It is a great mistake that the country can only be either a Dar-ul-Islam or a Dar-ul-Harb in the primary signification of the words, and that there i… - Syed Ahmed Khan

It is a great mistake that the country can only be either a Dar-ul-Islam or a Dar-ul-Harb in the primary signification of the words, and that there is no intermediate position. A true Dar-ul-Islam is a country which under no circumstances can be termed a Dar-ul-Harb and vice versa. There are, however, certain countries which, with reference to certain circumstances, can be termed Dar-ul-Islam, and with reference to others Dar-ul-Harb. Such a country is India at the present moment. (79-80)

If the Government fight Afghanistan or conquer Burma, it is no business of ours to criticise its policy. Our interests will not suffer from these matters being left in the hands of Government

Now, suppose that all the English and the whole English army were to leave India, taking with them all their cannon and their splendid weapons and everything, then who would be rulers of India? Is it possible that under these circumstances two nations-the Mohammedans and the Hindus -could sit on the same throne and remain equal in power? Most certainly not. It is necessary that one of them should conquer the c:1ther and thrust it down. To hope that both could remain equal is to desire the impossible and the inconceivable. At the same time you must remember that although the number of Mohammedans is less than that of the Hindus, and although they contain far fewer people who have received a high English education, yet they must not be thought insignificant or weak. Probably they would be by themselves enough to maintain their own position. But suppose they were not. Then our Mussalman brothers, the Pathans, would come out as a swarm of locusts from their mountain valleys, and make rivers of blood to flow from their frontier on the north to the extreme end of Bengal. This thing-wl after the departure of the English would be conquerors-would rest on the will of God. But until one nation had conquered the other and made it obedient, peace cannot reign in the land. This conclusion is based on proofs so absolute that no one can deny it. 184-5

The English have conquered India and· all of us along with it. And just as we made the country obedient and our slave, so the English have done with us. Is it then consonant witl1 the principles of empire that they should ask us whether they should fight Burma or not? Is it consistent with any principle of empire? In the times of the Mohammedan empire, would it have been consistent with the principles of rule that, when the Emperor was about to make war on a Province _of India, he should have asked his subject-peoples whether he should conquer that country or not? Whom should he have asked? Should he have asked those whom he had conquered and had made slaves, and whose brothers he also wanted to make his slaves? Our nation has itself wielded empire, and people of our nation are even now ruling. Is there any principle of empire by which rule over foreign races may be maintained in this manner? 187