By S. Arshad, New Age Islam 29 March 2022 Political and Religious Conflicts, Mostly Sectarian Clashes Are At the Root of the Muslim Refugee Crisis Main Points: 1. Muslims of Palestine and China live in open air prisons. 2. A big population of Muslims of Myanmar, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan live as refugees. 3. 24 million Muslims live as refugees or prisoners in the world. ---- Syrian refugees wait to enter Jordanian side of the Hadalat border crossing, a military zone east of Amman.(Khalil Mazraawi / AFP / Getty Images) ----- There are more than 50 Muslim majority countries in the world and there are other dozens of countries where Muslims constitute a considerable part of the population. The Muslim majority countries except the Asian and African countries are rich with oil and minerals. But unfortunately, Muslims of the world both in the Muslim majority and Muslim minority countries have not learnt to live in peace. Political and religious or sectarian differences among them are so severe that they often cause strife and bloodshed, massacre and civil war. If we take a look at the countries that have been ravaged by civil war, political war or sectarian strife, we find that the Muslims of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Phillipines, Nigeria, Jordan, Sudan, Lebanon, Palestine, China and Pakistan have been suffering from religious and sectarian strife and this strife has caused large scale displacement of the Muslim population. This displacement is of two kinds: Internal and external. There are millions of Muslims in Muslim majority countries who are internally displaced. They have to leave their homes to take shelter in comparatively safer places within the country as refugees. Such internally displaced people are in millions in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Libya. There are others who have left their countries in the wake of civil strife or political instability and have taken asylum in another countries as refugees. Home to more than 85,000 people, the Zaatari refugee camp has become a small city, with more than 3,000 shops and kiosks set up mainly by Syrian refugees. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times ) ----- There is a third category of hapless Muslims who live in confinement in their towns as the entire area is turned into an open prison. Muslims living in these open prisons are in millions. They are made prisoners by their own government or by an occupying force. They have no freedom and no rights. Now we come to the details. During the protests as part of the Arab Spring, the autocratic governments of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya were overthrown by the violent protesters. The protesters wanted democratic governments and human rights but instead they got involved in civil war which was hijacked by the ISIS and Al Qaida and the entire middle East became a battle field and the common protesters soon became invisible. In the bloodshed that ensued, almost entire Middle East was ravaged and millions of people, majority of them were Muslims had to flee their homes and their countries and take shelter in neighbouring countries or in European countries. The number of Muslims internally displaced only in Syria is 7 million. The number of Syrians living as refugees in other countries is again 7 million. Refugees from Libya are 1 million who have taken refuge in different countries. There are 6 million refugees in Tunisia. Photo: DW Made for Minds ---- These Muslims were rich and wealthy and had been living a prosperous life until the Arab Spring turned their life into a cold autumn. Entire towns of Syria today present a deserted look. Their spatial houses and markets, hospitals, malls and parks have turned into abodes of ghosts. And their inmates are living a life of abject poverty and penury in refugee camps in African or European countries. This is why Muslim religious scholars and imams of the Middle Ages discouraged Muslims from revolting against the established governments. Now we realise the wisdom behind it. But the religious scholars of today instigated such revolts by terrorist organisations. The same situation is in Libya and Iraq where millions of Muslims are either internally displaced or are living in refugee camps abroad where there is no freedom, no jobs, no hygiene, no safety and there is hostility from the local population. Certainly, this was not the life when they had revolted against their governments. The Muslims of Myanmar called Rohingya Muslims who are persecuted by the majority Buddhists and the military have to seek shelter in Bangladesh. Prior to 2017, some 200,00 Rohingyas had to leave Myanmar and take shelter in Bangladesh. In 2017, there was a bigger crackdown by the military and extremist Buddhists against Rohingyas and fearing ethnic cleansing, 8 lakh Rohingyas fled and took shelter in Bangladesh. They live in refugee camps in Cox Bazar. Last year the Bangladesh government forcibly shifted some Rohingyas to an island called Bhasanchar which they say is an open prison. There are two open air prisons for Muslims. One is Palestine where two million live in confinement and the prison guard is Israel. The other open air prison is Xinjiang region in China where there are 1.1 million Uyghur Muslims and the prison guard is China. In Palestine, the Gaza Strip is called the biggest open air prison in the world because here 1.94 million Palestinians live in confinement. No one can go out of it and enter it. Israel has restricted their movement and so they dont have access to the other parts of Palestine and the world. They have been living in confinement since 1948. Even the West Bank of Palestine is not free. Citizens have been confined by a 700 kilometre long separating wall apart from check points, gates, artificial barriers and forbidden and segregated roads. Therefore, the inmates of West Bank too live in virtual confinement. The third category of Muslims are more unfortunate. They are Muslims living in another open air prison in Xingjian in China which is home to the Turkic Uyghur community living in the region since the initial days of Islam. Senior Sahabi of the prophet of Islam pbuh, Hadhrat Amro bin al Aas is said to have visited China during the life of the prophet pbuh. During 2014, the emergence of ISIS in Mosul gave China the reason to adopt the policy of persecution of Uyghur Muslims in the name of fighting terrorism in the country. In 2017, finally China confined about 1.1 million Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps it called re-education or vocational training camps. In these camps, rape of women, sterilisation of young women, forceful abortion of pregnant women and torture and death of men have been reported. They are forced to forego their religious beliefs and learn Communist ideology. They are also forced to work as bonded labour. Rohingya Muslims / Photo: Iqna ----- Another category of refugees are stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh. They are Urdu speaking Pakistanis left behind after the creation of Bangladesh. They want to go to Pakistan but the Pakistan government has abandoned them. Their number is about 2, 50, 000. They live a life of deprivation and misery but the outer Muslim world does not care. Two decades of religious and political conflict in Afghanistan has caused irreparable damage to the society and economy of Afghanistan. Many lives were lost and 2.7 million people had to leave the country and live in other countries as refugees. Other 2.5 million people are internal refugees. There are another one million refugees from Somalia uprooted due to internal conflict. Now we guess the total number of refugees and inmates of open air prisons among Muslims: China: 1 million Syria: 7 million Palestine: 2 million Bangladesh: 1 million Tunisia: 6 million Europe: 1 million Afghanistan: 5 million Somalia: 1 million The total number of refugees and confined Muslims is about 24 million while the total population of Muslims in the world is about 2 billion and they are the second largest religious community after the Christians who are 2.8 billion. The Muslim countries have wealth and natural resources and some of them are even atomic powers but practically they are paper tigers. They do nothing to emancipate these 18 million people. Instead they support the persecution of these hapless Muslims or at best ignore it. Sectarian differences among the Muslims, terrorism and political immaturity of Muslim nations have brought the Muslims to the position that they have to live in their own country or alien countries as refugees or prisoners. And Muslim scholars are busy discussing the theory of abrogation, or other sectarian issues and declaring one another Kafir. URL: https://www.newageislam.com/the-war-islam/islamic-scholars-kafir-muslim-refugees-confinement-/d/126678 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism
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