Suhaib Webb – Political Theology (Part Two) Three Terms That Frame Politics & Activism
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We praise Allah
We send peace and blessings upon our beloved
prophet Muhammad
upon his blessed family,
all of the companions and those who follow
them until the end of time.
This is the second in a series that
I'm putting together
on discussions and ideas,
not final thoughts by any means,
on what an Islamic political theology would look
like within the context of North America.
For those of you outside of North America,
feel free to chime in
and add your own thoughts and feel free
to differ.
But, again, I I need us all to
appreciate that the context here is largely within
the context of North America.
The first in this series, I said something
that I received a few emails and phone
calls from, which I was happy actually to
achieve because that means people are actually listening.
And that was when I said that we
have to appreciate that voting for Joseph Biden
is sinful behavior.
People immediately understood that I was saying that
I did not welcome a Biden victory.
I I certainly
am much more happy with Biden than Trump.
But at the same time, I am tremendously
trepidatious
around any of the kind of establishment politicians
and what that means for Muslims and what
that means for
the people who are, as Sayida Khadija said
about the prophet, the madum,
those who are often forgotten.
But I said that and I I was
expecting that reaction. But then when I would
explain to people, listen.
None of these people are perfect, and none
of these people are beyond sin, and none
of these people are going to be prophetic
in their actions. They don't have isma.
And then people said to me, you know,
we never thought about it that way before.
And what I what I was trying to
accomplish is to change the lenses of Islamic
activism and Islamic political theology
from that of sheer efficacy and power.
Right? We can achieve power through evil.
And efficacy
at a political level is not always the
outcome of righteous actions.
So I wanted to shift the narrative from
efficacy and nearness to power to one of
sin and obedience,
evil and good.
And I believe that when we do that,
it allows us to have very serious conversations
and craft language that protects us from complete
political rejection. Right? No politics in Islam.
2, let's just jump in head first without
any concern for
Today, I want to share with you a
simple yet powerful idea that is going to
contribute to
our understanding, hopefully, of Islamic political theology,
and that is how we see the universe
As Muslims,
we know that over and over in the
Quran, Allah
says
that in the earth, there are signs for
you.
We see in Surat Al Fatiha, Allah says
that
Allah
is the lord of Al-'Alamin. Al-'Alamin is called
It is not a
pure what's called means a pure
male or human plural.
It is actually considered.
Right?
Generally,
is considered everything,
right, except god. And and most things besides
god,
all the creation of Allah
largely
does not have intellect.
However, it's given the form of an intellect
to help us think about the world. And
this is something that speaks to,
being an ally to the environment.
Right? Environmental
allyship,
being,
shepherds of environmentalism
within a religious framework.
Everything around us is
Everything is a sign of god.
But within that,
we have to appreciate the
underlying theological
principles
about how Muslims look at the universe,
look at the heavens and the earth. And
this is mentioned by a sheikh Ahmed Dardir
in a very important book called Al Kharida.
I teach it at my school, Swiss.
This is a foundational book in Aqeedah within
mainstream Islam,
within many mainstream Sunni theological,
seminaries,
universities, and madrasas.
And he says,
He says,
He says you have to know
He says you have to understand and know
that
And what is He says
everything except
Allah the transcendent all knowing.
And these are the 2 words that I
want you to think about quickly
is
and
is something that has a beginning and an
ending.
We say that the universe in general
is what's called
Everything
in creation are those things that have a
beginning, a starting point, and an ending. Later
on in the poem, he says,
Right? He said that the proof that something
is hadith, is temporal,
is that it didn't exist and now it
exists.
We find this in the Quran. Allah
says
Allah is the one who
brought you out stage by stage.
You came from
nothing.
And provided you hearing and seeing any emotions.
But few very few of you are going
to be thankful of that.
The Quran
says
Directing us to this idea of change,
existence,
and nonexistence,
which is called,
is this verse in Surat Al Baqarah. How
could you disbelieve in Allah and you were
dead and he brought you to life? Then
you will die and then you will be
resurrected and return to him.
This is called.
We believe that everything in creation
is hadith
except
Allah
As Allah says in the Quran,
Allah is the one who has no beginning
and no ending. So that's the first word
that I need us to understand as we
engage in a political theology, religious political theology,
is that everything in this dunya
is temporary
except Allah.
Everything will perish except Allah.
Everything will will will whatever is with Allah
will last. Right? Meaning Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is the everlasting.
The other word that he uses is
means reliant,
impoverished.
It is not able to be self established.
Human beings, we exist because of so many
other things. We are not self subsisting.
That's why one of the foundational beliefs in
Sifa'at al Ma'ani is that
Allah
is Allah
is the one who is self established.
In Arabic, it's very clear. This is
And and and and and this is the
root and foundation of Islamic theology Now
applying that usul
to political theology is what I'm I'm trying
to do. And by no means am I
an expert
on politics. So my hope is that activists
and political theorist within the Muslim community will
engage and develop this further and critique and
offer,
some ideas as well as
and others.
But Allah says in the Quran,
I'm not able to establish myself.
Oxygen.
I'm able to be living with oxygen,
with
with
with
mia,
with
water.
Other people have helped me to live my
life.
Allah
is the only one
He's self subsisting.
He needs nothing.
The Quran says he provides,
and he doesn't need provisions.
In
That's the best word that encapsulates this idea.
So we are
to Allah
but Allah
is hamid.
So we understand now 2 very important principles,
2 important words,
from the word hadith. Because when I talk
to you, my speech has a beginning and
an end. That's why it's called hadith. An
accident is called is called haditha
because
It has a beginning and an ending.
So everything is temporary except Allah,
and everything is in need
except of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala except Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. This is going to form
the foundations and the bedrock
of how we think about helping others, how
we align to address injustice,
how we look after things like economic inequality,
social stratification,
bigotry, and racism.
All this is going to now come out
and permeate
theologically
from the bedrock of temporality
and impoverishment. SubhanAllah.
As the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam has
said, the best of you are those who
understand that all in some Al haptab al
Marik, he said this is of the last
hadith of the prophet
when he said that all creation
are reliant on Allah,
and the best of you, as related by
Abu Hari, are those who look after those
who are reliant upon him.
But that's going to come later.
Sheikh Dardir,
alhamdulillah, was able to read this to the
and
and there's something important I'll say as we
finish.
He continues, and this is the foundation, really,
that I wanna get to. In the line,
he says,
because
Allah the the next part of the the
poem says after it says that, you know,
creation is temporary and it's it's in need.
It's impoverished.
It's not self subsisting
because Allah created it to terrayor. Remember this
word, terrayor.
It is in a state of flux. You
know
other than?
So this word is very from from the
same root,
it's it's always in an other. It's always
in flux.
Because Allah has created the temporary world
to always be in flux.
And that's gonna take us to our discussion
next week. If something is in flux,
it needs management.
And if something is in flux, then that
apply it implies that Allah
has given it free will.
And if
Allah has given it free will, that means
that it has choices.
And sometimes it makes good choices,
and sometimes it will make bad choices.
The Quran says, we showed people they're gonna
be thankful or ungrateful.
How do then we manage that terayor
as human beings?
There is a flux which is out of
our control. The gray hairs on my beard,
I cannot pull a Rudy Giuliani.
Right?
The gray hairs on my beard are beyond
my control.
But how I treat people,
how I treat my neighbor,
how I treat my family,
Allah
has given me a limited freedom, al cusp,
although it does not escape his power or
his will
to make a choice.
Inshallah, next week, we're going to talk about
that, The idea of how do we manage
the world
and how do we understand our role in
the world
and how do we respond to the claim
of some unfortunate of our macheikh?
And and some of them are in my
theological school
who are saying that we should just accept
evil.
We should just accept bad leaders.
We should just accept the somber morbid world
around us and surrender to the will of
Allah.
Why does that run counter
to the foundations
in particular of the and
the but
as well as the salafiya
in their understanding of.
Next week, inshallah, we're going to talk about
theodicy,
why do things happen,
and what Islam commands us to do when
we
understand that everything around us is in flux.
I leave you with this again. If everything
is in flux,
then there is a part of that flux
which is we have no control over.
The gray hairs on my beard, for example,
aging,
illness, COVID 19. These are things beyond our
ability.
But then, in a micro level, we have
been given the opportunity
to engage
certain things that are in flux. How do
we mitigate, for example, the spread of COVID
19? I can eat healthy to deal with
aging.
How do I treat others?
So the first we say is from the
Right? This is a a a
that Allah has
shown us his will in ways that are
immutable and nonnegotiable.
The second type of changes are those where
Allah has given us the amenah, the responsibility,
to navigate
and, in fact, rule
those changes in ways that lead to the
establishment
of justice in caring for others.
So what did we talk about today?
A number of very important principles. Number 1
is we say,
that everything except Allah
is temporal and in a constant need of
something
Because Allah has created it to change.
Allah says you're heading back to Allah.
Where are you going? So the 1st week,
I
started to discuss
the framing of Islamic political theology between sin
and obedience,
and that is the language that we should
be using when we're engaging activism
and and and and politics. And I noted
that oftentimes that can get blurred, and there
is language for engaging sin. And in fact,
there is language for, say, supporting,
someone who may have evil and may have
good. Sheikh
He mentioned this in great detail in his
book on the foundations of Islamic law.
This week, I began to talk about how
Islam,
it's from a theological perspective I'm reading from
a theological text,
looks at the world as though, number 1,
it's temporary.
Number 2, it is impoverished.
And number 3,
that it's because Allah
has created it to be in a constant
flux.
And some of that flux is out of
our control.
Right? Like, for example, the sun and the
moon, our our aging and so on. And
some of that flux, Allah has given us
a cusp, a choice to choose how to
act. And it is within that framework of
choice that we begin to think about Islamic
political
theology. May Allah bless you and increase you,
and may Allah help give us basira.
And if you disagree with people in the
comments or, you know, there's no need to
fight,
we can
choose to discuss these things in a way
which is reasonable,
without throwing accusations
and so on and so forth. Forth. I
will leave you with this to think about
for the next week.
Go look at the verses in Surat Al
Baqarah
where Allahu
begins to tell us the story about Sayidna
Ibrahim alayhi
when he went and spoke to the leader
of his people.
In arguing with that person about his injustice
and his failure to worship Allah alone,
Sayyidun Ibrahim
uses
the fact that he is opposing
the true god
whose will is immutable.
That the
which Allah has imposed upon creation
is a reminder to oppressors
and evildoers
that that's who you're opposing.
Based on what I just said, think about
that critically.
And then continue to read the following verses
where Allah mentions the one who passes by
a
a a abandoned town.
And then the next verse where sayna Ibrahim
says,
show me how you cause life to death.
Think about that within
the context of today's discussion
and see if you can extract any meanings
in light of the terms that I introduced,
Barakalaufikum.
We'll see you next week where we'll talk
about the challenge of theodicy
and how
morbid times are not an excuse
to give up on our ability to make
right choices.