Khutba on Democracy

+;VD<P K"4AR ;UTP02 SAD<P K"4AR #$%P ?CO; N0" M:9 *% K" I/;H" FE DG4> FE DA/4C: B A@"#$% & "#$% & "( *+- /02 34"56+4 9:; "<=>? gS#/ %$#" "2 f6O "2 "2 f/;[ e & *%e "2 e % E TP4 :;[% S"% "2 cR Z6a B 6b/ Z:% DE O XE a &% E / Z: 40"4$G_4 S^ Z:+<04 P [; Z: &43 XAP 2WSVD<P %E "43 & "( ^62 g:9 gC0" M:9 qNP MP4:9 M"4^;" n63 2S+m2 CSC*"2 X^% CG 4 :#$%PeX: 4 P%S^ % E TP%/; k g[ B j K6G Xi; S5"% S3 hS$/ .Z/%" X/ K"*<4 s3 FE ACR Z:#432 m "2 K6G F6^2 S6G & K6m MG4<"(/; 3? /% P; ST3 I#" Z/%" wH/ Z:. FU3XP FU" ;+V/ FU"4$G FU" q6N/ ^%/%eXk X"Xk & XuR X0: Z/("4 E /v/ .X$6<: FDP e ZRX$R e2 R4uR I* & XuR4 & CG 4Sa !%A3 4: .;@02 G 4E P 4$G XE DP$4 :; Sa & XuR$4. SyG Xa 4a %ua 2"X^& Muslims, if we look at the events transpiring in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia and indeed throughout the Middle East, and the way it is being played out and presented to us in the media, it appears that we are being presented with a stark choice. Either we continue to back the 'heartless and evil' dictators, such as Qada or we offer our support to the demonstrators and protestors in their bid for democracy, freedom and power to the people. These are presented to us as the only two alternatives: democracy as opposed to dictatorship; 'freedom, equality and justice' as opposed to 'servitude, inequality and injustice'. While there is little doubt regarding the injustice of the dictatorships and their hatred of Islam - one has just to look at the track records of Qada, Mubarak and Ben Ali throughout their time in power - the youth have been sold a lie regarding the 'alternative', for democracy, far from being the answer to their problems and the salvation of their Muslim identity and culture, is in fact a far more invidious form of slavery and injustice. Democracy, they have been told is the most peaceful, enlightened and fairest form of government, for it is government for the people by the people. If they, the oppressed Muslim masses, can nally get themselves heard and make their votes count, then as if by magic, they will nally get leaders who serve them and their interests, and not just their own interests and that of their cronies. And all their economic woes will come to an end and they will be free to practice their deen without threat of torture or oppression. They will get their iphones and ipads and be free, just like the peoples of America and Europe. This is the lie they have been sold and the lie they passionately espouse. But it is a total fantasy at complete variance with the facts. For all you get for swapping dictatorship for democracy is to swap one form of slavery for another. For while there is no political freedom in a dictatorship, in a democracy there is no economic freedom. As your government represents you, it is free to borrow money in your name, creating a national debt, a nation of debtors all beholden to the money men. Every citizen is born owing thousands of pounds, euros, rands or dollars, a sum that many will never ever be able to pay back in their lifetime. Your role in society simply becomes that of a passive and obedient cog, working hard to pay your taxes and if necessary, through carefully designed austerity measures, give up what you have in order to bail out the banks and ensure that the system of total economic servitude perpetuates. Politicians are not there to serve the people, as recent events have shown us, but to serve the wealthy, the money brokers. Democracy does not serve us, but robs us blind and then blames it on the previous administration. And another myth about democracy is that it is peaceful and civilised, while dictators are violent, barbaric and tyrannical. The false, hypocritical outrage at Gadas massacre of his own people emerging from London and Washington is a prime example of that, when the inhabitants of those ofces have been guilty, even in recent times, of far greater levels of violence and bloodshed. Democracy as a system has always required the existence of an enemy, whether that enemy be elements of a countrys own people, or another ideology or another religion. It has always been thus going back to the French revolution and beyond - the system was born in genocide, for the streets of France ran red with the blood of the enemies of the people and its rivers bloated with their swollen corpses. And, even were democracy what it purports to be, the rule of a country by its people, still that would be in complete contradiction to the deen of Allah, for it would mean placing the law of the land in the hands of human beings and disregarding what has been revealed. And as Allah says, ~ Xu^4+" Fi XO4y" Fi ;a4U" Fi f_"va &| P 3$4 FU#/ F" Z: ~ the translation of which is, Those who do not judge by what Allah has revealed, they are the kars, they are the wrongdoers, they are the deviators It would mean accepting the will of the majority regardless of their deen and regardless of their lack of knowledge. Allah says, ~ ~ X$6A/ e Z/(" X$6A/ Z/(" XD</ B i the translation of which is, Are those who know and those who do not equal! If you had a problem with your health, you would ask the doctors and other health professionals, not just anybody off the street. Similarly, when it comes to running a society, the only ones who should be approached are those with knowledge of how to do that, not just anyone. When Umar ibn al-Khattab died, he appointed a shura of six of the most knowledge of the Companions, and did not leave the matter of just anyone. Similarly, accepting democracy would mean accepting the tenets of human rights in inverted commas - that a Muslim is the same as a mushrik and that religion is a lifestyle choice, just like one's model of car or brand of toothpaste, and can be swapped just as easily. This is completely incompatible with Islam, since it is based on the doctrine that human reason - and for human reason read human whim - is the ultimate criterion upon which to base a society, not divine justice. It is an inversion of natural reality, for it implies that the created knows better than the Creator, the jahuul - ignorant, knows better than the aliim - All-Knowing and khabiir. And that is clear nonsense. Believers and non-believers are not equal. Allah says: XD</ e 4u^4a 4j Z$j 40:: 4j Z$a the translation of which is, Is someone who is a believer like someone who is a deviator? They are not the same! And to view them as the same is to accept shirk as a viable lifestyle choice. And we as Muslims cannot do that as we are commanded to combat shirk, until Allah alone is worshipped upon the earth, and until the deen of Allah is uppermost in the land. Allah says, Xj;TO; j X"62 j Z/%" K6G ;E yS" I#" Z/% E "43 2"X^ B ^ "( Xi ~ the translation of which is, It is He who sent His Messenger with guidance and the Deen of Truth to exalt it over every other deen, even though the mushrikun detest it. We reject totally the notion that a kar has as much right over how the nation is run as a Muslim, and if the early Muslims were to have accepted that then the deen would never have taken hold in the land since, for the rst few generations, they were in a minority, with the number of non-Muslim subjects in the Caliphate far outweighing the number of Muslim ones. The majority is never, and can never, be right. Allah says, ~ ~ ~ Xm;5/ e Fi Zy" e XACD/ & B SC^ ZG X6b/ 9ga Z: ;Wj wHR ~ ~ ~ the translation of which is, If you obeyed most of those on earth, they would misguide you from Allah's Way. They follow nothing but conjecture. They are only guessing.

So, if the system of democracy is so far from the deen then why have the youth bought into it so whole-heartedly and chant for its implementation so passionately? The simple answer is that they have lost contact with the deen of Allah and no longer have any idea of what it means to be Muslim. As Shaykh Abdalqadir says in his recent article, 'Libya, Egypt, Tunisia Into the Trap, "Someone born 20 years ago in Tunisia, 30 years ago in Egypt and 40 years ago in Libya has lived without knowledge of Islam and under the States diktat that Islam is the enemy of society. Arab States without Islam lifetimes lived inside the persecution of Islam." The youth have no idea what Islam is or what it truly offers, for they have never been taught it by their so-called ulama. Those ulama have let them down, having perverted and corrupted the teachings of the deen to such an extent that they call for the same things that the enemies of the deen call for. Today, for example, the Muslim Brotherhood openly say that they want democracy and accept banking. The true ulama, the inheritors of that simple and complete deen as understood by Ibn Ashir, Ibn abi Zaid, Shaykh Illish and their ilk, were tortured, imprisoned, assassinated and forced into exile and all that remained were those who have sold their deen for a seat at the high table and a share of the proceeds, for bank directorships, university chairs and regular TV slots. But they have sold their deen for a paltry price, as they will soon nd out, and on their heads lies the blame for a whole generations ignorance. Allah says, L $ L : @&' U : 3&@3 : TS( D RQ8@P& N( : 3@&. M<( D?73 : 5 K( D. EI HG : 3& AE D CB& A@?> 8<7; : 3987( &'() (+-. 1234 5 $ $ $ the translation of which is, Those who sell Allah's contract and their own oaths for a paltry price, such people will have no portion in the akhira and on the Day of Rising Allah will not speak to them or look at them or purify them. They will have a painful punishment. May Allah protect us from such a fate and restore true Islam to the peoples of the Middle East. % :#$%E [ "2 f/;[ e & *%e "2 e % E [? O4A"$4"#$% & "#$% & S*;" X+V" Xi 2P+; VD^4a P B j Z: ?$6<O "<4; FU" g" &+; VD^( i g"Xk Xk ~ .Z/%" X/ K"*<4 s3 FE ACR Z:? A34D" gA34R? A34D"2 C#m "2 K6G2 S6G 34F6^ & K6m 2"X^% CG .2D+"45:2 DSNA: ZG /4Fj2 *(DG4> & XuD3 /4FUSm4 & CG 4/ .FU<+P9 ;S Xu+P XAS> XA$^ FDAHD^ & :4 XuR X0: Z/("4 E /vSa !%A3 4: As we have shown in the rst khutba, it is a lie to consider democracy as a true alternative to dictatorship, it is simply swapping one form of shackles for another. So what is the alternative? What is the solution to the woes facing the Muslims? The answer is, of course, imaarat, leadership - at both a macro level and a micro level. You must realise that the most signicant event of the twentieth century was not WW1 or WW2, not the emergence of the US as a global power, but the abolition of the khalifate and the division of the Muslim lands into nation states, with their own ags, national anthems and football teams. From the time of the Prophet up until 1922, the Muslim umma had been continuously ruled by a single ruler, the khalifas of the Messenger of Allah. They were the glue that held the umma together, and with their removal the whole thing fell apart at the seams. There is an Arab saying: 4H6^ =3 M6S" Z: q6m :4 @4; Z: M0^ XD^ Sixty years under the rule of a tyrannical leader is better than a single night without a sultan, and our experiences of the past century have shown us the truth of that. Even at the end of the Ottoman Caliphate, despite how far it had sunk and how corrupt it had become, still the Muslims were far more united and in a far better state than today. The necessity of leadership is something that the Muslims have recognised from the beginning of the affair - the very rst thing the Muslims did after the death of the Messenger of Allah, even before burying him, was to appoint someone to lead the community in his stead, that someone being Abu Bakr. They refused to let even a single night pass without a leader. We, on the other hand, have let nearly 100 years pass. They understood that there could be no deen in any real sense without leadership. Umar ibn al-Khattab said, as is transmitted by Ibn Abd al-Barr, MG4> =3 ;S: e; S: 3= MG4$@ e MG4$@ =3 ^=e There can be no Islam without jamaa, no jamaa without an amir, and no amir without obedience to him. And Ibn Taymiyya said, Z: $4D@e0% G FE " %3 e A3 K" FE bA3 M@4#" $4D@e43 e FE D#6N: FDR e g03 sa .4E 3 e Z/%6" 4Sk e B 3 Z/%"4 C@ FyG Z: :; "04M/e; A/ c/ It must be understood that leadership of the people is one of the greatest obligations of the deen - indeed the deen could not stand without it, for the best interests of the human race can only be served by them coming together to full each others needs, and every gathering must have a head. And that is clear when you look at the deen and see all those matters that can only be implemented by a leader: the taking and distribution of zakat, the beginning and end of Ramadan and so on. As Ibn Taymiyya says, Allah makes commanding the right and forbidding the wrong obligatory, and that is not possible without strength and authority. And the same is true for other things He made obligatory, such as jihad, justice, the establishment of the hajj and the carrying out of the hudud punishments - none of that is possible without strength and authority. This is true on a macro level - in other words, the Muslim umma must have a khalifah, but is also true on a micro level. Every Muslim community, no matter how small, must have a leader. The Prophet said, as narrated by Abu Saeed al-Khudri, Fi%*:; S6a ;+^ ga M= ; When three people go out on a journey, they must appoint one of their number as their amir. Thus, is the well-being of the group preserved. If the peoples of the Middle East desire success and desire the help of their Lord, then they must cease their misguided calls for democracy and the perpetuation of nation states whose boundaries were established by the French and British with the express purpose of dividing the Muslims. And instead let the natural asabiyya and brotherhood amongst them do its work and allow leaders to emerge from among themselves, calling to the deen of Allah and restoring the Madinan model. We ask Allah to place us at the forefront of this call and protect and strengthen our own communities by placing right-acting amirs over them. In the words of the great Moroccan Shaykh, Shaykh Nasir, we ask you, ya Allah, to grant Your clear victory to the one who takes charge and empowers the deen and help him and his party. And ll his heart with what will make him pleasing to You. We ask You to help our Muhammadan deen, and make its end mighty just like its beginning. .?A$@2 C#m "2 K6G2 S6G 34F6^ B m FE 6"$4. S6<R X$6^2 S6G X6m X0: Z/("4 E / /4 gC0" K6G X6N/ 2DU=: & ~ ~ ~ ?A34D" ZG Z/;@4E O FE 0: 4NP94 mXN ?A$@ M34#N" ^4; ZG g6G$4 WG$; G; U3 g304 D$04 R "#0+4 ^4Z/%[;O Z/%[ "56+4 ";ZG FE 6" .Z/%" X/ K"*<4 s3 FE ACR Z:? 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