The breakdown of the Ottoman Empire in 1923 marked the end of the Caliphates – the empires that had the government system of Islamic Unitarianism since the 7^th century – that had laid the foundations of Islam as a world religion. As the final remnants of their once great civilization crumbled at the hands of western colonialists the Muslims of the Middle East were uncertain about their future. However as time went on the Muslims knew that a new age of tragedy, war and poverty was unraveling and they could do nothing but observe – if they knew at all – their corrupt and autocratic leaders farther plunge their fallen empire into shame and weakness to the benefit of the western imperialists.

With the support of the British and French Empires monarchic dictators were placed to rule the broken Middle East. The dictators preached freedom by the principles of Islam; however what they practiced was far from freedom, for their only agenda was to stay in power by following the interests of their colonial masters. Who wanted to profit at the expense of the Muslims.

The unfair Balfour declaration guaranteeing the Jewish people a home in Arab Palestine, the lies of Lawrence of Arabia betraying his supposed Arab ‘allies’. The Great Arab revolt, the foundation of Israel and 750,000 people kicked out of their homes at gun-point, four Arab-Israeli wars and 60 years of brutal Israeli occupation of Arab lands has left the Muslims weary and beaten. The division of the Muslim world on such an issue has allowed Israel to succeed, while the autocratic leaders of the Middle East indulge themselves in torturing, murdering, deporting and oppressing anyone who questions their sinful yet so-called ‘Islamic’ governments.

The Arab World’s negligence towards the horrific atrocities that have occurred and continue to occur in Palestine not only displays the lack of unity among brothers in faith, but the lack of humanitarianism, which is a principal quality Muslims must have.

One thing the leaders of the Muslim World do have in common is their practice of state terrorism in major torturing centers scattered across their nations that are designed to wipe out anyone who oppose them, even in the slightest.

Throughout the late 50s, 60s and 70s in the Shah’s Iran the intelligence and security services called the SAVAK brutally murdered and tortured thousands of political opponents using CIA torture techniques ranging from electric shock, beating, whipping, inserting pieces of broken glass or boiling water into the anus, tying weights to men’s testicles and amputation of limbs.

During Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical rule hundreds of thousands of people were subject to such brutality and inhumanity that fear and psychological trauma eclipsed the Iraqi people and in memory will continue to do so for generations to come. The use of acid baths to torture, overcrowding prisoners into small rooms and starving them to death, asphyxiation and murdering whole families of anyone who is an ‘opponent’, destroying the lives of the intelligentsia after using them as servants and sending out death squads or the army to commit mass massacres and bury the ‘unknown’ dead in mass graves in the desert.

Then, there’s Muammar al Gaddafi’s slaughtering of thousands of political opponents and their families in Europe and in the Middle East, throughout the 70s his secret service hunted his opponents down and killed them whether in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia or Libya itself. One atrocity that is known of is the 1996 Abu Salim prison massacre in Tripoli, where 1600 imprisoned political opponents were rounded up and shot dead.

In Saudi Arabia, where censorship reigns and human rights are inexistent, not only do the textbooks used in schools teach outdated and old-fashioned Arab extremist traditionalism, but also their system of law and politics (their version of Sharia) is an absolute insult to Islam. Torture for petty crimes such as stealing is an exaggerated deliberately misinterpreted radical version of Sharia. Women not being able to show their facial features, being highly discriminated by the legal, education and employment systems and being clearly regarded as inferior to men is completely un-Islamic and primitive and rather barbaric. Finally, not to mention the mass confiscations of alcohol delivered to the palaces of the Saudi Royal Family.

Egypt’s corruption and torture, Algeria’s savage civil wars, Kuwait’s ruthless ethnic cleansing of refugees, Sudan and Somalia’s horrendous atrocities and warmongering, Pakistan and Afghanistan’s extremism and above all the flourishing drug trade in Muslim nations. The leaders of the Muslim World, ranging from the Saudi Royal Family and Egyptian President Mubarak to the Taliban and the military juntas of Muslim Africa have proven that they will go to any extent for money and political power, even if it means betraying their roots.

Islam always stimulated progressiveness as seeking knowledge and development is what every Muslim should attempt to achieve, yet poverty reigns in the Muslim World due to the corruption and incompetence of its despotic leaders. The Islamic Civilization is being held back and distorted due to the greedy political interests of its modern leaders, especially in the past century, and as a result the Islamic Civilization is facing a major crisis, one that will continue unless Muslims discover their true identity and pursue it.