Jihad: Romanticising the Old Demonising the New 

 

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

​

Part 2: I’m sorry but I really feel that some of the things that were said and comparisons that were made by brothers Babur Ahmed and Moazzem Begg (in the Srebrenica podcast) are unfair and harmful to our ummah as they hold people to a standard that never existed.

 

Firstly, it is wrong to glorify and romanticise the Bosnian jihad and Chechen jihad and paint them as somehow less violent and purer than the armed conflicts in our Muslim lands today. Bosnian mujahideen cut heads as did Khattab in Chechnya. This was known at the time and was brought to light again during the trial, in 2016, of former Bosnian Army Third Corps commander Sakib Mahmuljin from the El Mujahedeen group. Chechen fighters eventually also took the conflict into Moscow by laying siege to a theatre and they took over and rigged a school with bombs! Hundreds of civilians, including children, were killed in the rescue operations and shoot-outs.

 

Brother Moazzem Begg mentioned how our beloved prophet was merciful when he entered Makkah, but that was when he had the upper hand as a conqueror. However, why not mention the way that he dealt with Bani Qurayzah for committing treason at a time when the Muslims were weak and had been surrounded by their enemies from all sides, during the Battle of the Trench? Or why not consider the fact that Allah Ta'ala rebuked the Muslims for accepting ransoms after the Battle of Badr when they may have won the battle but they certainly hadn't won the war (see Surah 8:67)? Mercy and justice are two separate concepts. Our beloved prophet was always just but he showed mercy at a time when he had strength and power, not when his relatively small group of believers were weak and being threatened with complete annihilation.

 

Conflicts today are just as chaotic and confusing as they were during the time of our beloved prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and of the Rightly Guided Khalifs. Khalid ibn al-Waleed (ra) wrongly spilt the blood of Banu Jadhimah and again possibly even under the leadership of Abu Bakr (ra). With the words, “O Allâh! I am innocent of what Khalid has done” our beloved prophet showed that the act was to be condemned but the man was not shunned. Also, a sahabi mistakenly killed two men from a tribe who had treacherously massacred around 70 Qur’an reciters, even though our beloved prophet had promised the two men protection. In fact, in the chaos and confusion of conflict, sahaba killed sahaba!

 

In essence, what some of the guests of Islam21C are doing is what Islam21C accuse those who are against revolts of doing, and that is painting a false picture of our distant and near history and of how Muslims in the past dealt with conflicts between each other and disbelievers, hence the need to make the much-appreciated effort to translate the article ‘Scholars that led revolutions’. Even Western nations use ‘collateral damage’ and they were being used as ‘human shields’ to justify the mass killings of civilians, and they have ‘friendly fire’ when things go wrong.

 

For part 1 click here

​

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

​

Umm Hafab

​

Home

Muslim News

Answering Disbelievers

Advising Believers

​