Mixing Politics with Theology

Theology should shape politics and not vice versa

The tragedy that is happening in Southern Lebanon is of a magnitude that for a moment, it will draw some attention away from the other tragedies affecting the Muslims peoples where innocent lives are haplessly swept away and where despite protest, posturing, begging and kicking, shows no sign of abating. I wonder how many of the National Muslim organizations will use this issue to perpetuate its own agenda. I read a very well written article yesterday in which the author lamented the helplessness of the American Muslim organizations to effect any significant policy change in American foreign policy. 

What I can't fathom is that we haven't realized the futility in applying a political solution to what may indeed be a spiritual problem. The one billion Muslims in the world appear seemingly helpless in preventing or addressing the incessant loss of Muslim life, the decimation of Muslim countries, and the ongoing political turmoil in many Muslim societies. Muslims living in the United states who have seized countless photo opportunities over the years to lull us into a false sense of political influence. Either we haven't extended ourselves far enough in the effort to reverse Muslim suffering, or we have simply looked too far, when the answers are right under our noses.

In the Farwell sermon of the prophet , he stated: "Surely your wealth and your blood is sacred, like the sacredness of this day, and the sacredness of this place, and the sacredness of this month" ¹ . Does it occur to anyone that the paltry value which we attach to Muslim life and honor, has anything to do with why the world is not incensed over the loss of innocent Muslim life? If inter-religious sectarianism, masjid bombings, Muslim on Muslim killings, internet fiqh fights, blatant disregard for darker skinned Muslims, barefaced nepotism and widespread corruption of Muslim leaders abroad, and suicidal maniacs who blow up crowded market places, is not enough to incite us to sustained moral outrage, what makes us think that the world would care that much about the bombing of innocent Muslim children in Lebanon? Lord Knows, we all should care about the innocent lives of Muslims and non-Muslims; perhaps now is the time when we should start looking for spiritual solutions instead of political or military ones. After all, did not our Lord be He Exalted and Glorified; say: "Surely Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change their own inner condition", (Quran 13:11)

The task before the Muslim is how to separate politics from theology. Theology should shape politics and not vice versa. While outrage against Israel is warranted for her shameless bombing of innocents, and her decimation of a countries infrastructure, equal outrage should be directed at the insanity of inter-religious sectarianism in the name of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Otherwise we join the ranks of those who have double standards. It is unlikely that the current consignment of national Muslim organizations of prominence will have too much of an effect on American foreign policy making unless they undergo some fundamental changes. Conspicuously absent amongst the leadership and policy makers of the national Islamic organizations are the faces of indigenous American Muslims; especially African American Muslims. This is a detail that does not go unnoticed amongst policy makers in America. Therefore the national Muslims organizational presence appears more like a foreign lobby than a genuine American Muslim representative. 

A man came to the Prophet and asked him: Oh Messenger of Allah, tell me about an action that if I do it, Allah will love me and people will love me? The Prophet replied: "Show detachment to the world and Allah will love you. And show detachment to what people have in their hands and they will love you" ². You can't campaign Americans into liking Muslims or Islam; the more we attempt to ingratiate ourselves to the American people, the more it makes Muslims appear as if we are desperate, not really of this society, and that we employ the "Keystone Cops" public relations firm. 

American Muslims don't need to be taught how to be American; they are American. What we need to learn is how to be Muslim (without the baggage). We would do well to learn how to care without the politics. How to co-exist with other Muslims regardless of race and ethnicity, how to accept multi cultural Muslim leadership. And how to challenge doctrine from our scholars which contradict the teachings of our Beloved Messenger . I don't need to learn how to deal with western society; I am western! What idiot (pardon me), what well intending scholar came up with the idea that Islam is anti western? Who suggested that we include it in our theology. "To Allah belongs the East and the west and wherever you turn, you will find the Face of Allah". Is Islam anti kufr? Yes. Is Islam anti jaahiliyyah? Yes. And there's plenty of it to go around in the East, West, North and South. Islam by its nature, anti west? Apparently not. 

Unfortunately some people from abroad have convinced many American Muslims that to be a good Muslim, you must hate the West. That's like the Prophet saying that in order to be a good Muslim, you must hate Arabia. Of course, our Beloved Prophet never spoke such idiocy. Al-humdu lillah. However, because of this mixing politics with theology, many Muslims only show goodwill to American society as a pretentious public relations effort since theologically they are convinced that, they must hate America, and hate the infidel Americans. Here is where we need to apply a spiritual solution; When doing good to others, you either do so because you love them, or because you love Allah. In either case your charity, your neighborliness, your feeding the homeless, your kind words, are and appear genuine. When Muslims start charity drives, volunteer drives, and seek civic inclusion as a part of a national campaign to get Americans to like Muslims, we appear self serving, foolish and quite frankly, un-American. Who is coming up with this stuff anyway? When we do it by faith, from the heart, because it is a part of who we are, or who we've become as Muslims, or efforts not only appear genuine, they are genuine!

Excluding indigenous American Muslims from the leadership and policy making levels of the major national Muslims organizations that purport to represent American Muslims is more than a procedural and political faux pas, it is a slap in the face, which denies us the value experiences of indigenous American Muslims, which would help others understand this country and perhaps even Islam. Condoleezza Rice would probably dialogue more effectively with an African American Muslim woman more than with an immigrant from the Middle East who only recently gotten his American citizenship and who spends half of his time in the Middle East. 

Indigenous American Muslims have traditionally taken their theology directly from the immigrant led, and immigrant dominated religious authorities and Fatwa boards. African American imams are conspicuously excluded from the policy level of every major Fiqh Council, national board of scholars, national human rights group, and virtually every national political or civic organization. Perhaps this is ostensibly because the Muslims from the Islamic world have a history of Islamic scholarship that qualifies them in interpreting the Islamic texts to address American life issues. This has been an accepted fact which might have been true thirty years ago, certainly is not true today. Many of our immigrant scholars (may Allah preserve them) and political leaders have at best have a tenuous grasp on American political and social reality and many more do not have a clue. There have been a sprinkling of color here and there for decoration and as a subordinate adjunct.

This has resulted in faulty rulings in the guise of theology, backward Muslim policy coming from these well financed national Muslim organizations, and a series of critical misreadings that has hampered efforts at bringing true Islam to the American people, and has hurt our ability to sway our political leaders. . One cannot help to wonder, why are indigenous American Muslims, who in general, are more familiar with our country, our people and how to effectuate policy than immigrants, are unceremoniously excluded from participating let alone leadership roles in the national American Muslim organizations. Does this affect our influence on foreign policy? Do birds have wings?

Many of the political and social gains of Muslims in America have been chartered by the indigenous American Muslims; the armed forces, law enforcement, Fridays off for prayer, prayer in the workplace, the acceptance of hijaab, Muslim women bus drivers, the first Muslims in the federal judiciary, first Muslim mayors, first Muslim police chiefs, halal food in the prisons, in the schools, and the list goes on and on.. Thus, the attempt to control both the theology and the politics of American Muslims by Muslims who have limited experience in American plurality is a debacle in progress. There are still Muslims who believe that all Americans are ungodly and that every last one of them is an infidel. Any American Muslim who understands our people can tell you that there are plenty of Americans who believe in one God and who are committed to righteousness, and who are allies to practicing Muslims. why do you think that so many Americans concert to Islam? Some people come into Islam because of a basic goodness which is already in them; the Prophet once remarked to a companion who converted to Islam; "You have accepted Islam based upon the good which have already been doing".

You can't hypnotize Americans to make them think we care about them, or care about other human beings; you have to actually care. This is why this is a spiritual matter and not a public relations one, or political one. When more of us address our own selfishness and realize that just as there are hungry people in Palestine, India, and Lebanon; there are hungry and disadvantaged people here as well, and that Muslims everywhere have the same blood, and that innocent suffering is innocent suffering, we will change. When we change , our condition will change. It is heartbreaking that some of the Muslim charities in the United States were closed by the federal government; however and only Allah knows, if there were a sizeable amount of American children, elderly, homeless, handicapped and disadvantaged people who were benefiting from the "Muslim" charity of these organizations, the federal government would not have risked the political outrage and fallout from seizing the funds of an organization that provides housing for the homeless in New York city or food for the elderly in Los Angeles. We have to stop saying we care; and learn how to care. 

Charity is not a public relations tool ³; it's a tenant of Islam, a means towards salvation and a religious obligation. Neighborliness doesn't require choreography; it is a way of thinking, part of the Islamic way of life. Feeding the homeless needn't be a public relations activity with the requisite press releases and mega email notices, it is the Sunna of the Prophet, an Islamic spiritual mandate, and a means for salvation in the hereafter. We need to get politics out of our religion, or at least, remove politics from the helm. The answers for the problems affecting the Muslims, has to start within. It is a spiritual solution needed, not just a political one. 

I'll leave you with the words of a great American and Founding Father: Benjamin Franklin: "For my own part, when I am employed in serving others, I do not look upon myself as conferring favors, but as paying debts. In my travels and since my settlement I have received much kindness from men, to whom I shall never have any opportunity of making the least direct return. And numberless mercies from God, who is infinitely above being benefited by our services. These kindnesses from men I can therefore only return on their fellow-men; and I can only show my gratitude for those mercies from God, by a readiness to help his other children and my brethren. For I do not think that thanks, and compliments, though repeated weekly, can discharge our real obligations to each other, and much less those to our Creator ... "⁴

Imam Abu Laith Luqman is an Imam and freelance writer on the East Coast USA, He teaches a class on Spiritual Etiquette at Masjidullah in Philadelphia Pa. He can be reached at [email protected] or nthrough his web site at: www.lotustreepublications.com

Notes:

1. Related by Bukhaari
2. Related by Muslim
3. The mu'allafatu qulubi'him of zakat, arguable can be viewed as a public relations tool, however that's another story.
4. Written to Joseph Huey, June 6th 1753