'The Jews Rule This World By Proxy'

1. Alhamdulillah, All Praise be to Allah, by whose Grace and Blessings we, the leaders of the Organisationof Islamic Conference countries are gathered here today to confer and hopefully to plot a course for thefuture of Islam and the Muslim ummah worldwide.

2. On behalf of the Government and the people of many races and religions of Malaysia, may I extend a warmwelcome to all and everyone to this Tenth Session of the Islamic Summit Conference in Putrajaya, Malaysia'sadministrative capital.

3. It is indeed a great honour for Malaysia to host this Session and to assume the Chairmanship of theOrganisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). I thank the members for their confidence in Malaysia'sChairmanship.

4. May I also take this opportunity to pay a special tribute to the State of Qatar, in particular HisHighness Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifa AI-Thani, the Emir of the State of Qatar, for his outstanding stewardship ofour Organisation over the past three years.

5. As host, Malaysia is gratified at the high level of participation from member countries.This clearlydemonstrates our continued and abiding faith in, and commitment to our Organisation and our collective wishand determination to strengthen our role for the dignity and benefit of the ummah.

6.I would also like to welcome the leaders and representatives of the many countries who wish to becomeobservers at this meeting because of their substantial Muslim population. Whether they are Muslims or not,their presence at this meeting will help towards greater understanding of Islam and the Muslims, thus helpingto disprove the perception of Islam as a religion of backwardness and terror.

7. The whole world is looking at us. Certainly 1.3 billion Muslims, one-sixth of the world's population areplacing their hopes in us, in this meeting, even though they may be cynical about our will and capacity toeven decide to restore the honour of Islam and the Muslims, much less to free their brothers and sisters fromthe oppression and humiliation from which they suffer today.

8. I will not enumerate the instances of our humiliation and oppression, nor will I once again condemn ourdetractors and oppressors. It would be an exercise in futility because they are not going to change theirattitudes just because we condemn them. If we are to recover our dignity and that of Islam, our religion, itis we who must decide, it is we who must act.

9. To begin with, the Governments of all the Muslim countries can close ranks and have a common stand ifnot on all issues, at least on some major ones, such as on Palestine. We are all Muslims. We are alloppressed. We are all being humiliated. But we who have been raised by Allah above our fellow Muslims to ruleour countries have never really tried to act in concert in order to exhibit at our level the brotherhood andunity that Islam enjoins upon us.

10. But not only are our Governments divided, the Muslim ummah is also divided, and divided again andagain. Over the last 1400 years the interpreters of Islam, the learned ones,the ulamas have interpreted andreinterpreted the single Islamic religion brought by Prophet Muhammad S.A.W, so differently that now we have athousand religions which are often so much at odds with one another that we often fight and kill each other.

11. From being a single ummah we have allowed ourselves to be divided into numerous sects, mazhabs andtarikats, each more concerned with claiming to be the true Islam than our oneness as the Islamic ummah. Wefail to notice that our detractors and enemies do not care whether we are true Muslims or not. To them we areall Muslims, followers of a religion and a Prophet whom they declare promotes terrorism, and we are all theirsworn enemies. They will attack and kill us, invade our lands, bring down our Governments whether we areSunnis or Syiahs, Alawait or Druze or whatever. And we aid and abet them by attacking and weakening eachother, and sometimes by doing their bidding, acting as their proxies to attack fellow Muslims. We try to bringdown our Governments through violence, succeeding to weaken and impoverish our countries.

12. We ignore entirely and we continue to ignore the Islamic injunction to unite and to be brothers to eachother, we the Governments of the Islamic countries and the ummah.

13. But this is not all that we ignore about the teachings of Islam. We are enjoined to Read, Iqraq i.e. toacquire knowledge. The early Muslims took this to mean translating and studying the works of the Greeks andother scholars before Islam. And these Muslim scholars added to the body of knowledge through their ownstudies.

14. The early Muslims produced great mathematicians and scientists, scholars, physicians and astronomersetc. and they excelled in all the fields of knowledge of their times, besides studying and practising theirown religion of Islam. As a result the Muslims were able to develop and extract wealth from their lands andthrough their world trade, able to strengthen their defences, protect their people and give them the Islamicway of life, Addin, as prescribed by Islam. At the time the Europeans of the Middle Ages were stillsuperstitious and backward, the enlightened Muslims had already built a great Muslim civilisation, respectedand powerful, more than able to compete with the rest of the world and able to protect the ummah from foreignaggression. The Europeans had to kneel at the feet of Muslim scholars in order to access their own scholasticheritage.

15. The Muslims were lead by great leaders like Abdul Rahman III, AI-Mansur, Salah El Din AI Ayubi andothers who took to the battlefields at the head of their forces to protect Muslim land and the ummah.

16. But halfway through the building of the great Islamic civilisation came new interpreters of Islam whotaught that acquisition of knowledge by Muslims meant only the study of Islamic theology. The study ofscience, medicine etc. was discouraged.

17. Intellectually the Muslims began to regress. With intellectual regression the great Muslim civilisationbegan to falter and wither. But for the emergence of the Ottoman warriors,Muslim civilisation would havedisappeared with the fall of Granada in 1492.

18.The early successes of the Ottomans were not accompanied by an intellectual renaissance. Instead theybecame more and more preoccupied with minor issues such as whether tight trousers and peak caps were Islamic,whether printing machines should be allowed or electricity used to light mosques. The Industrial Revolutionwas totally missed by the Muslims. And the regression continued until the British and French instigatedrebellion against Turkish rule brought about the downfall of the Ottomans, the last Muslim world power andreplaced it with European colonies and not independent states as promised. It was only after World War II thatthese colonies became independent.

19. Apart from the new nation-states we also accepted the western democratic system. This also divided usbecause of the political parties and groups that we form, some of which claim Islam for themselves, reject theIslam of other parties and refuse to accept the results of the practice of democracy if they fail to gainpower for themselves. They resort to violence, thus destabilising and weakening Muslim countries.

20. With all these developments over the centuries the ummah and the Muslim civilisation became so weakthat at one time there was not a single Muslim country which was not colonised or hegemonised by theEuropeans. But regaining independence did not help to strengthen the Muslims. Their states were weak and badlyadministered, constantly in a state of turmoil. The Europeans could do what they liked with Muslimterritories. It is not surprising that they should excise Muslim land to create the state of Israel to solvetheir Jewish problem. Divided, the Muslims could do nothing effective to stop the Balfour and Zionisttransgression.

21. Some would have us believe that, despite all these, our life is better than that of our detractors.Some believe that poverty is Islamic, sufferings and being oppressed are Islamic. This world is not for us.Ours are the joys of heaven in the afterlife. All that we have to do is to perform certain rituals, wearcertain garments and put up a certain appearance. Our weakness, our backwardness and our inability to help ourbrothers and sisters who are being oppressed are part of the Will of Allah, the sufferings that we must endurebefore enjoying heaven in the hereafter. We must accept this fate that befalls us. We need not do anything. Wecan do nothing against the Will of Allah.

22. But is it true that it is the Will of Allah and that we can and should do nothing? Allah has said inSurah Ar- Ra'd verse 11 that He will not change the fate of a community until the community has tried tochange its fate itself.

23. The early Muslims were as oppressed as we are presently.But after their sincere and determined effortsto help themselves in accordance with the teachings of Islam, Allah had helped them to defeat their enemiesand to create a great and powerful Muslim civilisation. But what effort have we made especially with theresources that He has endowed us with.

24. We are now 1.3 billion strong. We have the biggest oil reserve in the world. We have great wealth. Weare not as ignorant as the Jahilliah who embraced Islam. We are familiar with the workings of the world'seconomy and finances. We control 57 out of the 180 countries in the world. Our votes can make or breakinternational organisations. Yet we seem more helpless than the small number of Jahilliah converts whoaccepted the Prophet as their leader. Why? Is it because of Allah's will or is it because we have interpretedour religion wrongly, or failed to abide by the correct teachings of our religion, or done the wrong things?

25. We are enjoined by our religion to prepare for the defence of the ummah. Unfortunately we stress notdefence but the weapons of the time of the Prophet. Those weapons and horses cannot help to defend us anymore. We need guns and rockets, bombs and warplanes, tanks and warships for our defence. But because wediscouraged the learning of science and mathematics etc. as giving no merit for the akhirat, today we have nocapacity to produce our own weapons for our defence. We have to buy our weapons from our detractors andenemies. This is what comes from the superficial interpretation of the Quran, stressing not the substance ofthe Prophet's sunnah and the Quran's injunctions but rather the form, the manner and the means used in the 1stCentury of the Hijrah. And it is the same with the other teachings of Islam. We are more concerned with theforms rather than the substance of the words of Allah and adhering only to the literal interpretation of thetraditions of the Prophet.

26. We may want to recreate the first century of the Hijrah, the way of life in those times, in order topractise what we think to be the true Islamic way of life. But we will not be allowed to do so.Our detractorsand enemies will take advantage of the resulting backwardness and weakness in order to dominate us. Islam isnot just for the 7th Century A.D. Islam is for all times. And times have changed. Whether we like it or not wehave to change, not by changing our religion but by applying its teachings in the context of a world that isradically different from that of the first century of the Hijrah. Islam is not wrong but the interpretationsby our scholars, who are not prophets even though they may be very learned can be wrong. We have a need to goback to the fundamental teachings of Islam to find out whether we are indeed believing in and practising theIslam that the Prophet preached. It cannot be that we are all practising the correct and true Islam when ourbeliefs are so different from one another.

27. Today we, the whole Muslim ummah are treated with contempt and dishonour. Our religion is denigrated.Our holy places desecrated. Our countries are occupied. Our people starved and killed.

28. None of our countries are truly independent. We are under pressure to conform to our oppressors' wishesabout how we should behave, how we should govern our lands, how we should think even.

29. Today if they want to raid our country, kill our people, destroy our villages and towns, there isnothing substantial that we can do. Is it Islam which has caused all these? Or is it that we have failed to doour duty according to our religion?

30. Our only reaction is to become more and more angry. Angry people cannot think properly. And so we findsome of our people reacting irrationally. They launch their own attacks, killing just about anybody includingfellow Muslims to vent their anger and frustration. Their Governments can do nothing to stop them. The enemyretaliates and puts more pressure on the Governments. And the Governments have no choice but to give in, toaccept the directions of the enemy, literally to give up their independence of action.

31. With this their people and the ummah become angrier and turn against their own Governments. Everyattempt at a peaceful solution is sabotaged by more indiscriminate attacks calculated to anger the enemy andprevent any peaceful settlement. But the attacks solve nothing. The Muslims simply get more oppressed.

32. There is a feeling of hopelessness among the Muslim countries and their people. They feel that they cando nothing right. They believe that things can only get worse.The Muslims will forever be oppressed anddominated by the Europeans and the Jews. They will forever be poor, backward and weak. Some believe, as I havesaid, this is the Will of Allah, that the proper state of the Muslims is to be poor and oppressed in thisworld.

33. But is it true that we should do and can do nothing for ourselves? Is it true that 1.3 billion peoplecan exert no power to save themselves from the humiliation and oppression inflicted upon them by a muchsmaller enemy? Can they only lash back blindly in anger? Is there no other way than to ask our young people toblow themselves up and kill people and invite the massacre of more of our own people?

34. It cannot be that there is no other way. 1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews.There must be a way. And we can only find a way if we stop to think, to assess our weaknesses and ourstrength, to plan, to strategise and then to counter attack. As Muslims we must seek guidance from the Al-Quranand the Sunnah of the Prophet. Surely the 23 years' struggle of the Prophet can provide us with some guidanceas to what we can and should do.

35. We know he and his early followers were oppressed by the Qhuraish. Did he launch retaliatory strikes?No. He was prepared to make strategic retreats. He sent his early followers to a Christian country and hehimself later migrated to Madinah. There he gathered followers, built up his defence capability and ensuredthe security of his people. At Hudaibiyah he was prepared to accept an unfair treaty, against the wishes ofhis companions and followers. During the peace that followed he consolidated his strength and eventually hewas able to enter Mecca and claim it for Islam. Even then he did not seek revenge. And the peoples of Meccaaccepted Islam and many became his most powerful supporters, defending the Muslims against all their enemies.

36. That briefly is the story of the struggle of the Prophet. We talk so much about following the sunnah ofthe Prophet. We quote the instances and the traditions profusely. But we actually ignore all of them.

37. If we use the faculty to think that Allah has given us then we should know that we are actingirrationally. We fight without any objective, without any goal other than to hurt the enemy because they hurtus. Naively we expect them to surrender. We sacrifice lives unnecessarily, achieving nothing other than toattract more massive retaliation and humiliation.

38. It is surety time that we pause to think. But will this be wasting time? For well over half a centurywe have fought over Palestine. What have we achieved? Nothing. We are worse off than before. If we had pausedto think then we could have devised a plan, a strategy that can win us final victory. Pausing and thinkingcalmly is not a waste of time. We have a need to make a strategic retreat and to calmly assess our situation.

39. We are actually very strong. 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed 6million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and diefor them.

40. We may not be able to do that. We may not be able to unite all the 1.3 billion Muslims. We may not beable to get all the Muslim Governments to act in concert. But even if we can get a third of the ummah and athird of the Muslim states to act together, we can already do something. Remember that the Prophet did nothave many followers when he went to Madinah. But he united the Ansars and the Muhajirins and eventually hebecame strong enough to defend Islam.

41. Apart from the partial unity that we need, we must take stock of our assets. I have already mentionedour numbers and our oil wealth. In today's world we wield a lot of political, economic and financial clout,enough to make up for our weakness in military terms.

42. We also know that not all non-Muslims are against us. Some are well disposed towards us. Some even seeour enemies as their enemies. Even among the Jews there are many who do not approve of what the Israelis aredoing.

43. We must not antagonise everyone. We must win their hearts and minds. We must win them to our side notby begging for help from them but by the honourable way that we struggle to help ourselves. We must notstrengthen the enemy by pushing everyone into their camps through irresponsible and unIslamic acts. RememberSalah El Din and the way he fought against the so called Crusaders,King Richard of England in particular.Remember the considerateness of the Prophet to the enemies of Islam. We must do the same. It is winning thestruggle that is important, not angry retaliation, not revenge.