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What Oppresses Muslims?

Warner MacKenzie - 7/17/2007

Oppression: 1. to burden with cruel or unjust impositions or restraints; subject to a burdensome or harsh exercise of authority or power: a people oppressed by totalitarianism. 2. to put down; subdue or suppress. 3. to press upon or against, crush.

Whilst discussing Islam with an apostate friend, as I often do for his invaluable insight, I raised the subject of the “Muslim as victim” mindset so often heard from people of that faith and his quick reply left me momentarily non-plussed “ it’s because they all consider themselves to be oppressed”…. “what ?,… even those who live freely in Western democracies?” I asked….. “Muslims simply have a different idea of what constitutes oppression” was his response. The conversation that ensued prompted me to try and add some flesh to the bones of his revelation, .

It’s difficult to understand how anyone fleeing to the United States or a European welfare state, from any Muslim country, could possibly describe themselves as oppressed. Compared to their undemocratic and invariably corrupt homelands, complete with secret police, hell-hole prisons for dissenters, no welfare safety nets and little chance of a better life for their children, one would think that life in the egalitarian West with its higher living standard, equality for all under the law, better health services and employment opportunities, would seem, to a Muslim émigré, like heaven on earth. After all, they are at liberty to practice their religion, build mosques and go about their lives unhindered, dress as they wish and educate their children to a standard impossible in their native lands. No aspect of the dictionary definition above could possibly seem applicable to them, yet, oppressed they still claim to be. Interviews with, or press-release statements by, any Muslim spokesperson are seldom complete without at least one reference to “oppressed Muslims”.

As I pointed out in a previous article, Islamic definitions of certain terms and concepts are often wildly at odds with how the rest of the non-Muslims world understands them. In that article I examined how Islam defines the word “peace”. A state of peace, in the way that Islam defines it, can only come to fruition when the entire world either converts, or submits as second-class humiliated subjects, to Islamic rule and the entire world thereby becomes dar-al Islam ( the domain of Islam). In the meantime, a state of perpetual war must prevail until that objective is attained. So the non-Muslim world - dar al harb (the domain of war) - will continue to be confronted, eroded and weakened, from within and without, by any and every means possible, till submissive acceptance is universal and there is no longer any resistance (fitna). Resistance is therefore synonymous with oppression and conversely, in a somewhat Orwellian paradox, …“Submission equals freedom”.

“The seeming contradiction stems from the Western notion of “freedom” and “oppression” and radical Islam’s different view of those two terms. For radicals in al Qaeda, the dichotomy between “freedom” and “oppression” is wholly founded on whether sharia law is made supreme in the world; that is, whether every single man, woman, and child — both Muslim and non-Muslim — lives under the mandates of Islamic law. If they do, they are considered “free”; if not, as the case is today, the mass of humanity is considered “oppressed.”
- Raymond Ibrahim “Seeking Sympathy from the Infidel” National Review Online May 21, 2007

[the] role and the duty of Islam [is] to fulfill its mandate as revealed by Allah to the Prophet Mohammed. That mandate remains to call all of mankind to Islam, da’wa in the fulfillment of God’s will and importantly to help ensure Islam’s unimpeded triumph throughout the world.

[A]critical theme of Malik’s work is that “just war”, or jihad, in Islam is inherently spiritual warfare, religious warfare, and to the extent that Islamic forces have spiritually prepared themselves, they will “strike terror into the hearts” of Islam’s enemies. This terror as Malik describes in detail, is both physical and metaphysical, because Islamic warfare is intrinsically part of a cosmic struggle for the reign of Allah’s will on earth between the forces of God, dar al-Islam, and that of dar al-Harb, those who dwell in ignorance and darkness of the true knowledge of God.
- Lieutenant Colonel Joseph C. Myers United States Army, commenting on S.K. Malik’s "The Quranic Concept of War".



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When a believer sees that someone is trying to obstruct another believer from travelling on the road that leads to God, [the] spirit of Jihad requires that such a man who is imposing obstacles should be prevented from doing so and the obstacles placed by him should also be removed, so that mankind may freely be able to negotiate its own path that leads to Heaven. To omit to do this is a culpable omission, if only because by not striving to clear or straighten the path we become passive spectators of the counter-initiatory forces imposing a blockade in the way of those who mean to keep their faith with God.
- Brigadier S.K. Malik : “The Quranic Concept of War”

"And fight on, until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah altogether and everywhere." These injunctions laid down the ultimate and absolute divine purpose.”

“Islam views the world as though it were bipolarised in two opposing camps-Dar us-Salm facing Darul-Harb--the first one is submissive to the Lord in co-operating with God's purpose to establish peace, order and such other preconditions of human development, but the second one, on the other hand, is engaged in perpetuating defiance of the same Lord. Such a state of affairs which engages any one in rebellion against God's will is termed as "Fitna”--which word literally means test or trial.

The term "Fitna " refers us to misconduct on the part of a man who establishes his own norms and expects obedience from others, thereby usurping God's authority--who alone is sovereign. In Sura Infa'al Chapter 8, Verse 39, it is said "And fight on until there remains no more tumult or oppression and they remain submissive only to God." To the same effect are the words used in Sura Toba Verse 9, "Fight those who believe not in Allah, nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which has been forbidden by [the] lord and His Apostle nor acknowledge the religion of truth (even if they are) of the people of the book,( i.e. Jews and Christians) until they pay Jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued."
- Allah Bukhsh K. Brohi : Preface to “The Quranic Concept of War”