During the jahiliya, the pre-Islamic era of ignorance, Arabs were about to become an extinct race with their different tribes engaged in successive wars and armed conflicts. A verse of poetry or a stray camel killed by mistake were reason enough to ignite a devastating war that would last for generations.
Unfortunately, the ugly scenes that characterized Arab life more than 1,500 years ago are now back. One Arab country will raise hell and threaten to go to war with its neighboring sister state over a comment made by a politician or government official. It is not enough to lodge a protest over such action. Even a small insignificant dispute can result in the negation of treaties and bilateral agreements, closed borders, expelled diplomats and media attacks. The victim is always the helpless population whose interests are damaged for no convincing reason.
When the light of Islam shone across the region and Arabs entered into the new religion, the Arab soul was purified and elevated above the narrow selfish tribal thinking. Its concern became humanity at large and not just the household and tribe. Muslims, Arabs or non-Arabs, were united as one nation where all have equal rights and responsibilities.
This harmony did not last long. The Omayyad and Abbasid dynasties that followed brought with them the seeds of division, weakness and ultimate destruction. The two rules had to disappear, the first at the hands of the latter and the latter as a natural result of internal quarrels and plotting. The expulsion of the Arabs and Muslims from Andalusia was yet another manifestation of the weakness of the Arabs, who slid back into the ugly days of the jahiliyah.
The Arabs failed to learn from past experiences as their enemies, the Jews and Westerners, had done.
Benefiting from Arab mistakes, the enemy is doing everything it can to break Arab ranks. The big powers saw to it that the Arabs and Muslims remain divided into small political entities infested with alien ideologies and philosophies that further weaken them. The result is that Arab states today are fighting and hauling accusations at each other.
History repeats itself. The enemy is now treating Arabs as a bunch of tribes from the days of jahiliyah; easy to manipulate and mould.
This American-Zionist attack aims at dealing the Arabs a final blow so they will never rise again. The attack targets Islam, the unifying force. With the destruction and then division of Iraq, the decline and fall of the Arabs has begun. Will they do anything to thwart the enemy’s designs?
Arab News From the Local Press 1 April 2003
