Casualties of war often take different forms – this current chaos has already seen the continued oppression around the world thrown over the shoulder, the ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign put on the back burner and millions of people facing famine and starvation.

You can now add a few more things to that list.

President Musharraf, who is anything but ‘Musharraf’, who knows as much about Islam as George Bush does – hold on, no sorry that’s an insult to Bush isn’t it – actually about as much as Irshad Man-in-disguise and Fred Singh know about Islam (which isn’t very much of course) has just gone and rammed another nail in the coffin. And yes I know that was a huge, insulting and emotive sentence but that’s because now it’s personal.

By banning all foreign students from Pakistani Madâris (‘Islamic’ schools), he is well on his way to completing the Neo-Cons’ ultimate aim which is to destroy the fundamental pillars of our Deen one by one – in this case, talab al-‘ilm or the ‘seeking of sacred divine knowledge’.

Personally this is another blow because I have already sourced a nice madrasah near my home in Swat, in the NWFP for my eldest lad Eesa. With Musharraf really putting the pressure on, particularly on dual-nationality holders like us, then we’re rapidly running out of options.

This trend of shutting down all avenues to learn Shari’ah in the traditional way in Muslim countries is particularly worrying. A few countries that I have been to myself to learn are now almost no-go areas. For example, the biggest casualty will be Pakistan due to the cheap cost and the total convenience for many Pakistani families in the UK. Another huge casualty is Mauritania which is now virtually impossible to learn in. Even when I was there many years back, they were starting to arrest and detain all foreign students; it has got much worse since then, to the extent that they have now started locking up their most famous scholars and ambassadors such as Shakyh Muhammad Hasan Dadaw et al. Absolute disaster.

Egypt isn’t much better, many teachers being too frightened to teach foreigners anything other than Arabic and tajweed. Saudi, Syria, Jordan and other places are rapidly falling by the wayside under American pressure – all part of the Satanic plan of destroying our sources of knowledge.

As for those that respond, “This is better for us to develop ‘home-grown’ Islamic schools” then forgive my cynicism. That’s a load of bakwas if I ever heard.

Seeking knowledge is a divine act of ‘ibadah. It has an intention, it has difficulties, Sunan, blessings, and everything else one would expect from an act of worship. Environment obviously plays a huge role – not to say that we don’t have scholars and teachers in the West and in the UK but rather if we are not going to let any more scholars in, and only rely on what we have here as resources then the only kind of scholars we’ll produce here are those on the style of modernist secular ‘Islamic moderates’. Fantastic.

It’s helpful to know that the early Salaf would not consider a man’s knowledge to be complete if they had not travelled in search of it. There are many reasons for this and of course there are exceptions (Imam Malik et al) but these current policies that people are passing now are nothing but a catastrophe for the authentic learning of our Deen.

I am sure that we’ll still be able to string a few people together to make a functional Imam position work – but where will the ‘ulema and fuqaha come from?

And whilst I’m at it, equally serious is the dissolving pillar of Jihad - the one word which has now more so than ever come under such attack as a principle and concept that it is only by the skin of our teeth that we are still holding on to such an important tool in the fight against oppression. It has been buried as has the legitimate use of istishadiyyah by those such as the Palestinians, amongst the current rhetoric of the ‘War on Terror’ as well as our own problem of fanatical extremism and deviant ideologies.

Jihad in all its forms as well as seeking sacred knowledge need to be defended today as another one of our priorities; just where do we start??

Also, in the middle of writing this comment the most ajeeb thing has just happened. In all my working life, I have never faced the scenario described a few posts ago as having to sell something questionable such as a bacon sandwich etc.

So what happened exactly 5 minutes ago?

Yep – Bacon and Egg flamin’ sandwich innit!

The girl sees me at the counter and asks the usual ‘Can I pay for this here’ bakwas. I gave it my usual (totally coerced) ‘Yeah no problems’ bakwas and we decide to play out the normal rubbish where I seethe away while she looks on in triumphant victory. You know the score.

Anyway, to my absolute HORROR, I look at the sandwich and read ‘Egg and Bacon’ and my heart just pure skips a beat! So I look at her and say, ‘Err, you know something, I don’t think this Pharmacy till can process sandwiches.’

‘That’s strange. It was fine yesterday, and every other day I come here to get a sandwich.’

‘Oh.’

Anyway, being my usual self, I bogged here straight in the eye and told her, ‘Sorry but not today its not. Try the bottom till. Ta.’

:-)

Finally, remember if you haven’t already heard that all lessons today are cancelled. Our beloved Shaykh Kehlan (hafidhahullah) is currently in hospital to sort out a few ongoing problems but everything will be fine insha’Allah by the end of the weekend. Do not forget him in your Du’aa.