- Dr. Kalim Siddiqui, was the editor of the Khilafat (Caliphate) newspaper
in Pakistan in the 1940s. He moved to Britain and founded “The Muslim
Parliament” in 1989. In a discussion between several Muslim academics
on how to bring about an Islamic State, Siddiqui said:
Since the Revolution in [predominantly Shiite] Iran I have been
moving around some of the Sunni countries – some of the most
reactionary Sunni countries [...] If national boundaries were taken away,
probably Ayatullah Khoemini [sic] would be elected by acclamation by
the Ummah as a whole as the leader of the Muslim world today.
In response, Professor Algar (a British convert to Islam) says “Very
definitely” (see Hamid Algar, The Roots of the Islamic Revolution,
London, 1983, p.67). We can see from this how the concept of a pan-
national Islamic State might even unify Shiite and Sunni Muslims against
the Kuffar world (that all Muslims would unite behind the Muslim leader
who most successfully conducts war against the Kuffar). In 1989 it was
Siddiqui, the former Marxist turned Muslim, who led the protests in
Britain and the calls for Rushdie’s murder. See Kenan Malik, From
Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy, London, 2009, pp.7-
8, pp.185-186). Not only “the Iranian Revolution” of 1979 but also the
death sentence imposed upon Salman Rushdie, were events which united
the Ummah (Sunni and Shiite alike). The fatwa against Rushdie is still in
force. It was the start of western writers and publishers cowering in fear
of Muslims and Islam. As Daniel Pipes says “The Satanic Verses
provided a rare issue on which the Sunnis and Shi’is [sic] could agree...”
The Rushdie Affair: the Novel, the Ayatollah, and the West, New York,
1990, p.134. ↵
dana p.
(Dana P.)
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