme intimidation. There is no mystery here.
Maintaining power is the primary ideology of power, and the US has the capability to destabilize any aspirant who hopes to establish any degree of independence and sovereignty.
The unique aspect of this with regards to the Islamic movement is that no other belief system actually contains a comprehensive, realistic, feasible alternative to the prevailing system. As was always the case, calling people to worship Allah, to leave their enslavement to other men for enslavement to their Creator, is the most dangerous revolutionary message imaginable. Tawhid nullifies the illegitimate authority of self-serving, man-made rule by social and economic elites. It represents the destruction of every feudal system. And, of course, Islam is the Fitrah of every human being; so yes, Islam itself, as a belief, is an existential threat to the global system, and if they did not oppose it, this would be very strange.
But another important factor we must recognize is that our own people are deficient; deficient in their obedience to Allah, deficient in their knowledge, and deficient in their intellectual skills. The real answer to the question is one word: “wahn”, as Rasulullah ï·º told us. Love of life and fear of death have permeated our hearts and the hearts of our leaders (I am referring to Islamist leaders), and this cripples us. It has left us with a leadership more interested in position and prestige than with policy and progress. We float around in abstract ideas and hopes, we medicate our suffering with Islamic rhetoric, and we either do nothing of substance or else we plunge into brave but irrational actions that have no significant benefit.
We cannot ultimately place the blame on our opponents, for we have always had opponents, but we have not always failed. ‘Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves’; we changed in our devotion to Islam, and we lost; and we will not win until we change back to our previous state of devotion.