EXCERPTS FROM
Islamic Resistance to Imperialism
By Eric Walberg
From the Introduction
The very word “terrorism” is misleading, with no legally binding definition—in the West it is almost
a synonym for Islamism or jihadism, used by officials and the media to delegitimize the state’s
political opponents. To supporters, these “terrorists” are “freedom fighters”. (Criminal protection
rackets are not labeled terrorists because they are no ideological threat to the state system.)
Common definitions refer to violent acts that are intended to create fear (terror); are perpetrated for a
religious, political, or ideological goal; and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants
(e.g., neutral military personnel or civilians), effectively lumping together occupier and occupied, putting
the state’s own (terrorist) use of armed force on the same footing as the much weaker insurgency. ANC
leader Nelson Mandela was branded a terrorist by the South African state and western officials and
media.12
Even Hamas, which fought a deadly battle with ISIS/ IS supporters in Jerusalem in 2009, and has
been dismissed by ISIS/IS as a distraction from its caliphate project, refuses to condemn ISIS/IS as
terrorist, “a term used by many countries for political purposes,” according to Hamas spokesman
Sami Abu Zuhri. “We are all Islamists, and it is ideologically difficult for us to condemn them as
terrorists. We are accused of the same by the West and some Arab countries,” he said, stressing that
Hamas will never join the US alliance against ISIS/IS. Hamas leader Ahmed Youssef explains: If the
insurgency in Syria and Iraq is seen as terror, based on the killings taking place there, then the United
States and Israel, which have killed thousands of innocent people, ought to be condemned as well.
“Nevertheless, we condemn all acts that fall outside the context of the international law and Islamic
teachings.”
Here I will use the term “terrorism” circumspectly and focus on “terrorist acts”, carried out by both a
handful of jihadists, and on a regular basis by western states which claim to be fighting a “Global War on
Terror”. Which is not ‘war’ at all, when one side is amorphous or so weak, it can only hide or lose. The
‘war’ is really invasion, occupation, obliteration. That sort-of worked for Afghanistan and Iraq because
they are distinct geographical entities, but it is impossible to occupy or obliterate resistance, including alQaeda type resistance, where there are no boundaries. You can’t stop all resistance to injustice.
On the contrary, blowback by jihadists (terrorist acts) feeds on the violence of imperial reaction in a
vicious circle, the “intervention trap”.15 To emerge from this vicious circle, it is necessary to return to
the principles of Islam for defense of self and religion, where the means do not contradict the end.
Destroying a US warship and its crew in a Muslim port, as part of the resistance to the ongoing
subjugation of the ummah, is not necessarily to be condemned. But killing innocent non-Muslims
and/or Muslims who are not attacking or subverting the ummah is. This simple rule of thumb has
been violated over the past three decades by those Muslims who have (wittingly or unwittingly)
consented to a dubious and unholy alliance with imperialism, or unwittingly facilitated its objectives,
and are ignorant of the rules of war prescribed by the very religion in whose name they fight.
From Chapter Three
Comparing the Iran-Egypt Experience in Context
Egyptian leader Nasser’s nemesis–and Khomeini’s inspiration—was the Muslim Brotherhood, which
quickly became the main opposition to both the British occupiers before 1952 (who by dawdling,
discredited the liberal Wafd Party) and to Nasser after his coup and ouster of the British. Though rejecting
secular socialism as an alternative social order to capitalism, the MB’s emphasis on social justice from its
founding in 1928, and its credibility as a truly national movement, unbeholden to either the imperialists or
the Soviet Union, gave Nasser the opening to pursue a socialist program dressed up as Arab nationalism,
more-or-less consistent with Islam, even as he ruthlessly suppressed the Islamists.
It was only the collapse of this secularist vision, with the invasion of Egypt by Israel in 1967 and the
obliteration of the Egyptian forces, that put paid to this program. Once again, the field was left open
to the MB as the only credible force remaining in Egyptian politics.
Iran’s 1953 western-backed coup had the same effect on Iran as Sadat’s pro-US-Israel ‘coup’ had on
Egypt two decades later. Both resulted in the discrediting of secular nationalist regimes, spurring a
return to Islam, though in both cases the movement was persecuted. Egypt’s greater integration into
the western economy as a result of its direct occupation, its two decades of Nasserist socialism, and
the 1973 ‘victory’ against Israel delayed its Islamic revolutionary moment till 2011, while giving the
MB Islamists the chance to proceed with Islamization from below.
The discrediting of the neoliberal model, especially in Egypt after Nasser and more so since 2008,
has buttressed Iran’s Islamist regime, which has been able to defy the West and continue to increase
its prestige among all those who oppose the US empire. The so-called Green Revolution of 2009 by
the pro-western forces failed, despite intense pressure from outside and the permanent economic
crisis which Iran suffers.
By 2012, Egypt and Iran had ‘caught up’ with each other: the political see-saw that these countries
experienced in the past half century was finally coming into sync. Both were following an Islamic
path in defiance of the US, though the MB had only taken the first tentative steps in exercising actual
power. This synchronization of Egyptian and Iranian politics represented a potential coming together
of Sunni and Shia political dynamics, which was the wish of Islamist reformists Afghani and Abduh
more than a century ago, and has been happening gradually since the Iranian revolution, despite the
opposition of the Saudi and Gulf monarchies.
Hints of this lie in the fact that:
 From the start Ayatollah Khomeini notably played down Shia-Sunni differences,
 Sunni Islamists such as Qutb and Maududi are widely read in Iran,
 Shia resistance to Israel is respected in the Sunni world. Saudi King Abdullah recognized this
by establishing a center for dialogue among Islamic sects at the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation summit in Mecca in 2012.
 The Egyptian MB’s professed #1 foreign policy priority is Palestine, putting it in sync with
Iran.
The steady increase in pro-Palestinian support around the world is the catalyst now uniting antiimperialist forces in the Arab world with Iran’s principled support of the Sunni Palestinians, and
sympathy with the nonviolent Sunni path for the re-emerging Islamic order spearheaded by the
Egyptian MB. Sadly, the current impasse in Egypt has put on hold this reordering of Middle East
politics.
From Chapter 14
The Ummah in the 21st Century
What are the historical paradigms established by the Prophet Muhammad for relating to nonMuslims? New Muslim and Christian scholarship is beginning to explore this source. In particular,
Zafar Bangash’s Power Manifestations of the Sirah, focusing on Prophet Muhammad’s letters,
treaties and new social conventions. Another is John Morrow’s The Covenants of the Prophet
Muhammad with the Christians of the World (2013), offering a new way for Christians to understand
the ethos of early Islam, based on the covenants established by the founder of Islam with Christians
of the time. …
These studies provide yet further evidence that Islamic values are compatible with European
values. This fundamental truth has been obscured by the fact that historically, while Christians and
Jews lived side-by-side in Europe, and Muslims, Christians and Jews lived side-by-side in the Middle
East, Muslims and European Christians rarely crossed paths, and became enemies as a result of
historical rivalry,6 the legacy of the Crusades, the enmity of Roman Catholic clerics, and the
propaganda serving British imperialism.
But with the rise of capitalism and as a reaction to Nazism, the cultural construct “JudeoChristian heritage” entered the English language in the 1940s, to be used by Zionists and the imperial
elite in their ‘clash of civilizations’ platform targeting Islam. It is a concept which has been useful to
a largely Christian empire where Jewish elites play a powerful role, but is rejected by serious
scholars, both Christian and Jewish. Talmudic scholar Jacob Neusner calls this so-called JudeoChristian heritage a “secular myth favored by people who are not really believers themselves”.
American scholars such as Richard Bulliet actually argue for the use of “Islamo-Christian” to
characterize western civilization.