Introduction

A call to all people of conscience...

What people come across frequently, they tend to eventually grow used to. This familiarity can so develop over time that things which elicit violent surprise or protest when first witnessed become routine matters just a short while later.

The wars and conflicts taking place in our world are a case in point. When a country is first occupied and a slaughter or genocide first begins, this can lead to violent protests worldwide. Let us, for instance, consider the first days of the Bosnian conflict, or Chechnya, or Palestine… The image of a Palestinian child on his father's lap who will soon be a target for the bullets of Israeli soldiers, Chechen babies murdered in their nappies, women, the elderly and children alike subjected to a terrible genocide in Bosnia…

When people first see such images, they often talk about their feelings of outrage and say they want to do something. However, over time the never-ending stream of horrific reports ceases to attract their attention anymore. More people die every day, women are raped, and children are shot or lose a foot after stepping on mines… However, people's reactions in the early days are replaced by an odd insensitivity. When they buy a newspaper, they are often more interested in celebrity gossip than stories of war. That is because the deaths of a few people in Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir or East Turkestan have become merely "routine news."

Moreover, propaganda at the same time portrays all this savagery as political developments. Thus it is that many people see the continuing slaughter in Chechnya as an internal Russian affair, what is going on in Palestine as a struggle for land between Israel and Palestine, and the Hindu oppression of the people of Kashmir as a problem rooted in the region's strategic position. Among others, it is true that historical and economic factors do play a role in the emergence of conflict. Chechnya is of great economic and strategic importance to Russia. Fanatical Jews have maintained the intention of occupying Jerusalem and other Palestinian territories for centuries. However, internal or economic problems aren't the only cause of the oppression visited on the Chechen people by the Russian administration, nor the violence that Muslim peoples in Africa are subjected to, nor the violent cruelty and ethnic cleansing suffered before the eyes of the whole world by Muslims in the Balkans. As we shall see in later chapters of this website, these people's Muslim identity is one of the main reasons for these conflicts.

Since these people believe in Allah and want to live their lives according to the demands of their religion, and want to raise their children to be believers too, they are subjected to various forms of oppression. The existence of strong states upholding spiritual values or a strong union of Islamic nations that would protect the rights of Muslims within a legal framework of justice gives rise to grave concerns among certain circles in the West and poses a threat to the interests of certain others.

Another aspect of the matter is that some people know nothing about the people who live in these countries, and often have never even heard of the countries themselves. The situation of someone who has no idea of the difficulties, oppression and acts of violence, hunger and poverty suffered by Muslims living in Sudan, Algeria, Indonesia, Myanmar, Djibouti and Tunisia is certainly food for thought. It is impossible for such a person to extend a helping hand to believers whom he does not know even exist. Other people are aware of this cruelty and injustice. Yet it does not even occur to them that they might be able to help or try to put an end to the oppression. Furthermore, they so convince themselves that they are unable to do anything about it that neither the reports they read nor the images they see on the television screen trouble their consciences in the slightest.

A true believer, however, is responsible for all that he hears and sees. Allah calls on Muslims in the Qur'an:

What reason could you have for not fighting in the Way of Allah - for those men, women and children who are oppressed and say, "Our Lord, take us out of this city whose inhabitants are wrongdoers! Give us a protector from You! Give us a helper from You!" (Qur'an, 4: 75)

There is no question, of course, of people of conscience who obey the command contained in that verse closing their eyes and ignoring what is going on. It is impossible for a Muslim to sleep irresponsibly in his comfortable bed, fritter away his time, and think only about his own pleasure and interests when such violent cruelty is going on in the world. That is because a believer knows that the fundamental solution to unjust wars, massacres, cruelty, hunger and moral degeneration, in short to all of the world's problems, lies in spreading the morality of the Qur'an. That knowledge places a great responsibility on his shoulders: that of explaining the religion of Islam and the beautiful things it brings with it, propagating the morality of the Qur'an, and waging a war of ideas against atheism…

Those who take on that honorable duty will free all those who are oppressed in the world by the guidance of the Qur'an:

... A Light has come to you from Allah and a Clear Book. By it, Allah guides those who follow what pleases Him to the ways of Peace. He will bring them from the darkness to the light by His permission, and guide them to a straight path. (Qur'an, 5: 15-16)

The intention behind this website is to lay bare the plight of innocent Muslims all over the world, and to invite people of conscience to consider this situation and seek a solution. This is not a time to remain silent, behave uncaringly, dedicate ourselves to the petty benefits of this world and kill time with pointless debates and squabbles. At a time when millions of Muslims are suffering such terrible cruelty, it could be an act of the greatest heedlessness to refuse to shoulder any burden for Islam. There is also no doubt but that it will bring with it the gravest consequences in the hereafter.

Enemies of The Islamic World

The anti-Islamic alliance facing muslims

Subsequent chapters of this website will examine the Islamic world country by country, and will reveal the oppression and cruelty inflicted on Muslims. Before that, however, we need to look at the roots of the attacks directed at the Muslim world.

The area known as the Islamic world consists of those countries which have a majority Muslim population. It stretches from Morocco and Mauritania in the West and as far as Indonesia in the East. The great majority, some 1 billion, of the people living in the region are Muslims. Over the last 200 years, they have come face-to-face with attacks, oppression, and terror and have even been massacred because they are Muslims. That is because many Muslims have been obliged to live under non-Muslim regimes, which look with hatred at Islam.

When we look at the Islamic world today, we can clearly see that there is an effort to crush, oppress and eliminate Muslims in Bosnia, Algeria, Tunisia, Eritrea, Egypt, Afghanistan, East Turkestan, Chechnya, Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar and Sudan. At first glance, the Muslims in these different regions may seem to be facing different enemies. The Serbs in Bosnia, the Hindus in Kashmir, the Russians in the Caucasus, and the oppressive regimes in countries such as Algeria, Egypt and Morocco all target Muslims. Yet these anti-Islamic forces, which appear independent from one another, all act with a similar logic, follow similar strategies and employ similar methods. The singular factor they all have in common is that they are anti-religious.

These forces which deny the existence of Allah and see divine religions – particularly Islam, the only uncorrupted religion – as the greatest enemy of their own secular systems and so declare violent war on religion and believers, actually represent atheist ideologies. That is why the true enemy facing Muslims is not the Serbs, Hindus or various oppressive regimes, but the irreligious understanding prevailing in the world. The roots of this war against Islam take nourishment from atheism and go back a very long way.

Colonialism and the Hatred of Islam

The Islamic world was not always in such a position. A few hundred years ago, it was ruled by Muslim empires. At the start of the 1700s almost all of the Islamic world was governed by three great empires. There was the Moghul Empire in India, while the Safavid Empire ruled Iran and its surrounding area. The third and greatest power was the Ottoman Empire, which held sway over the entire Balkan Peninsula as well as Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq and Syria), the Arabian Peninsula, and North Africa.

Colonialist nations such as Britain, France and Italy inflicted the most terrible tortures on the Muslims living in the Islamic lands they conquered, and carried out mass killings.

However, these three empires gradually disappeared from world maps. The Moghul Empire grew weak, shrank and finally collapsed. The Indian sub-continent then fell into the hands of British colonialism. The area known as Indochina was colonized by the French. The Safavid State in Central Asia came under British and Russian rule. The Ottoman Empire, the third and greatest Muslim empire, was progressively reduced in size beginning in the nineteenth century. Ottoman lands in the West fell into the hands of Russia and the Balkan states encouraged by it. The Middle East, Arabian Peninsula and North Africa were occupied by the British, French and Italians. By the end of the First World War, a large portion of the world's Muslims were ruled by non-Muslim governments.

All of these were colonialist in nature. In the 1920s, Russia and Italy joined the ranks of such traditional colonialists as Britain and France. Each of these countries occupied and colonized a part of the Islamic world. They didn't hesitate to inflict the most ruthless slaughter and torture upon the Muslim populations under their rule. Britain and France "administered" the Muslims in the Middle East, North Africa and the Far East. In other words, they reaped and used the Muslim countries' natural resources for their own interests. Soviet Russia took over all of the Caucasus and Central Asia, and the Muslims in those regions were enslaved under the pressure of the communist regime. Italy occupied Libya in 1911, and then set about a bloody invasion of Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia) in the 1930s.

One important feature of the Middle East policies of Britain and France was to employ artificial states adapted to serve their own interests. This artificial order in the Middle East was a poisoned seed of never-ending wars. These two colonialist European powers were forced to abandon the region after the Second World War. However, they left behind them a much more ruthless, aggressive and destructive colonialist power in their wake: Israel.

When we look at the picture whose general outline we have just summarized, we can clearly see that the Islamic world has been a target for foreign powers ever since the beginning of the nineteenth century. Throughout the ensuing 200 years, the world's Muslims have been occupied by these powers, colonized, and subjected to oppression and cruelty. The puppet regimes these powers installed in the Muslim world also greatly oppressed Muslims, and they continue to do so to this very day. Moreover, the outside powers imposed a number of ideologies that were utterly foreign to the Islamic world, such as extreme nationalism, fascism and communism. Then they used those who were duped by these ideologies to work against their own Muslim communities.

The Basis of Ideologies Hostile to Islam

When we analyze the enemies of the Muslim world, we encounter three basic ideas:
1. Western imperialism: For instance, British and French colonialism as described above.
2. Fascism-extreme nationalism: Italian fascism, Israel, and pro-fascist groups that cause civil wars in the Islamic world.
3. Communism: Soviet Russia, China, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, communists in Afghanistan and various communist groups in the Middle East.
Close inspection reveals that each of these three is based on ideas that emerged in the nineteenth century, and developed in the twentieth. Extreme nationalism and the fascism that came in its wake are ideologies that emerged entirely in the nineteenth century, and were practiced to the greatest extent in the twentieth century. Communism began with the theory of dialectical materialism proposed by Marx and Engels in the nineteenth century, although the first communist regime was not installed until 1917, in Russia.

THE CONTINUING 200 YEARS OF CRUELTY IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD For nearly half a century Palestinian Muslims have been forced from their homes for no reason, shot, and subjected to torture and violence. Yet the whole world is silent in the face of the occupying power: Israel. It is no particular nation or society that is the enemy of the Islamic world, but rather "ideologies" that have turned those nations and societies into oppressors. These ideologies came to dominate much of the world in the nineteenth century, and everywhere they prevailed became scenes of cruelty and violence in the twentieth.

One can say that only Western colonialism goes back to earlier centuries, although it then consisted of limited economic initiatives and again came to a position of global domination with its philosophy and ideological foundations in the nineteenth century.

This shows us that the enemy of the world of Islam is not this or that nation or civilization (Western civilization, for instance), but the "ideologies" that turned these nations or civilizations into bloody oppressors. These ideologies dominated a great part of the world in the nineteenth century, and brought cruelty and savagery with them wherever they held dominion. It was actually these ideologies that occupied, divided, plundered, enslaved and slaughtered the Muslim world.

When we look at these three ideologies, we see that what lies behind all of them is the West's increasing atheism. Each of them emerged as the Western world moved away from a belief in God and religion and began to take on a materialist worldview.

One important truth confirming this is that each of these three ideologies is based on Darwin's theory of evolution, which was portrayed as the "scientific basis of atheism" and which for the first time allowed atheist philosophy to be put forward as "scientific truth."

The Links Between Darwinism, Colonialism and Fascism

Darwinism is the so-called scientific foundation of colonialism. That is because Darwin placed the various categories of the human race at different levels in his imaginary evolutionary process. He considered the European white race to be the most advanced, and portrayed Asian and African tribes as being almost at the same levels as the apes. Furthermore, he suggested that all of mankind was in a constant state of conflict and a fight for survival, and said that it was a "law of nature" that the West should win this fight and enslave the other races. In his The Origin of Species, he wrote:

Darwin's concept of the struggle for survival was an important source of inspiration for racism, communism and fascism, as well as imperialism.

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous (human-like) apes... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.1 Darwin arrived at this interesting conclusion by means of the concept of the struggle for survival. According to this claim, the weak are eliminated in the fight for survival, and the strong and fit go on to survive. Moreover, he maintained that this was necessary for universal development, in other words that the disappearance of some races was a process that would allow man to progress and move forward.
This unscientific idea, known as "Social Darwinism," saw wide acceptance in the primitive scientific conditions of the time and came to be the basic justification for European colonialism. In short, Darwinism is the "scientific" foundation of colonialism.
Social Darwinism is as much the source of extreme nationalism and fascism as it is of imperialism. All of the nineteenth century theoreticians who are regarded as the founders of fascism (Friedrich Nietzsche, Heinrich von Treitschke, Francis Galton, and Ernst Haeckel, for instance) were strongly influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution, and particularly by the concept of the "fight for survival." Mussolini, the Italian dictator who established the first fascist regime, was a convinced Darwinist in his youth and drew attention with his articles in praise of Darwin. It is quite clear from the writings of Hitler and other senior Nazis that they were also inspired by Social Darwinism. (For further details, see Harun Yahya, Fascism: Darwinism's Bloody Ideology, Istanbul, Vural Yayincilik, 2001)

Communist Ideologies' Hatred for Islam

Darwinism also forms the basis of communism. This was clearly stated by its first founders, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Both were convinced atheists, both saw the elimination of religious beliefs as essential for communism, and both fully understood that the theory of evolution served that end.
As soon as Darwin's book was published, Engels wrote to Marx as follows: "Darwin, whom I am just now reading, is splendid." 2 On December 19, 1860, Marx replied, "This is the book that contains the basis in natural history for our view." 3 In a letter to another socialist friend, Lassalle, dated January 16, 1861, Marx wrote, "Darwin's work is important and suits my purpose in that it provides a basis in natural science for the historical class struggle," 4 thus revealing the importance of the theory of evolution for communism.
Dictators such as Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and Mao Tse-tung made their own comments about communism, stating and demonstrating its ideological links to Darwin. The theory of evolution came to be the basis of education and even agricultural policy in communist regimes. All communist movements found the ideological foundation and justification they were looking for in Darwinism.
For communist ideology, so greatly influenced by Darwinism, society is just "a herd of animals." Man is a soulless, dull creature, a "man-animal machine," and quite worthless. The logic of "There are many in the herd, so it doesn't matter if one is lost" rules the day. The handicapped and those unable to work are cast out of the herd and left to die. They are seen as sick and harmful. There are no feelings of compassion, mercy or loyalty. Since they believe that life stops at death, they cling to life with all their power. Since everyone is seen as an enemy and rival in the fight for survival, everything is held against them, and hatred prevails.
It is natural that communist ideology, which creates a society with no human or spiritual values or morality, should also be inimical to religion. Virtues such as morality, love, affection, compassion, self-sacrifice, cooperation and forgiveness have no place in the model aimed at by communism. When one looks at the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao and other communist ideologues, one can see this stated quite clearly. Marx described religion as "the opium of the people" and a culture formed by the ruling class to keep the poor asleep. Moreover, he suggested that religious beliefs would have to be eliminated if communism was to be achieved.
In Lenin's article "Socialism and Religion," published in 1905 in the Russian magazine Novaya Zhizn, he described religion as a "fog" that needed to be dispersed, and set out the atheist propaganda that communists needed to set in motion. In his "The Attitude of the Workers' Party to Religion," published in the magazine Proletary in 1909 as leader of the Russian Social Democratic Party (later the Communist Party), Lenin wrote:
The philosophical basis of Marxism, as Marx and Engels repeatedly declared, is dialectical materialism, which has fully taken over the historical traditions of eighteenth-century materialism in France and of Feuerbach (first half of the nineteenth century) in Germany a materialism which is absolutely atheistic and positively hostile to all religion. "Religion is the opium of the people." This dictum by Marx is the corner-stone of the whole Marxist outlook on religion. 5

COMMUNIST OPPRESSION IS STILL TAKING PLACE... Communist powers that continued to inflict suffering on Muslim lands always targeted the defenseless: men, women, children, and even babies in arms. In the eyes of communist ideology, influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution, society is nothing but a "herd of animals." Man himself is a soulless automaton, lying somewhere between human being, animal and machine. The savagery perpetrated in Chechnya by Russia - still run by former communists - is evidence of this idea system at work.

Those words express Marx's enmity towards religion, and also reveal his ignorance of it. These statements do not reflect the truth. Allah commands people to think and inquire. It is communism and other atheist ideologies that encourage people not to think, and to do what they are told without question. It is clear that people who do not think will also never come anywhere near the truth, and will thus lead lives rife with deception and error. By thinking, man can understand the reason for the creation of the world, and the reason for his own existence. This truth is revealed in the Qur'an thus:

We did not create the heavens and the earth and everything between them as a game. We did not create them except with truth but most of them do not know it. (Qur'an, 4: 38-39)

For this reason, every individual must ponder the reason for first of all his own creation, and then that of every being or object he sees in the universe and will encounter throughout his life. Someone who fails to think will only understand the truth after he is dead, in the presence of Allah, but by then it will be far too late. Thinking while we have the chance in this life, and then drawing conclusions, will be of great benefit to us in the life of the hereafter. That is why Allah calls on all people, by means of his messengers and books, to consider their own creation and that of the whole universe:

Have they not reflected within themselves? Allah did not create the heavens and the earth and everything between them except with truth and for a fixed term. Yet many people reject the meeting with their Lord. (Qur'an, 30: 8)

Enemies of religion, however, like communist leaders, make all sorts of unfounded allegations to turn people away from religion, even going so far as to claim that religion prevents people from thinking. As we have seen, though, on the contrary, religion actually commands people to think.

Conclusion

In short, it is evident that the three ideologies hostile to the Islamic world all stem from the atheist culture that took over the Western world in the nineteenth century.
This demonstrates once again the importance of the intellectual struggle that needs to be waged against atheism, which is not just a force that tries to ruin people's lives in the hereafter by destroying their religious beliefs. Rather it also, at the same time, aims to ruin the world, turning it into a wasteland of chaos and war, and it views Muslims as its most important target.
That is why waging an intellectual struggle for the good is both a service to true belief and also a great "moral war" against the "corruption" pervading the earth. The existence of large numbers of Muslims who are still being crushed by atheist systems all over the world reminds us how important this struggle really is. Every ideological victory over atheism (and over philosophies, ideologies and so-called scientific theories such as Darwinism that lie at its foundations) is also a moral victory which helps oppressed Muslims all over the world.

 

Chechnya

Oppression as the whole world watches

After the collapse of the Soviet Union over a decade ago now, a difficult period was, and still is being experienced in many of the countries that formerly comprised it. The effects of Russian expansionist policy in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Dagestan have never been erased. These countries, which believed that they would be able to establish an order of peace and brotherhood after being liberated from the oppression of the Soviet regime, then found themselves confronted by an altered form of Russian oppression. On the other hand, there is also one nation which has never abandoned its 400-year struggle for freedom from Russia. That country is Chechnya, whose courage and yearning for independence has gone down in history.
The origins of the Muslim Chechens' great struggle against the Russians go back to the late eighteenth century with the capture and subsequent death of Imam Mansur, the legendary resistance fighter, in 1791, at the Russians' hands. In 1816, after the Czar appointed General Yermolov to lead the Russian army, the Chechen people in the northern Caucasus were subjected to terrible slaughter. When the Chechen Muslim leader Imam Hamzat was killed, Sheikh Shamil took over the leadership of the Chechen army, and began the struggle for independence, the details of which have come down from generation to generation right down to the present day.
Sheikh Shamil's armies heroically resisted Russian expansionism for fully a quarter century, from 1834 to 1859. In the end, however, Russia conquered the region, and never again left it. The fight for independence the Chechens are waging today is a continuation of the movement initiated by Sheikh Shamil.

How Was the Present Situation Reached?

There are a number of reasons, historical and economic ones in particular, behind the violent oppression and cruelty meted out to the Chechen people by the Russian administration. Chechnya is in fact of far greater importance to Russia than the other Caucasian republics. The region contains considerable energy reserves, especially oil and natural gas. During the Cold War, communist Russia met all its raw material needs very cheaply from that country, and used them to serve itself. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, declarations of independence issued by Chechnya - a huge source of raw materials - and the other ex-Soviet republics placed Russia in a terrible quandary.

Sheikh Shamil's forces heroically resisted the Russian armies and were the predecessors of the Chechen resistance fighters of today.

In addition to the economic factor, Russia's centuries-old policy of expansionism is a historical cause for the chaos currently being experienced in Central Asia and the Caucasus. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow experienced a short period of uncertainty, but then pulled itself together, and took a number of wide-ranging initiatives to re-establish its dominion over the former republics. The first sign of what Russia is at present doing in these republics was given in 1993 in a speech by then President Boris Yeltsin. In this speech, he said that Russia will again win the status of a superpower by regaining all the positions it has lost. 6 In other words, Russia refuses to accept these countries' declarations of independence, their winning back their freedom, and their being able to stand on their own two feet. Instead it sees them as "positions to be won back."
On the other hand, some Muslim communities were unable to win their freedom and remained within the Russian federation. One of these, Chechnya, was the main target for that pressure, and for that reason was exposed to great cruelty.
In order to have a correct grasp of what is going on in Chechnya, we need to concentrate on certain points. The war in Chechnya is not the kind of conflict where two sides resort to arms because the conflict between them has reached such a scale that it cannot be resolved by peaceful means, the kind of war that can be encountered anywhere in the world. The justice of the Chechens' demands for independence is being debated in various international circles, and different views are being expressed. Each one of these views is debatable. The matter that everyone is agreed on, however, is that the Russians are behaving with absolutely no restraint and targeting innocent civilians, turning the war from one involving solely the soldiers at the front into an attempt to wipe out the whole population of Chechnya. This is unacceptable, and one of the matters we shall be particularly concentrating on in this chapter.
In order to portray itself as in the right in the international arena, Russia suggests that the war in Chechnya is a "domestic matter," believing that it can thus keep the truth of the savagery going on there from the public. Yet that pretext is totally insufficient to account for the way Chechen men are rounded up in the streets and sent off to torture centers, captured prisoners are tied to tanks by their feet and dragged along the ground, babies of cradle age are fired upon and all the people's assets plundered. A great many political scientists and experts are agreed that Russia is engaged upon a genocide in the region and employing the kind of savagery that has seldom before been seen, all in order to keep Chechnya within its own borders.
On the other hand, the attacks by some Chechen circles aimed at Russian civilians also need to be unequivocally condemned. The Chechen people are naturally justified in wishing to live free and honourable lives. Yet actions of that type cast a stain on that justified demand and make it more difficult to defend the Chechen cause. In addition, it must not be forgotten that targeting innocent civilians is a complete violation of Islamic principles. Throughout his life, the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, always defended the rights of civilians, even during the fiercest fighting, and ordered all Muslims to be moderate and to avoid all forms of fanaticism. That is what the morality of the Qur'an requires. In the Qur'an, Allah has commanded Muslims to be forgiving and tolerant and to behave justly, even in war. A Muslim must be someone who first feeds his prisoner even if he himself is hungry, always behaves with moderation even in the middle of a war, defends the rights of the oppressed and never deviates from the path of honesty and justice. For that reason, the Chechen people must never forget Our Lord's stricture "You who believe! Show integrity for the sake of Allah, bearing witness with justice. Do not let hatred for a people incite you into not being just. Be just. That is closer to heedfulness. Allah is aware of what you do." (Qur'an, 5: 8), even when fighting Russian oppression, and must never, ever target the guiltless and defenceless public.
Our hope is to see a search for a solution to the differences between the Chechens and the Russian administration based on a moderate and peaceful framework, as should also be the case in other regions of the Islamic world.

Moscow's Concerns Over a "United Caucasus"

Chechnya, which has been on the world's agenda for the last decade, is a very small country of some 16,000 square kilometers. Within the Russian Federation, there are presently 19 autonomous republics in the same position as Chechnya. These republics make up 28 percent, over one-fourth, of Russian territory. Moscow still has a very strong influence on them, and is very keen that that influence should never be diminished. The loss of Chechnya would mean breaking the stranglehold of Russian power over the other republics, and would result in this nation setting an example to them. If the Chechens, whose total numbers are only that of the troops in the Russian army, break away from Russia, that could spark off independence movements in the other autonomous republics. The most noteworthy characteristic of the republics within the Russian Federation is the way they greatly influence one another, and how a change in one affects all the others.
Alongside all this, there is another element that makes Chechnya important for Russia. Moscow's real fear, as in the examples of Bosnia and Kosovo, is the establishment of a Muslim state right on its borders. That is the most important reason for the inhuman war waged against Chechnya by the Russian administration, which has tried for years to eliminate the Chechens' religious identity and so inflicted violent oppression on them, demolished mosques, banned worship and prohibited religious education.
The Chechen people are known for their loyalty to their religion, their determination to struggle to be allowed to live by that religion, and for their Islamic identity with its powerful effect on other Islamic states in the Caucasus. The idea of a "United Caucasus," put forward by the aforementioned Imam Mansur in the 1780s, which aimed at uniting the whole of the Caucasus, greatly alarms Russia. That is because the outstanding feature of such a union would be its Islamic nature, and that represents a serious threat to Moscow's interests.
These fears give rise to the Russian desire to see a "Chechnya without Chechens." With its current policy, Russia wants to eliminate the Chechens to the last man, prevent any possible Islamic union, and bring the lands it has lost under its domination once again. Whereas even if a "United Caucasus" is established, there is no need to regard this as an anti-Russian development. If the Russian administration enters into good relations with the Muslim peoples of the Caucasus, then there will be no need for these peoples, whether independent or not, to adopt an attitude opposed to Moscow.

The Continuing Struggle of the Defenseless Chechen People

There are many examples of Russian policies in favour of violence instead of peace rebounding on it. Russia has worked up some secret plans in Chechnya, especially at the start of the 1990s. It thought that it could never destroy the Chechens, with their unbreakable unity, by force of arms alone, and so resorted to undermining them from within and tried a number of means of doing so. It worked to destroy that popular solidarity and create chaos in Chechnya by interfering in elections, buying politicians, kidnapping and committing acts of terrorism, using pro-Russian clerics to try and stir up religious differences, as well as through economic and political pressure.

However, these methods failed to lead to the success they had expected.

Russia's occupation of Chechnya in 1991 was ended by Dzhokhar Dudayev. Then the serious harassment in November 1994 turned into war on December 11 of that year. More than 100,000 Chechens lost their lives in that war, and tens of thousands were forced to flee. The use of banned chemical weapons resulted in a kind of genocide. Furthermore, because Russia had portrayed Chechnya as an "internal matter," no serious reaction came from the outside world. No helping hand except a few European countries was extended to the Chechen people.

Those who persecute men and women of the believers, and then do not repent, will have the punishment of Hell, will have the punishment of the Burning. (Qur'an, 85: 10) In the 1990s, Russia attempted to tear down Chechnya from the inside. When they realized they would be unable to do so, they then turned to a policy of savage violence. Methods no less terrible than those employed by Stalin and Lenin, which themselves cost millions of lives, were employed.

The war ended in August 1996 when the Russians admitted defeat. This Chechen success against the Russians deeply affected their fellow republics in the Caucasus. In 1998, the peoples of the northern Caucasus met in the "Northern Caucasus Peoples' Convention" in the Chechen capital, Grozny. All the participating countries agreed on a common position in order to avoid any conflict breaking out between the peoples of the northern Caucasus, and to support each other in the event of a Russian attack. This unity meant the nightmare the Russians had feared for so long actually becoming a reality. If Russia allowed it to happen, the Islamic union that had been dreaded for years would emerge. This was one of the main reasons why the Russian administration embarked on a second operation against Chechnya. This time, even more ruthless methods were employed, and inhuman tortures inflicted on defenceless people before the eyes of the world. Yet for some reason, the savagery was generally regarded as a Russian "internal affair."
This second full-scale war between the Chechens and the Russians started when the latter surrounded and bombed a number of villages in Dagestan in the early months of 1999. The 1,500 or so people of these villages asked for help from Chechnya, which they regarded as their natural leader. Shamil Basayev, who had become popular due to his success in war, began to offer assistance to the people of Dagestan in the summer of 1999. Only two of the villages being pounded by the Russians could be saved. There was terrible slaughter in those villages, and innocent people had been viciously murdered. The war between Russia and Chechnya, that is still going on today, was sparked off yet again by this incident.
Russian forces entered Chechnya on October 2, 1999 and began to ruthlessly kill anyone they came across, making no exceptions for women, children or the elderly. They began to attack civilian targets. Chemical weapons, scud missiles and napalm were used in the attacks, and hospitals, maternity wards, public shopping areas and refugee camps were deliberately selected as targets.
One of the ways the Russians ruthlessly attacked civilian targets was to poison the Argun River, a source of water for the populations of a number of Chechen villages. Most of the women and children who drank from the river died, and hundreds of others were left to suffer long-term ill effects. Chechnya lost three-quarters of its population in just two years. Even now, some of the native Chechens are still trying to survive in neighboring countries under the most difficult conditions.
The massacre of the Chechen people by the Russian government, which still retains the same old communist mentality, resembled the one carried out millennia ago by the Pharaoh. In his own time, he also attacked the weak and defenseless (in that case, the tribe of Israel), and brutally slew them. Allah states Pharaoh's cruelty in these terms:

Remember when Musa said to his people, "Remember Allah's blessing to you when He rescued you from the people of Pharaoh. They were inflicting an evil punishment on you, slaughtering your sons and letting your women live. In that there was a terrible trial from your Lord." And when your Lord announced: "If you are grateful, I will certainly give you increase, but if you are ungrateful, My punishment is severe." (Qur'an, 14: 6-7)

Pharaoh exalted himself arrogantly in the land and divided its people into camps, oppressing one group of them by slaughtering their sons and letting their women live. He was one of the corrupters. (Qur'an, 28: 4)

The genocide campaign waged by Russians against the defenseless people of Chechnya was reported in the foreign press, yet Western nations did no more than issue toothless condemnations of these actions.

The mentality that permits the murder of children, the slitting open of pregnant women's bellies, the crushing old people under tanks and many other atrocities, is far removed from any moral sensitivity, human feelings, compassion, love or sympathy. Many of these people do not even know the reason for the atrocities they carry out, but because of the dark state of the soul that atheism brings with it, they can easily perform all kinds of evil acts. What is expected of Russia is that it should put an end to this dark mentality, left over from the time of the Red Army, which directs its Chechen policy, and for it to adopt a moderate policy that will bring peace and security to both the Russian and Chechen peoples.

Those who were expelled from their homes without any right, merely for saying, "Our Lord is Allah." If Allah had not driven some people back by means of others, monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques, where Allah's name is mentioned much, would have been pulled down and destroyed. Allah will certainly helpthose who help Him. Allah is All-Strong, Almighty. (Qur'an, 22: 40) Russian troops generally aim at civilian targets, bombing markets, maternity clinics and refugee convoys..

The Situation Facing Chechen Refugees

A number of human rights organizations conducted studies into the Chechen refugees who fled the Russian slaughter, and their reports show violations on an enormous scale. Some 250,000 Chechens who fled the war are now in Ingushetia, and the rest can be found in neighboring regions. Chechens are faced with hunger, thirst and contagious diseases. Women and children, young people and old who were forced to migrate, now try to survive in the freezing cold and rain, two or three families in abandoned train carriages, or in stables in the villages where they have taken refuge.

For example, the Chechens in the Znamenskoye refugee camp to the north of Chechnya are unable to send their children to school because they have no winter clothes. Almost half of those taking shelter there have fallen sick because of the dreadful conditions and freezing cold. 7 Diseases such as tuberculosis and hepatitis are spreading among Chechen refugees, who have nothing hot to eat for weeks at a time and whose bodily constitutions are unable to stand up to the conditions. The death toll is rising. 8
Perhaps the most surprising thing is that the majority of the Western nations, which claim to be in the vanguard of the protection of human rights, don't lift a finger to help these people. A significant part of the world's public opinion is not totally aware of the suffering and sometimes insists on ignoring the cruelty inflicted on the hundreds of thousands of Chechens who fled the Russian slaughter. The aid from other countries in the region keeps being cut, and these people who are fighting hunger, thirst and bitter cold are hard put to find even a crust of bread. The terrible plight of these refugees needs to be addressed as a matter of the greatest urgency.

What reason could you have for not fighting in the Way of Allah-for those men, women and children who are oppressed and say, "Our Lord, take us out of this city whose inhabitants are wrongdoers! Give us a protector from You! Give us a helper from You!"? (Qur'an 4: 75)   The world ignores the deplorable situation as hundreds of thousands of Chechens fleeing Russian persecution are forced to contend with harsh winter conditions, hunger, thirst, and infectious diseases.

How Can a Solution be Found?

The path to a solution lies in both Russia and the Chechen resistance being called to peace, on the basis of the peace-loving and moderate approach Allah commands. Moscow must abandon regarding the existence and national aspirations of the Muslim peoples of the Caucasus as a threat, and those peoples must reduce the conflict and tension to a minimum by adopting a moderate and peaceful policy. As we have seen in some detail, the Russian terror in Chechnya is unacceptable savagery. On the other hand, however, the Chechen fighters who engage in terror attacks on Russian civilians are also on the wrong path. Both sides must prevent the spilling of any more blood, and make efforts to establish peace.

Extending a helping hand to the Chechen people in the face of the oppression they are suffering is a responsibility of all Muslims in the world. It is clear that nobody with courage who fears Allah and possesses the concept of justice revealed by Him in the Qur'an can stand idly by in the face of this cruelty being visited on innocent people. A true believer always helps the poor, those in need, and those who have been driven from their homes, and will make any sacrifice for them. The self-sacrificing and tolerant behavior of believers in the Prophet's time, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, towards those who had been expelled from or had to leave their homes is described thus in the Qur'an:

It is for the poor of the emigrants who were driven from their homes and wealth desiring the favor and the pleasure of Allah and supporting Allah and His Messenger. Such people are the truly sincere.

Those who were already settled in the abode, and in belief, before they came, love those who have emigrated to them and do not find in their hearts any need for what they have been given and prefer them to themselves even if they themselves are needy. It is the people who are safe-guarded from the avarice of their own selves who are successful. (Qur'an, 59: 8-9)

Naturally, the spread of this superior morality among people is only possible with the dissemination of religion. For that reason, what intelligent people of good conscience need to do as a matter of priority is to find the best ways of communicating the morality of the Qur'an and actually put this into practice. Allah has promised to help those who help His religion:

Those who were expelled from their homes without any right, merely for saying, "Our Lord is Allah." If Allah had not driven some people back by means of others, monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques, where Allah's name is mentioned much, would have been pulled down and destroyed. Allah will certainly help those who help Him - Allah is All-Strong, Almighty, (Qur'an, 22: 40)