The West has lost the battle for hearts and minds

The battle has been lost. It began whilst the embers of the last Khilafah "Caliphate" State were still burning, soon to be extinguished. Whilst the poet’s ink was fresh on the page, when he cried,

The wedding songs turned into echoes of mourning,
And your death was announced within the signs of joy,
You were shrouded in the night of wedding with its dress,
And you were buried at the time of morning break,
You were escorted to your burial in horror, with the tears of a laughing (person),
In every area; and with agony of drunkenness of a conscious (person).
Minarets and minbars shouted for you,
Kingdoms and provinces cried on you,
India is bewildered and Egypt is sad,
And she cries on you with flowing tears.
Ash-Sham, Iraq and Persia ask,
Is there anyone who wiped the Khilafah "Caliphate" from our lands?
All the great and the good attended your funeral,
They sat there in the seats of mourning,
O men! Watch a murdered noble-born (lady),
She was killed without sin or guilt.

This battle was one to terminate a civilisation, no less. Shawqi wept for its demise. Yet the memory faded. The Khilafah "Caliphate" state would become a distant memory. Of times past, where greatness belonged to another era. The force of secular democratic systems and Arab demagoguery was meant to confirm this victory. Islam was all but extinguished, only to remain a word on the lips and shadows in a Mosque. The West had extinguished Allah’s order, so it believed. It was said the British General Allenby declared in 1918 when marching into Jerusalem, ‘now the Crusades are over’. For Britain and the West, the demise of the Khilafah "Caliphate" was the demise of Islam. No less a victory over its greatest enemy.

Yet the battle failed. The history that ended, came back to life. The feeling and the thought returned into the hearts of iman, once occupied by foreigners. The West looked on with dismay, as this great civilisation began to rise. At first it haughtily declared the battle for hearts and minds would be won, hailing the supremacy of liberal capitalism. In freedom and equality. Yet it failed in the cells of Bagram, in the injustice of Guantanamo, in the atrocities of Fallujah and in the secret prisons it plotted around the world. It failed with its drones and its private militias. It spoke of freedom, yet its leaders closed the gates to those fleeing the wars they started. It spoke of equality, yet banned any utterance of Islamic political expression in Egypt. It used every means at its disposal to halt Islam. And with it, it destroyed its own façade.

Anyone who assesses this Ummah will witness its recovery. Yes, it has weaknesses. For sure it fails on many fronts. However, the Islamic thought has returned and the hearts have been turned. The West currently plots to restore Syria. Yet after countless conferences and meetings, it has failed to find support on the ground. This is because they know what is now an inevitability, the liberation of this Ummah has begun. The same west has attempted for years to ‘integrate’ Muslim populations in Europe and America, the sons and daughters of a Muslim world ravaged by colonialism. Yet they have failed. What we are witnessing is a monumental shift in the mindset of the West.

They now know this liberation cannot be reversed. This battle has truly been lost. And so they resort to an age-old strategy. To spread fear and hatred. If you cannot change Muslims, you spread fear. All their laws and restrictions upon Muslim communities in the West is to alarm. So fear consumes communities.

And to their non-Muslim populations, they spread hatred. Hatred for Islam, a blind hatred. A hatred for Muslims, mosques, caliphate, madrassahs, hijabs, beards, reverts, the young, the old, the work colleague, the taxi driver... To associate Islam, its people and its institutions with terrorism. When the cartoonic Donald Trump speaks, he echoes a deeper animosity peddled by politicians of all political hues. Hatred is a currency. It can be used when Islam returns to state and society, to confront it. It can only be reversed when the Mercy of Islam returns to extinguish their darkness.

And this is what is left of western civilisation. Fear and hatred.

((يُرِيدُونَ أَن يُطْفِؤُواْ نُورَ اللّهِ بِأَفْوَاهِهِمْ وَيَأْبَى اللّهُ إِلاَّ أَن يُتِمَّ نُورَهُ وَلَوْ كَرِهَ الْكَافِرُونَ))

“They desire to extinguish Allah’s Light with their mouths. But Allah refuses to do other than perfect His Light, even though the kafirun detest it.” [At-Tawba: 32]

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Abdullah Jaleel