Islam in the World Today

Situations of Minority Conflict and the Ummah's Responsibilities

by Syed Z. Abedin

Director of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and London, U.K.

Introduction

The world situation with respect to Muslim minority communities around the globe is getting more complex day by day. No respite appears to be in sight. We at the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs have at the moment no propositions either. In any case, we do not see ourselves as problem solvers. Most cases of conflict in present times which involve Muslims are of a political nature and their solution calls for political initiatives on the part of governments.

One reason perhaps why viable solutions have not been forthcoming is that nobody is asking the right questions. What we can do and have been doing over the past ten years, in our capacity as an independent research institute, is to formulate the right questions and to provide an accurate and objective database for possible answers. This helps to clarify the issues. And if there is will on the part of the contending parties, the Institute's input could facilitate the search for solutions.

As is well known, there are at least half a dozen situations in various corners of the globe where Muslims are presently engaged in a desperate struggle. Imminent or potential conflict situations are many times this number.

Now in all these situations, live or latent, major or minor, the Ummah (community of Islam) is urged to intervene. These calls for active intervention are made not only by those minority Muslims who are immediately affected but also by various constituents within the Ummah. Thus the pressure on the Ummah is both domestic and foreign, internal and external.

The Ummah is thus faced with a dilemma. The dilemma consists in that even if there were consensual will on issues of minority conflict on the part of all constituent members, resources are not inexhaustible. There is no way in which the Ummah could wage a determined, aggressive and successful campaign on all fronts where Muslims are presently engaged in conflict with others.

Let us not forget that even the United States not too long ago had to solicit material and manpower resources of over two dozen countries of the world in order to wage a successful campaign on one single front.

To make matters more complicated upholders of the Islamic cause inside the Ummah insist on making each occasion of conflict anywhere in the world, in which any number of Muslims are involved, a test case for the Ummah's Islamic commitment and its consciousness of accountability before God Almighty.

The Ummah has therefore before it two options: it could either choose to plunge into every quarrel anywhere in the world where Muslims in any number feel that they are being thwarted from getting whatever they want, and in consequence cease to be a credible world power; or it has to face the wrath of its own people, who see in the lack of alacrity on the part of the Ummah a sign of betrayal of Islam.

Verbal Jihad

The Ummah's record in the past indicates that to save face it has opted for a third alternative, which, for want of a better term, may be described as a verbal jihad. every now and then, when the domestic pressures build up, various spokesmen of the Ummah come forward with passionate statements directed at the offending parties.

In these events, the statements could have constituted a clever, strategic compromise between the two options noted above. but these statements, pliable though they are, end up adding further fuel to a fire that should not have been started in the first place: they alienate the non-Muslims concerned from all the constituents of the Ummah (even from the faith they profess), and raise false hopes of Ummah support among the Muslim minorities. This leads to tragic consequences.

The Ummah concept

One possible way of resolving this dilemma could be to look at the Ummah as representing not a political but primarily a religious and spiritual concept. Realistically speaking, in present times there appears to be no other way of giving viable meaning to this concept. for, if the Ummah is projected as a political entity, then there is in truth no Ummah. There are indeed 50 or more sovereign Muslim states, but they are nation states, each with its own national goals and interests, but no Ummah.

If on the other hand the term "Ummah" is accepted as primarily reflecting a religious and spiritual concept, then in all situations of conflict the questions to ask would be: is this a religious conflict? that is, are Muslims being victimized because of their religion? Are their rights to freedom of worship, belief, practice, and propagation being denied?

If the consensus among the constituents of the Ummah is that, yes, it is a religious conflict, then without doubt every effort should be made to resolve it to Muslim satisfaction.

But if our investigation reveals that the real cause of the conflict is not religious but ethnic, national, economic, strategic, or political and that religion is being used merely as a pretext, then like all secular conflicts it should be amenable to negotiations, accommodation, and compromise. the Ummah's responsibility would then be to use its good offices to facilitate such a resolution.

However, it is important to remember that the procedures adopted for doing so by the Ummah would be markedly different from those adopted in the case of a religious conflict. The hellfire and brimstone strategies most often employed in religious conflicts in our time are not likely to pay much in dividends in political conflicts. Unfortunately, this important distinction has not always been maintained by even responsible spokesmen of the Ummah.

Furthermore, it has also to be considered that if a conflict is truly a religious conflict, then in all good conscience it has to be conducted as one. We cannot claim commitment to a cause and then go on to pursue the cause oblivious to its value limitations. Islam is not a racial, national, or ethnic concept. We are Muslims not because we all have kinship or language ties, or live in the same territory, or dress in the same way, or prefer the same cuisine. We are Muslims because we together believe in certain common values. These values color (or should color) everything we do. So that without being told who we are, anybody looking at us, from our appearance and behavior, could determine that these must be followers of the faith of Islam.

in Islam there is no concept of total war. In any case, we as a people were not raised to conquer the world for God. God is capable of doing so himself. Didn't he say in the Qur'an that if he had wanted to he could have made the whole world Muslim? But he did not. (Qur'an 10:99) We were raised in order to be a witness (a model) unto what a God-conscious life of total surrender to his will is supposed to be lived like and look like.

Revenge or Reconciliation?

In a situation of conflict between two groups, one Muslim and the other non-Muslim, in particular in the case of actual or potential conflict between Muslim minorities and non-Muslim majorities, the crucial question to determine at the very outset is: is the primary concern of the Ummah to put a nation or a community or a religion in the dock before the international community, i.e., to determine culpability first? oOr, is it to provide urgent relief to the suffering millions engaged in conflict?

It should never be forgotten that however cheap Muslim life may have become in our time, causing its wanton loss for self-titillation or communal ego-boosting is still a cardinal sin.

It is also perhaps instructive to note here that however cynical and polarized, religiously or nationally, the world may have become, the conscience of the world community is still alive and well. Indeed, some of the most damaging indictments of government policies toward their Muslim minorities have come not from Muslims but from non-Muslims, both indigenous and foreign.

And Herein Lies Our Hope.

Let us build on this hope. Let not the forces of hatred and fanaticism drown our Islamic good sense. Let some people among us plumb the depths and resources of our moral and Islamic being and come up with ways of understanding and resolution.

Who knows what non-Muslim powers may also be waiting for such an opening. After all, they also well realize that, considering the present international order, the minorities that reside within their jurisdiction cannot be just wished away. In fact, looked at from the perspective of history, non-Muslim states such as Russia, China, India, and Bulgaria, which contain significant Muslim minorities, would not be what they are today if their national life had not been interwoven by the multiple and many-hued contributions of their minority constituents.

The people of conscience in these countries have given and are giving expression to their sense of outrage at the violation of human and civil rights perpetrated in these societies. Perhaps these people are also wishing for such a gesture on our part. They have already done their human duty. it is now our turn.

Let us put aside, for a while at least, our sense of umbrage as Muslims and take our Islamic courage in hand and be the first to break this impasse, this standoff between communities and states, between the governors and the governed.

Let the world community know that we come, not to condemn nor to aggravate an already sensitive and explosive situation, but that we desire only to understand and ameliorate. Whether it be Russia or China or India or the Philippines or Bulgaria or Cyprus or Burma, let the world know that we come, more in sorrow than in anger, to help find a workable arrangement that would put a stop to the bloodletting and the suffering and the humiliation and the loss of honor and dignity. And to help lift the burdens and the shackles that have oppressed the victims, and equally, the conscience of the perpetrators.

Is this too much to ask?