We live in precarious times with environmental, economic, and military threats, compounded by sociocultural changes happening at a speed that would make the grieving mother laugh, the pregnant woman miscarry, and the bald man turn gray. All this stems from a loss of objective morality and a reorientation away from the Sacred. In his text Alerting the Referees to the Establishment of Reality-Based Jurisprudence (تنبيه المراجع على تأصيل فقه الواقع), Shaykh Abdullah Bin Bayyah poses a simple question: “What is the problem?” He offers, in his usual brilliant and insightful style, an analysis of what underpins our current condition:
“It is an intellectual position that dominates the souls of the Ummah and its intellects, shapes its behaviour, obstructs its progression, shackles its steps, and directs its energy towards nihilistic channels that produce nothing but nihilism.” [1]
According to Shaykh Bin Bayyah, the modern Muslim condition has two aspects that define it. First, is a postmodernist subjectivity that seeks homogeneity in its production and gelatinous justifications for courses of action where the ends justify the means as necessary premises for any renaissance project; without adopting these premises nothing can proceed. Second, a religious call that does not allow for current contextual realities to contribute to a progressive understanding and derivation of Islamic law to meet the challenges of the time. In doing so, some of those making this call “…adopted scholarly opinions while not being scholars, judged using the partial against the whole, interacted with texts without principles, and therefore commanded, prohibited, destroyed, and built.”[2] All this is exacerbated by centuries of Western colonization of Muslim lands that took over their history, territories, and inhabitants. As a consequence, the Sharia was excluded from its intended encompassing practice and became restricted to ritual actions, which prevented the Ummah from engaging in the internal efforts needed by traditionally directed scholarly minds to develop its intellectual inheritance and build it to face current challenges.
The practical implications of this for the everyday Muslim go far beyond abstract discussions in conference halls and seminar rooms. Having apparently lost its relevance, Islam has become more akin to a museum artifact. Frozen in time, those recognizing the inadequate and destructive nature of nihilistic thought dominating modern discourse and education, and yearning to connect with Islam are finding themselves forced to adhere to theological, philosophical, and jurisprudential positions presented to them as absolute and “traditional”, or “authentic” to put it in another way. This is part of the trauma Muslims experienced after having lost our ascendency and leadership position in the world, ending most remarkably with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 and the abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate in 1922, the long-term effects of which persist through to our generation.
As Shaykh Bin Bayyah alludes to in his text, this loss was not merely on the political front with the subsequent establishment of the nation-state. Its ripple effect reached all facets of Muslim life, including economic, educational, and even the family unit. In response, many, if not most, of those hoping to revive the Islamic tradition today mistakenly believe revival means recreation of a Muslim past. However, having little to no training in Islamic methodology and epistemology but instead extensive readings and study of Islamic texts as ossified entities, recreation efforts can be more accurately described as haphazard attempts at creating an imagined past. Western Muslims visit Muslim-majority lands and in an orientalist fashion exoticize their experiences today and engage in an unconscious act of projection to the past and attempt to bring that projection to life. The result is a lived experience of Islam that does not necessarily reflect the organic and adaptive nature of the religion, and on the whole is incongruent with contemporary times. Instead of an Islam that is “valid for every time and every place”, we have an Islam that is in constant tension with modernity all the time and in every place. Application of the Hadith “Wisdom is the lost property of the believer; wherever they find it they have more right to it” [3] engenders suspicion and accusations of perennialism or at the very least a watering down of Islam. Indeed, in keeping with the ideal of “you are either with us or against us,” this suspicion extends even to Muslims adhering to other political or religious movements within the Muslim community that one may differ with. It behooves a Muslim in these times to remember the Quranic command to observe justice in our assessments:
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا كُونُوا قَوَّامِينَ لِلَّهِ شُهَدَاءَ بِالْقِسْطِ ۖ وَلَا يَجْرِمَنَّكُمْ شَنَآنُ قَوْمٍ عَلَىٰ أَلَّا تَعْدِلُوا ۚ اعْدِلُوا هُوَ أَقْرَبُ لِلتَّقْوَىٰ ۖ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ خَبِيرٌ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ
You who believe, be steadfast in your devotion to God and bear witness impartially: do not let hatred of others lead you away from justice, but adhere to justice, for that is closer to awareness of God. Be mindful of God: God is well aware of all that you do. [4]
What made Muslim civilization the historical marvel that it was laid in the continual work and development of its intellectual and religious heritage. With a few isolated incidents of inquisition-style suppressions, Muslims were generally not shy to engage with other traditions and borrow ideas that served an Islamic cause. When those ideas were deemed oppositional to Islamic beliefs ink was spilled in refutations more often than sacred blood. However, being in an inferior position in terms of material power today, Muslims adopted a default position of skepticism towards anything coming from non-Muslim sources. Part of what drives this is a fear of bending Islam to fit the mould of modernity, a concept that is rarely defined by those who speak of it and therefore can be taken to mean anything we would characterize as “modern”. What constitutes modernity changes for every generation. It represents the dominant worldview of the time as it contrasts with the past. For us today, it can be defined as living in accordance with the worldview of the People of Shu’ayb peace be upon him who replied to their Prophet’s calls to them to worship God and stop cheating in the market by saying:
قَالُوا يَا شُعَيْبُ أَصَلَاتُكَ تَأْمُرُكَ أَن نَّتْرُكَ مَا يَعْبُدُ آبَاؤُنَا أَوْ أَن نَّفْعَلَ فِي أَمْوَالِنَا مَا نَشَاءُ ۖ إِنَّكَ لَأَنتَ الْحَلِيمُ الرَّشِيدُ
They said, ‘Shu’ayb, does your prayer tell you that we should abandon what our forefathers worshipped and refrain from doing whatever we please with our own property? Indeed, you are a tolerant and sensible man.’ [5]
Modernity is to speak of religion as a compartmentalized aspect of one’s life that can be brought out publicly or put in the closet at will based on when it is politically, economically, or socially expedient. It is to decide on a course of action then offer the necessary post hoc Islamic seasoning to make it palatable for Muslim taste buds. Modernity is when Islam is no longer a religion, but more of a cultural and racial identity. Modernity today is the intellectual bastard child of the Age of Enlightenment after the death of God. It is a time in which we became gods ourselves, deciding good and evil based on utilitarian calculations and in practical terms worshipping the nation-state, observing its commands and prohibitions, and when required, sacrificing our lives for it. Without God as the ultimate possessor of power and source of hierarchical structure in society where one’s behaviour plays a role in their position, modernity is to morally reason through the world based on power dynamics between groups while removing personal agency from the oppressed, however they may be defined, and therefore any responsibility for their contribution to their condition. After all, without God, there is no Free Will, and without Free Will how can there be agency in the first place, except, paradoxically of course, for the agency of those in power who by definition are deemed evil? It is important to note here that this is a metaphysical observation, not a call to “blaming the victim”. Shaykh Bin Bayyah’s student Shaykh Hamza Yusuf makes an interesting linguistic observation in the Quran on this point:
“The Qur’an directly addresses the issue of social inequities. When some of the Quraysh objected to the Qur’an being revealed to a relatively poor and orphaned man among them, a person with little material prestige despite his aristocratic lineage, the Qur’an refuted them:
And they said, “Why wasn’t this Qur’an revealed to a man of importance from one of the two cities?” Is it they who distribute the mercy of your Lord? It is We who distribute their livelihood among them in the life of this world, and have elevated some of them to ranks over others, that some may employ others as workers. But the mercy of your Lord is better than what they amass. And were it not that humankind would become a single community, We would have provided those who disbelieve in the Benevolent One with roofs of silver for their houses, and stairs for them to climb and doors for their houses, and couches for them to recline, and decoration. Yet all of that is but the stuff of the life of the world; while the hereafter, with your Lord, is for the conscientious. (43: 31-35)
According to the Qur’an, the purpose of social stratification is that it creates hierarchy, which then fosters mutuality and interdependence. However, the Arabic word used in the above verse to indicate “to employ” is sukhriyyā, which, with slight alteration of the vowel marking, becomes sikhriyyā, “to exploit.” This subtle change reflects a profound danger inherent in hierarchy: just as sukhriyyā can quickly and easily shift to sikhriyyā, so, too, can the social order rapidly shift from mutuality and interdependence to abuse and oppression.” [6]
If one adopts the dominant worldview of modernity, whether knowingly through deliberation or unknowingly through indoctrination by Western education systems, a communication gap will invariably be formed between them and Muslim scholars. Shaykh Bin Bayyah reasons through a traditional Islamic lens, which filters experience of the world through the Quran and Sunnah of the Beloved ﷺ then offers responses that take these sources as their foundation. That is not to ignore or dismiss the fact that his reading and understanding of these sources is coloured by his personal or political backgrounds and education, or that he may make an error in judgment. Indeed, the same can be said of anyone as infallibility according to Sunni doctrine ended with the return of the Beloved ﷺ to the Highest Companion. However, objectively speaking, Shaykh Bin Bayyah’s authority when he relates a judgement as a Muslim scholar sits far above most, as he has not only mastered the Islamic sciences to a greater degree than most prominent scholars, but he also combines that intellectual mastery with a piety attested for by those who have spent extended periods of time in his close company:
أَمَّنْ هُوَ قَانِتٌ آنَاءَ اللَّيْلِ سَاجِدًا وَقَائِمًا يَحْذَرُ الْآخِرَةَ وَيَرْجُو رَحْمَةَ رَبِّهِ ۗ قُلْ هَلْ يَسْتَوِي الَّذِينَ يَعْلَمُونَ وَالَّذِينَ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ ۗ إِنَّمَا يَتَذَكَّرُ أُولُو الْأَلْبَابِ
What about someone who worships devoutly during the night, bowing down, standing in prayer, ever mindful of the life to come, hoping for his Lord’s mercy? Say, ‘How can those who know be equal to those who do not know?’ Only those who have understanding will take heed. [7]
Modernity is to dismiss the piety a scholar has as “this is between him and his Lord”, assuming that it has no relation to his intellectual output. What lays within the hearts is indeed between an individual and their Lord. However, when political stakes are high, this claim veils an accusation of hypocrisy on the part of the scholar. “This is between him and his Lord” should entail an objective assessment of the rulings based on sound principles and impartial analysis of their coherence, which we should not shy away from doing given that piety does not preclude one from criticism or falling into an error of judgement. Unfortunately, what we find instead is that when a scholar’s rulings do not align with the political agenda of a particular movement, he is accused by them of singing to the tune of the opposition and of being a stooge or a “scholar for dollar”. This is even more so if the opposition happens to have the material upper hand and engaged in the oppression of said movement.
Though he acknowledges the impact of Western colonization on Muslims in his work, Shaykh Bin Bayyah nevertheless places the burden on the Ummah. He observes that Muslim political activists have a confusion resulting from similarities between some conclusions of values underpinning Western democracy and those of Islamic ideals. This has led to adopting what he calls a “Hegelian approach” to political change – destruction for reconstruction, regardless of the means and the harm that may ensue, which is contrary to Islamic values elevating reconciliation over fighting and the use of means based on accruing benefits and warding harms. Without a proper grasp on the foundations and sources of Western democratic values, Shaykh Bin Bayyah concludes that while revolutions in the Arab world were often clothed with an Islamic rhetorical garb, they were in reality driven by values that contradict with Islamic teachings.
Furthermore, Shaykh Bin Bayyah notes that some groups who became prominent in these revolutions sought to bring back the Sharia after centuries of its marginalization. Assuming they could make an overnight leap with Muslims towards their conception of what it means to have Sharia take on a prominent role in society outside of ritual acts, they took on the mantle of scholarship without having mastered the juristic principles, lacked in coherence of approach or understanding of current realities, were exoteric in their interpretations of the Quran and Sunnah, demonstrated ignorance of wisdom and reasoning, and were dismissive of the context in their final applications. As a result, they offered fatwas that contained rulings without sound foundations or objectives, which ultimately avoided benefits and brought harms. This has led to a state of intellectual anarchy among Muslims that progressed to verbal strife and eventually to actual wars with live ammunition, spilling of innocent blood and desecrating protected boundaries.
*****
Understanding the aforementioned context is crucial to comprehend Shaykh Bin Bayyah’s current initiatives and juristic positions in the realm of politics. One of the criticisms levelled against him and Shaykh Hamza for the work they are engaged in currently with the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies established in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) assert that they are rehabilitating the nation-state and legitimating tyranny if not outright endorsing it. It is well-established by prominent human rights organizations that the UAE engages in a number of abusive practices locally against political activists as well as migrant workers. The UAE has been successful in creating a pristine image of Abu Dhabi and Dubai to attract business and tourism. But these cities are built on the backs of what can only be described as modern-day slave labour and exploitation of poor immigrants from developing nations. Abroad, investigative work revealed the UAE’s provision of material and/or logistical support to factions in the Libyan civil war, the 2013 military coup in Egypt that overthrew its first democratically elected government, and the disastrous civil war in Yemen resulting in the death of at least 60,000 people and displacement and starvation of millions according to the lowest estimates, most of whom are women and children. These are just some of the most prominent examples but by no means the only ones.
The rise of extremist violence in the Middle East is billed as an ideologically driven phenomenon by governments like the UAE’s. However, numerous studies and profiles of captured militants reveal that such a narrative is closer to fiction than reality. Warped interpretations of religion moulded to serve as ideological vehicles to commit violence can only thrive if the context allows for it. Violent and suicidal ideologies gain currency with otherwise peaceful individuals when they have lost hope in non-violent means and life itself. When the protests broke out in Egypt at the beginning of the Arab Spring one of their prominent chanting slogans was “Bread, Liberty, and Social Justice” (عيش، حرية، عدالة اجتماعية). It was the UAE, along with Saudi Arabia, who financed and helped orchestrate the military coup that overthrew their first freely elected government only one year later. Of course, the story is more complicated, and the UAE’s involvement was a single factor, albeit an important and arguably a pivotal one, among others. Nevertheless, it is a strange irony for the UAE to create a Ministry of Tolerance and sponsor religious conferences calling for peace when the government is an intolerant one and happens to be the biggest purveyor of strife and suppression in their part of the world.
It is generally acknowledged in the Arab world that the Egyptian political scene sets the precedent for the rest. Although the protests began in late 2010 in Tunisia, it was the Egyptians who put the revolutionary spirit on steroids for the rest to follow suit. What appeared like a win for the people as tyrants appeared to fall one after another quickly transformed into a nightmare, most prominently in Syria, with rivers of blood that continue to flow, and millions of people displaced. The ripple effect of this has reached Europe where the massive influx of Syrian refugees is used to fuel the rise of nationalist parties and Islamophobia. What began with peaceful protests was met with heavy artillery that pushed some to pick up weapons in turn to defend themselves. Verses from the Quran and narrations from the Sunnah were employed to further the revolutionary cause and militant groups arose, culminating with ISIS and their sophisticated use of social media for the purposes of propaganda and recruitment. On face value, the revolutions not only failed at creating the change people protested for, but they also confirmed the anxieties of scholars who ruled against them. The famous statement attributed to Imam Malik and Imam ath-Thawri, despite questions of its authenticity, seems to ring true here: “A tyrannical ruler for seventy years is better than having an Ummah in a state of loss for an hour of the day.” [8]
From the vantage point of Shaykh Bin Bayyah, sources in the Islamic tradition were invoked by revolutionaries erroneously and with devastating results. It is not just a matter of the bloodshed, a tragic event in and of itself, but that it is also being done in the name of Islamic ideals claimed by two camps. On the one hand, are the revolutionaries clothing their political causes with selective and decontextualized readings of the Quran and Sunnah. On the other, are militant groups who chose the bullet after they realized that verbal calls for the ballot were in vain when their own armies were turned against them. Islamic ideals were also cited by the second camp in support of their violent actions. The mistake both camps have fallen into as Shaykh Bin Bayyah observes in their invocation of the Islamic tradition is in their failure to recognize that the modern state:
“…differs in its political structure and relationship between the individual and the authority, and the relationships between authorities, with what was normative centuries ago. This entails a fresh reality that has its requirements and necessities needing a new understanding to examine its concepts and answer its questions.” [9]
Though Shaykh Bin Bayyah makes this recognition he does not unpack it all the way through in his analysis. While it is true that the modern state is a different arrangement from how political entities were structured in the past, it is not just a change in world order. Part of the colonialist project was the installment of satellite agents working on behalf of Western imperialism, which sought to minimize its costs of occupying Muslim lands while at the same time continuing to accrue strategic and material benefits from them as colonized states. The ruler in the Muslim world, and more specifically in the Arab world, is by and large not one who came to power through his own means and supporters to depose another, as is the case of the Abbasids taking over from the Umayyads for example. This is what our past scholars wrote about when they referred to the prevailing ruler, al-hākim al-mutaghallib, where many ruled it was an obligation to obey him in order to maintain the peace and prevent descent into chaos and bloodshed. Rather, it is colonization 2.0, giving the appearance of independence to the masses while maintaining the reality of an occupation.
Moreover, the juristic ruling against revolt needs to be further examined in light of the new realities of the modern nation-state. As Jonathan Brown noted recently, there is wisdom in the prominent Sunni ruling against revolting in order to prevent chaos. However,
“…it does not come close to addressing all the concerns around governance today. In the pre-modern period, the No Rebellion Principle morphed into a rule of total quietism – that there should be no opposition to or pushback against the ruler (this transformation seems to have solidified in the Mamluk period). This conflation was relatively unremarkable in the context of pre-modern states; governance was small-scale and states were thin on the ground even at the best of times. Subjects and citizens did not ask much from their governments because the state did little more than provide basic law and order in return for the collection of taxes. Civil society, charity, and social networks provided key social services and even mundane legal infrastructure.
In modern times, however, the conflation of the No Rebellion Principle with total quietism, combined with the immense and pervasive role of the modern state, has proven disastrous. The state no longer simply provides law and order. It often provides whole areas of crucial welfare and services, controls everything from education to how we raise our children, and it surveils, in some cases or on some subjects, even what we say to each other in private.
As a result, in recent decades the claim that the Sunna ordered total quietism has been used to prevent any efforts to hold kleptocratic and/or autocratic governments accountable or to demand better or more transparent governance.” [10]
The Arab Spring only turned into a winter nightmare after the will of the people seeking self-determination through peaceful means was violently suppressed through the interventions of external states like the UAE and Saudi Arabia who estimated such changes presented a threat to their interests. When the people revolted, it was not only about tyranny and oppression, which magnified over the past 20 years to a degree that pushed everyone over the brink. They were also looking to establish their self-determination outside of external imposition. The ruler, and his regime by extension, while sharing in external physical features and spoken language with the people, are an extension of colonialism. Armies in these countries are not there to defend the country against external threats; they are there to defend the imposed regime against the people who make up the country. The revolt is therefore not just against the ruler, but also against a colonizing power that has changed its methods from using its own troops to using traitors among its colonized subjects willing to carry out its task at a lower cost to it. Hence, the responsibility for bloodshed does not primarily lie with those who picked up weapons after they were shot at first. When a people are chanting their desire for bread and get pummeled for making that request, one should not be surprised when they try to use force, even if that force is grossly underwhelming when compared to that of trained armies and mercenaries financed by the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
There is yet another crucial distinction that must be made within the modern nation-state. Western democracies are successful because they function through institutions, whereas the governance in the Arab world revolves around individuals. In other words, notwithstanding the alarming manifestations of the Trump presidency, internal and foreign policies of the US are not decided by any single individual person in power. However, in countries like the UAE or Saudi Arabia, policies can change overnight by a single change of a personality. It is therefore impossible to separate initiatives by such countries and treat them independently as if they are removed from a greater trajectory the de facto rulers of them are intending to pursue. If Muhammed bin Zayed of the UAE sponsors a religious initiative that has a sociopolitical vision in the Muslim world, that is not coming out of the goodness of his heart.
Against this backdrop, we can see how the UAE has been diversifying its approach to suppress any calls challenging the status quo. Financing military coups and mercenaries can only go so far. Recognizing the importance of soft power through religious messaging Bin Zayed has identified prominent scholars whose juristic inclinations aligned with his interests. Shaykh Bin Bayyah’s position on the revolutions and calls for democracy in the region may not sit well with political activists. Agree with him or not, it is a position he roots in the Islamic tradition and one that sanctifies blood in a time when the loss of human life for political causes has become normalized. If a refutation is in order, it must also be one rooted in the Islamic tradition and highlighting where his position has inconsistencies and weaknesses and why. He writes:
“Perhaps it might be incumbent upon me to apologize to those who accuse this approach as discouraging and defeatist. This is not our intention nor is it in our hidden folds. However, we wanted to turn attention to the problem of belittling of blood and continuation of war with the special and the riffraff. The only required thing is to reassess this matter after the flood has reached its peak and the valley has brought its avalanche to the villages.” [11]
Shaykh Bin Bayyah’s initiatives are all directed at preventing further bloodshed. However, the UAE’s sponsorship of these efforts will not only render them in vain but will also tarnish any work he and Shaykh Hamza have as they appear to serve the UAE’s efforts at furthering suppression. It may even backfire as it will further establish such messaging for Muslims as docile beating to the drum of tyranny, and more dangerously give more credibility to extremist propaganda that appeals to people’s justified grievances and desire for retributive justice. Shaykh Bin Bayyah and Shaykh Hamza’s sincerity and concern for the Ummah may have obscured their vision as they have descended down a path of an Islam politicized to serve the interests of tyranny. Farah El-Sharif describes this as a dilemma for them:
“The dilemma these so-called “political Sufis” face today, (many of whom I still respect and love) is one of moral and ethical consistency with their spiritual forefathers and listening to their detractors with more empathy and humility. Polemical critiques of misguided Muslims/extremists cannot come at the expense of turning a blind eye to injustices wrought by state-sponsored autocracy and military pillaging. The problem with “political Sufism” today therefore, is not that such a phenomenon exists (poor semantics aside), it is how it manifests. In these politically precarious times, perhaps it is more characteristically Sufi to first listen to the calling of the soul of those “whose hair are disheveled and bodies covered with dust and who are pushed away from the door due to their apparent wretchedness” (Hadith) rather than vying for the approval of those spinning webs of tyranny, sitting in their gold-clad mansions. This is not a call for boycotting conferences or revolutions. It is not a call for a type of simplistic utopia where tyranny doesn’t exist. It is simply a call for a higher standard of moral political engagement.” [12]
In the Distinguished Lecture he delivered in the Senate House, London on November 19, 2018, Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad makes an astute observation to highlight the problem of having nation-states determine and sponsor particular Islamic initiatives and suppressing others:
“If students want to be employable, they must study an approved curriculum. There is a risk that ultimately the state will increasingly function as the mujtahid, picking the texts and determining right religion… If regime survival rather than love of God and the believers sways exegetic choices and influences qiyas, istihsan, maslaha, and ‘urf, then fiqh as classically understood has come to an end, and countries with singular religious authorities directed by the ruler which penalize independent shaykhs who teach in the traditional way have cut their sanad, the chain of transmission, with all antecedent Muslim learning. This process may one day be so universal that students will no longer even be able to guess how Islamic pedagogy always used to be.” [13] [Emphasis mine]
*****
Shaykh Bin Bayyah and Shaykh Hamza’s entanglement with the UAE has dangerous ramifications beyond the specific consequences of their work. The Muslim community cannot distinguish between political and moral positions, nor should they. Politics is an extension of ethics, and ethics is a branch of metaphysics. From a traditional point of view, Muslim scholars are meant to serve an adversarial role against rulers. It was in the late Ottoman period reforms that this role was negated as they came under state control, which was a contributory factor to the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire and abolition of the Sultanate as Noah Felman argues in his work The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State. More devastatingly, however, is the loss of conflict-free moral guides for the Ummah who would speak words of Truth. With scholars issuing fatwas and heading initiatives sponsored by the nation-state, an entity that is solely interested in sustaining itself and beholden to none but itself, they leave the Ummah to its own devices. We now have a strong group of highly conscious Muslim political and social justice activists without proper training in the Islamic tradition. Their value system is entirely derived from secular education systems that revere postmodernist thinkers who hate God and religion. They have the best of intentions and want to serve the Ummah but are increasingly distrustful of the scholars and suspicious of their motivations as they engage with governments known for their extensive record of oppression.
Scholars should only be beholden to the Quran and the Sunnah of the Beloved ﷺ and answer to the Muslim community when they are questioned about their activities in light of these sources. The burden of being a scholar and an inheritor of the Prophets is a weighty one, and piety and good intentions are not sufficient to justify a course of action. Muslims in the West living in relative freedom without fear for their lives if they spoke against tyranny and oppression have a moral duty to be the voice for the voiceless and the oppressed. It is, therefore, more egregious to be in such a privileged position and to freely engage with oppressive regimes who not only suppress their own people but also financing lobbying efforts in the West to demonize Muslim organizations and politicians and fuel Islamophobia. Jonathan Brown remarks:
“That Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah is one of the most learned and insightful scholars of Islamic law today is beyond doubt to me. But he has allowed himself to be used as a legitimizing symbol to bolster Agenda MBZ’s Islamic credentials and has publicly endorsed the ‘anti-extremist’ policies of Saudi Arabia. He may or may not agree with some, all or none of the actions carried out by these states, but he has not made this clear and his public positions can be publicly criticized.” [14]
Should scholars never engage with governments? I think the answer depends on what the specifics of that engagement entail. Sponsored initiatives that have Orwellian sociopolitical dimensions strike me as a red line not to be crossed under any circumstances. Praising them for religious initiatives outside of providing infrastructure to facilitate worship and learning without interfering with the content being delivered should also be avoided. I find it befitting to end this with a counsel from Imam Abu Hāmid al-Ghazālī:
لا تخالط الأمراء والسلاطين، ولا تراهم، لأن رؤيتهم ومجالستهم ومخالطتهم آفة عظيمة، ولو ابتليت من غير اختيار بها، دع عنك مدحهم وثناءهم، لأن الله تعالى يغضب إذا مدح الفاسق والظالم، ومن دعا لطول بقائهم فقد أحب أن يعصى الله في أرضه.
“Do not mix with the princes and sultans and avoid seeing them; for seeing them and sitting with them and mixing with them is great mischief. But if you are impelled to do this without seeking it, avoid praising them and commending them, for God the Exalted is angered when an oppressor and an impious man is praised, and whoever has called for the lengthening of their lives has delighted that God be disobeyed in His land.” [15]
Endnotes:
[1] Tanbeeh al-Maraji’ ‘ala Ta’seel Fiqh al-Waqi, pp. 9
[2] Ibid, pp. 9
[3] Sunan at-Tirmidhi 2687
[4] Quran [5:8]
[5] Quran [11:87]
[6] The Prayer of the Oppressed, pp. 13
[7] Quran [39:9]
[8] Tarteeb al-Madarik wa Taqreeb al-Masālik 3/326
[9] Tanbeeh al-Maraji’ ‘ala Ta’seel Fiqh al-Waqi, pp. 104
[10] Keeping Our Eye on the Ball, https://muslimmatters.org/2018/12/17/keeping-our-eye-on-the-ball-the-problem-with-the-uae-summit/
[11] Tanbeeh al-Maraji’ ‘ala Ta’seel Fiqh al-Waqi, pp. 112
[12] The Problem of “Political Sufism”, https://blogs.harvard.edu/ihsanism/2018/12/11/the-problem-of-political-sufism/
[13] How Islamic are “Islamic Studies”?, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGNyFVXrBqs
[14] Keeping Our Eye on the Ball, https://muslimmatters.org/2018/12/17/keeping-our-eye-on-the-ball-the-problem-with-the-uae-summit/
[15] Ayyuha al-Walad
