Suhaib Webb – Foundations of Political Theology Part Three The Problem Of Evil
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The term "forty five minutes" on Friday reminders on political theology is used to describe under the guidance of principles and not vice versa. It is impossible for any individual to be obedient to Allah's will and political theology is a term used to describe political behavior. The " "rowing of Allah" is the foundation for the way people submit to the command of God and the importance of critical reflection in political activism is discussed. The "rowing of Allah" is the foundation for the way people submit to the command of God and the potential for political activism and human utility in personal and political lives is emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
Welcome back to the Friday reminder.
This series of Friday reminders is a little
bit different than the others because this is
engaging a series
on political theology.
Political theology
implying that we are
engaging
foundational
under the guidance
and direction of those principles and not vice
versa.
You'll recall that
I used this term in relationship to a
man who was telling me this is my
political theory, this is my political theory, this
is my and I said what's your political
theology mean?
He said I don't have one. I said,
well then how are you ensuring that your
work is is, like, proper? And then he
said, well, no one's provided frameworks on this,
which is is not necessarily true, he may
just not access to those frameworks.
When I use the word political theology, then
we're talking about aqidah. This is different than
political activism. Political activism is going to be
governed by fiqh. This is how we would
employ now activism if someone were to create
political activism, right, or a theological
activism, excuse me,
then that would
be
addressed by firkhan tasawwuf.
So here I'm talking about
tying the foundations
of
Sunni orthodoxy
into political ideas and exploring where that takes
us. This is very much an exploration, and
I, by no means, am claiming to have
all the answers.
Building on that, I think it's important that
we review what I talked about previously. Number
1 was the idea of framing political theology,
not
in the lens of
social, cultural or political efficacy
or utility,
but through sin and obedience. And I made
a statement. People reacted, which was fine. I
said, I'm voting for Joseph Biden. This sinful
behavior, although I welcome a Biden victory
with much trepidation.
And when I explained to them what I
meant by this is that I'm framing life
between obedience and sin, and it's completely impossible
for any of us to be totally obedient
to Allah because we are not prophets, we
do not have isma.
And that's why after we pray we say
Astaghfirullah.
So
in supporting Joseph Biden, as many were compelled
to do,
we have to acknowledge that there are going
to be positions taken by this administration which
are problematic, which run counter to our value
system and our belief
understand, But we are commanded by Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala to be
a community of obedience.
At the same time, there'll be acts of
goodness that are accomplished by this administration that
align with our principles. And the reason that
I
opened up this discussion in the first
reminder was that that allows us to have
now a much more robust, nuanced, mature language.
It's not either absolute, right, rejection or completely
buying into
the narrative
of, you know, American politics.
The second lecture that I talked about is
that we believe that everything is hadith, everything
is
temporary, except Allah. And that implies as Sheikh
Dardir mentions in his Chari'dah
that it is
that it is in a state of flux.
Everything's in a state of flux, and when
things are in flux, they need government,
they need direction.
And that implies a necessity now for
political engagement.
And I did that to address kind of
the apathy and notions of fatalism that we
find sometimes amongst Muslims, which is we're going
to talk about today,
actually incorrect according to aqidah, where the world
now and the problems and trauma and morbidness
of life are used as an alibi to
submit to the world
instead of submitting to the command of Allah.
And that takes us now to the 3rd
reminder, and I'm trying to layer things in
a way that I think if you pay
attention and take notes,
inshallah, and then look back at them,
it will be clear. And also feel free
to reach out to me and contact me
and share your criticisms,
and and and thoughts. I'm I'm interested in
hearing from you.
When we talk about the world being in
flux,
the flux of the world is the outcome
of Allah's will, irada, and of course, Allah's
power.
And these fall under, of course, what's called,
according to the people of Kalem. Although, if
we look at the the Sadafi
doctrine of theology, they have what's called and
And there is some alignment on these issues.
But
when the people of Kalam and specifically the
Asha'ira
are talking about the irada of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala, this is going to fall under
what Imam al Marzukhi talked about.
He says in
and I hope I can publish this book
soon, that I've been working on for a
long time. It's the second in our series
at Swiss. He says that it is possible
within the rights of God that there are
certain things he can do and certain things
he
mumkinet, and it is an outcome of the
divine will, which is transcendent, has no age
and has no beginning.
Subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
And that implies that everything good or bad
from our perspective,
pain, trauma, sadness, happiness,
all of this falls under the
Qad'ah, right, of Allah
the iraq of Allah.
That's important
because when we look at the changes around
us, these are the manifestations of the divine
will,
are we commanded
in our understanding of theology
and nusallim
to submit to these things or
to oppose them.
And this is where, you know, we find
sometimes the fatalism coming in into the Muslim
community, and surrendering.
So for example, like the problem of suffering,
CS Lewis has a small essay on this,
it's really interesting.
The problem of pain,
the problem of evil.
Why does evil happen?
You know, you hear sometimes atheists talking about
existential crises, you know, like if all these
things are falling apart, then where is this
just God and so on and so forth,
and these are are certainly important questions.
But
we also find Muslims using this as a
means to, say, accept the occupation of Palestine,
or to accept the occupation of Kashmir,
or to accept,
policies of injustice,
that this is the qaba of Allah
and you should
be robbed with the Ka'ba of Allah.
This needs to be unpacked
and I'm going to do it as easy
as I can.
In general, we look at
Sheikh Dardir, he says everything that happens in
existence, Allah willed it from the araad and
the ayan, I'm gonna talk about that, you
know, in the future, there's no need to
talk about that now.
But then he says,
He says, but if
I'm gonna explain this in a way I
hope that's as easy as possible. I'm not
gonna directly translate it. And and what I'm
quoting from is a foundational book in theology.
It's taught in Azhar. It's taught in many
of the
ancient
Islamic schools.
And even if you don't agree with the
Ashadi theology, it's okay, but try to
avoid that issue and just focus on the
points. And then perhaps in your own theological
school, you'll find
some potential for critical critical reflection.
He says, but if the qaddah of god
is in opposition to the command of God
So here
he unpacks something which is is really beautiful
in our religion,
that there are times
when the divine will will be manifest through
qudah
in ways that contradict the command of God.
What does he mean by the command of
God? And what do ulama mean is halal
and haram, obedience and disobedience. And if you
think about it, this is the foundation for
what would be considered
like Islamic Liberation.
Islamic Liberation is based
on.
Right? Obedience to Allah.
Scholars give an example of this because when
you say this, people are like, what? Like,
what are you talking about? Within the area
of change and when they in the area
of probabilities and would be in in the
area of the temporary world, everything except God,
there are times where
the kadah, the decree of god,
can run contradictory to his will
and and and and into his order, excuse
me. And and this is found
in 4 ways. I'm not gonna unpack that
now. I'm just going to make it as
simple as I can.
So for example, Allah
ordered that all people believe,
but he willed that Abu Jahl will be
a kafir.
There you go.
So the command is to believe
the qaddah is that Abu Jahl
would be a disbeliever.
Allah
has commanded us all to pray. How many
people
misfajr?
Don't pray.
And this is really the crux of the
test that's talked about and that's why it's
called suratulmulk.
Sovereignty.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
blessed and transcendent is the one who has
the dominion of all things and the power
over all things.
Falling apart around me. When I see a
state of absolute morbidness,
do I surrender
to the evil that I see in front
of me, or do I surrender to the
command of God?
And this is what makes the early Muslims
so incredible,
that if they were to submit to the
physical,
right, they wouldn't have been able to maintain
the faith and achieve what they achieved. But
they submitted to the the command of God,
the order of God,
when it was in violation of what Allah
had willed, and that will is the test.
And that's why this is very dangerous
when we weaken people's resolve.
And that's why jannah is guaranteed for people
who choose to command.
So if all my friends around me are
doing evil,
I don't
to this.
And this also leads to the marriage
of Tasawwuf
Tasqiyetin
Nafs
and political activism.
To worship Allah as though you see Him,
even though you can't see Him, right? To
worship as though you see the one commanding
you and ordering you what to do.
And that's why there's another narration of this
hadith from Sayedna Imam al Bavawi.
To work to act as
though you see god. So when we see
the difficulties around us in the world,
when we see
Muslims not doing well, when we see challenges
within the changes of life, within the Hawadith,
we do not submit to that.
We submit to the command,
and that's what it means to be Muslim.
And that is the height of the test,
and that's why the prophet
when he was asked who is tested the
most, he said the prophets.
Because they're always going against the grain. And
the righteous, they're always going against the grain.
And now you can appreciate the hadith, good
tidings to the strangers. Those who choose the
command of Allah.
Islam Mi'raj,
where a number of people just couldn't believe
it.
Sayyidina Abu Bakr said,
If he said it, he's telling the truth.
I believe him.
So briefly now, and I know this is
quite a bit to think about and there's
a term that I haven't told you that
I'm gonna share at the end because this
term is going to come back later and
of course immediately people begin to worry about
free will, but no one ever worries about
free will when it comes to being part
of a broader social project and being driven
like, you know, robots and,
you know, just
programmed through social media,
through phones, like the notion of human freedom
is something we're going to talk about, how
this is a false notion.
To be free from Allah means to become
the slave, which we can never be free
of Allah, but to be free of the
command of God,
to emancipate
myself from following the command of God will
only lead to the enslavement
in this dunya.
So what did I talk about briefly? I
talked about how in the first
reminder I talked about political theology,
resting between sin and obedience.
Obedience is the command
with the right intention and sincerity.
The second thing I talked about is the
world in flux, a tehreiyor,
and that necessitates government.
The third thing I talked about is how
we do not allow
the negativity around us
to weather our commitment
to what's right,
because what's right is the command of Allah.
And there are times when the command and
what's been decreed may contradict one another, there's
times when they align. Allah commanded people to
believe and he willed that Abu Bakr would
be a believer. He commanded the people to
believe and Abu Jahl he refused.
So that's two force of what's called a
taluk,
which we'll talk about in the future.
And based on that, I said, and this
is why you can appreciate why.
Right?
They help each other to the truth. They
organize on the truth and they organize around
resilience when the command
and
the
are in violation of one another.
Although for the believers, of course, that's their
whatever they choose,
but I'm trying to make it as simple
as
possible. Finally, and this is something that we're
going to talk about in the future is
cusp,
the choice
of the person. How does human
utility factor into all this? And what makes
us mukalaf? And how does that cause us
to think about our choices that we make
within a given
situation politically,
socially and culturally
and in our personal lives. We talk about
that in the future Insha'Allah.
May Allah bless you.
Feel free to engage and ask any questions.