With the revolutions in the Muslim world
in full swing and now spreading from North Africa to the Middle East Western
nations are attempting to hijack the Ummah's demand for change and labelling
the protests as demands for democracy, freedom and Western values. It should be
remembered that those informing us of what the ummah demand are the very same
countries that constructed the architecture the ummah is working to remove.
David Fromkin, Professor and expert on
Economic History at the University of Chicago explained in his 2009 book ‘A peace to end of peace: the fall of
the Ottoman empire and the creation of the modern middle east,' how
the West constructed the Middle East: "Massive
amounts of the wealth of the old Ottoman Empire were now claimed by the
victors. But one must remember that the Islamic empire had tried for centuries
to conquer Christian Europe and the power brokers deciding the fate of those
defeated people were naturally determined that these countries should never be
able to organize and threaten Western interests again. With centuries of
mercantilist experience, Britain and France created small, unstable states
whose rulers needed their support to stay in power. The development and trade
of these states were controlled and they were meant never again to be a threat
to the West. These external powers then made contracts with their puppets to
buy Arab resources cheaply, making the feudal elite enormously wealthy while
leaving most citizens in poverty."
Whilst we are all familiar with problems
across the Muslim world, be they economic, social or legal, the Muslim world
does not lack the building blocks for economic development and prosperity. British Prime Minister Henry Bannerman
in 1906 confirmed that "There are people (the Muslims) who control
spacious territories teeming with manifest and hidden resources. They dominate
the intersections of world routes. Their lands were the cradles of human
civilizations and religions. These people have one faith, one language, one
history and the same aspirations. No natural barriers can isolate these people
from one another ... if, per chance, this nation were to be unified into one
state; it would then take the fate of the world into its hands and would
separate Europe from the rest of the world.
Many from the Ummah have braved the
brutal crackdown by their rulers and came onto the streets in the hope of a new
dawn. The removal of the rulers is the first aspect of this struggle, the
second aspect would be the construction of a new order that placed the ummah at
the centre rather than a ruling family or foreign power. Central to this is
establishing an economic system that changes the current status quo where the majorities
languish in poverty and the minorities treat the regions wealth as their
personal wealth. In order to achieve this we would need to ascertain our
strengths and advantages, whilst those elements considered necessary but absent
would need the development of policies so they can be overcome.
An example of this is China, after a
number of failures to develop the nation, beginning in 1979 Chinese technocrats
led by reformers created various economic zones to attract foreign technology
to deal with the lack of advanced industry. The use of Foreign Direct
Investment (FDI), although greatly aided economic activity and job creation, it
also allowed for foreign technical and managerial knowledge into China. This is
why to this day all foreign companies in China are forced to transfer technical
knowledge to China for access to the Chinese domestic market. In this way China
has been able to achieve phenomenal economic growth, develop its military and
created jobs for millions of its citizens.
Similarly Japan by the turn of the 20th
century had managed to develop its industries, however the rapid growth of the
economy had made Japan painfully aware of its limited natural resources. Japan overcomes
such disadvantages through a programme of aggressive territorial expansion
through conquering the Korean peninsula and surging deep into China in order to
exploit labour and resources. In a similar manner the British Empire conquered
foreign territories for export markets and utilised slave labour to overcome
small workforce.
These examples show that all nations
need some very basic ingredients to emerge as powerful nations and ones that
can very quickly establish prosperous standards of living for its people with
secure borders. When we look at the Muslim world we find whilst it is blessed
with the worlds energy sources - oil and natural gas, this has not been used to
develop industry, which would allow it to create millions of jobs and secure
its borders. The development of infrastructure, defence industries and energy
are fundamental for any nation, the possession of mineral resources would place
any nation in a strategic position to develop. The examples of Japan and
Britain are examples of societies - rightly or wrongly, who overcame the
absence of energy sources in order to develop.
When one looks at the potential of the
Muslim world, the Muslim lands do not just posses the key building blocks for a
new nation, but over and beyond this reality the Khilafah would emerge a very
powerful state due to the many strengths it will inherit that are present in
the Muslim lands.
The Muslim Ummah collectively possesses
over 700 billion barrels of oil and half of the world's gas. Both the worlds
key energy sources. The Ummah globally number 1.6 billion, more importantly
over 60% of the Ummah is below the age of 28. The importance of a large
population is critical for domestic economic development. The absence of a
large pool of labour means a nation cannot be constructed or in many cases
would take decades before it was able to become self sufficient. On the
emergence of the Khilafah for the defence of its borders the Khaleef will have
the capability to deploy armed forces of over 4 million personnel.
The Khilafah would use its immense
energy as a tool to bring technology and expertise to the Muslim lands. Rather
than making the priority to provide to the international markets as the current
rulers do, the Khilafah would make bilateral treaties with energy consumers
around the world based on the benefit they can provide to the Muslim lands.
Countries such as Japan and Germany could be provided with oil in return for
technology.
A cursory glance across the Muslim world
shows that the current Muslim nations fall into two camps regarding
manufacturing, there are those nations which already have the characteristics
of an industrial base, which are the minority of nations and then there is the
majority of the Muslim world that lack heavy industry. This can be overcome
through expanding manufacturing with the nations that have some industrial base
and then linking the nations that do not have much industry with specific types
of industry to the nations which have an industrial advantage.
The creation of heavy industry and its
supportive industries will bring with it a massive injection of investment from
the state and from industrialists. The State will oversee the creation and
conversion of many factories which will brings opportunities not heralded
before. This will be coupled with private investment from entrepreneurs
keen to capitalize on the returns that will be generated. This policy will
create jobs for those previously unemployed. The creation of jobs will
naturally increase consumption as people will possess greater amounts of
income. This in turn will increase demand for goods from the general
masses. Such an increase in aggregate demand will push the development of
other sectors of the economy such as the consumer goods sector. This
demand will push people to supply these goods further creating more jobs and
more wealth in the economy.
The Islamic economic system when
implemented focuses on wealth distribution, Islam views wealth creation as a
technical matter, hence where an oil refinery should be constructed, whether
manual labour or an automated process using robots should be used to make
automobiles are seen as technical issues which can be concluded by
understanding their reality. How such cars or a nations wealth should be
distributed, should it go to the orphans or aristocracy is something that the
reality cannot explain, hence for this area Islam has laid down a system.
Through the application of Islam's
economic rules sustainable economic growth can be achieved that all can share
in. Islam's taxation policy which focuses on wealth rather than income will
leave citizens with much more disposable income. Islam does not have complex
rules for taxation and has only seven revenue sources for the state, in this
way the rules for taxation are much simpler, cheaper to administer and all
citizens know where they stand.
This is just an insight on what Islam offers
the Muslim world. There is only reason for why the Ummah remains in its current
state and this is due to the rulers over the Muslim lands, who have never had
any intention of making the right use of the huge wealth in the Muslim lands.
The West have attempted to integrate the Muslim lands into their own domestic
markets though policies such as the free market and globalisation and whilst
they receive cheap oil and cheap labour the Muslim lands have gained nothing in
terms of economic development. Countries such as Egypt went from being self
sufficient in agriculture to today being a net importer. The Muslim lands
posses all the necessary ingredients to take its own destiny into its own
hands, it also possesses a way of life that will guide it in using such
resources, it now just needs to fulfill its destiny and throw its rulers into
the dustbin of history.
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