. . . And the Sun Will Rise from the West
The Predicament of "Islamic Terrorism" and the Way Out
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The authors wrote “… AND THE SUN WILL RISE FROM THE WEST” to demonstrate that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, as revealed in the Quran or taught by Prophet Muhammad. They also show that the way Islam has been taught and often lived for the past 1,000 years, and especially in the past century, has made the environment conducive to fanaticism, radicalism and violence. The title of the book is driven from the authors’ estimation and expectation that the situation in Muslim-majority countries is desperate and without external influence will not improve. It is the Muslims living and growing up in the West who will be instrumental in bringing “the Sun”, a metaphor for light and enlightenment, to the Muslim majority countries. It will be the different and unique nature of the knowledge, sense of understanding and analytical capabilities of the Muslims of the West that will change the world. Hence, “… and the sun will rise from the west.” The authors describe the historical evolution of narrow-minded interpretations of Islamic texts over more than a thousand years and describe how the Golden Age of Islam came to an end and was replaced with the Dark Age of Islam, stretching from 1250s until today, culminating into the current situation. The failure of Muslim scholars and rulers to adhere to the original open-minded inquiring approach of the Prophet and his immediate followers led to the decline of Islam and Muslim societies. Instead of asking “WHY?”, which implies questioning the essence of the matter, Muslims continued to ask “HOW?”, which focuses more on the superficial nature of religious beliefs and practices. As a result, rather than focusing on the spirit and intent of Islamic teachings, Muslims continued to focus on dress code, appearance, ways to worship and memorization of texts, rather than their understanding. The authors show that throughout the vast majority of the 1400 years of Muslim history, terrorism has not been a part of how Muslims resolved their differences of opinion. “Islamic Terrorism” is an invention of Osama Bin-Laden, who found himself pushed into it because of his objections to the US presence in Saudi Arabia and other occurrences affecting him personally. Copycats, whether organizations or individuals, have then tried to, either independently or as a declared affiliate of Al Qaida, to outdo Bin-Laden in intensity, cruelty and severity and have set a process into motion that is difficult to stop. They have been supported and further empowered by Saudi Arabian dollars, Wahhabi zeal, blowbacks from people trained and supported by the US and hypocrisy by the West in dealing with corrupt governments ruling in different parts of the Muslim world. What Muslims are undergoing now is no different than what Christians underwent during Reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries. The cause is not a need for Islam to reform but rather an awareness of the Wahhabi/Salafi rulers and ideologues to use Islam to gain power and domination, similar to European princes’ recognition that Martin Luther could be an effective tool to break the monopoly of power and wealth held by the Catholic Church. The authors are convinced that there is a way out of the quagmire that Islam and Muslims have gotten themselves into. This path of reform is by going back to the roots of the Golden age of Islam and reviving the inquiring nature of the religion. This effort requires a different set of skills and competencies, which are mostly lacking in Muslim countries, because of deficient education systems that focus excessively on memorization of texts rather than developing a deep-rooted understanding of concepts and underlying causes. Hence, it will be up to Muslim scholars in the West to re-introduce a “WHY?” based approach to understanding and living Islam. This new way will be communicated via the web and social media to young Muslims in Muslim-majority countries and will achieve the type of grassroots change that can remake these societies. Hence, the Prophet Muhammad’s prophesy about the end of the world will come true, namely, that “the sun will rise from the West”, not in a physical but in a metaphorical way. The sun, as a metaphor for the true Islam, will rise from the West.
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About the Book
This book seeks to offer an interpretation of how terrorism has become a tool of Muslim radicals and why it is completely at odds with the teaching of Islam. It claims that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam as a religion but the evolution of Muslims, especially in the past one thousand years, has created an environment in which fanaticism, radicalism and violence can nourish. Supported by double standards by Western powers and active backing for corrupt governments and groups, “Islamic terrorism” came into being. It presents an overview of how Islamic thought in many parts of the Muslim world has become rigid and frozen—and grounds for hoping that change in that thought may come, from a perhaps surprising place. It suggests the role that both Muslim and Western societies have played and will continue to play in contributing to reforming Islam. Our purpose is not to provide a thorough proof of our ideas, but to spark discussion and dialogue, both in Muslim and non-Muslim communities (and, ideally, between the two) as to how Islam can regain in world thought and civilization the honored place it had during the Golden Age of Islam.
About the Author
Rafaat Ludin, born in Afghanistan in 1963, is the son of an Afghan diplomat. He thus spent much of his childhood in Germany and received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt in 1993 before coming to the US, where he received an MBA from the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California Irvine in 2003. He has pursued a career in international business; his company, International Home Finance and Development, LLC, is currently working to develop parcel 1 of Phase 1 of Kabul New City, the largest development project in the history of Afghanistan, which will upon completion house some 70,000 people and provide over 3.5 million square meters of commercial space. He is also past President of the Colorado Muslim Society. Rafaat has no formal religious education but has always been interested in learning about his religion through books and scholarly papers. He has developed an in-depth understanding of the historical, political and cultural circumstances evolving in Islamic and world history. Windham Loopesko is a lecturer at University of Colorado Denver in globalization and international business, as well as teaching international law and business as a visiting professor at the University of Lyon (France), Politechnika Gdanska and the University of Economics in Katowice (both in Poland), and the Universidad San Pablo in Arequipa (Peru). He has had an international consulting practice assisting American and European businesses in setting up overseas operations. He has a law degree from Harvard (1975), an MBA from the University of Chicago and a Troisième Licence en Sciences Economiques Appliquées from L’Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium, both in 1974), and an AB in government (Phi Beta Kappa) from Dartmouth College (1970).