NEW DELHI (Agencies): Islamic scholars trained at the Deoband School of Islamic Jurisprudence in India are the driving force behind the moves to set up the Global Caliphate – where Sharia law will be followed — comprising the entire Asiatic Muslim world. Two Islamic organizations have taken it upon themselves to build Taliban-led Afghanistan into the Global Caliphate of their dreams.
Deoband’s (in India) school of Islamic jurisprudence has effectively shaped the thinking of most of the Islamic scholars of contemporary times in India and abroad. Islamic resurgence is a significant phenomenon of the post-Cold War era.
Huge migration of “refugees” and “asylum seekers” from the regions of the Third World in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia to the European countries was allowed with twin presuppositions viz. refurbishing the depleted, mostly male, labor force in post-war Europe, and the West’s practicing liberalism.
The Islamization of many African Americans in the US sprang from the racist policy that Islam abhors.
- The Caliphate:
Islamic scholars and ideologues trained in Deoband’s scholastics believe that the entire Asiatic Muslim world has to be welded into a Caliphate and run by the Sharia law, discarding all other forms of political arrangement hitherto thrust on them by the colonialists.
The idea of a Global Caliphate, thus, gained momentum among Islamist circles.
Two main Islamic organizations that have undertaken the project of galvanizing the Muslim community (ummah) in the pursuit of a Global Caliphate are the Islamic Oasis based in Chicago and the Qamar Foundation in Kabul.
For public consumption, they declare their mission in soft words. The Islamic Oasis, for example, defines its mission as: “The Mission of Islamic Oasis Centre, established in 2008, is to be the premier knowledge resource and a recognized leader in promoting literacy, life skills, humanitarian efforts, and religious studies; locally and overseas… After years of intense research, giving dawah (calling to Islam), providing social services, and humanitarian work overseas, we found it necessary to establish a full-time dedicated Islamic Centre that provides our community with Islamic studies, social services, and after-school tutoring.”
Likewise, the Qamar Foundation asserts: “Founded in 2018, we aim to create awareness about the true nature of the Islamic faith and reclaim its original narrative by rolling out value-based campaigns, Islamic conferences, debates, and academic research on contemporary issues that assist in understanding Islam and removing common misconceptions about Islam.”
- On The Ground:
In his write-up “Western Islamists work to build the Taliban’s Afghanistan into a global caliphate’, in the Focus on Western Islamism of February 22, Sam Westrop writes that an axis of Islamists in the US, Germany, and the UK — connected to Deobandis and international terror-tied Islamist movement Hizb ut-Tahrir — is working to provide ideological and material support for the Taliban while encouraging the violent regime to move beyond tribal and cultural identities and instead develop a global Islamist state under strict sharia law.
Westrop claims that the Chicago-based charity, Islamic Oasis, is working with a German-British organization named the Qamar Charity Foundation to build the ideological and welfare infrastructure for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
In Kabul, Islamic Oasis and Qamar Foundation are working in complete unison. They share staff and projects and regularly appear in each other’s promotional material as if they are a single organization. Together, they build mosques, teach in the Taliban universities, run joint events, and refer to each other as “our team.”
- Taliban Response
The Taliban welcomes these charitable efforts. In December 2022, the office of the Taliban Prime Minister praised the Qamar Foundation and other institutions for their cooperation with the Islamic Emirat
Chicago-based Islamic Oasis head Muhammad Shirazi paid his maiden visit to Kabul in January 2022. Besides meeting with the Qamar functionaries, he is reported to have met two provincial governors. In August of that year, the Taliban government funded the $83,000 bridge in Mehtar Lam, Laghaman, which Qamar claimed was built in partnership with Oasis. Almost immediately after the Taliban took control of Kabul, Islamic Oasis organized a discussion that featured Muhammad Shirazi, the chief of Oasis, and the Qamar chief, Rahmatullah Nowruz. Muhammad Malkawi, a prominent leader of Hizb ut Tahrir, and Omar Baloch, a radical cleric notorious for his promotion of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and supporter of the Caliphate, joined them to deliberate on the Caliphate issue.
- Discussion:
What did these prominent members of the Caliphate think-tank discuss? Some clues are available. Shirazi, the founding member of Islamic Oasis, declared that the victory in Afghanistan was at risk from the “colonial mindset in the rest of the world. Baloch agreed and warned that Israel and India posed a particular threat.
He spoke about the collaboration between the “mushrikeen” (poly-theists, meaning Hindu) and the Yuhud, meaning the Jews. Nowruz said that while nobody was saying that the current Taliban government was perfect if they worked together, “we can make it perfect, at least better than the last four decades that we have lived.”
By November 2021, Shirazi and Nowruz were streamlining the concept of a Global Caliphate. Shirazi organized another Islamic Oasis webinar with Nowruz to discuss how the Afghan leadership could take the nation. Once again, the two were joined by Mohammed Malkawi. Yasir Nadeem al-Wajidi, a prominent Chicago Deobandi scholar who has long expressed open support for his Taliban brethren, was added to the discussion.
Malkawi stated that the ummah intends to provide full support to Afghanistan so that its mission of implementing Islamic law completely at all levels is achieved. Wajidi said that Afghanistan was the only region where hope was alive.
While discussing the economic challenges to the ummah, the opinion was that it had yet to be ascertained how a sharia economy would work. To avoid the notice of Western governments, it was suggested to use cryptocurrencies “not controlled by anybody, but decentralized so they can bypass the American banks.
Nowruz explained that he had been “discussing with organizations in America,” as well as Canada, the UK, and Germany, the means to coordinate this ideological effort in Afghanistan.
- eurasiantimes.com