As American-made bombs rain down on Gaza, the Muslim world stands at a crossroads: unite against the imperialist tide or crumble under its weight. From Palestine to Pakistan, colonial forces plunder Muslim lands and poison Muslim minds, sowing division to keep us weak. So-called Muslim and Arab leaders, better-called traitors, bow to greed and power, abandoning our brothers and sisters to face a genocide broadcast live for the world to ignore. The cause of this Fitnah—internal and external—is clear: imperialism thrives on our disunity. Only through principled solidarity, exemplified by Quds Day, can the Ummah reclaim its strength and defy the enemies at our gates.
Understanding the enemy is understanding the cause
It is not a complex issue if you examine the standard variable between sectarian infighting, the external demonization of Islam and the aggression imposed on Muslim nations, overt and covert. Imperialism, an all-consuming system of greed and destruction, is not only at our doorstep, it is within our house. Imperialism has fought its way and is within our minds. It has poisoned many of us into forgoing our responsibility to each other to the point of being able to turn a blind eye if a Muslim nation is struggling against an aggressor or is facing affliction and calamity.
The Islamic world is in the crosshairs of imperialism because the Islamic community – in authentic practice – is united by faith and creed, not colonial-drawn borders. In this unity are the teachings of justice, equality, and order – what imperialism seeks to overthrow to plunder the Muslim world’s resources. The Islamic world’s leverage – from its vast resources, geographic positioning, and powerful, skilled labour force – is one that imperialism seeks to exert its total control over.
The United States is in the driver’s seat of imperialist aggression against Islam. It relies on promoting sectarianism, fueling reactionary political agendas that seek to destroy not just Muslim countries but any country that wishes to withstand its influence. Washington even gloats about its sectarian devices – CIA operation “Timber Sycamore” openly admits (with some pride) that the US armed takfiri terrorists in Syria to destabilize the country, plunging it into a catastrophic war for over a decade, with swaths of the country now being occupied by the United States itself – of course, focusing on the oil and wheat fields.
The same could be said for sectarian violence on the borders of Pakistan and Iran, where anti-Iran insurgents were so willing to cooperate with American agents to cause havoc in Iran that they did not realize they were cooperating with Israeli agents.
Everywhere, imperialists rely on the division of the Muslim community to further their agenda. No matter the variable, the result is the enemies of Islam grow more substantial, and the Ummah is divided further – every single time.
Imam Khomeini said it best: “We Muslims are busy bickering over whether to fold or unfold our arms during prayer while the enemy is devising ways of cutting them off.”
Despite all of these challenges, the Muslim community is deeply blessed. We are blessed to have the fastest-growing religion. We are blessed to have significant world leaders and nations despite some of their awful shortcomings. And we are blessed to have the most powerful empire in recorded history – The United States – openly declare Islam as an enemy.
The United States’ most enthusiastic ally and partner – the Israeli occupation – acts as a gateway to Muslim lands. Imposed on the land of Palestine in the first half of the 20th century, the Israeli occupation, backed by world Zionism, serves imperialism by being an antagonistic military outpost on one of the most sacred lands – not just for Muslims, who are the majority of the population, but non-Zionist Jews and Christians as well. Through military and weapons contracts with the United States, the Israeli occupation is poised to breach into not only Palestine but also Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and even Saudi Arabia. Israel was able to do this with not only the United States firm political backing (especially at the United Nations Security Council) but with at least $400 billion in direct and indirect aid since 1948.
World Zionism does not shy away from revealing its plans for this project – known as “Greater Israel.” As long as Israeli soldiers are willing to do the dirty work of land theft, occupation, resource plundering and genocide, the United States will do what it takes to ensure its survival. This includes the promotion of sectarian violence, divisive narratives, hostile media narratives, invasion and destruction of sovereign nations, and unapologetic war crimes.
Imperialism is blunt where it needs to be, but prefers sophistication when possible. Why fire a shot when you can convince your enemies to fight each other? Why invade a country when you can buy one? One must recall the massive financial gain the comprador leaders of Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, and Sudan received by normalizing ties with Israel in 2020 – while the Israeli occupation slaughtered scores of Palestinians within the same year.
The United States and Israel are openly declaring their hatred and their plans for our Ummah. Think tanks are created to breed chaos within our lands, within our communities, and our minds. Plans are hatched to humiliate the Muslims, to force them into economic and political traps they cannot escape from.
Countering division with principled Islamic unity – Declaration of Al Quds Day
“…America and Israel bear malice towards the very basis of Islam because Islam, its book and its sunnah are a thorn in their side and an obstacle to their plundering.”
Ayatollah Khomeini was well aware of the US-Israeli plots against the Muslim world. From very early on, he agitated against Iran’s Israeli-friendly Shah for collaborating with the Zionist occupation as it committed crimes against the Palestinian people. The Shah was selling cheap Iranian oil to Israel, sustaining the occupation’s grip in the region. Furthermore, the situation in pre-revolutionary Iran – with secret SAVAK agents trained by the US to enforce a US-installed puppet Shah – laid out America’s plans for the region.
Iran was not the only Muslim-majority country at the time falling into the hands of imperialism. Next door, US-backed dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq enacted a coup in Pakistan that led the way for US collaboration in the region, using Pakistan as a battering ram against a Soviet-friendly India and Soviet-friendly government in Afghanistan. On the opposite side of the area, Egyptian President Muhammad Anwar Sadat signed a peace treaty with the Israeli Occupation, halting years of popular Egyptian resistance against the occupation. Imperialist plans for the region were moving quickly.
The triumph of the 1979 Islamic Revolution halted the victorious death march of Imperialism, at least for some time. With the removal of the US puppet Shah Pahlavi, Imam Khomeini and the Islamic movement gained power and immediately made their orientation to Israel and America clear: wholehearted rejection.
The Islamic Revolution vowed its commitment to the Palestinian cause on day one. Seeing the occupation of Al Quds and the rest of Palestine not as a foreign policy issue but more so an Islamic one, Ayatollah Khomeini rejected any idea of normalization with Israel. While some Arab and Muslim leaders were embracing or toying with the idea of a so-called “Two State Solution”, the Islamic revolution in Iran called for the total removal of the Israeli occupation, recognizing it as a cancerous growth that would destroy the region and threaten Islam itself.
At the time, the Palestinian cause was on its back foot. After the loss suffered in the Six Day War of 1967, the Zionist occupation was making aggressive advances in consolidating Palestinian territory and expelling Palestinians out of their land. The inaction of some Arab states – the unwillingness to act – was setting up the conditions for a bleak future for the region.
But it was not enough – far from it. To Khomeini, the success of Iran’s Revolution meant nothing without the success of the Islamic cause – and the Islamic cause meant the expelling of the foreign, Zionist entity from the region and dismantling imperialist plans for subjugation. Thus, the Islamic Revolution of Iran took on the mission of allying with any group and nation willing to fight the Israeli enemy.
Khomeini and the revolution understood the nature of imperialism – America’s driven mission to dominate lands on behalf of its capitalist class – to plunder, steal, and occupy to line the pockets of a few powerful elites at the cost of the death, destruction, and suffering of millions. He saw the opportunism of some leaders and the ignorance of others, all ultimately at the service of imperialist interests.
Understanding that leaders are not a reflection of the people, as the deposement of the Shah showed in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini thought beyond the limitations of national interests. Khomeini viewed the Islamic world as one, although divided by the devices of colonialism and imperialism – fake boundaries and puppet leaders created by colonial powers that were now dwindling.
It was this call for unity – unity across nations, rulers, governments, and races – that Imam Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution in Iran established Quds Day in August of 1979, six months after the removal of the Shah.
“For many years, I have been notifying the Muslims of the danger posed by the usurper Israel, which today has intensified its savage attacks against the Palestinian brothers and sisters, and which, in the south of Lebanon in particular, is continually bombing Palestinian homes in the hope of crushing the Palestinian struggle. I ask all the Muslims of the world and the Muslim governments to join together to sever the hand of this usurper and its supporters. I call on all the Muslims of the world to select Quds Day, the last Friday in the holy month of Ramadan – which is itself a determining period and can also be the determiner of the Palestinian people’s fate – and through a ceremony demonstrating the solidarity of Muslims worldwide, announce their support for the legitimate rights of the Muslim people.”
Quds Day was established as a rallying call for all Muslims to come together and form a collective fist against their aggressors – and, more importantly – the common aggressor of all Muslims – imperialism and its devices. As the unity of the Ummah is integral to the success of all revolutionary forces in expelling foreign usurpers and plunderers, the imperialists hatched new plans to circumvent this unity.
Imperialism relies on the breaking down of united fronts, common causes, and shared visions to pick off Muslims and revolutionary agents when they are isolated. A key tactic that has produced shocking results is the demonization of those who stand against imperialism by engineering sectarian strife. Countries like Iran, Yemen, and groups such as Hezbollah and The Iraqi PMF (Popular Mobilization Forces) take concrete, material action against the Israeli occupation. Bullets are fired, drones are deployed, missiles launched – whatever it may be, a fist is raised against the enemy.
Imperialism knows that these actions are popular, so it resorts to planting the seeds of sectarianism – using its vast resources, primarily through overt media control and covert influencers – to smear, demonize, and write off this resistance. Imperialist adjacent outlets like Al Jazeera downplay the role of the Resistance Axis. At the same time, a network of US-aligned influencers poison the minds of Muslims on X, TikTok, Instagram and more, writing off the resistance as “Rafidah,” “Kharijites,” or denying entirely that these groups are Muslim at all.
After all, it was this very sectarianism that US imperialist Hilary Clinton promoted, admitting it would destabilize Syria, much to the benefit of the United States and Israel.
It is obvious who benefits from this disunity. It is the writing on the wall. So who, at this very moment, is raising a fist towards the enemy? How can we ever have unity if we cannot even utter a moment’s worth of solidarity with the fedayeen on the front lines against aggressive usurpers?
The groups who attack the unity of the resistance and those that stand with them – only serve imperialism, the standard variable of all of the region and the Muslim world’s issues. To maintain unity, it must be a unity of action against the common aggressor, not allegiance with it. Every action, reaction, decision and development must be analyzed with the sole question: does this benefit imperialism?
Quds Day pulls the Muslim world from under the water of this sectarian infighting. It reminds the Muslim world what is at stake – the land, the people, the very cause of Islam. It reminds us why we have reached this point, who is pointing the gun at us, and what it will take to be liberated truly.
Quds Day is celebrated by millions of Muslims across the world, with its popularity growing with the Palestinian cause. This year, we are at a critical moment. Imperialism’s cracks are showing – to the point where non-Muslims have joined the ranks of the Palestinian solidarity movement in record numbers, demanding the liberation of Palestine. A rejuvenated and enlightened wave of radical youth is rejecting the so-called two-state solution in favour of total Palestinian liberation and sovereignty. This has never been seen at this scale in the history of the Palestinian struggle.
The flip side of this is when imperialism is decaying, it lashes out. It is unthinkable. The United States is bombing Yemen while sending more weaponry and intelligence to Israel to bomb Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria simultaneously. Within the states, it is cracking down on protestors, threatening deportation for some while carrying out harassment campaigns on others.
There may come a day, if those fighting against imperialism are unsuccessful, that the armchair critics, sectarians, and traitors will no longer have a wall defending them from imperialism. They will be next on the menu and will receive a late crushing realization – that they were ultimately used as tools to sell out their Muslim brothers and sisters and seal their fate. But this fate can still be avoided.
On Quds Day – unite for the sake of Palestine, for the sake of Islam, for the sake of Allah SWT. It is an opportunity to resolve matters for the betterment of the Muslim community. Sunni-Shia disagreements can be laid to rest in order to fight back against those who wish to destroy Islam entirely. Nationalistic competition can be swept aside in order to promote the general welfare of all Muslims. It is a re-alignment of Islamic values, to continue the path the Prophet (PBUH) has started.
If we do not join now, if we play into the hands of the manipulators and imperialist plotters, then we have sealed our fate.
Musa Iqbal is the Political Director and Editor at Vox Ummah.
