O.N.L.F WARNS PETRONAS

[S.O.S]

Sheikhunaa Nur,

 

Let me start by commenting on your excellent choice of historically framing these ideology-morality maxims as a backdrop on the best and most illustrious period in the history man. Your observation that our prophet (pbuh) was a) sent to entire humanity, b) had to start his mission somewhere and c) that Makkah happened to be that place, are filled with many answers we should look closer before I can comment on the reminder/conclusion of your writing (no general disagreement there).

 

In reality it's no coincidence that Makkah (Arabian Peninsula) was chosen to be the city of the prophet (pbuh) because of its unique conditions. Conditions, even if filled with darkness and moral degradation at the time, Allah (swt) decreed in His infinite wisdom to be preserved –an implication made apparent by the destruction of the elephant army of Abraha who intended on destroying the Kacbah.

 

So asks Allah (swt) Alamtara kayfa facala Rabbuka bi'asxaabil fiil? I cannot but reflect on the fact that Allah destroyed an army of Christians (the monotheists at the time) and saved a city full of mushrikeen (perhaps with few exceptions). Even if I exclude Makkah and the Makkans inhabiting the city, in the spirit of traditional seerah, and only base my reflection on the Kacbah as the sole reason of the destruction of Elephant army; were Manaat, Laat and Cuzza not the occupants of the Kacbah? Decades later, we have the saxaabah showing moral sympathy to (in comparison with Abraha) less Unitarian post-Constantine Christendom of the Roman empire following their defeat by the Persians (mushrikeen). At what point has moral realignment occurred between the two historical incidents?

 

Muslims are in my opinion our greatest assets in this world for the purpose of achieving our destiny. Muslims (including their lands and wealth) under attack or under occupation are even greater assets in value, therefore, we have to preserve them from today's Abraha (using B52s instead of elephants). In recognition of the potential, we can realise that in the long-term everything is perforce ideological.

 

Ideology is not the moral of our actions, it's the goal: this goal dictates our actions to fulfil morality. For relative morality to exist ideology is neither necessary nor sufficient –that is not to say it's correct. As a man of this world, are you sure you've never experienced situations of temporal divergence morality from ideology for the sake of achieving long-term permanent parity?

 

Of course without ideology we are no Muslims, without morality we're not much of a Muslims (as in today's world) and without possessing both qualities our actions will never succeed; that makes ideology our cement. Why would otherwise Carra de Vaux suggest, in order to break our moral unity, to target ideology by the use of political differences, Muslim heresies and the Sufi orders? (Questions Diplomatiques et Coloniales,1901)

[BOB]

Most Somalis seem to have a problem with the word 'O' no matter how long you explain why the word is there and where it originated from they still come back to that same 'O' word which I find hard to understand because Ethiopian army don't rape, murder and imprison only the OG’s but Somalis as a whole and if people want to argue about a name and ignore to see the extent of what the Ethiopian army are doing to the civilians of Somali origin from that area then its unfortunate.

 

 

Allah s.w Knows Best.

 

 

Salam Aleikum W.W

 

 

Peace, Love & Unity.

[Nur]

SOS brother.

 

You have equated two historical events to the struggle of our oppressed brethren in western Somalia:

 

1. The Story of the Elephant

2. The Persian ( Mushriks) vs Roman ( People of Book) battle.

 

What we need to validate is:

 

A. The Ideological, Moral and Material Support aspect of the above two examples as applicable to the struggle of our brothers in Western Somalia.

 

 

1. First the Elephant Story.

 

The story is about the defiance of Abraha of Allah. An Arab villager relieved himself in a church which infuriated the King who ordered to destroy the Holy Kaaba in which the Arabs worshiped as a revenge.

 

We have a case of a Christian King ( People of the Book) who is angry at Polytheists and retaliates by destroying the Holy Kaaba. The problem was that the Holy Kaaba didn't belong to the Arabs, it belonged to Allah as it was a gift offering erected by Abraham and Ishmael as a token of Gratitude for Allah which Allah accepted making it an eternal house of Allah on earth. As you recall, Prophet Muhammad's SAWS who was the custodian of the Holy Kaaba did not defend the Kaaba from the invading Abyssinian arky, saying his famous saying that the House belongs to a Lord that is able to protect, while he vowed to fight for his camels that were seized by the Kings army. The moral of this story:

 

1. This faith belongs to Allah, and He will defend it with or without our support.

 

2. Fighting to defend our possessions and lives are a legitimate causes regardless of faith.

 

3. When our interests of faith and possession conflict, faith takes priority over possessions, thus possessions and lives are asked to be sacrificed for to preserve faith.

 

 

2. The Story of Romans vs Persians.

 

The Moral of the above story was that the first battle was won by the Persians. The news reached Quresih who were jubilant that there Polytheist allies defeated the Monotheist People of the Book Romans. Qureish vowed that they like the Persians they will defeat the Monothiest Muslims which demoralized the Muslims.

 

The Holy Quran, Romans Chapter, predicted that the Romans will win the next battle in few years, and that day, Muslims will be jubilant for victory Allah granted to Romans.

 

Moral of Story:

 

As Muslims we set our alliances based on our Ideology, not RACIAL nor NATIONAL, since they sympathized with the Romans and opposed their Nationally related Qureish. In Short, the closer one's ideology to ours, the stronger our moral support to them, hence the connection between the Ideology and Moral Sympathy.

 

What remains is:

 

When does the Moral sympathy translate to material support?

 

 

The Holy Quraan sets the conditions as follows:

 

a. That we should rise to support those who are oppressed, who:

 

i. Are oppressed for the sole reason of saying that Allah is their only Lord.

 

ii. An exception is when these oppressed people of our faith are under the domination of an adversary with whom we have standing a mutual covenant.

 

 

Wa Allahu Aclam

 

 

Nur

[Nur]

BOB bro

 

You write:

 

Most Somalis seem to have a problem with the word 'O' no matter how long you explain why the word is there and where it originated from they still come back to that same 'O' word which I find hard to understand because Ethiopian army don't rape, murder and imprison only the OG’s but Somalis as a whole and if people want to argue about a name and ignore to see the extent of what the Ethiopian army are doing to the civilians of Somali origin from that area then its unfortunate. Akhi, The word "O" was assigned by British Colonialists who gave it to Ethiopia as a gift. For all practicality, the British governor could have have called it by any other clan name that he came in contact, the problem is not in the name, as the "O" people are part of a Somali people, the problem is the assigning the name of a territory inhabited by many Somalis to a single clan name and forming a political resistance movement to fight for that land which in reality have alienated and divided Somalis who live in that region making it easy for the Ethiopians to continue their atrocities on all clans. If all Somalis in that region agree on the " O" name as their liberation name, I am all for it, but its difficult to restore a land to its rightful owners before restoring the original name of all of its inhabitants. Division is an advantage for the occupier, unfortunately, today we have multiple resistance organizations for the liberation of western Somalia, this division will never help, so its important to resolve the basis for which the movement serves, mainly the liberation of the land from foreign occupiers. Another problem in the waiting is, once liberation is realized, how are we going to govern these lands? Islam or Secular?

 

 

Akhi, The word "O" was assigned by British Colonialists who gave the land and its people to Ethiopia as a gift. For all practicality, the British governor could have called it by any other clan name that he came in contact with, the problem is not in the name, as the "O" people are part of a Somali people, the problem is the assignment of the "O" name to the entire territory inhabited by all Somalis to a single clan name and the formation of a political resistance movement to fight in the "O" Name for that land which in reality have alienated and divided Somalis who live in that region making it easy for the Ethiopians to continue their atrocities on all clans.

 

If all Somalis in that region agree on the " O" name as their liberation name, I am all for it, but its difficult to restore a land to its rightful owners before restoring the original name of all of its inhabitants.

 

Division is an advantage for the occupier, unfortunately, today we have multiple resistance organizations for the liberation of western Somalia, this division will never help, so its important to resolve the basis for which the movement serves, mainly the liberation of the land from foreign occupiers.

 

Another problem in the waiting is, once liberation is realized, how are we going to govern these lands? Islam or Secular?

 

These questions are not sexy, or appealing at this stage, but what I have learned from past similar movements, agreement in ideology from the start can save us from division in the future. A Somali saying has it " Nimaan kuu furi doonin, yuusan ku xidhin"

 

 

Nur

[S.O.S]

Sh. Nur,

 

I believe we're now on the same thinking path. The first moral reference to Abraha still has significant lessons and a degree of continuation even in today's world. Best example is also from that same historical narrative during the advent of Islam. When the Prophet was harassed, mistreated and oppressed in the most severe ways possible, looking down on the town from the hills with Jibril, Allah gave him the choice; if he wanted, Jibril would destroy the town with its polytheist dwellers. The prophet (pbuh) said no, for he understood that no ideological compatibility with them was NOT necessary at the time. Rather, he recognised the importance of their children and future generations for the Islamic cause.

 

When does the Moral sympathy translate to material support?

 

With regards to your specific question above, let's take the following hypothetical situation. Say you are the leader of a very powerful faraway Islamic country we shall refer as country X. Country X is situated in a continent with two other countries, namely Y and Z. Country Y is very small and weak and country Z is bigger and more powerful, although not as powerful as X. Z decides to attack Y in order to conquer and take Y's land whilst in the process killing, raping and maiming entire populations to achieve their objectives.

 

What are you going to do as the leader of country X, when X is ideologically neither compatible with Y nor Z?

[BOB]

Originally posted by Nur:

If all Somalis in that region agree on the " O" name as their liberation name, I am all for it, but its difficult to restore a land to its rightful owners before restoring the original name of all of its inhabitants.

 

Division is an advantage for the occupier, unfortunately, today we have multiple resistance organizations for the liberation of western Somalia, this division will never help, so its important to resolve the basis for which the movement serves, mainly the liberation of the land from foreign occupiers.

 

Another problem in the waiting is, once liberation is realized, how are we going to govern these lands? Islam or Secular?

 

These questions are not sexy, or appealing at this stage, but what I have learned from past similar movements, agreement in ideology from the start can save us from division in the future. A Somali saying has it " Nimaan kuu furi doonin, yuusan ku xidhin"

Nur

Brother Nuur I fully understand what you're saying as I've raised the same point to few guys from the ONLF that I've had the opportunity to meet here in S.A and they all assured me that they have invited the rest of the Somali clans in the area for dialogue so that they could find a common ground but unfortunately it never materialised and who knows maybe it's our common enemy that's preventing us from forming a united Somali party that would fight for one Somali cause after all Ethiopia seems to have mastered the art of divide and rule policy thanks to our agreement to disagree as a nation, however, make no mistake...its not only one tribe that are fighting in ONLF as many people would like you to believe...qabiil walba oo Soomaliyeed ayaa ku jira believe it or not.

 

I have no interest in supporting a secular party after all we all know where that leads to...give me Islam and sharia anytime of the day all day as a Muslim that's no brainer because I fully understand the advantages of Sharia which is something you can never say about secularism.

 

Allah s.w Knows Best...May Allah s.w Guide Us Through The Righteous Path Insha Allah.

 

 

Peace, Love & Unity.