Islam or Islamism: Post Mortem of an Empire

By Leslie Terebessy

The umma is experiencing trials. It is struggling in its relations with the rest of the world. Wars rage in different parts of the earth. A few are fueled by the writings of Islamists, Syed Qutb and Mawdudi. They used Islam for political ends. They wanted to establish a paradise - a global caliphate - in this world. They were impatient for the paradise in the hereafter. Their agendas were secular. Jihadists reinvented Islam as Islamism. Thereby they brought and persist in bringing grief to the umma as well as to non-Muslims. Jihadists peddle a parody of the West: evil, repressive and materialistic. Jihadists perceive themselves as "holier" than everyone else. Militant Islam brought defeats in France in 732, to Baghdad in 1258, and at Vienna in 1529 and 1683. For "Allah does not love aggressors" (Quran, 2:190). In becoming an aggressor, a Muslims deprive themselves of assistance from Allah. For "Allah does not guide wrongdoers." It is urgent to reject the binary hallucinations of the jihadists. It is necessary to reject the perception of the "clash" between the dar al-Islam and the dar al-harb. For Islam and the West are rooted in the way of Abraham. Yet jihadists treat wars of aggression, prohibited in revelation, as a "sixth pillar of Islam." They treat the perpetration of war crimes as a requirement of the faith. Has anyone ever witnessed a travesty of this scale ever before? Sectarians cause divisions. This belligerence is a result of past errors. Is Islam as understood and practiced today the same as the Islam as practiced by the prophet and the Muslims of his time? For Allah says He never changes the condition of people until they first change what is in themselves (Quran 13:11). The umma exchanged the Book of Allah for books of traditions. But do predecessors provide better guidance than Allah? Politics corrupted the knowledge of revelation. The politicization of revelation furnished the justification for building an empire. Islam was reinvented as Islamism. The politicization of Islam, reinventing it as a teaching of war, was expedited by the weaponization of exegesis and jurisprudence. The weaponization of the epistemology of revelation furnished a justification for jihad al-talab or wars of aggression. But wars of territorial expansion are prohibited in revelation. The weaponization of jurisprudence was buttressed by a turn from revelation to tradition. It also entailed recourse to the teaching of abrogation. All verses that restrict war to self-defense were allegedly "abrogated" by the verse of the sword (Quran 9:5). But revelation furnishes no justification for recourse to the teaching of abrogation. The turn to tradition and its treatment as revelation was assisted by the repression of reason. For which reasonable person would endorse the perception that traditions are "revelations from God?" The repression of reason was justified by treating the use of reason to understand revelation as kufr. Five thousand thinkers were killed by Musa al-Hadi in 786 for the "crime" of "thinking." Mutawakkil also repressed persons who dared to think. The gates to ijtihad were shut and taqlid - blind following of tradition - became a requirement. Al-Ghazali repressed rationality further by his rejection of causality. As a result, empirical pursuits were excluded from the curricula. The umma fell into backwardness. The repression of reason and freedom entrenched despotism within the community. The rejection of causation prepared the road for the emergence of the teaching of predestination, used to justify the acts of unjust rulers. Tradition surpassed revelation. It was treated as "equal" to revelation, with the authority to abrogate and replace revealed rulings, as exemplified in the penalties for apostasy and adultery. The Book of Allah prescribes the death penalty neither for apostasy nor adultery. Persons that persist in endorsing these punishments transgress the boundaries of Allah.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GTGNZ468
• ISBN13: 9798253080344
• Release Date: March 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 278 Pages
• Weight: 0.83 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"