Persecution of of Rohingya Muslims; Clear Message to Sri Lankan Muslims

by Latheef Farook- Jan 5 2017

Fifty seven years ago in 1961, addressing Myanmar Muslims, Maulana Abul Hasan Nadwi warned them to return to the path of Allah or face the unpredictable consequences. Perhaps, true to his predictions Muslim men, women, children and the aged in the Muslim majority area of Rohingya have been massacred after being tortured while the world, especially Muslims worldwide, turn blind eyes.

This is a clear message to Sri Lankan Muslims in view of the growing threat to their existence by racist lunatics in connivance with Burma’s butcher of Muslims Buddhist Monk Wirathu.

This very same Wirathu was invited by Sri Lanka’s violent anti-Muslim Buddhist monk Galabodaaththa Gnanasara Thero and his racist outfit Bodu Bala Sena, BBS, to a reception and honor only extended to heads of states.

This was done with state patronage under Mahinda Rajapaksa government.  Wirathu has also signed an agreement with BBS- certainly to harm the island’s Muslims.

The latest attacks on Myanmar Muslims began in early October 2016.This include rape, burning and destruction of  Muslim villages, armed forces raping women in queus before chopping them together with children as young as  two and three. They burn Muslims, including women and children, and extrajudicial killing of Muslims remain very common. Armed forces use Helicopter gunships to fire on Rohingya villages.

All these atrocities were very well documented.

 With Aung San Suu Kyi as president, the whole world expected her to stop this carnage. Instead   she has become the defender of genocide of Muslims who enjoyed all rights as equal citizens until the fascist military regime stripped them of their rights and threw them at the mercy of murderers led by Wirathu, described by TIME Magazine as the face of Buddhist Terror.

Their ultimate goal is "the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim minority in Myanmar", the UN refugee agency's chief in Southern Bangladesh has said. Suu Kyi, has miserably failed to visit Rakhine since the outbreak of violence. Instead, she has repeatedly defended the purges, attacking foreign intervention in the region and demanding: "show me a country without human rights issues.”

"I call upon  Aung San Suu Kyi to listen to her “inner voice” and speak directly to the people of Myanmar," the Special Adviser of the United Nations Secretary-General on Myanmar, Vijay Nambiar, responded in a formal statement. 

The UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said “the government, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, had taken a "short-sighted, counterproductive, even callous" approach to the crisis. The government's handling of issues in northern Rakhine state, where independent monitors are barred from investigating, risk grave long term repercussions for the region.

Zeid Ra’ad added that killings, rapes and the burning of Rohingya homes are reported to the UN human rights office on a daily basis.  "If the authorities have nothing to hide, then why is there such reluctance to grant us access? Given the continued failure to grant us access, we can only fear the worst”.he asked.

Mr Zeid said in June 2016 that crimes against humanity may have been committed against Rohingya Muslims. Since communal violence broke out in 2012, more than 120,000 Rohingya Muslims have been driven from their homes and crammed into squalid camps guarded by police. There, they are denied healthcare and education, and their movements are heavily restricted.

Meanwhile an email circulated by  Zafar Khalid point out that as early as 1961, addressing Burmese Muslims , Maulana Abul Hasan Nadwi warned the Rohingya Muslims to turn back to Islam .This was only a few months before the military coup that drastically altered the fate of all Muslims in Burma.

Those were the days when Muslims in Myanmar were living in comfort. Many were affluent. They had jobs, businesses and even large factories. With border restrictions relatively non-existent, the Burmese Muslims were commuting to and from many other countries on a regular basis.

Luxurious mansions in which Burmese Muslims used to reside in, which were confiscated suddenly after being ordered to leave within hours, are still standing to this very day. The condition of the Burmese Muslims was very similar to the condition of wealthy Muslims living today in many Muslim communities.

Since the  1962  a military coup   in Burma  their condition deteriorated, eventually finding themselves in the pitiable state they are in today, on the brink of facing genocide, constraining even the biased enemy media to brand them as the "most oppressed population in the world."   

What did the Muslims of Burma do, or fail to do, before 1962, which caused their situation to change so drastically? Understand that it is only Allah Who changes the conditions of nations. The oppressors are part of His Army. They are the ostensible or superficial cause for the upheavals wracking and wrecking the Ummah. The True Cause is Allah. And, what can the Muslims of Burma and other places do to reverse the situation? The answer to these two questions is found in the following.

In his Warning, Hadhrat Nadwi said: “I’m saying   that your living in this country will become difficult if you don’t strive for the Deen with resolution.And when such efforts (i.e. the vital efforts of moral reformation) are secured, then your businesses and factories will be safe. Remember, that the instruments for safety for the Muslims in any country are only striving and struggling for the sake of Deen and (to propagate the Deen) vigorously to the country’s inhabitants. Then Allah Ta’ala Himself takes the responsibility for their safety and will take the responsibility for protecting them.   

I’m NOT a man who can look into the future, I’m not that saintly kind of man who’d know what’s going to happen after 10 years or so but this matter is so widespread and so very out in the open that it is like someone who sees black clouds hovering in the sky with strong winds accompanying it. 

I am informing you that tough times are ahead.  For the sake of Allah, do not give such importance to your worldly work as you are doing.Strive and put in effort for Deen. And give out a war cry in favor of the teachings of Islam, and for piety.  

Allah Ta’ala will make you honorable and will grant you glory. He will honor you in this country and it will not be surprising that Allah will also grant you the opportunity to be in domination in this country because these power and authority are given as bounties as a result of the efforts put forth in the path of Allah. –end of the speech.

The Burmese Muslims did not take heed. The rest is history. 

Isn’t there a message for Sri Lankan Muslims here?