There is the saying, now reduced to a clich, that the first casualty of war is truth itself. Clich though it may be, it remains relevant to all of us in the light of the deplorable developments in the immediate present.

As the world edges closer to a devastating conflict that is more than likely to spiral out of control, the primary antagonists in this so-called 'clash of civilisations' have begun to play the universalist card once again. The president of the United States of America and his missile-hugging hawk buddies in the Pentagon have already claimed that their 'just war' against the people of Afghanistan is part of a global 'crusade' in the name of civilisation and humanity.

Just who and what makes up their idea of civilisation and humanity is anyone's guess - but one wonders if it includes the millions of Americans who have openly come out in protest against the US administration's decision to let loose the dogs of war.

On the other side of the frontier stands Osama bin Laden and his erstwhile allies, the mullahs of the Taliban in Afghanistan. They too have begun to call for the global Muslim community to rally behind their banner and to join them in their 'jihad' against the Americans and the West in general.

Like their Western counterparts, Osama and his motley crew have also claimed that their struggle is for the sake of another type of civilisation and carried out in the name of humanity. But have they taken into account the millions of Muslims who regard their brand of reactionary Islam as fundamentally repugnant to the teachings and principles of the religion itself?

Worse still, the calls for a 'jihad' against the West and in defence of the global Muslim ummah have now been taken up here in Malaysia as well. The official media organ of the Islamist party Harakah (Sept 26) has reported that the spiritual leader of PAS, Nik Aziz Nik Mat, has called on all Muslims to perform solat hajat (special devotional prayers) across the country in order to prevent the Americans from launching an attack on the Muslim ummah as a whole. (1)

Just how Nik Aziz could have come to the conclusion that an attack on Osama amounts to an attack on Islam and the Muslim community is an open question.

At what point did this war between a state and a clandestine militant movement become a war between civilisations and religions? And who is responsible for this?

Who elected you, Mr President, Mr Mullah?

Now few of us have cared to point out that the vast majority of the human race did not elect the Texan cowboy George W Bush as president of the United States of America. Had we been given the chance, the likelihood is that we would have voted for someone else.

So for Mr Bush Jr to go around claiming that he speaks for humanity and civilisation is a case of casting the net a tad too far. 'Who elected you to speak on our behalf?' goes the question that is on everyone's lips.

Speaking for themselves

Likewise, none of us elected the mullahs of the Taliban or even Osama (or even Mr Nik Aziz for that matter) as the representatives and spokesmen for the Muslim community. Had the Muslim community been given the chance to choose its leaders, the likelihood is that we would not have chosen a bunch of Wahhabi and Deobandi (2) extremists to speak for the rest of the Muslim community which is much bigger and certainly more diverse in its differences.

This is precisely the problem when political leaders (and here I include the mullahs as well) begin to speak the language of realpolitik dressed in the mantle of ethics and universalism.

Politicians, as we should all know by now, speak the language of universals when they really want to pursue goals and ends that can only be particular. No politician or religious leader can or will ever speak on behalf of a truly universal constituency for the reason that they always rely on one primary base of support.

The president of the United States may try to beguile us with his pleas on behalf of universal humanity, but we all know that he is not even qualified to speak on behalf of all the citizens of his country. Reading through the lines of Bush's speeches, one can see whose agendas and interests are being served: the hawks in the Pentagon, the moghuls of the oil industry, the captains of commerce and trade.

Likewise when Osama and the leaders of the Taliban speak for the Muslims as a whole, they can only speak for themselves and their closed circle of adoring followers. They do not and cannot speak for the thousands of Afghan women and girls who have been denied jobs, education and a public role in society in that so-called 'blessed model' of an Islamic state which they have clumsily tried to build at the point of a gun.

Likewise those purists and 'defenders of Islam' can hardly speak for the thousands of other Muslims who have been killed by them in the quest for a model Islamic state: The Shias of the north of Afghanistan, the thousands of Muslim liberals, intellectuals, activists and secularists whom they have put to the sword in their pathetic attempt to create a model Muslim society for the rest of us to follow.

Sympathise with the victims

Now this brings us to the situation here in Malaysia. The Murshid'ul Am of PAS may well want to gather the support of Muslims in Malaysia for this Wahhabi-Deobandi buddies over there in Afghanistan. It is understandable that Nik Aziz and company would be upset to see their cherished model Islamic state blasted to oblivion by the Americans and their allies.

Likewise the Deobandi-inclined fans of the Taliban among the local Islamist crowd would also want to see Malaysia and Malaysian Muslims showing more solidarity with the Taliban administration in Afghanistan. This is perfectly understandable as they themselves would relish the opportunity to import the same type of Wahhabi-inspired Islam here in Malaysia.

But this puts the rest of us in a complicated and unenviable position. Most level-headed Muslims (by this I mean those Muslims who are not naive enough to think that their faith can be reduced to questions of how long their beards should be) should know by now that while the war-mongers of the Pentagon are not our friends or allies, neither are the Taliban.

Our sympathies should lie not with the government of the United States nor the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, but with the poor unfortunate victims of the attacks in America and the poor potential victims of any attack on Afghanistan. Our solidarity should lie, in short, with the people themselves and not their so-called leaders.

But this crisis should also force all of us in the Muslim world to seriously ask some pressing questions about the nature of leadership in Muslim societies as a whole. For one of the more interesting aspects of contemporary Muslim societies today is that they tend to produce such self-proclaimed 'leaders of the ummah', 'warriors of Islam', 'defenders of the faith' (etc) with such promiscuous ease. For a community that claims to be based on a singular understanding of faith, Muslim society seems to be able to produce more leaders than it needs.

What is more, most of these self-proclaimed leaders in the Muslim world like Osama and Mullah Omar of the Taliban seem to have come to the fore not via some democratic electoral process but rather through the use of arms or with the support of external forces. Mullah Omar's rise to the peak of the Taliban pyramid, for instance, was not a matter of chance but rather a calculated political struggle which cost the lives of thousands of his enemies.

Only after he had wiped out all opposition against him did Mullah Omar don the reputed mantle of the Prophet Muhammad (before an awe-struck crowd of semi-literate mullahs). Osama, on the other hand, was an agent in the service of the CIA and other Western agencies and like that other 'warrior of Islam' Gulbuddin Hekmateyar, he was more than willing to accept money, arms and training from the United States which he now calls that great Satan. (Ironically, some Muslim leaders apparently don't mind getting help from Satan while carrying out their daily duties in the name of God.)

Malaysian context

In the Malaysian context we need to ask ourselves how and why the ulama of the country have been able to pull the same tricks on us as well. Lest it be forgotten, the man who calls himself the Murshid'ul Am (Spiritual Leader and Guide) of the Islamist party (and the Muslim ummah by extension) was not elected by the Muslims themselves.

Like his predecessor before him (Yusuf Rawa), Nik Aziz's (photo) ascendancy to the coveted position of the Murshid'ul Am of PAS was a matter left to a handful of PAS leaders themselves. Even the ordinary members of PAS could not decide on the matter (and needless to say, the docile female members of the party were not even allowed to take part in the election process or to even stand for the post).

It is the absence of such democratic culture and practices in the Muslim world in general that leads to the rise of self-proclaimed leaders like the mullahs of the Taliban, Osama and our own mullahs and Osama-wannabes here in Malaysia. And as long as a sense of political awareness and understanding of democracy is not instilled in the hearts and minds of ordinary Muslims the world over, such practices will invariably continue and we will all remain hostage to a bunch of bigoted fanatics who claim to speak, act and think on our behalf without us knowing so.

That, in the final analysis, is the real tragedy behind the looming crisis which the world is about to face. In the midst of all this hysteria - whipped up by the sabre-rattling rhetoric of leaders on both sides - the Muslims and non-Muslims of the world may well be dragged into a conflict brought about by leaders who do not represent their interests, and worse still, they did not even elect.

Endnotes

(1) See Harakahdaily.com, Sept 26, "Perang: Solat Hajat Terbuka - Nik Aziz". The PAS leader Nik Aziz was not the only religious leader to call for special prayers against the American war effort 'directed against the Muslim ummah'. The Persatuan Ulama Malaysia (PUM- Association of Malaysian Ulama) were also reported to have done the same. (Harakah, 26 Sept 2001).

(2) It is important to note that the leaders of the Taliban, Osama Ben Laden and the Spiritual Guide (Murshid'ul Am) of PAS share a common link in terms of their educational background and views on Islam. The root of it can be traced back to the rise of Wahhabism, which is the official school of Islamic thought in Saudi Arabia.

The Wahhabi school of thought was founded by the puritanical Arab leader Sheikh Mohammed Ibn Abdul Wahhab who was keen to purge Arab Muslim society of pre-Islamic practices and bring Muslim society back to the 'authentic model' of Islam during the 7th century. Sheikh Mohammed Wahhab began to preach his brand of puritan Islam in the Arabian peninsula (Hijaz) during the mid-18th century, but his teachings were not accepted by most of the Arab tribal leaders.

Finally he aligned himself to the ruler of Deraiya, Muhammad Ibn Saud, who would later become the founder of the Saudi dynasty which rules Arabia till today. Ibn Saud used the teachings of Ibn Wahhab to instill fear and loyalty in his own people, but as a result Arab society also grew increasingly conservative.

Since the 19th century, the Saudi elite have been trying to export their brand of conservative and reactionary Islam worldwide. One of the main centres for Wahhabi ideas in India was the Deobandi seminary, which later produced the ulama and cadres of the Jamiat'ul Ulema-I Islam (JUI) party which were the masterminds behind the Taliban movement in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Another illustrious graduate of the Deoband school is our own Nik Aziz Nik Mat himself, who studied there in the 1940s.