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I think
I have, throughout my previous three articles "The
Story of Islam in China", "Resource-rich
East Turkestan" and "Communist
China and Muslim Turkestan",
spot light on the painful story of a dear Muslim
country undergoing persecution and bias against
their religion. I dare say it is currently the
severest crisis a country in the world experiences.
Nevertheless, mere words and
knowledge are not sufficient and of no avail.
Actually, Muslims have to take such a positive
actions to solve their great causes as may satisfy
Allah and His Messenger. Although I know that the
Ummah's hot issues grew much in number and that
sincere Muslims have to consider tens or hundreds of
other important issues, I stress the fact that there
are still many roles we can play to help our
brothers here and there. Were we in their place, we
would, undoubtedly, wish that the whole Muslim world
stand by us. In fact, no one knows who will be next
to suffer adversities!
Three important issues
Undoubtedly,
most of those who are conversant with events know
that it is difficult to give them any help, bearing
in mind that the oppressing country is the giant
Chinese dragon, a country of great capabilities.
However, let us have a brief glimpse of this point
in order to draw the attention of dear readers to
three important issues before dealing in length with
the means of helping Muslims in Turkestan.
The first issue:
The true victory we aspire for is from Allah. Allah,
the Exalted, said, "And there is no victory except
from Allah." [Al 'Imran, 126]. Moreover, victory is
conferred by Allah upon believers who committed
themselves to Allah's Shari'ah (Islamic law),
followed His path, showed willingness to sacrifice
their lives for His sake and sold their souls in
return for Paradise. In this regard, Allah said, "O
you who believe! If you help (in the cause of)
Allah, He will help you, and make your foothold
firm." [Muhammad, 7]. He also said, "Allah has
purchased of the believers their persons and their
goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of
Paradise)" [Al-Tawbah, 111]. This means that sincere
male and female believers should devote times and
intellects for Islamic work. Once we, Muslims, show
sincerity and work properly, Allah will then confer
His victory upon us in the manner He likes and at
the time He deems fit. Only then, China's power will
avail it nothing and America's navies will do it no
benefit.
Examples of Allah's
victory conferred upon believers
 Actually,
history is the acid support of my preposition. In
this context we should understand the victory
achieved by the very powerless Muslims against the
two mighty states of Romans and Persians, Muslims
victory over Crusades, Muslims conquest of Europe in
Andalusia and Constantinople and their victory over
hugely powerful Tatars.
Such and similar victories have
to be understood in one sense, i.e. Allah willed
that Muslims gain victory seeing their seriousness
in defending their religion and causes. However, it
should not be argued that modern day war is
different from that of past times, for China is many
times as powerful as Persia. Actually, one who
argues as such has never understood Allah's law of
conferring victory. No doubt, Allah, who defeated
polytheists in the first century AH, is capable of
defeating them in the 15th century. Moreover, Allah,
who granted powerless Arabs victory over the great
powers of that time, is able to grant them victory
over modern day great powers. What we are required
to do is just doing our best. Allah, the Exalted
said, "On no soul doth Allah Place a burden greater
than it can bear." [Al-Baqarah, 286]. As a matter of
fact, there are too many things within the scope of
our capacities to be imagined. Embarking on an
attempt to sincerely solve a certain issue through
employing some mechanisms and means, we might be
guided by Allah towards tens of new mechanisms that
may achieve unimaginable success and positive
results.
This was the first issue I
liked to highlight before embarking on talking about
roles to be played by Muslims in order to support
Muslim Turkestan.
The
second issue: If
someone vehemently seeks to work out solutions for a
given problem, he will be guided by Allah to do so
even if he were a polytheist. Thus, sincere
believers of a sound creed are, with greater reason,
worthier of Allah's support.
Taiwan
challenges China
 An
evidence supporting this idea is the case of Taiwan.
Taiwan consists of a group of small islands opposite
to the giant Chinese monster. It is about 36,000 sq
km with a population of 23 millions the majority of
whom are adherents of Buddhism and other blasphemous
creeds. Nevertheless, the Taiwanese have been
confronting China since Taiwan was founded in 1911.
(Please, bear in mind that it equals 4% of China and
that its population is 1.8% of the Chinese
population.)
We need not mention the great
difference between Chinese and Taiwanese military,
economical and political capacities. Actually, China
has not succeeded till now to subdue Taiwan.
Although we are certain that Taiwan is supported,
sometimes openly and sometimes
secretly, by Westerners, especially the USA,
Taiwan's power is essentially inspired by the
Taiwanese themselves. Aiming at remaining on the
world map, the Taiwanese people produced internal
organizations on the political, economical and
scientific levels and could establish external
strong ties making use of the ideological global
conflict between the East and the West. In fact,
Taiwanese arrangements have been ever successful.
How come then that such a
microscopic country as Taiwan achieves success while
Muslims, the inhabitants of about one-fourth of the
Earth and who constitute one-fifth of the total
world population, do not achieve it?!
Peoples are the Addressees
 The
third issue: By
this article I do not address governments; rather, I
address peoples knowing that governments of the
Muslim world do not take into consideration Muslim
public issues and problems. I further think that
most of such governments perhaps support China in
combating the so-called "separatist movements",
which are, in fact, attempts to liberate from
occupation. Hence, I will give no reference to the
government-related roles, such as mobilizing armies,
suspending diplomatic relations and halting
economical transaction.
I would rather deal with roles
to be played by the public, feeling certain that
there are many other duties that will be suggested
by brothers pursuing events. I am also certain that,
if we perform such roles and duties, Allah will
bless our efforts and guide us to further means
leading at the end to liberating the whole Muslim
Turkestan.
Duties to be carried out
by Muslim peoples to support Turkestan
Below is a list of duties I
believe to be crucial at the situation at hand:
First: Pursuing Turkestan
news relentlessly and deliberately.
Actually, mass media deals with the Turkestan issue
only when events aggravate, which also motivates us
into active action following the media activity to
be soon cooled down again. However, such should not
be the case while dealing with an occupied Muslim
territory, liberating which is obligatory on Muslims
even if they are to sacrifice their property and
souls in such a cause. Actually, the Muslim Ummah is
one body and it is thus unacceptable at all that we
do not at least pursue the news of such a Muslim
people suffering intensive Chinese oppression.
No doubt, regularly pursuing
the Turkestan news will have the effect of inciting
a powerful desire to support it. Moreover, knowledge
in itself is a power, in the sense that knowledge we
acquire can wide-open the door for unimagined means
of support. We can pursue Turkestan news through
visiting their websites; actually, there are many
Arabic and English websites for them. Moreover, we
may pursue their news through different mass media
plus searching for books giving account of their
story.
Publicizing Turkestan news
 A
piece of information a certain person receives
should not be limited to him; it has to be passed to
other people here and there.
Thus, such a person has to pass
the information to his friends, brothers and
acquaintance and publicize it through every possible
means such as newspapers, magazines, school or
university wall magazines, internet blogs or even
through usual public conversations. In fact, I felt
very happy to know that some brothers and sisters
print these articles and distribute them to their
friends and some others send it to mail list
contacts. Through such and similar ways, we can keep
the issue alive so that Muslims might not forget
such an important country. Through comments on the
previous articles I could clearly have the idea that
many of commentators did not know that China
occupies any Muslim country. However, such is an
improper negligence ignorance about which is not a
valid excuse, bearing in mind that we know a lot of
information about much less important issues.
Second: Contacting the
Turkestani people.
 I
know that it is difficult to perform such a duty on
account of language difference and lack of
information about methods of contacting them.
However, regular pursuit of their news, stressed in
the previous section, will provide us, if Allah so
wills, with contact mechanisms either through
signing up their blogs or corresponding with them
via email or postal mail.
It is even easier to contact
Turkestani community living in different parts of
the world. Actually, some of them study in some
Islamic universities while others are immigrants
here and there. No doubt, contacting them
strengthens and assists them and even open the door
for further kinds of help we do not know at the
moment. Moreover, it gives us accurate information
about the actual situation in Turkestan, which is in
the benefit of the cause.
Third: Contacting
different human rights organizations spreading all
over the world in order to arouse their concern for
the cause of Turkestan.
Actually, the Amnesty
International 1998 report aroused a widespread
controversy all over the world causing people to
talk about the issue of Turkestan. As a matter of
fact, this may exert pressure on China, bearing in
mind that the world is now governed by
globalization, which leaves no room for China's
media and information blackout. Furthermore, China
is an industrial country in the first place and thus
concerns first of all with having good relations
with different countries of the world and for
joining universal commercial organizations.
Therefore, a negative report of human rights
committees might have a bad impact on economical
development.
It is well-known that human
rights organizations will not actively react to
events if they receive one or two emails on the
issue. On the other hand, many of their balances
will change in case they receive thousands or
millions of emails indicating a public opinion
issue.
Fourth: Visiting the
Turkestan province.
This duty might seem somehow
strange to many people, while it is, in fact, very
realistic. During the last decade, visits paid by
Muslim businessmen, and even medium-class merchants,
to China increased notably in number due to the
increasing commercial activity and to conclude
economical agreements.
 All
what we ask them to do is adding two or three days
to their journey to visit the Turkestan province,
known in China as Xinjiang, where they can
communicate with Muslims if possible. If not
possible, suffice it to have a general idea of the
situation there and later tell other people the
story of the visit. It will be very good also to
offer prayer in mosques there, visit a school or
give a Mus-haf (Arabic copy of the Qur'an) to a
Muslim child.
Not only merchants can do so,
but also all Muslims who visit China for business,
travel, sports or other purposes. I further adjure
wealthy Muslims, who organize tourist journeys to
Europe and other places, to make China the destiny
of their next journey dedicating one or two days of
its program for visiting Turkestan. If Allah so
wills, they will enjoy the journey and, in addition,
will be rewarded by Allah for the intention of
having knowledge about occupied parts of the Muslim
world.
Fifth: Granting
educational scholarships to Turkestani students.
This issue can be proposed to
specialist Islamic universities and institutions to
incite them to action. Moreover, businessmen in the
Muslim world should maintain those students in our
countries providing for them a good standard of
living so that they might have the impression of
Muslim world's sympathy for them. Knowing that the
Chinese government puts major obstacles in the way
of students who want to travel to different Muslim
countries, yet we have to do our best asking Allah
to help us. Furthermore, Muslim communities in
European and American countries should send for
those students to be educated and maintained.
However, it is not necessary to give them an Islamic
education as it will also be in the interest of the
cause to produce a Muslim Turkestani doctor,
engineer and economist. In this regard, it will be
less sensitive to the Chinese government that
Turkestani students travel to study in Europe and
Japan than traveling to Muslim countries.
Sixth: Contacting and
supporting Uighur leaderships in the world.
Actually, it is a very
important role. In fact, many Uighur leaderships
have been exiled to different parts of the world,
including England, USA, Sweden and other countries.
Moreover, there are many Turkestani societies
advocating the cause in many countries of the world.
No doubt, contacting them will have the effect of
improving their morale, bearing in mind that some of
them are under the threat of the Chinese government
and most of them are banned from coming back home.
Therefore, they are in a dire need for material and
spiritual support. Besides, contacting them will
lead us to some practical means to support the cause
and will make it easy for us to get accurate
information about the issue. Furthermore, it will
give us a key to some celebrated names inside
Turkestan, which makes it possible to contact them.
Ultimately, this will lead to arousing a public
awareness of the cause, which might move the issue
in such a direction as may be beneficial to
Turketani Muslims, were they inside or abroad.
Seventh: Providing
Turkestan with financial support through relief
committees.
There are many Islamic relief
committees widespread all over the world.
Unfortunately, most of them do not interact with the
issue of Turkestan due to either ignorance about the
issue or being restrained by the Chinese government.
Either way, we have to arouse the concern of such
committees for the issue of Turkestan sending them
many letters asking them to have activities in
Turkestan. Once this takes place, we should proceed
to send them financial and in kind aids as they
suffer from extreme poverty and need. Provided with
financial support and aid by the Muslim world,
Turkestanis will be steadfast to their religion and
more attached to their Ummah.
Eighth: Arousing Muslims
awareness of the Chinese peril.
As a matter of fact,
unfortunately, most Muslims sympathize with China
for many reasons, including being a competitor of
the USA, abundant Chinese cheep products on which
most of the Muslim world depends and admiring the
accelerated Chinese development. Other reasons are
falling under the influence of Chinese information
system that is interested in issuing publications on
China in Arabic, being influenced by Chinese
cultural and artistic centers that offer public
services and programs and being impressed by Chinese
movies and the idealistic society depicted in such
movies. In addition, ancient history and deep-rooted
civilization of China is another influential factor.
Such and like reasons hid the
truth leading Muslims to refuse any criticism to
China or rallying to resist it. I have written
before an article, "China
or America",
in which I pointed out the fact that China is much
more dangerous than America, which has to be taken
into consideration by Muslims so that we may not be
attacked by those whose help we seek. Actually, we
have to exert much effort and hard work in order to
reach such a goal. Accordingly, Muslims attention
should be shockingly drawn to this fact and Chinese
plans and cards should be exposed.
Establishing the Islamic
government
Ninth: I know that more
impressive and positive roles are to be played by
governments.
Nevertheless, as I said earlier in the article, we
do not have much confidence in nowadays governments.
Therefore, a duty of paramount importance to Muslims
is to seek to establish an Islamic government that
is to adopt Muslim internal and external issues.
Although requiring a long-way struggle, it is
inevitable. Actually, there are many and variant
mechanisms to establish an Islamic government,
foremost of which is returning to Allah following
His Shari'ah as a whole. By Allah, if we establish
the Islamic state in our hearts, it will be
established on our lands. In fact, rulers are a real
product of peoples as the tradition goes, "Your
rulers will be as good or bad as you are." Thus, we
have to reform our relation to Allah so that He may
reform our rulers.
Tenth: Supplicating Allah
to help Turkestani people to remain steadfast to
their religion, to
make them stand firm in face of Chinese tyranny and
to relief the grief of the whole Muslim world.
Actually, citing this duty at the end of the list
may not indicate a less importance, Allah Forbid! I
only put it last in order so that Muslims might not
depend on it exclusively and leave other duties. In
this regard, the Prophet (peace be upon him) would
make military preparations, put forth plans and at
the same time raise his hands toward heavens
supplicating Allah to confer victory on believers
over their disbelieving enemies. So, let us assign a
defined part of our prayers to Turkestani people so
that Allah might delight us with helping and
supporting them. So far, I have listed ten complete
duties.Undoubtedly, there are many other roles and
duties I did not mention, which will be suggested,
if Allah so wills, by the article readers hoping
that benefit prevails through contributions of all
Muslims to solve this important issue.
Finally, I know that many people expected that
boycotting Chinese goods is one means to help
Turkestani people and to exert pressure on the
Chinese government. However, it is a very extensive
file that requires to be dealt with in a separate
article, which I will embark on soon, If Allah so
wills.
I ask Allah to glorify Islam and Muslims.
Dr. Ragheb
ElSergany
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