Not too long ago, when I welcomed you to Three Powers Square, I called out to you, “Allah is Brazilian!” My Arabic may still be rusty, as you have noticed, but my faith is all the firmer for it. My fraternal friend Muhammad Omar, president of the United States, correctly observed that the essence of Islam is humility. I will therefore gladly renounce my arrogant triumphalism. The world revolution that began in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1991 should really not be considered complete, despite its glorious victories. It is not seriously threatened from the outside, and the counterrevolutionary groups smoldering in various marginal areas will, Allah permitting, be snuffed out. But as is becoming apparent here, at the First Congress of the Umma in Brasilia, internal disputes threaten to tear the revolution apart.

Typically enough, the threat emerges from Uzbekistan, a situation that makes clear the problem that must be resolved. In brief: the Caliphate is in danger of splitting into a Western half (Maghreb) and an Eastern one (Mizr). I know very well that my explanation is much too simplistic to be accepted by the theoreticians and scholars in attendance. At issue is not, as these gentlemen will rightly argue, a geographical split, but an ideological one, a contradiction between knowledge (Erkenntnis) and values. These intellectual perspectives are not subject to geographical limits. And, indeed, adherents of these two tendencies may be found everywhere. The most recent elections have shown that, proportionally, more people voted for the Bukhara Party in North America than in China.

Nonetheless, I insist on my simplification, thereby invoking historical experience.

At the core of the dispute that has been voiced so ferociously here is the question whether the teachings of the Prophet are to be interpreted politically or theologically. No one doubts that the two interpretations complement each other and must ultimately coincide. The question is, which interpretation is to be given precedence. As we now know, this question is a matter of life and death. From a political perspective, the goal of Islam is to build a universal, economically and socially just society that overcomes all racial prejudice, and in which it is possible for each Muslim to serve God. From a theological perspective, it is the goal of Islam to guide each individual human being to God with the help of daily and nightly prayer and, spontaneously, to make him a member of a society in which God is personified on earth. The political interpretation calls for rather different measures than the theological one. It turns out that both measures cannot be acted on simultaneously.

Although both interpretations are contained in the Quran, they represent two divergent mentalities. One could call them political praxis and theological theory. Simplifying a bit, we find that the practical mentality evolved primarily in the Confucian East, the theoretical one in the infidel, primarily Christian West. Although Islam is a synthesis of both these mentalities, elevating the two forms of faithlessness to the level of True Faith (and please do not accuse me of regressing into Marxism, this fool of Islam, when I express this); and although Islam cancels out this contradiction, the two mentalities are nullified within it and contradict each other for precisely this reason. We are dealing here with facts repeatedly proven in history: the split in Christianity into Orthodoxy and Catholicism, the split in Islam into Shiite and Sunni, the split in the Mongolian empires, the split in Marxism into the Soviet Union and China.

Regarding the contradiction between theory and praxis, we should note that theoretical thinking leads to the application of theorems, that is, to technology, a powerful praxis. Additionally, practical thinking leads to strategies, which are powerful paratheoretical points of view. This explains why the West was able to conquer the globe in the nineteenth century, and why, in the twentieth, the East was able to seize power. Theoretical thinking in no way occupies a level different from practical thinking. Both forms must eventually collide. Unfortunately, we are currently observing how this murderous clash takes place within the Caliphate itself. We are in the process of attacking each other.

The Bukhara ideology is basically a renaissance of practical Eastern (Chinese-Mongolian) thought and action. The kind of Jihad that is currently being waged under the banner of this ideology is, essentially, an invasion of the Western theoretical world supported by computer science and electronics, and carried out by strategists of the likes of Genghis and Kublai Khan. True, their battle cries call for the “Equality of all races!” and “Equal distribution of all goods!” But fundamentally their goal is to wipe out Whites and Blacks, that is, the minority. In view of the fact that we have Black Muslims to thank for the revolution, there is a danger that they will not only devour their own children, but also their own fathers.

It seems to me that the answer to this challenge is not to insist on the theological, theoretical interpretation of the Prophet’s message so as to get killed while lost in prayer. We must accept the risk of splitting the Caliphate, and grab the sword ourselves. Such a split is not fatal for Islam; it is in the spirit of its mission. That mission is not the victory of the revolution, but permanent revolution. As a good Muslim and mufti, as well as in my capacity as a Mulatto, I appeal to the Maghreb to confront the Bukharists so that Islam does not peter out in practical and political, murderous barbarisms.

A shot is fired. The Brazilian president collapses to the floor. The delegates assembled in the hall strangle each other.