Righteous Actions and Righteous Activism
Say, ‘Take action! Allah will see your action – as will His Messenger and the believers – and then you will be returned to Him who knows what is hidden and what is seen, and He will tell you what you have been doing. (al-Tawbah 9:105)
O Messengers! Eat good things and do good deeds: I am well aware of what you do. This Community of yours is one community and I am your Lord, so be mindful of me. (al-Mu’minun 23:51-52)
Islam emphasizes right beliefs and right actions. Islam is an action-oriented religion. It wants its followers to be active, work hard, but always do right and good deeds. Whatever we do we must do with the consciousness of Allah and with the conviction that Allah is seeing everything that we do and on the Day of Judgment all our deeds will be presented before Him for His final judgment. In Islam there is no sharp division between the secular work and religious work. All work is religious if it is done with the awareness of Allah, observing the rules of Allah and for the benefit of His creation.
The Prophet – peace be upon him - said:
“If the end of the world approaches and one of you has a seedling (or plant) in his hand, if he can plant it before the end comes let him do it.” (Musnad Ahmad, Hadith no. 12512)
This Hadith gives us a clear perspective on the Islamic attitude towards action and activism. The Prophet – peace be upon him - in a very simple and profound way told us the way of righteous activism. The Prophet did not say, “If the end approaches, give up everything, go to the mosque and just pray. Give up all worldly business.” He gave us a new perspective about work and action.
The first thing emphasized here is that good deeds have their intrinsic value. Good deeds are important, and we should always do good deeds. Of course, this does not mean that all actions are of the same value, or we should not prioritize. Islam has given us clear rules of what is obligatory, what is recommended, what is forbidden and what is not recommended. Shari’ah teaches us priorities and we must keep this in mind in all circumstances.
Second, the Hadith emphasizes that we should take advantage of all the opportunities we have to do good and valuable things. We should not miss the opportunities. We should understand all situations and whatever chance we have we should do good deeds. Also, none of us knows when the end of the world will be. One may think that the end is near, but it may not be. Only Allah knows when the end will be. So whatever time we have we should keep doing right things and good deeds.
Third, the Hadith tells us that doing a good deed itself is important, whether we are able to see the results or not. We should not be too obsessed with the desire that results must be achieved immediately, or we must see the results. Some results are obtained immediately and some later, but our ultimate objective is to please Allah and find His acceptance in the Hereafter. We are not indifferent to results, but we are not obsessed with the desire for immediate achievement in everything. This principle saves us from the mistaken view that says, ‘ends justify the means.’ In Islam the rule is that the ends must be right and means must be right. If the means are not Halal or appropriate, they should not be used.
There are many important Islamic principles regarding actions that our scholars have emphasized. Let me summarize the basic Islamic philosophy of action:
1. Deeds must be righteous. In order to know what is righteous, Allah has given us two main sources: the Naql (the Qur’an and Sunnah) and ‘Aql (mind and reason). The deeds must be in accordance with the divine revelation and Prophetic guidance. The deeds must be also reasonable. Everything must be done with wisdom (hikmah) and keeping in mind the basic objectives (maqasid) of Islam. The Ulama’ have identified the objectives as: protection and promotion of religion, life, mind, property and family.
2. Righteous actions include all kind of actions, devotional, moral, social, economic, political, etc. Righteous actions are those that are beneficial, good and useful; and righteous actions are also those that remove harm, evil and injustice.
3. Whatever action we take we must consider that the benefits should outweigh the potential harm. Avoiding harm has priority over potential benefit. The meaning is that when taking any action, we should carefully see whether there is more harm or benefit. If there is more harm than benefit, and/or if the harm is more certain than the benefit then we must not take that action.
4. A harm of lesser intensity is acceptable if it can avoid a greater harm and the benefit of the larger public is more important than the benefit of an individual. Actually, an individual harm may be tolerable if it can save harming the general public.
5. Whatever actions are taken they should be with sincerity (ikhlas) and in an excellent manner (itqan). The actions should be taken with knowledge, wisdom, planning and care. In Islam, there is no place for rash, radical or extreme actions.
Allah says in the Qur’an that He appointed Prophet Muhammd – peace be upon him - as His Messenger to do the following:
It is He who raised a Messenger among the Ummiyyin from amongst them, to recite His revelations to them, to make them grow in spirituality and teach them the scripture and wisdom – before that they were clearly astray. (Al-Jumu’ah 62:2)
The commentators of the Qur’an say that the word ‘wisdom’ (hikmah) here means the Sunnah. Whatever the Prophet said, did and approved was full of wisdom. Wisdom is in the Sunnah and Sunnah also teaches how to take wise actions. Prophet Muhammad – peace be upon him - lived, and practiced Islam in the wisest manner. He always emphasized that which was good, balanced and appropriate. Allah says,
Thus We have made you a middle community so that you may bear witness (to the truth) before others and so that the Messenger may bear witness (to it) before you… (Al-Baqarah 2:143)
(Khutbah at ISOC – Jumada al-Ula 4, 1432/ April 8, 2011)
