In an article posted August 28, 2017 on the liberal Arab website Al-Hiwar Al-Mutmaddin (ahewar.org),[1] Iraqi Muslim Arab writer 'Ali 'Abd Al-Karim Al-Sa'di harshly criticized Muslim Arabs, saying they are racist, greedy, harbor expansionist aspirations, and hate the other – yet, by a double standard, they attribute all these traits to Israel, and raise their children to hate it and also to hate all those who are not Muslim Arabs. For example, he wrote, the Arabs and Muslims vilify Israel for occupying Palestine, and accuse it of grave crimes and evil intentions, but at the same time take pride in their own conquest of more than 20 lands in the early Islamic era.
As an example of the Arab lust for conquest, Al-Sa'di presents Iraq itself, which he said was neither Arab nor Muslim because it was once populated by members of various cultures, religions, and ethnicities, prior to the first conquests of the area in the early Islamic era when Muslim Arab tribes from Yemen and the Hejaz arrived and forced Islam and the Arab identity on the locals. He added that Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and other countries were also originally neither Arab nor Muslim, but were forcibly Arabized and Islamized, often by means of massacring their residents.
Pointing at the Arab Muslims' deeply rooted hatred of the other, he described how Iraqi children are raised to believe that the Sabians [2] are tainted and that they not must come into contact with them nor partake of their food or drink. "Who, then," he asked, "are the Nazi racists who lust for expansion and conquest?" – hinting at Arab accusations against Israel.
Al-Sa'di concluded by condemning the Muslims' appropriation of God, the next life, and Paradise, excluding from them non-Muslims; he called it "a corrupt, racist, and Nazi idea" and added that all this makes him ashamed to be an Arab.
The following are translated excerpts from Al-Sa'di's article:
"We always hear that Israel is the source of racism and crime, that it hates the Arabs and Muslims, that it is greedy, that it has expansionist intentions, and other accusations and slogans of this kind, with which they have filled our heads since infancy. I hear [these slogans] recycled at home, on the street, in the school, at the mosque, and in the media. Unfortunately, I was once one of the herd that accepted the ideas, or a particular ideology, imposed by the ruling class, without awareness or analysis. At the same time, sometimes I can forgive myself, because a decade ago, when I was part of the herd, I was only 17. But after I wised up and began to think and ask myself many questions, I realized that these accusations directed against Israel attributing to it racism, expansionist aspirations, greed, and crimes were traits in which we ourselves – not Israel – excel, and are expert. Why, then, do we accuse the other of them?
"I will explain this forthwith. As an Iraqi Muslim Arab citizen, I will talk about my country Iraq, which was [originally] neither Arab nor Muslim. Everyone is aware of the cultures in it, and of its archeology, and also of the history of the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and the Kurds in it. These peoples are neither Arabs nor Muslims, but at the time of what the Muslims call the futuhat [i.e. the Arab conquests during and after the time of the Prophet Muhammad], and in which they take pride, they conquered Iraq and forced Islam and [the Arab] ethnicity upon [the residents, telling them]: 'Pay the jizya [poll tax] or convert to Islam'... and thus they Arabized and Islamized [the region] and raised in it the ethnic [Arab] and Islamic flag, at the expense of the other ethnicities and religions, through murdering millions.
"Every Iraqi Arab citizen knows that we are of Yemeni and Hejazi[3] origin, and the sheikhs of our tribes also know this; it's considered obvious. This applies to me – my tribe, the Al-Sa'di Arab tribe, is of Yemeni, not Iraqi, origin. My tribe itself took part in the Islamization and Arabization of many of the other ethnicities and religions, such as the Sabians and the Mandaeans[4] in southern Iraq, particularly in the city of Maysan, in the Al-Musharrah region [in southeastern Iraq, on the Iranian border], where many Sabians lived, and the region was considered an important stronghold for them. Under threat, they were forced to become Arab, to the point where Al-Musharrah, and the city of Maysan, was nearly emptied, and only a few families remained, that later emigrated after the 2003 Iraq war.
"All this has been pointed out by numerous Iraqi and Arab historians and writers... and Iraqi tribes like Shammar, Ka'b, Tamim, Tayy, Khazraj and others remain. To this day, I know many members of other ethnic groups living in my city... who were forced to join Arab tribes because society's nature is Arab and tribal and they were forced to ally with them. [The tribes] conduct psychological warfare against anyone who tries to take pride in his [own] ethnic group and refuses to join them, harming his security, livelihood, social ties, and good name and honor, and using all the Bedouin methods of aggression against them.
'Ali 'Abd Al-Karim Al-Sa'di (image: Shafaaq.com)
"As we know, the borders of the [ancient] Arab state are only the Hejaz and Yemen, and within them lived Jews, Christians, and many opponents of Islam, who were all murdered and destroyed in the Battle of Banu Qurayza,[5] and there are Muslims who are ashamed of this [Battle] and attempt to rewrite [its history]. Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, and other countries are not Arab countries, but they became so by force of invasion, and by force of murder and massacre [of their residents]. The Arab conquests [in early Islam] that came to India and Europe and other places failed, and praise Allah for that, because, had they been successful, these countries would have now been Arab-Islamic, and the Arabs would have called them 'the source of Arabism' [manba' al-'urouba], just as they call Iraq 'the mind of the Arabs' [jamjamat al-'arab].
"The following is an example connected to the Arab Muslims' attitude towards the Sabians: When I was an elementary school pupil, we had in our class pupils of the Sabian religion. We would ridicule them and exclude them, and when one of them brought us food or water, we would throw it into the garbage in front of him, without thinking about how he felt. Do you know why? Because we were raised to believe that the Sabians were unclean and that contact with them would befoul the body, so we must not eat or drink anything that is theirs. That is what we heard, and we did it without analyzing it for ourselves, because we were young. In addition to this, there were dozens of false accusations that we were taught about them, some of them shameful.
"But as time passed, I knew for sure that everything they told us was a lie, and I realized the power of the racism and hatred of the Arabs towards others. It is an indescribable phenomenon, most shameful and frightening. Hatred [of these others] only because of differences of race, ethnic group, or religion is unjustified. By Allah, is this fair? Is this just? Is this true? Who, then, are the racist Nazis who lust for expansion and occupation? Even their idea about God, the life of the world to come, and Paradise is loathsome, racist, and Nazi. They always claim that 'the Quran is Arab and the language of the denizens of Paradise is Arabic!' They think that the Creator and Paradise are theirs and theirs alone.
"Oh Arabs, the Quran is Arab, [but] this is not an achievement on your part, nor a reason for pride. The Quran itself has faulted you in more than one verse. One of the verses states: 'Indeed, We have made it an Arabic Quran that you may possibly understand [43:3].' That is, the Quran was brought down in your language in order to bear witness against you [on Judgment Day] – obviously, if we recognize the truth of the Quran. With regard to your claim that the language of the denizens of Paradise is Arabic, this denigrates the Creator, because He is not Arab, and He belongs to no ethnic group, and the Arabs have no monopoly over Him.
"Why is the occupation of one single land by Israel – assuming that it is indeed occupation – considered a crime that is forbidden by Islamic law, while your occupation and attacks on more than 20 countries [in early Islam] are allowed according to that same religious law, and you see these as welcome occupations?! Worse, you also regret that the rest of the attacks didn't go so well, like in Andalusia, India, and other places. What nerve!
"I regret that for 17 years of my life I was misled. I feel that this regret has aroused in me an internal counter-reaction, causing me to hate my affiliation, my origin, and my ethnic group, and from now on I will feel shame when I say I am Arab.
"What the Arabs think and what they do is a bizarre combination of double [standard] and contradiction... that in my view belongs in mental institutions. But I don't know why the world allows them to carry out their nonsense, and tolerates them! And when will the Arabs notice that they are mentally handicapped?!"
[1] Al-Hiwar Al-Mutamaddin bills itself as a leftist, secular, and democratic website where many intellectual Arab writers publish their writing with the aim of disseminating secularism in the Arab world.
[2] The Sabians were an ethnoreligious group that lived in the Middle East for centuries prior to the rise of Islam. They are referred to in the Quran three times as "People of the Book" along with Jews and Christians, and sometimes Zoroastrians.
[3] The Hejaz, the region containing Mecca, has unique historical, religious and political significance for Arabs and Muslims.
[4] The Mandeans were an ethnoreligious group with a unique religion and language that lived primarily in southern Iraq, in what is today the Iranian province of Khuzestan. They believed that John the Baptist was the most important of the prophets, and that Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad are false prophets. .
[5] Banu Qurayza were a Jewish tribe that lived until the 7th century in Yathrib (today's Medina), along with two other Jewish tribes, Banu Nadir and Banu Qaynuqa. In the fifth year after the Hijra (627 AD), as tensions between the Muslims and Jews increased, the Muslims, led by the Prophet, besieged Medina and defeated the Jews. All the Jewish men who refused to convert to Islam were slaughtered, and the women and children were captured as slaves and forced to convert.
