Inefficacious Ummah

The Arabic word “Ummah” could be translated as “nation”, though it broadly represents a grouping of people who are united by Islamic faith, values, and purpose. Therefore, its applicability is global and not carved by modern nation-states that have been split cartographically depending on sub-sects, ethnicities, languages, cultures, tribes or regions.

But the holy Qur’an affords the word “Ummah” a certain collective identity (i.e., Prophet Muhammad’s followers) and responsibility that ought to override cartographical or any other form of societal “divide”. However, irreconcilable intrigues, historical differences, politics, colonialism and wanton ambitions of the elite ensured that the unity as proscribed by faith, never really manifested into a singular nation. Today around 50 countries with at least 50 per cent of their population base belonging to the Islamic faith exist. Roughly 30 of these countries have also declared Islam to be their official religion, yet the collectiveness of unity as envisaged in the expression “Ummah” as a na – tion state is next to impossible. Sectarianism is the biggest divider and many of these austere Islamic countries are at war with each other e.g. Saudi Arabia versus Yemen, Iran versus Iraq (in the 1980s and 90s), Syria under Assad versus Arab Sheikdoms, or now even Pakistan versus Afghanistan, etc., There were attempts like the United Arab Republic (union between Egypt and Syria that lasted from 1958 to 1961) that hoped to unify disparate lands owing to Pan-Arab nationalism predicated on the hope of a united Arab world.

Barely three years into the experiment, the Syrians felt socially, culturally and economically marginalised and with other neighbouring countries (also Islamic) interfering in the experiment ~ the whole notion of unity based on commonality of faith fell flat. Even the “two-nation” theory that vivisected the Indian Sub-continent into two parts on the assumption that one side was a nation for Muslims i.e. Pakistan, and the other for a secular “Idea of India” reflected poorly on the ideological anchorage of Ummah. In 1971, the ethnic, linguistic, cultural and political differences between what were then East and West Pakistan became simply irreconcilable and the ostensible bind of “Ummah” was clearly untenable as Bangladesh got created.

Clearly ethnic identities and nationalism overrode Islamic unity. Seemingly, the global Islamic solidarity does supposedly converge as a symbolically unifying cause on a few common issues ~ most notably Palestine. It is im agined as a blessed land (al-ard al-mu qad – dasah) in the holy Qur’an and Hadith and the land connected to revered Prophets like Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), Isa (Jesus), Dawud (David), Sulayman (Solomon), etc. It is home to the AlAqsa Mosque where the Isra and Miraj is believed to have happened (Night Journey of the Holy Prophet from Mecca to Jerusalem and then ascending to heaven).

Therefore the occupation of Palestine by Israel led to most Islamic countries eschewing formal relations with Israel earlier. But all that was in the past. Today, not only is there a beeline of Sheikdoms falling over themselves to ingratiate themselves with Tel Aviv, but the stunning silence and pusillanimity of Islamic countries as the Gaza Strip gets reduced to pulp with over 55,000 Palestinian deaths, is stunning abandonment of the Palestinian cause. The Abraham Accords led to UAE, Sudan, Bahrain and Morocco joining the ranks of Jordan, Egypt and Turkey as nations with diplomatic relations with Israel; secret parleys between Saudi Arabia and Israel being the worst kept secret of the region. All this while, the commitment towards Palestine has been reduced to a joke. If news of Palestinian misery in Gaza with total destruction and as food and medicine shortages abound, then so does news like the Qatar Royalty gifting a $400 million 747 Jet to Donald Trump!

If this disingenuity and insincerity despite the co-sectarian (Sunni dominated) commonality of Palestine with the Arab Sheikh doms is accepted as the “new normal” ~ the fate of the sectarian “oth er” i.e., Shiite Iran, in the face of the Israeli-US attack is hardly surprising. Despite all wishy-washy platitudes of restraint by Israel, it is shocking to see that (by now familiar) silence afforded onto Iran as it was attacked by Israel, with barely any country in the 50 odd Ummah countries offering to stand by Iranian privation effectively. For all its bravado and posturing against the “West” ~ it was comical to see the obsequious behaviour of the newly self anointed Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir, suggesting the Nobel Prize for Donald Trump even as the American president unleashed the most vile commentary and threats against Iran and openly supported the Israeli position.

As the contemporary scholar, Dr Yasir Qadhi says, “We chant slogans of the Ummah, but act in the narrow interests of our tribe, our sect, our party, our nation. This is not the way of the Prophet”. As Tehran stood alone and isolated in the midst of the Israel-US onslaught, its repeated pleas to the Ummah to galvanise military, political, diplomatic and moral support fell on deaf ears. Even Iran’s supposed proxies in the “Axis of Resistance” like the Iraqi Shiite militias, Hezbollah (in Lebanon), Houthis (in Yemen) etc., had seemingly lost their appetite to de – fend Iran. It almost looked like one sectarian side within the Ummah was fine to let the “other” get decimated, degraded and neutralized for good. The optics hark back to 2008 when the Arab Spring had either removed or threatened to evict the longstanding Arab leaders and Muammar Gaddafi had famously criticised the leaders in the Ummah. Alluding to Saddam, he had warned that no leader was immune from getting removed by saying, “Don’t say you are friends of the US. Saddam was a close Americanally…and they hanged him…The turn will come to each of you. What happened to Saddam awaits you, too”. Gaddafi had chillingly added, “We hate each other, we conspire against one another.

Our intelligence services work against each other instead of the enemy”. Soon thereafter, he himself was killed in a brutal fashion and the Arab leadership had watched in silence or even in glee at the removal of a man they saw as a maverick. Today, history seems to repeat itself with the recent narrative on Palestine and now, Iran, showing just how divided and inefficacious the Ummah is ~ the bluster and promises, notwithstanding.

 (The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), and former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry)

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