Prophet Muhammad, Salla-Allahu alayhi wa sallam, stated emphatically that the blood of a Muslim can only be spilt, after due process of the Shari'ah.  He also said that the blood, property and honour of a Muslim are inviolable.  The shared bond of faith demand that the entire Muslim world feel the pain of the relatives and family of the victims.  But there is no outrage.  No pangs of conscience!

Maybe the apathy is due to centuries of local and global tyranny.  For the most part, Muslims worldwide are either not feeling up to the task or resigned to their governments discharging their obligation.  But few in the Muslim world are speaking out and trying to plead with their regimes to realise their duty and help bring the quickest end to the continuing spree of terror and murder in Algeria.

So far, only Iran has supported the call for a proper investigation into the horrific and continuing bloodbath.  Most governments in Muslim countries - and 'Islamic' governments - have been content to keep silent.  It would be a pity indeed if international opinion were finally to force the generals to give up their garne, without any input from Muslims - even though the 'international' game is to avoid such an action, if a fudge would be acceptable to western public opinion.

One suspects, at least at a regional level, most regimes are secretly at one myth the junta, in its effort to 'eradicate Islam'.  After all Morocco has contained its Al Adl Wal Ihsan (Justice and Charity Movement) 'threat'.  Tunisia too has banned An Nahdha and 'contained' the 'fundamentalist contagion'.  Libya is engaged in its own brand of uprooting Islam and has been generous in its support of the junta.

The assistant secretary general of the Arab league, Muhab Muqbil, was in Algiers on 13 January, to express solidarity with the Algerian regime.  He told President Zeroual that 'the entire Arab people, throughout the Arab nation stand behind the Algerian government and people'.  He hoped that the Arab world would be rid of 'terrorism' as agreed at an earlier conference in Cairo.  Hosni Mubarak, Hafiz Al Asad and Saddam Husain and other regional leaders share that sentiment.

King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, after presiding over a council of ministers meeting, was quoted by the country's news agency as condemning all forms of terrorism anywhere, and strongly denouncing the massacres committed against unarmed civilians in fraternal Algeria.  At best a non-statement, but it won't help the regime answer before God.

In Impact International, Vol. 28 No.2 - February 1998 / Shawwal-Dhu al Q'aadah 1418

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