The Muslim Solution to Afghanistan

THE MUSLIM SOLUTION TO AFGHANISTAN


The whole Afghan problem should be handed over to the Muslim nations. It would be good for them to work together to secure and help Afghanistan.
It was Saudi and UAE money that funded the terrorists, so let them now pay to put Afghanistan back together. I am not saying that Saudi and UAE princes should dictate what kind of Islam it will be in Afghanistan. Quite the contrary. How should we characterize Wahhabi Islam? This way: “The letter of the law killeth the spirit of the law.” As an Arabic lit scholar, schooled at Harvard and NYU, I have no problem finding passages in the Qur’an that go directly against what al Qaideh (and Ibn Wahhab) says and does. So the most competent jurists must have their say, rather than be always usurped by the hotheads who know nothing.
NATO is already victorious in Afghanistan. Over 3,200 schools have been constructed, 45 clinics set up, new sewers lines in Kabul and Kandahar, new wells, paved roads, the repair and improvement of scores of mosques – the first part of the mission is successful. Having lived in Afghanistan let me say quickly that these material improvements, are huge events that positively change the lives of millions of Afghans, more than we think. But there are more communities that do not get help – the work is not over - but with time all can benefit, especially if other Muslim countries are helping.
The Pentagon will probably not like this notion of handing Afghanistan to the Muslim nations. Rightly, they suspect any Afghanistan initiative by the Muslim nations, might be infiltrated by more boorish ignorant usurpers, the hot heads. But I believe every one of these Muslim countries has to confront certain issues, which they have ignored. By being forced to play a role in Afghanistan’s rebirth, they will come into contact with the (relatively) few competent jurists – men who walk the ‘Beaten Path’ (al-Muwatta’) of Malik Ibn ‘Anas. (He was the blind man who collected the earliest juridical decisions after Muhammed.) The Maliki school (madzhab) is the oldest, the most liberal, and the most secular of the seven schools of Muslim jurisprudence. Kuwait, the UAE, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauretania, Mali, are just the biggest regions where Maliki law is custom. Let them lead this Afghanistan project.
These Muslim nations refused to help in Iraq, which is amazing. In fact, there’s a string of other areas where the Muslims refuse the take responsibility. How can they refuse, with the whole world watching, when Europe and the USA, Russia and China, formally request the handing over to them of Afghanistan?
Before the troubles, Islam in Afghanistan was considered the purest, the straightest, the simplest. There were practically no intolerant fundamentalists. Looking back over the 10 months I spent there 1972-73, there was little discernible tension between secular and sectarian. It just wasn’t an issue. The king orchestrated a kind of harmony. So, involvement in Afghanistan is a ‘required seminar’ to the rest of the Muslim nations, which are seething.
Such a handover would be closely supervised. With so many observers, there’s little chance that such a world Muslim initiative would be co-opted by aggressive hot heads, armed or unarmed. The initiative would be transparent, supervised.
This Muslim expeditionary force, once in place, can disarm and defang the terrorists.
Because so many of our fine soldiers are living and learning with and from the Afghans, withdrawal of American forces is sad. Our personnel can learn so much from these extraordinary people. The gift giving goes both ways. And having given our gift, let the Muslim nations receive theirs, whether they like it or not.
By intentionally handing over Afghanistan to the Muslim nations, we would neutralize the world’s suspicions and misunderstandings; and they would love us, follow us - and us them. “We would be theirs, and they would be ours” as they say in Central Asia.
America doesn’t wish to conquer any nation – but the Muslim world does not see it that way. But what if we formally handed Afghanistan over to them, while withdrawing from Iraq? We throw it right back onto them, while neutralizing their wide-spread belief, erroneous of course, that the United States is an ‘imperial world-dominating crusading Christian superpower.’
In searching for the right solution, we should remember that the correct solution would solve, settle, several issues at once. It would be like a faceted jewel. It would possess unique applicability to other situations as well. Suppose that the civil war in Iraq picks up after the Americans and their coalition partners depart. A Muslim army in Iraq would be highly useful. It would resist Iranian influence. It might well resolve Iraq’s long-standing ethnic/sectarian impasse.
And in Palestine including Gaza, in southern Lebanon, the occupied Golan heights of Syria, and in Israel itself, a secular Muslim army, led by qualified Maliki jurists, can provide Hamas and other militants, a way of handing back usurped authority without losing face. Israel is, of course, a Muslim nation, its law court fully conversant with the Shari’a. (e.g., it uses fiqh routinely in the administration of waqf properties). Israel has no argument with responsible Muslim representatives in an over-watch administration able to de-mobilize hotheads. Quite the contrary.
Somalia, Sudan and Yemen may also benefit from an informed armed intermediary. Such a liberal Muslim initiative would be partly religious (mediating between Sunni and Shi’a), part administrative (able to recognize targets, persuade and de-mobilize them), part social services (strengthening the secular aspect of the Shari’a), and part an informed army (able to negotiate and coerce).
Muslim nations coming out of such multi-lateral assignments, guided by their own liberal muftis, would be a bulwark against the loud violent imposters in their own countries. This Muslim army would have its own luminous interior, basing their actions on a correct rather than a counterfeit Islam. It is not hard to see which parts of the Qur’an, hadith and shari’a would compose that rigorous operating ethic.
Though upstaged by the radicals, the terrorists, Muslims still adhere to a kind of chivalry. If that noble ethic does not apply to the ‘colonists’, it is because the West is too strong, too biased, or so they perceive. To themselves, they want to appear their very best. This chivalric virtue can be, in the mouths of jurists, an appeal to the boorish ignorant hotheads, pulling the carpet out from under their feet.
Being poor and fractious, how can the Muslims possibly agree on a western scheme? Even without global pressure, there will be many Muslims who approve of the idea of a small, moderate Muslim army, made up of 63 nations, and able to deploy in the field, to solve their own problems. With world pressure, perhaps with some public and backroom shaming, the Muslim countries will step up to their own authentic destinies. Don’t they want power, too?

by John Paul Maynard, Middle East and Central Asia specialist.
56 Village Park, Amherst, MA 01002 USA
Tel.: 413 549 7726 e-mail: tulku7@verizon.net

JP Maynard has lived and worked as an independent social scientist in Russia, Uzbekistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Turkey, Serbia, Switzerland, France and Sweden. He is the long-time editor/publisher of The Middle East Speculum Report, now online (through Google), and the irregular Central Asian Law Review. He holds degrees from Wesleyan (1972) and Harvard Universities (1978).