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In discussing Islamic rule and Islamic politics, let me return to the manner in which I started my letter to you, by wholeheartedly agreeing that an effective struggle is only one of ideas against ideas. It is this struggle that Muslims across the world seek to raise as they endure the brutality and injustice of their foreign sponsored rulers. In so commenting, I want to sever a potential link that I sense in the undertone of your dialogue with Usamah - the necessary association between a call for Islamic rule with terrorism. The call for Islamic rule is not one that necessarily employs the acts of terrorism or violence with which you have debated Usamah. It is an intellectual and political struggle advocating the need for change through the strength of thought, concept and argument. Appealing to the morals of brutal tyrants in advocating change is an ineffective strategy and one that does not go to the core of the failings in the Muslim world. The alternative, however, is not to resort to violence.
This call for change in the Muslim world is one that advocates a lasting change through the re-emergence of Islamic rule. It can only happen through a change in the ideas with which people view life, progress and success, and the basis upon which they decide good and bad, right and wrong. Thoughts and attitudes are not changed from the barrel of a gun or at the edge of a blade, but through demonstrating the strength of thought, the evidences that support it and the soundness of its rationale - the only means to establish sound conviction. Propelling these ideas into the political mediums of our societies is the only way they will come to be heard and considered; not through the spectacle of violence. It is then that people can realise that they are in need of change, and subsequently to undertake demands, protests and campaigns on the basis of these thoughts.
Although some in the Muslim world have reacted through violence, change through a change in thought is enshrined in the example of our noble Prophet (pbuh). He undertook a similar effort to correct the injustices, oppression and persecution of people in his society. Despite facing oppression, persecution and boycott, he engaged in an ideological and political struggle against the prevalent system and eventually created the transformation of Arabia and the world.
It is this peaceful approach, which threatens most the rulers of the Muslim world. An idea cannot be quashed through force - it requires a stronger, counter idea to repel it. This is too much of a challenge for the intellectually bankrupt rulers in the Muslim world whose opposition to such challenges leads them to brutally oppress, murder and counteract this message through the use of deception, misinformation and lies.
As I write, report after report is published attempting to blur the demarcation between the call for Islamic rule, which some term 'political Islam', and terrorism. By doing so, those who undertake such a call will soon appear on the radar of this supposed 'war on terror', if they have not already. Whilst Americans and Europeans celebrate the anniversaries of the violent and bloody revolutions that led to the formation of western nation states, Muslims advocate change through ideas and yet are associated with terrorism.
Yes, the real struggle is one of ideas; it pits the Islamic conception of life against that of liberal secularism and capitalism. It will not be won through violence, as people will always rebel against imposition - if not now, then later - but through the strength of argument. This is the struggle that is being played before us and it is our responsibility to ensure that the victor is nothing other then the strongest idea.
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