Islam must reform from within

– Rahul Singh is the former editor of Reader’s Digest, Indian Express and Khaleej Times, Dubai All major religions have their ups and downs — Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and of course, Islam. After the November 13 terror attacks in Paris, the focus is currently on Islam. Indeed, during the past decade and a half following the destruction of the World Trade Centre’s twin towers in New York and the carnage in Mumbai seven years ago, Islam has been demonised as never before. Islamophobia has enveloped much of the world. The Taliban, Al Qaeda, and now the Islamic State (IS) aka Daesh, have become dreaded outfits, each successively more barbaric than the other. Because of Daesh atrocities, Islam is seen by the non-Islamic world as a religion that promotes violence, disregards human rights, and is contemptuous of democracy. All but forgotten is the revolutionary and liberating essence of Islam, how it originated in the early 7th century in the barren Arabian peninsula, united the scattered tribes of the region and within a century of its founder, Prophet Mohammed’s death, controlled a vast empire which reached — and included — Spain. The Turks extended Muslim rule from the Danube to the tip of the Red Sea. Islam then dominated the civilized world.  Admittedly, much of this great empire was won through force of arms. But Islam’s doctrine of equality and good governance also attracted many to the faith. In the golden age of Islam, under enlightened rulers like Suleiman the Magnificent, Islamic countries were in the forefront of science and the arts when much of Christendom was steeped in feudalism. The civilisation was then synonymous with Islam, not the western world.  Turning to the present, the main breeding ground of IS militants is the chaotic and bloody situation in Iraq, Syria and Libya. And for this situation, the ham-fisted interventions of western powers, primarily the USA, is responsible. The American-led invasion of Iraq began it all. The stated intention was to remove an evil dictatorship that threatened the security of the world with its “weapons of mass destruction”. When it became clear those weapons didn’t exist, the real aim was exposed: control of Iraq’s abundant crude oil reserves. When that was ensured, the Americans withdrew, leaving the Iraqis to their own devices, democracy be damned. In much the same manner, the justification for intervention in Syria and Libya was the removal of dictators and, to use a much-abused phrase, to make “the world safe for democracy”. Instead anarchic civil wars broke out in these countries. In Syria, an estimated 300,000 people have been killed and 5 million reduced to homeless refugees now flooding into Europe. But let’s leave the blame game aside and look at what can be done to counter the threat posed by IS and other Islamic terrorist organisations. The immediate and short-term answer may be the use of greater force, which effectively means more bombing missions against IS strongholds in Iraq and Syria to reduce the territory it…