Weekly Bangla Mirror | Bangla Mirror, Bangladeshi news in UK, bangla mirror news
Author: Mashuk Ahmed Khan
Member of:
The University of Oxford Philosophical Society and;
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
This article is intended to rebut the fallacy in the survey report published by Tom Newton Dunn (“Tom”) (the political editor of the SUN newspaper, London) in the SUN dated 23 November 2015 on sympathy for “Jihadis” by British Muslims based on his inappropriate statistical sampling method. The report also appears to be politically charged with added verbose lubrication to it by Labour Party London Mayoral hopeful Sadiq Khan MP (“Sadiq Khan”) for Tooting Constituency. The survey was apparently biased; it fell short of ‘qualitative research’ and consequently, lacks any validity at all. Further, Tom’s use of the word “Jihadis” was a misnomer in its entirety, and no doubt, has stemmed from his perverted understanding of the word Jihad. Hence, it is important to provide here a synopsis of the meaning of the word “Jihad” and its construct for disambiguation, before focussing on Tom’s statistical misrepresentation, and discussing briefly the resurgence of the Arab Ba’athist Socialist ideologies – disguised in its hybrid organisation: the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (“ISIS”).
Islam means “peace” in Arabic, and the Qur’aan says “Enter into peace completely and do not follow the steps of Satan” [2.208]; in other words, what is against the peace is Satanic/evil (whether individual, socio- economic or political evils) and therefore un-Islamic. The Arabic word “Jihad” is often translated and used to mean “holy war” by many Muslims and non-Muslims, but in a purely linguistic sense, the word “Jihad” means struggle or strive. The Arabic word for war is “al-harb”, and holy war in Arabic is “harb muqaddasa”. However, there is no holiness in any war, as all wars are destructive to human interests and their peaceful existence. Despite the fact, there is a thin line between the terms ‘holy’ and ‘unholy’ wars, to be distinguished and a careful approach is always required before accommodating ‘holiness’ into a war, even in the context of righteousness.
From etymological perspective, and in Islamic context as described in the Qur’aan and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), the meaning of the word “Jihad” entails struggle within the internal and external domain of an individual, to be a good Muslim, with a duty to informing others about the faith of Islam, in other words “Jihad by tongue/expression” (Jihad bil lisan).There is nothing wrong in preaching Islam (Jihad by tongue/expression) without compulsion (implied or express) like any other religion as it is allowed here under Art.10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”). Nonetheless, it is a qualified right and not to be taken as absolute to express or publish anything one may wish that is contrary to greater public interest such as: the protection and reputation of others by law.
Internal struggle – the first constituent of “Jihad” – refers to purifying one’s soul “jihad against one’s own self” (Jihad bin nafs) and may be construed as controlling one’s greed, fighting one’s ego, vanity, and refraining from telling lies etc….) towards developing a humane quality such as: honesty, humbleness, kind and caring attitude, coupled with peaceful Islamic etiquette (self-discipline) to dealing with worldly transactions between mankind fairly, with a view to increase one’s intrinsic worth, so as to seek divine refuge.
External struggle – the second constituent of “Jihad” – may be construed to embrace individuals’ social responsibility to establishing the good over the evils in society such as: parity and social justice, law and order, human rights which amounts to “Jihad by Pen/knowledge” (Jihad bil qalam/ilm)) or doing charitable work, and being philanthropic, and the execution of Corporate Social Responsibilities etc…, which amount to “Jihad by hand” (jihad bin yad) – i.e.; generosity/hand outs, towards the needy or social needs. These things are not unbeknown to the Western world. The fundamental ethos of the Rotary Club International for example, is based on the premise of “lend a hand” and “serve above self “. These notions have a positive correlation with the “altruistic” rationality found in the elements of “Jihad by hand, and by Pen/knowledge”.
Thus, in every day life of a true Muslim his/her actions must invite peace and advance the virtues of our existence – the bond of mankind, and humanizing our race – in this world in accordance with the Qur’aanic order. On an individualistic level this could mean not to cause any physical harm to anyone, or their properties, nor allow anyone to trespass on your physical autonomy or properties. If anybody attacks you, you are entitled to defend yourself using proportionate force or restrain yourself from retaliation if at all possible. On a national level it will encompass: not to invade a nation’s sovereignty or let anyone invade or offend your sovereignty. While the right to defend oneself or a State is an absolute right, there is no right to inflict harm on another at all. Thus a pre-emptive strike may not always be justified under the meaning of “Jihad bin Saif” (armed struggle), although, it is often used as an excuse to inflict harm or provoke a full scale war by the aggressors. There may be serious error in justifying a pre-emptive strike on the basis of assumed suspicion of serious threat from another, which may turn out to be a fairy tale at the end.
Therefore, the only time armed struggle may be justified is when a nation’s peace and security is ‘actually’ threatened by internal or external force which ‘justifies’ a retaliatory response, in order to defend itself from aggression. And that justification of defence makes a war legitimate and that legitimacy arguably makes a room for holiness to insinuate into the process of a war, thereby making it perhaps a “holy’ war. That is only because of the element of justification that is reflective of righteous and lawful ‘armed struggle’ to maintain a nation’s peaceful existence in the world. Such defensive measure is ordinarily referred to as “just war”, which may alternatively be called a “defensive battle” or as in Arabic “Jihad bin saif ” – confined to attain the primary objectives of protecting a nation by virtue of Islamic theological doctrine of armed struggle (Jihad bin saif), or the Western Classical theory of a “just war” which too advocates: fight against evils; to recapture something unjustly taken or occupied or an act of defence.
When the word “Jihad” is used in the context of armed struggle (Jihad bin saif) it must satisfy the pre-requisites to engage in such Jihad as follows; (a) there must be a necessity for military intervention as a last resort (i.e.;after all peaceful avenues have been explored) to amend an evil; (b) it must be authorised by a head of State (cannot be authorised by individuals or groups); (c) there must be a just cause (defence); (d) there must be a right (holy) intention (i.e.; to extricate the nation from difficulties and restore peace); (e) intended use of force must be proportionate (i.e.; only what is absolutely necessary) and; (f) avoidance of civilian casualties (i.e.; no target on civilians). It is irrelevant whether the aggression is from Muslim or non-Muslim actor(s) – within a state or foreign to it.
Muslim countries in the Shatt al-Arab and other parts of the Middle East have been subjected to ‘armed struggle’ (Jihad bin saif) between their Muslim neighbours for more than three decades that started off with war between Iraq and Iran. And it was necessary for the innocent State (Iran) to defend their homeland, national wealth, innocent civilians and their chattels from Saddam’s aggression. Kuwait was in ‘armed struggle’ with Iraq, in order to survive as a nation with its sovereignty from Saddam’s aggression and sought help from the international community in the absence of arms of equality with Iraq. Saddam defiance to UN demand to retract from Kuwait justified an ‘armed struggle’ (Jihad bin Saif ) against him by the international community including his Arab neighbours. Peoples of Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain were in “armed struggle” with their own governments. Now Syrian people are in ‘armed struggle’ against their President Bashar-al-Assad (“Assad”) and his monstrous regime, to protect them from Assad’s continued brutality, as is necessary under the circumstances; and Assad is in struggle to save Syria from further political and geographical dilapidations.
Therefore when “Jihad” is commonly interpreted in a violent sense, it should not be so, otherwise than from a defensive perspective if it happens to involve armed struggle. Arbitrary acts of violence (with or without the use of any weapons) resulting in injuries and killings of innocent civilians by no means falls into the definition of “Jihad” of any kind. The 9/11 attacks in the USA killing thousands of people, the 7/7 attack in the UK, the killing of 38 tourists in Tunisian sea beach, the Charlie Hebdo shooting, and the recent massacre of 129 innocent civilians in Paris, and the shooting and killing of 14 innocent fellow human beings in San Bernardino, cannot be called “Jihad” other than assigning those barbaric acts to killing of the whole of mankind, according to Qur’aan [verse 5:32], and/or conventional morality. Those acts of “terrorism” are heinous crimes, liable to severe punishment under any criminal justice system. The use of the Arabic word “Iirhabi” (terrorism) is therefore appropriate in those circumstances in place of the word “Jihad” that is ostensibly used by many with wrong linguistic connotation to its meaning. The Holy Qur’aan is misquoted repeatedly in the name of “jihad” by the Islamic extremists and the Western media. What must be noted that “Jihad” is not a word of indiscriminate origin, albeit tragically and incorrectly utilised, as a derivative of terrorism.
In the Qur’aan it is explicitly mentioned that “ … if any one killed a person (unlawfully) it would be as if he killed the whole of mankind, and if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole of mankind…” [5.32]. That de facto is the teaching of the Qur’aan, and that’s how strong the decree is in relation to protecting the mankind from barbaric killings by fellow human beings. From this verse of the Qur’aan one can at least deduce that unlawful killing is not justified under any circumstances. “Jihad” does not mean fighting with non-Muslims and killing of innocent civilians here and there in the name of “God” (Allah). The biggest form of “Jihad” in Islam is the self-restraint from any form of transgressions.
Whosoever interprets “Jihad” to mean war against non-Muslims is an utter nonsense. Such misreading not only exists among the non-Muslims but is extant undoubtedly within the minds of many fanatic Muslims around the world, and this must be consigned to oblivion for ever. Clearly any Muslim who breaches the Qur’aanic order is defiant to “God” and cannot claim to be a Muslim, because that nullifies or affects the basic tenets of Islamic faith. When a person engages in an act of terror must be identified as a terrorist. He/she cannot be both: a “terrorist” and a “Muslim” concurrently. Such notion of double standard does not exist in Islam and cannot be acknowledged by true Muslims. Qur’aanic order is not subject to individuals’ convenient interpretation. Jihad is not an automatic right or a fanciful act for any Muslim to undertake as they wish, so as to cause harm and/or declare war on others. Rather it is subject to qualifying the necessary conditions, calling for declaring “Jihad” in the context of armed struggle in a given circumstance, yet within the realm of justification and proportionality to defence. It is therefore a gross intellectual failure to judge Islam religion and its adherents in the light of the word “Jihad” that has fallen victim to ideological scrutiny and miserable literalism – due to academic laxity.
“One in five British Muslims’ has some sympathy for “Jihadis” by Tom appears to be an elementary statistical exercise carried out by a school boy. While I would allocate some credit to Tom for trying to establish the views of the British Muslims over an issue of utmost gravity, simultaneously, I would hasten to criticise his frugal and inapt approach to statistical sampling method whereby he had interviewed only a minute fraction (0.0037%) of the British Muslim population over the phone randomly. That in effect is prone to produce a subjective and inaccurate result for the following reasons:
- A conduct of telephone survey using Simple Random Sampling (“SRS”) of only 1,003 (one thousand and three) unidentified Muslims out of 7 million (2,700,000) Muslim population in the UK cannot be taken as a reasonable representative sample to determine the apposite ‘mean’ required for a good survey result. The sample represents less than half of a percent (0.0037%) of the British Muslim population parameter, which is bound to cause a major variance in the survey.
- The SRS method is vulnerable to sampling error because the randomness of the selection may result in a sample that does not reflect the make up of the population. Say that Tom’s simple random sampling of 1,003 Muslims comprised of average 50% male and 50% females, but in any given trial it is likely to over-represent one group and under-represent the other, because a randomly selected number could be unequal. For example, a randomly selected numbers of 600 males and 400 females or vice versa will produce a result of under-representing one group by twenty percent (20%) than the other. Systematic and Stratified techniques attempt to overcome this problem by using information about the population to choose a more representative sample.
- In addition the survey will not reflect the views of different strata of the target population such as: Islamic scholars, males and females of different age groups(not just 18-34), ethnicity, nationality, people of different educational and professional backgrounds and geographic locations and the size of the strata, in accordance with the number of people living in a particular area ( eg. the stratum of the number Muslims in London to be surveyed must be greater than the strata of Bristol and Brighton city). A larger sample of the target population with varied stratum would have achieved a better result.
- The some sympathy of 200 (two hundred) people for “Jihadis” if distributed over 1,000 (one thousand) interviewees, it represents 20%. The 20% of 2.7 Millions (2,700,000) produces a number of 540,000 (five hundred forty thousand) alleged sympathisers for Jihadis which is “One in Five” (1/5). Somehow Tom’s figure was 500,000 (five hundred thousand) which contradicts his “One in Five” result, by his own account. But whatever it is, the figure includes children (including toddlers and new born), teenagers, adult men and women (young & elderly), mentally retarded, ignorant individuals and so on. Consequently, my question to Tom is how accurate and sensible is it, statistically, to distribute the views of only 200 (two hundred) “useful idiots” over 2.7million Muslims (2,700,000) in the UK to come up with a sweeping generalisation that merits reporting to a national newspaper (“THE SUN”) that “one in every five” British Muslims have some sympathy for Jihadis.
In order to maximise the validity of a survey it must protégé upon the appropriate method of sampling. There are a number of methods and each of them has its distinct characteristics and purpose, namely: Simple Random Sampling, Stratified Sampling, Systematic Sampling, Cluster Sampling, and Probability sampling, and many more. Not all types are appropriate for every survey. It is a most difficult task to survey human attitude over a sensitive issue of the kind in question. If Tom was that pedantic about investigating a matter of such socio-political interest then he should have used the “Stratified Sampling” method, instead of the SRS, which could have produced a reasonable account of what is in the minds of British Muslims on average, about the “purported Jihadis”, or ISIS activities.
Statistical sampling methodologies although have a significant relevance to measuring different social phenomena, it never produces an accurate result, irrelevant of what sampling method was deployed. The data produced by Tom’s survey is flawed, precisely because; its scope was too narrow to generate a proper statistical middling to be determinative of the matter in issue. The picture he portrayed from his survey is unlikely to form a national consensus. Yet, it may bring about a negative impression about the British Muslims amongst some of the right-thinking members of the non-Muslim population. It is also likely to inculcate hatred in the minds of millions of non-Muslims against the Muslims or British Muslims in particular, and upset social cohesion and harmony between Muslims and members of the other social groups. Such blame culture will reduce millions of Muslims to suffering from a sense of self-penitence for no reason. It may also subject them to unwarranted disgust, and susceptible to vicious attacks by non-Muslims that could be awfully psychologically disturbing for the Muslims community. The Clandestine journeys to Syria of a few ‘Moonbats’ or confused and misguided sympathizers of the ISIS from here and there do not mean that the British Muslims have support or any sympathy for ISIS or any form of terrorist organisations.
Regardless of the apparent flaw in Tom’s statistical information, Sadiq Khan (Labour MP for Tooting) perhaps with his shallow understanding of how statistic works, blatantly buttressed further the Tom’s report with over reaction, symptomatic of scoring political points. He told the SUN: “It is clear that Britain needs to take its head out of the Sand and act to tackle extremism and radicalisation at home”. His comments suggest that Muslims in the UK are uncontrollably moving towards Islamic extremism and radicalisation or acquiescing to terrorism. Why on earth should he think like that? Why does he think that Britain should avoid its role and responsibility in international politics which forms part of the government’s foreign policy and international relations? Was it ever possible for Britain to stay out of the Middle Eastern politics? Clearly Sadiq Khan being a politician himself has taken an apolitical stance here. He needs to consider these questions with due attention, rather than ‘fishing’ for free publicity for the impending mayoral election campaign. What his comments failed to mention that where the problem is emanating from, it should be buried there, before it becomes a disease for the whole world. British government has no reason to “get its head out of the sand”. Sadiq Khan’s comments do not make any good sense at all except for stigmatising British Muslims.
As far as the “ISIS” (also known as ISil and IS) is concerned, it has no Islamic religio-political basis other than purely subjective, private, political foundation based upon the old Ba’athist ideologies of the Godless Soviet Socialism supported by a substantial number of the ex-Ba’athist comrades of Saddam Hussain. The ISIS has its root in the Old Arab Ba’ath Party, formed in 1947 with clear objectives to hold power in Iraq and Syria, although it had branched out in other Arab states including Jordan. Curiously the Arab Ba’aath movement was led by Christian atheist “Michel Aflaq”, and Al-Bitar, and the Arab Ba’ath Party was led by Al-Arsuzi whose agenda was: “Unity, Liberty and Socialism”. Never in its statement had it at all referred to any explicit Islamic interests. The Arab Ba’ath Party merged with the Arab Socialist Party led by Akram al-Hawrani, in 1952 to form the “Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party”. Unsurprisingly as to why ISIS was established by a Jordan national Abu Musab-al-Zarqawi and operated under numerous guises and then led by Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi of Iraq (believed to be dead). ISIS has gained its prominence due to Assad’s repression of its own people and taking a huge advantage of Syria’s political mayhem. It is receiving considerable support and training from Saddam’s Ba’athist Army Officers who went into fox-holes following his fall in 2003.
The word Ba’ath means renaissance or resurrection and the question is what the Ba’athists had to resurrect? Islam religion has survived for more than 1400 years without Ba’athist maniacs or alike, and never required the aid of socialist marionettes to protect and propagate Islam. Islam religion had suffered serious repression in the Soviet Socialist Republic where atheism was encouraged and the Islamic activities were restricted. The number of mosques in the Soviet Union came down to only 500 (five hundred) in 1970s from 25,000 (twenty five thousands) in 1917. ISIS means nothing other than the old Ba’athist (Socialist) ideologies masquerading in their (ISIS) slogan of Shahada”. They are craving for support based on Islamic sentiment and recruit more “useful idiots” (“purported Jihadis”) to expand their terrorist activities outside the region and destroy the brotherhood of mankind. There is no need to create another Islamic State within the established Islamic States; it does not make any pragmatic sense whatsoever. The peaceful existence of Iraq and Syria is already distressed by multitude of unresolved factors and the ISIS is creating more regional and international crises. Their barbaric acts are intended to advance their ambitious cause, in vain, by exerting pressure on the international community, to accede to their demand in the creation of a new State within the Levantine expanse of the Arab world.
Tom’s survey report was therefore unequivocally defective – conceptually, logically, arithmetically and statistically; and was also inconsistent with the socio-political and religious activities of the Muslims in the United Kingdom.
