Fundamental Principles of Islam

to accept what they see on the surface, so that Muslims all over the world came to hold that, in the break-up of their empires, the upholders of Western civilization were the oppressors, while the Muslims were the oppressed. However, in actual fact, the internal degeneration of these Muslim empires had reduced them to the state of wood infested with white ants. It would only have been a matter of time before they collapsed on their own. It was only by a fortuitous concatenation of events that the military might of Western civilization was ostensibly the cause of their fall. Be that as it may, the upshot of this was that the entire Muslim world became averse to Western nations. At an earlier period this aversion had already manifested itself towards the British and the French, and then somewhat later towards the U.S.A., for, in actuality it is the Americans who have been leading Western civilization since the end of the Second World War. Now, I should like to identify and analyse the origin of the present extremist aspect of Islamic fundamentalism, which has made such a rapid descent into violence. The principal reason for its having come into being in this virulent form that it has its roots in a certain defeatist mentality which has, unfortunately, been developing in the Muslims since the loss of their empires. A defeatist or a besieged mentality inevitably opts for a negative course of action. The possessors of such a mentality consider themselves as the oppressed, and those whom they see as setting themselves up against them as the oppressors. With this bent of mind, they are willing to engage themselves in any activity whatsoever, no