The Myth of Political Islam
By Dr Basheer Ahmed Khan
Garden Grove, CA
When others define you in the light of some horrifying incidences enacted by miscreants in the name of Islam, then you become what they say rather than who you are. This is truer if your detractors control not just the narrative but also the means to propagate it.
These miscreants are the thugs who operate on behalf of the power seekers by growing a beard or wearing a mask and shouting Allah O Akbar to mislead the world. They have been functional since the early period of Islamic history. The ignorant call them as Sunnis, Shias, Salafi Wahabis etc. But they have nothing to do with any of these sects of Islam. They are only the instruments of power seekers in the name of Islam.
While the detractors of Islam and Muslim have the media and these thugs to propagate their narratives, Muslims are blind about the real teachings of Islam to defend them or Islam. They see Islam like the blind people who try to understand an elephant with their hands. Each one comes out with a different perception. The one who catches the tail thinks that the elephant is like a rope; the one who catches the leg thinks it is like a pillar; the one who puts his hand on the body thinks that it is like a wall, etc. The same way Muslims with their ignorance of Islam also have different interpretations. Islam is not what the ignorant Muslims believe, or the misguided “scholars” interpret or their detractors propagate; but Islam is what the Qur’an says and the authentic life of Prophet Muhammad SA establishes. Therefore to know the reality of political Islam one should look into the Qur’an and Sunnah rather than be swayed by the propaganda of media fueled by the actions of miscreants.
The first thing that we should keep in mind is that the history of Islam does not start with Muhammad SA but starts with the creation of the universe and the first man, Adam (PBUH). Islam is not the religion of present-day Muslims but a struggle of mankind to recognize the Creator and surrender to Him for personal peace and collective harmony ever since the first man opened his eyes on this earth. In this process, several people recognized and reached the Creator and gave some universal rules for personal peace and collective harmony. These people introduced themselves to the world as prophets. The powerful and intelligent people hijacked this message of peace and harmony and distorted it to their advantage necessitating the need of new messengers to correct the distortion (Ch 2 V 213). Thus, people made a new religion out of their teachings. This explains the plethora of religions that divide mankind. The reality of all religions will be evident before us when we stand before the One who has created us and given us guidance through His prophets (Ch 22 V 17).
Muhammad SA was sent at the end to introduce that Supreme Power to the people as Allah, the One to whom everything belongs, and to reduce the burden of confusion and concoction introduced by the vested interest in the teachings of earlier prophets and make their lives easy (Ch 3 V 83-84 & Ch 4 V 26-28). Belief in One God, a reality which is experienced by people across the entire spectrum of mankind, would have been a great unifying force. Alas this message of a Universal God and universal good also became a religion amongst the plethora of religion because Allah instead of remaining an entity to whom everything belongs became the deity of Muslim; Islam instead of remaining a religion of submission to this One Divinity became the rituals and culture practiced by a group of people named Muslims; and Muslim instead of being the individual who submits to the One God became a religious group with specific traits. This was partly due to the hijacking of the message which Nabi SA brought by the vested interest during its quick spread in the early part when Khilafath e Rashida (Righteous Caliphate) changed into Empires of Umayyad and Abbasids.
Islam was a message to transform lives of individuals and build a just society through them on bases of God consciousness and accountability before Him. But when this message was distorted by the power-hungry adventurists who entered into the fold of Islam in huge numbers later, then the religion of reformation became the tool of conquests and occupation. Therefore if Islam of modern day Muslims has some contradictions these have been forced onto it by all those people who joined the bandwagon of Islam with their agendas and with their baggage of tribal feelings, pride and prejudices of their previous convictions, personal ambitions and cultural affinities.
The task of sifting the substance of Islam from the chafe of its misinterpretation and wrong implementation by Muslims over centuries is so painstaking that very few have ventured to indulge in it. At the end of every century a Mujtahid was sent by Allah swt, as promised by Nabi SA in a Hadith, to undertake this arduous task relevant to the time. But his work remained more in books than in action because changing things which have gained reverence over a period of time is difficult. One should read Al Badaya Wan Nahaya and other books of history and religion to understand this incursion by vested interest into the pristine message given by Nabi SA.
Islam as is practiced today therefore has some elements of Orphic rituals, Maccabees spirit of resistance, Asceticism of monks, Roman philosophy and logic, oriental thought and culture. When the Byzantine region came under the control of the Umayyad dynasty the lifestyle, political tactics and statecraft of Byzantines became a part of teachings of Islam to change the movement of Islam into the empire of Muslims (Khilafath o Mulokiyat by Abul Ala Maududi and Tareekh e Dawat O Azeemath vol 1-5 by Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi).
Islam did not come to change the governments but to change the people so that they formed a society based on justice. For this the belief in the Omniscient, Omnipresent and Omnipotent God who is capable of taking us to account in this world and in the hereafter was essential. The individual responsibility engendered by this belief is more useful in establishing harmony and justice amongst people than the plethora of laws and an elaborate law enforcing machinery or the brute power of the state. Islam is a course to develop this individual responsibility. Develop consciousness of Allah and you will be successful was the gist of the message of Muhammad SA. He did not say that gain power and you will be successful. Those people who are using Islam to seek power are the ones who are responsible for distorting its reality and making it detestable. A God-conscious society with a moral code based on common sense applicable equally to all people was the guarantee to peace and progress of society and was the crux of the message of all prophets including Nabi SA to attain individual peace and collective harmony.
Those who are attempting to isolate Muslims by blaming Islam and Muslims for their failure to provide equal opportunity for people of all faiths forget that the first secular city state was established in Medina by Muhammad SA more than fourteen hundred years ago when the world was in the Dark Ages. To disprove this and to prove that Islam is against peaceful coexistence of diverse populace, they quote some verses and some events out of context.
Some of the ignorant people cite the reclaiming of Ka’bah, for the worship of One God by Nabi SA and his companions, to make their case for their prejudice that Islam is a violent religion which advocates bloodshed to establish its tenets. They interpret this to justify their assumption of political nature of Islam as against its reformative credentials.
Ka’bah was built by Adam AS and later rebuilt by Abraham (PBUH) for the worship of One God (Ch 14 V 35-41). Prophet Muhammad SA who was sent to secure mankind from the abyss of Dark Age by engendering God Consciousness in them had to reclaim Ka’bah to establish his mission. While he reclaimed Ka’bah and cleansed it of the idol worship he also cautioned Muslims not to show disrespect to the entities whom the people call besides God (Ch 6 V 108). While we keep on propagating the act of cleansing the Ka’bah from idols by Nabi SA to portray Islam as an evil religion, we never acknowledge, even once, about the caution which he made to Muslims that they should not be disrespectful to the idols that others call besides Allah. While we criticize Nabi SA for a dozen or so people who died in the process of reclaiming Ka’bah, we fail to acknowledge the tenet about respecting the life of every individual which Nabi SA advanced from the teaching of the prophets of Bani Israel (Ch 5 V 32-34).
Another instance which is often cited to portray Nabi SA and Islam negatively as a political movement aiming for its ascendency through all means is to cite the fight which he had to undertake against the tribes who participated in the covenant of Medina. While doing this they conveniently forget the breach which these signatories of the covenant caused to destroy the multi-religious and multiethnic society at Madina by siding with forces that came to destroy it during the battle of Uhad and the battle of Trench.
Another thing which is cited to discredit and distort the message of Nabi SA is his order to rid the precincts of Kaabah from polytheists (Ch 9 V1-6). This was done to ensure that Hajj pilgrimage which is centered around Ka’bah, The Abode of One God, is performed according to the rites enacted by Abraham (PBUH). Ka’bah comes from the word Buka’a (Ch 3 V 96), the place to cry before Allah and seek His forgiveness for our mistakes. Pagans were performing their ritual which they considered as Hajj as a dance around ka’bah with clapping and whistling (Ch 8 V 35). If idolaters were allowed to join with such behavior along with the solemn rituals of Hajj by Muslims this would be a chaos. To prevent this Nabi SA conveyed this order of Allah that idolaters will not come for Hajj next year (Ch 9 V 28). Pagans staying in the area around Mecca had already started their conspiracies to destabilize the success achieved in restoring Ka’bah to the worship of One God. All the measures taken by Nabi SA was to nip these conspiracies and restore peace and tranquility to the area. It is ironic that those who accuse Islam of exclusivity in authority on the basis of this incident are those who know the dangers of challenge to the established authority in a society.
Practice of Jizya in Islam which was a tax levied on non-Muslims living in a Muslim country is cited as another example of ill treatment of minority in Islamic society. Jizya is not a tax to humiliate non-Muslims in Muslim society but a compensation which is taken from them for exemption which they enjoy from undertaking responsibilities of military duty in the Islamic State, and to ensure their security in its borders.
Jizya comes from the word Jaza which is compensation and not a humiliating tax as it is propagated by the detractors of Islam. The word Saghiroon used in the verse is not to make the non-Muslims inferior but to denote the responsibility of Muslims towards them that they should be taken care of like they take care of their children (Ch 9 V 29). Non-Muslims enjoyed full freedom to practice their beliefs, their vocations, their properties and their lives in the precincts of Islamic State. Abba Eban, ex- Foreign Minister of Israel, in his epic documentary Heritage cites that Jewish Diaspora had the best life in Muslim Spain and in Ottoman Empire. Competent non-Muslims remained a part of governing structure of most of the Muslim Kingdoms.
Now the question arises as to why Islam does not involve non-Muslims with the security of the State. Those of us who know what we did with the appointment of Salam Al Maryati to the commission on Anti Terrorism Task Force by the then House Majority Leader Rep Gephardt in late 90s should know well why such measures are necessary. Even though the rule of Jizya remains in the books of Islamic Fiqh, but in practice most of the Muslim countries in the earlier period of Islamic history and even now prefer non-Muslims in their armies after the fate which Muslim rulers experienced at the hands of the Kharjites.
Man is not an island and so are not nations. In the spirit of his mission to bring out mankind from the ignominy of Dark Age Nabi SA invited the nations in the neighborhood to reform their countries on the basis of God consciousness as we demand the nations of today to reform on the bases of Democracy and Free Markets. This invitation was not in the spirit of expansionism but in the spirit of altruism. The Qur'an clearly says: We have made clear the guidance from error and now it is up to people to make their choice, it further says that there is no compulsion in religion (Ch2 V 256). It also says that whoever accepts right path accepts it for their own good and whoever wants to remain astray does so for his own peril (Ch17 V15).
But the selfish rulers in the neighborhood and their cohorts felt a threat in this invitation to their authority. The messenger of Nabi SA, Harith bin Umair was martyred by the Governor of Basra Sharhabeel Ghasani. When Nabi SA sent an expedition under Zaid bin Haritha, the powerful nations in the neighborhood felt a threat in this emerging message of Islam and tried to annihilate it (Ar Raheeq Al Makhtum). This started the various campaigns between the budding Muslim community and the established powers of Persia and Rome.
When a movement of change overtakes the static and oppressive order, then the beneficiaries of the old order conspire against the movement of change and those who join the new order for personal gains collude with them to destroy the movement of change. History is replete with such examples. When the decaying societies in the neighborhood of Arabia decimated because of flexing their muscles against an emerging power of new vigor and new ideas it was inevitable for the aforementioned alignment to emerge. The defeated beneficiaries of the old order and the vested interest who joined the movement of change for material gains joined hands to derail the movement of Islam. Abubakar RA and Umar RA and countless companions trained by Prophet SA controlled its tide with wisdom and fortitude. Alas, the conspiracy of this nexus led to martyrdom of Umar RA, Usman RA, Ali RA, the three great caliphs of Muslims in succession, and plunged the huge area of Islamic rule into chaos. The “Thugs” of the power seeker groups mentioned in the first paragraph of this article created chaos through their deceit and by causing infighting amongst the Muslims in the expanse of the Muslim conquests. Vested interest had a great opportunity to serve their interest in the name of Islam by using the Muslims.
In an attempt to accommodate the princely lifestyle of Muslim rulers into the framework of Islam we needed a whole new paradigm to interpret the Qur’an and Sunnah. The official clergy provided this to us through the principles of the newly learnt Roman logic introduced by the Umayyad rulers. This logic taught us to agree to differ and consider many opposing interpretations of Qur’an and Sunnah as valid to suit the interest and lifestyle of the elite class. When these varied interpretations of Islam became Islam whose message was just one from the first Prophet Adam AS to the last one Muhammad SA, then detractors of Islam had no difficulty in finding a narrative to discredit Islam and Muslims. Worst still, only those interpretations that were made by “Aslaf” (scholars of earlier time) were made valid even if they contradicted the explicit message of the Qur’an. Any new interpretation to this by modern day scholars in light of modern day consciousness and knowledge was considered “Tafseer Bir Rai”. This made the dynamic message of Islam, which was to guide mankind for eternity, static giving many opportunities for detractors of Islam to ridicule it on this basis.
The precarious situation of genuine scholars of Ummah is evident from the fact that a jurist of the stature of Imam Malik RA had to be persuaded by at least seventy local scholars for his edict (Al Badaya Wan Nahaya). This was because Imam Malik did not want these scholars to dispute him based on some other interpretation to bring confusion into the peaceful environs of Madina where Imam Malik was living. In this turbulent situation there were some sincere scholars who lived in isolation to safeguard the letter and spirit of faith for us to see myth from reality.
Besides the scenario painted above another weakness of Muslims which gave the control of the narrative about Islam and Muslims to their detractors is the incompetence of our spokesmen.
A press secretary in the embassy of one of the important Muslim countries was grilled by a news anchor about this verse in the Qur’an which claims that “Islam is the only valid religion in the eyes of Allah” (Ch 3 V 19). The anchor quoting the meaning of this verse asked the press secretary if his country has the same position on various religions as this verse. The press secretary said apologetically: The government has appointed a committee of scholars to look into all such matters and make suitable amendments thereby conceding that what the Qur’an said was something sinister that needed to be changed.
Only if we had a competent person to answer this rhetorical accusation he could have given an answer to the anchor about the correct spirit of the verse. What Allah is saying in the verse is: Religion with the One to whom this universe belongs (Allah), is recognizing Him and submitting to Him. Therefore there is nothing objectionable in the verse as such because religion is related to the rules of the One to whom this world belongs and is submitting to Him. This explanation would have given an understanding of this verse not only to the anchor but to thousands of others who watched this episode.
There is no difficulty in defending Qur’an and the authentic Hadith. Muslims are finding it difficult to defend the Islam promoted by the interpretations of official scholars of Umayyad, Abbasids and other dynasties we refer to as Khalifas. How difficult it was for the true scholars of Islam to adjust with the official line is evident from the ways in which these scholars avoided official positions. How Imam Abu Hanifa RA and his companions avoided the position of Chief Justice in the Abbasid dynasty under Abu Ja’far Mansur is described by Ali Hajveri RA in his book Kashaf Al Mahjub. How much suffering Imam Ahmed RA had to undergo to defend Qur’an against the official position of Khalq-e-Qur’an is also a part of struggle between righteous Muslims who gave the ultimate sacrifice to defend the purity of faith against those who wanted to dilute and distort it.
Taking advantage of ignorance of Muslims and inefficiencies of their leaders power seekers seem to have succeeded in their agenda of power grab by discrediting Islam and destabilizing the entire Muslim World. While doing this they have forgotten the lessons of history that those who ignore its lessons are condemned to repeat it.
So much about the allegations of detractors to portray Islam negatively as a militant and political religion. Inshallah in the second part of this article I will focus on what is the reality of Islamic teachings about political Islam.
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