Just Enough Religion to Hate

After the London bombings, Muslim communities have been told that they need to challenge extremism and zealotry in their midst. Well, argues Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, it is not too much Islam that is the problem, but too little. In this exclusive excerpt from an address at London�s Friends House, he calls on British Muslims to reject calls for a reformation, come to terms with the true meaning of jihad and struggle for a truly just society.

There are increasingly more Muslims living outside the traditional lands of Islam and yet many Muslim still operate under the false assumption that the world is divided into dar-al-Islam (the abode of Islam) and dar-al-harb (the abode of war). They think that dar-al-Islam is ruled by a Caliph and that it is in a perpetual state of war with dar-al-harb. That has not been the case for centuries. During the time of the Abbasids the ulama developed a category referred to as dar-al-sulh (abode of peace) to designate countries with whom Muslims had treaties and whose people were not aggressing against them. Among the Shafi�i jurists for example, dar-al-Islam is interpreted to be anywhere you can practice Islam safely even if the leader is a non-Muslim. Some of our early scholars do say that living in lands other than Islam was disliked and even forbidden. Others however, argued that if you were allowed to practice your faith (free from religious persecution) it was an obligation to be in these countries otherwise no one would be a witness to Islam. This is our classical jurisprudence and we can take from it what is closest to our reality.

Instead, there is a cry now for a reformation of Islam and yet, the deviations we witness today are manifestations of reformation. I say, we don�t need a reformation. What we need instead is a Council of Trent. The Council of Trent was an attempt at counter-reformation. The Catholics were determined to affirm their tradition because they were afraid that revelation would be interpreted by common people and this in fact led to some of the bloodiest conflicts in their history. We are seeing the same pattern repeat itself in the Islamic tradition. I have a problem with people who try to interpret the verses of the Quran when they don�t even know Arabic grammar. In an alarming number of cases this has led to the shedding of innocent blood. Muslims must stop the shedding of innocent blood. It is an obligation by shariah. If your brother is strapping on a bomb, you better inform somebody and if he is talking about it, then it�s a serious problem and we have an obligation to address the problem. I do not believe terrorism will disappear any time soon, but Islamic terrorism will wane like all falsehood. It will come to an end. We must prevent our youth from being attracted to the very seductive element inherent in all this. We have to help them understand that when anger comes into their heart, revelation separates itself. Anger is not a rung on the spiritual ladder. The Prophet did not get angry. The scholars say it is human to get angry but they also warn that it can possess us. The Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings, told us that Shaytan flows in the blood of the children of Adam and interestingly, Dostoevsky wrote a book called The Possessed which is a book about terrorism. Violence is indeed a human problem. George Bush says his favorite philosopher is Jesus and if Jesus couldn�t get rid of evil then I doubt George Bush will be able to do it. I have a problem with people who say their objective is �getting rid of the evildoers.� First, nobody has done it in the past and second, those ridding the world of evildoers also do evil. The violence of the 20th century is a testimony to the fact that the absence of religion is as much a problem as the presence of religion. I would argue it is worse today because of the demise of religious values in public life. There are some who say that if the people of religion had the kind of military technology we have today, they would use it. I don�t believe that is true. Islam prevented Muslims from poisoning wells and by analogy I hold that chemical warfare is prohibited. I believe nuclear weapons are a complete anathema in traditional Islamic thought.

Some Muslims believe that war is a good thing, that wonderful virtues are associated with war. That is not the philosophy of Islam. Allah says �He prevented you from harming them and them from harming you.� This verse pertains to the treaty of Hudaybiyyah where the Muslims and their enemies were on the brink of war. In this treaty, the Prophet compromised on everything that the disbelievers objected to including removing the words �Muhammad is the Messenger of God.� The Prophet used to supplicate after every prayer, �O Allah you are peace, and from you comes peace, and to you goes back peace. Cause me to live in peace.� The Prophet came to end cycles of violence. You too can break that cycle by working for peace with immense effort. The Prophet said �The one who sells arms during civil strife is damned to hell.� The Gospel says, �Blessed are the peacemakers.� The Quran says let the people of the Gospel apply the Gospel. That is similarly true for the Muslims - you have nothing until you apply the Quran. How can Muslims say to the People of the Book, �Don�t go to extremes in your religion� when we are suffering from extremism in our deen? Some people argue that humiliation breeds extremism. Bin Laden said, �We have been living in humiliation for 80 years.� My response to Bin Laden is that the Quran says, �When calamities came to you and you were afflicted the likes of twice of what you inflicted on the Quraysh, you said how did this happen. Say it is from your own selves. Whoever finds good, let him praise Allah. But whoever finds other than good, let him blame none other but himself.� If Muslims want to know why they are humiliated let them look at what we have done to reach this level. Ask yourselves tough questions about our community and stop pointing fingers at other people. Where are the terrorists coming from? Well I can identify three problems that are providing fertile ground for the terrorists.

The first is earth, the second is the seed and the third is water. By earth, I mean the social conditions we find ourselves in: poverty, disease, oppression. The seed is the human heart. We were created with a potential to be cruel and to cause harm to others but the Quran says, �On that Day (of Reckoning), nothing will benefit a human being but a pure heart.� A pure heart is not agitated and troubled. And finally, water is akin to ideology. Each one is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to explain the cause of terrorism. However, the three together make a deadly combination and we therefore, have to address all three. The most important issue we need to address in regards to ideology is jihad. Jihad is a part of Islam and cannot be denied, but we must condemn false interpretations of jihad. The Prophet said, �This religion will be carried in every generation by the most balanced people. They will refute the misquotations of the extremists and the plagiarisms of the nullifiers and the interpretations of the zealots.� The �nullifiers� are those who lie against the Prophet. The �zealots� and the ignorant ones go together in meaning in the Arabic language. In other words, Jahiliyya was the age of zealotry. Before receiving Allah�s revelation, the Prophet hated zealotry and after revelation, he destroyed all the rules associated with it. We have to fight the false interpretations of jihad with everything we have. The onus is on our community and not the British Government. In fact, if we left it up to the government they would probably make it worse. Islam believes that the greatest blessing after faith is security. The government and Scotland Yard are doing the work of angels as long as they are protecting our security within this country. But, like every institution, there is corruption. We oppose corruption but not when they protect, serve and defend the public will. When Muslims and non-Muslims get in trouble they still call 999. The second thing we have to change is our understanding of Al-wala wal-bara. In some places, people are taught that alwala (allegiance to any thing other than Islam) nullifies faith, making a person a kafir or a disbeliever. This is true in terms of creed but it is not true in politics and social issues. Hatib bin Amr, one of the companions who fought at Badr, betrayed the Prophet to the Quraysh on the eve of the conquest of Makkah. When the other companions heard of it they wanted to chop his head off. Umar declared to the Prophet that Hatib was a hypocrite. Note, he did not say he was a disbeliever. When the Prophet asked Hatib to explain his action he said, �I�m a weak man and my son is in Makkah and I was scared that they would harm my son so I did it to protect him.� The Prophet said �I accept that from you.� That�s the mercy of the Messenger. Hatib associated himself (wala) with Quraysh but his heart was in Islam. The Quran says �Don�t take the kafir as protectors.� There are many verses that say that but there is one verse that says, �unless you have a reason to do so.� For instance, in non-Muslim lands, you are obliged to follow the law. If you don�t like the law then you need to move. The most common response is to say there is no place to make hijrah. Allah says the world is vast. If people don�t want to live here they should go and live in certain Muslim lands and see how long they last before this country starts looking more like �dar al-Islam.�

Islam says that the truth of this religion will manifest and one of the greatest truths of this religion is the equality of the people of Adam. This is something that people have died for. We have to honour the social martyrs of this civilization because we are enjoying the fruits of their labour and if we don�t work to complete the task that was started by so many of these great souls, we do them a great disservice. Take for example, freedom of speech which includes the freedom to criticise the government. Benjamin Franklin said, �People that are willing to give up their liberty for their security deserve neither liberty nor security.� I would rather live with the possibility of dying from the stupid act of a crazed lunatic than to lose what makes it worthwhile to be alive. I was taught �give me liberty or give me death.� All men and women desire to be free. It is from God. We want to be free to be slaves of God and the only way you can be slaves of God is to enter into that contract with absolute and utter freedom.

Therefore, we must support the people who are trying to change society for the better. In the West we say, �That warms my heart.� We need to warm the Western hearts up to Islam. I don�t like the term Islamophobia because a phobia is an irrational fear. I think many people have instead a rational fear of Islam and Muslims in that they have valid reasons to be worried. But I believe the Muslim communities in the West are in the labour pains of something that is going to be very immense. It is the birth of the new world. The ideas that prevail today were the dreams of the philosophers in the ancient world. This is Allah�s earth and we are guests. He invited us all here. We cannot say who should be here and who shouldn�t. We have to tolerate each other. And like Jonathan Swift said, �We have just enough religion to hate one another but not enough religion to love one another.� And I say to the British government that it is not too much Islam that is the problem, it is too little.

The above is excerpted from a speech delivered by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf at Friends House, London at an event organised by Q-News on 15 September 2005, and attended by 1300 people.

Source: http://www.q-news.com/ -