Ransomware is without a doubt the closest analogue to historical piracy in the world today. It has moved billions of dollars of wealth from the Anglo economic sphere of influence, and acts as a critical element of modern total war.
The damage inflicted on Western economies...
The damage inflicted on Western economies...
...is much greater than the actual sum of wealth captured via ransoms, as the losses from reputational damage, legal repercussions of data leaks, and lost productivity probably reach into the hundreds of billions.
This dimension of warfare has always been critical to...
This dimension of warfare has always been critical to...
...the early formation of empires, and the rightly-guided khilafa was no exception.
Raiding the caravans of the Quraysh was a means to reclaim wealth confiscated by the mushrikeen, but also to weaken the war-making capacity of the kuffar while increasing...
Raiding the caravans of the Quraysh was a means to reclaim wealth confiscated by the mushrikeen, but also to weaken the war-making capacity of the kuffar while increasing...
...the economic strength of the Islamic state, increasing the prestige of Islam and the Muslims.
Additional wealth was also put toward expanding technological capacity, as when the Prophet ﷺ sent some of the sahaba radhi Allahu anhum to Sham to learn how to craft...
Additional wealth was also put toward expanding technological capacity, as when the Prophet ﷺ sent some of the sahaba radhi Allahu anhum to Sham to learn how to craft...
...catapults (which they were able to do INDEPENDENTLY, by the way, for those of you who advocate becoming subordinate rungs on global military-industrial supply chains!) Obviously such travels and studies had to be financed somehow.
The same applies with the dawning...
The same applies with the dawning...
...of Anglo global empire, which began as a result of raiding Spanish shipping.
Another analogue between Muslim and British empire building was comparitively open trade policies. Generally there were no tarriffs in dar al Islam, especially for goods traded by Muslims.
Another analogue between Muslim and British empire building was comparitively open trade policies. Generally there were no tarriffs in dar al Islam, especially for goods traded by Muslims.
This provided incentive for traders to become Muslim, but also attracted both financial and intellectual capital to Muslim lands, making them an economic center of gravity and ultimately leading to higher state revenues than tarriffs.
It was also relatively open, long-sighted trade policies that helped power the rise of the British empire, and the economic liberalism became a cornerstone of the overall ideological rise of liberalism, which contains a belief in the divine being located inside the human.
This is obviously at odds with Islam, but Islam has something similar in that sharia perfectly harnesses and directs human desires toward the spiritual and material elevation of humanity.
Liberalism discovered new ways to unlock and use human desires to great effect, but...
Liberalism discovered new ways to unlock and use human desires to great effect, but...
...left them unchecked to run wild, leading to the excesses and corruption we see today.
Russia is now attempting to use piracy as an adjunct to a project of empire building. The sheer number of Russian speakers working within and developing ventures related to...
Russia is now attempting to use piracy as an adjunct to a project of empire building. The sheer number of Russian speakers working within and developing ventures related to...
...both ransomware and cryptocurrency is a testament to the fact that this emerging territory is especially appealing to the political and economic context that Russians find themselves in.
Cryptocurrencies themselves function more or less like raids. Bitcoin is...
Cryptocurrencies themselves function more or less like raids. Bitcoin is...
...effectively a raid on fiat currency - most of Bitcoin's price growth comes from people who have more confidence in it or hope in its future prospects than they do in fiat currency.
Or as one commentator put it, Bitcoin's price has no top because fiat's price has no bottom.
Or as one commentator put it, Bitcoin's price has no top because fiat's price has no bottom.
This is new territory, and empires often appear in new territory, such as the reclaimed lowlands of Holland, which were exempt from many legal, cultural, and economic norms of medieval Europe.
Man does not live on bread alone. These wars always have an ideological element.
Man does not live on bread alone. These wars always have an ideological element.
In the case of Holland and Britain, it was Protestantism. Bitcoin's raids on fiat currencies are powered in part by libertarian ideology, and the war between Russia and the West is now fuelled partly by the grotesque extremes of the liberal attempts to dismantle gender.
Raids, or piracy, in all of these contexts, become part of a sacred mission to support truth against falsehood. All of these ideologies are pitifully shallow compared to Islam, but there are nonetheless fragments of truth scattered in all of them.
Some of the elder mujahideen once advised the younger generation of mujahideen in Iraq to take care when planning military operations, that military operations must always serve higher policy objectives.
The higher policy objectives, in turn, must serve ideological objectives.
The higher policy objectives, in turn, must serve ideological objectives.
This dynamic is visible in the actions of the Prophet ﷺ. Although he captured huge amounts of wealth, he kept almost none for himself, instead distributing it among the Muslims.
This was not only his wisdom, but the wisdom of Allah azza wa jal.
This was not only his wisdom, but the wisdom of Allah azza wa jal.
One of the categories of people eligible to receive zakat is muallafat qulubuhum, which is a way of winning hearts or bringing people closer to Islam through material wealth. It can also be a means of warding off harm from those who are weak in faith.
This winning of hearts and minds through material wealth, whether captured as ghanima or collected as zakat from other productive elements of society, is an essential adjunct to warfare where it is possible to win people over to Islam, which is better than just defeating them.
Interestingly, this political and economic dimension of da'wah is recorded in hadith as giving rise to the first khawarij, as it was due to distribution of spoils of war with precisely such intent that caused Dhul Khuwaisara al Tamimi to accuse Rasulullah ﷺ of being unjust.
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