Chalmers Johnson Discusses American Empire and the war Against Al Qaeda in 2004

This is a segment of an 8 part video, but the assessment is still true today as even under Obama these types of governmental practice resemble the end of empire and repetition of imperialist mistakes of the past.

In the same vein, a great editorial from Mark Levine (HERE) informs that Obama is very indistinct from Bush's Terror Policy. It says:

The false choice of human rights vs. national security 

Instead, President Obama has essentially continued almost every major Bush security policy, either by default or design. State secrets, targeted killings, renditions and indefinite detention, opposing the right of habeas corpus, preventing victims of admitted torture from seeking judicial redress, expanding the Afghan war while moving - however gingerly - to secure a long-term presence in Iraq; all these must surely be making Bush, and especially Cheney, happy and wealthier men.

As Michael Hayden, Bush's last CIA Director, put it in a recent interview, "Obama has been as aggressive as Bush" in defending executive prerogatives and powers that have enabled and sustained the ‘war on terror.’ 

But just how close to the dark side Obama has moved became evident in the last couple of weeks, specifically from two angles. 

In the first, a federal appeals court overturned a lower court decision allowing former CIA prisoners to sue companies that participated in their rendition and torture in overseas prisons. In deciding that the plaintiffs could not sue despite an ample public (rather than classified) record supporting their claims, Judge Raymond C. Fisher supported the Obama Administration's contention that, in his words, sometimes there is a "painful conflict between human rights and national security" in which the former must be sacrificed to preserve the latter. 

But this is an utterly ludicrous concept, since a core reason for so much of the frustration, nihilistic anger, radicalisation and ultimately violence involved in Islamist terrorism and insurgencies lies precisely in the long term, structural denial of the most basic human rights by governments in the region, the lion's share of whom continue to be supported by the United States despite their behaviour on the grounds of ‘national security’. 

What neither Attorney General Eric Holder nor the President seems to understand is that there can be no contradiction between human rights and national security, since the absence of human rights can never but lead to a lack of security. 

What's more, the very idea in the globalised era that one country's "national" security (especially that of the global "hyper-power," the United States) can be defined apart from and in contrast to the security of other nations is so ridiculous. One wonders how supposedly intelligent people, like former law school professors - turned presidents, can in good faith imagine and declare it

Freedom of Expression - Egypt Style!

Al Ahram, Egyptian State Media is under some criticism from anti-government advocates like the April 6 Youth Movement for doctoring the photograph above to show Hosni Mubarek at the front of a pack of politicians when Obama visited Cairo last year.  Apparently the Egyptian Regime, the second largest recipient of U.S. aid after Israel, feels the need to promote its own prominence and/or to steer its citizens into believing the tail really wags the dog.  The real, undoctored photo is below.  

Census: 1 in 7 Americans live in poverty, Ms. Obama "being first lady is hell"

Having bragged about an economic recovery a few months ago, before realizing that a positive job report was heavily skewed due to census hiring, Americans got their first taste of the most recent census report today as results showed that 1 in 7 Americans is now in poverty.  

AP reports HERE:

The overall poverty rate climbed to 14.3 percent, or 43.6 million people, the Census Bureau said Thursday in its annual report on the economic well-being of U.S. households. The report covers 2009, President Barack Obama's first year in office.

The poverty rate climbed from 13.2 percent, or 39.8 million people, in 2008.

The share of Americans without health coverage rose from 15.4 percent to 16.7 percent — or 50.7 million people — mostly because of the loss of employer-provided health insurance during the recession. Congress passed a health overhaul this year to address rising numbers of the uninsured, but the main provisions will not take effect until 2014.

The new figures come at a politically sensitive time, just weeks before the Nov. 2 congressional elections, when voters restive about high unemployment and the slow pace of economic improvement will decide whether to keep Democrats in power or turn to Republicans.

On the eve of what is certainly destined to be a major round of victorious congressional elections for Republicans in November, news couldn't get worse for the Obama Administration. These statistics reflect that the Obama policy of bailing out banks, healthcare providers, and wealthy stockholders has actually plunged the populace into poverty. 

In other news, coincident to these horrifying stats, it was reported that the First Lady, Michelle Obama, just off her ritzy vacation to Spain and under intense criticism for lavish spending while the country goes to squat,  is apparently feeling the stress and pressure of a failed presidency.  In a new book soon to be released by Ms.Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the First Lady of France, claims she asked Mrs. Obama about her new role. According to the book, Mrs. Obama replied: "It's hell. I can't stand it."  Just when you thought it couldn't get worse!

Two excellent critical pieces on Obama's Infrastructure Bank and his False Populism

Both of these articles incorporate the principles that drive good governance, namely that government is instituted to create the infrastructure that facilitates an effective, free economy for all - not for a rich propertied class. I was trying to find time to write a similiar cirtique. I think these will do and are must reads for those tryng to understand the role of government in infrastructure and how infrastructure spending can effectivle stimulate a population (notice I didn't say economy). 

First is Black Agenda Report writer Glen Ford (HERE). He says,

The president's proposed bank is yet another ploy to create a new windfall for the private bankers on Wall Street."

And next is Economist Michael Hudson (HERE).  He says,

I can smell the newest giveaway looming a mile off. The Wall Street bailout, health-insurance giveaway and support of real estate prices rather than mortgage-debt write-downs were bad enough, not to mention the Oil War¹s Afghan extension. But now comes a topper: the $50 billion transportation infrastructure plan that Obama proposed in Milwaukee ­ cynically enough, on Labor Day. It looks like the Thatcherite Public-Private Partnership, Britain¹s notorious giveaway to the City of London underwriters. The financial giveaway had the effect of increasing prices for basic infrastructure services by building in heavy financial fees ­ guaranteed for the banks, who lent the money that banks and property owners used to pay in taxes in more progressive times... 

Al Qaeda Leader Releases Video

Ayman Zawahiri, Al Qaeda #2, released this tape yesterday. Responding to the video message released by Zawahiri four days after the ninth anniversary of 9/11 attacks, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip J. Crowley said that Washington's relations with "countries in the (militancy-infected) regions around the world are in ascendance and it is al-Qaeda - and particularly the core al-Qaeda - that is in retreat."

The tape fails to mention the attacks of September 11, 2001, and is the first 9/11 anniversary tape to do so nine years later. It concentrates heavily on Pakistan and critizes heavily the Zardari regime, appealing to Islamic identity in the nation and then onto other Islamic nations under heavy Western influence.  It seems to mark the beginning of Al-Qaeda's new approach to confronting the rhetoric and changing nature of the battle for Hearts and Minds in the Muslim world.  Zawahiri clearly differentiates between the jihadi vanguard and the rest of the Muslim nation and is thereby essentially advising all Muslims to select Islam as their primary identity but not to be deceived by moderate movements and sufi platforms. His critique is especially critical of certain aspects of the Ikwan al-Muslimeen, including their support for Muhammad Al-Baradei, secular reformist in Egypt, Sharif Ahmed in Somalia, and Yusef Qaradawi's moderation movement from Qatar.  While, not altogether a different approach, the message was geared less towards a jihadi population all too familiar with the analysis he provides and more towards enlightening the general populations in Pakistan and the Arab world especially with regard to the reality of politicla machinations at work in a war that is apparently altering its facets and components. Al Qaeda has struggled to get masses of Muslims to understand the intentions it has espoused since day one, namely to create a void that would allow citizens of the Muslim world to wrest themselves from tyrannical leaders propped up by western support.  Only time will tell how effective the message is with regard to the mass majority. It is likely that with the recent polarizations and political change coming at the end of the year, that more will pay attention to the argument of Al-Qaedists, but still highly unlikely that their message will resonate with the mass. Zawahiri claimed that "The forces of jihad have emerged victorious and the forces of the Crusader invasion have weakened by their wounds and exhausted by the hemorrhage of human and financial losses." The whole video is available (embedded and for download) below:

download here

media is included for educational purposes only

Why Nations opposed to American Empire can Never have Free Press

Most Americans do not know that the U.S. overthrew democracy in Iran in 1953 with the covert operation that took down Muhammad Mossadeq, a populist.  All Iranians are all too aware of US intervention. That coup, like others, largely utilized the power of press in creating false reports to sway public opinion.  Today countries like Iran, Venezuela, Sudan, and other non-state actors deal with incessant and deliberate propaganda. The CIA's 1953 overthrow of the elected leader of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh was preceded by a media smear campaign by the CIA, which is estimated to have controlled 4/5 of Tehran's newspapers. Such a high degree of control and the fact that the CIA "succeeded" in its mission is enough to make you question how much influence and control the CIA has over the American politicians and media.

Latin America has largely woken up to this reality after 50-plus years of such distorted reality. As we see the Obama Administration return to "smart power" calls for the use of clandestine power over raw force, we will also see the return of "human rights" agendas.  Human Rights is a convenient platform for criticism of people like Ahmadinejad or Hugo Chavez, but never about US puppets and allies.  It is important that people seek verification and depth in dealing with the media.  With regard to the Iranian conflict, something we will cover in detail as time goes on, we have posted a relevent, albeit slightly skewed, lecture recently held at the Middle East Institute below.
Summary: 
The Middle East Institute is proud to host a discussion with Trita Parsi and Michael Singh on the prospects for a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear crisis in the wake of recently imposed UN and US sanctions. Their discussion will draw upon a forthcoming Middle East Journal article entitled "The Case Against the Case Against Iran" written pseudonymously by a European diplomat, who argues for greater engagement by regional actors like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia and China to mediate and mitigate Iran's nuclear ambitions. What are the next steps the U.S. and the international community should be taking? Parsi and Singh will shed light on strategies under consideration.

Why Are We All in Debt

The Current global economic crisis is fundamentally a crisis of indebtedness. This is the natural consequence of a system that creates money by loaning it into existence with interest. Around 97% of all money is created through this process. The consequence of this are many and perverse.

Of this system Josiah Stamp (President of the Bank of England in the 1920's, the second richest man in Britain) said:

'Banking was conceived in iniquity, and was born in sin. The Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen, they will create enough deposits, to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and the great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain slaves of Bankers, and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits'

The following is a brief documentary from Tarek Diwany, of islamic-finance.com and Zest Advisory, outlining the history and workings of this system and the consequences of it.

Huffington Post Reveals Tim Geithner meets with Bankers more than Government Officials

This is another telling indicator of who those in the Treasury and at the Fed actually work with and for.  Huffington Post reports today here that,

When it comes to spending time with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the head of Goldman Sachs may have an easier time getting a meeting than either the Speaker of the House or the Senate Majority Leader.

Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein has shown up on Geithner's calendar at least 38 times through March since the Treasury Secretary took office in January 2009, three more entries than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and 13 more than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to a copy of Geithner's daily log recently published online by the Treasury Department.

All told, Geithner met with, spoke to, or attempted to secure conversations with Wall Street chieftains at least 49 times during the five-month period ending in March 2010, a slight increase from the 37 entries on his calendar during the previous five-month period.

But it's still far below his first five months in office, when Geithner met with chief executives from firms like Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and BlackRock at least 76 times -- more calendar entries than for the heads of the regional Federal Reserve banks, who are the top overseers of systemically-important banks like JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo -- or for top members of Congress like Reid, Pelosi, their Republican counterparts, and the heads of the Senate and House committees overseeing financial institutions and economic policy.

  contact log is available in pdf here

Christiana Ampour - "This Week" - Imam Rauf and Islam in America

Panel responds to Imam Rauf's assertions made HERE

AMANPOUR: Tell me about your plans for the Islamic center.  Are you going to keep it at Park 51, where you proposed?

RAUF: The decisions that I will make -- that we will make -- will be predicated on what is best for everybody.

AMANPOUR: How do you decide that?

RAUF: That's been very difficult and very challenging, because, unfortunately, the -- the discourse has been, to a certain extent, hijacked by the radicals. The radicals on both sides, the radicals in the United States and the radicals in the Muslim world, feed off each other. And to a certain extent, the attention that they've been able to get by the media has even aggravated the problem.

AMANPOUR: 71 percent of New Yorkers say it should be moved. What is your main reason for not wanting to move it?

RAUF: My major concern with moving it is that the headline in the Muslim world will be Islam is under attack in America, this will strengthen the radicals in the Muslim world, help their recruitment, this will put our people -- our soldiers, our troops, our embassies, our citizens -- under attack in the Muslim world and we have expanded and given and fueled terrorism.

AMANPOUR: Do you think that is a legitimate reason not to move it?

RAUF: It is an extremely important consideration.

AMANPOUR: . People are saying that because you intimated that it would cause great anger in Muslim countries around the world, it could threaten the United States. And people are saying that you made a threat.

Is that -- was that your intention?

RAUF: I have never made a threat. I've never made a threat, never expressed a threat, never -- I've never -- I would never threaten violence ever, because I am a man of peace, dedicated to peace.

We have two audiences. We have the American audience and we have the Muslim audience. And this issue has riveted the attention of the whole Muslim world. And whatever we do and whatever say and how we move and the discourse about it is being watched very, very closely. And if we make the wrong move, it will only expand and strengthen the voice of the radicals and the extremists.

Al Jazeerah - Empire - Islam and America

A rather interesting discussion on Al Jazeerah English yesterday discussing Empire and US policy in the context of growing anti-Islmaic trends inside America. Chris Hedges really analyzes the situation well.

On the 9th anniversary of 9/11, the fault lines between the US and the Muslim world seem to have expanded. As America's internal cultural wars begin to affect its foreign policy, what are the options for President Obama? Which is the real US: The one that fights for Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the one that considers US Muslims as the enemy within? And have Osama bin Laden's hopes of driving a wedge between the US and the Muslim world become a reality?

Eid Message of Mullah Omar, Leader of the Taliban

Mullah Omar, Amir of the Afghan Taliban, released his Eid Message and declared that Afghans should prepare for the eventual defeat of the occupying forces, that things were going well for the Taliban, that government officials should withdrawal their support for the Taliban regime.  The entire message can be read here.  

He divided the message into sections, addressing disparate audiences. Here is a section of the message addressed to Religious Scholars, Statesmen, Teachers, Writers and Poets:

You are the very caste of the society that have the capacity to portray the wants and aspirations of the people. It is your Islamic and national duty to expose the atrocities of the invaders and put them before human rights organizations and public of the world. Enlighten people on the American invasion by unveiling the realities and facts. Inform them about the overt and covert conspiracies of the enemy; explain to them the fundamentals and benefits of Islamic system; educate the new generation in a constructive way, saving them from the impact of foreign dogmas and culture; teach them unity and harmony; inform the local leaders of Jihad of the grievances of people and convey the intentions of Mujahideen to the people. You are a bridge between the Islamic Emirate and the people. So it must be. Because through such a mechanism, all errors and mistakes should be corrected whenever they crop up. I call on you to assist the Islamic Emirate to bring about a blemish-free Jihadic and Islamic atmosphere.

Al-Qaeda fighters swell Afghan Taliban ranks

The US launched its war in Afghanistan just weeks after the 9-11 attacks to find Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, and defeat the Taliban fighters who supported him. But nine years on Bin Laden remains at large. And al-Qaeda and the Taliban have joined forces against the U.S. and its allies, their ranks swelled by an influx of foreign fighters. Al Jazeera has gained exclusive access inside a Taliban group in northern Afghanistan, Sue Turton has our report.

Video Review: How Corporations Destroyed Democracy - Chris Hedges

REVIEW: 

Chris Hedges begins this lecture with a great quote, “In celebrity culture we destroy what we worship.” He goes onto describe the impact of corporatist structures on modern culture, properly identifying the pagan and idolatrous cornerstone of secular society today, an intellectualized materialism based on the same precepts and sensorial metaphysical underpinnings of all pagan societies before it, there is an applicable analogy here that marks a series of concepts not foreign from the dominant norms of Muslim societies and Muslim households as well. Unfortunately, the majority of us have long given up on the belief that Islam serves a greater social purpose. Instead, the shopping malls, complexes, and corporate advertising campaigns that represent the idols of consumerist culture so too represent an equivalent reality of the Muslim world.  Therefore, much of what is said applies to Muslims and Muslim nations as well.  

  

The principles underlying corporatist structures deem impossible any “greater good” from coming about. Free market adherents would argue that pursuit of selfish interest indirectly contributes to a greater good, but corporations are totalitarian and cannot produce anything productive for society other than profit; a axiom of principality that makes acquiring profit a religion and thereby reduces the human experience to financial gain. As institutions they swallow belief in a greater good and by their very underlying conceptions exist only to produce positive returns for shareholders and vested interests. Therefore, such institutions cannot act on any other principle regardless of the occasional good-intentioned individual found inside their corporate conclaves.  Therefore, the lecture is about the byproduct of these principles on real human beings, about the corporatization of human beings.

The critical mind must realize that we have so-too corporatized the religion of Islam, over hundreds of years we have added and subtracted from the preserved message and principles included in the Quran. Defining our success based on the status we have attained, looking for conformal acceptance in a world of norms that contradict the tenants of our religion, and stuck in between a historical context of immigration for freedom of economic gain while oftentimes ignoring and feeling unaccountable for a reality of authoritarianism and oppression at home. It the sense of accountability to all of humanity that make non-Muslims like Chris Hedges important voices for us to hear.

The principles of Islam have been corporatized: Ramadan is now less about restraint than consumption, Hajj a voyage commoditized as part of the tourism industry, seeking knowledge a pathway to marketing one’s self in ways that guarantee acceptance by the mainstream but only if one is willing to necessarily ignore some of the most important concepts of Islam. The list goes on, but most remain ignorant and ill-concerned with standing up to this increasing reality and adoption of pagan concepts in the norms of our societies, As if we can so too, separate religion from state, we seek to maintain the ritualization of religion while ignoring the substance of simplicity in worldly dabbling in exchange for depth of contemplation and development of the soul and mind, something that is impossible when interacting with the corporate machine.

Hedges goes through the transformation of democratic society as ‘Inverted totalitarianism’ – represented by a massive public relations campaign as statist propaganda – Similarly, our monks and rabbis call to the same simple expression of purpose in life. The science of objectives of the shariah (ilm-maqaasid-al shariah) is adulterated in order to hearken the call to conformity to what has become normal in a secular world. The principle of maslaha (or seeking the greater good) is misunderstood and invoked by leaders to designate “the believers” as part and parcel participants in the corporatist model and mandating consent to the corporatist wars that just happen to be waged on Muslim soil these days via silence. It is this silence that is that is also part and parcel of what the corporate machine desires. American Islam increasingly represents the commoditization of our religion, a path of altering the tenets of Islam so that they are suitable to Western norms and desires while ignoring the very many problems of the contemporary order, the hypocrisy of the theorized values of western, secular society. In reality, this modern, “American Islam” is marketed in the same way Gap sells jeans manufactured in sweat shops to ignorant consumers. With the rhetoric of the powerful trying to convince people that the US is not at war with Islam, few realize that for that to be true they have got to create an Islam suitable to their needs, a version of our religion that accepts the same corporatist, pagan norms dominate our economies, that we accept despots and dictators loyal to multinational firms and preventing true freedom of choice and expression from asserting themselves in Muslim societies.

A quote that is particularly profound can be hear near the end. Hedges, who lost his job at the NY Times for speaking against the Iraq War at a college graduation ceremony explains,    

“Totalitarianism, George Orwell pointed out is not so much an age of faith but an age of schizophrenia, a society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial, Orwell wrote. That is when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud and force is soon all the elites will have left. We can march in Copenhagen, we can join Bill McKiven’s worldwide day of climate protests, we can compost in our backyard, and hang our laundry out to dry. We can write letters to our elected officials, and vote for Obama and chant ‘Yes We Can’, but the power elite is impervious to the charade of democratic participation. Power is in the hands of moral and intellectual trolls who are ruthlessly creating a system of neo-feudalism and killing the ecosystem that sustains life, and appealing to their better nature or seeking to influence the internal levels of power will no longer work. Yet, in the face of this catastrophe mass culture assures us that if we close our eyes, if we visualize what we want, if we have faith in ourselves, if we tell God that we believe in miracles, if we tap into our inner strength, if we grasp that we are truly exceptional, if we focus on happiness, our lives will be harmonious and complete. This cultural retreat into illusion, whether peddled by positive psychologists, Hollywood, Oprah or Christian preachers is a form of magical thinking. It turns worthless mortgages and debt into wealth. It turns the destruction of our manufacturing base into an opportunity for growth. It turns alienation and anxiety into a cheerful conformity, and it turns a nation that wages illegal wars, and administers offshore penal colonies where it administers torture into the greatest democracy on Earth.” 

  

While we spend the majority of our time concentrating on separating ourselves from the kuffar, while at the same time imitating them in their blind ignorance and allegiance to the falsified notions and oppressive, dominant norms of the day. We would do better to recognize that we have adopted many of the same views. We would also do better were we to attempt to revive some of the critical thought and sensible critique that is evident in discussions like these. We need Muslim speakers, authors and activists that attempt to correlate the responsibility to act for justice and truth to a moral obligation mandatory on us all.

At one point Hedges says that, “America’s most dangerous enemies are not Islamic Radicals but those that sold us the perverted ideology of free market capitalism and globalization.” Likewise we suffer from an internal hypocrisy that seems to dominate the age. It is time we join the conversation and opposition to corporate globalization, but first we must seek to understand the principles that challenge its existence. They are the principles we read every time we pick up the Quran, the principles we glaze over and ignore as we separate knowledge from implementation.  In conclusion, Mr. Hedges remarks about the importance of acting with a moral imperativeness that this system must be fought even if the outcome looks bleak… indeed this is the condition of humanity at large – the lacking sense of moral responsibility plagues us all. The sense of complacency and lack of courage to formulate alternatives and fight for the cause of justice haunts us as well. We should all become activists and voices like Chris Hedges, concerned and caring, yet rational and tactful in how approach the obstacles. 

This video gets 4/5 stars and is definitely recommended. Feel free to comment about your own interpretations by clicking on the comment button below. 

Syed Qutb - In the Shade of the Quran - Surah Ankabut 41-43 - The Spider's House

The Frailty of the Powerful

Now that the destruction of despotic, wrongdoing and wicked unbelievers has been outlined, and bearing in mind what was said at the beginning of the sūrah about tests and temptation, the relative power of competing forces is described in a clear simile. There is only one true power and this belongs to Allah. Every other power is frail and flimsy. Whoever seeks support or protection from other than Allah is like a spider which clings to a frail home woven of silk that lacks strength. Both the spider and its web, or home, are without real support:

Those who take anyone other than Allah for their protectors may be compared to the spider which makes for itself a home. Indeed the spider’s home is the frailest of all homes, if they but knew it. Allah certainly knows the nature of whatever people invoke instead of Him. He alone is Almighty, Wise. Such are the comparisons We draw for people’s benefit, but none will grasp their meaning except the people of knowledge.(Verses 41-43)

This is an amazing but true picture of the powers operating in the universe. People sometimes overlook this truth and hence their values fall by the wayside. Indeed their concept of human relations grows corrupt and all their criteria become ill-balanced. They do not know which way to go, what to take up and what to leave. In this situation, the power of government deceives them. They feel it to be too strong, address their wishes and complaints to it, fear it and try to appease it so that they remain safe from its strong-handed measures. Similarly, they are deceived by other powers, such as that of wealth which they imagine to control people’s lives. They, thus, try to obtain wealth so that they can exercise power over others. The power of knowledge also deceives them as they consider it a source of strength, wealth and all other elements that give people power. Hence, they approach it with humility, just like a worshipper engaged in devotion. Whether controlled by individuals, communities or states, apparent power deceives them. They are pulled towards it like moths are attracted to light or swarm towards a fire.

People are thus oblivious of the one power which creates all the little powers, owns, gives, directs and uses them as it pleases. They forget that seeking support and protection from these little powers is just like a spider taking refuge in its web. It remains a small powerless insect that has no power within itself or its flimsy web.

The only real support and protection for man is with Allah. This is the main truth which the Qur’ān takes special care to instil in the minds of believers. It makes their community stronger than all the powers that try to obstruct it. Over the centuries it enabled the community of believers to place the arrogance of tyrants under its feet and to overcome tyranny in its strongest forts and seemingly impregnable lines. This great truth is established in every believer’s mind, it has filled every heart and become part of their very being. It is no longer a word we utter, or a subject for debate. It is the main idea in our lives, minds and senses.

All power belongs to Allah. The only protection to be sought is from Allah.

Everything else is weak, flimsy and powerless, however much it tries to inflict punishment, be tyrannical and overpowering. They are simply spiders, and what power has a spider other than the silk with which it weaves its web?:

“Indeed the spider’s home is the frailest of all homes, if they but knew it.” (Verse 41)

Advocates of the divine message who are often subjected to oppression and hardship, and also to temptation and deceit, should reflect on this great truth and keep it before their eyes. They must not allow themselves to forget this even for a moment as they face different forces, some trying to inflict harm on them or even crush them, and some trying to lure them to their own line, or to buy them out. But all these forces are no more than the threads of a spider’s web. This is their real estimation in Allah’s measure. It is also the measure when compared with true faith when people have the right concept of it.

“Allah certainly knows the nature of whatever people invoke instead of Him.” (Verse 42)

They seek the protection of patrons to whom they ascribe a share of divinity. Allah knows the reality of these patrons: they are no more than a spider seeking refuge in its frail web. “He alone is Almighty, Wise.” (Verse 42) He alone has power over all things, and in His wisdom, He conducts the affairs of the universe.

“Such are the comparisons We draw for people’s benefit, but none will grasp their meaning except the people of knowledge.” (Verse 43)

Devoid of knowledge and clear reasoning, some unbelievers took such comparisons as material for ridicule. They said that Muhammad’s Allah speaks about spiders and flies. They were uninspired by this remarkable description because they did not use their reason, while their knowledge too remained scanty:

“None will grasp their meaning except the people of knowledge.”(Verse 43)