By Rohana R. Wasala
Government
MP Dr. Wijedasa Rajapaksa, a former Justice Minister and an ex-president of
the Bar Association of Sri Lanka, stated over a month ago that the
Muslim World League (owes) families of those who had perished or
suffered injuries in the Easter Sunday terror attacks USD 5 mn.” (‘Wijedasa
takes it up with Saudi-based outfit’ by Shamindra Ferdinando, The Island, March
25, 2021). This is money that the MWL general secretary Dr. Sheikh Muhammad
Abdul Kareem Al-Issa was said to have promised on behalf of his organization
towards the relief of the surviving victims of those attacks at a so-called
National Peace Conference held at Nelum Pokuna under the patronage of the then
President Maithripala Sirisena on June 30, 2019, a little over two months after
the Easter Sunday attacks carried out by eight Islamist suicide bombers in the
name of their religion. As claimed by MP Rajapaksa, the Sheikh made the promise
in the presence of the then incumbent Sirisena, and former presidents
Chandrika Bandaranaike and Mahinda Rajapaksa, among other dignitaries. The same
three past presidents dutifully attended the second National Peace Conference
on March 5, this year. MP Rajapaksa told The Island that he brought up the
issue with the MWL head. This was through a letter of his dated March 22, 2021,
where he urged the latter to fulfill what he had promised without further
delay. MP Rajapaksa stressed: Let us hope those who organised the Nelum Pokuna
event, too, will take up this matter with the Muslim World League and finalise
the transfer of funds before the second anniversary of 2019 Easter Sunday
carnage.”
The
failure of the MWL had been mentioned even at the PCoI, according to the MP,
who further said that he had raised the matter with the offices of the previous
and present presidents. Dr P.B. Jayasundara (secretary to the current
incumbent) had confirmed that the funds in question had not been received. A
letter that the then Western Province Governor A.J.M. Muzammil had received
from Muhammad Al-Issa, to which MP Rajapaksa refers, seems to have a hint about
the possible reason for the unexplained delay in the payment of the promised
financial assistance: it is probably being withheld pending Sri Lanka
providing information relating to the spate of suicide attacks”. Whether the
MP’s importunity in the given context is shared by the government is in doubt.
What should be of greater concern for the government is the fact that, by
contriving to get themselves identified as constituting the whole Muslim
community of the country, the handful of Islamist extremists who are widely
believed to have provided tacit or explicit support for the suicide bombers are
also foisting themselves on its (the MWL’s) powerful patronage. While being
grateful to this organization for offering welcome help at a moment of national
distress, Sri Lankan leaders must take care not to allow these Islamist
extremists tainted with suspected association with the terrorists who caused
that suffering to jeopardise its relations with the traditionally friendly
Muslim nations through subterfuge. At the same time, it behoves our
leaders to establish the genuineness of the MWL’s intentions and to have a
correct understanding of the rationale of its involvement in the post-attack
context, before accepting its
charity.
Islamist Jihadists and fanatical Christian proselytizers are
minorities that should not for a moment be identified with the traditional Sri
Lankan Muslim and Christian communities who have always lived in harmony with
the Sinhala Buddhists and Tamil Hindus for centuries. Sri Lanka must take
special care to prevent the problematic Islamist and Christian extremist sects
from pretending to the outside world that they respectively represent the
country’s Muslim and Christian mainstreams in order to subvert its foreign
relations as certain powerful Muslim politicos who have somehow contrived to
ingratiate themselves with the powers that be seem to be doing at the moment.
According
to the Wikipedia, the Muslim World League is a (Saudi) government-funded NGO,
which was founded in Mecca, Saudi Arabia in 1962. The name suggests that
it is about the pan-Islamic Muslim world, not the world in general, which
Muslims share with people of other non-Muslim faiths. It came into existence
for the purpose of serving Islam and Muslims. Its founding charter, according
to the information currently given in the Wikipedia, is as follows:
QUOTE
We
the members of the Muslim World League, representing it religiously, hereby
undertake before God, Almighty to: Discharge our obligation towards God, by
conveying and proclaiming His Message all over the world. We also reaffirm our
belief that there shall be no peace in the world without the application of the
principles of Islam. Invite all communities to vie with one another for the
common good and happiness of mankind, establish social justice and a better
human society. Call upon God to bear witness that we do not intend to
undermine, dominate or practice hegemony over anyone else. Hence, in order to
further these goals, we intend to: Unite the ranks of the Muslims, and remove
all divisive forces from the midst of the Muslim communities around the world.
Remove obstacles in the way of establishing the Muslim world union. Support all
advocates of charitable deeds. Utilize our spiritual as well as material and
moral potentialities in furthering the aims of this charter. Unify efforts in
order to achieve these purposes in a positive and practical way. Reject all the
pretenses of ancient as well as contemporary Jahiliyah (attitudes of the
pre-Islamic era). Always reaffirm the fact that Islam has no place for either
regionalism or racism.” END OF QUOTE
The organization has thus an extensive global agenda with
inevitable, wide ranging, religious, educational, cultural, legal, and
political implications, particularly for non-Muslim countries like Sri Lanka,
given that the organization is committed to foster the fiercely conservative
brand of Islam, Wahhabism (or Salafism), which is Saudi Arabia’s state
religion. It will, among other things, include laying down plans designed
to revive the role of the Mosque in the fields of guidance, education, preaching
and provision of social services, conducting a comprehensive survey of the
world’s Mosques and publishing the information gathered in book form and in the
shape of periodical bulletins, selecting and posting groups of well qualified
preachers on guidance missions throughout the Mosques of the world,
formation of board of directors to supervise the affairs of each and every
Mosque at the national as well as the regional levels, studying the ideas and
patterns of behavior that contravene the teachings of Islam, and helping in
rehabilitating and training Imams and khateebs for posting to the various
Muslim areas to lead Muslims in prayers, deliver sermons and guidance lessons
(a khateeb is a person who delivers a sermon during Friday prayers).
As the Wikipedia further tells us, all Saudi Arabian citizens are
legally required to be Muslims. They don’t have the right to freedom of
religion (as the term is understood in secular democratic countries); nor do
the expatriate workers employed in the Saudi kingdom. The official and dominant
form of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia is Wahhabism (also called Salafism)
which emerged in the 18th century. Its adherents believe that its teachings
purify the practice of Islam of innovations or practices that deviate from the
seventh century teachings of Muhammad and his companions”. Saudi Arabia has
long been accused of being the principal exporter of Islamist extremism
(WikiLeaks cables). …..Saudi Arabia arguably remains the most prolific
sponsor of international Islamist
terrorism, allegedly supporting groups as disparate as the Afghanistan Taliban, Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and
the Al-Nusra Front… Saudi
Arabia is said to be the world’s largest source of funds and promoter of Salafist
jihadism….. which
forms the ideological basis of terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda, Taliban, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and
others” (‘State-sponsored terrorism’/Wikipedia/Page last edited 14 April 2021).
Saudi Arabia denies these allegations, but the Wikipedia entry mentions the
prevalent argument that by its very nature Wahhabism/Salafism encourages
intolerance and promotes terrorism”.
The MWL, while propagating the religion of Islam, encourages
Dawah (lit. issuing summons to/euphemistically, inviting or calling non-Muslims
to join, i.e., preaching to them) and conversion of non-Muslims; funds
construction of mosques and provides financial relief for Muslims affected by
natural disasters; finances distribution of copies of the Quran and political
tracts on Muslim minority groups. Though the organization claims that they
reject all acts of violence and promote dialogue with the people of other
cultures, within their understanding of Sharia”, they are not free from
controversy on that point, having been the subject of several ongoing counter
terrorism investigations in the US related to Hamas, al Qaeda and other
terrorist groups”
However, since 2016, the Muslim World League has been claiming
to be dedicated to combating extremist ideology, and to confronting hatred,
disunity and violence closely associated with extremism. The US State
Department, in its 2019 Country Reports on Terrorism, stated that the Muslim
World League’s Secretary General, Muhammad Abdul Kareem Al-Issa pressed
a message of interfaith dialogue, religious tolerance, and peaceful coexistence
with global religious authorities, including Muslim imams outside the Arab
world.” The same document said that he conducted extensive outreach to
prominent U.S. Jewish and Christian leaders”. No doubt, the MWL is on the same
pious mission in Sri Lanka. We may be hopeful that the MWL leader will
similarly reach out to the non-Muslim 90% of the Sri Lankan population
comprising Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists.
But whether the assurances given to the powerful US will hold
for a small non-Muslim country like ours is still a moot point. The MWL’s
sponsor Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy without a legislature (Wikipedia),
let alone an elected legislature; its state religion Sunni Islam or
Wahhabism, is growing to be the majority Buddhist Sri Lanka’s scourge,
unless checked in time with the help of the predominantly Sufi mainstream
Muslim minority, who have peacefully coexisted with the majority Buddhist and
other non-Muslim minorities for centuries. The MWL’s post-April 21, 2019
interest or involvement in Sri Lanka should be judged according to its
uncompromising commitment to serving Islam and Muslims” everywhere as
explained in the foregoing account. The rich and powerful Saudi-funded,
Saudi-basedl Wahhabism-inspired NGO outfit’s patronage of Sri Lanka’s
approximately 10% Muslim minority is bound to have obviously important
repercussions.
One could argue that the so-called National Conference on Peace,
Harmony and Coexistence that introduced the MWL to the country just two months
after the April 21 Islamist terror bombings, in effect, both ‘nationalised’ and
‘internationalised’ Sri lanka’s still nascent Islamic fundamentalist problem.
Unless sorted out early, this is not going to do any good to the peaceful and
harmonious coexistence which all Sri Lankans of different ethnicities and
cultures have been enjoying to date mainly thanks to the influence of the
country’s extremely accommodating, tolerant Buddhist cultural foundation,
something that is today universally accepted and appreciated by all peaceful
non-Buddhist minorities. Through its friendly outreach to the non-Muslim
majority, the MWL can hope to further strengthen the already existing
interfaith harmony and peaceful coexistence in our island nation. It is
heartening that the Saudis now reject extremist ideology and terrorism.
However, unfortunately, this cannot be asserted without reservations.
According
to The Island news report mentioned above, secretary to former
president Sirisena, Samira de Silva, told the paper that the MWL was delaying
the payment because the National Peace Conference event organizers had still
not responded to the following questions: (1) the number of dead and wounded
(2) their faith (religion) (3) list of the dead and the wounded (4) collateral
damage to public property (5) number of widows and orphans (6) other relevant
information and (7) account number of the President’s or Prime Minister’s
charitable fund”.
To
my mind, these are not charitable questions that one would expect a genuinely
humanitarian organization to ask. Why should they demand specific information
about the victims’ religion and their particular identities? The term ‘collateral
damage’ refers to unintended, but unavoidable, accidentally caused, damage to
civilians’ lives and their property during a military conflict. The
serious implications of the use of the phrase in the jihadist terror context
are not difficult for those who are sufficiently informed about Islam to
understand. Also, the outfit’s slighting call for the account number of a
so-called President’s or Prime Minister’s charitable fund is indicative of an
unwarranted superciliousness towards the people of an independent sovereign
nation.
Why
all the dillydallying and cheeseparing for the insultingly derisory sum
of 5 mn US Dollars by a rich Saudi government funded NGO? For Saudi Arabia with
its relatively small population of 34.2 million (2019 estimate) and its GDP at
1.9 trillion US Dollars and per capita income at 56,817 US Dollars (Wikipedia),
it is peanuts. Of course, the 5 mn Dollar sum (roughly the equivalent of 1
billion currently debased SL Rupees) is, hopefully, not intended to sound like
a big amount to Sri Lankans, for that would be an affront to their general
knowledge.
The
Island report said: According to a missive received from Dr. Jayasundera, the
Muslim World League was to directly get in touch with the Prime Minister’s
Office to finalise the matter”. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa seems to have,
through his secretary, wisely assigned the slimy ‘matter’ to the PM to dispose
of.
Important note: The explicit and implicit criticisms contained in this article
are NOT directed at the government or the people of a particular country. No
disrespect is intended towards them. Only facts are stated as given in the
sources indicated. The write up is about how the writer as a free patriotic Sri
Lankan citizen views the Saudi-based MWL’s reported offer of help to the
families of the April 21, 2019 Islamist terror attack victims. The writer does
not mean to criticise the Islamic religion, the global Islamic outfit’s
religious ideology or its mission. There is no indictment of the NGO. His only
concern is with how to save his motherland from the looming threat of extremist
Islamist ideology and violence that the MWL itself has already rejected, as its
leader has assured to the Americans.
The writer firmly
believes that it would be impossible to overcome violent Islamist religious
extremism taking root in Sri Lanka, without the sincere support of the
country’s still unradicalized mainstream minority Muslim community. It is also
his conviction that, certain duplicitous politicians, both Muslim and
non-Muslim, who do not have a clear idea about the scope and nature of the
problem that they are required to deal with or pretend not to, form the
greatest obstacle to finding a solution. They are the real target of criticism
here, though they are hardly mentioned. Readers are free to accept or reject
the writer’s opinions as their own knowledge and judgement help them decide.
