Jihad: Romanticising the Old Demonising the New 

 

(A response to Babur Ahmed and Moazzem Begg's Srebrenica podcast on Islam21C)

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Part 1: Brother Moazzem Begg talked about how the women in Bosnia saw the Bosnian mujahideen as heroes. I’m sure that the sisters who were raped by American soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, at the start of the conflict, would have seen the resistance fighters as heroes just as much as the Bosnian women saw the mujahideen there as heroes. Unfortunately, for some reason, Muslim public speakers seem to be trying to erase the history of the Iraq conflict in the minds of people and instead they just go on about conspiracies, but you can still find these stories in official US reports and investigations such as the Taguba report.

 

In fact, if you want to understand the Iraq (and Syria) conflict then you can find translations from Arabic of the letters, audios and videos of the major players at the start of the conflict like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in western scholarly websites. According to the Taguba report, early on in the conflict, our Iraqi sister known only as ‘Noor’ managed to write a note which was smuggled out of prison, urging the Iraqi resistance to bomb the jail to spare the women further shame.

 

And who remembers the tragic case of our beautiful, young, teenage sister Abeer? American soldiers stationed near her house would touch her inappropriately and say inappropriate things to her, and before her family could send her to a safer place, two of the soldiers raped her while a third shot dead her mother, father and younger sister. She could hear them being shot while she was being raped. He then also proceeded to rape her, then shot her in the head and then set fire to her body.

 

And who can forget Donald Rumsfeld’s response to the Abu Ghraib photos that came out. You know, the ones of American soldiers posing with naked, male, Iraqi prisoners who were piled on top of each other. Rumsfeld was more shocked by the fact that digital cameras existed that could take photos and spread them so easily, than he was with the devastating conduct of his own American soldiers.

 

And let’s not fail to mention the humiliating treatment of our sisters at the hands of the mainly Shia, Counter-Terrorism Service. Shias who George Bush Junior, with the help of Tony Blair, placed in power to replace Saddam Hussein in a war justified by lies and opposed by millions even in the West. Our sisters were stripped naked, electrocuted, raped and had cigarettes extinguished on their buttocks. It was a suicide bomber in 2013 who put an end to this humiliating torture at the hands of one particularly notorious official. But that’s okay, when you’re counting up the numbers of Muslims killed by Muslims, then you can go ahead and continue to include low-life scum like him in your count.

 

There was no revolt in Iraq. It was regime change at the hands of the Americans that directly lead to Muslim blood being shed and our sisters’ honour being violated. So what was the excuse then for not coming to their rescue?

 

Please note that I haven’t included references because all of the above incidents have been widely reported in the media.

 

In the article on Allah’s name Al-Dayyaan, it was mentioned regarding “A nation whose land, infrastructure, heritage, and community were decimated by an invader” that the oppressed will be given justice against their oppressors. Isn’t it a mistake to feel safe that the hands raised, praying against the oppressors, are towards only leaders and armies, and are not raised against us, an unconcerned or an unfairly hostile ummah?

 

For part 2 click here

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​Wal-hamdu lillahi rabbil 'alamin (March 2023 originally a comment made in 2020 which has now been slightly modified)

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Umm Hafab

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