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Allah (swt) created the human being with a
tendency towards certain values and morals, such as honesty,
generosity, and kindness and respect to others. Many of these values
and morals are but a manifestation of the human nature that Allah (swt)
endowed the human being with. For example, the quality of human
beings to show concern and compassion for others is inherent in
every human being and stems from the basic instincts that the human
being possesses. Values such as generosity, kindness, respect for
others, willingness to help and assist others, and caring for other
human beings emanate from these instincts.
Because these morals and values are intrinsic to the human being,
then it follows naturally that such values and morals will be
encouraged by the bulk of humanity. However, many societies are
established upon man-made thoughts and ideas that fail to correctly
define the human being and contradict the human nature. For this
reason, in much of the world at large, there seems to be a clash
between what human beings will naturally incline towards and between
the values and norms that societies around the world promote. Values
and morals such as decency, respect, kindness, and honesty - which
are manifestations of the innate human nature that Allah (swt)
created - are continuously in clash with the indecency, lack of
respect, ruthlessness, dishonesty, cheating, and deception that is
produced by contemporary societies. The societies nowadays are
established upon such ideals as materialism, ruthless competition,
and gratification of desires, which in turn gives rise to the
''might is right - me, myself, and I - getting ahead no matter what
it takes - ends justify means'' outlook. As a result, it is only
natural for such an outlook to produce a personality that will
cherish values such as dishonesty, ruthlessness, double standard,
cheating others, and lack of concern for anybody but oneself.
Furthermore, the systems that are applied tend to favor those with
such qualities and suppress those with the qualities of high moral
excellence. As a result, such values become institutionalized norms
that are promoted by the society, and most of the people absorb such
qualities to varying degrees, willingly or unwillingly.
Islam solves the issue of morals in a manner that is both
unparalleled and decisive. Because Allah (swt) created the human
being with the innate capacity to manifest such qualities, then the
Islamic system revealed by the same Creator codified such morals and
values as legislation. In Islam, morals and values such as honesty,
respect and concern for others, generosity, fairness, and kindness,
are linked to obedience to Allah (swt), and hence, the Islamic
system links the expression of such morals and values with the
reward and punishment in the Hereafter. As a result, Islam
institutionalizes such morals and values to where they manifest in
all layers of society and become established norms, thereby raising
the society to the highest degree of moral excellence. And the
system will work to enhance the correct morals and values while
eliminating the incorrect values in the society. In such an
atmosphere, the human being will be able to express such morals and
values to the utmost, while qualities such as dishonesty, lack of
respect, indecency, and others will be suppressed. In addition,
Islam places very high regard for those who express such morals and
values, which will motivate the Muslims to express such morals and
values to the extreme.
Nowadays, the societies around the world are suffering from a crisis
in morality. However, the root of this crisis is not the human being
per se, but rather the incorrect systems that promote and encourage
the incorrect morals and values. Therefore, the solution to this
crisis is to establish the Islamic system. Because Islam is the
system and way of life from Allah (swt) the Creator, then the
Islamic system will correctly define the human being and will
promote the correct thoughts in the society, which will give rise to
the correct morals and values. In addition, the Islamic system will
implement legislation that will safeguard and promote the correct
morals in the society while eliminating the incorrect values, as
well as to establish these morals as norms in the society that will
shape the individuals in a positive manner.
Unfortunately, many people incorrectly look to the moral problem in
society as a product of the individual and not of the system.
Muslims have succumbed to this view, and as a result, many Muslims
and Muslim organizations have called for reviving the Muslim Ummah
and changing the status quo by calling for morals on an
individualistic level, isolated from the context of the entire
Islamic system (from which the morals emanate). Such an effort,
while sincere in its intentions, is disastrous in its outcome
because, at best, it will produce individuals with the correct
morals but do nothing to address the cause of immorality in the
society, which is the incorrect systems that are applied and the
incorrect thoughts and ideas they are established upon. Therefore,
the Muslims should avoid such a call to morality in isolation of its
context. Rather, the call to revive the morals in the society should
include a call to establish the source of the correct morals in the
society - the correct Islamic thoughts, from which will emanate the
correct Islamic system and legislation, which will in turn produce
the correct morals and uplift humanity from the degraded state that
it exists today.
The way we can defeat this individualistic mentality is when we
realize that our loyalty is to Islam alone, and this idea become
accepted among the masses of the Muslim Ummah. What this means is
that we refer to Islam alone as our sole source of concepts, values,
laws, and legislation, that we measure things based on the halal and
haram, and we refer solely to Islam for answers to our problems in
life.
Secondly, we must restore within us the confidence that Islam is the
correct system of life that is capable of resolving our problems, as
well as the notion that applying Islam comprehensively is not an
idealistic, fanciful dream but a very realistic and practical
objective. Just by virtue of being Muslims, we should believe that
Islam is the only correct system of life and that Islam can and must
be applied in its totality, and hence, our confidence in Islam
should come as a natural byproduct of our belief that Islam is from
Allah (swt), Who is the One who created us and therefore knows how
to design a system to correctly address the human being.
Unfortunately, there have been many attempts to undermine this
confidence, and as a result, the Muslims, for the most part, have
lost that confidence and trust in Islam's ability to address the
problems and issues in the life affairs, even though they refer to
Islam in some aspects such as individual worships and morals. Thus,
you will find Muslims who will pray with full sincerity and obey all
the rules related to the prayer, yet they will refer to the
Capitalist economic system as a reference for economic issues or to
the UN and the current system of international law as a reference
for resolving political issues.
The reason for such a lack of confidence and trust are many, but a
few that come to mind are the way in which we view politics and how
we are taught history. It is the belief among Muslims that politics
is an institution characterized by corruption, treachery, deceit,
and double-standards, and because we love Islam so much, many
Muslims do not want to taint something as dear to us as Islam with
something as filthy as politics. As a result, many Muslims separate
politics from Islam, and by doing so, we inadvertently kill Islam as
a practical way of life because politics is the very mechanism by
which any system of life is transferred from ideas to reality and
practical solutions. Politics is a process, and no process can be
labeled as ''good'' or ''evil.'' It depends upon which context the
process is used. In the context of Western culture and civilization,
politics is the dirty, Machiavellian institution characterized by
the axiom ''ends justify means,'' and the ideal politician is the
one who is able to achieve his ends by whatever means necessary and
at any cost. However, within the context of Islamic culture,
politics assumes an entirely different meaning, which is to take
care of the affairs of the people. In this context, the best
politicians were the prophets and messengers. Unfortunately, the
model of politics that exists today and for most of recent history
has been dirty Western politics, and this has caused most of the
people of the world, Muslims and non-Muslims, to have a disdain
towards politics. For Muslims, this bleak image is further
exasperated because many Muslim politicians themselves, including
those who claim to be working for Islam, practice the Western-style
politics and engage in the same tactics of corruption, deceit, and
back-stabbing that is characteristic of Western Machiavellian
politics. Thus, many Muslims quickly rush to conclude that something
as clean as Islam should not mingle with something as dirty as
politics. What Muslims mean is the Western style politics, but
unfortunately, this is generalized in the minds of many to include
any attempt to bring Islam in the sphere of application. However,
without politics, how can we hope to take any practical steps
towards applying Islam, unifying the Muslims and eradicating the
defeatist mentality that is poisoning our Ummah?
This bleak picture of Islam in application is further darkened by
the way we are taught our history. Most of the history that Muslims
are subjected to, either in academia or elsewhere, portrays the
application of Islam as a bloody, tumultuous period characterized by
womanizing, tyrannical rulers who committed every atrocity from A to
Z. It should be realized that most, if not all, of these accounts,
are stories that were either fabricated or have no credible source,
and unfortunately, these stories were magnified by the Orientalists
and engraved into our minds through the educational systems.
Furthermore, many of these stories defy common sense. For instance,
it is commonly taught that the Ummayyad rulers were a bunch of
bloodthirsty gangsters who indulged in all sorts of vices, yet the
Ummayyad Era was considered the Golden Age of Islam, and most of the
nations who embraced Islam did so during this period. I do not think
that tyranny, bloodshed, and iron-fisted despotic rule are
characteristics of a civilization that is progressing in all aspects
of life, propelling humanity to unparalleled heights in scientific
and technological advancement, and would be so attractive that
entire nations embraced its way of life and culture in a remarkably
short time span.
Aside from the outright lies and twisted facts that we are
presented, even the way we look at history itself has been
distorted. We are taught that the Islamic history is a measure of
the validity of Islam itself, which is wrong. Islam's correctness is
because it is the system and way of life from Allah (swt). History
is merely an account of what people did, the issues they faced, and
how they resolved them according to the system that they applied.
Thus, while Islam is the correct system, its application may not
have been perfect, and it will never be perfect because Islam was
revealed by Allah but it was designed to be applied by human beings,
who are not angels. Human beings will make mistakes, and the fact
that Islam was applied for so many centuries and achieved so much
success in spite of the occasional pitfalls shows that Islam is not
a utopian system but a practical system that can be applied by
imperfect human beings and still achieve dramatic results.
The end result of all of this collective culturing is a specific
mindset that will look to Islam as a ''beautiful religion'', but is
a dismal failure when it comes to application in the life affairs.
Whenever the thought of bringing back Islam into the sphere of
application is mentioned, images of despotic rule, bloodthirsty
tyrants, and constant fighting will begin to flare up. This bleak
picture is given further ammunition by so-called Islamic regimes
today that claim they are implementing Islam. All of this serves one
purpose -- to shatter any confidence in us that Islam can be
applied. And if we do not have the confidence to apply Islam, no one
else will, and the status quo will remain unchanged. Thus, any
serious attempt to change the status quo must begin with a massive
overhaul of our attitude towards Islam. Comments
The purpose of this article is not encourage Muslims to join the
dirty democratic political games. In the absence of the Islamic
system, the Muslims have no choice, but to work ''outside'' the
current status quo to build the correct thinking among the masses
and expose the invalidity of the status quo (democracy). Also, there
is no valid Islamic rule which permits participating in kufr politics
or calling for ''reforms''.
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