In 325 CE, the Christian emperor Constantine (272-337) played a crucial role in settling a dispute between two conflicting Christian groups, the Arians and the Athanasians. The Arians asserted that Jesus was created and therefore could not be of the same essence (Homoousion) as the Father i.e. God Himself. In opposition, the Athanasians argued that Jesus was of the same essence and part of a triune Godhead. Whereas the exact role of Constantine in the dispute is debatable, his influence was pivotal in ascertaining the verdict. In order to maintain the status quo in his empire, Constantine declared Arius, the leader of the Arians a heretic, and gave the Athanasians his royal approval. Whilst not having any substantial knowledge of Christian theology, and for the sake of creating a religious unity that would not undermine his governance, Emperor Constantine had successfully managed to maintain the religious peace. However, a decade later in 335 CE, Athanasius fell out of imperial favour. Constantine immediately called upon the services of Arius, who was accepted back into the communion. This time, it was the turn of Athanasius to be excommunicated. He was duly banished to Gaul (France) [1].

Constantine’s shift in stance was political rather than religious; however, political powers often use religion or religious authorities to derive certain political or personal ends. Henry VIII (1491-1547), the King of England, broke away from the Catholic Church for personal reasons (i.e. love pursuits). In order to realize his personal ambitions, he formed his own parallel form of Christianity and declared himself as the "the only Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England".

Constantine and Henry VIII established a strong precedent for modern governments. Centuries later, it has almost become government protocol to employ guile and dishonesty as a means to achieve desired results. Political powers are usually not interested in religious theocracy; rather their interests lie in the commodification of religion, so that it is limited to a confined facet of society. The management and containment of religious thought and expression has always been a high priority for governments throughout history.

On 18th of July 2008, BBC News reported that the British government has devised a plan to hire “thinkers” from the Islamic world to discuss issues affecting Muslim communities. Some of the issues that are going to be examined will concern the role of Muslim women in society, loyalty to the State and of course the radicalisation of the Muslim youth. The government-approved list of theologians will be designated to re-interpret or “properly” interpret (as the government likes to put it) Islam so that it transforms into a politically flaccid, government-swayed version of religion. By aiming to introduce a Church like hierarchy that conventionally does not exist in Islam, moderate Muslim voices have already branded this latest attempt to manage Islamic doctrine as an attempt to Christianise Islam. Others mainstream Muslim organisations have branded this as an attempt to ‘reprogram’ British Muslims.  The BBC report further reported that some ‘hard-line activists’ were angered at the initiative and accused ministers of creating a state-sponsored Islam [2].

The BBC’s choice of terminology here insinuates that anyone who disparages this initiative is an automatic ‘hardliner’. Ms Hazel Blears, Communities Secretary, stated that ‘it was the government’s job to support the Muslim leaders on controversial issues.’ As to who will be asked to represent the Muslim community at this ‘elite’ gathering still remains a mystery, but one thing is certain, the panellists congregated by the government will have virtually no religious credibility in the Muslim community. Their ill-advised offering to the government has already sealed their fate. This government initiative is the latest project in a series of plans to win the British battle for hearts and minds.

‘Hearts and Minds’ campaigns are usually understood as Western attempts to emotionally and ideologically ‘liberate’ oppressed nations from tyrants, dictators and religious theocrats. The primary objective of ‘Hearts and Minds’ campaigns is for Western forces, who somehow always end up playing the role of the liberator (and never the occupier), to win over the loyalty and allegiance of native populations by selling them promises of freedom, security and development.

Today, ‘The Battle for Hearts and Minds’ is a cliché that is spearheading the American ‘War on Terror’. It somehow makes the current conflict all the more moral and principled.

The aim of campaigns such as these is to intellectually and morally defeat an enemy so that public opinion is swayed in favour of the party orchestrating the campaign. The Modus operandi for ‘Hearts and Minds’ campaigns depends entirely upon the make-up of the threat. For example, ‘Hearts and Minds’ campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq utilise mass propaganda as a means to over amplify the threat to local communities from the insurgency. As part of the tactics employed, British and American forces, whilst underplaying their own war crimes, exaggerate the public casualty lists and ascribe killings of innocents to the insurgency. They inflate the numbers of deaths caused in enemy ranks in order to dampen the moral of the resistance, or they create unsubstantiated rumours about the enemy that will destabilise their support base. On the other hand, troops distribute pamphlets prepared in native languages appealing for patriotism and loyalty to national government. NATO and coalition troops put on public displays of reconstruction and development, aiming to convince the Afghan and Iraqi public that stability and prosperity can only be achieved through the interference of occupying forces. The battle of hearts and minds employs a multi-faceted approach, some of which is overt whilst much of which is played out behind the scenes.

The dynamics of winning hearts and minds on the streets of Britain, however, poses an altogether different challenge. Over here the emphasis is on ‘de-radicalisation’ - or tranquilisation rather - of Muslim communities and the introduction of a reformed Islam that is in conformity with the governmental vision for social cohesion and integration. Over the past few years, the Labour party has initiated a comprehensive plan to launch a major upheaval in the way that the Muslim community functions in Britain. Projects have been launched targeting almost every segment of the community. Through MINAB, the government has proposed the formation of a body that would generate government approved mosque imams, through Citizenship Foundation programmes such as the Bradford based initiative ‘Nasiha’, the government has attempted to penetrate Muslim families by encouraging them to report ‘radical’ members of their household to the authorities, and through government backed forums such as the Radical Middle Way, British Muslim Forum, and the Sufi Muslim Council, the government has attempted to siphon off Muslim affiliation away from the Muslim world. The Muslim community as a whole is viewed with suspicion. This attitude towards Muslims is not new; the current government has a well-established precedent to follow in the annals of the British Raj in India.

In 1871, Dr. William Hunter, a member of the Bengal Civil Service and Director General of Statistics under the British Raj produced a report titled ‘The Indian Mussalmans: Are they bound in Conscience to Rebel against the Queen?’ To this question, E.C. Bailey, the Home Secretary to the Government of India replied: ‘Is it any subject of wonder that they (Muslims) have held aloof a system, which however good in itself, made no concession to their prejudices, made in fact no provision for what they esteemed their necessities, and which was in its nature unavoidably antagonistic to their interests, and at variance with all their traditions?’ [3].

Any form of Muslim resistance against the British occupation of India was branded as ‘Wahhabi influenced’ and the British Raj desperately sought an answer to this ‘Wahhabi’ problem.  One such answer came in the form of Sir Sayyad Ahmad Khan (1817-1898). Western historians honour Sir Sayyad as a ‘modernist and Islamic reformer’, but Indo-Pak Muslim history remembers him differently: as a traitor to the Muslim freedom movement. Sir Sayyad was employed by the British Raj, and was renowned for vigorously advocating Muslim acceptance of the invading forces, to the point that he called upon all Muslims to loyally become subservient to the British Raj and abandon any legitimate opposition to the British occupation.

Sir Sayyad famously wrote:

‘I am a Musalman domiciled in India. Racially I am a Semite: the Arab blood still courses in my veins. The religion of Islam in which I have full and abiding faith preaches radical principles. Thus, both by blood and faith I am a true radical… But the religion, which teaches me these principles, also inculcates certain other principles. First, if God wills our subjection to another race, which grants us religious freedom, governs us justly, preserves peace, protects our life and belongings, as the British do in India, we should wish it well and owe it allegiance’ [4].

However, history teaches us that the general population of Indian Muslims enjoyed none of the privileges appreciated by Sir Sayyad Ahmad Khan. This was partially due to the Indian Mutiny of 1857 CE, which was allegedly led by Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor of India [5]. The Muslim community was collectively blamed, in particular for causing this mutiny, and as a consequence suffered the wrath of the Imperial might. In his aforementioned statement, Sir Sayyad might have been referring to his own memorable experiences, as British collaborators were rewarded handsomely, and Sir Sayyad was of course knighted in 1888 for his services to the Queen. Some have argued a strong case that he was given this recognition in return for his attempts to “reform” Islam (for this purpose he established the Aligarh University in 1877). Sir Sayyad was much influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution and rationalist thinking of the time [6]. This caused him to deny many Islamic principles pertaining to belief in angels, miracles and even hadith [7] - he even denied that Adam was one man, arguing instead that Adam was an allegorical representation of the whole of mankind [8]. He longed for a new interpretation of Islam, and funnelled his ideas in his work titled “Tafseerul-Quran” (Interpretation of the Quran). Due to the absurdities in this work, the Ulama (Islamic scholars) of India unanimously declared him to be an apostate from Islam [9].

Sir Sayyad’s case rings a contemporary bell, as there are those today who, having been misled by the “secularist” school of thought, wish to reform Islam so that it can absorb tenuous notions into matters of both creed and jurisprudence.          
 
Sir Sayyad considered himself as an ‘Islamic radical’ who saw no contradiction in reconciling Islam with European philosophy. He advocated the practice of ijtihad in an attempt to reform Islam but he ultimately negated some centrally intrinsic beliefs of Islam. As far as Sir Sayyad was concerned, his attempt of treading the radical middle way had been a miserable failure. Little did he know, that the British were to create their very own ‘radical middle way’ forums in centuries to come.

Around the same time, the British Raj stumbled upon another ‘reformist’, a man by the name of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, a self proclaimed Mahdi and Prophet gained a following of over 300,000 followers in India, and his heretical views led to him and his followers being excommunicated from the main Ummah of Muslims. However, for the British, he was an indispensable figure who could help neutralise the ‘Wahhabi’ threat that was always lurking in the shadows. The British funded Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and pinpointed him as ‘their man’ in India. In return, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad worked tirelessly to serve the imperial interests in the region and wrote in his infamous letter:

 ‘...For the sake of the British government, I have published fifty thousand books, magazines and posters and distributed them in this (Indian) and other Islamic countries ... It is as the result of my endeavours that thousands of people have given up thoughts of Jihad which had been propounded by ill-witted mullahs and embedded in the minds of the people. I can rightly feel proud of this that no other Muslim in British India can equal me in this respect...’ [10]

It had always been a practice of the British Empire to induce public support away from popular resistance movements and to secure public sentiments in favour of their own interests. The imperial government had historically always rewarded those that had aided the British Raj’s interests, and those who had resisted occupation were always penalised, hence the term ‘carrot and stick’ treatment was coined. Neutralising a population that is sympathetic to elements that hamper tyrannical political strategies is part and parcel of a counter-opposition technique that governments often use as part of their ‘Hearts and Minds’ campaigns.

20th Century Islamic history has exposed more than its fair share of traitors. When the East India Company played the game of replacing Nawabs in Bengal to the highest bidder, an estimated total of Rs. 2,000,000 was paid out in the form of gifts by various aspirants for the post. The Victoria and Albert Museum proudly displays a ‘turban jewel’ set with diamonds, rubies, sapphires and pearls that was presented by Mir Jafar to Admiral Charles Watson who, along with Robert Clive (referred by admirers as ‘the conqueror of India’), appointed him ‘Nawab of Bengal’. Gifts and bribes for undue favours and war booty played a large part in what some call ‘the financial bleeding of Bengal’. The Company removed Mir Jafar as the Nawab of Bengal in 1760, only to replace him by his nephew who could continue to keep up the payments to the British. In exchange for a brief spell at authority, Mir Jafar had transferred ownership of invaluable Muslim heritage to the Company. His selfish ambitions were quenched via the relinquishment of the remnants of Mughal dynasty in India.

During the gruesome French occupation of Algeria (1954-1962), the French army relied upon between 180,000 – 200,000 native Algerians to counter local resistance movements. For the French, the main role of the ‘Harki’ was to gather intelligence on the resistance and to launch propaganda campaigns in favour of the French. However, the Harkis were also formed as irregular militia embedded in towns and villages, and with extensive knowledge of the local culture and geography, they were well equipped to engage the resistance from within. Even today, those Algerians who supported the French presence in Algeria are referred to as ‘Harkis’. Since Algerian independence, the term ‘Harki’ has been used as a derogatory expression. The term Harki today means "collaborator ". There is a huge parallel between the Harki movement of Algeria and that of the Awakening Councils being developed by the American forces in Iraq today. Western powers have come to specialise in fighting wars by proxy. This battle-tested approach is now being used to fight the battle of ideas.   

Since 9/11, Western governments have searched for credible partners to work alongside within the Muslim community. The aim of these governments has been to support and promote those Muslim organisations that endorse a colonialist vision for the World, whilst concurrently isolating Muslim organisations that take a more positioned stance on their religion and world politics.

A report titled ‘Civil Democratic Islam’, released by the RAND Corporation in 2003 identified different subgroups of Muslims; essentially those who were ‘friendly’ and those who were perceived as a threat. The RAND Report divided Muslims into 4 categories, Secularists, Moderates, Traditionalists and Fundamentalists. In a nutshell, Fundamentalists were identified as those who wanted an ‘authoritarian, puritanical state that will implement their extreme view of Islamic Law and morality’[11]- the Traditionalists ‘want a conservative society. They are suspicious of modernity, innovation and change’[12]- Modernists ‘…want to modernise and reform Islam to bring it in line with the age’[13] and the Secularists ‘want the Islamic world to adopt a division between the Church and the State, in the manner of Western industrial democracies, with religion relegated to the private sphere’[14].

The RAND Report used this calculated reclassification of Muslims to lay down the principle strategy for the current ‘Battle of Hearts and Minds’. This strategy, which is currently being played out in countries across the world aims to pit the Moderates and Secularists against the Traditionalists and Fundamentalists. In a carefully carved out plan, the Modernists and Secularists are to be funded by Western governments, given a public platform, their organisations are to be endorsed by their respective Governments and their works are to be introduced into the Islamic education curriculum. The purpose of the Moderates and Secularists is to present a ‘counterculture’ to the Muslim youth, a culture that would remove any discrepancy between their Muslim roots and Western surroundings. The aim of this exercise is to empower the ‘moderate’ movement and broaden its influence across the Muslim community. The creation of the Modernist movement is solely to challenge and undermine traditional practices of Islam, and offer the Muslim community a negotiated brand of Islam that is compliant with Western, non-Islamic values, practices and visions for global order.

In Britain, the recommendations of the RAND Report have been wholeheartedly integrated into government policy. On April 9th 2007, the then Communities Secretary called for the creation of a ‘British version of Islam’. Ruth Kelly had taken a chapter out of the history book of the British Raj. In order to give birth to a new adaptation of Islam, the Blairite government desperately sought for credible partners in the community. Love affairs ensued between Muslim organisations and the government, but only for a while. As the government’s demands became increasingly outrageous, yesterday’s allies were eventually sidelined and replaced by the next highest bidders.

The current government has launched a series of ‘de-radicalisation’ programmes targeted at the Muslim community. The latest programme launched by Hazel Blears, ‘Tackling Violent Extremism’, aims to use ‘compliant’ organisations within the Muslim community to infiltrate the social groupings that sustain the community; mosques, schools, universities, social clubs, Islamic organisations and even prison chaplainries are being lured into receiving thousands of pounds of funding in return for their services. The aim of ‘Tackling Violent Extremism’ is to eradicate the concepts of Islamic Shariah, Islamic Caliphate and Jihad from the Muslim community. These justice-based Islamic concepts that are derived from the core texts of Islam vis-a-vis the Quran and Hadith (sayings of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him) are today being largely revamped. Furthermore, the government is using Muslim organisations as a front to confiscate the ideological ownership of these ideas and is seeking to re-define terminology and meanings of aspects that are centrally ingrained within Islamic textual and political history. One such brainchild of the government is the Qulliam Foundation, a supposedly Muslim-led anti-terror think tank whose main function is to undermine and distort mainstream Islam.

The government has siphoned off Islam into sub-religions. What it refuses to concede is that Islam is a comprehensive system. This Islamic faith governs all spheres of both individual and public life, be it spiritual, family, political, social or economic.  But as in any other system, Islamic injunctions all have a time and place. Muslims are not permitted to be oppressive when there is peace, but neither are they permitted to remain inactive when faced by oppression. Every Islamic ruling has a specific context. Nevertheless, Islam’s unambiguous message is today being misused to serve the political and financial interests of state-influenced multinationals. Selective referencing from Islamic texts has allowed un-Islamic governments to subdue the Islamic renaissance in the Muslim world. Under the pretext of unification of civilisations, the implementation of the Islamic Shariah in the Muslim world is being flagrantly resisted. Little do they realise that Islamic administrations who governed with the Shariah were the most tolerant towards religious and ethnic minorities-there never was a clash of civilisations under rule of the Islamic Caliphate.

The grave mistake that the British government is making is that it is failing to realise that the ‘fundamentalists’ are not an organised group, nor are they pledged to any specific cause or leader. These ‘fundamentalists’ are lay Muslims who have voiced their objection to British foreign policy in Muslim lands. They have advocated that the various movements in Muslim lands are justified in their resistance to invasion and occupancy, and have further articulated that if the Muslim world wants to implement Islamically compliant systems of governance, then the West has no justification or even jurisdiction to interfere in their domestic affairs. The Muslims that the government categorises as ‘fundamentalists’ rightfully maintain that the leaders of the Muslim world are strategically selected viceroys of the West; this viewpoint is an opinion that does not exclusively belong to the ‘fundamentalists’, almost all independent Western analysts concur with this standpoint. Since the turn of the Millennium, the West has continued to endorse dictatorships in Asia and the Middle East. These dictatorships, both military and civilian continue to embezzle the wealth and resources of the Muslim world and repress the rights of their own populations.

On the other hand, the West has ruined any prospects of stability and development in places such as Palestine and Somalia, where after decades of corruption, Islamic parties came closest to bringing stability to these lands. These patent demonstrations of double standards displayed by Western governments have caused even the most liberal elements of the Muslim community to vocalise their contempt for this modern wave of ‘neo-colonialism’ that has gripped Western political thought.

Those Muslims that continue to hold onto the traditional and legislated doctrines of Islam are deemed problematic today. And instead of the British themselves leading the fight, they have drafted in their own version of the Algerian Harki- only this time, the battle ground is not a war plain, but rather our hearts and minds. The modern day Harki is indeed the greatest menace to the future of Islam.

History has proven that traitors never succeed in securing the long lasting pleasure of their masters. Treachery can only be managed through greater treachery. In Britain, those organisations that were identified as being ‘on side’ of the government have today been marginalized. The government always expects more, and those such as Mir Jafar who fail to deliver results, lose out to the next in line. The Muslim community in Britain is truly engaged in a Battle for Islam. On one side you have a ‘creation’ of the Labour government, and on the other you have an orthodox mainstream. There is a distinct parallel between colonialist strategy in 19th Century India and 21st Century Britain. Muslims do not ascribe to Vladimir Lenin’s statement ‘A lie told often enough becomes the truth’. For a Muslim, a lie will always be a lie. An Islam that is not established in textual and traditionalist truth will always remain a rejected lie.

References

[1] W.H.C Frend, The Early Church (London, 1973), p. 160.
[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7512626.stm
[3] M.J. Akbar, The Shade of Swords (New Delhi, 2004), pp. 172-173.
[4] G. F. I. Graham, Life and Work of Syed Ahmed Khan (London, 1885), p. 188.
[5] William Dalrymple, The Last Mughal (London, 2006), pp. 405-11.
[6] Abdur-Rahman Kailani, Aina-e-Parvaizyat (Lahore, 2004), p. 70.
[7] Ibid, pp. 71-74.
[8] Ibid, p. 105.
[9] Ibid, p. 109.
[10] Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, Sitara-e-Qaisaria, Roohany Khazaen, Vol. 15, p. 114; Sitara-e-Qaisaria, p. 3-4 Letter to Queen Victoria, Khutba-Ilhamia, Appendix.
[11] Cheryl Benard, Civil Democratic Islam (Santa Monica, CA., 2003), page x.
[12] Ibid, p. ix
[13] Ibid, p. ix
[14] Ibid, p. ix