The Sixth Pillar of Islam

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=335814&version=1&template_id=44&parent_id=24


Since jihad is the sixth pillar of Islam, the present government's avowed intention to prevent jihadis from entering India or finding sanctuary in Bangladesh is scandalously anti-Islamic. While other non-Muslim governments kill and maim Muslims with impunity, we are going to hogtie them within a thicket of laws.
No Bangladeshi Muslim, therefore, need abide by these laws, or obey the government in these matters. Al-Ghazali had said "Better twenty years of injustice than one hour of chaos". But he was referring to Sultanate rule, not to democracy, which he would have found shocking, with its change of government every five years and an opposition criticizing the government (criticism is treasonous for al-Ghazali).

However, we are not all brave or capable enough to be jihadis: but there are others who are. Living in an Indian and American colony, if they wish to strike at the nation, they have every authority to do so. "Know that the unbelievers are your enemies," states the Koran. If the country had been an autocracy, then things would have been different: al-Ghazali's and al-Mawardi's interdiction would have applied. But that is not the case.

If we are unable to perform the sixth pillar ourselves, we can at least – as least – pray for those who are, and offer public prayers on Fridays for their souls and their success. We can offer public or private sacrifices for the nobility of their cause. Between 1991 and 2001, nearly two million Iraqi children were murdered by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton – with the full acquiescence and knowledge of the western word, and the criminal United Nations (whose representative was killed in Baghdad, possibly by a relative or father of one of these dead children).

With so much hostility against Muslims, so many dead Muslims from Iraq to Gaza, Kashmir to Somalia, to prohibit the performance of the sixth pillar is an act of the utmost impiety. If not within Muslim polities, then against the oppressors, Muslim should have unfettered freedom from their coreligionists to wage a just war.

I hope those who read this will offer at least a prayer for the jihadis tonight. Tomorrow….