Mirza Yawar Baig – Participate in democracy
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of Islam in government, citing its history and various forms. They stress the need for a strong government to ensure the well-being of all people and address issues such as taxes, regulation of road traffic, and sports. The speakers also address the role of Muslims in government, citing the history of the Islamic government and its various forms. The speakers emphasize the importance of democratic forms of government, including the Sharia principle and the importance of accountability, while acknowledging the role of political leaders in government and the importance of participating in the process of modernization.
AI: Summary ©
In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the
Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of
all the worlds.
And peace and blessings be upon the Prophet
and his messengers, Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah,
peace and blessings be upon him and his
family and his companions.
And peace and blessings be upon him and
his family and his companions.
So, my brothers and sisters, we spoke the
other day about the issue of
Islamic government.
And I mentioned to you incidents from the
history of the Muslims from the first, from
the Khilafah of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq and
then to Sayyidina Umar, Sayyidina Uthman, Sayyidina Ali
and others.
And the thing that I mentioned was that
it appears from our reading of our history
that Islam is more concerned with the nature
of the government than its form.
And our greatest classical and modern scholars seem
to be agreed upon this and this seems
to be the majority view.
So, we have had different forms of government.
In some cases, democracies, in some cases, monarchies.
In some cases, in most cases, these were
hereditary monarchies which were called Khilafah.
And usually, Khilafah was somebody outside them.
The Sultans themselves never called themselves Khalifah, they
called themselves Sultan.
Now, therefore, the important thing to remember is
that Islam is concerned with how the government
is carried on.
Whether it establishes the laws of Allah, as
mentioned in the Quran and Sunnah, whether it
establishes justice or not, whether the poor and
the weak are taken care of, whether there
is corruption or not, whether law is enforced
so that crime is minimised, if not eradicated.
And we take the cue for this from
the Khutbah of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq.
When he gave the Khutbah as the first
Khalifatul Muslimin, and his title was Khalifatul Rasulillah,
he said that if a powerful person is
oppressing somebody, then I will be on the
side of the one who is being oppressed
on the side of the weak and I
will fight the one who is oppressing.
He didn't use these words, he used other
better words, but this is the meaning of
it, that he said that I will, every
powerful person will be questioned about what, about
oppressing anyone and I will not allow this
to happen.
And then he said also, in effect, that
he said as long as I continue to
follow the Kitab and Sunnah, then you should
support me and if I stop doing that,
then you should correct me.
So, therefore, we can say that Islam is
not concerned with how the government itself came
into being or its structure, as long as
that government does what all good governments are
supposed to do, that is, provide good governance.
Therefore, different forms of governments were accepted as
valid and legal if they provided good governance.
Of course, from the Islamic point of view,
for a government to be considered Islamic, whichever
form of government it may be, it must
follow the divine laws of the Sharia and
must not legislate against the laws of Allah.
This is a basic requirement.
Governments are free to legislate and pass laws
to ensure the best for all people without
denying, altering or going against divine laws.
For example, laws of taxation, zoning of cities,
regulation of road traffic and so on, can
be made because they do not contradict the
laws of Allah.
However, laws which make halal what Allah prohibited,
for example, interest-based banking, consumption of alcohol
and other addictive substances, gambling, casinos, racecourses, and
so on, are not permissible, and any government
which makes such laws would be un-Islamic,
even if that government was run by Muslims.
And today, may Allah have mercy on us,
this applies to practically every single Muslim country
in the world.
Now, I'm not claiming that democracy is the
best form of government from an Islamic theological
or philosophical perspective, but that it is the
best among all that exist today.
And if you look at Khilafah itself, if
I tell you to define Khilafah, what is
a Khilafah?
How does somebody become a Khalifa?
By being elected to that position.
What is that?
That is democracy.
No?
How else do you become a Khilafah?
If the Khalifa is the son of the
previous Khalifa, then this is a monarchy.
It's an hereditary monarchy, it's not a Khilafah.
If you see Abu Bakr Siddiq al-Din,
the first Khalifa, he was elected.
He was not elected in the sense of
universal suffrage like we know now, but he
was elected by a bunch of people.
So, in this context, we must look at
democracy today, when some people say that Muslims
must not participate in democracy, because it is
not Islamic.
My contention is that there is no such
thing as an Islamic form of government.
What is Islamic about a government lies in
its actions of governing.
Obviously, there is great misunderstanding about forms of
government, which is exacerbated by our general lack
of knowledge of history, so that we have
no perspective or decision-making ability.
We must correct this urgently.
So, what is the role of Muslim citizens
who live in democratic countries like this?
Should they participate in government, from voting, to
standing for election, to discharging their responsibilities in
different capacities, in parliaments and senates, or should
they abstain from doing any of these things,
and stay out of government and politics altogether?
And if they should abstain, then how are
they to ensure that their rights and needs
and issues are represented and addressed by a
government that they did not elect or show
any interest in?
My contention is that democracy, like monarchy, is
simply a form of government, in terms of
governance.
Citizens of democratic countries must participate in democracy
for the simple reason that all change can
only be initiated and implemented from within, from
inside.
As a matter of interest, if we take
the first form of government of the Muslim
state after Rasulullah passed away, as I said,
it was a democratic decision.
Different from our present form of universal suffrage,
leading to universal suffering, except for politicians, but
it was democracy nevertheless.
The argument that most of these countries are
not Muslim, meaning the rulers are not Muslim,
is met with two arguments.
One, how Islamic is a government where the
rulers are Muslim, but they permit interest-based
banking in their realms, when they know perfectly
well that Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, not
only prohibited it, but declared war on behalf
of himself and his messengers, sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam, on those who participate in interest-based
banking.
How can a government which is classified as
an enemy of Allah, by the definition of
the Quran, be called Islamic?
Number two, in the Sharia, we follow the
principle that if you cannot do or have
everything, you don't reject or stop doing everything.
So you do as much as you can
do.
So if we cannot have the perfect state
of government that Rasulullah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam,
provided when he was a ruler, we will
live with and support rulers and governments who
provide justice, safety, law and order, economic development
and general protection of rights and privileges, even
if they do other things which are not
perfect.
We don't support them in things which are
against Islamic law.
Example, we will not participate in interest-based
banking, even if it is allowed in the
country.
We will not use drugs, even if the
drugs have made it illegal.
For example, we will not drink alcohol just
because it is legal.
We will not use marijuana because it is
legal.
We will not do the things which Allah
has prohibited.
We will follow the laws of Allah.
Whether they are legal in the country or
not doesn't matter, we will not.
But we will support them in everything that
is for the benefit of everyone.
Authority can be delegated, not responsibility.
Responsibility remains with the original person, meaning that
if the one to whom authority was delegated,
which is the leader, fails to perform, it
is the one who delegated it, which is
the citizen, who will still be responsible.
Often there is confusion between authority and responsibility.
Authority is the permission to act.
Responsibility refers to the consequences of the action.
That is why training is very important before
delegating authority.
The ruler delegates authority to various officials, but
the responsibility remains with the ruler, whether they
succeed or fail.
It will be called a success or failure
of the ruler.
So also the CEO, the head of the
family, or whatever, delegates and should delegate authority
because he or she cannot do everything themselves.
But the responsibility, that is accountability, remains with
them.
If they delegate authority without preparing the subordinates
or children or whoever they are delegating to,
and they delegate it to people who are
incompetent, then it is their rule or tenure
or performance which would have failed.
We, the people of the nation, through the
ballot box, have delegated the responsibility of running
the nation, the authority of running the nation,
to those we elected.
Hence we retain the responsibility for their success
or failure.
It comes back to my favourite political quote,
we get the government we deserve.
We should realise that we have delegated authority,
not responsibility.
So if those to whom authority was delegated
failed, we need to take back the authority
and realise that to give ourselves good government
is our responsibility, not somebody else's.
In conclusion, I would like to say clearly
and unequivocally that Muslims living in democratic countries
must participate in government in every way, knowing
that it is entirely in keeping with Islam
to do so.
There is no prohibition in the Sharia from
participating in government.
They must participate because Islam orders them to
support all that is beneficial for everyone, Muslim
or otherwise, and to do that in a
way that showcases Islam for the rest of
the world.
Muslims must participate in democracy because it is
only by participation that we can ensure that
our interests are addressed and our needs are
met.
We have seen many examples of what happens
when we don't participate.
That is the key.
You must go to vote.
Whether it is raining or not, whatever be
the situation, you must go and vote.
Remember that it is the only opportunity that
you have in a democracy to be heard,
to influence your own future and to protect
yourself from those who wish to hurt you.
Finally, a party is not elected by the
majority of the population of the country, but
by the majority of those who cast their
vote.
This is the key to modern democracy and
the reason why you must vote.
If you don't enroll yourself and don't go
and vote, then don't blame anyone else for
the result.
You are responsible and you will pay the
price.
I seriously want to encourage all of you,
whoever are eligible to vote, register and go
and vote.
Do not sit in the city house, don't
say, I will not vote and I will
do this.
It is very irresponsible to do that.
If you stay out of it, you have
no participation in the decision making and believe
me, even with you there, the decisions can
be against you, but at least you will
be there to do something about it.
But if you are not even there, then
the decisions will be against you and you
cannot do anything about it.
I ask Allah to help us to influence
and create good governments and to create justice
and establish justice and to fight oppression wherever
that might be.
May Allah's peace and blessings be upon the
Prophet, his family and companions.