In these days we remember the Nazis and Fascists persecution of the Jews (Shoha in Hebrew, Shuhada in Arabic). Jews are much closer to Muslims from a spiritual point of view than what divides the two politically. The French Philosopher Jean Paul Sartre regarding the Shoha said: “The anti-Semitism, and the consequent Shoah, did not start only from pseudoscientific alibis, but above all from social impulses, from the anger of the last ones who were looking for someone to be lowered under themselves, not knowing how to rise. The racist is a man who is afraid of his life, his freedom, his responsibility, the changing world, he does not want to deserve anything, he thinks that everything is due to him by birth, <<and the Jew here is just an excuse: elsewhere we will use the negro and the yellow>>”. We know the philosophers are not futurologists and Sartre instead of the “yellow” (today the emerging and dominant race in number, in finance and economy) should have said the Muslim. But perhaps it was negatively influenced by the colonial war of the French who tortured and killed the Algerians (notoriously Muslims). But, it is beyond
doubt that the “yellow” are today the worst racists who persecute Muslims as and even worse than the Nazi persecutors of the Jews. As we write more than a million Chinese citizens are imprisoned in concentration and re-education camps where the authorities systematically try to destroy the light of Islam in them. And the Western world turns to the other side not to look and not hear, prefers to remember the Holocaust and remain impassive in the face of the fact that over a million Muslims, almost a sixth of the
Shoah’s deaths is today, in this moment, imprisoned in concentration camps and in conditions that are unknown but can be well imagined. Not only that, but, for those Chinese Muslims who are still free every Muslim family is obliged to host an “educator” in their houses. The “educator” has the function of forcing them to behave as non-Muslims: and this means forcing the unfortunate to drink alcohol, eat forbidden foods and not pray. As if this were enough to create non-Muslims! Allah in His Infinite Mercy said in the Holy Book that the laws of Shariah are suspended in case of constraints, the mind and body of a Muslim can
be tortured but not his heart.
Recalling an Amnesty International report of 2016, as many as 94% of the victims of attacks caused by the so-called “Islamic terrorism” is in turn Muslim. This reality raises doubts about the true origin of this phantom “Islamic Terrorism”. Leaving aside conspiracy theories with implications of international political fantasies, we note that those who physically perform these heinous crimes are young and know very little about Islam, especially the so-called recruits. I do not feel like calling them converted because theirs is not Islam, anyone who joins jihadist movements with the aim of killing anyone who does not think like them is
not Muslim even if he recites the profession of faith. It is not by acting with the tongue that you become Muslim, but with the heart. It’s like taking any ordinary dress and labeling it by Armani or Versace. But, the label does not change the reality of things: the dress will always be an ordinary dress. An individual who adheres to a group of assassins can certainly not be called a man of noble character and to label himself as a Muslim without believing in Islam from his heart does not make him a Muslim. This situation of the alleged “jihadists” actually reminds us of the fairy tale of the crow by Phaedrus (tumens inani graculus …).
The crow adorned itself with the peacock’s feathers to pass itself off as such, but it is and will always remain a crow. But, conversely these alleged and self-styled “jihadists” ominously remember the Nazi hordes and reflect in a certain way the crass ignorance that unites them to the Nazis of the past who managed not to think, but only to obey.
But there is a category of Muslim victims enormously greater than those who have tasted physical death, it is all those peaceful Muslims, over a billion and a half, who gradually and inexorably see their rights of free citizens shrink both for laws always more restrictive and coercive both for the increasingly rampant hatred that is incited by irresponsible acts committed by non-Muslims – as self-defined Islamic fighters – and finds fertile ground in the ignorance that reigns even among certain categories of Muslims who prefer to escape instead of not only condemning but cooperating with the police. Thus these Muslims forget a tradition of the Holy Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم who said that if he saw his favorite daughter commit a theft would be the first to denounce it. But a theft is a crime without doubt obnoxious, but less serious than killing unarmed people and guilty of a different creed as happens with the bestial arrogance of the alleged “jihadists”.
The serious danger is that a real and proper persecution of Muslims in Europe can unleash itself in an uncontrolled way as it is happening in China at this time and as happened in the 1930s and 40s of the last century with the Jews, unaware victims of one of the darkest moments in European history.
How it happened more recently in the Balkans when thousands of Muslims were killed in the name of racial and religious divide. A spark is enough and hatred is ignited. One of the reasons why Allah in the Holy and Glorious Qur’an tells stories of the past is to make Muslims understand how to read and interpret the historical conditions in which they live.
Today we are witnessing a politicization of Islam, especially in Italy where the right-left dualisms, are pressing at the expense of an inner search, of a conscience that Islam is today the only religion in the world capable to guarantee life beyond physical death while maintaining a very strong social value with a political system based on the supremacy of spiritual authority over temporal power. In fact, the social implication of Islam does not need a democratic apparatus because Islam was born and developed thanks to the
superiority and centrality of spiritual power over temporal or political power. This today is completely forgotten by the Muslims, especially in the so-called Islamic countries, which have suffered the “democratization” of their colonizers. “Democratization” that has raped and made very ancient balanced forces disappearing. I do not raise an accusation to democracy as such but it is undoubtedly not a perfect system where hierarchies are often shuffled at the expense of the truth. This hierarchical confusion runs
the risk of making reckless statements and out of the very essence of Islam. It is worth remembering that in his last speech in Makkah Mukarramah the Holy Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said that there is no superiority between Arabs and non-Arabs. This statement means that in Islam there is no superiority of one race over another, there is no superiority of a white on a black or a black on a white.
There is one last point. Is it not ridiculous that the issue of the recognition of Islam should be by the Ministry of the Interior the interlocutor of the Italian State? Among the many, too many faults of the Italian State today a new ministry would be necessary, that of Religious Affairs, with the specific purpose of recognizing and protecting religious minorities in Italy, minorities that are a reality. Muslims are not potential criminals to be compelled having to dialogue with the Italian State through a ministry that
primarily deals with enforcing law and order like Interior Ministry. Muslims respect the law because our religion is inherently the highest expression of the civil and moral values that can be desired in a society and every Muslim must be proud of this and perhaps the Islamic organizations that compete to have the palm of being the first to have recognized Islam in Italy should abandon a certain servility towards people who would not hesitate a second to stab them behind. All Muslims should talk directly with the Prime Minister, who, as a good Catholic, cannot deny what Pope Paul VI (Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini)requested the then Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Koenig, to tell the members of the Faculty of Al-Azhar In Cairo, Egypt, namely that “Muslims and Christians worship the same God”.
Dr. Shaych (Pir) Muhammad Muddaththir (Silvio) Gualini, PhD – pir@chishtinizami.it
