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بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

 News Right Now: Death of a Colonizer

Welcome to News Right Now: Death of a Colonizer

Since the death of Queen Elizabeth on September 8th 2022, commentators, academics, and former diplomats, among others, took to social media and elsewhere to call for fully wrestling with the British monarchy’s lasting influence in light of the monarch’s death. It has revived long-standing criticism over the monarchy’s enrichment from the British empire’s violent colonization of African, Asian and Caribbean nations and their diasporas.

Millions across the world mourn, but many also see the Queen’s passing as a bitter reminder of the British empire’s violent exploitation of countries throughout history – resulting in decades of suffering, death, and economic and social devastation. Although this particular monarch was head of a state in a mostly post-imperial era, it was still an era in which Britain, following on from its imperial past, that has had a terrible history in the Muslim world and other places. The most appalling crimes have been committed in the name of this monarch in Kenya, like the massacres of the Mau Mau as well as in Yemen in the 1960s.

According to the New York Times, in Kenya this “led to the establishment of a vast system of detention camps and the torture, rape, castration and killing of tens of thousands of people”. The British government eventually paid £20m in a lawsuit by Kenyan survivors. The British aristocracy is a contributing architect of the colonialist economic order today, that has plunged most of the world into severe debt, so that Western investors in loans, can benefit from interest payments. Its captains of industry exploit the rich resources and abundant labor in the Muslim World, including the Gulf region and extending well beyond it, whilst jealously preventing its industrial development. Its intelligence foments trouble within regions of the Islamic Ummah, using the political and military agents it has recruited, in institutions such as Oxbridge and Sandhurst. Indeed, these agents are the ones who work according to the pattern of Lawrence of Arabia, to manipulate natives in far flung places, for the Crown.

As for the rulers of Pakistan, they speak as if they are living in Windsor, rather than from the Indian Subcontinent, which is a scene of the crimes of the British aristocracy, over three centuries. Under Islam, before the British invasion, the Indian Subcontinent’s share of the world economy was 23 per cent, as large as all of Europe put together, rising to 27 per cent in 1700, in the time of Aurangzeb Alamgir. After the occupation by the British, it plummeted to less than 4%, with hundreds of thousands suffering in famine. The British looted the region for 173 years, seizing the modern day equivalent of 45 trillion dollars!

Wars were launched in Iraq in 1991 and 2003, as well as in Afghanistan in 2001; leading to death, destruction, occupation, and destabilization. Moreover, in her role as head of state, the late Queen had a direct role in giving legitimacy to some of the most odious and oppressive regimes in the Muslim world – like those in the Saudi state, Jordan, Oman and the Gulf states in general. In addition, it is in her name that the likes of Salman Rushdie have been ‘honoured’ by Britain.

So how then must Muslims view the passing of the Queen?

First and foremost, the Muslim community primarily descends from victims of British imperial violence and exploitation, and are treated as second class citizens, who live under constant scrutiny. Secondly, they are representative of a Global Ummah and carriers of an alternative ideology. They need to expose Britain's lengthy history of repressing Muslims, forced assimilation and hypocritical application of its self proclaimed right to free speech. They must stand against attempts to court the government and the media, and present Islam’s sublime values with the intent of pleasing Allah (swt) rather than seeking acceptance of the greater British society and swaying along with public emotions.

Islam is not devoid of principles. Right and wrong are not determined by their popularity at any given moment. The Qur’an and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ give clear guidance on what is good and bad.

(يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓا۟ إِن تَتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ يَجْعَل لَّكُمْ فُرْقَانًۭا وَيُكَفِّرْ عَنكُمْ سَيِّـَٔاتِكُمْ وَيَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ ذُو ٱلْفَضْلِ ٱلْعَظِيمِ)

“O believers! If you fear Allah, He will grant you a standard ˹to distinguish between right and wrong˺, absolve you of your sins, and forgive you. And Allah is the Lord of infinite bounty.” [TMQ (8):29]

The Islamic way of life is the only ideology that is built on the mind, with rational proofs for its foundational belief and clear legislative principles for its Shariah rules. Appeasing the secularists with their whimsical liberal values will only ever end in misery, in this life and the next. Islam is not in need of any alteration or modification to fit in. Allah (swt) says,

(وَلَا تَلْبِسُوا۟ ٱلْحَقَّ بِٱلْبَـٰطِلِ وَتَكْتُمُوا۟ ٱلْحَقَّ وَأَنتُمْ تَعْلَمُونَ )

Do not mix truth with falsehood or hide the truth knowingly. [TMQ (2):42]

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