Tariq Ramadan – Islamic Ethics How we Know Right and Wrong #5A
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Okay.
So as I told you yesterday, these,
the last two sessions
are going to be,
what once again, what I did this morning
was
if you you will see how practical it
is and why it is practical in the
way
I'm translating
all,
or I'm trying to get the approaches
thought in the light of
these
overall understanding.
So when it comes to,
economy and what we call the Islamic economy
or Islamic finance,
do we have today
an alternative economic project?
And I would say that if you look
at what is produced or proposed by the
scholars in the field of economy or finance,
it's a problem. Why?
Because once again,
there is a sense of we compete
in, what is proposed by the dominant
ideology
And we try to find a way
to,
make it more Islamic
or to protect ourselves from what
is
not Islamic or not perceived as Islamic
in legal terms.
While, again,
the big question when it comes to economy
is to just start with
defining what we
understand by economy, this distribution
of production, and production and distribution of wealth,
and in which
we accept from the very beginning that, there
is something
called,
elbaya,
that is permitted,
and riba, which is not, but meaning that
trading, giving, offer, and demands, and all this,
this is something which is part of our
life.
It's
product
the production of
goods and the distribution.
So
what is important in this whole philosophy,
which is also
an economic philosophy or philosophy
of economics,
is based on something which is central,
that we need to produce and we need
to
distribute,
our productions,
and it's based on the very understanding
of,
what is halal and what is haram.
The fact that,
El Baya
is halal
and El Reba is halal, mean there is
a way of dealing with the
trade which is wrong,
while the fact is there.
If we come to the big picture,
we understand that
what is at the center of the economic
project
or the understand
the way
our message is understanding,
economy is
economy
should serve
human beings. So the center is humanity.
It's all what you do is to serve
your needs, and the humanity should be at
the center.
And this service should be as well, of
course,
practical
in the way
you have to deal with this.
So
let me just
come
with a point that I had here.
Okay.
Having said that, in our understanding here,
the the centrality
of humanity in the whole economic,
the understanding of what economy is all about,
production, distribution
of wealth, and serving humanity,
is questioning the very essence of what are
the goals.
So,
people are saying,
They are saying, in fact,
that the way you trade is exactly the
way what we are doing is using the
interest.
And then the answer is no.
God permitted
El Baya,
but
Eriba is prohibited, meaning, be careful,
if you go that direction, in the interest
is that you are missing the goal.
You are not serving humanity
through trade. You are
serving another goal, which is what? Profit.
Your profit. It's money making money, and it
could be that all the understanding and this
is why what you were saying yesterday, we
might have different
technical
translation of what is riba, but in fact
the very understanding of why
riba
is said to be, in the Koran,
prohibited, is that it's the the very goal
of what Reba was there, which means, in
fact,
the whole thing is to transform
what could be,
the right profit for you need, having
humanity at the center of the process,
to change this and to put profit by
money making money, which means that what was
a means becomes the end of the whole
system. What I told you yesterday, it's important:
when your means become the goals,
there is the starting point of shirk.
And here
the means to get some profit to survive
becomes the very goal of the whole economic
system, which is distorting
the whole point.
And then what you have
in the Koran is
riba, wa'ahlallahu
riba,
ilbayawwaharramal
riba, so as what I said.
So this is something
run.
I have to be careful.
So,
A'Hallallahu
albayru,
meaning
there is something which is part of,
the natural law, the very essence of what
a society is.
If you don't do this,
if you don't do that,
Be prepared you are at war with God.
Meaning what?
You change the very goal of the whole
economic system.
And the very goal of the economic system
is:
Check your need,
serve humanity,
not
'in the name of your need, make profit
de go.'
So it means that in the overall understanding
of the economic system, there is something which
has to do with shirk.
It's when the being is left in the
name of the havings,
and serving humanity is left for the sake
of the profit. Profit should have been a
driving and this is, by the way, something
which is interesting.
Why in Islam there is an acceptance of
the private property? Because at the end, of
course, you are going to work for your
interest, but with conditions.
The conditions
are ethical, conditions that should be ethical, and
at the end what you are trying to
get is not money for the sake of
money, but money for the sake of your
living, is your own dignity,
not being obsessed with having and having more,
because this is what we have in the
Koran, which is the starting point of being
lost.
And if you do this,
you are at war.
So this is why, in the book that
I wrote,
Western Muslims and the Future of Islam, I
was very critical about what is called Islamic
economy or Islamic finance, because my point was
to enter into this discussion,
into the technical side of how we make
the means
halal, while getting the old picture that the
whole system
is haram.
And I was
in this
saying
that the whole terminology,
Dar al Harb or Dar al Islam, are
outdated.
I don't think that there is somewhere Daral
Islam. And we are not in Daral Harb
today.
You today
have more freedom
to
perform or to live by the standards of
your faith
in the West than in many Muslim majority
countries.
That's not by accident that myself and so
many others, we cannot we cannot go there
because we are not free to speak, free
to think, free to criticize.
And if you look at what is happening,
in some of the Muslim majority countries, you
know that.
So the old category
and this is why I'm saying
the world
the globalization is making the world
very shaded. But
we still have 'alam al harp.
Or
the globalized
economy, it's today alam al harb. It means
that this global system
is in fact the translation
of
a war against what Allah is asking us:
an economy
which has not at this center,
serving ethically, humanity
is going to corrupt the whole system. Whatever
is your political
systems, your
educational
systems, it's pure distraction.
And this is why I'm sorry with many
of the people who are involved in political
Islam and say, you know the problem that
you have? Political Islam is too much political.
So you don't get it. What is
the economic alternative that you are proposing?
And this is where
not having another
overall
perception,
we end up coming with: let us now
come with what I told you yesterday, Islamizing
the means. And what we keep on repeating:
Riba is haram, speculation is haram, zakat
is a duty.
And then you go for that. And you
try, in a technical way, to enter into
the global system
and to try to find niche
where this is where it's going to be
halal.
And if you don't enter in an ethical
discussion
with the global
or the overall vision, and you come to
this and say: I am questioning the very
goal of the economic system, you are going
to have halal means
that in fact, instead of changing
the paradigm, you are confirming it.
So you go to HSBC.
I said, you know there, there is a
desk,
Sharia compliant
go there, it's halal.
You go there,
and in an ocean of harab you have
a desk of haral,
And you can say, at least it's halal.
Halal means,
not division,
are making as much money as they are
making. They
haram
as halal.
But the most important thing is not that
it's that this desk
is confirming
the whole system.
By adapting to the system, you confirm the
system itself, because the system likes to have
some slight opposition.
We and and then you know what?
SubhanAllah.
Some of the scholars, I I respect too
much, say, you know what?
They came to us and said, you know,
your
Islamic economy, that's very good. I'm going to
bring it.
The only
field
where the French government is happy with Sharia
is in finance.
As
a
veil, haram. No.
Illegal.
Laicite. No way.
Here. What? And then you come to,
what was the name of the previous prime
minister?
Golden Brown. He was invited in a Islamic
finance
conference.
Yes, that's good.
And the Muslims are here saying,
they're acknowledging that this is very powerful.
No, they are just acknowledging it's a market.
Okay? We are making money.
So even Lagarde at the IMF,
she's ready to speak about Sharia complex. Sharia
is not a dirty word when it comes
to money.
With all the Gulf states, you can say
whatever you want. We are going to give
you even the technicalities
to make halal, what is
known as haram,
and you transform the means.
Are you what this is what we are
doing. And that's the problem. Where is and
you go as far as to say, you
know, there is something which is called Islamic
banks.
Don't you have to question the very essence
of what a bank is and how it
works
and how the profits are made?
Is not to say that the bank system
is wrong, but at least you have to
question the goals.
That's my point. My point is, today, in
that field
and I can tell you that if you
read books, very sophisticated
knowledge about technicalities,
And you sit with some economists who say,
You know what? They were just asking us
to change the names of the thing because
it shouldn't be interest it should be administrative
costs and expenses.
It's not I'm not saying here that what
was done is not
interesting. It is.
But it cannot be done without
questioning
the overall system and saying, we might need
the needs today to adapt
if and only if we know in which
way we are trying to transform the whole
paradigm
by questioning the very essence of the economic
system.
But to end up having,
as I told you yesterday,
people that once again, I I I I
I love them in in in the way
they are dealing with, Islamic knowledge. But when
it comes to these questions,
sometimes it's very simplistic and very dangerous what
they are proposing as the Islamic
it's not even an Islamic alternative, it is
Islamic adaptation by saying, as I told you,
ra'as maliamuquayada,
meaning
regulated capitalism.
And this is a problem, because is it
possible to have an ethical capitalism
if, at the center of the whole
system profit is what you are looking for.
And
organizations that were
involved in investment or ethical investment,
they were even attracting Muslims by saying, you
know, you are going to have 30%
interest.
They were not saying interest, but profit.
So it's not interest, it's profit, it's trade.
And the people who are going there, they
say, oh, I'm going to get more money
with halal means.'
But the point is,
is this what you want? Is it about
getting more money in such a way that
you are just trying to change
the means.
And then you come and you try to
understand
all the alternatives around the world.
And as I told
you, for example, in microfinance,
in local activities, in people who are working
Sometimes, when I went to Latin America, when
I went to Brazil, I saw projects there
that were much more Islamic than what we
are doing in Muslim majority countries, much more
Islamic than what I see what I saw
in Malaysia.
My book, Western Muslims and the Future of
Islam, was banned from Malaysia
for 8 years because of what I was
saying about the economy,
because I was not trusting. This has nothing
to do with what I call an Islamic
project in economic terms.
So, ban it, which is very Islamic.
So if you don't agree, just a loss.
So once again, it's where are we what
are we proposing?
And this is maybe the more difficult topic,
the more difficult field, because today even the
people who are resisting,
the people who are calling themselves,
ultra,
globalizers,
they know how to be a gas. But
which
alternative model? We don't. There is no economic
alternative model nothing. And if you think that
what we have in economic finance today is
an alternative model, it's not. It's within the
system a way to protect. It's very protective.
But I want you to understand this. You
know the disease that we have
in every field, in politics, in economy, in
sciences, is the defensive approach. It's always resisting.
And we think that we are more Islamic
when we resist, but not
bringing something. To all what I said yesterday
in ethical terms, so I want a set
of economic
ethical
values
that are going to help us to think
about an alternative
at the overall level, then helping us to
have a practical way of dealing with it
at the local level. And sometimes, for example,
what I saw in Africa and Latin America
was
a project, local project on microfinance,
working with no interest, with no speculation, trying
to work with the dynamic force, and some
working in Malaysia far from the government, and
trying and by the way,
when the people are talking about,
for example,
the Muslim Brotherhood,
and the fact that, you know, I'm the
grandson
and bringing me always to this,
and asking me, Where do you stand on
this? There are many things with which, with
the organization. I'm not a member of the
organization.
I never was. I'm very critical,
very critical about what they are doing now.
But when I come back to people are
saying, what are you saying about your grandfather?
Many good things.
Many good things. He resisted the British colonization
I would be on the same side. He
said no to cultural colonization I would be
on the right side. He said no to
violence, yes to education, I will be on
the same side. He started 2,000
schools for women, I would be on the
same side. Now the way he was translating
this in his period of time with this
organization,
I might not agree with the structure of
the organization, which, for me, was problematic
with him being the charismatic leader and creating
a problem straight when he passed away. But
this is another story. But what is not
talked about
is not the way he was educating people.
It's the economic
alternative system he has at the grassroots level,
which was so powerful that this is the
first thing that Gamal Abdel Nasser stopped by
saying these people are dangerous.
It was,
at the grassroots level, something that you find
in Latin America called
the economic liberation process, which is this, this:
bring the people together, let them put the
money, have something which has to do with
the
economic sector.
And he was the first,
15 years before
Jamal Abdel Nasser saying the only way forward
in the southern southern Egypt is land reform,
taking from the landlord
and dividing and letting the people creating this,
and having,
small,
middle, and big enterprises
with more than 18,000
people putting the money to make it survive.
This is why it was independent,
destroyed from the beginning.
This is not talked about. It's talked about
Islamic State and Sharia. Why? Because this was
the most dangerous thing, which is exactly what
you see doing at the grassroots level, Saeed
al Nosi, ibn Bediis. They were starting at
the level of an alternative economic project, which
was much more powerful than just
seeking state power. But my point here
is to look at what we are now,
coming from Latin America, coming from
southern countries, where is the alternative
model? How are you going today
to deal with
something which is taken for granted, is that
the free market is the only reference, and
you have to deal with it?
Do you agree with this? How? So this
is the question.
2nd, you see here how the global picture
or the overall picture has to do with
the way you are going to deal with
it. If you don't get the big one,
you are going to come with an adaptational
way of dealing, and it's a problem.
And I can tell you that when we
brought together the scholars of the text and
the context, many of the economists were listening
to the scholars
saying, 'That's that.
What's that? That's so simplistic. They don't get
it. They don't have it. So
they don't understand,
and once again being sometimes completely
misled by a misunderstanding
of what
is attracted
or what is attracting
in the project itself.
The second thing that I wanted to say,
it's exactly the same,
in medical sciences.
So I'm just introducing
now after this we'll have almost 1 hour
discussion. Am I still in my 15 minutes?
You've got 5 more minutes for medicine.
Okay, that's fine. No, but it's exactly the
same. I just want you to understand the
logic.
When you have, for example
and this is something which is very good
scholars,
in 'eighty 1
in fact, it's the field where the ole
mais,
Foucard,
had no choice but to acknowledge the fact
that they don't know how it works.
So this is too dangerous to say, okay,
give a fatwa on the way, you know,
your health or your body is working. So
they are acknowledging that they need physicians to
be part. In 'eighty one we have this
Islamic Organization
of Medical Science.
Lots of discussion about how to code it.
At the end, Islamic Organization what is Islamic
is the organization of medical science. Medical science
is for everybody. It's not Islamic
medical science.
So it's the way to deal with medical
science. And then they brought together
scholars,
and then to come to, how are we
going to deal with this in the fatawa?
And this is where,
if you compare to all the other sciences,
this is where the Muslim scholars
were and still are the more updated.
They are at the forefront of all the
contemporary discussion about cloning, about euthanasia, about it's
there. They are working together, which is good.
The problem is: is it a step, or
are we again talking about something which is
bigger than that?
Because, in fact,
there are three concerns.
Here's
when you come and you start talking about
the body and you start talking about health.
What is to be in a good health?
No disease?
Or is it deeper than that?
What is the definition? For example, in a
discussion that we had in Qatar we had
a discussion, it was in bioethics, between Bichon,
who is the specialist of the principal justice
in Washington,
he was with us,
and then Raisouni, Ahmed Shafar
Raisouni, who is the one who is the
reference in the Maqasid
theory.
And at the end Raisouni was listening to
all this
and he said,
no, no, no. We have to stop.
We have to define what is health.
So all the discussion over the details, and
he comes back and says, what is health?
And what is the definition of health? Is
it just to come to the technicality that
medical doctors are going to prevent you
from disease, or is it something which is
deeper than that?
The
physical,
psychological,
and spiritual side of being in good in
a good health. What does it mean in
our society
to be healthy?
So once again, that's also something which is
important. If you end up transforming
medicine into
a chemistry
Islamic halal means to deal with the disease,
but not an Islamic vision of what it
means to be
what how do we define well-being?
So much so that we know now that
many of our diseases are psychosomatic,
so it has to do with the state
of your psychology,
the state of your so it's deep here.
And if you don't do this
so once again
the human
person,
the human being is reduced
in the overall understanding of what medicine is
all about now in a way which is
very problematic,
very problematic.
That's the first so how do we define
health? And by saying this, how do you
define medicine, and in which way you have
to deal with this? So once again,
here I'm not talking about the goal, what
are you trying to achieve?
And it means here that the absence of
disease
is still not defining well-being
in the way you are with your body,
in the way you are with yourself.
This is something which is a big question,
because at one point, when do you start
talking about obesity, for example, in our society?
When do
you start talking about over consumption in our
society?
Dealing with health. So you see here you
need a transdisciplinary
approach between
everything which has to do with
the consumerist society and defining health.
Because and
this comes the second point
when it comes to this is that we
understand
that
it has to do also
with very
deep question when it comes to
new techniques that we have,
for example,
connected to the culture.
So, for example,
now you have to connect
medicine
with a specific
cultural and economic environment.
When, for example, you have to deal with
a question which is euthanasia.
Many scholars are saying euthanasia doesn't exist in
Islam because they don't know that even in
the field of medicine there are at least
9 different
types of
euthanasia.
You have the active, the passive, the direct,
the indirect in both
anyway,
passive in Islam is accepted. If, for example,
you know that it's the terminal,
the the final stage and there is suffering
to give morphine, knowing that it's going to
reduce the time
span, but not
but you are in the final stage. This
is something which is accepted. We are not
celebrating suffering
when the
medical doctors are saying it's the end, it's
the final stage. So you can
lower the suffering by getting morphine knowing that
this is going to have an impact
on the potential
time
left.
This is passive, and it could be indirect
at the same. Active, it's not Islamic.
But this is also something which is important.
When you come to this discussion
and you have people saying: but we might
have to think about palliative
care,
which is how do you go along with
somebody when he or she is going to
die?
So,
this has an impact on what?
On economy and in the way you look
at old people in your society, or people
who are not
economically useful.
But we have to pay.
Yes.
So if you come to the scholars, they
say, is it possible? He's going to go
to the detail, not getting the whole picture?
It's a social question.
It's a social and economic question that you
have to get, and to the point that
here, once again, we can be very right
in technical answer in medicine,
but this is missing the point of questioning
the whole structure: What is good health? What
is well-being?
And how do we deal with people who
are
facing problems,
and they are facing this final
stage where
do we have to go with them
and to help them to have
a good
death death?
Because euthanasia is about
good death
as you have good life.
How do you do this?
Don't we have we, Muslims, something to say
about the way we live and the way
we live?
That's essential.
And if you come with the practical thing,
you can have
halal way or haram way,
but it's not questioning the whole system. Add
to this,
that there is no
decision taking in the field of medicine which
is not connected to the economic
system. So, for example,
when you have organ donation,
is it possible in Islam? Yes, except
for the great for the consensus of the
scholar
on the
reproductive organs anything else is possible. This is
the majority position of the Muslims. Okay, that's
fine.
But when, for example,
you have a way of dealing with poor
people
and old people
in some hospitals.
There are conflicts of interest when it comes
to this, to the point that in the
United States of America, one of the great
advocates of trans,
organ donation
started by saying
the economic system is pushing injustice
on the field of medicine because, in fact,
we are supporting the rich against the poor
people.
Why? Because at the end you know that
there are conflicting interests. In my country, Geneva,
the doctor that is going to say to
the family, Your father or your relative is
dead' is not the same asking for the
organ,
not to make a conflict of interest. He'll
say, you know what,
he's dead,
in the way you can put it.
But this is not the main thing. It's
the
economic pressure
on when somebody
is
under treatment,
how long are you going to treat him
or her knowing that you are paying money
and somebody is waiting?
'Hala?
Hurry up?'
That's a big question.
The scholars, not knowing this, don't know that
the physicians are dealing with things day in,
day out,
that you have to deal with this,
so that there is no medicine without the
economic system and the global picture.
So you can have halal,
detailed
answer
or an answer on the detail saying it's
halal, but it's not there.
Once and he revised his position on this
Shekel Qardawi was saying,
if the poor you know your body,
it's
you don't have the ownership of your body,
but you can use it,
you are managing it. You are
you're you're own Khalifa,
so it's mine.
And if I don't have money,
if I'm going to die out of poverty,
couldn't I sell something?
It's organ
donation
or trade.
If I'm going to die,
can't I use this if, for example, I
can give something which is not going to
have an impact on my health? Why not?
In absolute terms,
organ donation is permitted
for poor people, while they are going to
die, why not to give something
that's going to make them survive?
Said it's possible.
You take a step back and say: Wow,
that's the open door
for the
deepest,
greatest exploitation of the poor people around the
world,
because you need to get the economic thing,
the overall picture. I can understand on the
individual that that's not going to work. In
fact, the overall picture is telling you, never
organ donation is about donate.
It's about giving. It's not about selling.
And if we say selling, it means that
we are opening the door to structural
exploitation of people going to the South and
buying
and say, you are poor,
so
by refusing the system of exploitation,
you end up having a clear understanding of
what is your medical answer here.
You understand the connection?
If you don't have this, if you don't
have this transdisciplinary approach,
ethical
answer in medicine, not fatawa,
that could be right on the detail, completely
wrong
when it comes to the whole discussion.
So, these are fragmented
approaches
and
isolated, and it's very dangerous because if you
so who is going
to give this knowledge to the scholars?
Do you think that with all that they
are studying, with the Koran, with sunnah, the
hadith and everything, they can get the complexification
of the world, how much it's complicated here?
Or, for example, what is our take on,
generic
medicine?
Why are the Muslims saying that it's insane
to have so many people
dying from AIDS in South Africa, and we
don't say anything about these transnational
pharmaceutical
corporations that are
preventing the people from being saved.
We are silent.
But this is connected. This is economy. And
this is medicine. And it means
it's my right to have access to generic
medicine. That's my right.
So
your answer on this has an impact and
is connected to this.
Once again, get my point right.
You can't come with a clear,
ethical alternative
if you start with the detail
and don't get the whole picture.
We don't get the goal.
Okay? So this is the introductory
remarks. It's for you now to
open the discussion.