In a huge country like Bharat with a current Muslim population of over 213.34 million – much more that of a Muslim majority Bangladesh and slightly less than that of an Islamist Pakistan, rise and spread of jihadist forces in Bharat is a matter of serious concern as Bharatiya Muslims can be easily drawn towards jihadist notoriety while a large segment of them can form affiliations with Al Qaeda, Islamic State (ISIS) and other jihadist outfits.

We need to remember, because of higher birth rates the percentage of Muslims in Bharat has risen from about 9.8 percent in 1951 to 14.2 percent by 2011. Although some analysts say, since 1991, the decline in fertility rates among all religious groups in Bharat has also occurred among Muslims. The Sachar Committee report shows that the Muslim population growth has slowed down and will be on par with national averages. 

The Sachar Committee report estimated that the Muslim proportion will stabilize at between 17 percent and 21 percent of the Bharatiya population by 2100. In my opinion, this statistical forecast is absolutely wrong. Muslim population in Bharat may constitute 25-30 percent of the total population by 2100, when the size of Bharat’s total population may exceed two billion.

Meaning, the size of Muslim population in Bharat shall be in between 750-900 million – a massive size indeed. And once even a segment of these Muslims resort to radical Islam and jihadist ideology – it will be a grave headache to all of us.

Muslim mindset and anti-Semitism

As a counterterrorism researcher, I have seen that almost two in every five Muslims are having a radicalized mindset, while almost all of them are heavily inclined towards anti-Semitism and particularly hatred towards Jews. Every Muslim – except for only a very fractional number – consider Jews and Christians as “enemies of Allah”, while they particularly feel encouraged in waging jihad against the Jews. To them, elimination or murder of Jews is their religious obligation.

Scholars Frederick M. Schweitzer and Marvin Perry state that there are mostly negative references to Jews in the Quran and Hadith, and that Islamic regimes treated Jews in degrading ways. Both the Jews and the Christians were relegated to the status of dhimmi.

On January 24, 2013, Ayaan Hirsi Ali in an article in The Christian Science Monitor wrote:

Egypt’s newly elected president, Mohamed Morsi, was caught on tape about three years ago urging his followers to “nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred” for Jews and Zionists. Not long after, the then-leader of the Muslim Brotherhood described Zionists as “bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians”, “warmongers”, and “descendants of apes and pigs”.

These remarks are disgusting, but they are neither shocking nor new. As a child growing up in a Muslim family, I constantly heard my mother, other relatives, and neighbors wish for the death of Jews, who were considered our darkest enemy. Our religious tutors and the preachers in our mosques set aside extra time to pray for the destruction of Jews.

For far too long the pervasive Middle Eastern qualification of Jews as murderers and bloodsuckers was dismissed in the West as an extreme view expressed by radical fringe groups. But it is not.

All over the Middle East, hatred for Jews and Zionists can be found in textbooks for children as young as 3, complete with illustrations of Jews with monster-like qualities. Mainstream educational television programs are consistently anti-Semitic. In songs, books, newspaper articles, and blogs, Jews are variously compared to pigs, donkeys, rats, and cockroaches, and also to vampires and a host of other imaginary creatures.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali further wrote:

“Millions of Muslims have been conditioned to regard Jews not only as the enemies of Palestine but as the enemies of all Muslims, of God, and of all humanity. Arab leaders far more prominent and influential than Morsi have been tireless in “educating” or “nursing” generations to believe that Jews are “the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs”. (These are the words of the Saudi sheik Abdul Rahman al-Sudais, imam at the Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca)”.

On April 11, 2019, research-scholar and write Melanie Phillips in an article in the Jewish Chronicle wrote:

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) provides an invaluable service translating material from Arabic into English and thus lifting the curtain on the deranged antisemitism coursing through the Arab and Muslim world.

Recently its founder, Yigal Carmon, observed that this Jew-hatred had spread to America and Europe where it was turning into “really violent threats based on Islamic texts”.

And yet, he added, the American Jewish community targeted by such attacks was silent. “Not a protest, no public activity, nothing at all. They are afraid to be thought of as Islamophobic”.

Carmon’s observation is also true of British Jews. With a few exceptions over the years, the secular and religious leadership has been silent about Muslim antisemitism. Yet the problem is serious.

In 2015, an opinion poll of British Muslims showed that 30-40 percent subscribed to antisemitic beliefs, such as Jews having too much power over government, media, business or global affairs.

In 2018, a study by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and the Community Security Trust revealed that anti-Jewish and anti-Israel attitudes were two to four times higher among Muslims than the population in general.

Muslim hatred towards Hindus

For the past several decades, Muslim hatred towards Hindus has been on an alarming rise, especially with a number of radical Muslim nations such as Pakistan patronizing Hindu hatred and even inciting jihad against Hindus and Bharat. But the majority of the Western media would not admit this fact. Instead they are continuing to portray Bharatiya Muslims as “victims of Hindu terror” defying the fact that the majority of Muslims dream of establishing Caliphate in Bharat, thus turning Hindus into dhimmis or second-class citizens.

Recently it was reported in the media that an Islamist group named Popular Front of India (PFI) and few more similar groups in Bharat are preparing to wage jihad with the agenda of establishing Caliphate, while they are collecting Islamic zakat for such notoriety.

Zakat fund buys media’s voice

Islamic charity fund known as zakat is being used in buying the voice of secularist and non-Muslim media outlets in the world. Zakat, or charity, is one of the five pillars of Islam. The amount is calculated as 2.5 percent of a family’s annual savings and the donation can be made in cash or kind any time of the year, but most contributions are made during the Ramadan— a period of fasting and prayers — because, according to Islam, it is believed that the “rewards of good deeds” in this month are many folds more than the rest of the year.

Although in 2016, All-India Council of Muslim Economic Upliftment calculated the amount of Zakat collected in Bharat alone stood at US$ 0.5 billion per year – the total amount now has crossed the figure of US$ 1 billion.

Amongst the Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia alone collects more than US$ 35 billion from zakat every year. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the Gulf to both impose a zakat payment, income tax and corporation tax, which it assesses and collects under its Department of Zakat and Income Tax. The kingdom levies zakat on Saudi, GCC nationals and businesses.

In the United Arab Emirates, the amount of zakat collected from the millionaires stood at least US$ 8 billion. On the other hand, Qatar, another oil-rich nation in the Gulf though has not institutionalized zakat payment but it does have a Zakat Fund which is voluntary and as in the UAE, can be paid online. According to statistics, the annual amount of zakat collected in Qatar is also above US$ 5 billion.

According to an assessment, the global collection of zakat per year would be more than US$ 600 billion.

Although zakat fund is supposed to be used for helping the poor and upliftment of their lives, Muslim nations in the Gulf are using such funds in patronizing media houses around the world, especially in the non-Muslim nations. This is being done with the goal of keeping those zakat-receiving media houses silent on various issues such as the rise of radical Islam and jihadism. In a Hindu-majority country like Bharat, a major segment of the newspapers and television channels are direct or indirect recipients of zakat fund every year, which compels them in remaining tight-lipped on voicing against the rise of radical Islam as well as Muslim atrocities.

In 2017, authorities in Bharat banned an Islamist broadcast company named Peace TV, which was run with zakat money by a notorious Islamist preacher named Zakir Naik. There are dozens of channels like Peace TV in the Middle East as well as different parts of the world, which are propagating radical Islam, antisemitism and even jihad thus posing a grave threat to global security.

In recent times, Western policymakers, including the US administration are making frantic bids in silencing critics of radical Islam and jihad under the pretext of “Islamophobia”. The term Islamophobia was invented by Islamists and later imposed on Western policymakers to silence acknowledgement of another form of fanatical, murderous, deranged hatred.