Overview

The tribulations of the umma are traceable to corruption of knowledge. Militant jurists assert that terrorism is martyrdom. This reveals the extent to which jurisprudence degenerated. Islam is a teaching of reconciliation, not aggression. Muslims are peacemakers. But Islam is not perceived as a teaching of reconciliation. Islam is perceived as a ""religion of war."" What are the reasons for this? The umma was betrayed by militant jurists. Under pressure from hawkish rulers, militant ulama reinvented the religion of peace as a religion of war. They did it to provide hawkish rulers with a ""religious"" justification to wage wars of aggression, prohibited in revelation. By providing a justification of aggression, militant ulama betrayed Islam and debased their profession by permitting it to descend to the rank of political propaganda. They permitted their profession to regress for political ends. They reinterpreted particular verses of the Book of Allah to render permissible what Allah prohibited: wars of aggression. They persuaded the umma into treating wars of aggression as a requirement of the faith, a sixth pillar of Islam, in the epic struggle between the dar al-Islam and the dar al-harb. They treat the perpetration of unlawful wars of aggression, into acts of piety. Rendering wars of aggression as a ""pillar of Islam"" obliged the umma to embark on a warpath against the rest of the world, in the epic clash between the dar al-Islam and the dar al-harb. It required the umma to perpetrate war crimes under the banner of Islam. This represents a betrayal of Islam and a corruption of its teaching. In this way, the rearticulation of Islam as a religion of war is not just un-Islamic. It is anti-Islamic. For the Book of Allah prohibits terrorism. But hawkish traditions and the rulings of preachers tell a different tale. An enquiry reveals an affinity between terrorism and jihad al-talab or the ""sixth pillar of Islam."" For jihad al-talab entails the ""propagation"" Islam by force as a religious requirement. What is the difference between jihad al-talab to ""propagate"" Islam by the sword and waging a war of aggression, prohibited in revelation? Militant ulama rearticulated the teaching of reconciliation as a religion of war by rejecting - abrogating - all verses in the Book of Allah that restrict warfare to self-defense or a fight against persecution. This was assisted by a misrepresentation of the teaching of revelation in different ways. The misrepresentation provided a justification - no matter how feeble - for the turn from revelation to tradition, to furnish the justification for waging unlawful wars of aggression. The justification of waging wars of aggression was tantamount to rendering lawful what Allah made unlawful, wars of aggression. The transformation of the teaching of reconciliation into a teaching of war was enabled by politicized exegesis, which entails recourse to perceptions contrary to the teaching of revelation. The treatment of tradition as revelation and recourse to the teaching of abrogation transformed the teaching of reconciliation into a teaching of war. The transformation was assisted by the repression of reason, encouraged by the perception that using reason for the purpose of understanding revelation is kufr. Epistemological errors encompass a paralysis of analysis, a misrepresentation of the teaching of revelation, the rejection of causation, and embracing the doctrine of predestination. The latter rendered the Muslims resigned to their fate. Further errors encompass recourse to the teaching of abrogation, the replacement of revealed rulings by rulings extracted from traditions and the endorsement of jihad al-talab as the sixth pillar of Islam. Islam is being used for political purposes. This process persisted for a millennium. Even the meanings of words were altered. The turn to tradition was necessitated by the perceived requirement to bypass the prohibition of wars of aggression in the Book of Allah.

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