Are Elections Haram? Says Who? And Based on What? Part 5 | May 15, 2005
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Dr. Pasha
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CONTENTS:
(16) Western Wing of the Muslim Ummah: A Fuller Story
(17) Mindless Kaafirbashing
(18) September Eleven: A Wakeup Call?
It was thereabouts – in the early 1990s, or was it the late 1980s? – that I started to talk publicly about the Western Wing of the Muslim Ummah.
I laid out that concept in considerable detail in two days and several hours of speeches in a major international Islamic convention in Guyana, West Indies, in which I was the main speaker.
By the expression Western Wing I meant that Western Muslims were now poised to have the best of both worlds in their new home in the West – Islam as well as the West – just as they were so far enjoying the best of both worlds “back home” in the East – Islam and Egypt; Islam and Indonesia; Islam and Pakistan; and Islam and something else.
Western and Muslim: Both at the Same Time
In that convention, I took considerable pains to point out that the Muslims in the West had two things going for them. On the one hand, they were as Western as possible. And, on the other hand, they were also, at the same time, as Muslim as possible.
And that no one could take either one of those two components of their unique Islamic-Western composite identity away from them.
And that these two components, though seemingly distinct, were in reality one and the same. And neither could be separated from the other. For, that was the nature of Islam: to integrate all aspects of an individual’s and a people’s existence into one composite whole.
Practical Implications of Tauhid:
To me it was all part of the practical implications of the amazing Islamic principle of Tauhid – unity or oneness: one God, one world, one common human family, East and West, Muslim and non-Muslim.
The Western part of their identity, I argued, came from their choice (or accident) of geography and culture, whereas the Islamic part of their identity came from their choice of (or birth into) Islam as their Deen. And I don’t see how anyone can separate the one from the other.
Yes, separation does occur later in life when you consciously and rationally trade your bondedness to a particular soil or territory in favor of bondage to the creator of all of the earth and the entire universe.
Practical Implications of Hijrah:
That again to me was part of the practical implications of the most amazing Islamic concept of Hijrah – migration: geographic, psychological, emotional and spiritual migration and mobility.
Thus, to me, being a Western Muslim – or being Western and Muslim – was no different from people being Egyptian and Muslim, Indonesian and Muslim or Moroccan and Muslim.
Thus, I argued, at considerable length and in great detail, that Muslims of the West were the Western Wing of the Muslim Ummah and there was a pressing need for them to understand this and determine their role in the West accordingly.
Not separate or cut off from the rest of the Ummat of Islam throughout the world, I pointed out quite clearly and forcefully, but still with their own distinct and unique identity, issues, weaknesses, strengths, problems, projected solutions and opportunities – in the West.
Working in a Non-Muslim Environment:
A major thrust of my analysis in that convention was how Muslims in the West needed to learn to work in and with a non-Muslim environment.
I pointed out how in a democracy we were all stakeholders – Muslim as well as non-Muslim alike – with equal and mutual responsibilities, claims and rights.
I recall how a local young man, robed in black, who had returned, I was told, with some Islamic education from overseas, stood up at the back of the hall and demanded to know my authority for saying that Muslims must cooperate with their non-Muslim society, surroundings and government.
Example of Joseph, Alaihis-Salaam, in the Qur’an:
I pointed to the example of Joseph, son of Jacob, may Allah bless them both, in the Qur’an – how Joseph, Alaihis Salaam, a prophet of God, and therefore a Muslim par excellence, actually offered his services to the ruler of Egypt, who was not a Muslim.
The young man’s answer to this was: But our prophet’s Shri’ah (law) cancels and overrides the previous Shari’ahs (laws).
I took this to mean that what may have been good enough for Joseph, son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham – a fourth-generation prophet of God, Allah bless them all – may not be good enough for people like us, who are the followers of the latest and last prophet of Allah, may Allah bless him, Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam.
That was quite a shocker. I haven’t forgotten that experience to this day.
A Joint Muslim-Non-Muslim Platform:
That principle, however, does not apply to the case in point. In fact, the Islamic law points in quite the opposite direction. For, Islam requires its followers to seek common ground with the followers of other laws – other Shari’ahs – as much as they can.
In fact, Islam instructs it followers to take the initiative in seeking cooperation with non-Muslims for the attainment of shared goals and ideals.
Tell the non-Muslims, says the Qur’an:
Come, let us evolve a common basis – a joint
platform – to work together!
Ta’aalau Ila Kalimatin Sawaa-in
Bainana wa Bainakum!
Something Called Istihsan or the Pursuit of Common Good:
And there is something else. “Istihsan,” the pursuit of common societal and human good in all matters of law, and taking into consideration the general public interest and welfare, is a firmly established principle of Islamic jurisprudence.
So, there is nothing in the Law of Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, that says that Muslims should not cooperate with non-Muslim individuals, groups, organizations, powers and institutions of the day.
A Major Speech on Islam and the West:
Such a common platform is exactly what emerged when, as part of that same convention, I gave a major speech to a hall full of ambassadors from the U.S., Soviet Union, Britain, Canada and other countries, and also attended by the Prime Minister of Guyana – President Cheddi Jagan was taken ill and could not attend – on the topic of “Islam and the West.”
In that speech I outlined the role of Islam and Muslims in the modern West in keeping with my concept of Muslims of the West as being the Western Wing of the Muslim Ummah – very much Muslim and very much part of the West: inseparable from the Muslim Ummah and yet at the same time integral to the Western world. And using, at the same time, the universal and eternal principles of Islam to serve and advance the best interests of Islam and Muslims on the one hand and of the West and the rest of humanity on the other hand.
That talk received a most enthusiastic reception not only from the Muslims but also from the diplomatic crowd present.
A Joint Soviet-American Handshake for Islam and Muslims:
In a moment that combined considerable collective excitement and drama for Muslims with some personal embarrassment for me, both the American and the Soviet ambassadors jumped on the stage to congratulate me on the speech.
Both of them then began to vigorously shake my hand for what appeared to be a never-ending length of time.
This struck me as a moment of considerable glory and success. Not for me as an individual, but for the Muslims in general and for that Muslim convention in particular.
And more importantly, it was a triumphal moment for the natural beauty and simplicity of Islam that, when presented with a semblance of clarity and confidence, could have such a profound impact on an audience of that kind and caliber.
A New Paradigm for Cooperation and Coexistence between Muslims and Non-Muslims in the West:
What I had outlined in that speech – as well as in my other speeches in that convention – was a full-fledged new paradigm incorporating a solid theoretical framework for the mutual coexistence and cooperation of Islam, Muslims and non-Muslims and their faiths and ideologies in the West.
It was a paradigm that was based on the joint stewardship of this world among Adam’s children – Muslims and non-Muslims alike – in the West and elsewhere, for the common benefit of all.
As Old as the Qur’an:
Though this paradigm may have come across as new in the way it was presented, to me it was as old as the Qur’an and Hadith. And it was as old as the history of humanity in this world.
All I had done, I think, was to outline what I believed to be the position of Islam on these matters based on that most amazing Aayat of the Qur’an that I cited a few paragraphs earlier:
Ta’aalow Ila Kalimatin Sawaain Bainanaa Wa Bainakum.
Paraphrase:
Come, let us work together based on what we have in common!
A Glorious Common Future:
I believe this model contains in it the seeds of a glorious common future of cooperation, co-existence, prosperity, peace, success and felicity for the entire world – Muslim and non-Muslim alike.
It means: Work out your differences, find the common ground and come to an agreement! That is what God Almighty is saying in the Qur’an, as would a loving father to his squabbling children.
Translation: Stop fighting and make peace on the basis of what you have in common!
How do you top a formula like that?
Wishing, Hoping for General Access:
I was hoping, and I deeply wished, that that speech – and the new paradigm of the role of Islam in the West that I had outlined in such detail and depth – would be given broad general access.
That it would find its way, along with the rest of my tapes from that convention, to the broadest Muslim and non-Muslim audiences throughout the West – and throughout the world, including the Muslim world.
Logical Outcome:
I expected that to be one of the most natural, logical, urgent and important outcomes and follow-ups from that convention.
And I saw my speeches in that convention, overall, as a landmark of some kind, as a turning point, in the history of Islam and Muslims in the West. What I did not expect, however, was that all trace of every one of my speeches from that convention would disappear as if those speeches had never come into existence in the first place.
Mystery of the Missing Tapes:
Sherlock Holmes biographer, Dr. Watson, would have called it The Case of the Missing Tapes.
And that is exactly what happened. Mysteriously, tapes of all my speeches in that convention were made to disappear, without a clue as to what happened to them.
Or maybe in hindsight it was not so mysterious after all.
Ever since, all my attempts to track down and obtain a copy of those tapes have been to no avail, even though for quite a while I kept getting reports of their sightings in different places from different sources.
Even when I took up the issue with the organizers of that convention at a subsequent conference in Toronto – I think it was Toronto – I never got a satisfactory reply.
What Drove that Decision?
Why?
What happened to those tapes?
Why was it decided not to give me a copy of my own speeches?
Whose decision was it? And what were some of the considerations that drove that decision?
And why were those tapes and their transcripts not made available for broader circulation among the Muslims and non-Muslims of the Western Hemisphere?
Allah alone knows the answers to these questions.
Of course those who were behind the disappearance of those tapes know what exactly happened to them and why.
An Ideological Alibi for Muslims:
The sad thing is that those tapes would have provided a conceptual and ideological alibi for the Muslims if they had been widely circulated.
I am not saying those tapes, if they had been given wide circulation, would have prevented the bloody horrors of September Eleven or the even bloodier horrors of its aftermath.
But I do believe that given wide circulation among both Muslims and non-Muslims, those tapes would have been a significant and fairly compelling alibi for Muslims in general and for Muslims in the West in particular with regard to the ideological background of those horrendous events.
And they would have constituted a strong argument against Muslim involvement and culpability in those bloody and barbaric events.
What followed instead was an insane decade of mindless Kaafirbashing by every little boy with a little bit of knowledge of Islam, precious little knowledge of the world and even less sagacity or commonsense.
Generation after generation of young, bright, talented and impressionable Muslim youth of both sexes were presented as sacrificial lambs by the movers and shakers of Islamic gatherings, meetings, conferences and conventions to these speakers, who told them, over and over again, how bad the West was and how terrible in particular America was.
Generations of Innocent, Defenseless Muslim Children:
To me, it was not a question of what kind of Islam this was that was being presented to the world in general and to American Muslims in particular.
To me it was more a question of what kind of madness this was that was being let lose by people claiming to be Muslims and in the glorious name of Islam and Muslims upon generations of innocent, defenseless Muslim children from the Western Wing of the Muslim Ummah.
Lonely, Heartbreaking Times:
Those were lonely, heartbreaking times for those who did not see eye-to-eye with what was going on.
But it was clear that all too many Muslims in the West had lost all sense of reality, direction and purpose as Muslims.
They seemed to have no clue about their proper role in the West. They seemed to have no sense that Allah had placed them here, in this part of the world, so that they would invite their respective peoples and societies – Qawms – in the West to Allah.
Missing Mission of Taking Islam to Non-Muslims:
As a result, there weren’t too many individuals, organizations or associations among the Muslims of the West that were focused on the mission of taking Islam to the majority of the non-Muslim people of the West.
Nor were there great many institutions dedicated to produce quality literature on Islam for non-Muslims or to train Muslims in inviting non-Muslims to Islam using the best and the most beautiful of means and methods.
Nor did the Muslims in general appear overly concerned about building bridges of understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims in the West.
Canaries that Won’t Sing:
It was a bit like a houseful of canaries that will not sing.
Allah created the Muslims to sing his message to the world, but they would not. He brought them to the West so that they would sing that message to the people of the West – their new Qawm in the West – but they would not do that.
Muslims call out the beautiful message of Islam from the minarets of their mosques everywhere. But they are yet to learn to coo that message in the ears of the majority of God Almighty’s 6.5 billion human creation.
Because that is what the world needs to hear from the Muslims: the pure divine message of the Qur’an, presented in the most beautiful manner of the preaching of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam.
One Canary with Special Gift of Song:
In particular, there was one Muslim canary in the West that literally will not sing. I have talked about this elsewhere, but let me mention it again.
As Cat Stevens, Yousuf Islam was among the most celebrated icons of the pop music world in the 1960s and 1970s. Coming into Islam in the late 1970s, that canary completely stopped singing – quite likely, under the sedation of some heavy Muslim Fatwas.
Cultural Rejectionism and its Negative Effects:
These also would have been – if Fatwas were indeed involved in his decision to abandon the world of song – rejectionist Fatwas. But the rejectionism behind them would have been of the more well-intentioned and mainstream kind.
And in this sense, this cultural rejectionism would not have been unlike the political rejectionism of the Jama’at-e-Islami in India in the decades immediately following Indian independence from British occupation.
But the result was that a man whom Allah had blessed with a special ability to make music stopped making it. Even though his music had the potential to touch tens of millions of hearts with the simple message of truth and clean living, as it had done before his conversion to Islam.
Underprared Muslim Muftis:
But underprepared Muslim Muftis without a proper understanding of the world of Allah – if indeed the Muftis had a role in his self-imposed musical silence – stopped the one man who had the ability to impact that world positively from doing it.
Ultimately, these are decisions made by Allah. Every thing that happens in this world is Allah’s decision. But that does not absolve us from culpability, even though honest Muftis (Mujtahids) get one Thawaab from Allah even when they are wrong. They get two when they are right.
The damage, nevertheless, was done. And it was done due to our own inadequacies, ill-preparedness and simple lack of Islamic and worldly smarts.
Returning to Roots:
It is Allah’s blessing that the Cat is now out of the bag. And Mr. Islam has decided to return to his musical roots and sing again.
May Allah pack his songs with the light of his beautiful Deen. And may Allah open the hearts and minds of his fans to the impact of Haqq – truth – in those songs.
A People Created for other People:
So, that is who the Muslims are supposed to be: A people whom Allah created with a special purpose and mission in this world, namely, that of inviting other people to his Deen.
Allah says in the Qur’an that Muslims were a people raised up for other peoples of the world. And their job in this world was to enhance good and mitigate evil and to believe in Allah.
Kuntum Khaira Ummatin Ukhrijat Linnaas!
Muslims’ Western Qawms:
That means various Muslim communities were placed in their respective societies in the West in UK, Europe and America in order to invite the people of those societies – their specific Qawms in the West – to Allah.
But the Muslims of the West seemed to have neither an understanding of this divinely ordained role, nor an inclination to fulfill it.
They displayed no awareness or appreciation of this tremendous responsibility that Allah had placed on their shoulders.
They acted as if they were brought in this world and placed in various Western nations and communities merely to amass wealth and education, enjoy their jobs and families, and live out their lives in comfort and opulence – like the rest of the people of the West.
Considering all this, was the dark day of September Eleven a wakeup call to Muslims? In my view, it was.
It is stating the obvious to say that the events of September Eleven and its aftermath had heaped enormous sadness, despondency and depression on me – as much as on any Muslim or non-Muslim anywhere.
At the same time, I am not surprised that given the way many of us Muslims acted and carried on in the West, over the decades of the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties of the previous century, Allah decided to send us a wakeup call through the traumatic events of September Eleven and thereafter.
Allah’s Way:
For, that is Allah’s way with people!
When people continue to turn their back on the message of the prophets, when they continually neglect their duty, and when they persistently ignore all warning signs that come to them over a period of time, Allah decides to send them a wakeup call if he wants to give them a chance.
If he does not care to give them a second chance, he simply destroys them with whatever means he sees fit.
Divine Punishment:
A review of the Qur’an reveals that some of the means chosen by Allah to punish errant peoples, nations and societies in the past include floods, earthquakes, storms or simply powerful human aggressors who overpowered and destroyed them with their marauding and murderous hordes.
It is also Allah’s law that when people get in the habit of breaking their covenant with God, a general condition of humiliation and helplessness is imposed upon them as a punishment from God.
Wa Duribat ‘Alaihimudhdhillatu Wal-Maskanah!
An Unmitigated Disaster:
What happened to America and to Muslims and to the rest of the world on and in the wake of 9-11 is an unmitigated disaster of the kind that historians will talk and write about for a long time to come.
They will write about what exactly happened, and how and why it happened. And of course they will also write all kinds of details, Agatha Christie-style, about whodunit.
There will be additional data and facts forthcoming. And there will be new theories, models and explanations put forward.
All sorts of relevant and useful information that simply did not exist at the time or that had been labeled classified and removed from public access will be declassified and will become available to public scrutiny.
Rewards of Research:
And all that research will have its rewards.
Professors will get tenure and promotion writing it. Journalists will get Pulitzer prizes producing their investigative and analytical pieces.
Others will get other awards and recognition. And money will flow, even more, into the pockets of the politically deserving.
All of this the future will produce. But what the future will not be able to accomplish is to bring a single dead back to life – whether out of the incineration that overtook the Twin Towers or out of all those other places elsewhere that were incinerated in their name and memory later.
Building a New Future Together:
However, what all of us – Muslims as well as non-Muslims, in the West as well as everywhere else – need to get out of this tragedy is that it is a loud and clear wakeup call for everyone of us from God Almighty.
And yet, in spite of the enormity of all that has happened to us, maybe all of us, Muslims as well as non-Muslims, somehow dodged the real bullet of divine retribution and punishment this time around.
More than anything else, what we need to understand is that neither Islam and Muslims, nor America and the West, are going away anywhere in a hurry. They are both here to stay on this planet for a very long time to come.
So, the real question before both of them now is how they can work out a method of coexistence and cooperation with one another – a modus vivendi – that will ensure the maximum wellbeing of both sides in the decades to come.
And beyond that, how they can innovatively and imaginatively link their lives, fortunes, interests and destinies together to build a new future of peace, security, justice, compassion, felicity, prosperity and blessings for all of planet earth and its many occupants, for at least the remainder of this century.
Wallahu A’alam!
Allah knows best.
Allahummarham Ummata Muhammadin, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam!
Ya, Allah! Have mercy on the Ummat of Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam!
This brings us to the end of Part V of Are Elections Haram? Says Who? And Based on What?
Inshallah, we will bring you Part VI as soon as Allah enables us to finish working on it.
But do bear in mind, however, that our manuscripts are mostly drafts in need of further research and revision, which we are often unable to undertake or complete due to time and resource constraints.
End of Part 5 of 8
Written, January 2001
Modified, 2004, 2005
(To be Revised)
© 2005 Syed Husain Pasha
Dr. Pasha is an educator and scholar of exceptional
talent, training and experience. He can be reached at DrSyedPasha [at]
AOL [dot] com or www.IslamicSolutions.com.