Transcending the Deception: Understanding Zionism, Empire, and the Qur’anic Call to Justice
By Dr. Afzal M. Dogar, New Age Islam
27 October 2025
To transcend the deception of our age is to awaken to the ways in which faith, power, and truth have been entangled in illusion. The question of Zionism, when viewed through this lens, is not merely a political or regional issue—it is a mirror reflecting the universal crisis of power without morality. It exposes how sacred language can be instrumentalised to sanctify domination, and how empires, ancient and modern, disguise ambition as destiny. The Qur’an invites humanity to pierce this veil—to discern between divine justice and worldly manipulation, between revelation and ideology.
Thus, to understand Zionism is to confront the broader deception that corrupts religion into empire, and to recover the prophetic call that resounds through all faiths: to uphold justice, to protect the oppressed, and to restore the balance of truth in a world seduced by power.
1. Introduction: Why Understanding Zionism Matters
The crises that continue to unfold across the Middle East — from Gaza to Lebanon, from Jerusalem to the broader landscape of global politics — have reignited pressing debates about the meaning, history, and consequences of Zionism. Few terms in the modern political lexicon carry such a mixture of hope, trauma, and controversy. For some, Zionism evokes the centuries-long yearning of Jews for safety and self-determination after relentless persecution in Europe. For others, it represents an ideology of political domination, territorial displacement, and moral exceptionalism. Between these two poles lies a vast and often misunderstood spectrum of historical experience, theological interpretation, and political evolution.
To approach this complex subject with integrity, one must begin with conceptual clarity. Judaism is a faith — a covenantal relationship between God and His people founded upon the principles of justice, mercy, and divine law. Zionism, by contrast, is a modern political ideology that emerged in the late nineteenth century amid European nationalism and colonial modernity. The two are neither synonymous nor necessarily compatible. As numerous Orthodox and Reform rabbis have long argued, the essence of Judaism is spiritual and ethical obedience, not political sovereignty. The Orthodox community known as Neturei Karta, for instance, has consistently opposed the establishment of a human-made Jewish state, considering it a violation of divine will and a premature attempt to force redemption through political means.
This Internal Critique Within Judaism Itself Reveals A Vital Point:
Zionism is not the embodiment of Jewish faith but a historical manifestation of a particular political response to suffering and modernity. To conflate the two does injustice both to Judaism’s prophetic ethics and to history’s nuanced realities. Many Jewish thinkers — from Martin Buber to Hannah Arendt — warned that political nationalism, even when born from persecution, risks reproducing the very injustices it seeks to escape. Buber, in his letters of dissent during the 1940s, spoke of the need for a “binational state based on ethical partnership” between Jews and Arabs, foreseeing that a state founded on exclusivity would lead to perpetual conflict rather than redemption.
Understanding Zionism, therefore, is not an act of hostility toward Jews, but an act of moral responsibility — an effort to distinguish the eternal message of the prophets from the temporal ambitions of political movements. It is to recognize that religion, when harnessed to political power, can either elevate or corrupt, depending on whether it serves divine justice or human domination. In the modern world, this discernment is not merely theological but existential: wars are justified in the name of security, nationalism, or even prophecy, while the innocent continue to suffer.
The stakes are indeed global. The ideology of Zionism — like any system that merges theology with territorial expansion — raises urgent questions about the relationship between faith, power, and human dignity. In an age of nuclear weapons, surveillance economies, and transnational militarism, such questions are no longer confined to a single region. The fires ignited in the Middle East inevitably spread into the collective conscience of humanity. They challenge believers and secular thinkers alike to revisit the prophetic call to justice that lies at the heart of all Abrahamic traditions.
Ultimately, to “understand the problem of Zionism” is to understand a deeper spiritual crisis of our civilization: the substitution of divine ethics with human absolutism, of compassion with conquest, of revelation with ideology. It is an inquiry not into one people’s destiny, but into humanity’s misuse of the sacred for worldly gain. As long as any ideology — religious or secular — transforms faith into an instrument of control rather than liberation, it endangers not only one nation but the moral balance of the entire world.
2. The Political Origins of Zionism
Zionism arose in the late nineteenth century amid the turbulence of European nationalism, the collapse of old empires, and the persistence of anti-Semitism in Christian Europe. Its founder, Theodor Herzl, was not a rabbi or theologian but a Viennese journalist deeply influenced by the political climate of his time. Witnessing the Dreyfus Affair in France and the spread of racial nationalism, Herzl concluded that Jewish emancipation within Europe had failed and that the only solution was the creation of a Jewish nation-state.
Herzl’s vision, however, was primarily political and secular. As the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé observes in Ten Myths About Israel (2017), the early leaders of Zionism were often agnostic or atheist, steeped in European rationalism and Enlightenment thought. Their project was not born of prophetic revelation but of nationalist pragmatism. The irony, Pappé notes, is that those who did not themselves believe in divine promises invoked the authority of Scripture to legitimize their political claims: “The founding fathers of Zionism were secular men who did not believe in the God of Israel, yet they persuaded others that God had promised them the land.”
This paradox lies at the very heart of modern Zionism. The movement presented itself as both a solution to anti-Semitism and a continuation of biblical destiny, blending European political ideology with ancient religious symbolism. In this synthesis, divine covenant became a form of national charter, and the language of prophecy was repurposed to serve territorial ambition. As Pappé and other historians such as Shlomo Sand (The Invention of the Jewish People, 2009) point out, this fusion of secular nationalism with sacred rhetoric created a powerful—but unstable—foundation for the emerging state.
Early Zionist congresses, beginning with the Basel Congress of 1897, codified Herzl’s dream into a coherent political program. The movement quickly found allies among European colonial powers, who saw in it an opportunity to extend their influence into the strategically vital Middle East. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which Britain promised its support for “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, exemplified this convergence of imperial and ideological interests. Zionism thus became intertwined with European geopolitics long before the formal establishment of Israel in 1948.
For many Jews, Zionism promised liberation from persecution; for others—especially within the Orthodox and Humanist traditions—it signalled a moral and theological danger. Religious scholars feared that a man-made state proclaimed in the name of God would subvert Judaism’s ethical universalism into tribal nationalism. Prominent Jewish thinkers such as Hannah Arendt and Martin Buber warned that any state founded on ethnic exclusivity would, in Arendt’s words, “reproduce the very logic of oppression that once victimized Jews.”
The early tension between secular pragmatism and religious symbolism continues to shape the modern Israeli narrative. Zionism’s founders, seeking political security, borrowed the vocabulary of faith to legitimize their cause, while traditional Judaism cautioned that holiness cannot be manufactured by human decree. This unresolved irony—a secular nationalism justified by divine promise—remains one of the most telling features of the modern Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a key to understanding Zionism as both a political innovation and a spiritual contradiction.
3. Zionism Beyond Judaism: The Ideology of Power
As the twentieth century unfolded, the term Zionism began to transcend its historical origins in Jewish nationalism. What began as a response to European anti-Semitism and diaspora trauma gradually evolved into a broader ideology of political centralization and moral exceptionalism, one that today finds parallels in multiple forms of governance and social control. In this expanded sense, Zionism becomes not a term limited to Jewish political aspirations but a symbol of the human will to dominate under the guise of divine or moral justification.
The pattern is discernible across civilizations: the convergence of political power, religious authority, and economic interests, consolidated in the name of order or destiny, yet sustained through control, surveillance, and fear. In such systems, faith is no longer the conscience of politics but its instrument. The sacred becomes a banner for strategic ambition, and ideology replaces revelation. This transformation — from spiritual submission to divine justice to the pursuit of absolute human authority — reflects what the Qur’an calls ṭāghūt, the false deification of worldly power.
When we view Zionism through this moral lens, we recognize its analogues beyond its Jewish or Israeli manifestations. In the Muslim world, too, we find ideologies and regimes that mirror the same authoritarian and hierarchical tendencies — what might be described as a “Muslim Zionism” in ethical rather than ethnic terms. This phrase may not suggest sympathy with political Zionism; but a mindset that substitutes divine humility with worldly supremacy, using religion as a tool for legitimizing injustice.
Many contemporary Muslim-majority societies are governed by systems that manipulate religious symbolism while betraying its ethical substance. Monarchies and military regimes that suppress dissent, marginalize the poor, and justify inequality under slogans of divine order reflect precisely the same structure of domination. They maintain their authority through a mix of patronage, fear, and alliance with global powers, perpetuating dependency rather than liberation.
The paradox becomes most visible in the phenomenon of militant extremism. Groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda, while invoking the vocabulary of jihad and the imagery of faith, have directed their violence primarily against Muslims and Christian minorities, turning sacred symbols into instruments of terror. Their ideology, though clothed in religious garb, serves the same geopolitical machinery that profits from instability and conflict. What unites such movements with the Zionists is not their theology but their shared logic of domination and control.
This convergence reveals that Zionism as a political mentality is not confined to a single faith or geography; it is a universal pathology of power divorced from ethics. It thrives wherever religion is instrumentalised, wherever divine justice is replaced by the idolatry of nation, tribe, or ideology. Whether in secular democracies that export wars in the name of freedom, or in religious regimes that persecute dissent in the name of God, the underlying principle is the same: the sacralisation of human power.
In this light, the “Zionism” is not a community but a condition — a mindset that seeks redemption through domination and security through subjugation. Whether expressed in theocratic absolutism, imperial nationalism, or militant extremism, it is the same spiritual disease: the replacement of divine balance (Mizan) with human arrogance.
Thus, to critique Zionism responsibly is not to target a people but to expose a recurring human pattern — the corruption of faith by power. The challenge, then, is not only political but spiritual: to purify religion from ideology, to return power to its moral purpose, and to remind humanity that sovereignty belongs to God alone, not to those who claim to rule in His name.
4. Zionism Promote Islamophobia And Decay Of Christianity In The West
The last two decades have seen Islamophobia evolve from isolated prejudice into a systemic political discourse. After 9/11, a network of think-tanks, media outlets, and lobbying organizations began presenting Islam as an inherent threat to Western values. This framing, analyzed by scholars such as Nathan Lean and John Esposito & Dalia Mogahed created a profitable and politically useful “enemy image.”
Anti-Muslim narratives serve multiple purposes. They manufacture consent for foreign wars, justify restrictive immigration policies, and strengthen national-security bureaucracies. When the public is persuaded that Muslim societies are uniquely violent or backward, military interventions in the Middle East appear as moral necessities rather than geopolitical strategies. Sociologist Edward Said called this process “Orientalism”—the reduction of diverse Eastern peoples to a single threatening stereotype that legitimizes Western dominance.
How do Zionists push hatred against Muslims in the West? On one hand they cleverly use the emotions of ordinary Muslims who say, we dislike Jews because of Israeli atrocities on Palestinians and the broader middle east. On the other hand they exploit the horrible activities of Jihadi groups who attack Muslims and Christians alike. The reason these groups attack Muslims and Christians is their Takfiri ideology, allowing the Zionists to show in the West how barbarians the Muslims are. In this way such groups are Zionist helpers. For example the 9/11 terrorist attack was apparently done by Al-Qaeda in the name of jihad against American support of Israel as revenge for Palestinian Muslims. Now it is common knowledge that It was a CIA database of names of jihadists who were trained to fight against the Russians during the Afghan-Soviet conflict. Similarly who funded and enabled them to successfully carry out 9/11 is well documented by Tucker Carlson in his recent 9/11 series. Regardless, it gave the Zionists the Pearl Harbor moment to launch wars in the middle east. Knowingly or otherwise this act has helped the Zionists to fulfil their greater Israel agenda which they were waiting for a long time to carry on. Furthermore, this event alone has become the main basis for modern Islamophobia in the West, is it not intriguing?
The Western people who say Islamophobia is not real, they also become a part of the Zionist agenda. Because when you promote the hatred of Muslims, which has happened over the last 25 years, you manufacture consent to bomb the Middle East. If an average Brit or an average American sees Muslims are evil, Muslims are the bad guys, Muslims are rapists, Muslims hate gays, Muslims hate women, they think these Muslims are not like us. They are not able to integrate into our society. They are the other. They otherize Muslims and so what happens is from a psychological perspective, a person thinks this Muslim person is not like us. He doesn't have the same level of belief system as us. He doesn't have the same level of humanity. And then they look at the Middle East. These Muslims are extremists, they also hate us for our freedom and democracy. They hate us because they don't have the same rights. It's okay to bomb them. It's okay to bomb Lebanon or Syria or Libya. It's okay to kill millions of people in Iraq. This is how Zionists manufacture consent and so it's a see-saw which helps one side move the other side (Sulaiman Ahmed).
Some Westerners might say they do not support Zionists, but still they're on their side. And when on their side, not only does it destroy Muslims, but destroy their own population too. Because by being on their side, they put them in power and give them complete autonomy. By giving them complete control, people can no longer call them out. The Muslims are trying to defend themselves but westerners are trying to attack Muslims. Zionists then use that to destroy their society and that is what has been seen since 9/11, 2001 i.e, Muslims even well educated ones got excluded from the job market in the West. Businesses and livelihoods of many Muslims were ruined by living under strict surveillance by the states in the guise of security.
How have Zionists decayed Western Christianity? The modern secular–materialist order, within which certain pro-Israeli ideological networks wield significant influence in media, finance, and culture, has often subverted traditional religious values. This broader civilizational shift—from transcendence to consumerism, from faith to spectacle was noted by scholars such as Christopher Lasch, Jacques Ellul, and Alain de Benoist. Who have described how modern mass media, advertising, and entertainment industries have systematically eroded the moral and communal foundations of Western societies. In this process, religious conviction gave way to hedonism and moral relativism, and the sacred became commercialized. The ample evidence indicating the control of Zionists over Hollywood, music industry, and mass media has undermined family structure, enhanced feminism and same sex degeneracy highlighting that they are not friends of Christians either. The Muslims have at least kept their religion in the West. But Christians have lost their religion, as a result, Christianity is dying in Europe by the day. A sizable majority of Christians have become atheists. According to the Pew Research Center (2018), in several Western European countries fewer than 10% of adults attend church monthly. Through these deceptions Zionists took away your religion from you. They took away your children, they took away your women from you. They took away every important thing from you and neutered you. You have no more lineage anymore. Your women don't want to have children with you anymore. But then you tell Islam is the problem, this is how you failed. Muslims named them as Zios, even though all Zios are not Jews, and you're still on their side. They used Muslim hatred to destroy you, even though these harms were not brought to you by Muslims (Sulaiman Ahmed).
Wealthy Zionists organizations and individuals fund two things i) promotion and support of Israel and ii) hatred against Muslims and demonization of Muslims. Further political support for such narratives comes from a variety of ideological currents—Christian fundamentalist, secular nationalist, and pro-military—whose interests converge around sustaining a perpetual sense of civilizational conflict. While some groups champion unconditional support for Israel as part of this worldview, others mobilize fear of Muslims for electoral gain at home. The link is not ethnic or religious; it is strategic: Islamophobia unites disparate actors who benefit from a divided and fearful public.
The effects are profound. In Western media, Muslims are often depicted either as extremists or victims, rarely as citizens contributing to shared civic life. Policies such as the U.K.’s “Prevent” strategy or the U.S. Patriot Act have institutionalized suspicion, placing ordinary believers under scrutiny. Meanwhile, online misinformation amplifies stereotypes, making social coexistence increasingly fragile.
5. The Rise of Armageddon Narratives in Modern Evangelical Thought
One of the most consequential theological developments shaping Western attitudes toward the Middle East has been the emergence of Armageddon-based interpretations of Biblical prophecy—ideas that gained wide influence through the Scofield Reference Bible, first published in 1909 by the American theologian Cyrus Ingerson Scofield.
Scofield’s commentary systematized a school of thought known as dispensational premillennialism, developed earlier by the British preacher John Nelson Darby in the 19th century. This interpretation divides history into distinct “dispensations,” or eras in which God deals differently with humanity. Central to Scofield’s scheme is the belief that the return of Jews to the Holy Land is a divinely ordained step toward the Second Coming of Christ, followed by a final cosmic battle—Armageddon—and the establishment of Christ’s thousand-year reign on earth.
The Scofield Bible became extraordinarily popular in American Protestant circles throughout the 20th century. Its notes were printed directly alongside the biblical text, giving the impression that Scofield’s interpretations carried scriptural authority. Generations of pastors and lay readers adopted its prophetic timeline as literal truth. As historian Paul Boyer explains in When Time Shall Be No More (1992), Scofield’s framework “turned apocalyptic expectation into a coherent worldview,” linking faith with a specific geopolitical reading of history. In other words for the second coming of Jesus a final cosmic battle—Armageddon between Muslims and Jews is inevitable and the Christians support for Israel is ordained by God.
Critics within Christianity have long challenged this apocalyptic literalism. Theologians such as Reinhold Niebuhr, N. T. Wright, and contemporary pastors like Chuck Baldwin argue that such readings distort the New Testament’s central message of peace and reconciliation. They note that the Book of Revelation, written in a context of Roman persecution, employs symbolic language meant to encourage moral steadfastness, not to provide a military timetable for world events. By transforming allegory into strategy, modern Armageddon narratives risk sanctifying war rather than restraining it.
The political consequences were significant. Dispensationalism inspired the rise of Christian Zionism, a movement that regards the modern State of Israel as the fulfilment of biblical prophecy. For many adherents, support for Israel is not primarily political or humanitarian but eschatological—a sacred duty hastening the end times. This theological outlook has profoundly shaped segments of U.S. foreign policy, especially through influential Evangelical leaders and lobbying groups who interpret Middle-Eastern conflicts as steps toward the prophesied Battle of Armageddon. As elegantly put by Col. Larry Wilkerson that the real ‘’Iron Dome’’ over Zionist Colony of Israel is not a missile defence system but the American diplomatic, financial and military support. Curiously the rise of Armageddon narratives in the West coincides with the rise of Zionist movement. This narrative appears to be carefully crafted because when in future the Zionists attempt to demolish Al-Aqsa Mosque to build their third Temple, the Muslim countries might come to defend. This has potential for a great war in other words Battle of Armageddon, therefore they need American military help to fight Muslims which is only possible through the support of Religious Christian Zionism movements. In a way this is already happening in Palestine. The Qurʾān 17:104 also says that near the end times the Jews will be gathered in a place but there is no mention of great war or second coming of Jesus which makes this Christian Zionism’s claim null and void.
Instead, from Qurʾānic perspective, this theological militarization of prophecy contradicts the divine pattern described in Sūrat al-Māʾidah (5:64)—that each time people of the Book “light the fires of war, God extinguishes them.” The Qur’an envisions history not as a spiral toward global destruction but as a continuing opportunity for repentance and justice. Thus, while some modern interpretations of Revelation anticipate inevitable war, Islamic revelation reaffirms the possibility of divine mercy prevailing over human aggression.
Understanding these Armageddon narratives is therefore essential to any honest discussion of religion and geopolitics. They demonstrate how scriptural interpretation, when detached from ethical restraint, can be harnessed to justify policies of perpetual conflict—yet they also remind us that within every tradition exist voices calling believers back to the original moral vision of peace.
The Qur’an reminds believers that hatred born of fear distorts moral judgment:
“Let not the hatred of a people incite you to act unjustly. Be just; that is nearer to piety.” (Qur’an 5:8)
True understanding, therefore, demands separating legitimate security concerns from ideological exploitation. Confronting Islamophobia is not merely a defense of one faith community but a defence of truth and pluralism—the very foundations of ethical civilization.
6. The Qur’anic View: Power, Corruption, and the Cycle of War
The Qur’an presents a profound diagnosis of human history: whenever power becomes detached from divine guidance, it degenerates into corruption. God describes those who metaphorically “shackle His hand” — limiting His mercy and justice to their chosen group — as sowers of enmity and war:
“And so We have cast enmity and hatred among the followers of the Bible, [to last] until Resurrection Day; every time they light the fires of war, God extinguishes them; and they labour hard to spread corruption on earth: and God does not -love the spreaders of corruption.” (Al-Mā’idah 5:64, trans. Muhammad Asad)
The Qur’an offers a timeless description of this phenomenon in its condemnation of Fasād Fī Al-Arḍ — corruption and moral decay spread across the earth by those who misuse authority. This verse, while revealed in a particular historical context, speaks to a perpetual truth: that when political and spiritual elites ignite wars to sustain their power, divine justice intervenes — sometimes through the awakening of human conscience, sometimes through the collapse of their systems. The imagery of “lighting the fires of war” is both metaphor and mirror: a description of the human tendency to turn fear into fuel, ideology into industry.
Similarly, Sūrat al-Saff (61:14) calls on believers to be “helpers of God” — those who, like the disciples of Jesus, embody faith through peace and service, not domination:
“O you who believe! Be helpers in God’s cause, as Jesus son of Mary said to the disciples: ‘Who will be my helpers in God’s cause?’ They replied, ‘We shall be helpers of God.’ Then a group of the Children of Israel believed, while another denied the truth. But We strengthened those who believed, and they prevailed.”
Here, “prevailing” is not through arms but through moral steadfastness. The Qur’an thus rejects apocalyptic theologies of endless war, such as the Armageddon narratives popularized in some Evangelical circles via Scofield’s Bible commentary — narratives that have been critically dismantled by Christian scholars like Pastor Chuck Baldwin and E. Michael Jones, who expose their political misuse to justify perpetual conflict.
7. The Geopolitics of Zionism and the Modern World Order
Modern Zionism cannot be understood in isolation from the global architecture of power that emerged after the Second World War. From its inception, the Zionist project relied not only on ideological conviction but also on the strategic sponsorship of Western imperial powers. Britain’s support through the Balfour Declaration set the precedent, but after 1948 the United States became the central guarantor of Israel’s military and political supremacy in the Middle East. What began as a European colonial foothold evolved into a key node of Western hegemony, embedded in the postwar order of oil, arms, and geopolitical control.
Since 1948, Western alliances — particularly between Zionist lobbies and Evangelical Christians in the United States — have shaped Middle Eastern policy, often to the detriment of both Palestinians and global peace. However, the Zionist orchestrated humanitarian disaster in Gaza has become a moral compass separating those who uphold universal human rights regardless of race or religion from those who rationalize civilian suffering in the name of security. In other words Gaza is shaking the collective human conscience.
The ongoing genocide and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has laid bare the moral contradictions of rhetoric of democracy and human rights, so often invoked by Western powers. This collapses under the weight of live genocide, the images of bombed hospitals, starved children, and besieged civilians. The world is now witnessing not only a military conflict but a crisis of conscience: between those who uphold the universality of human dignity and those who justify collective punishment in the name of “security,” “civilization,” or “prophecy.”
Today, global citizens confront the deep dilemma of our age—wars waged in the name of security, disinformation cloaked as truth, and faith turned into an instrument of domination—the moral task is to reclaim the human conscience that stands with the oppressed, not the powerful. To understand the geopolitics of Zionism is thus not to single out one people, but to diagnose a recurring pathology of power that corrupts both religion and reason. Only through this awareness can humanity begin to dismantle the structures of injustice that perpetuate suffering—whether in Gaza, Yemen, Ukraine, or beyond—and restore the sanctity of life that all faiths were revealed to protect.
Zionism, in its geopolitical form, thus reveals itself as a microcosm of a wider global disorder—a world system where military dominance masquerades as moral duty, where victims are blamed for their suffering, and where truth itself becomes subordinate to the interests of power. In this sense, the ideology’s endurance is not merely about Israel or Palestine; it is about how empires survive in modern garb, sanctifying control through narratives of chosenness and fear.
As scholars such as Ilan Pappé and John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have shown, the intertwining of religious ideology with geopolitical strategy has created a system where wars are perpetuated not for defence
but for dominance. The consequence is a global erosion of empathy and truth which are at core of belief in God.
8. A Qur’anic Response: Faith Against Corruption
The Qur’ān consistently reframes the human story — not as a clash of civilizations, but as a moral contest between those who uphold justice (ʿadl) and those who spread corruption (fasād). The central question of revelation is not who possesses power, but how that power is used: whether to uphold the divine balance (mīzān) or to disrupt it for domination and gain.
When faith becomes subservient to power, it ceases to be faith; it becomes ideology. The Qur’ān repeatedly warns against this spiritual inversion — when sacred symbols are invoked to justify oppression rather than restrain it. “Do not cause corruption on the earth after it has been set in order” (Q. 7:56) is not merely an environmental or social injunction but a metaphysical one: corruption begins whenever humans usurp divine authority and claim moral exemption for their injustice.
From the Qur’ānic perspective, all prophetic missions — from Abraham to Moses, from Jesus to Muhammad (peace be upon them all) — share a single ethical mandate: to restore justice, mercy, and balance in the human world. The Qur’ān calls this divine equilibrium mīzān (55:7–9), a moral and cosmic harmony that binds heaven and earth. To violate it is to tear the very fabric of creation. Thus, true religion is never a banner of conquest; it is a call to humility, accountability, and peace.
In the Qur’ānic narrative, believers are summoned not to wage wars of supremacy, but to become “helpers of God” (Ansar Allāh), echoing the disciples of Jesus (Q. 61:14). This phrase, at once symbolic and practical, defines faith as cooperation with the divine will in bringing compassion and order where there is chaos. “Each time they light the fires of war, God extinguishes them” (Q. 5:64) — a verse of timeless relevance — describes God’s alignment not with empires, but with those who seek peace and extinguish the flames kindled by arrogance and fear.
This moral universalism is not unique to Islam; it reverberates through the conscience of all genuine faith traditions. The Jewish scholar Rabbi Dovid Weiss of Neturei Karta captures this essence when he proclaims: “Judaism is subservience to the Almighty, not nationalism.” In that statement lies the heart of prophetic monotheism: that the covenant with God is ethical, not ethnic; it binds humanity to divine justice, not to territorial sovereignty.
Similarly, Christian reformers and theologians who resist the politicization of faith remind their congregations that “the kingdom of God is not of this world” (John 18:36). This Gospel truth mirrors the Qur’ānic reminder that worldly might and divine approval are not synonymous: “Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of God is the most righteous of you” (Q. 49:13). Spiritual dignity, not national power, defines human worth.
Islam, as the final revelation in the Abrahamic lineage, reaffirms and synthesizes this call. It challenges both political Zionism and militant pseudo-Islam — and indeed all ideologies that corrupt divine religion into instruments of domination — by restoring faith to its original axis: servitude to God and service to creation (ʿibādah wa ʿimārah). In this light, being “helpers of God” means upholding life, truth, and justice wherever they are threatened, regardless of tribe, creed, or geography.
The Qur’ān thus invites humanity to transcend the false dichotomies of modern politics — East and West, believer and infidel, chosen and rejected — and return to the primordial truth that “the earth belongs to God; He grants it to whom He wills of His servants, and the end belongs to the righteous” (Q. 7:128). This verse is not a license for conquest but a reminder that sovereignty is moral, not material: those who sustain justice inherit the earth, while those who spread corruption lose it.
In an age where religion is too often weaponized to divide, the Qur’ānic response stands as both diagnosis and cure. It diagnoses the arrogance that turns faith into faction, and it prescribes a return to sincerity, humility, and moral stewardship. The path forward for humanity, the Qur’ān implies, is not through ideological triumph but through the renewal of conscience — through believers who, like the prophets before them, extinguish the fires of war and rekindle the light of peace.
9. Toward a New Interfaith Consciousness: Recognizing the Throne of Truth
The crisis of our time is not merely geopolitical or intellectual—it is spiritual. Humanity’s deepest wound lies in the alienation of faith from its moral source. When religion becomes an instrument of ideology, its light dims, its compassion dries, and its symbols are turned into banners of division. The Qur’ān calls believers to awaken from this deception, to reclaim faith from the hands of ideologues, and to restore it to its original purpose: the service of truth and justice.
This moral and spiritual reclamation must be interfaith in nature. The Qur’ān does not confine salvation or righteousness to one community; rather, it calls the People of the Book to a “common word” — Kalimatin Sawāʾin Baynanā Wa Baynakum — that “we worship none but God, that we associate nothing with Him, and that none of us takes others for lords beside God” (Q. 3:64). This verse is not merely a theological invitation; it is a political and ethical covenant, calling all believers to equality before the Divine and to justice among nations. It envisions a faith beyond tribalism, a piety beyond nationalism — a shared consciousness grounded in humility, compassion, and mutual responsibility.
To understand Zionism in this light is not simply an intellectual task but a spiritual duty: a discernment between those who exploit divine language for domination and those who, humbly and courageously, uphold divine justice. The Qur’ān teaches that truth (Ḥaqq) and falsehood (Bāṭil) can be recognized not through rhetoric but through their fruits: “As for the scum, it vanishes, but what benefits humanity remains on earth” (Q. 13:17). Every ideology that breeds arrogance and oppression is self-defeating; only that which nourishes peace and dignity endures.
Across the Abrahamic faiths, this divine pattern repeats. Jesus (peace be upon him) declared, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God” (Matthew 5:9). The Torah commands, “Seek peace and pursue it” (Psalm 34:14). And the Qur’ān affirms, “The servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk humbly upon the earth, and when the ignorant address them, they say: ‘Peace.’” (Q. 25:63). These are not mere verses but moral coordinates that guide humanity toward the same axis: to be helpers of God by healing wounds, feeding the hungry, protecting creation, and restraining the fires of war.
Indeed, the Qur’ān offers a profound metaphor for this spiritual awakening in the story of the Queen of Sheba and Prophet Solomon (Sulaymān) — a parable of recognition and surrender to truth:
“[Solomon] said: ‘Alter her throne so that she may not know it as hers; let us see whether she is guided to the truth or remains among those who are not guided.’
When she arrived, she was asked: ‘Is your throne like this?’ She replied: ‘It is as though it were the same.’
[And Solomon said], ‘She has arrived at the truth, though we had been given knowledge before her, and we had already surrendered ourselves to God.’” (Q. 27:41–43)
This parable transcends its historical setting. It depicts the moment when intellect meets revelation, when knowledge leads to humility, and when power yields to truth. The queen’s recognition — “It is as though it were the same” — signifies the awakening of conscience, the capacity to discern truth even when it appears in unfamiliar form. Her journey mirrors that of humanity itself: from attachment to power and appearances toward the recognition of divine order.
In a world blinded by ideology and polarization, the “throne” in this parable symbolizes the seat of moral perception. It reminds us that guidance (Huda) is not the monopoly of any nation or creed, but the inheritance of all who seek sincerely. The Queen of Sheba’s humility contrasts sharply with the arrogance of modern empires that claim divine mandate for their ambitions. She shows that true sovereignty lies not in domination but in surrender to truth — in acknowledging that ultimate authority belongs to God alone.
The Qur’ān thus invites all believers — Muslims, Jews, Christians, and beyond — to recognize the “throne of truth” within their own traditions, to see through the illusions of worldly power, and to work together for the restoration of justice and peace. The final measure of faith, it reminds us, is not belief in doctrine but commitment to compassion. As long as ideology governs religion, wars will persist; but as the Qur’ān promises, “Whenever they light the fires of war, God extinguishes them.” (Q. 5:64)
In this divine extinguishing lies the hope of our age — that the Creator’s mercy will always outlast human cruelty, and that the moral arc of revelation, bending through history, will continue to guide the conscience of humanity toward peace, not Armageddon.
10. Conclusion: Transcend the Deception
To understand the problem of Zionism is to confront the universal problem of power divorced from morality. It is not a Jewish, Christian, or Muslim problem — it is a human problem that recurs wherever faith is instrumentalised for domination. Whether in Tel Aviv, Riyadh, Cairo, or Washington, the prophetic mission is betrayed whenever religion becomes a means of control rather than a path to justice.
In this sense, political Zionism represents not merely a regional ideology but a symbol of the modern condition — the use of sacred language to justify worldly conquest. Cloaked in the rhetoric of divine promise and security, it transforms the covenant of faith into an architecture of fear. Its tragedy lies in its faithlessness, for it replaces trust in God with trust in power and control over humanity. The result is a world order where religion is invoked not to heal but to divide, and where the sacred is reduced to a tool of politics.
The modus operandi of Zionism, when examined through a moral and spiritual lens, appears to be rooted in deception — a form of dajl in Arabic, meaning “falsehood” or “deception.” Its superlative form, al-Dajjāl or the Antichrist, refers in Islamic eschatology to “the Great Deceiver,” a figure who will emerge before the Day of Resurrection to mislead humanity. Yet, as many scholars and mystics have noted, the reality of Dajjāl may not be confined to a single individual; it may also represent a systemic manifestation of deceit — an order of falsehood that inverts truth, disguises oppression as liberation, and enthrones material power over spiritual truth.
Seen in this light, Dajjāl becomes a metaphor for any global system that deceives believers into serving injustice under the guise of faith or security. The prophetic warning, therefore, is not only about an apocalyptic figure but about a continuing spiritual condition — the triumph of illusion over insight, of spectacle over sincerity, and of ideology over revelation. Against this deception, the Qurʾān calls believers to awaken their discernment (Furqan), for only through inner vision can humanity distinguish truth from its counterfeit.
The Qur’an calls humanity to transcend this deception through spiritual courage and ethical clarity. Those who truly follow Jesus, Moses, and Muhammad are not those who conquer lands, but those who conquer ego, greed, and hatred. The Qur’an’s vision of victory is not military — it is moral:
“We strengthened those who believed, and they became the ones who prevailed.” (As-Saff 61:14)
This is the promise of peace — not through Armageddon, but through awakening.
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Dr. Afzal M. Dogar is an independent scientific writer based in Zurich, Switzerland. He is a former Associate Professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) with a background in molecular biology, RNA therapeutics, and biotechnology. He has conducted research in gene regulation, cancer biology, and RNAi/miRNA-based therapeutics, and has trained graduate students in advanced molecular techniques. Currently based in Switzerland, he writes on the intersections of science, society, and interfaith dialogue, with a focus on reconciling scientific inquiry with ethical and spiritual perspectives.
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/interfaith-dialogue/deception-zionism-empire-quranic-justice/d/137398
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