Looking at the ‘bigger picture’ and from a concerned Muslim perspective, I’d like to offer my six reflections on Trump’s visit and speech at the Riyadh Summit.
Looking at the ‘bigger picture’ and from a concerned Muslim perspective, I’d like to offer my six reflections on Trump’s visit and speech at the Riyadh Summit.
This week, US President Donald Trump will visit Occupied Palestine (also known as Israel) and the Vatican. This followed a two day visit to Saudi Arabia, in which Trump signed an agreement to sell the Saudi regime $350 billion worth of weapons; held a meeting with fifty Arab leaders; and gave a speech on what Muslims should be doing in response to terrorism.
Hail Hydra. pic.twitter.com/NbGk8QIF3w
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) May 21, 2017
Whilst CNN expectedly turned our brains to mush by debating whether this trip made Trump a “strong”, “conventional” President or it “re-energised” his presidency, AJ+ lead with “While everyone was distracted by what Ivanka and Melania weren’t wearing, Trump just signed the biggest arms deal ever with Saudi Arabia” asking, “Is the media ignoring the bigger picture?”
Surprisingly it took FOX ‘News’ to answer this question. Host Chris Wallace explained why Trump’s first international visit – which traditionally for a US President is to Canada or Mexico – was instead to Saudi Arabia and Occupied Palestine, saying its agenda was to “unify the Arab world” and “to isolate Iran.” I wonder then, what the $350 billion in additional weapons are for?
http://youtu.be/X1TfefH0a2Y
Looking at the ‘bigger picture’, and from a concerned Muslim perspective, I’d like to offer my six reflections on Trump’s visit and speech at the Riyadh Summit.
Reflection 1
Up until yesterday for most Muslims, Trump was the devil incarnate. Considered the greater evil of the two presidential candidates, Trump stoked racism, white supremacy and Islamophobia, empowering bigots like Marie La Pen in France and causing Muslims to be attacked and Mosques to be destroyed around the world. Trump twice attempted to ban Muslims from entering the US, and has killed thousands of Syrian and Iraqi civilians in airstrikes since taking office mimicking his promise to “bomb the sh*t out of them.”
It’s almost as if all of this has been forgotten. Can there be anything more embarrassing than Muslim ‘leaders’ clambering to fawn over Trump, dancing with him and enjoying lavish meals, whilst Muslims across the same countries where those ‘leaders’ came from literally starve and mire in abject poverty?
Just how colonised and humiliated are these Muslim ‘leaders’ to welcome Trump and Steve Bannon? Just how defeated, beguiled and disenfranchised are the Muslims of these countries to allow this and not bat an eyelid at it, as they’ve come to accept this as the norm?
According to the Qur’an, it is not permissible to even sit with those who mock or bear such enmity to Islam:
“And it has already been revealed to you in the Book that when you hear the verses of Allah and they are denied and ridiculed; do not sit with them until they enter into another conversation otherwise you would then be like them. Indeed Allah will gather the hypocrites and disbelievers in Hell all together” (4:140).
وَقَدْ نَزَّلَ عَلَيْكُمْ فِي الْكِتَابِ أَنْ إِذَا سَمِعْتُمْ آيَاتِ اللّهِ يُكَفَرُ بِهَا وَيُسْتَهْزَأُ بِهَا فَلاَ تَقْعُدُواْ مَعَهُمْ حَتَّى يَخُوضُواْ فِي حَدِيثٍ غَيْرِهِ إِنَّكُمْ إِذًا مِّثْلُهُمْ إِنَّ اللّهَ جَامِعُ الْمُنَافِقِينَ وَالْكَافِرِينَ فِي جَهَنَّمَ جَمِيعًا
What must the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) think of his Ummah when he sees Muslim ‘leaders’ giving awards to those who kill Muslims in their thousands, be it Bush, Obama or Trump… let alone Muslims supporting and allowing it? Is this really what Islam and Muslims have become – devoid of all honour?
Reminder as Trump delivers a speech on Islam, here's what he said about the religion during the campaign. (via @hardball) pic.twitter.com/09uqVpCldI
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 21, 2017
Reflection 2
Why are Muslim ‘leaders’ and Muslims constantly turning to the West to solve its internal issues? Are they so blind as to not see who created many of these circumstances in the first place, and that all they are good for is spending their money and making these people who hate God and religion even wealthier?
One must ask who created the Saudi monarchy as a means of rivalling the Ottoman Empire in the first place; who divided up the region into ‘countries’ so that Muslims could fight over resource, creed and ‘nationality’; Who continues to give Occupied Palestine (‘Israel’) a free hand to commit genocide; who gave ISIS and its various Syrian counterparts all the media and weaponry support in 2010-2011? Yet time and again Muslims beg for crumbs from these same people to support their own wars. They must be laughing at us – all the way to the bank.
The very fact that Saudi Arabia and Muslim ‘leaders’ take the US as its guide and saviour in order to war with other Muslims demonstrates how far away they are from the holy Qur’an:
“As for those who take the hostile enemies of the truth as their allies in preference to the believers – do they hope to be honoured by them when all honour belongs to God alone?” (Quran 4:139).
الَّذِينَ يَتَّخِذُونَ الْكَافِرِينَ أَوْلِيَاء مِن دُونِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ أَيَبْتَغُونَ عِندَهُمُ الْعِزَّةَ فَإِنَّ العِزَّةَ لِلّهِ جَمِيعًا
All the gold robes, sword dances and visiting Mecca for Umrahs in the world won’t change that.
Reflection 3
By now it should be obvious to every Muslim that there is an alliance between Saudi Arabia and its Arab partners with Israel and the United States of America. If you’d like to know more, read this article I wrote in 2016 for The Muslim Vibe detailing its evidences and why.
Just think about that: the United States – i.e. the country that has systemically destroyed the Middle East by establishing dictators and then overthrowing them when they’re no longer of use – and Israel – i.e. the only apartheid state in the world, and one that is committing genocide upon the Palestinians – are allied with Saudi Arabia, the place the Prophet Muhammad came to liberate from all treachery.
Does this not change Muslim attitudes toward the US or Saudi Arabia, or will they continue to close their eyes as Islam’s name is tarnished by terrorism, and Muslims are massacred, primarily at the hand of these same three states – the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
With respect, if you’re a Muslim that read the above and constructed a ‘Yeah, but…’ response, you’re part of the problem. If you are okay with allying with Israel to fight fellow Muslims, then you’ve picked the wrong side, there are no two ways about it.
"Tbh ISIS are unnecessarily messy and dramatic when it comes to beheadings. We do it with one quick swing of the sword here." #RiyadhSummit pic.twitter.com/7vjZt9ZuW4
— Hayder al-Khoei (@7ayder87) May 20, 2017
Reflection 4
Is the ‘War on Terror’ not an absolute farce?
One minute every pundit and his pet goldfish are proving that Saudi Arabia were the financiers of 9/11 and ISIS (Don’t believe me? Watch the below video of former US Vice President Joe Biden himself say it) and the theology behind terrorism performed in the name of Islam, and the next the US administration sells them another $350 billion in arms.
Below is a graph of weapons sales since 1972 to 2014 of US weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. What has it been used for? To defend the Palestinians? To defend the Rohingya being annihilated in Myanmar? To keep peace in Egypt? To protect Libyans from being sold into sex slavery or drowning in the Mediterranean? Or has it been given to Al-Nusra in Syria and ISIS in Iraq? Or has been to destroy the uprisings in Bahrain and Yemen, killing tens of thousands of Muslims in the process?
Are Muslims THAT gullible that they’ll continue to believe ANYTHING that comes from these people’s mouths? Does the Qur’an not tell us that those who create severe lies, they are NEVER to be believed again in ANY matter:
“And ever after refuse to accept from them any testimony – since it is they, they that are truly mischievous!” (Qur’an 24:4)
وَلَا تَقْبَلُوا لَهُمْ شَهَادَةً أَبَدًا وَأُوْلَئِكَ هُمُ الْفَاسِقُونَ
If the US tells Muslims that Satan is actually the good guy and that Prophet Adam was the bad guy, will Muslims believe that too?!
Reflection 5
Digesting the above matters and mixing it with Trumps speech, the purposes of which were “to unify the Arab world” and “Isolate (prepare for war with) Iran”, the following four things should be blatantly obvious:
- Almost anyone can now speak about and on behalf of Islam and it be considered credible. It is MUSLIMS who are inviting this. Trump, a person who speaks with the grammar of an 11 year old and was mocked by the US media for knowing literally nothing about international affairs, can all of a sudden give advice to the Muslim world about Muslim unity. It’s almost as if the Qur’an said, “Obey Allah, the Prophet and Trump. And if you disagree over anything, refer it to Allah, the Messenger and Trump” – Oh wait, the Quranic verse actually says, “Oh you who believe, obey Allah, the Prophet and those in authority among you. And if you disagree over anything, refer it to Allah and the Messenger IF YOU BELIEVE” (Qur’an 4:59).
- Just as a terrorist is someone who stands up to Israel, terrorism is also slowly being redefined to mean resistance to Saudi Arabia. If you stand up to them, you’re a terrorist. This in an obvious effect of allowing the media and politicians to define what Islam is or isn’t – ‘peaceful’, ‘moderate’ or ‘extreme’. It is no surprise now that terrorism is also being refitted to serve the military industrial complex and the US agenda of colonising the world.
- The purpose of this redefinition is to eventually provoke and justify a regional war between Saudi Arabia and its allies against Iran. This would use the US weaponry being sold and Israeli tactical support. What is worse is it would drag every Middle Eastern country into anarchy, leaving the region absolutely destroyed.
- Unity is being defined by Trump, Saudi Arabia and Israel as Arab vs. Other, and Sunni vs. Shia. These same forces tried this in Syria in 2011 and praise be to Allah, it failed miserably. Muslims united against a common threat, but these forces will continue to try to define unity in these terms. You must not be naive and fall for it.
Reflection 6
This urgent and most serious matter of Saudi Arabia and Israel’s collusion to destroy Iran should not be seen through the lens of sectarianism or nationalism, rather it is about resistance to evil, greed and arrogance. If the world and Muslims allow the last strands of resistance to be done away with, the results will be the US dominating the Middle East militarily, commercially and culturally, exploiting it for all it has and destroying any semblance of its link to the divine. Saudi Arabia and its wahhabi brand of Islam will dominate the region as a religion forcing every Muslim to live under the lash of an ISIS-like bastardisation of Islam. Israel, without any regional foe to stop it, will finally destroy Palestine altogether.
What you’ve seen of the destruction and human catastrophe from Syria and Iraq will be the tip of the iceberg. It will draw in peoples from each country and creed forcing them to partake in a war that will be the destruction of the region’s civilisation. Have no doubt, that the people that gleefully did this to Syria, Iraq, Libya and Palestine, will delight in doing it to the rest of the region.
Conclusion
Muslims and the world must immediately and finally observe where the civilisational and religious destruction of the Middle East in coming from and as a response, unite to oppose it. These nonsensical debates we waste our time over on Facebook are distracting us, while our faith, honour, blood and resources are being stripped from us, before our very eyes.
It’s time to wake up.
