- Whoever the poor soul was, whom the US assassination
team "buried at sea," it most certainly was not Osama bin Laden.
Still, now would not be a bad time to lay to rest our questions about the
Grandfather of Islamic Internationalism. The FBI admits that they have
no evidence that bin Laden had anything to do with the 9/11 attack. There
is also no clear evidence that he was involved in earlier bombings in East
Africa. He left Sudan because the US threatened to bomb if they did not
expel him. Why were the Powers-That-Be so afraid of bin Laden? The US was
afraid that he might unite more people around the world with his humanitarian
projects and ability to internationalize causes by addressing "the
Ummah." This was an entirely new approach to fundraising at that time.
Osama was owner of a construction company. He rebuilt war torn and underdeveloped
countries. He was in Sudan at his own expense, building infrastructure
for the poor and oppressed, with government permission.
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- It is important to understand this great historical figure
and his jihad mission. Osama bin Laden was a close associate and student
of respected Palestinian theologian, Abdullah Azzam, who coined the term
"al-Qaeda." Azzam's work elaborated upon the ideas of Sayed Qutb,
the Egyptian founder of modern Arab-Islamic political religious thought.
Qutb is comparable to John Locke in Western political development. Both
Azzam and Qutb were serious men of exceptional integrity and honor. Qutb
predicted that the struggle between Islam and materialism would define
the modern world. He embraced martyrdom in 1966 in rejection of Arab socialist
politics. Drawing upon Qutb's ideas, Azzam preached mutual responsibility
for each other among all Muslims worldwide. Azzam successfully organized
an international volunteer effort to defend Afghanistan from the Soviet
Union throughout the 1980s under the banner of Islam and with the US as
an ally. He was killed in 1989.
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- The 1980s were a magical time for Muslims. Invigorated
by this new philosophical international unity of Islamic causes, and with
America's blessing, an international financial system of Islamic charity
was created. All of us who were alive at that time remember how we cried
for the Afghanis and opened our wallets, we cried for the Palestinians
and opened our wallets. We cried for the Bosnians and opened our wallets.
Some of our husbands even left us to become martyrs. The nationalist boundaries
between Muslims were erased. Foreign Muslims and Black American Muslims
were educating each other about politics and history. On an international
scale, Muslims were competing with Jews over the international financial
system and the outcome of world events. A true pan-Islamic internationalism
was created. We were the kings and queens of the world, to quote the Titanic.
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- A new, multicultural Islamic culture was born in America.
When Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965, he left behind the hope of multicultural,
international Muslim unity. As long as American Blacks remained isolated,
they would still think like oppressed people. But when they went to Mecca
and prayed side by side with a world community, they came in contact with
all of human civilization. During the 1970s, Islam took a stronghold in
America. Halal meat shops were opened, Islamic schools were created. As
more foreign students came to America for education they mingled with each
other and with the locals. African Americans adopted the Arabian style
niqab and the Pakistani shalwar kameez. Pakistanis adopted the Arab style
hijab and jilbab, while others adopted the Euro-Turk skirt with blazer
look. Because Islam was such a fun social unifier in college, young people
brought their enthusiasm to their cousins back home, who then started to
cover more and pray more. We all wanted to make huge personal sacrifices
to save the world.
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- To a large extent it was America's support of the Mujahideen
in Afghanistan that created the spiritual fire behind the Islamic Renaissance
of the 1980s. In the Battle of Jaji in May 1987, Osama's Muhajideen army
of only 50 members resisted 200 Soviet and Soviet-backed Afghan troops
for one week, taking 12 losses. Under the watch of the Arab media, the
Mujahideen protected their complex system of tunnels and caves near the
Pakistani border, named al-Masada, from Soviet capture. Osama bin Laden
became an internationally respected war hero, while the Afghan freedom
fighters became revered in America as "the bravest men in the world,"
according to former CIA agent and author, Eric Margolis. Every Muslim in
the world, it seemed, wished they too could die for the sake of Allah.
Every girl wished she could marry Osama bin Laden, even if he was already
quite busy.
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- In 2001, the US used napalm and oxygen-sucking bombs
to "smoke out" Osama's "Lion's Nest" of tunnels. They
even sprayed acid from the sky to disfigure the faces of the martyrs afterward.
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- Hundreds of pilgrims visit Kandahar's Arab cemetery daily,
believing that the graves of those massacred in the 2001 US bombing of
Afghanistan possess miraculous healing powers.
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- 2001 was not the end of the Muslims, but it was the end
of a glorious era, where martyrs competed with one another for bravery
and ordinary people competed with each other with charity. We were going
to defeat evil in this world today, we thought. Now we know this is only
the beginning of the struggle.
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