“Political” Islam?

Muslims have faith in God the Almighty and accept His supreme sovereignty over their private and public affairs. This faith is the source of a comprehensive vision of the world and life, and will provide the mold that shapes and regulates human relations.

The major social objectives of Muslims should be identified by a system of normative values spread out in the Qur’an as a criterion, and explained by the Messenger of God (God’s blessings upon him). So, this Islamic system of life – individual and social, economical and political –is all part of the Islamic-way-of-life. There is no “political” Islam and “non-political” Islam as such.

Rule and sovereignty in Islam are in the hands of God alone. God says in the Qur’an: “God is the Creator of all things, and He is the Guardian over all things. To Him belong the keys of the heavens and the earth..” (39:62-63).  “... Sovereignty belongs only to God. He has commanded that you worship (= follow the guidance) none but Him. That is the upright way-of-life, but most people do not know” (12:40).

The entire community is responsible to live according to the guidance of this system, the best way possible. God says: “And the faithful believers, both men and women, are allies of one another; they enjoin decency and forbid indecency; they observe prayer and pay zakat (= alms as purifier), and they obey God and His Messenger. Those God will have mercy on them. Truly God is Almighty, Wise” (9:71).

Consultation System

Administrating public affairs in the real Muslim Ummah is by a consultation system, the same as in a family affairs, or in business and also in State affairs, because God describes this in the Qur’an: “And they who respond to (the call of) their Lord and are constant in prayer; and whose rule (in all matters of common concern) is consultation among themselves; and who spend on others out of what We provide for them as sustenance” (42:38).

So if the majority of people in a country are faithful believers, they are all responsible to exercise consultation in their affairs. The responsibility of exercising God’s ordinances in the country, in all domains of life, is not only on those who rule the government, but the whole population is responsible. This is the wise democracy.

Earlier generations, after the Prophet’s, lived their life accordingly, between perfect and less perfect, but little by little, the “political” side of the system became less realized.

Instead of a “Consultation System State”, Muslim countries were ruled by dynasties: the Umayad, then the Abbasyd, and then the Ottoman Empire. And in-between, some Sultanates separated. Whatever the name of the system, it was in fact no more Islamic, even though most parts of the Shari’ah were more or less established. As time passed, Muslims became very weak and it became possible for European rulers to topple the Ottoman Empire with the help of their Arab and Turkish agents.

Later in 1923 Mustafa Kemal declared the demolishment of that “empire” and established the Turkish Republic. The Arab world divided into many states, which were ruled by Britain (i.e. Iraq, Palestine, Jordan, Kuwait, Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and South Yemen), by France (i.e. Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria, Tunisia and Djibouti) and by Italy (i.e. Libya and Somalia) until after the Second World War, when officially these divided Arab countries got what they called their “freedom”, but in reality they were all under the sovereignty of those western colonialists. And Palestine was given to the International Zionist Organization (by the British) to establish a state in 1948, which they called “Israel”, and more than half of the Palestinians were kicked out of their homes in diaspora. This is the result of the secular “western moral, civilization and wisdom” when the Muslims themselves were weak in their faith in God’s ordinances!!!

The dilemma

Only a deep understanding and a strong faith in the majority of the population of a country can exercise the Islamic system of life, in all domains, including the political and administrative fields. There are, however, people who exercise terrorism in the name of jihad, whether by ignorance or by blind radicalism. Such acts spread a wrong understanding and a bad image of Islam. Among others, there are those crooks that claim having established a “caliphate” (“ISIS” in Iraq and Syria). Shamelessly, the first thing they did was to expulse Christians and Yazidis from their homes in Iraq, when those people and their forefathers lived there for thousands of years. This act is illegal in Islamic Shari’ah and is considered a flagrant crime.

The only way to establish an Islamic state, nowadays, is by an election, a kind of democracy.

A democracy, which is not fit for Muslims is the one “where the supreme power is vested in the people”. In Islam, the majority of people elect their deputies, who are faithful Muslims, and the minority elects their deputies too. But the supreme power rests in God’s ordinances. People’s deputies will select the competent candidates to lead the governmental institutions.

It is a pity that in Egypt, after the revolution of the 25^th of January 2011, when the majority of people elected - in a democratic way - about 70% of deputies who believe in an Islamic system of government, and elected a president from an Islamic party, many of the secular “intellectuals” conspired with the military leaders and toppled the democratic authority after a very big media propaganda, to overthrow the elected democratic President. Naturally all this happened with the approval of the United States and the European Union countries, in one way or another. The Coup d’état caused an oppression against the biggest Islamic party, killed more than one thousand persons, thousands of people were thrown in jail with severe persecution, and thousands of politicians fled the country and cannot come back. The Egyptian Court condemned to death more than thousand people accused of terrorism, only during a two-hours of so-called arbitration. Some of the condemned to death however were already deceased more than a year before that. This reveals such a great chaos and a pitiful situation.

We have seen several “Israeli” aggressions against Gaza, the last one started on the 7^th of July 2014, killing thousands of civilians, 40% of them children, injuring thousands more, and devastating hundreds of thousands of houses, mosques, schools and some hospitals. Yet the military regime in Egypt still kept the Rafah Crossing closed. Egyptian rulers consider Hamas in Gaza as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and that they are terrorists, while in fact they constitute the resistance. Israeli authority now considers Egypt as the best ally for Israel. Thus, we can understand that, in fact, both the anti-revolutionary actions in Syria and in Egypt, and the war against the resistance in Gaza, is a conspiracy against Islam lead by the Zionists and their allies (USA, EU and some Arab countries).